Description
Issue 10
| Item | Author | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Menu | Ian Slavin | |
| Magazine | Garner Designs interview | |
| Freviews | Quizball, Sound sampler, Highway Code, GM-Base | |
| Screen$ | Dan Dooré | Piccys |
| Home world | Ian Slavin | Strategy game |
| Stom | Ian Slavin | Puzzle game |
| Encounters | Ian Slavin | Humorous demo |
| DJ nicko! | Nick Roberts | Demos |
| MC pt 5 | Steve Taylor | Search: “MC 5” ROM routines, maths functions in MC |
| Tweety Demo | David Gommeren | Machine code demo and game. |
| Trip-a-tron 2 | Ian Slavin | Colour-cycling effects |
| Multi worm | Andy Monk | Colour-cycling pattern creator |
| Insert 2 | Brent Stevens | Selection of “multiface” pokes |
| IQ test | Frode Tennebø | Tests IQ level |
| Disc numberer | Andrew Jones | Numbers discs |
| Fx creator | Paul Kelly | Create sound effects |
| Menu creator | William McGugan | Create professional-looking menus |
| Hypno 2 | Dan Dooré | Colour-cycling effects |
| Earth | Paul Finn | Revolving earth |
Magazine
THE FREDITORIAL 1
Oh my God! What an eventful month! I can at last say that FRED
is becoming (slowly as it may be) fairly big. Following superb
sales (for me!) at the Show there are the orders from the SCPDSA
- wow! I've just bought (from my own pocket) 500 discs, 600
labels and 200 stamps (first class - of course) and even that is
rapidly disappearing (on Sunday I posted 97 discs - I would have
posted more but I ran out of discs AND labels!)
I've got EXCLUSIVE news on a hot (very,very hot) new piece
of software coming out, unfortunately it was so hot I couldn't
print it lest it burn the disc - next issue I should have heat
resistant discs (and EXCLUSIVE details,piccies and probably an
interview with the programmer!!!!). Not bad for a Scot eh? SAMCO
are currently in discussion with Domark (again!) about this and
some other titles. I should have all the details squeezed out of
them by next issue though.....
Please take note : I have exams (4 highers and an O grade!)
during May so DO NOT EXPECT any form of written reply as you
WILL NOT get one, I may or may not be able to sort out orders so
THE FREDITORIAL 2
please bear with me and don't expect the next day service I have
generally offered so far (with the exception of December when
things went WAY, WAY out of hand and I was swamped with orders
(around 12 each day for 2 months each ordering between 1 and 20
issues!). I will try to keep things under the control as best I
can (it just depends where abouts in the exams I am)
As I do like to keep up a good service I will welcome (as I
have always done) phone calls- preferably over the weekend.
Especially if you have any brain-stormingly amazing ideas for
the further development of the FRED enterprise (!?)
However, looking past these trivial obstructions to the
running of FRED, things should be getting BIG over summer - see
elsewhere for details and if you don't think any ideas are not
good ones (or you think they are particularly good) then let me
know (I will be extremely grateful but don't expect a reply for
a few weeks!)
I am very desperate for material for the double issue (11 -
due out in 2 months) so get famous, get well-known, get eternal
fame, get programming!
ANOTHER BERRILIANT INTERVIEW 3
This time I snatched a few answers from Daniel Garner of
Garner Designs, New Aspects (who did Pipemania) and now the
hottest new magazine since this morning - Sinclair And Sam
Computing. The first issue of S&SC came out at the Show and you
can get the first issue for £2 from Garner Designs, 57 Lovers
Walk, Dunstable , Beds , LU5 4BG. Normally it's subscription
only which is cheaper but this is for the first issue only.
And what an issue it is! S&SC covers mainly the coupe with a
fair bit on the old Spectrums and two pages (out of 48!) for the
QL (remember it?) In this issue there are 3 pages of news,mostly
coupe orientated, a report on the February Show report (without
a mention of FRED (huh!), a full review of MasterDOS, a PD
update by Brent Stevens (SCPDSA), letters, articles on Ram
paging, modems etc as well as plenty of plugs for their own
products and plenty of adverts (mainly the same ones who
advertise in FORMAT!!). Issue two is due out on the 19th April
and details of a games magazine are also to be found.
After that huge plug in return for the interview, here's the
actual thing (about time too!)
Daniel Garner Interview 4
CM - You said you were the producer for Pipemania - what exactly
is that?
DG - Well, I've got another company , called New Aspects
Computing. We're doing a lot of program development at the
moment and somebody sent us a demo of a Spectrum game which
was like Pipemania. We said we simply couldn't publish it
because the one on the Spectrum was already just about to
come out. I said we may be able to sort something out for
the SAM version, so I got them to make up a demo and I
heard that ENIGMA were doing a lot of SAM stuff so we
approached them with it, they in turn approached Empire to
get the licence. Shortly after that the contracts were
signed and we set about programming Pipemania and we
finished in November.
CM - So were you actually programming it?
DG - No, I actually produced it,I did some work on it but a
programmer called Wayne Haye did all the work on it. I
don't think you'd have heard of him before - It's the first
thing he's ever done. We also had some help from Chris
Daniel Garner Interview 5
White who's standing over there. So that's basically how it
was. When we said we couldn't do this Spectrum version they
were a bit down-hearted but we managed to get something out
of it for them and the games's been doing really well - it
looks more or less identical to the ST version. We sent
Wayne up to Enigma for a week to make sure everything was
identical to the ST version.
CM - Are you happy with the game? Do you think it's the best it
could've been?
DG - It's not the best it could've been - there's a few features
that're not in it - there isn't a bonus screen which was a
bit of an afterthought, we would've liked to get that in
but Enigma needed to get it out quick because it had been
dragging on for a while.
CM - What plans do you have for the future?
DG - Well we were going to be doing more stuff for Enigma but
now we're not. We're hoping to do more things like serious
software for the SAM. At the moment I've got someone doing
a Hypertext system which sort of mimmicks HyperCard on the
Daniel Garner Interview 6
Apple Macintosh. It will be called HyperScipt and will be
ready in a month/two months.
CM - So will that be released under your own label?
DG - That will be released on Garner Designs. GD is the serious
side, New Aspects is the software development - not just
for the Sam Coupe, we do ST and other 8 bits as well.
CM - Why did you start up Sinclair and SAM Computing?
DG - We've been running the +3 user group since July '89 and
there's been a substantial growth in that but after Amstrad
killed off the +3 there was a decrease in the number of new
members we were getting and a slight decrease in the number
of re-subscriptions from existing members. We decided to
broaden the horizons we were aiming at so we expanded the
magazine substantially so we could aim at ALL Spectrum
users,SAM users and QL users and after four or five months
of planning, S&SC was the result.
CM - Are you going to try and keep it equal between all the
computers or tend towards or away from certain machines?
DG - Well, that really depends - the Spectrum is experiencing a
Daniel Garner Interview 7
downgrowth at the moment , everything's going down -
Spectrum sales and everything. Whether that will recuperate
in any way, whether that's a sign of the financial whatever
but because there's so many Spectrum users then there's
always going to be a Spectrum content for 2 years maybe.
But the SAM at the moment is going up at a great rate so
the SAM content will grow as the machine grows and the QL
will have 3/4 pages for the first 4 issues with later maybe
a page each issue. The QL won't be a major part of the
magazine though.
CM - What articles do you plan on including that you haven't in
this first issue?
DG - Basically everything apart from games! Games free zone,
there will be no games in the magazine at all really. There
is a few mentions of games in the first issue but apart
from that there won't be any in future issues. There will
be serious articles, programming articles, tutorials, that
sort of thing , serious software reviews. For the games
we've got another magazine which the first issue is in the
Daniel Garner Interview 8
later stages of planning - should go into print next week
actually and it's called Games Xtra. It's for games users
on the Spectrum and SAM coupe. It should start off with
about 30 pages mainly of games reviews. We were hoping to
get it out by the 6th of April but we know know that won't
be achieved we're just too busy at the moment but it will
be the week after that though - definitely.
CM - Both the magazines will be monthly?
DG - Yes, both will be monthly. S&SC will be the end of each
month and Games Xtra will be betwenn the beginning and
middle of each month.
CM - What's your favourite game on the coupe? Apart from
Pipemania!
DG - I must admit, I don't really like games. I think Quizball
is looking very good. Sphera looks very good - like the SAM
coupe's Xenon.
CM - What do you think of the quality of the games in general
on the coupe so far?
DG - very wideranging I think - some of them are good, some of
Daniel Garner Interview 9
them are bad. Most of them ,I'm pleased to say, are good -
they're getting a lot better - Sphera was good from a
technical aspect, Pipemania was good...
CM - OK, I believe you!
DG - No,really, it was good from a technical aspect - it was the
first game to be actually converted from another version.
The graphics were virtual ports over. There is a lot of
scope from now on - on Klax for example, I know that the
graphics are from the Amiga version. Conversion-wise there
is a lot of scope but as for original programs that's up to
the individual programmer.
CM - Which programmers do you admire in the software industry?
DG - At the moment, for all computers - Dave Jones who works for
DMA designs. He's just releases "Lemmings". You know
Lemmings? You've never heard of Lemmings? Where've you
been!?! It's out on the Amiga and he's the programmer who's
getting the most out of the machine at the moment.
Thanks go to Daniel Garner for doing this interview and I
wish him the best of luck in the future.
Memory Saving On Just One Program 10
Paul Finn sent in a demo of the Earth rotating recently which
I rather liked. Unfortunately it took up over 65K and used 90
lines in SAM Basic!! Being the mean old git I am I put my few
skills into action and saved some (gorgeous damsels? - No)
memory (oooh I don't think). Paul had saved a screen of stars as
a screen$ file (taking up 24K) so I used FLASH! to get the
co-ordinates and colour of every star and wrote a few lines to
produce the same effect (just list the program - it's the line
with hundreds of data statements). Next I decided to cut down
his program length - he had repeated several lines (for rolling
the stars) every time he PUT one of the 13 images of the Earth!
All I needed to do was make the program jump to these lines
every time - no probs! What would have been better would have
been to use KEYIN to create the different PUT lines each time
instead of having 13 different lines - unfortunately my coupe
didn't let me do it!! As it turns out, the program now takes up
38K and only 25 lines and it almost does exactly the same - not
bad at all! If anyone else out there is a human program
compressor then I'd love to hear from you...
CLASSIFIEDS 11
* Does anyone want a "Spectrum 48K+ colour doormat, with over
175 games, speech synthesiser, sound sampler, ZX printer,
Interface 1, two microdrives, joystick interface, coffee stains
and more for £150" then phone Alex Eichhorn on [redacted]
* Spectrum games wanted!!!! System 15000 (AVS),Strangeloop
(Virgin) ,Potty Pidgeon, Beaver Bob, TinderBox, Rocco &
Profanation (all by Gremlin Graphics - yes I collect their
games!), 4th Protocol (?), Fantastic Voyage/Blood 'n' Gutz
(Quicksilva) , any of the YESOD games (THOR), ALIEN 8 (Ultimate)
,Hacker (Activision), Juggernaut (CRL). If they're already
backup up to coupe disc I'd appreciate that AS WELL AS THE
ORIGINAL (no piracy here!). Contact me, with prices,at FRED!
* Does anyone have any really old issues of CRASH (like between
1 and 15)? And I really need the old CRASH binders as well. If
you have any of these please contact me,CM (again) at the usual
address (on the back of your disc label!!!!)
* FREE ADVERTS - send your classified ads to FRED (on disc only)
for inclusion in next possible issue. The editor (me!) has the
write to delete/edit any adverts as neccessary!
NEXT MONTH - FRED11 12
From June 2nd, FRED issue 11 will be available. Not only that
but it will be a DOUBLE-DISC issue!!! Everyone who has
subscribed for issue 11 will get the first disc and I will knock
one issue of the end of subscriber's sub and send them both of
the discs. Obviously, if you get part A of issue 11, you can get
part B for the usual £1.
Already lined up are a sliding puzzle game, a MASSIVE game
- Regular readers can guess who it'll be from (NWB??? - ooops
gave it away!), I should have a demo or two of some forthcoming
releases from yours truely.
Up for review will be a game I can't mention the name of,
Flexibase, Escape from the Planet Of The Robot Monsters, F-16,
Spelling Attack and possibly Klax and Kick Off 2. Told you it's
a bumper issue!
If certain pieces of software get released there'll be mega
competitions for FRED readers with loadsa games and special
offers up for grabs.
More of the usual graphic demos are on line (yes, even more
from AXE!!). And of course, all the boring stuff...
OOOOOOOOPS - I've done it again! 13
Apparentely in issue 6 there was a wee (I love Scottish words
don't you?) bug in the Diary program (Thanks to Miss A. & Mr.
Campbell (boo hiss!) and Ron Smith). To solve it just follow
these instrucions (if you can read that is) :
type LOAD"DIARY" LINE 65000
add :SAVE"DATE"DATA D() to the end of line 645
and change line 10045 to read :
LET FC$=CHR$16+CHR$0+I$(TO 2)+CHR$16+CHR$7
re-save it by typing SAVEIT and answer Y at the prompt.
In FRED7, I printed some piccies but had lost the name of the
contributor. He (she?) has owned up to them and it is ..........
Mr E.DYBACZ. Sorry about that E.
In the Colin Jordan interview I printed some of CRASH's
comments about Inspector Flukeit - here are some for Peepingham
which was given an impressive 80% : "colourful graphics" ,
"one very challenging adventure" , "very entertaining, humerous
adventure - Great value". Sorry Colin - I couldn't find it!!!
Do these solutions never end??? 14
For those of you who found less than 14 solutions to the SOME
GAME on issue 9, here they are (coutesy of me at 00:23)
1+2+3+4+5+6+7+8*9 1+2+3-4*5+6*7+8*9 1+2-3*4-5+6*7+8*9
1+2*3+4*5-6+7+8*9 1+2*3*4*5/6+7+8*9 1-2+3*4*5+6*7+8-9
1-2+3*4*5-6+7*8-9 1-2*3+4*5+6+7+8*9 1-2*3-4+5*6+7+8*9
1-2*3-4-5+6*7+8*9 1*2*3+4+5+6+7+8*9 1*2*3-4*5+6*7+8*9
1*2*3*4+5+6+7*8+9 1*2*3*4+5+6-7+8*9
OK, so I only found four by myself - I had to write a program
to find out the other ten (while I watched Vic Reeves and the
last repeat of Absolutely) But I still got them!!
The last two codes for PIPEMANIA are QUID and SAMY. Tip from
Stuart Leonardi and Neil Holmes (and they can't get past level
21 either.... think about it!)
Remember the little number problem last issue ? By leaving my
coupe on for 8 days solid not only did I find the 5 and 6 figure
numbers( 93084 & 548830) but also two 7 digit ones as well!!!
They are 4210818 and 9926315. Impressed huh? (answer YES!)
SO WHAT'S ON THE STUPID DISC AFTER ALL THEN COLIN? 15
Good question - Damn good question. In fact, it's so good I
think I'll answer it (what a good idea).
Not only is there more astounding piccies (courtesy of D
Doore) (with an ad or two slipped in!) but Ian Slavin has been
rushing his little (probably) socks off doing lots and lots of
pwitty pwogwams just for you (OK, so he did them for me but I'm
being generous and letting you see/use/play them). In between
studying for his important exams at college (sounds like
BlockBusters doesn't it?!) Ian has written TWO more games.
The first is HomeWorld which has you deviously luring robots
into all sorts of horrible deaths. Instructions available from
menu - press I.
The second (and most difficult) is Stom. You must flip all the
tiles in the play area in a strict time limit. Not only can you
flip the tiles back to their original colour but you get
obstructions as well! Press I for instructions - not now tho'!!
If you loved the first Trip-a-Tron then you'll be astounded at
the sequal with more fancy patterns,colours and well..whatever
you call its. Again from Ian Slavin.
STOP! STOP! I've had enough of all this amazing stuff! 16
As promised, there are more in the ever popular Encounters
series, this time a girl and lion one. Unfortunately the best of
the three couldn't fit on the disc but maybe next time eh?
I would like to sincerely thank Ian Slavin for his continual
effort for FRED and the best of luck with your exams mate.
He's back by popular demand - it's the man with the leathers,
the reputation, the 500CC bike, the mini metro (oooops) It's
none other than Nick Roberts of FRED (although I believe he
occasionally writes for CRASH as well). This time there is two
demos - one fast and one gorey. I love it!
From the people (so it really should be "person" but it
doesn't sound as good) who FIRST brought you SILLY DEMO 1 and
TETRIS comes another first - the third and final program from
The Lords - Tweety. NOTE TO PD LIBRARIES WHO WILL NICK THIS : I
DON'T MIND BUT JUST SAY THAT IT CAME FROM FRED OK?
Steve Taylor follows up with more adventures into the distant
(to me anyway) land of Machine Code (ahhhh!!).
From Brent Stevens comes yet another 500 pokes to use with
your backed-up Speccy games.
BUT WHERE ON EARTH IS IT COMING FROM? 17
A young man by the name of Andy Monk handed me a disc full of
stuff at the Show and one program which stood out from the rest
was Multi-Worm. Use Q,A,O and P to make a pattern then press
Space to animate it. The rest of the keys are displayed but set
simply allows you to position the cursor where you want before
you start drawing - pressing Return starts you off. It's simple
but very nice!
From Norway comes an IQ-Test. Frode Tennebo (who also sent the
Tweety demo in) has done a nifty little program to test your
intelligence level. Unfortunatly you can only use it once
because the puzzles are the same but I got 142 on my first shot
with 11 and a half minutes left! Beat that (on YOUR FIRST shot!)
As mentioned in another article, there is also a collection of
smaller programs. These include an Earth demo (see another page)
by Paul Finn, a handy disc numberer by Andrew Jones, an FX
creator by Paul Kelly, a hypnotizing demo named HYPNO 2 from Dan
Doore and an informative menu creator from William McGugan.
Also on the disc is a file called "notrandom" which shows how
random numbers and colours aren't random! From Paul Finn.
NO FPC4 - AGAIN! 18
Yup, FPC4 has been delayed again - this time not due to lack
of entries but due to memory! Details in FRED8 if you still wish
to enter (closing date now end of May!) Thanks to the quite a
few people who have sent in entries.
ANOTHER REQUEST FOR PROGRAMS!
Please send in your programs for issue 11. I won't have a lot
of time so the best ones (with little disc space needed) and
ones bug-free will be put on right away.
FONE-FRED?
If you are desperate for news then phone me on April 21st and
I should be able to tell you what that new game is and I should
have a copy of Escape FTPOTRM so I could give you advice on
that. The number is (0382) 534201 and just to keep you informed
it's my birthday on Monday (15th). Happy Birthday to me...Happy
birthday to me...oh sod it! No-one's joining in!
At last - the new development of FRED! 19
As you've all been waiting patiently now , I will tell you
that for a few months I have been planning to release some games
starting from the Summer. Already there are a few games lined up
and I am working on some pretty useful utilities (I won't say
what they are in case someone copies the idea while I'm
studying!).
I am obviously looking for good programs which I can release.
At the moment I have one half of a two pack and I need the other
game fairly quickly.
Payment etc will be sorted out according to the game, how I
sell it and how well it sells.
The games can be in BASIC but they must be very well
presented, not too complicated and well programmed. Don't
worry about protecting them because I have some adequate
protection methods.
The games will cost under £5 but I havn't decided on exact
prices.
But if you want to make some money - get writing a quality
game (if it's not good enough it could go on FRED???)
Colin Jordan's Famous Five solution Story 20
He told me this at the Feb. Show and I thought it might
interest some of you.
One certain player of Famous Five (I don't know his name but
he'd better not be a FRED reader! or else...) wasn't very good
at it so he persistently phoned up ENIGMA and askek how to do a
certain bit he was stuck on. As you can imagine, Enigma got
slightly annoyed with this so just sent him the full solution
which Colin Jordan had originally written for them. After he got
this complete solution the guy decided to get his name in print
and sent it in to Nick Robert's Playing Tips. It got published
(along with an incorrect map!) and as you can imagine Colin
Jordan wasn't too chuffed - seeing his exact words in print at
the glory of someone else. In actual fact, that wasn't what
annoyed Colin so much as that it spoiled everyone else's
enjoyment of the game because after reading CRASH (as I'm sure
you all do) they knew how to complete it.
Not that there's anything wrong with solutions being published
it's just they should (tut tut Nick!) wait until people have
committed suicide in frustration.
Another magazine advert! 21
This time for that already hugely successful magazine FORMAT.
Following a little exchange of magazines we did at the last Show
I thought I'd keep you up to date on what's happening with the
"competition" - they've only got 20 times my readership!(4500)
Starting from the April issue (due out any day now) Brent
Stevens will be writing updates on his SCPDSA ie doing reviews
on the latest PD stuff etc
The four year old magazine covers the serious side of
computing for the SAM and Spectrum with articles on all sorts of
topics with help pages, reviews, program listings and full
explanations as well as lots of special offers and adverts from
lots of coupe companies to keep you up to date on all the latest
developments.
By sending off £12 you become a member of INDUG (INDependant
User Group) which gives you special reductions on software and
lets you phone the INDUG hotline for instant advice on almost
anything - free!
Contact FORMAT at : [redacted]
THE CREDITS PAGE 22
I would like to thank the following :
Ian Slavin (about 6 times!) Nick Roberts
Steve "wizard" Taylor Frode Tennebo
The Lords (again!) Brent "SCPDSA" Stevens
Andy Monk Andy Jones
Paul Kelly Paul Finn
Dan Doore William McGugan
Daniel Garner Colin Jordan and all at SAMCO
ENIGMA everyone I met at the Show
Remember send £2 for your double-disc issue 11 of FRED by the
second of June 1991 (cheques payable to FRED - guess who's got a
buisness account now?!)
[redacted] [redacted]
over weekends
Reviews
Sound Sampler - Blue Alpha , £44 1
When I first saw the Sampler I was a bit put off at the price
but as soon as I was given a demonstration of it's capabilities
my mind was made up - It was a must!
For your money you get the interface, a microphone (so you can
feel cool but look daft speaking into your coupe!), a detailed
manual which covers all the problems I came across (and if you
knew me, you'd know that'd be quite a few!) and a disc which has
a straightforward program on it to allow you to use the sampler
easily. The program also detects all extra memory added on and
uses it if neccessary.
Before you record something, you are supposed to "monitor" it
first - this allows you to see if the sample is at too low or
high a volume (in general the higher the volume, the higher the
quality of the sample but if you go too high the sample will be
distorted).
Once you have recorded your sample you can start enjoying it!
The sampler is soooooo clever that not only can it play the
samples slower or faster (or even at normal speed!) and play
just the bits of it you want to hear (only with additional
SAM Sound Sampler 2
memory on board) but you can play them backwards!!! (and yes,
the Madonna thing does work - play the start of True Blue
backwards and listen to her praising Satan!). So if you felt
like it, you could play the (fabulous) Inspiral Carpets
backwards, at double the speed and only the first second of it!)
As I mentioned before you do also get a groovey blue
microphone with the pack. Unfortunately, it only works if you
practically swallow it and yell at the top of your voice. OK, so
I exagerated a bit - it doesn't have to be the top of your
voice, I suppose the bottom is just as loud - or maybe even
louder!?! I give up!
Another very useful feature of the sampler is that you can
play samples back from within your own programs! By poking
special addresses (fully detailed in manual) you can manipulate
them just as with the program so whenever a key is pressed you
can get MC Hammer shouting - "U can't touch this"! In fact, it's
quite effective. Anyone see the MC Hammer film "Please don't
hurt 'em Hammer" on Friday? Anyway, back to the review...
SAM Sound Sampler 3
When you initially get your sampler you will have to alter
some screws in the back of it (don't worry - you can't go wrong
and it tells you to do it in the manual) (anyone spot about half
the two lettered words all in a row there?) (and they're not
actually screws - there potentiometers which is something like a
variable resistor I believe) ( no more brackets now I promise)
The sampler guzzles up your memory at a fair rate - using 18K
per second which doesn't give you much on a 256 machine but
still plenty to play with. But if you have,like me, wisely
invested in a Megabyte you'll be pleased that it can use that
but not so pleased once you realise that you can only plug one
in at a time without using the SAMbus (another £50!).
This is an essential piece of equipment especially when you
can get better quality samples than the Kim Wilde demo!!!!
Order yours now at the special price of £44 when you mention
FRED from : Blue Alpha Electronics,
[redacted], or phone for more details
between 2 & 4pm on
No Way Back - Masters of Magic , £2.50 1
Anyone who heard their ten great tunes on FRED7, played the
entire level one of No Way Back on FRED8 or heard/watched the
demo on FRED9 will know that these guys are no beginners to high
quality programs on the coupe - mostly developed in Basic!!
This game is no exception, if you played the level in FRED8
then you will be familiar with the look and feel of this - It
loads up with a nice introduction with fabulous music and goes
on to the menu (with another tune!).
The graphics have been completely re-hashed and so you get a
different ship, setting and set of aliens on each of the
(massive) levels.
The actual gameplay hasn't changed much since the exclusive
one level demo but it feels smoother. Unfortunately, if you
played the demo to death (like me!) then you will be instantly
pretty good at this game (despite what some of the 25 "death"
messages might say!).
The wave forms of the aliens are not random but they change
three times a level so it would take an awful lot of playing to
memorise them!
NO WAY BACK 2
The whole game is extremely well presented with neat graphics
and sound and runs fast for BASIC but still not fast enough to
please some people.. If you ever get good enough to complete it
(or cheat, like I did!) you will get a very nice effect of a
couple of scrollers with some nice graphics (try reading two
scrollers at once when they're going in different directions!)
A bug which annoyed me was that if you select joystick and
play the game, once you die (which you will) the menu goes back
to keyboard, not joystick.
This is quite a playable little game but it is fairly similar
to the demo on FRED8, still for only £2.50 you can't go far
wrong.
Send your cheques for £2.50 to : Neil Holmes,
[redacted]
and you MUST mention FRED.
Quizball - Revelation , £10.99 1
One of the first two releases from SAMCO's new software wing
is this quiz game - first released at the All Formats Show on
23rd March.
As I've said a couple of times before now, Quizball is based
on the same idea as DLT's Snooker On The Radio and the Spectrum
game - BreakPoint (later released on a CRASH tape). You have to
answer a question and if you get it right, you "pot" a red ball.
You then choose a colour (the higher the colour, the less time
you have but the more points you could get) and so on until
you've potted all the the reds. Then, just as in real snooker,
you start to pot the colours in order. What could be more
simple?
With a one player game, you keep answering questions until you
get two wrong (or missed two balls) and in a two player, you
swap turns whenever one person gets a question wrong until all
the balls are potted and the person with the highest score at
the end wins.
QUIZBALL 2
There isn't really many ways in which this game can be
"different" if you know what I mean. If you get a question right
the ball goes straight in the pocket and if you get it wrong it
bounces round the side once or twice without going in.
The gameplay is pretty simple, you have 5 keys. 4 of them are
to select the right answer out of the four available and the
fifth is a "fire" button to select colours etc.
Once a colour is selected, you are told what category it is
and if it's something like history you can reject it but can
only substitute it with a ball worth more (less time). Unless of
course you picked black in the first place.
The graphics (mostly done by Neil Holmes) are pretty neat - as
your turn begins you see the SAM character (as seen in SAM
Strikes Out) walking up to the table, stretching up and cueing
up - brilliant! Another nice touch was that instead of simply a
timer (as the arcade machines have - not that I'd know of
course!) you have all 22 balls (15 reds,6 colours and the cue)
in a column and a cue hits one ball away every fraction of a
second and all the others fall down one space....Very original.
QUIZBALL 3
There are three tunes (as done by none other than Stuart
Leonardi) in the game. One as you start a game, one when you are
about to pot a ball and the best one of all is when your game is
over. The music is very fast and very well done.
The program was done by Dave Tonks (DATON) and a guy whose
name appears as KEPUR on the credit bit (apparently he was the
one who entered in the 1500 (I think) questions. It actually
says on the packaging that there are "over 2000" questions but I
happen to know otherwise....
This is a very slick, playable, well presented and enjoyable
game in general. A fantastic start to the new label. The only
fault I could find was that the disc has to be kept in
throughout the game - it does actually say it on the menu but
it's orange on green which is not the best combination of
colours to read.
I suppose it's not really a fault but on the disc is a
question editor which allows you to create your own questions
for use in the actual game but (here's the fault!) because of
the program and protection on the disc, you can't edit the
QUIZBALL 4
questions supplied on the disc. Unless of course you happen to
be a master hacker and program editor (in case you didn't guess,
I did manage to do it.....)
There's really nothing else I can add to that except I would
strongly to advise you to get this.
Order it from Revelation at : SAMCO,
for £10.99 [redacted]
Cheques payable to SAM Computers Ltd and if you want it to
arrive super-dooper quick you'll say I sent you.
Highway Code - Revelation , £10.99 1
There is always one easy way to confuse me : make me think
that educational games are for young children trying to learn to
spell or count and then tell me they're for helping me to drive!
Well, that's the case with Highway Code - the second release
from Revelation.
Originally programmed by David E. Philpot (an "educational
psychologist" !) in 1984 this educational piece of software is
to help people pass their driving test!
The whole thing is split into two main sections, the first
being road traffic signs. In this section you are presented with
a menu from which you can select several different ways of
viewing all 90 (!) signs. These include relaxed in which signs
and their meanings are displayed one at a time and a key is
pressed to move on, random viewing : as above but in random
order, and two "describe" modes. The describe meaning prints the
sign then after a key is pressed the meaning comes up. Describe
signs is just vice versa. Both modes allow you to keep a manual
tally of your score. There is also a few testing facilities -
complete test just takes you through all 90 signs on a multiple
HIGHWAY CODE 2
choice (3) question basis. There are a few other ways including
random testing and user's choice which cater for about all
possible ways in which you wish to test yourself (I scored 88/90
on my first shot at the complete test!)
Of course, you can get a printout of the description of every
sign or just the whole thing.
The second section is called "signals, road markings & quiz"
and contains just that. "signals" is basically a multiple choice
test on um.. signals (!) eg. people waving their hand out of the
right side of a car means "hi there!"....
Road Markings is all about markings on the road (it's getting
slightly tough to be original here) like lines, crossings,
junctions etc. In this section I noticed that there was a
difference between thick and thin lines on the road - which is
fine if you see them both at once but if you can only see one
you start wondering whether it's the thick or thin line.
The test is a complete highway code test - which means long,
written answers. There is no way of getting a coupe to do a
HIGHWAY CODE 3
decent test on this so you can select between seeing all the
questions and their answers or going through some questions, you
writing down the answers and then going through the answers.
Both sections have a feature which allows you to input your
name but I although I think this suits education games in
general - when it's aimed at 17 year olds (or 18 from 1992) it
is a bit silly really.
The graphics aren't brilliant but they are very accurate to
road signs etc and very easily identifiable. The "signal"
graphics are pretty poor - because of flashing indicators half
the back of the car flashes (slight exageration - sorry!)
This is a very good way of testing your ability whether you
have still to sit your test or just to see how good you are if
you've passed your test already. This educational game is for
everyone over 14 I'd say ( are you as confused as I am? ) .
Get it for £10.99 from the address on the Quizball review.
And, as usual, say you came from FRED.
GM_BASE V2 - GM_SOFTWARE , £7.95 1
Following their V1.1 which I reviewed in FRED8, Gary Thomas
and Malcolm Phillips have made several alterations to the old
program and come up with V2.0.
If you bought V1.1 then you can get it upgraded to V2.0 simply
by sending back your master disc with £2. And all databases
created with V1.1 are compatible with V2.0 so you don't need to
worry about that.
So what's so different about it?
Well, it's in mode 3 so you can store more information in each
record and the maximum number of records is much bigger and if
it's there, it will also use the 256K extra memory.
Unfortunately , whether you have the meg or not doesn't make any
difference.
You may remember from the first review that I moaned about not
being able to view records using the direction keys - now you
can!
All the old commands are still available (search from :
allowing you to continue the search from where you left off) but
there are one or two new ones : select record (lets you jump
GM_BASE 2
straight to a record) and sorting (ascending or descending in
alphabetical or numerical)
Another useful amendment is that all the commands are now
printed on the bottom couple of lines of the screen so that you
see them all the time instead of having to look up the help page
everytime you forget how to do something.Sadly, the nicely drawn
help page isn't on the new version at all - but it would be
useless if it was really.
This is altogether a much better program although still isn't
quite up to the standard of SC_Filer because of the lack of use
of external memory and SC_Filer has the added luxury of letting
you design the layout of the database. Mind you, it is a couple
of quid cheaper. Good value for money.
GM_Software, version 1.1 still available for
[redacted] £4.95 but lacks a few features.
Visually discs - Zenith Graphics , £1.85 each/£10 set 1
Following my response to their letter last month, Zenith sent
me their full set (all 6) of Visually discs and as I'm don't
(often) hold grudges I decided to review them briefly.
Each of the discs have 25 screens which are never repeated.
Disc one is the cartoon disc with some pretty good cartoon
stills and not bad "silly text"
Disc Two has a reasonable (but quite good I suppose if you
like Depeche Mode - I don't) demo of DM but the text is boring.
Disc Three has a pretty bad DM demo on loading but in amongst
the text there is nice guitar demo. This has stills from various
films - including one of Jase!!!!!! DM & Jason Donovan!?!
Disc Four has an average scroller sort of demo and a
competition (for DM fans) as well as a review (not a good idea
Zenith)
Disc Five is the misc. disc and features the attractive "pull"
demo which some people have already got. Lots of adverts on this
disc.
Disc Six has another terrible DM demo but also a "balloon"
demo which although slow, is quite good.
VISUALLY 2
None of the "silly text" is particularly good but it's quite
amusing on disc one (but only if you're NOT a DM fan!)
Out of the 150 screens total, 24% have been elsewhere and 6%
have been nicked from various FRED discs. So out of the whole
150, only 70% are actually original but some of them are really
good.
These discs are pretty good value for money if you like a lot
of screens but apart from those and the occasional decent demo
the discs are still reasonable but not brilliant.
The text is in general, very tedious to people who don't like
(or even hate) Depeche Mode.
Discs are just £1.85 each or £10 for all 6 from :
Zenith Graphics,
[redacted], and don't forget to say that
"only brilliant MAGAZINES
should do reviews - like FRED"
Machine Code Tutorial #5
Yup, everybody; it's me again , the man they call the Wizard,
here again with some delicacies from the wonderous world of
machine code. Today we will have a little gander at how to use
your Coupe's ROM to its full capacity, and a little hint for all
you users of the assembler from LERM.
But first...
An Apology
============
I'm sorry about this - mail your complaints to Craig Taylor,
Ward 12, Perth Royal Infirmary, since 'twas he who has just
discovered what the FORMAT command does - if you twiddle with
your Big Brother's write-protect tabs it wipes his entire disk
collection, in the process destroying the Space Invaders source
files he was saving for his FRED column. On second thoughts -
don't bother sending him any letters. He won't be reading
anything for at least 24 months, and with any luck I'll have
hurried something for you by next month.
Anyway, on with the show...
And first, in this fifth part to the series (how many more can I
do?)...
ROM Routines
==============
If you were tuned into last issue's column, you'll know how ROM0
and ROM1 can be paged into memory. And if you don't know... tuf!
Well, as I'm sure you all know, there are ROM routines which we
can use in our own machine code programs. This has 2 uses:-
1- To save us from writing long and complicated routines of our
own. (ie, let us be lazy)
2- To let us see how Dr. Andy Wright (genius extrodinaire)
solved some (very!) tough problems. (ie, to pinch his ideas)9
Again, I will reiterate that budding coders should get SAMCO's
Advanced Technical Manual. It retails around £17 (I think) but
is certainly more than worth its weight in gold if you are doing
any coding. Anyway, the manual gives you a full list of routines
and entry conditions, as well as floating point calculator codes
(see later).
Meanwhile, I'll give you a rough idea of some of the more useful
routines and how to use them:
Well, basically there is a jump table in ROM0 at 0100H which
contains instructions to run certain subroutines. It is worth
noting that before one of the addresses in the table is called,
you should switch in ROM0, which expects page 0 to be in section
4000-7FFF. Your simple routine would be something like:
IN a,(LMPR) ; LMPR=250 dec.
LD (LMPRSTORE),a ; store original status
LD a,%00111111 ; switch in ROM0 and necessary RAM
OUT (LMPR),a ;
. ;
. ; rest of routine, including CALL to
. ; jump table
. ;
LD a,(LMPRSTORE) ; reset LMPR's status
OUT (LMPR),a ;
The important thing to remember is that you MUST set every
parameter and entry condition the routine needs. If anything
goes wrong you should return to BASIC, but you can never be too
careful when using other people's routines. However, you don't
have to worry about switching in ROM1 as well - if the routine
uses it the jump table will sort it all out for you, including
the restoration of HMPR.
So, what about the routines themselves, eh? Well here's a sample
of the ones you are most likely to use ( most of them
graphical), with all the entry conditions:
JPLOT Plot pixel. B= y coordinate (0 at top, 191 at bottom),
0139H C= x coordinate. [If mode=3, and fatpix=0, then HL= x
coordinate (0-511)]
JDRAW Draw line from current coords, going C pixels
013CH horizontally (or HL if fatpix=0 & mode=3), and B pixels
vertically. E= 1 to go right, FF to go left. D= 1 to go
down, FF to go up. Colour, inverse etc are all governed
by syatem variables as is the screen to use.
JDRAWTO Like JDRAW, except that the line is drawn to C,B (or
013FH HL, as above).
JCIRCLE Draw circle at C,B radius A. Colours etc come from
0142H temporary colour SVARs.
JFILL Modes 3,4 only. Fills a pattern into the space from
01455H C,B, with the address of the 16*16 pixel pattern held
in DE (0 for solid fill of current pen). A=0 to use 6k
scratchpad immediately after the 24k screen. A<>0 to
use previous scratchpad for new colour/pattern.
Pattern data for DE has 8 bytes for each row, makes 128
bytes in total.
JCLSBL If A=0 clear entire screen.
0143H If A<>0 clear upper screen.
JGETINT Unstack rounded number from FPCS (see later) and put it
0121H in HL. BC=HL. A=L
JSTKFETCH Unstack top number of FPCS into AEDCB.
0124H
JSTKSTORE Stack AEDCB onto FPCS.
0127H
JBUFFET Unstack the details of a string from the FPCS, copy
012AH text to a buffer in the system variables page. On exit,
DE points to the start of the buffer, BC holds the
string length. A=C.
Phew! And that's just a sample! There are plenty more, with more
detailed descriptions then those listed above, in the Advanced
Technical Manual.
And after that heavy dose of information...
The Floating Point Calculator
===============================
Ha ha! This one's a nightmare! zillions of control codes with a
second stack and 2 different ways of storing numbers. And you
thought assembly language was tough!.
Anyway, the floating point calcultor (FPC for short and typist's
cramp avoidment) is the bit of the ROM that does all the SAM's
complicated maths work, and most of the string functions too
just for good measure.
It has its own stack where numbers and string information are
stored as 5-byte long codes. These are stored in three different
ways, as is described below:-
i> Integers between -65535 and +65535 are stored as -
0, sign (0 for positive, FF for negative), least
significant byte, most significant byte, 0.
ii> Other numbers between around 1E38 and 1.7E-39 are held in
the same way as with the Spectrum : ie, as 2 raised to a
power (called the exponent) times another bit called the
mantissa. The first byte is the exponent+80H, the other
four are the mantissa. The exponent can be negative of
course, but you should note than this scheme does not allow
some numbers like 1/10 being stored acurately, just like
1/3 cannot be represented accurately in decimal.
iii> Strings are held in the 5-byte code thus -
16k page of text, offset of text start within page (8000H -
BFFFH, LSB/MSB), string length (LSB/MSB).
The calculator itself is used in a very simple way. Making sure
ROM0 is switched in, do a RST08. Follow this by the list of
control codes to command it. The codes themselves are like a
sort of mini-language, but it is not necessary to learn them -
they are all listed in the ATM. Because there are so many, I
will give you a selection with their 'labels'. Please note - N2
refers to the top number on the FPCS, N1 is the number below it.
Hex Label Function
00 MULT N1*N2
01 ADDN N1+N2
03 SUBN N1-N2
05 DIVN N1/N2
06 SWOP Swop round top two numbers or strings
23 STKBREG Stack whatever B was on entry as a 5-byte integer
25 DUP Duplicate top FPCS entry
26 ONELIT Stack next byte on FPCS as a 5-byte number.
27 FIVELIT Stack next 5 bytes.
30 TRUNC Chop off any part after the decimal point.
33 EXIT Finish using calculator.
34 EXIT2 Finish using calculator and do a RET.
E0 STKHALF Stack 0.5
E1 STKZERO Stack zero
E2 STK16k Surprise, surprise - stack 16384
E6 STKFONE Stack five byte version of 1
E9 STKONE Stack integer version of 1
EC STKTEN Guess
F0 STKHALFPI Stack PI/2
And there's more... but I'll save that for the next time.
To round off today, though I'll show you how to use these codes
in any proggies you might have. For example, let's use the
calculator to work out what the circumference of a circle is,
when we know the diameter.
CALL ROM_IN ; Routine to do ROM switching
LD a,(DIAMETER)
LD b,a
RST #08
DB STKBREG ; Stack on the diameter
DB STKHALFPI ; Stack PI/2
DB ONELIT,2 ; Stack 2
DB MULT ; Multiply to get PI on the FPCS
DB MULT ; Circumference= diameter*PI
DB STKHALF ; We'll round off by adding a half
DB ADDN ; and chopping off fractions
DB TRUNC ; Making sure the number is stored as
DB RESTACK ; an integer
DB EXIT ; Leave calculator
CALL JGETINT ; ROM routine listed above that gets
; the top value in the FPCS and,
; providing its an integer, puts it
; into HL, BC and the LSB into A.
LD (CIRCUM),HL ; Store result
CALL ROM_OUT ; Restore LMPR
RET ; Go bye-bye
All the labels named above are listed earlier on; you will need
to EQU them elsewhere. ROM_IN and ROM_OUT were subroutines I
gave you in the last column, but I'm sure you can write your own
if you want.
A Little Hint For Lerm Assembler Users
========================================
Whilst typing merrily away one day on my Lerm Assembler I
suddenly froze in my chair as the small message appeared on my
screen: "Memory full." Aaaaaarrrrrggggghhhhh!
But wait uno momento I though (in Spanish). What about source
file 2 - the manual says it can be used to extend the source in
file 1. So merrily I typed the rest of my lengthy prog into
number 2. But when I tried to assemble it - ooh la la! (in
French). All the labels from the first file had disappeared into
oblivion. Where had they gone? After a brief consultation with
the manual I discovered, to my horror, that "the labels can be
transferred by using EQU statements". What! All FIVE HUNDRED of
them? Mon dieu! (in French again). So, to cut a long story
short, I have written a (tres) short BASIC procedure which you
can tag on to a customised version of the assembler. After you
have assembled file 1, escape to basic and type makesym. When
you return to file 2, you will find all the labels from the
symbol table transferred into EQU statements from line 60000
onwards. Then all you do is assemble file 2 (making sure to
attach it to the end of the object code from number 1) and hey
presto! (in, erm, English) You have an object code file from 64k
of source. Anyway, I hope it proves useful to any of you
contemplating writing a big (and I mean BIG!) program with
Lerm's assembler, which to be fair, does have everything else.
The procedure should be on this disk called "makesym". Just
MERGE it into your program for instant, trouble-free coding.
That's just about it for this fact-packed article, except to
mention that by pressing you should be able to get a
print-out of this column for your reference. It occured to me
that all you coders out there might not really want to write
down all the numbers etc. so voila, as they say in France. And
if it doesn't work, then tuf! It certainly does on my Citizen
120D+.
Adios. (In, erm, Portuguese or Spanish?)
