From: K8P (Brian Tallowin)
Subject: poem scarecrow on the Hill
Here I stand on the hill,
Rain,Wind or Sun all weather passes
me by,
Farmers tweed jacket,fit only for
the birds,
Farmer grumbles years of life still in
How right he was!!
Corduroy trousers baler twine secured,
Legs flapping in the restless wind,
Sun arcs across Spring's lengthening
days,
All around the gentle rustle of
growth,
Hedgegrow Oaks harbouring rooks and
crows, waiting for their moment;
Black silhouettes across the dusk sky,
maybe tomorrow?
All in a day's work.
From: K8P (Brian Tallowin)
Subject: poem counting Oak trees
Good Morning;
Reply given with a scrowl,
Easier than a smile,
Frustration feeds his ever,
Present hunger;
We move off,I hoping he will improve;
Cocks and Hens feeding abundancty,
Questioned where are the young?
There they are;
Another missed moment of frustration;
Work flows the morning,
He issues no order,I on returning,
He satiates his hunger,
That's why I count Oak Trees,
One day one might have moved;
From: K8P (Brian Tallowin)
Subject: poem clouds
Clouds; creatures of the sky,
Dark steathily growing giant anvils
of thunder,
Hopefully only rain,
Sunlight shines through chinks in
pervading cloak,
Gossamer streaks of silk against
evening sky;
V formations of seagulls heading
seawards,
Heralding fine weather tomorrow
From: K8P (Brian Tallowin)
Subject: poem Footprints
When the thaw happens briefly during
Winter's siege;
Footprints sink in the harvested
fields,
Wondering who has passed this way,
As Sun sinks,winter creeps across the
fields again ;
Marks of the days activity frozen in
the Earth;
Like fossil imprints in the earth,
until thaw regains its hold,
Spring gradually coming with
lengthening days*
From: K8P (Brian Tallowin)
Subject: poem connections
When surfing the Net;
Fingers travelling cyberspace,
Distance no obstacle to connections
made;
Diverse data flowing into your
terminal,
Do we need all this data?
Gaining alive off its own,
Constantly spanning the Globe,
24hrs every day;
Immediate decision being asked for!
Will their be time for quite
reflection;
From: K8P (Brian Tallowin)
Subject: poem Rain
Rain is giver of life,
Universal solution for life,
Whether Elephant or Moss,
Tea and Coffee culture bonds of
friendship,
Wars fought over waters flow,
With water aid deserts bloom,
Without;civilisations crumble
to dust,
Changing weather patterns due to
Man devoid of seasons,
Shifting populations,deserts march
behind fallen forests,
Planting trees protect vital element
of Nature.
From: K8P (Brian Tallowin)
Subject: poem playfield
Green field of dreams,
Generations have played seasonal
games,
Whether village cricket, all in white
or colourful mud spattered football,
Childhood adventures, whilst mothers
gossip by the swings;
Few now come on Summers Days,
Have childhood adventures been passed
by,
Mothers no longer say come in when the
Sun sets,
Techon-entertainment now reigns,
Where every room's screen is
attentively watched,
But I know the playfield is not
left alone:
From: K8P (Brian Tallowin)
Subject: poem wind
Who knows what messages you carry,
Lulu lays by the garden door reading
your tale,
I wonder what we are missing, as she
dozes,
Gentle evening of Bar BQ or floral
scents,
Strong winds drying dancing washing,
Humming telegraph lines played by
Zephyr,whilst cycling home.
From: K8P (Brian Tallowin)
Subject: poem Radio Times
Radio informs and amuses through the
hours,
Such diverse,stations
prospering;
Whether classical muse,or thumping
pop available,
News hourly leavened with music,
Broadcast acting as musical wallpaper,
Enliven space;
Stirring emotional moments of afternoon
Drama,Radio images so much better,
Radio your companion,unlike T.V.
As your Master:
From: K8P (Brian Tallowin)
Subject: poem candles in the night
We take electrical power for granted,
Evening progressing with T.V. ON ,
Videoing another programme;
Flickering lights ,electronic age
silenced in darkness;
Lighted candles offering glimpses of
rustic age,
Offering brief resprite of demands on
senses;
Circles of candle light gives soft
soft glowing charm;
We are able to ponder by the
soft glow*
From: Jack Foster (E5N)
Subject: Adventure Games
I retired from teaching in July and
have time on my hands to devote to one
of my passions - Text adventures. I
used to spend many hours solving them
but for the last ten years have been
unable to devote much time to them due
to pressures of work.
I have many still unsolved and would
like to get in touch with anyone out
there who still enjoys this now arcane
pastime.
I also enjoy playing old BBC games
under emulation on my RiscPC have
managed to get about 95% of those I
have running.
Anybody interested in any of these
areas is welcome to get in touch.
Jack Foster 18, Latrigg Road, Liverpool
L17 0DD.
From: E3Y (3.Spaceman)
Subject: My notorious I.D. stamper
Mwa-ha-ha-ha! My cunning ploy to doom
all ADFS users has succeeded beyond my
wildest expectations!
Or rather - "OOPS!"
My sincerest apologies to all the
ADFS 8BS users who had their menu
scragged by my (admittedly crude) I.D.
Stamper program.
I use and only have practical
knowledge of DFS - so hopefully anyone
with that setup should be satisfied
with my program, at least.
Chris pointed out to me that the
program wouldn't be across-the-range
compatible and gave me a couple of
pointers when I first submitted the
program. With this in mind I rewrote
the program into what I thought would
be a DFS/ADFS compatible form - that
was the theory at any rate!
So again, I'm very sorry to all you
8BS members without easy access to
your issue 60s at present. I was
trying to write for something I had no
real experience with.
I guess the moral of the story (as I
keep seeing around my place of work) is
"IF IN DOUBT - ASK!"
With that in mind, I ask for output
from members on how to read from discs
(other than by reading the INFO from
the screen).
Sorry,
3ason Spaceman
-------x------
From: K3Y (Lorna Jenne)
Subject: Cartridges for Master
Several people are enquiring about
Master Rom Cartridges, about 2 years
ago I bought several from Watford
Electronics 2 and 4 sockets they told
me on the phone that they had about
4000 of each sort, that is why they
were selling them cheap. I do not know
if the still have them, but it might
be worth a phone call to find out.
EDITOR.......... I followed this one
up to no avail. I suspect that Watford
Electronics ditched the thousands of
cartridges that they had. A year back I
tried to haggle a cheap price for 100
or so of these cartridges, but they
would not budge, a while after, I heard
they had thrown them out, so I rang
them. I could not get any sense out of
anyone at the time. Prompted by Lorna7s
message, I have just now made several
further calls to 'non-helpful' people
at Watford. All denied any knowledge.
From: 4WL (Martin Wilson)
Subject: Software Wanted Reply
Last issue my contact message got a
response from the editor himself. So I
thought I'd better clarify what I
meant when I said about 'why pay one
pound a disk when...'. This wasn't
meant to mean that I think a pound a
disk is a ripoff or anything like that
because obviously it isn't. If anyone
ever read any Mac magazines from 92-94
they'd notice people selling PD disks
for five pounds each. Now that was a
ripoff. Anyway I personally have on
many occasions bought PD disks at one
pound a time, in fact I reckon I've
bought a couple hundred altogether.
I'm also certainly making no claims
either that I have the same range of
software as the 8BS PD library because
I most definitely haven't.
It was simply that I wanted to get the
early issues of 8bit to read a couple
of articles approx from each issue. It
didn't seem worth a pound each on this
basis. Back along while I was on the
internet I had the opportunity to
download many such issues but for some
reason my downloads were corrupted,
this was with 'Compuserve'.
Because the issues were
available on the internet I thought
it would be ok to mention I wanted
them in a message.
Nowadays I use my 32bit Acorn more
than the 8bit but still really enjoy
the 8BS new issues. However because of
this I have less need or interest in
the PD library compared to a fully
fledged 8bit user and many actual
programs and demos on 8BS disk mags
don't actually run as desired
(although of course many do).
I hope this explains why I'm not
regularly buying PD disks and so forth
and hope my only contribution of 50p
per issue plus articles etc is
satisfactory.
From: 4WL (Martin Wilson)
Subject: BBC Demos
From: 4WL (Martin Wilson)
Subject: Computer related Quiz
Just a little bit of nostalgia.
Name these computers;
Home based computer originally cost
750 pounds including mono monitor.
360k 3.5 external disk drive and with
an operating system based on CPM68.
Based being the key word, it had been
modified quite a lot and a famous GUI
had been added to it. The OS was
loaded from disk. It came with a mouse
and later on got one of the worst BBC
emulators ever.
Flat as a pancake with a crude word
processor built in, yet BASIC came on
cartridge. Maximum resolution of
640x512 using interlace. Could also
emulate the spectrums attribute
graphics. 256 colours on screen at low
resolution.
A computer that actually replaced a
technically superior model and cost
more. It did have the virtual of built
in business software but you needed a
disk drive to use most of them and
this computer was mainly supplied with
a tape deck. Had a sister model never
sold in this country that had a speech
synthesiser built in.
A 32k computer with multiple graphics
modes, single channel sound and a
cassette port with motor control. Had
a range of cartridge games available
and used analogue joysticks. British
made and not an Electron.
A competitor to the BBC for a while,
8bit memory chips and built in
storage. Included some serious
software in the bundle. Early ones had
a lump sticking out the back.
Cheap early computer designed in
Britain, made in Hong Kong I think but
sold by an American company. A Mk 2
version was sold by the British
company.
A British video console that actually
reached the market place. There's a
connection with the BBC too in that
the same company made something that
many BBC users used. The clue being it
was a console company.
A Belgium computer that was actively
marketed back in 1982/3. It was
expensive and had full colour
graphics.
An early 16bit computer that was
incredibly slow compared to 8bit
computers. Mainly because it didn't
allow you to program it in m/c at all
unless you bought an additional
cartridge language. A clue is the
place there based in likes to execute
people.
Early Japanese computer using the same
graphics chip as MSX and coleco
vision. Membrane keyboard like
spectrum although nicer, not a lot of
memory. Flat disc hand controllers
instead of joysticks.
You could call this Britain's answer to
the MSX. Brushed aluminium case. Very
long. They had a fixation for black.
They used a Porsche in their adverts
to indicate it was fast.
A German low cost PC to compete with
Amstrads models. Used cheap 8bit
memory though to save a few quid and
therefore only had a 8088 processor.
It was just a chunky keyboard so had
no expansion potential what so ever.
It had a connection with Amstrad
though because of the CPC models.
Can you name them?