DragonUser16_Aug84.pdf

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The independent Dragon magazine

75p U$3.25

August 1984

M/C key

scanning

Premier

in focus

a aman e r

D R A G O N 32164

DRAG O N TREK

Excellent version of this classic game

P RI CE

9.95

7.95

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14.95

9.95

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BBC M O D E L B

DRAG O N RIDER

Flaming steeds and alien vvyrrns

PRICE

7.95

5.95

19.95

24.95

9.95

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9. 95

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WI ZARD WAR

TANKS I

Strategy game of magical c ombat

3 -0 Tic-tac-toe

ATMOt JrFT/ warfare for t wo

V ULCAN NOUGHTS & CROSSES

GAMES COMPENDI UM 01

Six games for all the family

GAMES COMPENDI UM BI

Four games for the kids

GAMES COMPENDI UM 83

Three action games for the kids

GOLF

EDG GRAPHICS PACKAGE (tape)

Sophisticated picture drawing

Almos t as good as the real thing/

G RAND PRIX

EDG GRAPHICS PACKAGE 'disc

Extended version of EDG tape

Eight circuits from around the world

STAI LI AMMER

3-D space game

ULTILIT1ES PACKAGE

TURBO COMPILER*

Four essential programming aids

Less than 2K machine code BASIC compiler

S ALAMANDE R GRAPHICS SYSTEM

Advanced picture drawing system

SUPER SKILL HANG MAN

Ov er 1000 word vocabulary

737 FLI GHT SI MULATOR*

Professional standard

NI GHT FLIGHT

GRI DRUNNER

FRENCH TUTO R"

Up to and beyond ' 0 ' level

Single engine light aireraft simulator

Classic arcade game

G RAP HS "

Five programs up to 'A' level standard

FRANKLI N'S TOMB

First of the Dan Diamond Adventures

VECTORS •

Fourteen programs up to 'A lev el standard

LOST IN SPACE

The Dan Diamond Adv enture continues

FRANKLI N'S TOMB

LOST I N SPACE

First of [tie Dan Diamond Adventures

The Dan Diamond Adventure continues

FISHY BUSINESS

Conclusion of the ﬁrst Dan Diamond Trilogy

EVEREST

FISHY BUSINESS

Conclusion of the ﬁrst Dan Diamond Tnlogy

Strategic simulation

LASER ZONE

D.R.S.

EAGLE

Original machine code arcade game

• DI S C VERSIONS ALSO SUPPLIED

• • MA Y BF TRANSFERRED TO DISC

Awes ome shoot 'em up stuff'

Powerful Date Retrieval System

TURTLE GRAPHICS

Fun & Educational implementation of LOGO

THE CRI CKLEWOOD I NCI DENT

Truly weird and wonderf ul adventure

O RI C l i A T M O S

ORIC TREK

Excellent version of this classic game

PRICE

9.95

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WI NGS OF WAR

World War Two Adv enture

GAMES COMPENDI UM 01

Four excrting games

RED MEANI ES

Mac hine code 3-D maze game

MANI C:1MS TOMB

First of the Dan Diamond Adventures

LOST IN SPACE

A C O R N E LE CTRON

737 FLI GHT SI MULATOR

Professional standard

PRICE

9.95

14.95

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The Dan Diamond Adventure continues

FISHY BUSINESS

Conclusion of the ﬁ rst Dan Diamond Trilogy

ELECTRON GRAPHICS SYSTEM

Advanced picture drawing system

CLASSIC RACI NG

A season's training, betting and racing

GRAPHS

Five programs up to 'A' level standard

vEcrons

4 8 K S P E CTRUM

MATRI X

Action-packed droid-blas ting

PRICE

6.95

TURBO COMPILER

Fourteen programs up to 'A' level standard

Less than 7K machine code BASIC c ompiler

ME TAG ALACTK LLAMAS

All-out arachnid annihilation

P L E E S E I M/ 5

PURVEYORS I ' L V E QUALITY S F T WA RE TO THE •

1E 1=i

C P R T S I N C E J . R 8 ?

PLEASE MAXE CHEOUESPOSTAL ORDERS PAYABLE TO

S AV E El

SALAMANDER SOFTWARE

If you return this voucher and order form you

Please rush me the following titles:

1 9 8

will be entitled to a E I discount on the order.

2 ,

Only one discount per order. This offer applies

only to products ordered by mail direct from

Salamander Software. 1 7 NORFOLK ROAD,

BRIGHTON, EAST SUSSEX. BN I 3AA

TELEPHONE. BRIGHTON (02731771942.

Name

Address

Less discount

TO TAL

TTTLE

PRICE

Post Code

Contents

111101

SUNSHINE

Letters

Including this month further information on

preventing'unauthorised a cce ss to prog-

ram data, help fo r Tandy to Dragon con-

versions and a short program of a format-

ter for printer output

Selective scan

Telephone number

(All departments)

01-437 4343

Editor

BRENDON GORE

Assistant Editor

GORDON ROSS

Software Editor

GRAHAM TAYLOR

Editorial Secretary

GERALDINE SMYTH

Advertisement Manager

DAVID LAKE

Advertisement Executive

SIMON LANGSTON

Administration

THERESA LACY

Managing Editor

DUNCAN SCOT

Publishing Director

JENNY IRELAND

Subs c ript ions

UK E10 tor 12 issues

Overseas (surface) E16 for 12 issues

ISSN 0265-0177, Telex: 296275

David B e rry co me s u p wit h a key-scan

routine that aids data inputting and does

not su ffe r f ro m t h e d ra wb a cks o f o th e r

methods that do not use the classical Input

or Inkey functions.

News

Ending 10 Errors

An update o n t h e fa te o f Dragon Da ta ,

news of a possible Dragon MS X machine

from GEC. price reductions at Dixon's. the

High Street retail chain and the latest on

software, peripherals a n d utilities f o r the

Dragon

D. L. Jones takes you out of the dreaded

10 dilemma with handy hints to evade the

problem

Open File

Games galore

Tron, Caterpillar and Converter are among

the program listings sent in by our readers

and published in this month's edition of the

magazine

J ohn Sc riv en bat t les his wa y t hrough t h e

software scene taking on all comers — be

they dongles. cricke t balls, b a ts o r b u z-

zards

Adventure column 4 1

Our new monthly feature by Mike Gerrard

which takes a lo o k a t th e latest and the

greatest i n a d ve n tu re s f o r t h e Dra g o n

(Cover illustration by Stuart Hughes)

Cosmic cruiser

London WC2R 31_0.

Dragon Us er; 12, 13 Little Newport Street.

US address: c o Business Press

International, 205 East 42nd St, New York._

NY 100017.

Published by Sunshine Books, Sc ot Press

Ltd. ©Suns hine Books 1984.

Typesetting by Ches ham Press, Ches ham,

Bucks. Printed by Eden Fis her (Sout hend)

Lid. Southend-on-Sea, Essex,

Distributed b y S . M Dis t ribut ion, L o n d o n

SW9. 01-274 8611. Telex: 261643

Registered at t he Pos t Ofﬁ ce as a news -

paper.

Dragon a n d i t s l o g o a r e t rademark s o f

Dragon Data Ltd.

Ho w to s ubmit articles

The quality of the material we can publish in

Dragon User each month will, to a very great

extend, depend on t he quality o l t he dis -

coveries that you can mak e with your Dra-

gon Th e Dragon 32 computer was launched

on t o the market with a powerful version of

Basic, but with very poor documentation.

Every one of us who uses a Dragon will be

able to discover new tricks and quirks almost

every day. To help other Dragon users keep

up with the speed of the development each

of u s mu s t a s s u me t hat w e ma d e t h e

discovery ﬁrst — that means writing it down

and passing it on to others.

Articles whic h a r e s ubmit t ed t o Dragon

User for publication should not be more than

3000 words long. All submissions should be

typed. Pleas e leav e wi d e margins and a

double space between each line. Programs

should, whenev er pos s ible, b e c omput er

printed on plain white paper and be accom-

panied by a tape of the program,

We c annot guarant ee t o ret urn ev ery

submitted article or program, so please keep

a copy. I f you want t o hav e y our program

returned y o u mu s t inc lude a s t amped,

addressed envelope.

Our s p a c e

the arc hit ec t of t he St arons downf all, Brian

age

Morley

p r o g r

a m

Gordon R o s s in te rvie ws t h e p e o p le a t

Premier Mi c r o s y s t e ms — h o m e o f t h e

Delta disk drive system for the Dragon

Dragon Answers

on y our s ubjec t areas

4 5

Brian Cadge puts an end to your problems

with news, views, information and routines

Premier proﬁle

Competition Corner S O

Cu ma n a is of f ering t wo dis k driv es as this

month's prize for the successful entrants to

Gordon Lee's key-code puzzle

Editorial

REACTION TO THE news that Dragon Data had called in the receivers was that the 32

had been killed off: But judging from our readers' response, their interest in the machine

is still alive — and it is that interest we intend to continue serving on Dragon User.

Readers have let us know that they think "the Dragon is an excellent computer and a

reas onable g a me s ma c h i n e

blame f o r the company's problems: " We all feel greatly le t down b y Dragon Data's

archaic approach to marketing and advertising and their highly overpriced peripherals."

, a n d

t h a t

(At least there was so me good news here: the price of Dragon Data's peripherals fell

when the receivers walked in — although make sure that if you buy the drives you get the

controller cartridge as well),

The

company's software came under particular attack. To quote one disgruntled

reader on the subject of what Dragon users did — and didn't — need from Dragon Data:

"It was most

certainly not to pay the highest prices for software, a lot of which was double

ti he pric e tof t he f ar, s uperior Co mmo d o r e s of t ware, a n d it was not t o hav e t he f eeling of

being an

owner of

an inferior machine whilst browsing the shop shelves trying to ﬁnd

anything at all relating to the Dragon • • One can ﬁnd a needle in a haystack easier than

ﬁnding

new, imaginative and original software for the Dragon." Microdeal has been far

more successful than Dragon Data at picking the right games — and at marketing them.

Dragon Data's ﬁrst software appeared in polythene bags hung on racks, eventually being

transferred into giant video cassettes. Neither looked very good, nor made much sense

— the video cassettes contained booklets with acres of white space. As the same reader

commented:

"Dragon Data seemed intent on suicide."

Self-willed or inﬂicted by outside market pressure, Dragon Data's "demise

even

m a k e s

i t

mo re important for this magazine to serve the needs of Dragon users. So don't

forget to keep in touch — write and let us know what you think we're doing we ll and

(heaven forbid) what we're doing badly.

Augus t 1984 Dr a g o n Us er 3

EDIT+

- A true Utility

Some "utilities" are really not very useful

when you come down to it_ To be genuinely

useful the software has to do something

quite special - it has to be a real

improvement over the way that you do

things now and be convenient to use.

W looked at the DRAGON_ The facilities for

program development are primitive and the

display is a Joke. It could even put you off

programming for life.

EDIT+ is a real improvement for the

DRA O It allows you to develop programs

G N_

quickly and easily, whatever they are for.

In addition EDIT+ includes HI-RES, an

enhanced screen display with 24 lines by

51characters, selectable character sets

(English,French, German, Danish, Swedish,

Italian, Spanish). Sprite graphics,

redeﬁnable characters, and an improved

keyboard action with auto-repeat. Graphics

and text can be mixed on the same screen.

To use EDIT+ you either plug in the

cartridge or load the program from disk.

Tapes are ﬁne for games - not for

something you will use over and over again.

Programming can be pleasant - try EDIT+

and see how It may even help you to make

proper use of some of the other "utilities"

on the market.

EDIT+ (Incl. HI-RES) Cartridge L 3 4 . 5 0 *

EDIT+ (Incl. HI-RES)

DRAGONDOSDisk E24.00'

HI-RESCartridge £ 2 5 . 3 0

MIT+

a r p

available for T W A COLOR 32k

DASM/DEMON

- The Authors

Choice

the

W DASM assembler for the DRAGON we

were conﬁdent that they were going to be

popular, because they were good programs

aimed at a discerning and appreciative

audience.

w ewere delighted to see DASM/DEMON

become the most regularly featured

*Available from larger

assembler in independentDRAGON

Branches of BOOTS

rmachine code articles,

DUSTCOVER i n c

p&p £2.99

o ewere rather proud when Ian Sinclair

chose our assembler and monitor for his

PRINTERLEAD I n c p&p E14.99

0 0 .1 -

book "Introducing Dragon Machine Code"

e thrilled by his description of DASM as

MONITOR/SOUND LEAD i n c p&p £3.99

Also available for TANDY

and

DRAG NDISC DRIVE

t The Rolls Royce of Assemblers'

COLOR Computer.

i n c

p&p £269.00 For more information on

h latest accolade is in "DRAGON Machine

complete

Our

Code" by Robin Jones and Eric CowsiII who

TwinDrive i n c

p&p £369.00 Flex send S.A.E. for

use

D DASM for the worked examples

Free Booklet

throughout their book.

These gentlemen know their stuff and they

picked our product. Perhaps you should too.

DASM/DEMON* -Dragon Cartridge £ 3 0 .4 5

COMPUSENSE LIMITED

-DRAGONDOS disk £19.95

Box 169, 2860 Green Lanes, Palrners Green,

DASM

-Dragon Cartridge £ 1 8 .9 5

Postage & packing 50p per LondonN1 5

3 XA.

DEMO

Tel: 01.882 0681/6936 24hr

-Dragon Cartridge 1 1 8 ,9 5

o rd e r. T e l e x : 8813271G MSG

ECO

4 Dragon User August 1984

Compiles any working BASIC program into

superfast machine code. Write & test

programs as usual then compile with

If you own a DRAGON64 and a disk unit

DYNAFAST to achieve maximum time

then you have already made a serious

saving during operation.

commitment to this computer and want the DYNAFAST - BASIC COMPILER

best possible performance from it.

DISK £19.95. CART £29.95

Preferably without having to learn a lot of

SPECIAL INTRO.OFFER INCLUDES

Irrelevant "computerese".

DYNAMISER & DYNAXREF

Simplicity is a sign of well designed

functional computer software. After all you

don't pay money to be treated like an idiot.

F has the virtue, for ordinary mortals, of MAKEROOM!

LEX

being easy to use and understand. That is a DYNAMISEROPTIMISESYOUR BASIC

result of design, not accident. There are few PRO RAMBY

1) removing redundant space and

things about FLEX that you cannot

characters

understand in a session or two of using the

software.

2) deleting unnecessary REMS

For example if you want to copy all the ﬁles 3) combining several lines into one line

Save space, protect your program and

from disk drive 1 to disk drive 2 you type

CO 1,2_ Nice and easy. no Ph.D. required. speed it up!

DYNAMISER L 5 _ 9 9 Inc. TAPE OR DISK

Try that with your current disk operating

system and you will begin to understand

why we prefer FLEX.

F gives you more free space for use.

LEX

ANALYSE!

48k to be exact. FLEX allows the use of

DYNAXREFanalyses a basic program and

single or double sided, single or double

density disks of whatever number of tracks. displays all references to variables & labels

In other words any kind of 5" disk or disk within the program. Now that you can tell

unit. We don't want to cramp your style and where your program is updating variables

if you buy software from another source for its easier to correct errors!

F you will be able to read the disk. Try DYNAXREF BASIC CROSSREFERENCE

LEX

L5•99 TAPE OR DISK

that with your current disk operating

system.

W will be issuing a FLEX utility disk which

will allow you to run DRAGON BASIC with

Rooks and Extras

FLEX So you don't have to start again with Dragon Machine Code by

anew BASIC, If you want PASCAL COBOL Jones & Cowsill £ 6 . 9 5

FORTRAN,FORTH or "C" they are available Introducing Dragon Machine Code by

from several sources. An editor and

Ian Sinclair

assembler are part of the standard FLEX

Advanced Sound and Graphics £ 5 9 5

package.

The Working Dragon 32 E 5 . 9 5

In short, good software, reliable and easy to Programming the 6809 Zaks E 1 2 . 5 0

use th a t is FLEX.

6809 Assembly Language Prog. L12_85

Flex on its own £35 plus VAT

Leventhal

Editor + Assembler £45 plus VAT

Postage on books: 50p per book except

Flex including Editor and Assembler £75

Zaks/Leventhal £1.30 maximum £1.50.

plusVAT

FLEX

- Power to the

People

D Y N A F A S T _0

SPEED UP!

DYNAMISElek

DYNAXREF

BOOKS

EXTRAS

FOR FAST MAIL ORDER

SERVICE CONTACT

COMPUSENSE

Letters

Top

secret

PERHAPS MR Maggs (Letters:

Dragon User. May 1984), would

be interested in my own method

of preventing unauthorised ac-

cess to program data.

The ﬁrst time you create the

data. include a temporary line at

the beginning of the program:

CWS - "ABCDEF " ( wher e

ABCDEF is your own secret word

of a t least s ix characters i n

length).

You then save CWS along with

all of your other program data

(that is_ print # — 1). Remove

the temporary line and the code-

word is retrieved from tape along

with all of the other program data.

Before the program allows you

to proceed any further, the code-

word mus t b e entered. T he

method I use to enter the code-

word prevents someone reading it

from the screen as you type it in.

The listing is as follows:

1CLS4: PRINT 0i): 98. "Data

loaded and ready for use

2 Play "P4" : Sound 100,4

3 PRINT ( 0 263, "Enter pass

code";

4 For A-1 to 6

5 AS=1NKEY$ : if A$ " "Then

6 If instr (A. CWS.AS)

A=99 t h e n

,, A

7 Next A

8 If A>8 then CLS: PRINT gr.

266, "Invalid code": play " Pl"

goto 1

You will never prevent one of

the whizz kids from getting into

your program but you can make

things hard for them. The above

method combined with the dis-

able list method should prevent

most unauthorised eyes from

gaining access.

S Jones

Great Barr

Birmingham

This is the chance to air your views — send your tips, compliments and complaints to Letters

Page, Dragon User. 12-13 Little Newport Street, London WC2R 3LD.

1250 IF ST=J THEN 630

1260 NEXT J

1270 VL-V1.4-6

1280 IF VL>192 THEN VL=192

1290 FOR J=11 TO 20

1300 IF J/2-<>INT(Ji2) THEN

LINE (L(J),0)-(L(J), VL), PSET

ELSE L I N E ( L( J ) . 1 9 2 ) -

(L(J),192-VL), PSET

1310 IF ST J THEN 630

1320 NEXT J

Cohn Wilcox

Brooklands Estate

Manchester

byte machine language program

fully compatible with either a

Dragon or Tandy, using a simple

menu driven mechanism to deter-

mine which conversion is to take

place. I t ignores anything i n

quotes and CLEAR's its own

memory t o protect itself, and

does not bother about PEEK's and

POKE's but lists all line numbers,

containing USR or EXEC.

One ﬁnal point, a few users

(nice people really) take the effort

to write programs that will run

without any trouble o n either

machine (this in some circum

stances of course requires inside

knowledge), whether to be helpful

to other users or whether to make

more money selling it to more

people I'm not sure, but it's a pity

that users cannot exchange in

formation t o make this more

:universal.

Robin Telkman

18 Arksey Terrace

Leeds

ARECENTLYpublished book that

contains a utility to convert Tan-

dy tapes to Dragon format and

vice versa is Hot Programs to

Feed Your Dragon & Tandy Col-

our Computer. published by Sig-

ma Technical Press, p rice

E6.95.

Printer

power

ENCLOSE a short program of a

formatter for printer output which

might be of use to other Dragon

Users as i t helps t o tidy up

listings. A description of its effect

together with the means of using

it is embedded in the program as

comments.

10 '***F O RMAT T ER FOR

PRINTER***

30 •*- THIS PROGRAM WILL

BREAK A N Y M U L T I -

STATEMENT LINES UP

40 ' * INTO SINGLE LINE PER

STATEMENT FORMAT TO

ALLOWTHE

50 'It- PROGRAM TO BE READ

EASIER. THE LISTING OF

THISPROGRAM

60 ' * ILLUSTRATES T HE

EFFECT.

70 ' * BY Ft A SHACKLEFORD

80 HAMILT O N. ML3 7LW

90 DATA 81,3A,27,01.39,06.

6F.C1 ,FE,27,01,39,34,36,

86,0D

100 DATA BD,80,0F,C6,06,86,

20.BD ,80 ,OF.5A,26,FA ,35,

110 FOR' =8,H7FDO TO iSH7FEE:

READAS -

120 A=VAL("&11"-i-AS):POKE1,

A:NEXTI

130 POKE&11168.1SH7F:POKE

140 '- TO USE ROUTINE TYPE

POKE&I-11 67.8,H7E T O

TURNFORMATTER ON

150 'TO TURN FORMATTEROFF

TYPEPOKE8,11167.8,1139

RA Shackle ford

Hamilton

Tandy and

Dragon

I WAS A little surprised to see a

listing for a Tandy-Dragon con-

verter in June's Dragon User.

since many have been either

advertised or reproduced in va-

rious forms. Some time ago I

decided it was necessary to have

one, mainly in order to facilitate

exchanging programs between

Tandy and Dragon owners, and

promptly set about writing one. It

required some ideas and informa-

tion from a number of people to

produce it and so is not exactly all

my own work, but has advantages

over many I have seen published

or advertised.

There are several problems in-

volved including the problems of

USA and EXEC functions (and in

some ins tanc e PEEK•s and

POKE's) and the fact that some

people poke graphics into strings

directly: these, cannot be saved in

ASCII format and the string in-

formation must remain unaltered.

The point in writing this letter is

that I will happily provide a copy

of this program to any user in a

situation where he ﬁnds it neces-

sary to convert programs, for the

minimal effort o f a stamped

addressed envelope and cassette.

For those interested it is a 400

HOT PROGRAMS

TOFEEDYOUR

DRAGON

& vt

rwc"

A stitch

In time

WITH reference to Peter Hooton's

"Survival" program i n May's

issue of Dragon User, much typ-

ing can be saved if Imes 1 230-

1640 are deleted and the follow-

ing amendments are made:

1230 FOR J=1 TO 10

1240 IF J 12<>INT(J .

LINE (0.L(J)) - (HL,L(J)) PSET

ELSET H E N

2) LINE (2561(J ))-(256-

HLI(J):

P S

E T

1 (-) Buzzard Bait

2 (1) Cuthbert in Space

3 (3) Dragon Chess

4 (7)

Hungry Horace

5 ( Bug Diver

(5)

Eightball

(8)

Sprite Magic

)

8 (-) Dungeon Raid

(6)

Skramble

10 (-)

Mr Dig

Software Top 10

Microdeal

Oasis

Melbourne House

Mastertronics

Microdeal

Knight

Microdeal

Miorodeal

Microdeal

Chart c ompiled by Websters Software

otx

Smith

Sunderland

calling

WEWOULD like to set up a Users

Club for Dragon owners in the

Sunderland area. Meetings would

be held at regular intervals to

allow people to exchange ideas

and to help each other solve any

problems found with program-

ming and s o on. Other ideas

could possibly include a "Soft-

ware Exchange" and a listing

facility for club members.

If you are interested in such an

idea please contact m e o n

Sunderland 284188 o r lan on

Houghton-le-spring 844286.

Peter Theaks tone

Sunderland

August 1984 Dragon User 5

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