DragonUser49_May87.pdf

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The independent Dragon magazine

May 1987

Contents

Letters

News Desk

2 Into the directory

1 6

OS-9 n e ws; d isa b lin g Telewriter; O S -9

Blues update: yet more Fire Force.

& AJ Preston now selling Blaby games;

another Analyzer update. what became of

Editorial

THE 6809 Show was small but busy,

Paul Dagleish takes a long rope and lowers

and I had the opportunity to match up

himself into the DragonDOS directory, with

quite a few names and faces. I left late

directory access programming in mind.

and still didn't get to talk to all the

Soft extra

people I wanted to talk to, concen-

trating as I was on the ones who are

Hi-Text from Microvision.

Write: ADVENTURE 2 4

hardest to get hold of, and could quite

happily have kept myself occupied till

Peter Gerrard begins a column on writing

wrapping up time if circumstances

your own adventures from scratch.

had permitted.

NDUG

Cheers again t o everyone w h o

Introducing t h e Na tio n a l Dra g o n U s e r

came along, and special thanks to

Group, by member Philip Beed.

Jenny Pope who organised the show.

Winners and Losers 2 6

Jason for answering tricky questions

Gordon Lee looks at his own and other solu-

and scavenging everything he could

tions to Dt ls December competition, with

lay his hands on, Helen Perry and

programming tips.

David Osen for fetching and carrying

Dragon Answers 2 7

and personfully personing the stall in

the afternoon, Tim Lomas of NDUG

Brian Cadge answers your questions.

for offering me a pint which I didn't

Adventure trail 2 8

have time to drink, Alan Preston of R

Peter Gerrard takes up his leathern sack

and lanthorn and sets off down the trail —

& AJ Preston for contributing some

Boulder Crashes above the call of duty

what awaits him?

to help us out of an embarrassing

Competition

situation, a n d a b o v e a l l t o

Gordon Lee shufﬂes cards to see what they

EVERYONE WHO RE-SUBSCRIBED

spell. and Ducksoft offercopies of Exploring

TO DRAGON USER. In the heat of en-

Adventures on the Dragon for the winners.

thusiasm or the depths of despair it is

No Expert this month

easy to forget that this year you've got

Did someone d rive a stake through h is

to remember your sub, or we won't

heart? No such luck — he just got lost in the

know you're there, and we won't be.

post. He'll be back.

Don't delay.

Managing Editor

How to submit articles

The quality of the material we can publis h in

Dragon User each month will, to a very great ex-

tent depend on the quality of the discoveries that

you can mak e with your Dragon. The Dragon

computer was launched on to the market with a

powerful version of Basic, but wit h very poor

documentation.

Articles which are submitted to Dragon User

for publication should not be more than 3000

words long. All submissions should be typed.

Please leave wide margins and a double space

between each line. Programs should, whenever

possible, be computer printed on plain whit e

paper and be accompanied by a t ape of the

program.

We cannot guarantee to return every submit-

ted article or program, so please keep a copy. It

you want to have your program returned you must

include a stamped addressed envelope.

our Wizard's Quests?: 6809 Show.

Simon

lob o Ap Gwynn opts for a simpler name and

comes u p with Simon — a version of the

electronic g a me wh ic h ma k e s u s e o f

PCOPY for speed.

Dragon Soft

one, Stone Raider!!.

Diskﬁx from H. C. Andersen, an update to P

G Scott's DOSPlus, and Microdeal's new

Searching techniques 1 0

Dene Bebbington explores a ju n g le o f

searching routines, a n d provides so me

answers to the problem of unsorted lists.

Introduction to

wordprocessing

In the ﬁrst of two articles, Roger Me rrick

starts from ﬁrst principles to examine the

needs of word processing.

C om

Reac ers ask, readers answer.

mun

icat

Telephone number

(All departments)

ion

437-4343

Editor

HELEN ARMSTRONG

Production Editor

BAR BORA HAJEK

PETER WORLOCK

Publishing Director

JENNY IRELAND

Subscriptions

UK £14 for 12 issues

Associate Editor

JOHN COOK

Editorial Secretary

DAVID OSEN

ANNE MARIE O'DWYER

Advertisement Manager

Administration

GABRIELLA PISCINA

Marketing Manager

HELEN PERRY

Overseas (surface) E20 for 12 issues

ISSN 0265-177 Telex: 296275

Dragon User, 12/13 Little Newport Street,

London WC2H 7PP

US address: cio Business Press International,

205 East 42nd St, New York, NY 10017

Published by Scot Press Ltd.

Scot Press 1987

Typesetting and Production by Artext Limited,

London NW1.

Printed by Headley Brothers Ltd, Ashford, Kent

Registered at the Post Ofﬁce as a newspaper.

Dragon and its logo are trademarks of

Eurohard Ltd.

the manual from: Karsten G.

Ludwig D a t a Co n s u lt in g ,

Dreieichstrasse 2 7 , D-6 0 5 7

Dietzenbach, Germany.

Alternatively it is possible to

order th e Tandy Color Co m-

puter0S-9 which includes also

theassennbler, editorandathick

pile o f manuals. Co Co 0 5 -9

does not boot straight on the

Dragon: you have to replacethe

boot ﬁ le s, d isc, p rin t e r a n d

keyboard and ACIAdriverswith

the versions f o r th e Dragon

OS-9. The address of Tandy is:

Radio Shack, 300 One Tandy

Center. F o rt Wo rt h , Te x a s

76102. USA.

•

OS-9 users in the UK should

contacttheNDUG's0S-9 guru.

Jason Shouler, at 70 Victoria

Road, Parkstone, Poole, Dorset

BH123AE.

We h e re i n Fin la n d h a ve

Dragon OS-9 patches which

allow a terminal t o b e used

through the serial port at 9600

baud, 7 + 2 bits, no parity, and

actually usethe6msecstepping

2 Dragon User MAY 1987

me t L e n t o a W c 2 H 7 pp t to Letters

epi on ds nn doo mp l i s

L e t t e r s

T h i s is the c h

rate on the upper drive, and a

Every month we will be shelling out a game or two,

•Europatch• that allows ASCII

courtesy of Microdeal, to the reader/s

91-93 and 193-195 to appear in

who send the most interesting or

path names.

entertaining letters. So send

Anotheruseful address isthe

us your hints and your opinions.

US OS -9 u se r Group, Da le

THE shiny, black, new, state of

send us your hi-scores and

Puckett, P O B o x 7586, De s

the art E229.95Z88Cambridge

Moines, I o wa 50322, US A .

e t o

suggestions. Send us your

Computer masterminded

b y

g o n

best Dragon stories. What

Clive Sinclair is advertised as

Membership was $25 a year at

d'you think we are,

the last count.

being able to run its ROM word

mind readers?!

Commercial0S-9softwareis

processor with RAM of 'around

15K available'.

available from Computape, 27

My lovely, lowly, out-dated,

Coombe Road, Southminster,

Essex CM07AH, and inthe USA

bottom-of-the-range Dragon 32

through Tandy or from Frank

runs itscartridge Super Writer!!

—

DOI detect some longstanding animosity between Messrs. Hitch-

Hogg Lab. Inc., The Regency

word p ro ce sso r wit h 2 2 8 7 0

man and Orbaum? Is it necessary to submitDragon Userreaders to

Tower, Suite 215, 770 James

bytes (22.33K)of available RAM

this kind of petty carping? Surely the job of a games reviewer is to

St., Syracuse, NY 13203, USA.

or 28928 bytes(28.25K) if the

review games and not to try to be some kind of literary superwit? I

capability is DUMPed.

Martin Vermeer

graphics

have acopyof Fire Force and ﬁnd it very interesting_ As a humble pro-

Dragon User Club, Finland

Mike Hosken

grammer myself I can imaginethe pain this review will haveinﬂicted

Punahilkantie 4 B 14

Hazelwood

on the poor author who must have spent many hours writing the

SF-00820 Helsinki 82

Pin ford End

program.

Finland

Hawstead

lwas undertheimpressionthatDUwas designed to promote the

Bury St. Edumunds

Dragon, but this type of journalism is contrary to this ideal. If you

THIS letter has been in the

Suffolk IP29 5NU

discouragethe authors and Dave Hitchmansof thisworld(and there

system for a while, but the

are frighteningly few) you destroy the Dragon. Long live DU,

information i s us e ful a n d

And it h a s a d e ce n t screen

long live DH and return JO to full time accountancy. If you need a

probably still up to date. If in

size, a n d you ca n 't ﬁ t it in a

replacement, I'm available!

doubt, w ri te t o th e m a n d

briefcase, wh ich means that

Hugh Fowler, 1 Victoria Road, Irlam, Manchester

enquire.

nobody can get on at you to

rk on the train.

MR. Fowler, yourlettertoucheson anumberof importantpoints.

The ironyof a reviewer'slot isthat heorshedoes not haveto be

the instigator of a long term feud in order to ﬁnd himtherself

participating inone. lam not going intoa listof namechecks, but

JasonOrbaum was not at alltheonly person who was unhappy

about Fire Force. Now, we haven't printed letters from everyone

who haswritten, because, asyouso rightly point out, itshould

not be DU 's policy to pick on suppliers for individual mistakes

ormisunderstandings. But it isourjob togive avoiceto readers

HAS anyone noticed that if you

with negativeviews as well as positive, whenever those views

hold down the keys...1.0, Hand N

arefairly supported. It a numberot readers have bought a game

answertorecentletters, I can

while playing Moon Cresta, a

which they feel is poor value, then their views must be put

message co me s u p o n t h e

report that it is possibletoobtain

forward. It is purely politicalto callan opinion 'carping' because

screen.

the original Dragon OS-9 plus

it is negative.

Just a

thought

What a pain!

More OS-9

news

Each way,

John?

Forinstance, one frequent complaint about FireForceis that

the collision detection is inconsistent. Some people are very

irritated bythis factor in a game. while others ignore it. Ha pro-

grammerdoes nottakethisspread of opinions(which isas old

ascomputergaming)sulliciently intoaccountthen he isgoing

to have a number of seriously disappointed customers, no

matterhow perfectthe programmingis,orhowlongittook.This

is a fact. Games don't come free, people are parting with their

hard earned readies.

The controversyabout Fire Force is bound to continue,Jason

believes that facets of the game which make it difﬁcult to play

are 'bugs'. Dave Hitchman stresses that they are part of the

game'sdesign. A 'bug' is a programming oracriticaidesign fault

in a program, and there comes a point whereitbecomesamatter

of opinion whetheryou aredealingwithamistakeorachallenge.

Jason Orbaum looks at games closely, and rarely makesunsup-

ported statements, however he dresses them up.

Dragon Userwould very quickly lose credibility it it only talk-

edaboutthe good news, We've putJason'spoint of view,allow-

edDavean extra month toget a replytousbeforepublishing,and

run other reviews putting pro and con points.

Jason's review has not frightened Dragon users away from

the game in droves — Ouickbeam report good sales since the

review appeared. Which demonstrates what we already know,

that readersare prepared to usetheir own skillandjudgement.

On that subject, let me say again that anyone who wantsto send

areview in iswelcometodoso. Wecanonly printaselection, but

if you wantto show DU your mettle, do what writers do — write

something!

Maybeothersoftware houses

will take atipfrom Incentiveand

have a Dragon and Tandy col-

our version of the game on the

game cassette,

Paul Cartier

110 Mawney Road

Horn ford, Essex

Video

titles

CAN anyone wh o h a s used

Rainbow Writ e r f o r ma kin g

video titles please let me know

the way they went about it?

D. W. Clarke

, 6 1 , Bamsfold, Fulwood,

Preston, Lancs., PR2 3EU

PS This would make a useful

article for a future magazine

IS anyone interested in taking

up o n e o r b o th o r the s e

gauntlets?

Stuck up

a tree

With reference t o Fire Force,

Jason Orbaum's review was sar-

castic and does have one or two

inaccuracies.

The gun does work properly

when you get the knack of it, and

the game is not Completely bug

ridden'.

The only drawback that I can

see is getting stuck in trees, and

you cannot always jump over

them b y wiggling the joystick

backwards and forwards,

Fire Fo rce i s a n excellent

piece of programming with good

graphics and sound.

A plea: does anyone know the

Passcode to the game and what

it does? I ca n g e t past t h e

Authorisation c o d e t o t h e

Passcode but no further!

Douglas J. Field

14 Lawnswood

Hessle

N. Humberside

HU13 OPT

Telewriter disable

OCCASIONALLY, w i t h Te le -

writer, i t i s advantageous t o

disable th e program's control

over t h e n u mb e r o f printed

characters per line. An example

would be using it with a printer

that h a s proportional spacing

and better built-in justiﬁcation

capability than th e word pro-

cessor's. To use such features

Telewriter must be tricked into

thinking each paragraph is a

single line. This required more

than just a (CL EAR-D) which

only disables wordwrap on the

screen. For the text to be printed

properly t h e (C)haracters p e r

line is set to 128 or larger and all

carriage returns from the start of

the paragraph to the end are

removed. The margins and line

lengths are controlled by printer

escape c o d e s ra t h e r t h a n

Telewriter (M)argin and (C)har-

acter commands.

As writing and editing without

wordwmp i s cumbersome I

leave it enabled until the text is

ready to be printed. Wordwrap is

then disabled with a ( CLEAR-

D). Carriage returns, which are

not displayed, are found by posi-

tioning the cursor at the start of

the paragraphs and executing a

<CLEAR-right arrow), The pro-

cess is repeated until the only

carriage return left is at the end of

the paragraph. Carriage returns

terminating b la n k a n d sin g le

lines a r e le f t i n p la ce . A t

this point one must be careful

not to use the (CLEAR-A), align

command, as it will reinsert all

the carriage returns which were

removed.

Printer escape codes for set-

ting left and right margins are

deﬁned at the start of the text

Also t h e (C)h a ra ct e r a n d

(M)argin commands, e g 'MO

C128', a re deﬁned there. Th e

(M)argin can be set to a non-zero

value for offsetting short lines

One drawback to this whole pro-

cedure i s th a t Telewriter n o

longer ke e p s t ra c k o f t h e

numberof printed lines. So page

breaks and numbering will have

to b e d o n e manually printer

escape codes.

Allan Worrest

5144 Holdrege Street

Lincoln, Nebr. 68504. USA

Stylistic changes

THANK you at last for an article

on the OS-9 operating system,

and in particular how to modify

Stylo graph to remove the dread-

ed line feed and other improve-

ments.

However. I must take either

you or Mr. Rot hery to task on the

inaccuracies in this otherwise

excellent article. As it stands, any

attempt to follow the 'change a

byte instructions merely resul-

ted in error after error. I only tried

to alter 'Stylo' but discovered the

following:

'To change a byte'

1) DEBUG 2 k is ok

2) Sload idlistylo is ok

3) L stylo is ok

4) The printout was as expected

is ok

5) Dot command is ok

6) There was a ahead of the – in

my copy, there should be no dot

here, j u s t e n t e r - 0 0 ( o r

whatever).

7) 0 is ok

8) Th is line is quite wrong, it

should read:

SAVE t a l i S T Y L O . mod

STYLO (See pages 7 to 44 of the

OS-9 manual)

9) Yet another error in this line,

which should read:

VERIFY U ( /D1/STYLO.mod

)/D1/STYLO (see pages 7 to 56

of the OS-9 manual)

Note: Beforecarrying out step 9 it

is necessary to have deleted the

original STYLO from disc /D1,

otherwise c a l l t h e ﬁ l e

rename it later.

10) ATTR 1D1/STYLO e pe is ok

subject to the note above.

I didn't try any more of the items

except the remedy for SPELL. I

discovered that the empty ﬁle

was only one of the problems

and as far as it went the article

solved this. However, for some

reason my copy of SPELL will

not rewrite the text ﬁle, nor will it

display words in context after the

review process. Attempts t o

make it do so simply result in an

error message.

I thank Mr. Rothery fo r a n

otherwise ﬁne article and I have

already written to the OS-9 User

Group for details o f member-

ship.

D. L. Jones

Corbetts

Queens Road

Ilkley

V .Yorks

LS29 90J

Here follow edited highlights

from David Rothery's reply to

Mr. Jones and to DU:

Tthink, b u t t h e precise wa y

OS=9 instructions mu s t b e

given if they are to work, and

typesetting that lot with everydot

and space correct would have

been very difﬁcult. However, I

take f u l l re sp o n sib ility f o r

transposing the SAVE instruc-

tion and forgetting to tell people

to delete the old ﬁle.

w "However, all the locations to

be changed should be accurate,

and with a litle reference to the

manual most people would still

ﬁnd the article of use.

'With reference to the pro-

blem with SPELL, did Mr. Jones

transfer it onto a separate disc? If

Next,

please

I READ the review of Fire Force

with t o t a l agreement. A f t e r

receiving t h e g a m e o n

Christmas Day, I loaded it with

anticipation o f seeing a 'com-

mando' style game at last for my

Dragon.

At ﬁrst sight the game looked

very good. Excellent sound and

graphics, but when it cameto the

gameplay I wa s ve ry disap-

pointed.

The ﬁ g u re s mo v e je rk ily

about, and it is almost impos-

sible to last over ﬁfteen seconds

with one man.

I d o not agree that it is a

challenge ' f o r t h e s e rio u s

games player', more an impossi-

ble task for anyone.

I a m n o t criticising Quick-

beam for the hell of it, Shaolin

Master is one of my favourite. I

look forward to seeing Six-Aside-

Soccer hoping it is to Shaolin

standards.

David Humphreys

Coed Helen

Lluyndyrys

Pwithell

Gwynedd

LL53 6N6

PS Please expand the Expert's

Arcade Arena, perhaps by get-

ting rid of some Of the listings or

serious stuff.

so you will need to copy DEL,

RENAME and possibly COPY

because SPELL uses these to

change the ﬁle.

''To change a byte should

have read:

DEBUG 4 2k

Sload idlistylo

L style

7F52

=00

make further changes the same

way

SAVE idlistyl a mod stylo

DEL idlistylo

VERIFY U ( / d l i s t y l a m o d

)fdlistylo

ATTR /di /stylo e pe

The comments o n each lin e

were correct, as I hope were all

the tables of alterations.

"Also, in case anyone thinks I

am repeating myself, myself the

letter on the same subject was

an alternative, and not intended

to be published as well!

"I have had lots of nice letters

and phone calls about my article

OS-9 Blues, thanks a lo t fo r

publishing it."

David Rothery

1Heath Road

Glossop

Derbyshire

SK13 9AY

OUR pleasure, David. As you

can se e . w e a re re p e a tin g

repeating y o u a g a in i n a

manner o f sp e a kin g , w i t h

alternative ve rsio n s o f t h e

'correction'. T h e le t t e r wa s

one o f t h o s e d e lib e ra t e

mistakes to wh ich the letters

page i s p e cu lia rly p ro n e —

but I h o p e i t me a n s t h a t

everybody got the message_

MAY 1987 Dragon User 3

News desk

THE stock o f Dragon games

formerly su p p lie d b y B la b y

Computer Ga me s h a s b e e n

taken over by Dragon country

wholesalers R & A J Preston,

who n o w h a v e t h e i r o w n

catalogue and price list ready

for mail order_

As a wholesaler, Preston's

handle so ftwa re f o r a wid e

range of computers, and hope

to use their wholesaling net-

work t o g e t m o r e Dra g o n

games b a ck in to th e shops.

Said Alan Preston, "We get let-

ters f ro m a ll o ve r th e p la ce

from people saying they can't

get Dragon software locally.

We actually had a call from a

user group in Barcelona, and

If you have any new products for the Dragon — software or hardware —

ring the News Desk on 01-437 4343

Hey Preston B l a b y ' s back

games and n e w writers. We

would like to see the range in-

crease considerably, and also

obtain games which have only

been available at full price up

to n o w and p u t them o u t a t

budget price."

They a r e a ls o su p p lyin g

Dragon power packs, printer

leads, S p e e d king jo ysticks,

discs a n d o th e r vita l acces-

sories.

Preston's free catalogue is

available from the company at

Kings Hall Court, St. Bridges

Major, Mid Glamorgan CF3 2

OSE Their 24 hour telephone

were a b le t o se n d t h e m a

number is 0656 880965, and

catalogue."

orders c a n b e p la ce d o n

"We are also looking for new A c c e s s and Visa cards_

New

Gerrard

Peter Gerrard, brother of Adven-

ture Trail writer Mike Gerrard, is

taking over the column from this

month.

Peter has particular experi-

ence in writing adventure games,

and is starting a new series on

this subject fro m th is month.

Peter has several books on com-

puting to his name, n o t least

Exploring Adventures o n t h e

Dragon (Duckworths) which may

well b e o f in t e re st t o D U

adventurers.

In fact, there'll be copies of the

tape up for grabs in this month's

Gordon Lee comp, for obsessive

freebie-chasers. Ove r to you.

Peter,

Analyzer update

With reference to the corrections

supplied b y Mr. P ilz i n t h e

December edition o f DU, we

have an alternative update which

may make the changes clearer to

some readers. These follow as

supplied:

Analyzer which gave me instant

sweats and a rotten night. Could

you please print these two lines

ASAP:"

30 M = 32:CLS:GOSUB50

31 K = 1023:M =32:

POKEK + L,62:PRINTa447,""

It remains at present to say that

in writing a long and complex pro-

gram for Dragon User, Mr. Pilz

has shouldered t o the fu ll an

author's duty to straighten out

any bugs. A ll t h e wa y f ro m

Australia.

NDUG

this mont

The March edition o f Dragon

Update h a s j u s t p lo p p e d

through the door in time for the

news page. This month we have

an introduction to Flex (part 2),

some advice on ASCII. mirror

imaging screen dumps, copying

autorun games, a review of an

OS-9 comms program, COM09,

written by Jason Shouter, some

track listings from the original

DeltaDOS u se r guide, ma n y

small ads, an exhortation from

Paul Grade to get out and go

to it? Shows, and a challenge

from ditto to members to write

to t h e i r re g u la r c o mp u t e r

magazines (Dragon Us e r in -

cluded), and say what they think

of NDUG, good, bad and the rest.

And h e hopes I'll print these

opinions.

I I PO KES1,T - 1- 0:Z $

=ST RS( S) :IF S) .T H

ENZ S=R1G HT S( Z $L

EN( Z $) - 11:G O T O IE

LSEI

12 I F R ) Z T H E N R E T

URNELSEMIDS( T S( X

T +1,2) =RIG HT S(

S T R V Z

URN

- 5 Z =VAL( MIDS( T S

4 X ) , ) ,4 - 1 , 2 ) ) : I F K =

( - 1 T

. ) : S E

2G O R U B I 2 : N E X T : R E

TURN

T14 I F A S ( M ) = " A N

D Es S( M) =" " AN D C ( M

) =NuANDDS( M) =" " A

NDES( N) ="ANDF S(

M) =""ANDG S( M) =""

AN D H S( M) =" " AN D IS

( M) =""ANDJ S( M) ="

" T H E N M =M - 1 : G O T O I

122 I F L ( X ) > = R T H

EH L( X) =L( X) - 1- 1

123 N E X T : F O R X = 7 0

T O Y:IF N( X) >R*0 T

HENM( ) ) =M( X) +0

124 N E X T : G 0 T 0 2 9

DEL125

L.Pilz

Aus tr alia

6809 Show

report

IT may have been work for many

of the exhibitors, but I had a lovely

time on Saturday 28th meeting

Dragon Use r readers, adver-

tisers and contributors (past and

future, b y the look of it) at the

6809 Show in London. Sorry.

anyone I didn't get round to (and

there were many) but I was due

to turn into a pumpkin at two

o'clock, so I had to leave smartish

before that time.

We were well pleased with the

write u p s th a t w e h a d f ro m

readers after the last show, so

anyone who wants to send us a

short report, please do so. Nice

to se e yo u , a n d th a n ks t o

everyone who attended. Support

the Dragon, and the Dragon will

Support you.

Well, I'll print anything which

think is helpful to Dragon users,

and indeed we have a piece on

NDUG f ro m P h il B e e d t h is

month, but I would like to toss in

the suggestion t h a t N D U G

members write NOT, or at least

not ONL Y, t o D U wit h th e ir

opinions, but to AS MANY other

regular computer mags as they

can think of. That is a way to

reach Dragon users who are not

yet in the safety net, the ones who

will eventually write to us and say,

'We've n e ve r heard o f yo u ',

despite our efforts.

Editors o f other magazines

may we ll fe e l uneasy about

publicising Dragon User as corn-

ing from a rival stable, but they

will not feel so constrained about

giving N D U G a me n t io n ,

because, as a user group, it has

no commercial connections.

And why not write to the Daily

Mirror and the Daily Express and

the rest while you're about it?

Another

lost game

Nasty news. We 've had e vi-

dence that a number of copies

of Wizard's Quest, sent out as

prizes for the November com-

petition, d i d n ' t le a v e t h i s

building in the hands in which

they sh o u ld h a v e le f t t h i s

building. P l e a s e w i l l a n y

prizewinner fro m that month

vho d id n 't g e t t h e ir Qu e st

please drop us a line so that we

can take steps to ﬁnd out what

happened.

NOTE FOR NEW CONTRI-

BUTORS: p a yme n t f o r p u b -

lished material will normally be

received f o u r t o s i x we e ks

AFTER publication of the issue

in q u e st io n . A l l p u b lish e d

features (a feature in DU's case

is virtually anything which isn't

a letter or a publicity release)

and reviews a re paid. Ne ws

items are not paid unless they

involve re p o rta g e b y p ri o r

arrangement.

If t h e n o rma l t i m e h a s

elapsed a n d y o u h a ve n o t

received an expected payment,

please get in touch with Anne

Marie who will be able totell you

when the mailing took place.

We a ls o h a v e t h is f u rt h e r

communique:

"I CAME across another bug in

4 Dragon User MAY 1987

SIMON

lolo ap Gwyn makes a game of PCOPY

I HAVE seen a number of versions of this

game, none of which compare with the 'in-

stant' response of the specially designed

electronic game which has proved to be so

popular. In order to be an improvement on

these a program would have to give rapid

responses, clearly written instructions, and

while being difﬁcult enough to present a

challenge to an adult also be simple enough

for a young child. The version presented

here has proved very popular with my ﬁve,

eight and ten year old children.

The key to this program is the use of the

PCOPY command. Bytilling all the graphics

pages with ready prepared instructions and

coloured scre e n s w i t h co rre sp o n d in g

numbers as well as keeping page 8 free as

a dummy transfer page, what emerges is a

game which instantly presents instructions

in large clear letters without having to wait

for them to be drawn each time. This par-

ticular command in Dragon Basic is very

useful whenever any section of a graphic

display needs to be either removed or in-

troduced at some other time in the program.

A description of the program will serve to

illustrate the use made of PCOPY as well as

the DRAW command in this game.

POKEing this location in line 20 will speed

up the setting u p of all th e displays on

machines that can tolerate its use, the pro-

gram will run perfectly well without it. Lines

30 to 460 provide all the characters needed

for the instructions given in this game. The

REMs at the end °leach line indicate which

character i s d ra wn wit h e a c h st rin g .

Subroutines at lines 480 to 510 and 520 to

570 draw characters and strings at required

locations on the graphics pages respective-

ly. A subroutine at lines 610 to 640 draws

solid borders around graphics pages while

lines 650 to 670 are merely called when a

delay is required, such as at the end of a

game.

Setting up the displays commences in line

680, and a 'WAIT' instruction is included so

that th e player does n o t think there i s

anything wrong because nothing seems to

be happening for a while, Lines 720 to 790

set up pages 1 to 4 of graphics each onewith

the corresponding DRAGON colour set col-

our as background and the number cor-

responding to that colour written boldly

across it. The colours used are the primary

red. green. blue and the yellow of colour set

O These are the pages which are called

when the game is running. Lines 800 to 1020

are taken up in writing all the instruction

messages wh ich are placed in graphics

pages 5 to 7. Use is made of the character

set deﬁned at the begining of the program

in conjunction with the character and line

drawing subroutines at lines 480 and 520 to

do this. The POKE command in line 1030

10 CLE AR2 0 0 : P CLE AR8

20 P0KELHFFD7, 0

30 DI M A$ I 9 0 )

40 Al i m(0)11R7":'SPACE

50 AS ( 1 ) . s •BR2 R0 DU2 U4 * : '!

60 Al l i ( 6 ) g. 'BRI RO RI E 2 BD2 D0 H3 E 2 HI LI 6 I FI DI G I DI F1 * : 'k

70 Al I C1 4 ) •. '1 3 R2 R0 UI RI DI LI ': '.

80 A

1 0 AS(17)2. "8RI R0R2L1U6G1* :'1

* 0 01 A l l i ( 1 8 ) = • R 0 R 4 L 4 E 4 U 1 H I L 2 G 1 ' : ' 2

1 (

6 10 A S ( 1 9 ) B U I U 0 F I R 2 E 1 U 1 H 2 E 2 L 4 m : ' 3

1 )

120 A s ( 2 0 ) =

8 U 1

- 30 A l l i ( 2 1 ) = • B U I U 0 F I R 2 E 1 U 2 H I L 3 U 2 R 4 * : ' 5

U O

1 0

1 3 R 3 R O U 6

U 44 A S t 2 2 ) m

G 0

- 3 D 1 R 4 ° : '

E 51 A s t 2 3 ) • U 0 U I E 2 L 1 R 2 L I E 2 U 1 L 4 • : ' 7

B R I R 0 R

R 62 F A S ( 22 4 ) 1 =

1 0

E ' R

IU 71 4A m L 235 ) = 3 BG I R 0 E 3 U 2 H 1 L 2 G 1 D 1 F 1 R 3 ' : * 9

• D0 H I (

3 R I R O•

' E

G 8D 2A F 1 2 R: )2 6 R1I R O R I U I L I D I B U 3 U O U I R I D I L I ' : ' :

B 1

1 0

SC 6 *B

L 91 H lIl iL 229 ) 1 3 U 2 U 0 R 4 B U 2 U O L 4 * : ' 8 1 t

U 20 H

H I U

(

II 0E II A l 2l F (I 3D3 I ) =

2 F0 R

U II E 2 G I D I F

• 10 AS ( 3 5 ) — * BRI R0 R2 E I BU4 U0 HI L2 G I D4 F1

II U U '4 8 2 F 2 D 4

e 2

U 200 : A SE 3 6 ) * R 0 R 3 E 1 U 4 H I L 3 R I D 6 ' : ' D

(

E 2 L 4 " : ' A

U'3C A s ( 3 7 ) • B R 4 R 0 L 4 U 3 R 3 L 3 U 3 R 4 ' : ' E

: 0

U 1 °

2 '

: 4 00 A ﬁ $ ( 4 ﬂ . . • R 0 R 4 L 2 U 6 L 2 R 4 " : ' I

250 Al i ( 4 4 ) • 1 3 R4 R0 L4 U6 ' : • L

260 A S ( 4 6 ) " U 0 U 6 F 2 D 2 F 2 U 6 ' : ' N

270 A S ( 4 7 )

- 80 Ai s ( 5 0 ) ="U0 U6 R3 FI DI 6 I L3 RI F3 • : ' R

B9 R IA R ( O 1R =2" B U I U O F 1 R 2 E 1 U 1 H 1 L 2 H 1 U 1 E 1 R 2 F 1 ° : ' 8

2 0

S 5 )

E 0 1 U *41 H 21 rL " B R 2 R O U 6 L 2 R 4 * : ' T

3 0 A

5 ) - 2

G I D 4 F 1 * :

310 As ( 5 7 ) - " BR2 R0 U3 H2 U1 DI F2 E 2 U1 " : ' Y

' 0

320 A S ( 6 5 )

- 30 AS(67). . "13R3R0L2H1U2E1R2':'c

1 0 A* 6 R BR

3 43 U 4 (B 9 ) I R 3 R O L 2 H 1 U 2 E I R 2 F I D 1 1 _ 4 " : ' •

O R 2 D 3 G I L

350 AS(71)=-* BD2D0R3U6L2GI D2FI R2":* 9

I H I E 1 R I F

360 AS(731•. 'BRI ROR2L1U4LI BU2BRI RO•:'i

370 A$(75)="UOU6D4R1E2G2F2•:° k

3 8 0a A S ( 7 7 1 - • U 0 U 3 E I R I D 4 U 4 R I F I D 3 ' : ' m

: '

390 A S C 7 8 ) * U 0 U 4 R 2 F I D 3 ' : ' n

400 AS(791m•BRI ROR2E1U2HI L2G1D2F1":'a

410 A111(80)=•R0R2E1U2HI L2D6":'p

420 AS ( 8 2 ) = ' U0 U4 FI E I RI ' : ' r

430 AS ( 0 3 ) " R0 R3 E I HI L2 HI E I R2 * : ' s

440 A50(04)* BR3ROLI H1U5D2LI R3":'t

450 A s ( 0 7 )

460 AI I I ( 8 9 1 3 D2 DO E 3 U1 E 1 U1 8 L4 LO DI FI DI FI ': •>

B U 4 U 0 0 3 F

, 70 G0T0680

1 E 1 U 1 D I F

480 ' P R I N T CHAR

I E I U 3 ' : ' w

490 X S =S TRI I ( X ) : Y l l i s S TRI I ( Y ) : S I DS TR* ( S )

500 D R A W B M

- 10 RE TURN

5 2- 0X *1PW I, N T4 L I N E

R "

5 3*0 4 F.O• R ' I 4 I 5 1 O L E N ( L I S )

1 1 4 . N .

540 DS=AS(ASC(MI D* CLI I I , I , 11)-32)

5 5 0 G O S UB5 8 0

5 6 0 X—X. 1. XS

570 NE X T: RE TURN

5 0 0 X 1 1 6 . nS TRI S ( X ) : Y i l i S TRI O ( Y ) : S I A. . S TRI I I I S )

590 D R A W E I M

6 0 0 RE T URN

. X $

4 .

• ,

slows the CPU back to its normal rate of

operation for running the game.

The sequence of colours/numbers/notes

generated is held in a string called SOS

May 1987 Dragon User 5

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