Hello again.
Three Boobs
Oh dear! Yes, the gremlins have been at
it again, or rather I have been guilty
of not checking things thoroughly
enough. ON ADFS VERSIONS OF 8BS-60, 3
problems have come to light. One is
quite serious. If you used the ID
stamper program on the ADFS version,
the menu will have been corrupted. If
this is the case, I have put a program
'RESC' on this disc that will undo the
damage and even leave the menu with
your ID in it. Jonathan Harston has
fixed the program. The debugged program
is now on 8BS 60 (placed there on
20/01/98) and will be on issue 62.
Sorry, no room for it on this issue.
The second problem is less serious, the
program 'STOP' on the ADFS version of
8BS 60 issue contains a non-standard
command in line 110, *DRIVE 0. Just
remove it and things should be ok.
Thirdly, I forgot to put the following
info for Sprow's PRNFILE program onto
early editions of 8BS 60:
MANUAL FOR PRNFILE (6502 machine code)
This file describes the program PRNFILE
which redirects printer output to a
chosen disk file.It is only suitable
for use on the 8 bit range of BBC
micros.
This method is better than *SPOOL as
only data intended for the printer is
trapped, and not all programs allow
command line access.
The manual and software is (C)1997
SPROW
INSTRUCTIONS-
At the command prompt,type *RUN PRNFILE
The program will then appear to not
have done anything. This is because the
printer type has not been setup yet and
no filename has been specified.
To do so type *LINE <filename>
then type *FX5,3
This tells the program to use
<filename> as the destination, and
*FX5, 3 tells the OS to use a custom
printer driver, not the default one.
TO CLOSE THE FILE-
Either 1)Select a different printer
type (eg.*FX5,1 for parallel printer)
or 2)Type *LINE with no parameters
(ie.just *LINE)
EXIT MESSAGES-
"Cannot open file" - for some reason
the OS couldn't allocate a file handle
KNOWN PROBLEMS/FUTURE ENHANCEMENTS-
No known problems
HISTORY-
V1.00 First release to 8 Bit software
disk user group
Yes! The time has finally arrived to
name and shame a couple of people that
have let us down. These people have not
only effectively stolen from 8BS, but
have also wasted my valuable time as I
have had to chase them up.
Case 1
Are you seated comfortably? Then I
shall begin. Our first story starts on
17/05/97 when I sent Acornsoft Hits
Volume 1 to E2K, John Smith of
145 Charles Street Selby YO8 0YG.
This game was for review, E2K had
previously reviewed two other games for
us. According to the agreement, I
supplied E2K with a brand new copy of
the game (sent to me by Steve Hanson of
Superior Software). Within the month I
expected to receive a review of the
game to be published in the 8BS
magazine.
On 10/11/97, 6 months later, I wrote a
letter to E2K enclosing return postage,
a stamped addressed envelope asking
what had happened to the review. I
received no reply and wrote again on
30/11/97. I received no reply and wrote
again on 10/12/97 saying that Superior
Software was now owed the price of the
game, just £6.
I am not happy with this situation
because:
1. It wasted my time chasing E2K up.
2. Steve Hanson of Superior Software
has been brilliant with 8BS, donating
many things. He is sending the games
for review in good faith. I feel sure
that he does not want to have to chase
people up for a measly £6.
3. I feel let down. Several 8BS members
including myself put in many unpaid
hours to keep 8BS going. Then this
person happily skims off some of the
fruits of our labours and cannot be
bothered to put in an hour of effort
for it.
Nuff said.
Story Number 2
Removed at the last minute! The
gentleman in question coughed up the 40
quid when he received the transcript of
this article through the post!
Conclusions
I have better things to do than waste
my time chasing up problems such as
this.
As you all know, I have a job of work
to do and a family to look after as
well as this club to run. I do enjoy
all three. Unfortunately, occurrences
such as these occasionally make me
wonder if it is worth running 8BS.
It is not the first time that I have
had to chase people up. If fact I
expect to now and again come across
people that make promises they cannot
or do not intend to keep.
Please remember though, if you are
thinking of trying to pull the wool
over my eyes, you are not! All you are
doing is letting yourself and many
other BBC enthusiasts down
TBI
Just lookee at this little lot! A
bumper bundle of fantastic new
additions to the 8BS pool:
TBI-119 Bubble Bobble Game 1D
17 Files 104K
A game by P.Gillett. Turn the monsters
into fruit and eat them!
TBI-120 Alligata Games 2D
52 Files 227K
These games were commercial, Steve
Hanson of Superior Software has given
8BS permission to make these games
available. Crown Jewels Text Adventure.
Hell Hole. Bug Blaster. Neandethal Man.
Blagger. Son of Blagger. Video's
Revenge. Starship Discovery (Master
Only). Guardian. Dam Busters. Tarzan.
Diamond Mine (Master needs to use
Convert from the Welcome disc). Uncle
Claude. Garden Game. Presently the only
info with these games is that which the
games themselves contain.
TBI-121 Alligata Games 2D
25 Files 116K
BBC ONLY. These games were commercial.
Steve Hanson of Superior Software has
given 8BS permission to circulate them.
Eagle Empire. Roboman. Web Runner.
Night World. Qbix. Monaco. 3D Space
Raiders.
TBI-122 Alligata Games Decathlon 1D
24 Files 77K
This was a commercial game. Steve
Hanson of Superior Software has given
8BS permission to circulate it.
Decathlon runs on the BBC and also on
the Master although for the Master, you
may need to use 'Convert' from the
Welcome disc to get it to run best.
Presently the only info with these
games is that which the games
themselves contain.
TBI-123 Alligata Educational 1D
4 Files 16K.
This was commercial software. Steve
Hanson of Superior Software has given
8BS permission to circulate it. Art,
drawing program. Time, learn how to
tell the time.
TBI-124 Two Christmas Adventures 1D
28 Files 97K
The Lost Slipper and Jingle Bells.
These Adventures were commercial. Jack
Foster who wrote them has given 8BS
permission to circulate them. Primarily
aimed at children, adults that enjoy
adventures will find them interesting.
Both are in mode 7 with graphics, some
animated.
TBI-125 The Mad Painter Adventure 1D
25 Files 117K
This is another ex-commercial mode 7
adventure with graphics by Jack Foster.
Primarily aimed at children, adults
will also enjoy it. Text files are
included on the disc which include the
solution and follow up work.
TBI-126 Tish The Spaceman Adventure 1D
12 Files 63K
This is another ex-commercial mode 7
adventure from Jack Foster. Definately
for Primary School children. It uses
Speech and gives practice in the
digraph 'SH'. Lots of large graphics
and simple to play.
HELP! does anyone have the following
games from Alligata that will run from
DFS:
Lunar Rescue, Shuffle or Quiz Quest.
Steve Hanson gave me these but I had no
luck with them. All expenses paid for
anyone sending the goods!
Aargh! Please take note of a response that I
have given to a message in the
'Wanted' article. The response is
tacked on to the end of the message
which was sent in all innocence, but I
thought it illustrated a point quite
well.
TBI-00 (and a bit of gobbledeygook)
The DFS version of TBI-00 (the 8BS
Catalogue/Info disc) now takes up three
sides of a disc. As only two sides of a
DFS disc can be used by a BBC, this
means that the DFS version of TBI-00
requires TWO discs in future.
ADFS users still only need one disc for
TBI-00 as ADFS sees all 3 sides of the
disc as one continuous disc. ADFS is
clever as it can see nearly 4 sides of
a disc as one. Unlike some people that,
under certain circumstances, see only
one thing as two.
Deadline Please remember to get your submissions
to me early, this means well before the
deadline. Anything arriving after the
deadline will definitely not get onto
the next issue. I can guarantee this!
Future 8BS Issues I have already started on 8BS 63, yes,
63 which is the issue after next. There
is a nice amount of software 'in hand'
and planned for future issues. I have a
huge number of technical articles put
on one side, so if there is anything
that any of you want in particular, let
me know and I will see what I can do.
The Internet Remember that, as an 8BS member, you
have an email address. Your email
address is:
***@8bs.karoo.co.uk
where the *** is your user ID (2J3 for
instance). Send the text of your email
to me and I will Email it. Any
responses will be delivered to you via
the 8BS messaging system. The BBC
Mailing List could be a useful 'thing'
to ask your questions of, there are
many people around the world that
receive messages posted to this list.
http://www.karoo.net/8bs
The 8BS website is something that you
can all be proud of now. It contains
lots of information about 8BS and BBCs.
I now have access to 4 megabytes of
space on the karoo server, and
virtually unlimited space on a total of
3 other sites where folks have been
good enough to offer 8BS space, this
means that expansion is no problem, and
with the way hypertext works, links to
other servers will be seamless.
There are links to other BBC sites on
the internet and some animated
graphics, pictures of rotating BBCs and
Masters.
You can find the 8BS catalogue and
download TBI-00 plus some of the older
8BS issues. You can also download BBC
emulators for use on a PC.
There is a page for members. If you
want to submit a web page relevant to
the BBC computer, do so and I will put
it onto the 8BS website.
We get around 10 visitors a day, this
is not a high number, but better than
none!
The website attracts new members that
don't even have BBCs. They read the 8BS
magazine on their PC BBC Emulators.
The latest 8BS advert is always on the
site and most sales made from 8BS are
now made through this advert on the
website. There is no doubt that the
site pays its way and keeps the club
ticking over.
EBTEL
Unfortunately, despite my optimism over
the last couple of years, this project
has run out of momentum with no
results.
A lack of time and/or technical
knowledge by the persons given the task
of making this unique system finally
got the better of me and the project.
A number of other ideas had been
postulated, none of which met the
spirit of what was intended.
I have now, with no little sadness,
dropped the idea to avoid further
disappointment.
Lawrie Hallam
Lawrie has disposed of his BBC setup
(to 8BS, cheers Lawrie). He says bye to
all those that he associated with
through 8BS.
Me
As most of you must know, I am an
Ambulance Paramedic, recently back on
the road after a secondment that had
me playing with computers for a year or
so.
See you next time then!