Description
Issue 9
| Item | Author | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Menu | Brian McConnell | |
| Magazine | Quizball, The Messenger, Colin Jordan interview | |
| Freviews | MasterDos, One Meg, SC_Filer, 007 Disc Doctor | |
| Trainspotter | Ian Slavin | Amusing demo |
| Encrypter | William McGugan | Protect screens from prying eyes |
| Encounters | Ian Slavin | Amusing demo, featuring Zebedee Green |
| It’s magic | Masters of Magic | Demo/advert |
| MC pt 4 | Steve Taylor | Machine Code Made Easy - Part 4 Ports; sample routines |
| Light cycles | Ian Slavin | Tron-inspired game |
| Fruit machine | Dan Dooré | One armed bandit |
| Sam pad | Andy Green | Word processor |
| Insert | Brent Stevens | Selection of “multiface” pokes |
| Totally weird | Ian Slavin | Colour cycling effects |
| Some game! | William McGugan | Arithmetic puzzle |
Magazine
THE FREDITORIAL 1
Welcome to another fun-filled issue. At time of writing, I am
hopeing to have another "few" readers from the SCPDS
A: No comment. I am a mute.
Le Mad Bitty / Der Mad Bitty 9
Well, there you have it. The first words of Klinkerhoffen the
video cassette. Another first for FRED magazine, unless I'm a
pint of cold blue custard in a tomato factory, in which case I
wonder where I learned to read and write. An interesting poser
there...
Now I really must apologize for the lack of humour in this
month's mad botty (oops, I meant bitty), but it really is my own
fault for having not even the slightest sense of humour.Still,
if such a cold haddock as myself can write a 9 or 10 page long
section every month, there's no excuse for you not doing one.
Which brings me nicely onto the subject of my first guest.
OH Dear, em...unfortunatly the text here relating to what was
going to be the next few pages has had to be "removed" for legal
reason - OK, I'm lying. I wiped over them. CM
Le Mad Bitty / Der Mad Bitty 10
This bit had nothing at all to do with what isn't there now
so I'll just take it out as well. Actually, this is a great way
to improve the popularity of the Mad Bitty - edit it all out. CM
Now, back to the complaints. Apparently, both the
disgruntled readers claimed that this bit just wasn't funny.
To quote a famous writer (me I think),"Those who do not find the
mad bitty funny are undoubtedly dour gits." That sums up the
situation quite nicely, I think. And I cordially invite any
would-be complainers to do better if they have such a perfectly-
formed sense of humour. Personally, I think that any of their
offerings will be about as much fun as night out with "the
crew", but there you go...
(the above does not mean "get Integrated Logic's latest game
now" although you are advised strongly to do so by me.)
Le Mad Bitty / Der Mad Bitty 11
You know, it's almost a week since last Monday, and I've still
not painted my face flourescent yellow. How lazy I am.
Anyone read the new Viz? If so, you'll know what a larf it
is. The latest issue, number 46 features the Fat Slags, Sid the
Sexist, Nobby's Piles and Roger Mellie as well as some ofthe
usual one-off characters like Mickey's Miniature Grandpa. The
letters page is as colourful and controversial as ever, and the
Top Tips are simply hilarious. Definitely worth a quid, and I
promise that I wasn't paid to say such nice things about it
(whether or not you believe me is your business..)
By the way, in a survey, 100% of people interviewed said
that they'd rather have Integrated Logic's new game than a
million-pound mansion in Florida, so it must be good. But why
take my word for it. Buy your own copy today.
Some of the more cynical people reading this might think
that I'm getting extra publicity for amazing software house
Integrated Logic. Shows what they know. After all, would I do
such a thing? No, I simply feel that Integrated Logic are
absolutely wonderful and should be proclaimed magic by all.
Le Mad Bitty / Der Mad Bitty 12
So, we come to page 12. Don't you think that the number 12 has a
rather heavenly sound, a somehow exquisitely relaxing feel ?
No, neither do I. Strange, my carpet doesn't think so either.
Must be the air up here or something.
---===Popular Myths of Our Time===---
Even in these enlightened times, some unfortunate people still
believe that people in Scotland are crap. This is completely
untrue, and I'm the living proof. What ? They don't think that ?
Oh. I wonder where I got that absurd notion. I've probably been
watching too many fish dancing in my cup of warm sea-water
(how's that for a bizarre piece of imagery then ?)
Another popular myth is that there aren't many games for the
SAM. This is totally wrong. Only yesterday I saw the first game
from talented programmer Stephen Wilson of Integrated Logic, and
it was really good. Definitely a game for anybody's shoppping
list, with fantastic graphics (modesty or wot??) and fascinating
gameplay. (I can't think of anything which will fit in here.)
Le Mad Bitty / Der Mad Bitty 13
Alas, another month's Mad Bitty draws to a close, and once more
you are consigned to the depths of loneliness for another 4
intolerable weeks until FRED 10. Before I go (buy IL's next
game!!) I'd just like to say send any contributions to me, or if
you feel like it just write and say "hello" as I love getting
letters. Especially ones with crisp teners in them, but you
don't have to include one if you don't want to. Just write.
Send your meagre offerings to the address (fairly important in
the letter writing buisiness I'm sure you'll agree) which you'll
find on the back of your label (if not, then phone FAST and say
"put me in prison quick. I copied my friend's FRED") or
somewhere around the credits page in the magazine.
Thanks for taking the trouble to read through this mindless
drivel, and I'll be back in a month (Int. Logic are brill!!!!!!)
After that lot of codswallop you'll be VERY lucky if you're
back in a month - mind you, I've got to keep Enceladus happy so
maybe, just maybe you'll hear more from him. And me. CM
CM : Yeah, I've heard of a few people who got ripped off by Top
Ten. Some of them just released the game onto PD as soon as the
contract ran out! Inspector Flukeit - was there not a follow up
to it?
CJ : The Great Peepingham Train Robbery. I wrote it in 1988 and
tried to get Top Ten to release it as well but they didn't and I
ended up selling it on my own label ( AXXENT ) in 1989.
Q : Did they go down well with the press and such? 7
A : Mmm, yes they were both well received. None of them sold
millions but I'm still selling them.
Q : Why did you chose the Famous Five to make an adventure of?
A : Actually, my girlfriend gave me the book and said "read it ,
I think It'd make a good game". I did eventually get down to
reading it ,being "slightly" embarressed that I was reading a
kid's book at the same time you know? But as I read through it I
began to think more and more that "Yes, this could have a good
adventure in it". So I started writing it on the Spectrum but it
only got about 75% done when I got my coupe and so I translated
it to the coupe (it's actually done in SAM BASIC!) and entered
it in the MGT Awards. Soon after that I had a deal.
Q : So is it actually you that's doing the Speccy version?
A : Yes, I'm also doing the Amstrad version - which I'm coding
using SC_Assembler!
8
Q : Can you reveal any exclusive details or future plans to the
press then?
A : Well, I'm obviously very busy at the moment doing the Speccy
and Amstrad versions of Famous Five and working at SAMCO but
I've got plans for the next one - I can't give you any details
obviously.
Q : Are you considering a Famous Five 2?
A : It's a possibility but we'll have to see....
At this point Dave Ledbury (ZAT) came over and chatted for
ten minutes or so about his programs. Maybe I'll interview him
in the future... (I just thought I'd keep you up to date with
EXACTLY what happened at the show - So don't you go about
telling people I'm not good to you)
Q : What is your job at SAMCO? 9
A : Basically I'm Alan's right hand man. Answering the phones,
trying to persuade software houses to write games on the coupe,
lots of guiding - I deal with a lot of Technical problems but
some are over my head as well. On Friday afternoons we get
together and bounce ideas about, I tell Alan and Bruce about my
ideas (and normally have a good deal of convincing to do as
well!)
Q : How many of you are there at SAMCO?
A : Ten.
Brent Stevens adds his tuppence worth by advising me not to
print that but Colin insists it's alright, in fact he adds "no,
it's nine. Not much to the fifty or so in MGT but it gets the
job done."
Q : Can you see more people being taken on in the near future?
A : Emm, I don't know. Bruce really controls SAMCO's purse so
it's up to him.
Q : What are they like? Alan and Bruce? 10
This is a severely edited answer to prevent Colin from losing
his job or being accused of sucking-up!!
A : Not bad, Bruce has got a bit of sweet tooth though - you
know those toffee bars? He has one every day!
Q : What games do you like?
A : I like Pipemania but I'm not overly keen on Defenders. Sam
Strikes Out - I like that as well, colourful and good graphics.
Q : What do you think of the standard of coupe software?
A : Very good, I think ENIGMA have done an excellant job but
there's still not enough.
11
Here's what CRASH said about Inspector Flukeit back in August
1987 :- "Hobbit like","slow","good story","not many pictures -
Worldscape isn't brilliant"
Colin actually looks a fair bit like Alan Miles so it's now
wonder they get on well - they've both got a very friendly and
talkative nature.
I also got a chance for a natter with Alan but I didn't take
any notes but he did say that he was expecting to sell 30,000 to
50,000 coupe's by the end of this year! He doesn't like playing
arcade games but he's never stopped playing Football Director 2
since he got it, and he still can't do it! He obviously has
plans for a good year for the coupe but knows it won't be easy
with the fall of MGT behind them. Still they've got 101% of my
support - and I'm sure of yours as well.
Thanks again to Colin Jordan and Alan Miles. Unfortunatly I
barely spoke to Bruce Gordon who spent most of the day giving
speeches.
Brian -M- ARCADES 12
AS THE LOCAL AMUSEMENT ARCADE IS ONE OF THE MORE ENJOYABLE WAYS
OF SPENDING TIME (AND MONEY) HERE IS A SMALL SUMMARY OF SOME OF
THE BETTER GAMES WHICH YOU CAN FRIITER AWAY YOUR HARD EARNED
CASH ON.
SHOOT 'EM UP FANS WILL PROBABLY LOVE "TRUXION." THIS HAS TWO
MORE NAMES,"TRUXTON" AND "TATSUJIN," BUT ALL ARE IDENTICAL. THIS
IS A VERTICALY SCROLLING JOB, AND HAS GREAT GRAPHICS TO
COMPLEMENT ITS UNORIGINAL BUT EXCELLENT GAMEPLAY.
TRUXION DOESN'T HAVE END OF LEVELS GITS AS SUCH (OR LEVELS!)
BUT THERE ARE "BIG" THINGS SCATTERED THROUGHOUT.
DEFINITELY ONE TO HAVE A GO ON IF YOU'VE GOT A SPARE 10p OR
TEN.
A GOOD BEAT 'EM UP IS "THE FINAL ROUND." IN THIS, YOU (AND
A FRIEND IF YOU WANT) PICK ONE OF THE THREE FIGHTERS. EACH IS
PROFICIENT IN SOME FORM OF VIOLENCE, BELIEVE IT OR NOT, BUT MY
PERSONAL FAVOURITE IS HAGGAR, THE EX-WRESTLER. HIS REPERTOIR OF
MOVES INCLUDES BACK DROPS, PILE DRIVERS, SUPLEXES AND OF COURSE
THE PUNCH. HIS "SPECIAL" MOVE IS A PSYCHOPATHIC "LOBS HIS ARMS
OUT AND SPINS." THIS HITS EVERYBODY WITHIN A CERTAIN RANGE.
BM ARCADES 13
OVERALL, I'D SAY THAT THIS IS MY FAVE BEAT 'EM UP, AND IS
EXTREMELY WORTHY OF YOUR DOSH. OR ANYONE ELSE'S DOSH FOR THAT
MATTER.
LAST FOR THIS MONTH IS AN OLDIE WHICH APPARENTLY ONLY I
LIKE. "WARDNER" IS LIKE WONDERBOY OR SOME SUCH THING - A CUTESY
ARCADE ADVENTURE. THE PLOT IS, YOUR GIRLFRIEND HAS BEEN
KIDNAPPED AND BEEN TURNED INTO A CRYSTAL BALL. NOT AN EVERYDAY
OCCURENCE, BUT THERE YOU GO. WARDNER (YOU!) MUST RESCUE HER,
WHICH ENTAILS JUMPING ABOUT ON PLATFORMS AND LOBBING MAGIC
FIREBALL THINGS AT FLYING DEMONS WHICH NASTY CLAWS.
YOU MAY BE ASKING HOW I KNOW ONLY I LIKE IT. SIMPLE, I'M
ALWAYS THE ONLY NAME ON THE HIGH-SCORE TABLE (TOP OF IT IN
FACT!! WOOO!!)
HARDLY A FAST ACTION GAME, BUT A GOOD HOUR OR THREE CAN BE
SPENT PLAYING THIS.
( NOTE: TO FILL UP THE NEXT FEW LINES, I AM GOING TO WRITE A LOT
OF ABSOLUTE TOSH, SO PLEASE DO NOT EXPECT ANYTHING REMOTELY
INTERESTING OR OF ANY RELEVANCE TO LIFE, COMPUTERS OR ANYTHING
ELSE. THANK YOU FOR BEING A PERSON. I'M FINISHED NOW. BYE BYE.)
THE SHADOW COMPATIBLES 14
~~~~~~~~~~~
OK FRED READERS this month i have some more 'SPECCY' News
for you, the biggest being that i'm annoyed that 'NARC'
is 128K only which is B****Y ANNOYING as the arcade
game was quite good. Also a game that would put
SAM COUPE on the map isn't planned to be released for the
Coupe which is also annoying because it really good, it
is called PRINCE OF PERSIA and is brilliantly animated on
both the A***A and IBM PC computers, the only 8 BIT version
being the CBM 64 DISK, Which is quite a loss as the game
is a classic platforms & ladders.
Anyway back to the Reviews - Super Cars
Stunt Car Racer
Budget - Toobin
Super Cars CD2 15
================
Gremlin graphics seem to have moved from Platform type
games onto cars games in one swift move releasing
LOTUS ESPRIT TURBO CHALLENGE and this together.
NOW Back to the review. Super Cars 48K is multi load but
the good news is each level takes about 4 seconds to load.
The game is veiwed from above, the screen scrolls with
your car, and the grafix are pretty good though colour is
a bit on the boring side (white,black,green). You start
off with a crusty car as usual and move onto better cars
as you play through, winning money and stuff. It's very
easy to beat the competition and come first each time
but when you get to the really fast cars it seems
impossible to avoid hitting them and damaging your car
altogether if you like car games and especially ones where
you can shoot everyone but they can't shoot you then buy
this.
GRAFIX - 85% SOUND - USELESS
PLAY. - 90% WORTH - A LOOK.
LAST. - 85% TOTAL - 89%
Stunt Car Racer CD2 16
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Not exactly new but I only just bought it a couple of
months ago and don't regret it either. This possibly
the hardest race game made and yet it's only 48K not
multi-load. The biggest atraction about this game for
me was the actual tracks they are literally death traps
needing lots of practise and skill to remember what
speed is needed for which ramp or curve. Racing is
over 3 laps against an opponent who always seems to be
just behind you when you make a mistake or crash.
Your car is equipped with turbos for picking up speed
at just the right moment to make the next ramp.
Colour is monocrome Although each track colour changes
and you also have the option of changing the colur of
the inside of the car. Sound is a bit weak BUT what can
you expect with a Spectrum game?
Grafix - 80% Sound - 50%
Play. - 91% Worth - A GOOD BUY
Last. - 88% Total - 82%
Toobin CD2 17
~~~~~~ ~~~
Toobin Didn't get much praise on the speccy people saying
it was unplayable or silly, but i'm afraid I disagree
as I love the arcade version and the speccy version is
nearly as good though i may be a bit biase about it.
The idea is to paddle your inner tube down stream to
the end of the course passing through gates for points
avoiding hazards that will burst your tube and collecting
such things as BEACH BALLS,CANS,TREASURE, and TUBE
REPAIRS. The controls are much the same as the arcade
four paddle keys and a fire for throwing cans.
The screnery changes from sand-jungle-iceland and all
manner of nasties try their best to get you but your
Skill will make or break their attempts.
GRAFIX - 86% SOUND - 50%
PLAY. - 85% WORTH - A LOOK FOR A CHANGE
LAST. - 90%(MY JUDGEMENT) TOTAL - 88%
18
Thats all for now I'm not certain about any reviews from
me next month at the moment preasures of work and all.
But you can be certain that somebody will write something
for compatibles like in FRED 7 Paul Sweeny and Colin
wrote the reviews.
General News.
It's rumoured that all new spectrum software is going to
be 128k only which means people are going to have to
upgrade their machine or move onto another (Looks like
some more people are going to be moving onto the coupe
as a cheap alternative!) this seems to be echoed in both
PANG & NARC which are both 128 only. Though -
F16-Combat Pilot is SUPPOSED to run on 48K. Whatever
happens I have a big question to be answered -
The new piece of hardware being made by SAMCO to make
spectrum games more compatible, will this make 128K games
compatible as well? as they seem to be better all round
than the normal 48K.
OOOOOPS! (again!) 19
It turned out that I made a couple of "little errors" last
month which spoiled an otherwise brilliant issue. The first is
for the 512K owners out there. The menu picture loads in at the
256K screen address and so doesn't appear. To sort this just add
/alter these lines : 65 LET sc = (( IN 252 BAND 31) +1) * 16384
and change the 245760 in line 70 to sc . Now, just type SAVE
"AUTOFRED8" LINE 10. Problem solved.
Also, A Thomson has pointed out that his program does not
work. To sort it, firstly ERASE "MESSAGE" and LOAD "FPC3-AT". It
will stop with an error, type GOTO 540 and wait until you see
something happening. Then BREAK into it and type SAVE OVER
"FPC3-AT" LINE 10. Hey Presto!!!
Someone also said that FREDBASE wouldn't work. There is some
sort of problem regarding memory but just reset your coupe and
load it first and all your problems will be solved. In fact,
they won't - due to a small alteration on my behalf, to exit
from the editing mode press F9 instead of Q. Sorry Brent!
STUCK-ON-A-GAME? 20
The return of the problem solving page.
The first three codes for Pipemania are DISC, CHIP & MAGS.
Ian MacDougall also sent these codes in.
To kill the final alien on the great No Way Back last month,
you must keep shooting the middle-top gun till it explodes, then
the one underneath, then the other big gun on the top.
For infinite almost everything on Sam Strikes Out on
MULTI-PACK 1, go as far left as possible then jump and press F9
at the same time and the only thing that can kill you is falling
from a great height.
Famous Five - Julian or Dick has to break open the crate down
the hole. Inside it is an axe (hi ian slavin!) which you use to
smash open the cupboard in amongst the seaweed in the Captain's
cabin.
DUSTY COUPE? 21
If you've got a dusty coupe then you need worry no longer as
no less than 3 different varieties are available.
The most expensive, at £7.50 is from SRS Micro Systems.
Unfortunately, it is a peculiar colour which does not match the
coupe and doesn't fit it nearly as well as the others.
The cheapest is from Darren Toy (as advertised in FRED8)
costing a mere £2.50. Unfortunatly, this is simply a clear, thin
piece of plastic cellotaped at the edges so that it just fits
over the keyboard. Sorry Darren, it's no good.
The last one is from Steve's software (address on review of
SC_FILER) and costs £5.50. It's white with blue lining and "SAM
COUPE" neatly printed in the bottom right corner. It fits
pefectly over your computer (even with a Meg) and is completely
everything-proof and is machine washable (if you have to wash
it, it means you're coupe's just had a narrow escape!). I think
it looks very elegant, adorning the FRED coupe.
NO FPC4? 22
Well not this month anyway, generally due to a lack of entries
and (more importantly) a lack of space of this disc. However for
sending their attempts in, I will get J HANCOCK and I SLAVIN
twice the amount of fame (ie I'll mention them in the results
next month as well). What a lucky pair! Mind you, anyone could
have done the same simply by sending in a scrolly (and if you
still want to enter, you'll be pleased to know that I've
extended the deadline for receiving entries to the 28th of
March). But, as an extra competition thing, I want you to send
in your best attempts for a new menu as I would like to change
the menu as often as possible (unlike the last one!). Brian did
the one this month but I would like as many as possible - I WILL
USE all half-decent ones. I suppose this is like a constant FPC
because all entries will have your name in the hall of fame.
March 28th is the date to have your scrollys and menus in by -
you'll find the address in the credits and on the back of your
disc label.
FPC - the competition with the best prize , your name
splattered all over FRED. Better than £100 any day.
INTERNATIONAL BRIGHT YOUNG THING 23
Apart from having to be one to get a magazine or PD library
going, it's nothing at all to do with what I'm going to say.
A few of you have written in asking for help and advice on
starting up a disc magazine/PD library. I would not advise
setting up another PD library - with at least 5 already, most of
them have all the same stuff so another one would not be well
received.
However, although it is late to be starting a coupe fanzine,
it's still possible. Unlike FRED, your first issue MUST be
sensational - including lots of graphicy stuff, juicy news and
interviews and anything which will make it stand out from the
crowd (like FRED). If it is not going to be Public Domain or
non-profit making then you have a real fight on your hands,
you'll have to fork out a fair bit of dosh to start with to pay
for software, artists and programmers. And then if you're going
to be well organised you'll order a few hundred discs and have a
very efficient way of copying (ie. a Meg). Another pile of
notes.
24
When you start you have to expect ABSOLUTELY NO SUPPORT OR
HELP AT ALL for a month or two anyway. Even now, only two
companies support FRED by sending review copies. And back in the
days of Issue 1 & 2, when I was barely out of a 1 figure
readership, no-one helped me at all and I was left with no
editorial skills at all to make my magazine work. Despite the
severe lack of help and support (thanks a lot to the two
companies who did help me - I'd better not mention any names) I
did get FRED going but I currently spend about an hour a day
sorting out the day's orders and maybe about 12 hours working on
the next issue in the two days beforehand.
You will have to send a lot of review copies to magazines
every month for a few issues before mentions start appearing and
of course to all the coupe software producers - it helps to be
friendly with certain people , but then again you can totally
waste your time - no names (note the "s"!) mentioned again for
obvious reasons, I suppose if I didn't have to be on my best
behaviour to everyone I could name names, but FRED isn't big
enough yet. Not only do you have to be nice to Mr Director, but
to the customers as well (most of the time!)
WHERE CAN I GET HELP THEN? 25
Right here, I will gladly plug and fully support any other
magazine (as I have done repeatedly in the past) because you'll
be damn lucky to get it anywhere else - I didn't. Unfortunatly ,
due to the laws about PD stuff, you will not be able to use any
stuff from FRED or any other PD (magazine or otherwise) unless
you contact me, say exactly what you're wanting and what for and
then ONLY if I can get the original programmer to agree as well
as myself can you use it. Even then you must make totally clear
where it came from. I will do my utmost (that's another thing -
you'll have to learn lots of posh words!) to help though.
I would recommend that if you are going to call it a magazine
you must produce it on a regular basis - anything other than
monthly often isn't successful unless quality is extremely high.
So a lot of work is required.
Basically, be nice to everyone and put a hell of a lot of work
into it and things should work out. However if just one issue
slacks, things may go terribly wrong. And for God's sake - be
VERY careful about copyright and don't print anything malicious
about anyone like SAMCO and ENIGMA (or me!). Best of Luck.
SLAMMIT TIME 26
Yes, I've decided to bring to justice the crime committers of
the coupe world, I've been wanting to do this for ages and I
decided to do it this issue because a) FRED has got a
reputation that would be extremely hard to ruin and b) It's MY
magazine and I'll say whatever I like!!!!
The perpretrator? Fastline. Yes, the only Welsh PD library is
dealing in dirty buisness. It is illegal to use any PD software
in another PD disc, library whatever without the consent of the
original publisher and author. Fastline has used numerous bits
from FRED discs - always the best bits, never the magazine or
Freviews and always without so much as mentioning FRED! The man
behind Fastline - Simon Scott - has also used loads of stuff
from CONTACT (allegedly from me!!!) and TURBO.
So hence the title, I'm "slamming" Fastline. He is stealing
other people's software and calling it his own. Please do not
order from him anymore - you'll get the software cheaper from
the original publisher anyway!
Fortunatly, I don't think I'll be doing this to anyone again -
but if you are playing dirty - watch out! FRED is here!
LETTERS 27
"....we do not appreciate your comments about the demo's on
Visually calling them reasonable, I realise that we have to take
criticism but I think this is unjust. We will send you the full
set when we get your discs(six). Also let me say that the "mad
bitty" on FRED is the biggest load of crap I have ever read (no
offense) I for one am all for silly text(Visually) but on
visually we also put interviews and silly starsigns to break it
up a bit, but when faced with four or five pages of pure drivel
(white on black as well,sore eyes!) I find myself reaching for
the reset button, maybe if you put some other stuff like silly
interviews or stupid quizzes in it, it might not be so tedious."
Yours sincerly, ZENITH GRAPHICS
Although the rest of the letter was OK, I just HAD to print
this section - if only to write back in print about it!!
My reply is on the next page.......
THE REPLY TO THE LETTER 28
Firstly, I cannot be expected to completely review a set of 6
discs when I am given 2 demos and 2 sets of text (and it was my
disc in the first place!). The quality of the demos was
reasonable - nothing more , nothing less because although a lot
of work may have been put into them, the ones I had were nothing
more than half a dozen screens displayed in sequence. I think
that proves my point fairly well, perhaps when I see the others
I will reconsider my views but at the moment I consider them
accurate - however that is just an opinion.
As are your thoughts on The Mad Bitty. I would like to point
out that you don't HAVE to read it - just reach for the trigger
(and make sure the gun's loaded!). And even interviews are just
text as well (I've no idea what a "silly starsign" is) and for
your information, The Mad Bitty has had two interviews - one
with a hamster and one with a remote control. How mad can you
get? Also I have had some very complementary comments on the Mad
Bitty including "great" and "very original".
Another point is that the Mad Bitty is just a small fraction
of FRED - ALL your text was "silly" (or "pure drivel"!)
HINTS 'N' TIPS 29
It's back - but probably not for very long so I'd better start
off quick.
Did you know that you don't need SAMDOS on your disc to load
it? OK, that's not strictly true but if you erase SAMDOS
(provided it's still in position 1) you can still boot it up
after reseting!! Although, obviously if you save anything onto
the disc afterwards it won't work because the latter data will
have overwritten the SAMDOS data.
You too can get funny colours all over your listings! It's
actually in all the manuals but a lot of people don't know how
to work the control codes. Just press CNTRL and either I (for
ink)or P (for PAPER). Then press a numeric key refering to a
colour and hey presto! all the text following that code will
have changed colour - unless you chose the original value!
To load up SAMDOS without loading anything else on the disc
(including any auto files) you simply type BOOT 1 and you'll get
an OK message. I'll give credit to Steve Nutting for having that
in one of his manuals.
THE NOTHING-MUCH-TO-DO-WITH-THE-COUPE PAGE 30
Or a gossip page I suppose it could be called. Hopefully,
people will send me stuff for next month as I think it's a good
idea even if no-one else does.
That brilliant band, THE KLF (with the hit "3 AM ETERNAL")
recently got arrested for de-facing a poster somewhere. They are
the same people who called themselves THE TIMELORDS a few years
back and got to number 1 with "Doctor Who"
You've all seen MC Hammer do the Coke (a-cola!?!) adverts on
the telly, well, Pepsi have now signed up none other than
Vanilla Ice (shock! Horror!) who spent a month at number 1 with
the magic "Ice Ice Baby".
If you used to watch Twin Peaks, you'll be dissapointed to
know that it was Leyland Palmer who killed Laura (yes, her dad!)
The massive Scottish chain of computer shops - Star UK went
bust recently with debts of £290,000!!
If you want a quiz, try this - get a 5 and 6 figure number
which when you add all it's digits to the power of the number of
digits, together you get the original number eg 153 = (1*1*1) +
(5*5*5) + (3*3*3). 1634 also works. Taken from Feb '91 of PCW.
LETTERS 31
HELLO AGAIN. TIME FOR ANOTHER GLENNO REPORT, ME THINKS. WELL,
A LOT'S HAPPENED IN THE COUPE WORLD SINCE I LAST PUT FINGERS TO
KEYS. FIRSTLY, NEIL HOLMES AND STUART LEONARDI ( NO TURTLE JOKES
HE MIGHT BE HARD !!) HAVE PRODUCED A F*****G BRILLIANT GAME FOR
FRED, BY THE NAME OF "NO WAY BACK".NOW EVERYONE CAN SEE THAT
THIS GAME IS SLOW AND JERKY, BUT IT WAS WRITTEN IN BASIC, AND I
WAS LISTENING TO THE TWO TUNES FOR AGES.THE MUSIC IS EASILY THE
BEST I'VE HEARD ON THE SAM SO FAR, AND THE GRAPHICS ARE GOOD
TOO. IN MY OPINION IT VERY NEARLY SQUARES UP TO THE NOT-AS-GOOD-
AS-IT-WAS-SUPPOSED-TO-BE SPHERA. IF THESE TWO CAN PRODUCE A GAME
LIKE THIS, WHY CAN'T A HUGE SOFTWARE HOUSE LIKE ENIGMA COME UP
WITH SOMETHING HALF-PLAYABLE. I'VE JUST READ MY SAMCO MAILSHOT,
AND DISCOVERED THAT THESE TWO HAVE ALSO PRODUCED DEMONSTRATION
SOFTWARE WHICH WILL BE THE NEW SAM DEMO. WELL DONE LADS.
AS I'VE ALREADY TOLD COLIN, MY MUCH PUBLICISED COUSIN DANNY HAS
JUST BOUGHT AN AMIGA. YOU CAN SLAG HIM OFF AS MUCH AS YOU LIKE,
BUT IT IS A COMPUTER WHICH THERE IS ALREADY A HUGE MARKET FOR,
AND YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR. I MYSELF AM TOYING WITH THE IDEA
OF GETTING A CHEAP SECOND HAND MODEL, BUT I'LL WAIT AND SEE.
LETTERS 32
ONE OF THE BEST THINGS ABOUT HIS AMIGA IS THE HUGE RANGE OF
STRIP POKER GAMES. NOW I HEAR THERE'S GONNA BE SOME PORNY STUFF
FOR THE OLD COUPE. THERE'S HOPE STILL. WHO'LL BE THE FIRST TO
DIGITISE A COPY OF MAYFAIR I WONDER ? OH YEAH, I LIED ABOUT MY
AGE, I WAS EIGHTEEN YESTERDAY (22\2\73).
APPARENTLY THERE'S A GOOD DEAL FROM SAMCO CURRENTLY IN
OPERATION. YOU GET....
Another edited bit - this time due to legal problems!!!
..... YOU'VE GOT 15% DISCOUNT. (AND YOUR SCHOOL HAS
GOT 20 LETTERS ASKING THEM TO TEACH US ABOUT LOGORYTHYM'S USING
A COUPE.) DON'T TRY THIS AT HOME KIDDIES.
I'VE GOT EFTPOTRM ON ORDER, AND DANNY FORCED ME TO PLAY IT ON
HIS AMIGA. IF IT'S AS GOOD I'LL TURN INTO A HERMIT CRAB, BUT IF
IT'S HALF AS GOOD, IT'S WORTH THE MONEY.
I'M ALSO GOING TO GET AN ASSEMBLER SO I CAN TRY AND LEARN A
LITTLE MACHINE CODE FROM FRED. DONT STOP THAT ARTICLE NOW, OR
I'LL HAVE WASTED MY MONEY. I'VE GOT A 48K(+) SITTING DOWNSTAIRS
IN A PILE OF DUST, SO I'LL PROBABLY BUY THAT NEW MESSENGER
THINGY. SHOULD BE GOOD.
LETTERS 33
I'VE GONE RIGHT OFF STEVE WRIGHT, AND I'M INTO THE MARY
WHITEHOUSE EXPERIENCE AND RED DWARF. THE ONE I'VE JUST SEEN
WHERE KRYTON GETS TURNED INTO A HUMAN IS A CLASSIC.
ANYONE OUT THERE A CYCLE SPEEDWAY RIDER ? YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT
YOU'RE MISSING, IT'S A GREAT LAUGH. WHAT ABOUT SPEEDWAY THEN?
(RDERS OR FANS). ONE. OH WELL. I WON'T TALK ABOUT FOOTBALL,
IPSWICH TOWN F.C, THATS A GOOD JOKE. I'VE GOT A BETTER ONE
THOUGH. SINEAD 'O' CONNOR. HA HA.
I'VE YET TO HEAR THE KIM WILDE DEMO, BUT IT SOUNDS (PUN) QUITE
GOOD. I'M THEREFORE THINKING ABOUT GETTING SOME MIDI GEAR BUT I
WONDER IF YOU COULD QUICKLY GIVE THE BASICS ? ( LIKE HOW DO YOU
USE IT!!) ALSO WOULD YOU RECOMMEND STILL BUYING THE 512K MEMORY
UPGRADE NOW THE 1MEG IS AVAILABLE. IT SEEMS A LOT OF THE BETTER
PD STUFF USES IT (THE FULL LENGTH TOTAL RECALL DEMO, ETC. IT
WOULD SEEM THAT FRED IS DOING REALLY WELL NOW, AND I SAW AN
ADVERT ON THE BACK OF SAMCO'S NEWSLETTER. ALSO, I'VE WRITTEN TO
THE SCPDSA FOR THE CATALOGUE AND DEMO DISK. BACK TO MIDI, CAN I
GET A LEAD TO CONNECT MY SAM TO A KEYBOARD (MUSICAL), AND BE
ABLE TO HEAR THE DEMO'S ON FRED8 ???
LETTERS 34
WELL, THIS IS GLENNO SIGNING OFF, BUT BEFORE I GO, CAN I
PLEASE ASK NEIL AND STUART TO WRITE ANOTHER LEVEL FOR NO WAY
BACK. THANKS FOR READING, ESP. COL FOR PRINTNG MY CRAP LETTERS..
What a little pervert he is!! Mind you....
Anyway, there should be a program out soon which will allow
you to use the MIDI to it's full capacity but I can't help out
on the MIDI stuff on FRED8 - I don't have anything that works
with it (why can I tell that some people called Neil and Stuart
will be sniggering at this point????).
I've bought the Meg and I plan on getting the 512K upgrade as
well so, yes, I would recommend it to you as you can use it just
like normal memory - unlike the Meg which I believe you can ,
but I can't.
Thanks again Glenno (by the way, it was I who first called him
that and he's just away to add the extra "O" on his birth
certificate!!!)
LETTERS 35
Hi to all FRED readers out there.I'd just like to say a few
words,one of them being MOOO!No seriously I just received FRED
issues 2 to 6 and they are magic.I enjoyed the magazine and PD
software so much I sent away for 100 blank disks,so I could get
FRED every month for the next 10 years(hopefully).The
screenshots are amazing,especially the tiger,the dragon,the sun-
bather and Mary (nice chest).
Anyway you said you wanted readers to send in their own stuff
so I decided why not. I am also working on a game called Chopper
Rescue,but it'll be crap,because I can't program.Also if anyone
can animate using FLASH could they please write to me at the
address below.Moving on now here is some really interesting
information about myself.I'm 15 years old, I've just failed my
maths prelim(oh ****),I like Deacon Blue, De La Soul,Soul 2
Soul,KLF,I own a Coupe(never),I like puzzle games,flight
sims,shootemups,but most of all cute games(SAM Strikes Out
rules!).On the hardware front I am desperate for the
mouse(aren't we all?),the video digitiser and the Spec-SAM
interface(for 100% compatibility).Anything else?Oh yes I am in
LETTERS 36
love with Demi Moore(drool,heavy breathing),my fave arcade game
is Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.Anyone seen Die Hard 2 or Total
Recall? #*/*~&# brilliant.What else can I say except if you like
my pictures tell me and I'll do some more (actually they are
already done,I just don't want to use them all in one go).And
when I get my mouse expect a Turtles movie demo to be on the PD
scene (the programs finished,just the artwork to go).In fact
seeing as I'm such a nice guy I'll send What I've done to FRED
so you can see what you think.It only goes up to the bit where
Ralph and Casey have a fight so far.Is that it I ask myself. No
it is not.Does anyone watch RED DWARF?Good ain't it. It's not a
banana it's a female aardvark.Twist my nipple nuts. Sorry I just
went into KRYTEN mode there.And that as they say is the end.But
it isn't.(Switch on Arnie mode)I'LL BE BACK!
Oh God! Another pervy person - are any of my readers
"normal" human beings? Obviously not, Thanks for the stuff Ian -
the Turtles story was pretty good (as Turtles stories go!). Yes,
I've seen both the films and Die Hard 2 was rubbish (although
Bruce Willis is MARRIED to Demi Moore...) CM
WHEN YOU WRITE TO ME.... 37
Please put a stamp on your envelope! It's happened numerous
times and Mr. Posty is getting rather annoyed. If you are
sending discs either send them in a jiffy or a small envelope so
it can't rattle about (like mine!). If you send any coins
cellotape them down or put them inside a small bag or something
-I've lost a lot of dosh because of lost money!
For all the new readers - all back issues are available at £1
each and you may subscribe up to issue 20 maximum or pay £1
every month, just whatever suits you.
Please, please don't be afraid to tell me what you think of
FRED (I won't kick you in, honest!). I need to know and up till
now I think people don't want to complain because it's so cheap.
In fact, if I remember, I'll even mention you for complaining!!
I welcome reviews of anything new in the coupe world, I do try
to buy all the software but even a FREDITOR's pocket has a
bottom so any help is much appreciated.
If you don't write to me, could you please mention FRED (even
if you just write in the top corner " FRED rules right? " !!).
This might ensure that companies do in fact know I exist!!!!
THE REST OF THE DISC IS BLANK. 38
Unless of course, you've been sending in programs, in which
case it isn't! (160 coupe owners hurridly reset their machines
and list the directory, see I was lying and re-load this to
discover why. Good eh?) Oh, OK, it's not really - here's what's
really on it (in case you didn't list the directory!!!)
Screenshots : sent in by Ian Slavin. Autoload.
Encrypter : by William Mcgugan - this lets you load in a
screen and codes it for you so no-one can go peeking at your
piccies (this is for any "interesting" screens!!)
Encounters : It's really just one - The Moon Encounter. But
I'll try and put on the other 3 next month. Instructions on
loading. Sent in by Ian Slavin.
It's magic! : a demo/advert for the Masters of Magic. Just
load it up, listen and read!
The fourth part in the popular m/c series by Steve "I hate
DFC but the Saints are good" Taylor, this month on ports.
Light Cycles : Another program by Ian Slavin this time it's
based on the TRON idea - move your line about and the first
person to crash into anything loses!
C'MERE, THERE'S MORE.... 39
Fruit Machine : Instructions on loading and it's done by Dan
Doore (hence the DD symbol!)
SAM pad : Done by Andy Green, yes it's another word processor
type utility. You'll find EXTREMELY detailed instructions by
pressing ESC when loaded.
Insert : The first 1,000 pokes for all your Spectrum games! By
Brent Stevens, you just load it up and be amazed at the
quantity!! (and write a few down occasionally as well!)
Totally Wierd : Em...this one speaks for itself. Yet another
great program from Ian "AXE" Slavin. Just load it up and see if
you can think of a better name!!!!!
Some game : Aha! a bit of a surprise here. It's by William
McGugan and full instructions are given on loading. I have found
4 different ways so far! Can you find more????
I've missed out "Trainspotter" you may have noticed? That's
because I hate order! Another funny demo from Ian Slavin.
Just before this loaded, you will (or should!) have seen a
CRASH advert. This was done by none other than Nick Roberts and
you'll hear more from him next month...
NEXT MONTH - FRED 10!!!!! 40
My God! I've almost reached the double figures!!! Next month I
have a great line up of stuff - two more games from Ian Slavin
(Stom & HomeWorld). The usual pile of piccies.
Nick Roberts has sent me two brilliant demos (SAM fuzzies and
Speed Demon Demo) as well as his own grabber utility which you
will be able to gasp at (or, in the case of SAM fuzzies, throw
up at!!! You'll understand in tine......)
I'll put on the other three encounters by Ian Slavin (car,
girl and lion) which I'm sure you'll enjoy.
Brent Stevens has done another 500 Spectrum pokes and you'll
be able to get your mits on them next month!!!
Steve Taylor should start his Space Invader game in the m/c
series so get yer assemblers out!
Also : a spinning earth demo (Paul Finn), disc numberer (Andy
Jones), Hypnotiser (Dan Doore), Menu Maker (William McGugan) and
an FX thingy (Paul Kelly)
And if you're really lucky I'll do the FPC4 results as well
(remember you can STILL enter!)
ALMOST THE END 41
This is the credits page but if you continue reading you'll
find the Mad Bitty (it's "fairly" long though!)
Thanks go to :
Ian Slavin William McGugan
Steve Taylor Brent Stevens
Dan Doore Neil Holmes
Stuart Leonardi Andy Jones
Colin Jordan Brian Mcconnell
SAMCO ENIGMA
Steve Nutting anyone who reads this!
Issue 10 out 7th April for just £1. Order now!
Remember, issue 11 will be a month late!
Colin Macdonald (FRED),
[redacted] 8.30-10.30 or weekends
Le Mad Bitty / Der Mad Bitty 1
To commemorate the existence of Europe, you'll notice a
continental sounding title. For any non-linguists out there, to
understand the title you must either buy a French or German
dictionary or have an inkling of common sense.
After wasting four lines on that wholly unnecessary
introduction, it gives me the greatest pleasure to announce that
the first complaints about this wonderful section have been
lodged with the Editorial staff (Colin to be more precise). Yes
folks, there are some unfortunate people out there who find the
Mad Bitty crap. Happily, there have been some compliments as
well, the only one I can remember being from G. Burtenshaw who
does Enceladus magazine. For his compliments he gets a free
advert:
"Buy Enceladus. It's done by somebody with a sense of humour."
See how it works? If there are any more of you editors out there
who wouldn't mind an extra bit of publicity, just give the Mad
Bitty a nice bit of praise. "You know it makes sense."
Now then, I believe that the Great Purple-Spotted Osprey of
Le Mad Bitty / Der Mad Bitty 2
Wolverhampton doesn't exist, and I'd like to use the rest of
this months Mad Bitty to ask the question "Why the hell not?"
Unfortunatley it's a very short question and doesn't take
up the rest of the "MB" (to use an abbreviation).
It seems that I said there would be a demo of Horatio my
guinea pig last time, and this demo failed to materialise. This
is not due to some technical error, or lack of space on the disk
or anything like that. No, the reason is that I couldn't be
bothered doing one, and if you have any complaints about that
you can go and buy a Kylie album. And listen to it.
This is the 4th MB now, and to be perfectly honest with you
I'm fast running out of things to say. Which, when you consider
the nature of the section is a very bad thing indeed. I get the
impression that if you turn on the telly, it makes it easier to
watch Neighbours. If anybody out in SAMland knows exactly why I
wrote that I'd be delighted to know, because for the life of me
I can't think why.
Hmmm. You know, I don't know whether or not any of you have
actually considered this, but it really is quite difficult to
Le Mad Bitty / Der Mad Bitty 3
write page after page about absolutely nothing, and I think that
anyone who does so deserves to be institutionalized. Only
joking. Why would anybody want to put me in a chuckle farm?!
I think I'll use this opportunity to launch a bit of a cool
competition. As some of you may know, I'm colourblind, which is
evr-so-slightly annoying as I do a lot of graphics for people.
So, the first person to send in a list of all 128 colours like
this:
0 - black
1 - really dark blue
2 - really dark red
127-whiter than a shirt in a Daz advert
will recieve the ultimate accolade:a free copy of the next game
that fabulous new software house, Integrated Logic, which by
some astounding coincidence, I happen to do graphics for. (The
brighter ones amongst you will have noticed a plug there) To
take up some space, I'm now going to give you a detailed list of
Integrated Logics origins and history and that sort of thing.
Le Mad Bitty / Der Mad Bitty 4
I'll keep it brief. Integrated Logic are magic, and if you want
more details than that lengthy description has in it, you'll
need to write to Integrated Logic.
No, I'm sorry but I simply REFUSE to give any form of free
plug or other kitchen utensil in FRED. I may be a bit of a mug
doing this magazine but I do actually have my standards ,I'll be
damned if I can find them but I do have them around here
somewhere... THE EDITOR (ha!)
After that incredibly subtle hint as to which is the best
prospect in the software industry today (Integrated Logic in
case you missed it ) I've got some rather spanking brand new
jokes to tell you all. They're not funny in the least ("so
what's new ?" I hear you shout. Very droll) but I'm going to
Le Mad Bitty / Der Mad Bitty 5
spoil your day and make you bear them anyway. Sorry, did I say
"them"? I meant to say "it." Sorry. Please forgive me. Oh, you
want the joke. Right. First, I'd better confess to getting this
joke off of Childrens BBC, so blame them for its unrivalled
crapness. (less of the subtle hints as to the nature of jokes
like that - CM)
Knock-Knock.
Who's there?
Dunup.
Dunup who?
You'd better clean it up then.
OK, it was bad, and not funny, and pathetically childish, and
many other things which cannot be printed in a respectable
magazine such as this.
Moving on swiftly but with an undeniable amount of style and
dignity, I come to an abrupt halt at one of the most scandalous
revelations of the century. Dare you read about..."The Crew!!!!"
(This is just a little sentence whose sole purpose is nothing. )
Le Mad Bitty / Der Mad Bitty 6
Ah, you thought you'd risk it. Very admirable, well done. Then
I'll begin....
"The Crew" is the name given to the group of girls in my
splendid school which is renowned for being really swotty and
stuck-up, especially Rowan Middleton, although the rest are just
as bad. The Crew are particularly good at being really
irritating to any non-crewmembers, and as a result get slagged
constantly, especially by "the Lads". (The Lads being the boys
out of 4th year which are cool as f**k (ooh, naughty word!!!))
Anyway, this feud between the lads and the crew has been running
for nearly two years now. Different members have their own
personal feuds, for example Ally Kennedy and Marion Campbell.
Not that the Crew admit this of course, they deeply resent being
known as the crew, and insist that they don't have a feud at
all. Ha, we all know what bull that is, don't we ? (question
directed at nobody in particular, so it's fairly pointless)
Now, you may be wondering why I chose to enlighten you all about
this hopelessly crap "crew," and being the sort of kind and
wonderful (and modest you'll all be thinking) person I am, I'm
Le Mad Bitty / Der Mad Bitty 7
going to tell you. You see, being a vindicative lot, the Crew
thought it would be hilarious to volunteer some of the lads for
the parts of belly-dancers in some school play type thing. (I
wasn't one of them to be put on the list thankfully.)
Understandably, the Lads was devastated by this and planned a
form of revenge, part of which you are reading now: the public
humiliation of the crew!! You may think this a bit pointless,
after all, how are the crew going to find out about this? Well,
one of the crew actually has a SAM, and so will read this. And
will then hopefully show the rest of them. Snigger. Who knows
what the next part of the Lads' revenge will be...
Talking about skiing, which we weren't, that brings me
nicely onto the subject of prelims. These are now over for
another year, and now I've got the standard grades proper to
look forward to. As you can probably imagine, this event is
regarded with slightly less enthusiasm than public execution,
and the sooner it's over with the better. But back to the
Prelims. Firstly, I didn't realize just how boring Geography was
until three weeks ago. Geography comes second in the unbearable
Le Mad Bitty / Der Mad Bitty 8
stakes only to the Chinese water torture. Actually, since I've
never had to endure this reputedly hideous torture I speak from
inexperience, but you get my point (geography=crap).
And now, the second in a 2-part interview. First, the mad
bitty brought you an interview with a remote control. Now, we
are privilidged to bring you, courtesy of my sister, (fat and
ugly and small and round as she may be) (and not forgetting
thick as frozen mince ) Klinkerhoffen the Madonna video!!!!
Q: Now then, klinkerhoffen is a very unusual name for a video.
Can you tell us why you have such a German-sounding name ?
A: Don't be stupid. Videos cannot speak.
Q: Oh, sorry. Why did you choose to become a Madonna video?
A: Sod off, I can't talk for God's sake!
Q: Ah, I see. Finally why don't you bugger off, you impudent
piece of plastic?
A: Ach, away and stick your head in a bucket you clueless human
you.
Q: I thought that videos couldn't speak?
Reviews
SC_FILER - STEVE'S SOFTWARE , £10 1
This is the 3rd commercial database to be released, and the
umpteenth if you include all the smaller ones on Public Domain
and such things (like FREDBASE, DOK, DATAPOST, AGENDA....).
However, it has to be said right from the start - this one
outshines even the best of the rest by a long shot.
After reading through the professional 16-page manual, it soon
becomes apparent that this one program will be probably all
you'll ever need in the way of databases. It takes quite a while
to simply set the geography of your database ie. how it's laid
out, how many windows, where they'll be,what they'll do, what
colour they'll be, what headings you'll have ......As you can
see it can be easily adapted to suit your needs perfectly -
including your choice of over 70 built in fonts!
Once the layout and colours of your file have been established
you can start. Input is simple - key in the text using enter to
go to the next line, F4 or F1 to the next field and F6 or F3 to
finish entering that record. The only thing which isn't catered
for is justification and word-wrap round the ends of an entry
which covers more than one line. But then again, I've never seen
2
that done on anything short of a PC so you're not missing out -
REALLY (are you?).
All your standard editing keys are operational - Caps, Delete,
Edit plus the compulsory cursors. From the editing menus you can
add a record (pretty essential really), search for , list (ie.
jump to it (the record)), load or save (from Ramdiscs as well),
Edit, Wipe (clear), Print (in four different ways - just don't
ask me to explain them), get a directory listing, exit to BASIC
(but you can still get back to the program without losing any
data) and find out just how much memory you've got left/how many
more files the program can hold.
Talking of memory, with a standard 256K machine SC_FILER holds
128K of data (roughly 1,300 records). A 512K machine can handle
384K of data (about 4,000 records) but if you're really lucky
(like me!) and have a Megabyte upgrade you've got about 1152K
which means you can have approx. 12,000 records!!! These numbers
were taken from a database holding my name, address, post code,
full phone number and lots of extra details (fairly average!)
SC_FILER is just such an easy program to use - the only snags
are that you've got to know what all the colours look like
3
before selecting them and it's better to get a printout of all
the 72 fonts as they all have to be input at once. In general,
the program is pretty fast although there is a slight delay
while you're changing from one Edit menu to another and
occasionally (if you press the wrong key or something) it just
dissapears completely.
Also on the disc is an empty name,address and phone number
file all ready for use and an extremely useful and detailed list
of all the Z-80 registers, their uses and several other bits and
bobs about them you always wanted to know.
One or two very small niggles but on the whole this is a very
complicated program made easy to use and understand. It's very
nicely presented and covers almost every aspect of a database
you'd wish for (even if you had a Cray!).
I can't really put ratings on this but even if you just need
it for a few records (like details of the best coupe magazines
(FRED, of course!)) it's almost a pleasure to use. Of course, I
need it to store the thousands of addresses of all my readers -
well, almost anyway.
4
As a Mr M.Holt wrote a program which is on the same disc
specifically for the idea of getting his name in the review, I
guess I'd better mention it. "Humphrey" is the name of the
program and it's a disc utility which gives full details on all
files on a disc by simply using cursors and one or two standard
keys (like E for erase,S for sort or Q for quit). The thing that
makes this program so different from all the others is that it
draws up a diagram of all the space used on the disc and shows
you which bits of the disc each file has used eg some BASIC
files are stored in 3 bits! (if you're into m/c you will of
course realise that I did not mean "bits", as in bits, nibbles
and bytes!) Altogether this is (another!) well-presented program
and allows simple and easy manipulation of a disc.
I would fully recommend you buy SC_FILER. For a tenner it
gives great value for money. Send your cheque for £10 (payable
to S.J. Nutting) to : STEVE's SOFTWARE,
[redacted] and remember ,
FRED sent you!
THE MASTERS OF MAGIC PUBLIC DOMAIN LIBRARY 1
Phew! worra mouthful! anyway - From the people who brought you
the ten great music demos on FRED8 and the very popular and
brilliant No Way Back on FRED8 comes a brand new public domain
library. And after you've seen the advert / demo on this disc
you'll be dashing off to your post box to post an order as soon
as possible. Full details are on the demo (entitled It's Magic)
but basically there are 4 bits of software available (there will
be 5 from March the 10th! - so obviously I can't comment on that
but you can order it now if you want).
If you got the recent SAMCO newsletter, you'll have seen the
paragraph mentioning Neil Holmes and Stuart Leonardi who did the
SAMCO demo disc. Well, here's your chance to get it (if you
order something from SAMCO you can get it as well though). The
disc is generally of a very high quality, it runs through what
you should have in your box and basically what your coupe can
do. There are two superb pieces of music which is a joy to sit
and listen to but apart from that it explains about the coupe
generally. There is a simulated storm beleive it or not! But,
here's the surprising bit....it's incredibly realistic!
2
Obviously, the graphics can't be accurate but the sound of the
thunder, lightning and rain is amazing. The other sound demo is
that demonstrating white noise - a load of drum beats put
together in a nifty tune. Also, they've taken (with kind
permission of course!) a handful of screenshots from some
utterly brilliant and incredibly cheap, Scottish, coupe, disc
magazine - the name evades me now but maybe you know the one I
mean??? A very high quality piece of software - an excellant
demonstration to any beginner to the coupe world (and still damn
good if you've been in it as long as me!)
Disc two is a collection of the pair's demos and what I feel
is the best disc overall. There is a slideshow of 10 screens but
unfortunately, they're all in the "ultimate slideshow" as well..
. if you get / have got the SAMCO demo, there is a picture of a
spinning coupe - another demo on disc 2 is almost the same
except it's more colourful and has a scrolly. Now we come to the
really good part. "Speed Screen" is a 32 colour screen rolling
about (like on Sphera) but with a scrolly!!! "Speedy Demo" is ..
.. incredibly fast. It's a scrolly but you simply cannot imagine
what speed it goes at until you've seen it - and it's smooth and
3
perfectly clear as well (well, the few seconds you see of it is
!!)
Did any of you splash out the £2 for the SCPDSA demo? if you
did you'll know and love the music demos on it. One of these has
been faithfully reproduced in BASIC! And as if that wasn't
enought they've got not one,not two but THREE full screen
scrollys going all at the same time (with the music as well)
Pretty amazing really.
The last demo is the "Robocop demo". Using a customised screen
similar to that on EDITION 2, you've got more brilliant music
(which, I've just discovered is the one on "It's magic" - you
lucky people!!!)
Item three ("the ultimate slide show") consists of two discs
-each having 32 screens on them. Unfortunately, I'd seen 90%
percent of them before (mainly on that famous Scottish magazine
and Sam Supplement - but if you only get one (or none!?!) of
them you'll find some utterly amazing screens on there. Pity
they're not original (now that Scottish 'zine - it would never
do anything like that, No sirree!)
4
The last disc I've been sent is "The Best Of FRED" and by
golly I've just remembered the name of that Scottish rag mag...
This disc features the best programs from issues one to eight of
FRED (although there's nothing from issues one or two!). There's
TETRIS, SILLY DEMO 1, HUNCHY DEMO, CHOCOLATE FACTORY, GRAB
DEMOS, TRIP-A-TRON, MEGA MUSIC, MAGNIFIER, FREDBASE and a dozen
or so of the best piccies. Obviously this is not a disc for the
long term FRED readers (all three of you!) but for the newer
readers (well, that's 157 at least!) it's pretty good.
Each of the items cost £2.50 with cheques/POs payable to Neil
Holmes. For limited special offer see demo.
The address is : [redacted]
And if enough of you say you saw this in FRED and buy the
"Best Of FRED" disc, they might do more stuff for FRED in the
future!!!
Andy -J- 007 DISC DOCTOR 1
G.A.BOBKER £9.95(£12.95)
This was the first utility that I brought for my Coupe,which
has just had it's first birthday!(Happy Birthday to you....)
007 Disc Doctor is supplied on 3.5 disc and consists of 5
programs,Disc-Doctor,Sector Editor,Close-Up,Exchange and Mapit.
If you pay another three quid you also get a Snap Compressor! I
will tell you about the five(six)programs in turn.
Disc-Doctor:-
This I think is the most useful program of them
all.You can Erase,Unerase and Rename your programs on disc.This
may not sound like much,but it is very very useful.Sure you can
Erase and Rename files from Basic but this program makes life a
lot simpler,and quicker because it asks for file number,and not
name.Any way can your Coupe normally Unerase files? (easily if
you bought FRED6! CM)
Sector Editor:- 2
This program allows you to inspect any byte on
your disc.An example in the manual is for you to put your name
in a high score table!When you know what byte you want to change
you just have to press "A" for alter.This gives you a sub-menu
which allows you to change in Hex or ASCII or toggle to the next
half sector,as the display shows 256 bytes at a time.There is
also an option allowing you to Zap out the current sector.This
temporarily allows you to rescue a disc,when it is corrupted,
saving all those valuable files.This then allows you to copy the
corrupted disc and then reformat it with no loss of files.
Luckily I have had no corrupted discs with valuable files on.
Close-Up:-
This allows you to close up your directories.What
this means is that if you're sure you don't want your erased
files,you can get rid of them totally.If your directory looks
like the following........
3
1 MASTERDOS 1 MASTERDOS
2 AUTO After a Close-Up it will 2 AUTO
6 LOOK LIKE look like this.... 3 LOOK LIKE
20 BOB'S BOOK 4 BOB'S BOOK
something I find very useful.
Exchange:-
This program allows you to change the position of
files in the directory.
Mapit:-
This program allows you to Map a program on your disc.
It shows the file name,type,total number of sectors used and the
first track and sector used by the by the program.You can then
do a full map showing all of the sectors used.
Snap Compressor:-
I have never had a full chance to use this
because at around the same time I got SAMTAPE 2.
4
The five programs are well worth the £10 asking price.If you
use the "Official" emulator and want to save space on your discs
then I think it would worth paying the extra three quid.
007 DISC DOCTOR is avaliable from...
G.A.BOBKER, The prices are £9.95 or £12.95 for
[redacted] Snap compressor as well.
A set of utilities well worth the asking price.
One last thing,this is not mentioned in the manual,but if you
accidentally press ESCape,type in "GO TO 999" which will return
you to the main menu.
Review by Andy Jones. I (CM!) felt that this did make disc
editing easier but it can all be done in BASIC without it....
THE ONE MEGABYTE UPGRADE 1
At last, we've got something to better the Amiga owners - a
maximum of four and a half megabytes (using a SAMbus). For £80
you get a small white box which fits onto the Euroconnector at
the back of your coupe. The box actually looks exactly the same
as the printer interface but I can assure you, they have
entirely different insides.
Unfortunatly, if you don't plan on having to back up your
discs or copy the amount the likes of me has to then the Meg has
very limited uses at the moment. It is ideal for copying discs
because, using masterDOS, you simply backup an entire disc into
the memory and copy it out onto as many discs as you want - In
about 50 seconds!
At present, I do know that the Top Gun demo has to use the Meg
but apart from that and the few utilities in SAM Supplement, it
will tend to be pretty idle for a while. The main problem is
that it's external memory (rather than internal) which means
that you can't access it normally like the address 32768 etc but
it must be possible somehow...
2
Another great feature of the Meg is that it is practically
instant - you can bung a whole load of files in it eg a
multi-loader game and it will load them up , when required ,
quicker than you subscribe to FRED.
Altogether, this is a very handy device in general but if you
will only be using it occasionally then £80 is a bit steep.
Hopefully, we'll see some more demos come out for the Meg only
which would make it very attractive (even more so than me!)
I said it would cost £80 - it does. But to "make full use" of
it you have to buy masterDOS for £15. What they mean is that
some clever dick might be able to use it from SAMDOS - but you
can't so you'll have to buy masterDOS as well. But that's a
completely different review altogether.
Order yours for £79.95 from : SAM COMPUTERS LTD.,
[redacted]
mention FRED- you
know it makes sense.
ENCELADUS 3 1
Although it was only last month that I "reviewed" Encel 2,
they were almost two months apart - Encel 2 just missed ish 7
and this one only just got in,in time!
Enceladus is advertised as a magazine - but it isn't, it does
cover some news but when he doesn't even know when the next
issue will be out, it's more a competition to EDITION which is
the only reason it is reviewed rather then just mentioned (like
magazines are)
This is growing more and more into a utility magazine so if
it's just more stuff like FRED you're after then it's not so
interesting. But as far as programs go it's pretty well done -
this month there is a vertical modeswitcher which is very
effective (the horizontal was in Encel 2).
I was going to put on a demo of "balls" - a type of bat and
ball game except it's played with branches and heads- on but it
turned out, he's sent it to some other PD places so I wasn't
going to bore you lot with "old" stuff. The demo was good but
the finished version refused to let me play it.....
As if there weren't enough databases about, here's another,
called RELION FILE it's possibly one of the better ones but
nothing to the likes of SC_FILER. One new thing on this disc is
an accountant style program - you enter all your basic
transactions for every day and it works out the balance at the
end of it all - simple but useful if you've got a lot of
dealings in cash (unfortunately, I didn't have any reason to use
it a lot!)
The "magazine" bit is about 20 pages long and covers some good
points, mainly technical and most of them have been in FRED.
Although when you load it up, your coupe yells out "Enceladus
for the Sam Coupe"!!! not bad at all Graham!
As always, there is a mandlebrot show. Unfortunatley, these
are now getting pretty boring after the third time - although
they're different each time, I THINK!
For the first time there is an advert section - with one
advert for a PD library!!!!!
And CONTACT's water demo is also on the disc which was great
the first time but since it's been around for 8 months, it's
getting pretty old.
Altogether, I would recommend you give Encel a try although
the price (£3.99) is still steep, especially for a "magazine".
There are always a few bits and bobs of interest and it's always
nicely presented with good graphics and one or two other neat
touches that are missing from FRED because I'm hard pushed to do
the magazine at all, so I don't have any spare time at all.
If you want to give it a whirl send £3.99 to Graham Burtenshaw
at 6 Rawlins avenue, Worle, Weston Super Mare, Avon, BS22 OFN.
Remember that I sent you and they also do some hardware things
so it's worth enquiring about that as well.
After enquiring where I got my labels done, Graham ordered
some from the same place and because of that, the guy ran out of
labels so I've got to wait for them to get this issue out.
Another interesting fact you may wish to know is that it was
me that told SAMCO about Enceladus - they hadn't heard of him
till I gave them him address!!!! Just thought I'd let you know
how generous I am to my "competitors"
MasterDOS 1
Written by Dr Andy Wright, author of SAM BASIC and BETA BASIC
on the good old Speccy, this is yet another step closer to "the
better computers". In fact, I prefer this to MS-DOS! Why?
because it's user-friendly, giving reasonably helpful error
messages and you don't have to read through a 300-page novel to
know how to use it, I will admit now that I havn't read one of
the MS-DOS "handbooks".
What you do get is a 40-page manual which covers everything
you need to know, including the VERY basics - how to load and
save and which drive is drive one, all accompanied with little
comments like "You can hide files too." and "Lets rename the..."
You get my drift? Yes, it covers the very simplest of ideas and
definetely covers the more complicated ones as well, I would
list some but there simply wasn't better words other than those
used (OK,OK I got lost - It could happen to anyone!)
Possibly the best feature of MasterDOS is the ability to be
able to create sub-directories - that is, a directory within a
directory or 254 directories, each within one another!!!!!
MasterDOS 2
Using MasterDOS you apparently get faster disc accesses ie it
takes less time to load or save something but obviously unless
you're shifting 100's of K about then you will notice very
little difference - still,every little helps.
It also allows you to set up your memory as RAMdiscs so that
you can store files in memory and do whatever you like with them
in a fraction of the usual time - which is what I use for FRED.
The command DIR$ prints out the directory so by using LET
A$=DIR$ you can store your directory in a variable and search
through it etc.
When you normally boot MD up, if you have any files like
"FRED.TAS" it displays it as "FRED .TAS" but will only load
from the original name. Very annoying, luckily you can switch
this feature off with a Drive variable.
If you happen to have purchased either the Meg or the Bus then
you will have to buy this - it allows you to manipulate the Meg
to store what you want and by using the real time clock on the
bus you can use MD so that whenever you save a file, the date
and time will be saved with it!
MasterDOS 3
And as if you don't already have enough with all that, you've
got OPENTYPE files and serial files - like sequential files on
MS-DOS I believe.
You can now mess about with a staggering 47 drive variables
which can do all sorts of wierd and wonderful things. Not only
that but you now also get file and drive status which enables
you to know extactly what's going on.
The only problem I've encountered is that the format command
doesn't work properly - after formatting, it tells me I've got
815K left and won't run the DOS any more.........
This is a substantial upgrade from SAMDOS and well worth £15
of anybodies money - even mine. It caters for all sorts of
people (even FREDitors!) and is very easy and simple to use.
Get your now for only £14.95 from SAMCO
Remember to mention FRED - if you don't, I don't get told any
news because they'll think I don't have any readers.
Machine Code Tutorial #4
Howdy all! Yes, 'tis I again - The Wizard ( known as genius to
my friends ). How are you all doing with your assemblers and
this series of articles? Is there anyone reading this at all?
'Cos if there isn't I might as well pack up and go home.
Oh well, that's enough grumbling for 1 issue. On with the show..
A LTTLE BIT MORE ABOUT PORTS & SOME ROUTINES
============================================
I'm rapidly running out of ideas for this column, y'know. So
it's back to ports I'm afraid. Last time we looked at the memory
management ports, which are the most frequently used in SAM
machine coding. Today I'll share some little routines to help
this memory managment, and a wee key-scanning jobbie. So,
onwards we go....
Firstly, here are some routines which will page either the
screen or ROM0/system variables into 0-7FFF :-
SCREEN_IN IN A,(LMPR) ; Let's store the current status
LD (LMPRSTORE),A ; of LMPR in a store.
IN A,(VMPR) ; Get the screen page number.
AND %00011111 ; Chop of unwanted bits.
OR %00100000 ; Make sure ROM is switched off.
OUT (LMPR),A ; Switch it into 0-7FFF.
RET
SCREEN_OUT LD A,(LMPRSTORE) ; Get whatever LMPR was before we
OUT (LMPR),A ; switched in the screen and put
RET ; it back.
ROM0_IN IN A,(LMPR) ; Store the status of LMPR.
LD (LMPRSTORE),A
LD A,%00011111 ; Put page 31* into 0-3FFF and
OUT (LMPR),A ; switch on ROM0.
RET
ROM0_OUT JP SCREEN_OUT
* By putting page 31 into this section of memory, we put page 0
into the next 16k section. We do this because ROM0 expects the
system variables (page 0) to be here. Page 31 is covered with
the ROM so is not affected.
These little routines are small and simple but are esential
when you are writing a large piece of code with lots of memory
swapping needed. If you prefer, the routines could be altered to
fiddle with upper memory - it all depends where your calling
code is located.
By the way, if you missed the last issue (where were you?)
LMPR is port 250 and VMPR is port 252. LMPRSTORE can be any
single byte address.
Now, here's a small keyboard and joystick scanning routine
you can fit to any game or utility. I wrote it eons ago for the
Spectrum and it hasn't been updated, so only keys common to both
computers are tested. Incidentally, the ROM's interupts scan
the keyboard costantly and a bit-map of them is produced in page
0 at 5BEE-5BFF. Most of my programs run without interupts ( to
avoid continuously DI and EI-ing ) so this routine is required.
KSCAN LD BC,#0600
KS1 LD A,(HL)
RRA
RRA
RRA
AND %00001111
LD E,A
LD D,0
LD A,(HL)
INC HL
PUSH HL
LD HL,PORTADD
ADD HL,DE
LD D,A
PUSH BC
LD B,(HL)
LD C,254
IN A,(C)
CPL
KS2 LD E,A
POP BC
POP HL
LD A,D
AND %00000111
JR Z,KS4
KS3 RR E
DEC A
JR NZ,KS3
KS4 RR E
RL C
DJNZ KS1
RET
PORTADD DB 247,251,253,254,224,191,127
There you go - there are no comment lines because I want you
to work out how it , um, works all by yourself. I WILL tell you,
however, that when you call the routine, HL must point to a
table of values that correspond to the keys you are testing. On
exit each bit of C is HI if that particular key was pressed,
otherwise it is LO.
Each value in the table you point HL to is formed from by
taking the row number (see below), multipling it by 8 and adding
the distance the key is from the edge (0-4).
ROW No.s : 1-5 = 0 6-0 = 4 [ REMEMBER, this applies
Q-T = 1 Y-P = 5 to the speccy keyboard
A-G = 2 H-ret = 6 layout. ]
shft-V = 3 B-spc = 7
For example:-
LD HL,KEY_TABLE
CALL KSCAN
.
. rest of code
.
.
KEY_TABLE DB 52,41,40,08,16,56 ; values
↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑
H O P Q A spc ; corresponding keys
↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑ ↑
5 4 3 2 1 0 ; BIT no. of C
That's it for this month, folks. I'll be back in FRED 10 with:
* ROM routines - how to use them in your own progies.
* MATHS in m/c - everything from quadratics to straight lines.
* Putting together a game - part 1 of SPACE INVADERS !!!
I have to go now to finish my English homework so I'll say
goodbye and au revoir!