Fred 68

Issue 68

April 1996

Magazine

CA      Still A Bit Late, But Getting Closer Freditorial

Blimey, it only seems like yesterday that I was putting the
finishing touches to last month's FRED.  Which isn't surprising
because it was.  However, I think you'll find that despite
recent "variable" deadlines, FRED is still the most reliable
magazine on the SAM, not to mention the best.

With any luck, and I think we're about due for some, this issue
is going to get to you just before the April Gloucester show.
Having said that, I'll probably get a massive disc error, the
postman will put a magnet instead of a stamp-mark on the
envelope containing the master copy, the duplicators will forget
to put the labelling on the disc and the postman who eventually
delivers the issue at your end will crash the van just before
your house.  Sounds like a normal month to me....





CA                  Ham and Cheese Sandwich

With this issue, you'll notice that I've now been with FRED for
a full 18 months.  It only feels like about 3 months, probably
because that's all Colin has paid me for, but I'll soon be
beating that Brian McConnell in the number-of-issues-done race.
Although as someone kindly pointed out to me, I'm still known
as the "new editor", and probably will be in years to come.  Oh
well, that's the hardship you endure for twizzling on your chair
all day and occasionally typing a word and calling it a part
time job.  Ho ho ho.

I've just asked my brother what to write about in my editorial,
and after thinking deeply and meaningfully, divulging into his
worldwide knowledge and amazing on the spot experience, I got
the wonderful reply of "I don't know".  Then, like throwing
salt and vinegar and aftershave into an open wound, he followed
that by the words "No-one reads it anyway".

What a lovely brother I have.  Killkillkillkill.

CA                Ouch.  High Blood Pressure.

I had the biggest, most bizarre, amazing coincidence last
weekend.  Blimey, I though it was only Colin Mac who had strange
coincidences, but it seems that it comes with the name.

I went into Cheltenham last Saturday on a bit of a "shopping
because there's nothing to do" trip.  Anyway, I was just walking
down the main street when I bumped into the person who lives
opposite me at University.  Quite a coincidence, I thought, but
it doesn't stop there.  He had a friend with him who he knew at
school.  Anyway, we got chatting and after Dan mentioned I was
the editor of a disc magazine on the SAM, his friend's eyes
almost dropped out.  When we asked him why, he told us that he
subscribes to FRED!  Dan didn't even know Chris (the SAMmer)
owned a SAM, yet it turns out he's one of the new subbers we got
about 6 months ago after the mailshot.

Why on Earth don't those sort of probabilities occur when I do
the lottery?

CA                  I Think I'm Going To Cry

*sob*

My stupid arrrggghhhwhycan'tIswearinFRED blasted tape player has
just chewed up my 'The Police' tape.  It wasn't even a copy from
CD, it was one I bought on tape.  It's ruined.  In a fit of
anger, I kicked the tape player a bit too hard and now it's in
the bin in pieces. Stupid short temper.  I've now got nothing I
can listen to music on.  Dammit.  Sorry, I mean, darnit.

Calmity, calmity, calm.  Calm calm calm.  That's better.

Right, with the beautiful tweeting of dicky birds and the wind
rustling through the leaves, I'll carry on.

On the next page is an article, written by me.  I've decided
that although I have been described as the World's Wittiest Man
(by myself), I can always take the time to write a sensible
article.  It's all about converting stuff from PC to SAM.  I
hope you'll find it of some use.  Here's part one...
CA                        Easy PC...

Converting stuff from PC to SAM is becoming more popular.  It's
a more common way of getting text articles or screens onto the
SAM.  Indeed a number of things that you read on FRED have been
sent from a PC (screens, interviews, etc).  Even programs have
used PC's to get them to me.  For example, Jellytext has been
archived into one file, stuck on a PC disc, sent via e-mail and
then slapped back onto the SAM.

Before you think 'This is all a bit complicated, I'm skipping
this bit', bear with me.  Heck, if I can do it, then anyone can.
Except my mum.  The cat learns things quicker than my mum.  But
anyway, that doesn't matter.  If you can get access to a PC,
whether it be your own, your school's, university's or work's,
or even some chap you met at the bus stop yesterday, then you
can make a lot of use out of it.

You will need a bit of knowledge of using a PC to be able to do
it.  Don't panic though, you don't need much.  When I first
dabbled in this area, I had no understanding whatsoever and the
CA                    Easy PC... (get it?)

guy sat next to me did it all for me.  The person who owns the
computer will be able to tell you how to put a file onto disc,
and that's pretty much all you need.

Let's start with the most common - converting text.

Text on the PC is stored is a similar way to the SAM.  All the
letters have the same code, as most of the other things do
(spaces, full-stops, etc).  Therefore you may think that
straight conversion is simple, right?  Well, not really.

There is one big difference between SAM text and PC text, and
that's the way it's formed.  SAM text is generally 64 column
(which means there are 64 characters of text in each row, like
in this article) and at the end of lines, spaces are put in to
make it all line up on the left hand side and to prevent half
words at the end of lines.

On the PC, text length is variable.  I'm not sure what the
CA            Easy PC... (it's like 'Easy Peezy')

general length is, but I think most texts are 76 column.  Also,
rather than putting spaces at the end of a line, there are
things called Character Codes - an invisible character which
tells the computer to start the next word on the next line.  On
the SAM, these either come out as question marks, or are shown
as spaces on Outwrite so you don't think they're there, but once
compressed come up as stupid little characters (aargh) so Colin
has to get rid of them and then recompress the editorial.

There are a couple of wordprocessors which use these return
codes, but in general SAM word processors insert spaces.

The other problem is that because PC lines are of longer length,
they come out as rubbish on the SAM.  For instance, a converted
piece of text may look like this on the SAM:

There are many techniques to using a golf club. The first we sha
ll look at is?the famous arch swing.  Etc, etc, etc.

CA          Easy PC... (well, I thought it was good)

Note the unwrapped word 'shall' and the question mark.  A
straight reforming will leave a space in the middle of shall.

So, we have the idea of the differences, now what do we do?  In
true Blue Peter style, here's a list of things you will need:

           A 720K formatted PC disk
           Some text on the PC
           KE_Disk (FRED 36) or another PC disk reader
           A SAM disk
           A decent SAM word processor

Firstly, put the text you want to convert onto the PC disk.
This is the bit where you might have to ask an adult to help!

Secondly, load KE_Disk.  Insert the PC disk and press return.
Type LD followed by the name of your file (eg  LD MYTEXT) and
press return.  Insert a SAM disk and press RETURN.  It's
essential you press return again so the program knows you want
CA          Easy PC... (it's better than PC of cake)

to use a SAM disk next.  Type SV followed by what you want to
call it (I use the same name to make things simpler).  Press
RETURN and it should save the file to SAM disk.

One note - KE_Disk doesn't recognise SAM disks that don't have a
DOS on them.  Don't know why, it just doesn't.

Sorry if you use a different PC to SAM converter.  I've never
needed to get another, but hopefully you get the idea and you
can do the same on that program.

Right, now we've got that dodgy text I was going on about
earlier.  There are a number of ways of correcting this,
although every method I've used requires you to do some pretty
boring jobs.

On this issue of FRED, you will find a PC to SAM text converter.
It's written by Graham Goring and is so far the best one I've
used.  Not only does it strip all unwanted codes out, but it
CA       Easy PC... (heh heh, PC of cake.  That's good)

checks each line and shifts code about so that you don't have
half words.  Yesterday, when I was writing this article, I
didn't have this program, so I've had to make quite a few
changes (including getting rid off my wonderful BASIC program).

Once you have run your text through the text converter, it
should be almost perfect.  Graham's thing has an option of going
through your code and inserting return characters, but I find
that putting the text as it is into Outwrite and then messing
about with it there does the trick much better.

In general, the only problems you will find is that paragraphs
may not have the line between them and centralised text won't be
centralised, and it may even be on two different lines.  This
requires just a little tidying up, but believe me, it's a LOT
easier than trying to do it from scratch.



CA                       PC of Cake...

The only other piece of information I can give is that if you
want to convert text from the Amiga or another machine to the
SAM, the best way of doing it is to convert text from Amiga to
PC (without altering it), then from PC to SAM.  I put Archimedes
text onto PC disk, then convert using KE_Disk.

Computers like the Archimedes can automatically read PC disks,
so it's just as if you're using a PC.  Other computers such as
the Amiga will need their own version of KE_Disk that can read
and transfer files for both Amiga and PC disks.

If anyone has any more queries, or if something isn't working
properly and there's something I should explain better, please
write in.

Next month, I'll cover converting screens and MODs (MODs are
really easy).


CA     Come and Have A Go If You Think You're Hard Enough

I hope you enjoyed that.  Well, if you read it, that's enough.
Anyway, articles are a thing that I want more of.  They help the
editorial appeal to a much wider audience (someone other than
just myself).  Carol Brooksbank has started work on some SAM C
articles which will begin in a couple of issues time and John
Eyre will be going through the making of a SAM C game.  However,
if you feel you can write something about ANY of the subjects
below, please write in.  We can get these youngsters learning
things yet.

- The SAM Hard Drive
- Computer Compatability
- SAM C - help, tips, explaining programs, etc.
- Using MASTERDOS, Gamesmaster, SCADs, E-Tracker, SAMPaint, etc.
- Reviews (I'll even print really nasty ones)
- Internet articles

If you're unsure of how good you'll be, write something and I'll
either put it in, or tell you what to explain better.
CA                            News

                     SAM COMPANIES ARE GO!

This is your last reminder of the April SAM & Speccy Gloucester
show.  If this gets to you in time, then good.  If it doesn't
then I'll hide my head in embarrassment.  Anyway, the show is on
SATURDAY 20TH APRIL at Quedgeley Village Hall in Quedgeley,
Gloucester.  It's right next to Tesco's, so if you get a bus,
ask to get off at Tescos in Quedgeley.

FRED, Format, Revelation, Steve's Software, Crashed, Zodiac,
SAM PD, Nev with the SAM Hard Drive and dozens more people will
either be there or be represented there.  Simon may be hiding
away in the corner showing off his accelerator board again in
the hope that Bob doesn't charge him for a stand.  Stefan will
probably be walking about selling MOD players.  Christina (the
girl on the door) will be there giving you all something to look
at once you're bored with computers (ho ho).  I'll be there
eagerly interviewing people.  FRED and probably most of the
other companies will be offering bargains galore.  And most
CA                            News

importantly, you'll be able to talk to and get help from lots of
other SAM and Spectrum celebrities.

So, beg your mum to let you go, beg your wife to let you out the
house for a day (in fact, bring her along to carry everything
for you) and beg your boss to give you the day off.  It's the
SAMs biggest and best extravaganza of the year.  Let's make it
the busiest.

We all look forward to seeing you there.  And don't forget to
bring along the details of your Fantasy FRED League Team!

                         DOUBLE VISION

SAM Vision, the additional super library for SAM C has sold
extremely well in only it's first month.  Around half of the
people who own SAM C have already purchased SAM Vision and so
far, the signs are that it's more than people could have hoped.

CA                            News

                     SPRITELY LITTLE DEVIL

An updated version of SAMSprite has been finished which has just
tidied up a couple of little bits and incorporated variable
cursor speeds and the option of double clicking on filenames to
load them.  If you would like the upgrade, send a stamp
addressed envelope and the original SAMSprite disk to the usual
FRED address.

                              HMMM

The final bit of news we have this month is that ELVIS has just
ordered Grubbing For Gold from FRED!!!  What an amazing bit of
news.  Erm, that's Elvis Smith from Newcastle.

Sorry.

Anyway, the deadline for the big FRED competition is closing, so
here's a final reminder.  Entries by next month please   -->
CA            It's the one and only official....


     *****    ***    *   *   *****    ***     ****   *   *
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     ***     *****   * * *     *     *****    ***      *
     *       *   *   *  **     *     *   *       *    *
     *       *   *   *   *     *     *   *   ****    *

                 *****   ****    *****   ****
                 *       *   *   *       *   *
                 ***     ****    ***     *   *
                 *       *   *   *       *   *
                 *       *   *   *****   ****

         *       *****    ***     ****   *   *   *****
         *       *       *   *   *       *   *   *
         *       ***     *****   * ***   *   *   ***
         *       *       *   *   *   *   *   *   *
         *****   *****   *   *    ****    ***    *****

CA                    Fantasy FRED League

Yes, that's right.  You've heard of Fantasy Football League,
where you build up a team of 11 players from any club with a
limited budget and you get points for goals, clean sheets, etc.

Well, this is Fantasy FRED league.  We will give (not literally)
you 12 million pounds (sorry, foreign folks!) to spend on your
team of 8 SAM programmers/graphics people/public and we'll give
points for what they do on FRED.  There are no silly rules like
you can only have 2 people per programming team or anything like
that.  It's all down to you and your decisions.  What is even
better is that you can pick ANY SAM person.  I'll put prices on
the more well known people, and then you pay just £0.1 Million
for anyone you know - so you can have yourself in your team!

If you decide to play, please register your team with me through
FRED.  It's free to play and the person at the top of the league
by the 1997 April show (in 1 year) wins a 6 month sub to FRED!
I'll write a program to add up all the scores, and I'll print
the updated league (top 20 probably) in every issue of FRED.
CA                          POINTS
                            ======

The following things are ways in which your team scores points,
and the amount they get.  If you think of any other ways to give
points, write in very quickly and if it's a good idea, I'll use
it.

  Points                            Reason

    10             Main writer of a slot D contribution.
     2             An assist!  If he/she has helped towards the
                        slot D contribution.
     6             Main writer of a slot E,F,G,H or K
                        contribution.
     1             An assist for EFGHK.  As above.
     3             Main programmer of a Bits n Bobs item.
     2             For e-tunes contributions. (Person gets 2
                        points no matter how many tunes)
     2             Screens contributions.  As for e-tunes.
     2             A letter, review or text article.
CA                    Fantasy FRED League

     4             A menu contribution.
     1             A menu assist.
     2             For the first mention in the editorial.
     1             Per mention in the editorial.
     1             For being one of the first five people
                        mentioned in a scrolly.
     2             For the last mention in the editorial.
     1             For using "Fashoooom" to wrap your scrolly!
     2             Per mention in the newsletter (not Macdonald)
     3             For being IN a digitised screen

Please note that the only change is the fashoooom one.  Negative
numbers are just tiresome and awkward.

Oh, and the scrolly mentions one has changed, just to stop
clever clogses putting fifty hellos every time.

And contrary to the belief of a certain scouser, this isn't an
April Fool's wind up.  It's fairdinkum.  So enter it.
CA              In Almost Alphabetical Order...

    Name             Price(£M)        Name          Price(£M)

Colin Anderton         100.0   :  Roger Hartley         1.3
David Brant              1.0   :  Paul Horridge         1.7
Bob Brunsden             1.4   :  Scott Inwood          1.0
Matthew Beaman           1.6   :  David Laundon         2.0
Bob Brenchley            1.5   :  Warren Lee            1.4
Jack Bailey              1.1   :  David Ledbury         0.5
Marc Broster             0.8   :  David Marriot         1.2
Nicholas Bay             0.4   :  Peter Moore           1.4
Victor Cooper            1.9   :  Colin Macdonald       6.0
Andrew Collier           3.2   :  Brian McConnell       0.8
Ian Collier              1.6   :  William McGugan       1.7
Rob Clayton              0.6   :  Derek Morgan          1.8
Andrew Chandler          1.8   :  Dean Nicholas         1.0
Martin O'Connell         1.0   :  Rob Pain              2.2
Allan Clarkson           2.2   :  Steven Pick           1.2
Wayne Coles              1.9   :  Colin Piggot          1.3
Simon Cooke              1.2   :  Tim Paveley           2.0
CA          The Prices Are All In Millions Of Pounds

James Curry              2.5   :  Prophex               1.7
Dan Doore                1.8   :  Matt Round            3.0
Ian/Chris Dodd           0.8   :  Kevin Smythe          1.1
Stefan Drissen           1.7   :  Michael Stocks        0.7
Steve Ekins              1.6   :  Stewart Skardon       0.9
Terry Ekins              1.7   :  Anonimity Smith       1.6
John Eyre                0.4   :  W. Tippens            0.5
Richard Faulkner         0.4   :  Steve Taylor          1.2
Luke Falla               1.6   :  Peter Vinnicombe      2.4
C. Farmer                0.5   :  Robert Van Der Veeke  1.5
Martin Fitzpatrick       1.9   :  Matt Vowles           2.2
Phil Glover              1.1   :  Martin Wilson         0.6
Roy Gardener             1.0   :  Paul Walker           0.9
Diggory Gray             1.2   :  Lee Willis            1.7
Graham Goring            2.0   :  Doug Young            1.9
Martijn Groen            1.5   :  David Zambonini       1.6
James Horsfall           0.5   :
Dave Handley             1.6   :  ANY OTHER SAM OWNER   0.1
Craig Harris             0.3   :
CA                         The Rules

In short, here's the rules again.  PLEASE CHECK these before
sending us your team.

 1) You have 12 million pounds to spend on SAM People
 2) You must have 8 people in your team.  Any teams that don't
     have exactly 8 people in them will be disqualified.
 3) You do NOT have to spend exactly 12 million.  This is just
     a maximum limit.
 4) No repetition of players (eg. you can't have two Matt
     Vowles's.  One only.)
 5) Any person not listed costs £0.1 million.
 6) If you don't know any £0.1M people and need some in your
     team, just send in your team and ask it to be filled with
     some random ones, and I'll do that.
 7) In the event of a draw, the person with the highest scorer
     wins.  If it is still a draw, I'll toss a coin.
 8) My decision is final.
 9) GIVE YOUR TEAM A NAME (Max. 35 chars)
10) Feel free to increase your points by contributing!!!
CA                       Disc Contents

A few months ago, you may recall that we used Julian Gollop's
Chaos on FRED.  Well, now we can bring you another of his games,
Laser Squad.  All of Julian's games are PD now, so we can bring
you this gem of a Spectrum classic.  Our undying thanks go to
Julian Gollop who is, in my opinion, one of the best games
writers on the Spectrum.  Instructions for the game have been
written by Graham Goring.  Once you get the basic idea, play
with it and you'll soon catch on.  This is one of my favourite
Speccy games, so you'd better enjoy it.  It's a game of strategy
and war, adventure and wonderfulness.  Thanks Julian.

FRED regular, Rob Pain has once again written us another of his
wonderful demos.  This one, strangely called 'The Zeolite Demo'
contains a nice rolling background, 3 scrollies and a
"different" reset screen.  Thanks, Robby, keep 'em coming.

We also have the new version of Andrew Collier's screen
compressor.  It's a lot quicker now and decompresses the next
screen while you're looking at the current one.  Included with
CA                       Disc Contents

this version are complete instructions, so I'll let Andrew
explain.  It's a little harder to use than the previous one,
mainly because there are no programs to do it all for you.  Try
using it from the explanations in the info, but I'll also try
and get a couple of programs on the next few issues to help you
along.  Hopefully one for the screens section.  Thanks Andrew.

We've also got a PC to SAM text converter, which I talked about
in the PC article.  It's pretty straight forward, and very
useful.  Thanks to Graham Goring for this one.

In slot K, I think, we have another "Super SAM C" (boy, that
sounded good) Card game.  Despite John's claims that he's not
very good at SAM C, here's another lovely little game.  The big
advantage of this is that you can play all by yourself and you
don't get your cards bent trying to do impressive shuffles.  And
of course, it's written completely in the numero uno programming
language, SAM C.  Thanks to programmer John Eyre, and all hail
the mighty SAM C, which we all love and worship.
CA                       Disc Regulars

Jellytext is here again, still as wonderful and controversial as
ever.  You should know by now that if you get upset and
irritated by swearing and vulgar descriptions, then don't read
it.  If however, you want to play a little "choose-what-happens"
game about a dog trying to avoid going to the vets for a certain
eye watering animal operation, then load it now.  Graham Goring
has once again stepped in as writer, because Matt Round claims
one day's notice isn't enough.  Tsk.

In Bits n Bobs are two funky little contributions from Graham
Goring.  The first is a disc utility, allowing you to recover
erased files.  The keys are shown on the main screen.  The
second is an addictive little puzzle game.

Also in bits n bobs is a fixer for the samples program on last
issue.  Just run your FRED through this, and you won't need
Masterdos to run the program.  Hurrah!  We can now all splendour
in the delights of Blackadder, and things.  Thanks to James
Curry for the fixer, even though he caused the problem.
CA             Doo, do, do, dooooo, Thaaankyoooo

The Kingpin  : COLIN MACDONALD Bsc
Dr. Octopus  : COLIN ANDERTON  BSE       All contributions to:

And the rest of our Spidey friends are     FRED PUBLISHING,
                                           [redacted]
Hobgoblin    : Julian Gollop
The Lizard   : Rob Pain
Dr. Doom     : Graham Goring (times ten)
The Scorpion : Carol Brooksbank
Green Goblin : Andrew Collier            All complaints to:
Peter Parker : Peter Vinncombe
The Hunter   : John Eyre                   FRED COMPLAINTS Dept.
Venom        : Lee Willis                  1.7 GUMFA STREET,
Juggernaut   : James 'Madras' Curry        BALUBALULAND,
Spiderman    : Phil Glover                 MARS.
The Sandman  : Matthew Gallagher
The Vulture  : Jack Bailey          <- Erm, don't take offence
The Shocker  : Himself                 to that anyone.

Letters & Reviews

                    Letter From Phil Glover

Dear Colin,

    Sorry for the slight delay in resubbing.  Finances have been
a bit tricky of late, having bought a new television and, wait
for it..... a PC!

    Yep, at last, Glover has upgraded to a PC and will soon
ditch SAM completely... Only joking, as the PC in question isn't
exactly state of the art technology.  It's an Olivetti PCS 286
with monochrome monitor and a huge 30meg hard drive.  Compared
with the office 486 PC with its math-co-processor, the 286 is
S-L-O-W, but it's still good.

    My next main buy will be the SAM hard drive, but only when
I've read some more positive news about the HDOS, which seems to
need a lot of improvements.

    I'm currently working on the graphics for some SAM
adventures: MURDER MYSTERY, TRUEFAITH & SMUGGLER'S HAUNT
                    Letter From Phil Glover

(loaders only) and GOLDEN SWORD OF BHAKHOR.  My graphics are
fairly average, but I wish I was faster, as they seem to take me
ages to complete.  I'll let you know about these games as each
reaches completion.

    The SAM/Notepad transfer PD disk is being revised to make it
more flexible for non-Notepad users.  It'll be called STU, for
SAM TRANSFER UTILITY, and I'm sure you'll get a copy once it's
complete.  It should include several extras, including tips on
using non-SAM text files for WORD_PRO use.  I've been contacted
by a couple of PC owners who use the Amstrad Notepad, and they
may let me have some BBC BASIC programs for the STU disk for the
Notepad users, but we'd like to broaden the appeal of the disk
to allow SAM users with other computers to use it.  The STU can
help link SAM to a PC for file transfers, and I'm sure other
types of computers could also be used.

    Thinking about improvements for SAM PAINT, or other
software, could some sort of screen-saver functions be used
                    Letter From Phil Glover

within them?  I'm often called to the phone while using SAM, and
it'd be nice to see a blank screen on my return, rather than
some image slowly burning into the monitor screen after an hour
or so.

    Could you possibly give a mention to Dave Whitmore's
DALMATION SAM bulletin board?  Although we have little COMMS
hardware and software for SAM until TERMITE appears, I'm sure
there must be SAM users who have other machines which could
access DALMATION.  In fact, I may explore the likelihood of my
286 PC going on-line, as it can run the WINDOWS 3.1 terminal
program.  FORMAT seems to be ignoring the existence of
DALMATION, but I reckon it deserves much more publicity.  Many
SAM users may not understand the internet and COMMS, and FRED
could be of great help in explaining the basics to us, myself
included!  The idea of sending SAM files via a phone line within
minutes, rather than by post, really appeals to me.  If interest
in SAM COMMS grows, it may be worth investigating the chances of
setting up some sort of bulletin board for FRED.  It'd probably
                    Letter From Phil Glover

be useful in that you'd receive letters and text files ready to
be edited for FRED, rather than type them up first.

    Good luck with FRED, and maybe I'll see you at the April SAM
Fair.  I'm sure that it'll be very good, with increased interest
being shown in the SAM hard drive.

                      All the very best,

                          Phil Glover









CA                    Reply to Phil Glover

Not another PC convert...  Although it is good to see that
people are still keeping involved with the SAM.

More positive comments on HDOS, eh?  OK then.  "I have used HDOS
for my whole life, and I wouldn't be alive today if it wasn't
for it's miracle code.  I owe my life to HDOS."

Or did you want real ones?  Seriously though, the hard drive is
after backing and support.  The more interest in it, the quicker
it will develop.  Work is being done to improve the DOS, I
believe simple LOAD and SAVE commands are working now.  Give it
a little time, and it will be all you could ever ask for.

If anyone has got a hard drive and feels they could write either
a review or an article about it, please send it in (the review,
not the hard drive).

I don't think that FORMAT ignoring Dalmation BBS is a deliberate
thing.  The problem is that Bob hasn't (to my knowledge) got
CA                    Reply to Phil Glover

access to it, so isn't in a position to write or print articles
on something he isn't sure about.  At the much more advanced,
twenty-first century company, FRED, we do have a lot more
internet access and we are able to print stuff about comms.  The
only problem we have is finding someone who can write an article
about something.  If Colin or I tried to do a technical one,
we'd get everything wrong and sound like a couple of turkeys.

However, when I get back to university, I'll do a bit of
bullying and see if I can get someone to write a selection of
articles for us.

We don't have a FRED bulletin board yet; Colin has toyed with
the idea but for now any letters/articles or even programs can
be mailed to Colin or me.  My address for those who don't know
is     [redacted]

Speaking of which, are any SAM owners coming to Nottingham next
year?  If so, get in touch.
                 Letter From Carol Brooksbank

Dear Colin,

I see from the SAMVISION "readme" file that you have encountered
the trouble I have had with kbhit() since the first version of
C.  I overcame it in the end by rewriting kbhit() on my working
copy.  I have put my version in my working copies of the new
program, but have no time to try it out just now.  Listing
below.  It is the code I always use in machine code for checking
whether a key has been pressed, and I have never known it to
fail.  You might like to try it on your machines and see whether
it solves the problem for you.  If so, perhaps it might be
worthwhile to use it in the master discs of Sam C and SamVision.
I don't have copyright on it.  It was the method I learned for
doing the same thing on the Spectrum - testing bit 5 of FLAGS,
which is set when a key is pressed.  Usually you would use the
carry flag to give you the answer, but HL is apporpriate in C.

I hope it helps.

                  Letter From Carol Brooksbank

kbhit:   LD   HL,&5C3B
         BIT  5,(HL)
         LD   HL,0
         RET  Z
         LD   HL,&5C3B
         RES  5,(HL)
         LD   HL,1
         RET


                                  Sincerely,

                                    Carol


CA                 Reply To Carol Brooksbank

Many thanks Carol.  I didn't follow much of that, but I'm sure
it's much appreciated by many of our C programmers.
                 Letter From Peter Vinnicombe

Dear FRED,

    Could you please tell me how I can go about starting my own
PD library up?  Are there any still going?  Do I need special
rights to sell PD stuff?  And where can I get it from?  Etc.

    Cheers for the SAM C update disc - a vast improvement!!

    What's the comet assembler like? - Is it easy to use, for
someone who hasn't got a clue how to use machine code?... Can
you recommend any books on the subject?

    Keep up the good work,

                   Pete.




                   Reply To Peter Vinnicombe

This probably won't be the sort of reply you're looking for, but
the truthful answer is DON'T.  There are a number of reasons for
this negative response, I'm not just being negative.

Firstly, there are already two PD companies, SAM PD and Zodiac
PD.  SAM PD is the slightly bigger.  On this basis it would be
hard to get a company going.

Secondly, the number of people who will respond to PD companies
on the SAM is low.  A few years ago, there was one big PD
company, SCPDU (or SCPDSA or something similar) and they ran the
whole PD market.  However, they were lazy, sloppy, didn't fulfil
orders, and were so bad that they were forced to quit.  Ever
since that, people haven't trusted PD companies and response to
them is very low.

Thirdly, following on from above, they are a bit of a market
killer.  People give programs to PD in the thought that they
will become recognised a lot more.  However, it's simply not the
CA                 Reply To Peter Vinnicombe

case.  PD companies do not sell an awful lot of software, and
the only way to get recognition is to contribute to disczines
like FRED.  It may sound like I'm saying this to be biased, but
I could tell you at least a dozen people who feel the same way.
Read this months Jellytext for starters!  Disc magazines are the
cement between the bricks that hold the SAM community together,
in the same way as Your Sinclair, Sinclair User and Crashed held
the Spectrum market together.  That's where the support should
be concentrated.

I don't mean to be negative, but I think we've got enough PD
companies, and the SAM's future is very dependant on FRED,
Format, Crashed, Zodiac, SAM Supplement and all other publicity
magazines.

The Comet assembler is very highly recommended by a lot of SAM
programmers.  I have been told that it's the best to use whether
you're a beginner or an advanced coder.  SC_Assembler is alright
as well, but it asks you for line numbers which can be a pain if
CA                 Reply To Peter Vinnicombe

you need to change things.

Apparently, a good book to Get you started is "Spectrum Machine
Language For The Absolute Beginner" by William Tang, published
by Melbourne House Publishers.

After that you want to be looking at something like the FRED
machine code guide, and also popping along to Gloucester shows
and asking current machine coders for tips is helpful.

Blimey, that's got to be one of my longest ever replies.  And
not one stupid comment all the way through.  What is wrong with
me?






                    Letter From Lee Willis

Dear COLIN "Didn't use my menu 'coz it mentioned the fact that
            you were chatting a certain female up at the
            Gloucester Show last April" ANDERTON,

    I've just had this urge (wahey!) to write to you about a
couple of things!  The first is the Fantasy FRED League.  Is
this a p**s-take or not?  If not it's quite a cool idea but it
sounds like it'd be a hell of a lot of work for you.  Was this
just an April Fool thingy or what?

    The second is about the WWW.  In the letters section you
mentioned about the lack of a FRED page.  Maybe I can help.  If
you give me an idea of what you'd like on there and send me some
graphics / text / etc. then I could bung it on as an offshoot of
my homepage.  Since I've got about 30 Meg. of free space at Uni.

                             Yours,

                   LEE "Pool Genius" WILLIS
CA                    Reply to Lee Willis

Hello LEE "Didn't have the confidence to chat up that female at
           the Gloucester show because he knows he is really
           ugly and bad at talking to women, so instead just
           raged with anger as I talked to her" WILLIS.

Ho ho ho.  No, Mr Willis, the Fantasy FRED League is not a hoax,
it's a real thing.  I did have a super April Fools joke planned
for this issue, but as the previous issue was actually closer to
April Fools Day, then it's not worth it.  I'll just have to wait
another year.  Yes, I know the amount of work I'll have to put
into the FFL thing, but I'll do it.  In fact, I've already
written the main program to do most of it which will probably
see it's way to being on the next FRED.

A FRED WWW sounds great.  There we go, folks, FRED could well be
delving even further into the future with a WWW page.  Look out
for more news on that.

             From COLIN "Sexual Magnetism" ANDERTON
                 Letter From Matthew Gallagher

Dear FRED,

Over the weekend I received SAM Vision.  A few days before I
also received the update to SAM C.

I assume forthcoming issues of FRED will tell us a little more
about SAM Vision as, although I was getting to grasp with C
fairly well, I really can't understand where it fits in.

On a minor point, the SAM C title screen says "SAM C for SAM
Vision", but the SAM Vision information says "SAM Vision for SAM
C".  Which is a part of which?

Also, I thought it would be a great idea to combine the latest
version of SAM C (Version 4.12) with SAM Vision, but the version
of SAM C supplied with SAM Vision is only Version 4.02.

Can they be combined this way, or is SAM C Version 4.02
specially written for SAM Vision?
                 Letter From Matthew Gallagher

If they can be combined, which files do I need to copy onto the
SAM Vision disc (the two discs contain more than two versions of
some files (eg Runtime)).

Please can you help?

Matthew Gallagher












CA                Reply to Matthew Gallagher

I think the correct phrase should be "SAM Vision for SAM C".
It's best to think of SAM Vision as an extra set of functions
for SAM C.  You basically have to learn them as extra commands.

It should be possible to combine them, but with the programmer,
Marian, not speaking much English, it's down to us using trial
and error.  As you can see, we didn't have much luck prior to
the launch, but will keep you informed.

Interview: Graham Goring

                        'The' Interview

Many is the time when either Brian McConnell (previous editor)
or myself have had to warn or apologise to people about the
dodgy content of a certain contribution.  Nine times out of ten,
this is down to one person - Graham Goring.  He's best known for
his wonderful graphical abilities, and recently he's been
programming in machine code.  He's the man I always turn to when
I want a job doing.

Say hello, Graham Goring!

GRAHAM: Um, hello. Erm, in a bid to be polite, how are you?
        (actually I have no reason to ask as he's just spent the
        last five minutes complaining of chest pains after a
        nasty scare playing alien trilogy)

COLIN: I've got nasty chest pains, actually. And it's a complete
        lie about me playing Alien Trilogy. I was working on the
        SAM. Yeah. Now let me ask the questions, you arrogant
        young man.

        Firstly, your computing career (!) stems way back to
        when you were a wee laddie who still needed his mum to
        wash his hair for him. What was your first machine?

GRAHAM: Before I answer, what do you mean working on the SAM?
        Hmm... What do you call those swingy things between
        men's legs? Ah, that's it, Bo-

COLIN: MOVING ON... *sob*

GRAHAM: My first machine was a VIC 20, way back just after me
        old mate James got into the raw power of the sinclair
        48k ZX Spectrum. It was c**p. It just had a few games
        and I used to annoy James by boasting about my 3 channel
        sound compared to his bleepy little poxy fx.

COLIN: Right, and what happened to that?

GRAHAM: One day I tried loading a game and it just... stopped.
        Methinks beggering about with the 16k ram cartridge had

        something to do with it but I'm not entirely sure...

COLIN: So that went in the bin, then you moved onto the Speccy,
        right?

GRAHAM: Yeah (but the vic 20 never went in the bin, I think my
        mum flogged it to some poor sap)... But after that came
        the ZX Spectrum +2a with premier collection games pack.
        Hmmm... Happy days, but that was just I moved to
        Cornwall and away from James Curry...

COLIN: Hooray, eh?

GRAHAM: Right, I'm telling James you said that you little bum.

COLIN:  So.  I wield the mighty power of a FREDitor.  I could
        beat up He-man blindfolded. Anyway, where did your
        programming start?

GRAHAM: On the VIC 20 with my amazing 3 frame exploding tank

        animation including White Noise (woooo!). On the Speccy
        however me and James really started by doing tons of
        "Spacey Adventures" which involved a mis-shapen blob
        cavorting about the screen in various exciting scenes.
        They got so big that they'd often take 5 minutes to load
        up... Then came our first computer revoloution...

COLIN: Which was?

GRAHAM: UDGS! And by god I still swear by them (much to Stefan
        Drissen's horror). Yep, give me an UDG any day instead
        of your new-fangled sprites and texture maps...

COLIN: Erm, well maybe Speccy UDGs do have a sort of advantage
        over PC CD ROM things. Maybe. Somehow. So, did your
        programming experience amount to anything on the Speccy?

GRAHAM: Oh yes, we (or rather James) discovered the delights of
        the DIM command and wrote many a cruddy game involving
        tanks, mazes, ghosts and O's (Pacman from above).

COLIN: Where did you hear about the SAM?

GRAHAM: Well, I suppose from those early Crash articles. But the
        main reason I bought a SAM (and I am ashamed to admit
        this) was after I saw Trip-A-Tron and fell in love with
        it instantly. Ack!

COLIN: And this is where your biggest claim to fame comes in,
        isn't it?

GRAHAM: Nope. What the hell are you talking about?

COLIN: Well, you talked ME into buying a SAM, remember?  People
        will remember your name forever.

GRAHAM: Oh yeah, so I did. Hah. Sucker.

COLIN: What were your initial impressions of the SAM once you
        got playing with it?


GRAHAM: I don't like the colours. And who the hell is this Mel
        Croucher bloke? Oh, and that's a nice astronaut.

COLIN: What about the Axel F demo?

GRAHAM: I was dead impressed. Laughable when I look back at it.
        But then again most of the early SAM stuff is a bit
        crud. 'Cept Tetris.

COLIN: Which you can get from us on issue 3 of FRED for just 2
        quid, folks!

GRAHAM: Or from me for the cost of a blank disk and a first
        class stamp.. Just send it to-

COLIN:  Shutup.  You were a late FRED subber, weren't you?  Why
        did it take you so long to get involved with the world's
        greatest disk mag?

GRAHAM: Skint. Oh, and trust my damn luck but as soon as I

        started subbing (ish 48) then some berk came along and
        replaced that nice Mr McConnell. Tsk! However, at least
        I did buy 48 or so back issues at one show for the mere
        price of 80 simolians.

COLIN:  I think you mean pounds.  And I think Colin enjoyed that
        night thanks to you.

GRAHAM: How did you find out about our passionate night out that
        night? It was meant to be a secret. Okay, so we loved
        each other in a country split by computer formats, but
        is that a crime? I say not! Damn you all! Can't you tell
        it's real love we're dealing with here? DAMN YOU ALL TO
        HADES!

COLIN: Goodbye job.  Anyway, give us a rundown of what you've
        written for FRED over the last two years (and try not to
        mention the stuff you wrote which I submitted in my
        name).


GRAHAM: Like the editorials for ishes 51 to 58? Okay then, that
        just leaves... (rumbles about for his FRED disk box...)

FRED 48 - Android Escape and the Quiz that nobody entered.
FRED 49 - My first Sci-Fi thingy. Cool... To be a published
          Author.
FRED 50 - More Sci-Fi, am I unstoppable? YES!
FRED 51 - Um, Intergalactic Races, a game unfairly censored by
          you. Oh, and the worlds' worst menu screen. Ha!
FRED 52 - Again I topped myself with THE WORLDS EVEN WORSER
          TITLE SCREEN, with added dundruff...
FRED 53 - Robots, based on an Atari ST game of a similar name.
          You almost completely had to retype it in because of
          one repeated variable in my program. Hee hee hee!
FRED 54 - Anonimity. And for 53 too, I just noticed. Work work
          work...
FRED 55 - Nothing, but I think it'7s safe to assume that I meant
          too. So there. Maybe the NET section on that was mine.
FRED 56 - Nowt.
FRED 57 - Anonimity again.

FRED 58 - I wrote the text viewer only ever used on the first
          interview section.
FRED 59 - This, I think was the start of my lazy period.
FRED 60 - The menu graphics, and 5 (count 'em) Sci-Fi articles.
FRED 61 - Nowt?
FRED 62 - Anonimity. I think. I don't think I can find the disk
          at the moment. And the menu, too.
FRED 63 - Zilch.
FRED 64 - Nada.
FRED 65 - Anonimity.
FRED 66 - Um, I was ill.
FRED 67 - Cough cough... Oh yeah! I did Jelly Text!
FRED 68 - Menu, Jelly Text, The Interview, Compiled Laser Squad,
          2 Bit's and Bob's items. PC text converter. Um, the
          whole sodding issue, right?

        Plus various B'n'B bits, including the BEST EVER BIT'S
        AND BOB'S item, the WHIRLYTRON 2000.

        That's about it.

COLIN: Quite a busy bee then, apart from when I'm away at uni
        and can't moan at you.  Still, a fine example of what a
        typical subber should be like...

        You have stemmed into the more commercial scene though,
        doing graphics for Wayne Coles and designing for Graham
        Burtenshaw. Tell us about that...

GRAHAM: Well, the stuff for Wayne is mainly for 2 things. STAX,
        an excellent Columns clone, hopefully on next months
        FRED. And also for Tactical Assault Squad (The Wayne
        'crap names for games' Coles curse strikes again) which
        is a bit like Laser Squad+ really. Plus I have designed
        the rooms for Momentum, the spindizzy-esque game from
        Mr Burtenshaw. Actually the game has been growing on me
        lately. I also have done the graphics for Spellbound,
        but if that see's the light of day I'll be VERY
        surprised.

COLIN: For those who didn't know, the Graham Burtenshaw game is

        the one mentioned a few months ago. It's hopefully going
        to be realeased this year by either FRED or Revelation.

        What's been your proudest piece of work on SAM?

GRAHAM: Either the Whirlytron 2000, because it f***s up your
        eyes for MONTHS on end. Or the Sci-Fi skits as I enjoy
        writing, so it's nice to be recognised (even if it is
        due to a chronic lack of other contributions).

COLIN: I'm sure it's just a dry spell.  Hmm.  How do you think
        FRED has changed since it began?

GRAHAM: Well, obviously the standard of contributions has picked
        up a lot, but there's been a little bit of a drought
        lately. Mainly due I'm sure to utterly selfish sods.
        (Sorry, people at Uni).

COLIN: What is your view on SAM PD libraries?


GRAHAM: Um, they're nice but I would obviously prefer it if the
        really good PD got aired to a larger audience before
        becoming PD. And one of the best ways for this to happen
        is to SEND IT TO FRED! (Hmmm... Is this really Graham
        typing this bit or is it Colin?)

COLIN: No this is me!  Ta-daaaa.  Actually, I did ask you that
        question in the hope you agreed with me, and you do.
        Phewee.

GRAHAM: Oh arse!

COLIN: Do you hold any other strong views on anything that won't
        get me or FRED into trouble?

GRAHAM: Yes, Walkers crisps. Why oh why did they stop making
        Maple Cured Ham flavour 3D's? The other flavours (Nacho
        cheese and spicy vomit) tasted grim, I'll admit, but I
        could happily eat bag after 80gram bag of them until my
        arteries clogged up.

COLIN:  Um, thanks.  I'm sure a lot of other people feel
        strongly about that too. Hmm. Finally, what do you have
        planned for the future?

GRAHAM: Aside from eating junk food, and perhaps TRYING to write
        a Sit-Com (insert the letter H if you feel it's
        necessary) I don't know. Certainly finishing some of the
        many things I have started on the SAM and almost
        definitley exploring this concept you earthlings call
        "sex".

COLIN: Sit-Chom, eh?  Wow.  Well, I'll wrap this up there,
        before I die. Thanks very much, Graham. Anything to say
        to those people who still haven't a clue who you are?

GRAHAM: Yes, I'm the one on the left of your picture. Oh, and by
        the way, as we type this in it's (grabs colin hand)
        2.51am and colin has to drive home. Let's hope he
        doesn't crash, eh, readers?