Atari User Magazine Vol 1 Issue 03

Page 1

A Database Publication

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The only way to make full use of ATARI USER is to become one. And the easiest way to do that is with ATARl Personal Computer Packs. There isn’t a better way to get into computers. There isn’t a more comprehensive starter pack. Only ATARI could give you a 64 Ram memory, cas— sette ‘soundthrough’ capabilities, a maximum of 256 colours on the screen at one time and 4 ‘sound’ voices.

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A choice of a 1050 Disk Drive ora 1010 Cassette Programmer are. Recorderand additiona so offer else could No one you all this power at these prices. And, as everything comes together, you can make the most of the unbeatable ATARI 800XL straight away. Without doubt, ATARI Personal Computer Packs are the easiest way to get into computers. The only difficulty is deciding which one. Now read on. .

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Discover the secrets f of your favourite ;‘ games with our Mari Dissese?tbiet 333

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Features Editors:

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Editorial: 061 -456 8835 Administration: 061—456 8383 Advertising: 061-456 8500 Subscriptions: 061—480 01 73 Telex: 667664 SHAR ET G Presto! Mailbox: 614568383

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"Atari User" welcomes program listings and articles for publication. Material should be typed or computer—printed, and preferably double—spaced. Program listings should be accompanied by cassette tape or disc. Please enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope, otherwise the return of material cannot be guaranteed. Contributions accepted for publication by Database Publications Ltd will be on an all-rights basis. 0 1985 Database Publications Ltd. No material may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission. While every care is taken. the publishers cannot be held legally responsible for any'errors in articles, listings or advertisements. "Atari User" is an independent publication andAtari Corp (UK) Ltd are not responsible for any of the articles in this issue or for any of the opinions expressed. News trade distribution: Europress Sales and Distribution Limited, 11 Brighton Road, Crawley, West Sussex RH 0 6AF. Tel: 0293 27053. 1

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4 ATARI USER July 7985

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and solves a Murder on the Zin— to the d erneuf. There 5 an answer Filthy Fifteen and a new brain—bender to keep you busy. ,

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Software

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This month our intrepid reviewers keep their brains busy W'th MULF and Pensate and their joysticks busy with Hard Hat Mack, Bounty Bob Strikes Back and Kissin'Kousins.

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Editorial Team: Alan McLachlen Kevin Edwards Pete Bibby Production Editor: Peter Glover

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All the latest in Atari news.The demise of the 30ST, the ST software promise, and lots more.

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If you want to see what's happening deep inside your Atari, Kevin Edwards’ disassembler will show you.

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A golden oldie from the fertile pen of

Roland Waddilove. Gointo action with trigger-happy race against time.

17 Commandments you're thinking of writing for Atari User you’ll need to read this.

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DOS Atari's new DOS 2.5 gets the thumbs up from André Willey.

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Binders for your back issues, disc doublers, dust covers for your micro and a free T—shirt for all new subscribers.

July 1985 ATARI USER

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”We will definitely be bringing out a machine priced between £400 and £500"—Atari sales and marketing chief Rob Harding.

THE move

autumn.

“It's true

by Commodore

Alvin Stumpf

has recently swapped the post of heading up Commodore in Germany for a

similar position with Atari there. He follows a number of Commodore executives in the

who

have

changed horses. “This is not a question of predatory hiring or any prob— lems Commodore may have been currently having", Max

Bambridge, Atari's European sales and marketing head told Atari User. "I believe it is all very logical in that once people have worked for a winner like Jack Tramiel, they would want to go out of their way to work for him again".

S'I'ca STEPPING in where others fear to tread is Silica Shop. It has agreed to become the

official

distributor

following the

for Atari

disappearance from the scene of Terry Blood a nd Li htnin Theg |angr blamed their departure on Atari’s require— ments for high stock commit— ment orders having to start at £250,000—whenthey claimed the market did not support it. Silica Shop’s Tony Deane, however, said his firm did not ,

—-

in the same

£400 to £500 range, and it in the WILL be available

executives to switch to Atari is not restricted to the United States.

States

THE 13OST is dead. Atari has confirmed that its eagerlvawaited medium price personal computer will not be manufactured after all. But there IS to be an ST—based machine

BACK To JAGK

United

’ s o

have scrapped the 13OST", sales and market— ing boss Rob Harding told Atari User, but we regard this as a positive move, not a backward we

one.

“Quite frahkw, the 13OST as a naked originally planned CPU with 128k RAM would not have been sufficientiy superior to other machines in its price range. “Jack Tramiel's philosophy is ‘power without the price’ which has been achieved with the 5208T but the 1308T would have fallen short of this high standard so it had to go. "But we will definitely be bringing out a machine —priced between £400 and £500. "It will be ST—based, but a _

_

much more sophisticated product than the 1SOST, with more memory and possiblyeven a

disc drive.

“I'm

confident we'll have

I

Replacement Wlll be m“ re s 0 p hlst Ica t 8d I

supplies ready in the autumn to take on the 0L and the new BBC

.

ExPer?se ”Unlike other distributors,

Silica Shop only deals with one manufacturer, so all the funds we have, all the experise, can be generated into that one area”, he explained. Distributors who deal with a

Blood and Lightning

News of the new machine brought a delighted response from recently—appointed Atari official distributor, Silica Shop. ‘We went to the Hanover Show to see the 13OST and were very disappointed at its absence", said a spokesman. "The decision to scrap this model was a further blow. But we are delighted to hear it will be replaced by something even better.

Rethink "I think this will be the right machine for the market, a powerful computer for the price you could normally only buy a Commodore and disc drive". The new machine could bring about a rethink by distibutors who have backed away from recent deals offered by Atari because of margins and stocking commitments.

Major distributors

Terry

number Of makes and can only put a percentage of their funds into each one would find it difficult to make a similar commitment, Deane continued.

the Atari " d ea, e sai (ionhmen?dng 3&1 e are very happy with their terms. They :

give very good support and keep

their promises. They said they would launch the ST and did so a month ahead of schedule. That like”. The company also liked Jack Tramiel’s pricing policy and his I

were

unhappy about the non—appear— ance of the 13OST, which they saw as a key element in marketing the. range. Joe Woods, marketing manager of TBD, has said: “The 5205T is too expensivefor usto take in the quantities Atari

B+".

Shop takes

have any qualms in accepting this commitment. Since it began dealing with Atari in 1979, Silica had never had problems in placing large orders consistently, he said.

I

wanted".

A more sophisticated version of the 13OST in the same price bracket could make the Atari

range look attractive

once

again. But both TBD

and Lightning would still seek less ri'gid distribution deals. Lightning spokesman Tom

Ferguson told Atari User: "We’re willing to open new negotiations for existing stock or new products, but only if the terms are different regarding stocking commitments". ATBD spokesman added: "If Atari asks for the same level of commitment for this new machine as for the SZOST our position is likely to be the same no deal".

over news

planned 3T model in range. to replace the dropped 13OST,and which would be more 80phis— Of a

the £400-f500 ticated.

”The is un Diane eata sba'id: i'Atarirang; e,itsquaitysuper ,

andthe price is now right.Jack's got everything going for him". 0 Asked at the Comdex Show in Atlanta how he was going to finance the proposed production of the ST computers, Jack Tramiel, as bluntly as usual, replied: "From my own pocket".

July 7985 ATARI USER

7


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breakthrough THE fate of Atari hangs on whether or not the new ST machines achieve a market

breakthrough, according

to

USA well informed based Fortune magazine.

the

"lfST‘sstartsellingTramiel’s

low prices mean trouble for and anybody Apple and IBM else with home computer plans", writes associate editor Peter Petre. But he goes on to warn: ”If they don't, Atari could be fighting to the death against Commodore". Author Petre takes a long Tramiel hard look at Atari Since took over. From this he con— —

the

that

cludes

battling

businessman wants to turn the corporation mm a family stronghold to be passed on to his three sons. Sam Tramiel, now the Atari president, had previously worked for his father when he was the boss Of Commodore.

onto

prove He then went himself '” h's own right OUt m the Far East. The article SUQQGStS Fortune that Tramiel's younger sons are currently assigned to “jour— .

neyman positions" in Atari “30“ Of Of the” beca_use experience. Leonard,

30' who h°|ds

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Petre writes: “The sale Of assets agreement was a 300 page monument to expediency, full of qualifications, loopholes and doors left open to be closed later. no cash.Hegot Tramiel'paid the assets '” exchange for long that debt and warrants term give Warner, claim to 32 per cent Of Ata” 5 sum" According to Fortune, the look Atari is already new claiming to be operating at a .

512.1...1.

8 ATAR/ USER July 1985

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The Tramie/s— ChairmanJack, 56, with, clockwise from President Sam 35, Gary, 25 and Leonard, 30,

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ls

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that

Jack

Tramiel’s

leadership we’re a much more aggressive company, and we intend to see that we have the software support right across the market for our new product range".

Following the company's at the American Con— Electronics Show, the major US software houses realised that producing forAtari

showing sumer

"That's ”01 implausible", writes Petre, "although the

risks. One of these, he claims,

admitted

shortage of software has beena problem for Atari in the past. “But that's not going to be the wayin thefuture",he promised.

“Under

is

that the XE from which the corporation hopes to draw a substantial amount of revenue could face problems. “The cooling of the home computer fad could mean that the XE may already have been passed by", he warns.

lower/eff,

u

sorted out

LEADING UK software houses have been briefed on Atari's requirements and plans overthe next few months by the director software company's Sig Hartmann.

Hartmann

se

ware

0

'

“frenetic week".

mous

—— ,

“that

company got most of its $125 million in revenues during the last half by unloading bloated inventories at cut rates". Still the writer points out that Atari is currently facing enor—

400/800/XL/130KE 48“

H

a

PhD in astrophysics, is helping to create software for the ST machines while Gary, 25, who previously worked as a stock— broker now “handles odd jobs” in Atari's financial set up. The magazine claims that when Tramiel bought Atari it was distressed merchandise, and so made to order for him. Atari had lost $539 million in 1983 after the video bubble burst. This is said to have placed pressure on Warner Communi— cations—under whose wing the time—to company came offload With Atari hemorrhag— mg cash Fortune reports that the deal with Tramiel took shape during

it

,

was going to provide a winner for them.

“We think you'll agree when unveiled in Europe", Hartmann told the British software publishers. ‘We see the new Atari systems of home as being centres activity. “Sure, there'll still be room for games, but much more emphasis is being paid to the products are

serious uses such as home accountsand word processing". Hartmann gave an indication

of Atari's

philosophy when

questioned about the future of cassette program recorders. “They're going to become things of the past", he forecast, “the whole market is shifting into disc drives. Prices have to come

down".

£750 I or the 520 ST 7 .

ATARI has denied reports in the trade press that it intends to sell the 5208T in three different

consisting of Basic, Logo, GemWrite, Gem Paint, TOS operating system and 808

packages. A company spokesman told AtariUser: ”The machine will be sold in only one configuration. ”This will include 12in high resolution mono screen, the SZOST with mouse, 3%in 500k disc drive and bundled software

business operating system”. At press time Atari was hinting at a price in the £700 to £800 range for this package. “In fact if you said it was going to cost £749.99 you would probably be accurate", said the spokesman.


L

520 ST turns up

Canoe Champions

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Atari

52OSTs have begun arriving in Britain. But prospective purchasers are advised to be very patient. It could beautumn beforetheyare able to walkintoa shop and buy one off the shelf. “I'm afraid the machines will be in short supply for a while vet”. said a company spokeSman.

“The szosrs are arriving in the hundreds rather than the thousands and we have a Iar e backlog of orders from systengis houses, educational establish— merits and the like that have to be filled as a priority”. On a brighter note, there should be no shortage of software when the machines become freely available.

50 software

houses have already bought development systems and are expecting to have finished or nearly finished products by the beginning of September. By that time more than 100— perhaps as many as 200 software houses are expected to be working on programs for the SZOST ranging from games to specialised business packages —

have noticed their favourite computer getting a IotOi‘Cfedit

during the various

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world's top canoeists from all agains‘ diSCiP'ines to ”mate each other over four different in

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four

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championships The event

i:

’-

an important

Wales.

iii 5?{j

W'

f’

score

role at the annual held 0” the water at Bala, North

,at

,

fact Atari f99U|ale plays

white

gr :_

readouts. |h

Atar I

(Ill an

Rapid Racing canoeing on lTV’s

THEfirst major batches

More than

.

'

;

w

i?

k

screen.

This work is done on an “old" an 810 disc drive, high speed printer, 850

Atari 800 with

l/O box, three monitors,

a

computer/TV

interface adapter, and various other "boxes of tricks". All of these are arranged in a m ob i e ca rava n ette a n d operated in conjunction with the l

.

,

z.

f

,.

f

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“a

A

number

Money has been returned to people who ordered software packs from A1 Software Services of Hornchurch, Essex. Famous titles like Pole Position,Ghostbusters and Jet Boot Jack were mentioned in the promotion which offered the general public as many as 50

Lotus

123

superset, he said. And when those gathered at the press conference complained about Atari's poor press packs, he ended: “There are times to have caviar. There are times to have beans. This is our time for eating beans but we plan to eat caviar when our time comes". —

[yawn

f

._

Qatar‘s”

”‘

.

w. ,

.

'”

t"

,

The Atar/s output

IS

-...

'

-

order

operation offering top selling games at rock bottom prices has

apparently stopped, just

as

software publishers urgently investigating its

leading

activities,

-

J: -

used as an overlay by the TV team '

timing computers by a two—man team. The 20k machine code program was written for Atari by

MacLean, author of

DropZone among others, and is a cleverly thought out menu— driven system allowing a nontechnically minded person to operate it.

It gives the access

user

to and from

instant wide

a

variety of functions

and can cater for up to 64 named and numbered competitors in four independent sets of race results,

OFFER ENDS

AN announcement that more than 50 ST software packages W0U|d be released by July 8 was made bY Atari's vice-president Sigmund Hartmann at the recent Comdex Showin Atlanta. To be included in that a

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allowing both mid point and finish times. At any time results can be quickly printed or displayed on demand in a wide variety of presentation styles and can be based on points or times for any race or all four races combined. The operator can also edit and rearrange screens before display so that special mess— ages can be generated as requested by the TV director. Says MacLean: “The Atari equipment used is five years old now and is probably one of the most travelled systems in use. “it performed as faultiessiy as ever last time out, despite being used in a very damp atmosphere at some very

riverside

awkward—to-reach

were

i;

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MYSTERIOUS mail

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sophisticated

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competitors that appear as overlays on the television -

5;

dayS-

The occasion is covered bva big TV crew which depends on an Atari for accurate results data processing and most Of the score displays and lists of

“3° 8 promlsed

‘-

W,

games for £30. One software publisher who sent a postal order for £19 to A1 Software Services for a pack of 15 games had his money returned along with a slip of paper saying ”A1 Software Services has ceased trading". “I shall be pleased if this mail order operation has stopped", he said. “I was most concerned

that

our

titles

had been

mentioned in it and our legal department was ready to act

should any infringement of copyright have been involved".

locations.

"In fact it only failed when the generator

once

ran out of

petrol!"

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ENGLISH SOFTWARE'S FlRSTA‘I’fARVIV‘i‘IAthLELA £18H ATARI Cassette £6.95 ?riETEiEB/ELECTVROT‘T HON “TALHIE”

E

#,

£4.95 "’

"

July 1985 ATARI USER

9


M

last month how to write however programs, primitive. Now we'll look at some ways of improving them. I don't guarantee that you'll be able to produce spectacular programs by the end of this article, but you will certainlybe well on the way to an understanding of Basic. First, though, let's recap a little: We saw last month that a Basic program consists of a numbered sequence of instructions to the computer. one of these To instructions enter we Simply type the correct hhe number, followed by the appropriate Basic then press Return. keyword, the As we discovered, because of do “he number, the _Ata” doesnt what you tell it immediately, but remembers it as part of the program. To see all the instructions in a WE our

saw own

_

p ro 9 ram, we

programming With PART THREE Of "1 IKE BIBBY

as:"pnosiiiii|ixiic" IlS="IS" 40 cS“'Easv" 5° "I" “5 30

[Return]

We saw we tended to enter that “he 10 to allow numbers insteps of us to otherinstructlons between mm them ,'f necessary. found that Also we ’

better lmewnh g'V'hg the new

the “he number

a

Of

the 0“

to ruin "PROGRMHG" 2. ”I," “15“ 3. PRINT "Easv" '

July 7985

-

string rather

'

lot. In example, use

"I“

.

a busmess

the

name

Program ”

achieving exactly the same output. Type it in and try it. Apart from it being an incredibly long-winded way of doing things, what else is going on? Well, as you will recall from the first article in the series, the words inside quotes are known as strings because the computer simply remembersthem as strings of letters. That is, it considers HAMSTER as H, followed by A, followed by M and so no idea of the word 5 on, —

label A$.

In computer terms, we have assigned to A$ the value “PRO— GRAMMING". All this means is that from now on wherever want to use “PROGRAMMING" in my program, can replace it with A$. So line 50, which is: I

I

with

50 PRINT As

meanmg-

don't think that it takes all that much that when imagination to_se_e your computer ls printing a lot of output, you might be using the same I

a

letter of the you might for company fairly frequently instance, BBC for British Broadcasting Corporation. Atari Basic allows us to use much the same idea, but more as labels than abbreviations. For instance, in line 20 of the the we have above program labelled With the PROGRAMMING string For

35 70 PRINT cs

'

70 ATARI USER

-

1. DIN “$(12),B$(12),05(12)

[Return]

Program!

-

20

from To clear a mgr“? memory (and this we should entering a use. new program do) we bef9'e

Ve's'Oh One-

S

know what’s going on. Program ll is another way of

50

could replace version by simply

. I

Finally, to delete a line completely, simply type the line number and press Return. Program | is the one we started with last month. Before we continue, type it in and run it, to make sure you

[Return]

a

l

we

type:

we

l

gmde through m’cro Jungle

the

To actually get the Atari to carry out the sequence of instructions we

NEW

l

-

.

RUN

g

Expand your knOWIedgq Of

t YD e:

LIST

a on

r’ng

causes

the micro

to

_

print

out

"PROGBAMMI.NG”.. Admittedly in this example this technique of labelling doesn’t save .


———————Besimts (Q B $ A til?

y

l

a

”W

-

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-

'/‘\

\_

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77!

page? WAY

~ -

)

> have to use any quotes they're already there, implicit in the we don't

fl;

ff

label A$.

,

{f

.

,;

. ‘

'

a

a.

'

l

“x ‘

._z’ / '

All right, but explained line 10:

/ /,

l

/ 1,

.;;’_

aJ

I

.-

/

/...

/

%’ %5

'

,

.

M"

/

?éé‘i/ "

/

.

l/

/

1,7,

still haven't

Well, it's all to do with the micro's housekeeping. Just as, when you throw a party, it’s helpful to have an idea of the maximum number y guests you expect, so it's on (Inf manners to tell the Atari how large you think each string is going to be. It can then set aside a suitable amount of memory for the strings. We do this with DIM —a new Basic goody

_ '

we

10 DIM A$(12),B$(12),C$(12)

.

' "

.

,

/ '

,

keyword that fixes the maximum number of letters or characters to be associated with each label. For instance, if we had a string label X$ and we never wanted it to refer to a string of more than ten characters in length we would have a

.

line such as:

much space or effort, but if the program uses the word “PROGRAM— MING" 100 times, there would be a substantial saving in using A$ instead of the string itself. Similarly, line 30 causes B$ to label IS and line 40 labels EASY with C$, so that lines 60 and 70 give the appropriate printout. Notice the following points: 0 We have chosen ourlabels so that they consist ofa letter of the alphabet followed by the $ sign. Actually, we don't have to restrict ourselvestojust one letter, as we shall see, but our label must end with the $ Sign, since this warns the computer that we are labelling a string. And the letter we use must be a capital. (We’ll see later how to label other things.) 0 While used A$ for the first label, B$ for the second and C$ for the third, this was totally arbitrary 0” my part— labels don't have to follow alphabetic or any other kind of order. I

0 Although we“ use an equals sign (=) to connect the label with what it is labelling, it is safer, as we shall see, not to think of it as an equals sign think in terms of A$ becomes “PROGRAMMING" rather than A$ equals “PROGRAMMING". 0 We must have the label on the left and what islabelled on the right ofthe —

sign. A line such as:

equals ..

PROGRAMMING

29 just does not make Try it for yourself! 0 When labelling

..

sense to

_ —

A$

the Atari.

we put the string as we did previously quotes, when using the PRINT statement to print out strings. So line 20 reads: inside

20 A$

=

..

PROGRAMNHNG,,

1° DIM

x3(10)

Notice: keyword DIM followed by

Q The space.

a

a

. The label x$ fo||owed directly—no space— by the maximum length you want to label, in brackets. That’s what we did in line 10 of Program ||_ This time we had three labels to dimension _A$, B$, C$—so we put them all in the same line, separated by commas. You might also notice that I've been pretty wasteful with my I've given dimming, as it's known each label a maximum length of 12, although, as you'llsee from the rest of the program, none of my strings is that lon coulgdhave got away With: —

,

|

w

on

A

corn

letel

1° DIM A$(11),B$(2),C$(4) Try running Program II with this

”piggy;"rl‘9(l)20GRAMli$)IING",pquoteZ and all, so that

when

we say

PRlNT A$

' July 1985 ATARI USER

17


—_——————— t good programming £2! to Ina/"de REMS, practice IS

if you don't believe me. Remember, all you have to do to alter a line is to retype it (starting with the line number of course), then press Of the “he new

line,

CL

duced a

trriltzvzléegsjzn a?lurrelplaT:

What would happen if we didn't DIM enough room for a string being labelled? Try replacing line 10 With:

else afterit ignores everything on the same line. This means we can write whatever we want after REM (providing it is on the same line) without fear of the micro giving us an .

.

a line It

lf you’ve done lt properly, when you run it you Sh°“|d get the message:

10

.

,

10 DIM A$(8),B$(2),C$(4)

new Basic

keyword in.line REM. We use REM which IS short for to add comments or REMark, to our headings programs. When the Atari encounters REM in

.

.

.

.

error ”message

.

As you can see, the label A$ accepted as little as possibleAll right, but you wouldn't make this sort of would you? After mistake, allyou canjust look ataprogram a'nd see re how blg _the strings you labelling are 90an to get. Yes, but the strings you're labelling can

Program Ill,

size as in

change

division should have one or more REM statements explaining what is going on. Since the Atari ignores‘ the contents of REM statements, you could leave them out of your program entirely and it will work as effectively. However it is good programming practice to include them. In Program IV have used a single REM at the beginning of the program, as it is so short. Bear in mind however, that REM can appear on any line in a program. Now for some jargon. From now on we sha|| refer to our jabels as “?ames; Don’t be put off by the mathematical sound ofthat—they are still just labels. And instead of saying we are |abej|ing, we say we are assigning, as we have mentioned previously. The actual string involved I

1. DIN 1150) 20 x$="BIG " 3. mm“ xs 40 H$:"BIGEER" so punt xs 50

“551165551"

70

min

as

.

,

Program ”I

where what X$ labels varies from BIG “3 B'GGER to BIGGEST' Hence another, more common name for these string labels string variables. Notice each time you give a string label or variable a value, that value “replaces" the“ Old value. These variables really vary. .

label

l

a

e re ers to wW?atever leowahen

a

strirég e t:e t e

is insi

quotes, including spaces, as you will see if you run Program IV.

Notice that our punctuation semicolons works for labelled strings just as it worked on its own. Notice also that we have intro—

1. IE! "05th I“ 2. 51" mn.l$t?hcst7x.09m 3. AS=“TEST" 40

352“

5. cs:-6. is.-n

July 7985

FEST"

IEST" n

If“,

,

1: 33:1 2:3???“ ‘ 7830123456789 01234567

72 ATARI USER

,

the Atari doesnt read the line beyond the REM' If we use REM to prefix our comments, we can annotate our program. Certainly each main sub—

PROGRAMM ls EASY

”u Program /v

is

known

as

the value of the variable.

80: "TEST" reads “the string variable A$ has a53|gned to it the value TEST. The actual act of giving a variable a value '.

A$

.

=

.

.

called an assngnment. To return to the Of actual world programs, you can mix and match string variables and actual strings however you want. Program V illustrates the point: Is

ll 2. x. 4. 5. 5. 7.

RE" woman

mi

0

antenna)

.$:"m

m:

15--

35-3. NIKE"

“I" "I" ”III

“5:35 "m "it

IS“;I$

as," NIKE" ’

pmgram v

Notice the space at thebeginning the string assigned to B$ YOU need this otherwise the output looks rather odd. Leave it out if you don't believe me. AS we saw last month, a semi—colon at the end ofa line Causes the next output to start immediately after the last and "Ot 0“ a new line as it WOUld do in the absence Of the semi—colon. That is, it "glues" the strings together. The internal semi—colons Of lines 50,60 and 70 do much of the same, "gluing" variables to strings, and so Of

on.

Also,

on

the subject of

gram—

matica| propriety, when we're assigning variables we should use the LET statement. So line 40 should read:

4° LET

B‘

=

,,

MlKE

,,

As you've already discovered, we can omit LET altogether. 0 Next month, more on variables and/NPUT— which opens the door to

effective programming.


No.

FOR A I ARI

1

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firmware

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The prices of the ST from SILICON CHIP Ltd, include BaSiC, L090, 3 word Processor,

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Please phone

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write for full details.

Support. -

July 1985 ATARI USER

13


_———_————————

A

FOR those of you who have been reading this section of Atari User every month, it may seem that Vlrtually all adventure games are written by the American race. and International Adventure have dominated Infocom my examination of the origins and the different types of adventures available. There are, however, plenty of good adventure writers from these fair

.

.

and the recent release of Emerald Isle by Level 9 gives an ideal opportunity to examine one of the best known of them. Emerald Isle is the seventh adventure released by Level 9 for the Atari and is text 0h|Yi although other

m

.

these

’n

t

a m "S

an s

3

WI,"

re

.

br a w

’n

e ve

3

shores,

machines WhiCh the firm covers ”OW receive The graphics treatment. In the next feW months we shall ViSit all seven, but for the moment will concentrate on the first and the last, To give an idea Of what immefSth yourself in a Level 9 game |

is like. in adventuring iS to map, 30 that ”0 matter hOW perplexing your surroundings YOU can

The 90|deh rule

make

a

.

always find your way around. This is never truer than when playing a Level 9 game, as their speciality is in big sprawling games. To give you an idea of what this means their first release was an adaptation of Colossal Cave, the grand—daddy of all adventures, faithfully programmed from the main— frame original down to home micros by using a sophisticated text compression technique known as the

lea

HIGH in the church tower, Quasimodo, deafened from years of playing footbell (think about it), is a bit miffed because the local parishioners the bells keep telling him the bells .

.

1

es

mstmo trauma)

.

““""“""“""“"'°“”’"

The people have commissioned the BBC (Belfry Builders’ Club) to sort out the mess and they in their infinite wisdom have picked you, one of their best men, to do the job. All you have to do is identify which rope is which down in the vestry and then pull them in the right order. The only commands you need are U (Up), D (Down), T (Tie), and P (Pull). Despite what you may assume after hours the problem of puzzling, has a solution. The best of luck you’re going to need it! _

a:

I

1-1 w .a?u)=‘gmt 1:1 to h ~

hang full

the

ceiling“

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on the market. So, putting the

220

i: z: 2:

This coding allowed the Austin brothers, Pete and Mike,to reproduce the game despite the limitations of memory of home micros at that time. Not content with this, they then proceeded to add a further 70 locations of their own as an endgame, making theirversion the mostoriginal of the many copies of Colossal Cave

It Ix" tons

“1"

~

A-Code.

200 F=ll

.

are out of tune. This of course is com Ietel untrue and to get his own backphe hayscut all the seven ropes and left them in a complete tangle on the vestry floor.

July 7985

“i"

2 mar 5 “1”

...

74 ATARI USER

Brllllg

says

Quas'modo

-

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"53m,“

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310 IE!" I no can in 330 IF $50"?

no rule i “it”

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spasm ?a?a?‘é‘?&\é\?&‘2\9§ defined format. Emerald [519

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recent- games side by side, how have Level 9 developed? In comparing the two games the first impression is that nothing much has changed in Level 9's presentation. Each location re— ceives a description of the surroun— dings, plus any useful objects that may be lying around. The text is often lengthy, in direct

contrast to Scott Adams games, where the location details are placed on the screen in a brief and well -

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As you can see, to play a 9 Level a deal of stamina game takes good latest offering and perSistence,.their being no exception. It also demon— in adventures a movement strates which I for one

Instead

applaud.

of being

a

.

_

glorified

treasure hunt, a theme which has been well explored now, Emerald Isle offers a specific goal. In it you are a crashlanded pilot, who, en route to deliver valuable

documents, made the mistake of taking a short cut across the Bermuda Triangle. Hence you start the game suspended by your parachute in a mangrove forest as a collection of forest predators sense an early lunch. Although escaping is not a great problem, you soon find yourself around find a blundering until you treetop City. It transpires that-the only person allowed to leave the island is its monarch. This will obviously pose an out-of—work pilot with a few prob— Iems, but fortuitously there is a contest to become the ruler, although as the authors take great pleasure in the rules of this pointing out competition are not included in the announcement.

~

it"fwmmsm

ssh so“ 140

more

adventuring. Dwa ves and pirates seem to abound in this underground wilderness, and the cautious adventurer is wise to arm himself as quickly as possible to prevent his life being lost. This is mainly due to the fact that on death you are likely to find that your gains to date, ill-gotten or not, have been spread around the adventure Just to make things a little less easy for you.

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mun 1:1 70 Ml) 5“ ”m "lo-s!" 5“ mt I

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While this gives a untidy appearance after a few moves, it does give scope for more atmospheric scene setting. To demonstrate this it takes only a few moves in Colossal Adventure to wide open countryside, trave havenviziteld e aong a riverside,followed a stream and spentageswanderingina maze of caverns occupied by some of Level 9 screen an

"us

f

.

Travelling aroundthe city proves to no real problem once you are dressed for the part, but all is obviously not well. The clock tower no longer works, despite it being of Victorian design, although Big Ben never seems to be

have those problems, and just about every gate in the city is locked. However, a trip to the beach is easy as the rail system here knocks BR into a cocked hat. On the beach you find the solution to a rather knotty problem that has been troubling the government of late, with the missing Conquerer’s log, as well as a starving spider, although you may not need to come to a sticky end. As usual, Level 9 retain their unique brand of humour throughout. of

At the moment I am in urgent need lamp, preferably working, which

a

is doubtless hidden somewhere far off and obscure. To date have not indulged myself in Level 9’s volumin— ous hint sheet, despite much hairtearing and cursing, although this probably explains why my score out a thousand has yet to reach treble of figures! At £6.95 this has to be the best I

.

9 value yet, and have no in recommending you to hesitation buy this one. Not such a reference for glowmg Murder on the Zinderneuf,l’m afraid. Any game purporting to be an Level

I

-

adventure but yet requiring a joystick immediately arouses my suspicions. The basic idea, in the guise ofa series

of thinly-disguised fictional detectives, is to investigate a missing person case aboard the Zinderneuf, a transatlantic airship. This is accomplished by steering your detective, silly name and all, around the ship to search for clues and question suspects in a variety of different tones and pursuasive man— the murderer: ners until you accuse Get enough eVidence and they hang. Not enough, or just plain wrong, and you carry on searching. The manual which accompanies the game is neatly produced, including a map of the rooms on the ship, and potted biographies of the characters involved. Each game takes place in simulated real time, and by reference to the manual you can soon get the hang of which way to go to ‘

search

a room.

Searching, however, consists of wandering around a room until a message appears to tell you either what you have found, or that there is July 1985 ATARI USER

15


Adventuring I

nothing of interest. Nothing very adventurous there. The graphics are clear and the scrolling is also well executed, but overallthe game left mewithafeeling of playing a souped-up Cluedo. At El 1.95 for the disc from Ariolasoft, thought this was a trifle steep, so it's "frustrated Cluedo addicts only" for I

Two last comments on the column to date. As you can see, there are numerous problems in adventures, so if you are stuck, don't hurl the

cassette through the nearest window, but drop me a line and HI do my best to help out without actually telling you the answer.

problems with ,

a

I

H “HSIHQ

THE problem posed in the June issue of how to becomegovernorand make the Filthy Fifteen STOP is difficult

$©F

method

is to

modify the program to through possible combinations, rather like solving the eight queens on a chess board puzzle. Here is one solution: search

even though there are thousands of solutions. The simplest general ,

'

N2

342,15

.

, .

.

”3

4'8‘12 g”

N4 \

.

N6

m

m

3‘5’”

N17 '

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Beach HeadD DallasQuestD DropzoneC/D ConanC/D MrDoC/D

QuasimodoC/D Miner2049er HoverBower SpaceShuttle ROM

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15 ATAR/ USER

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Utilities

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g §

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ATARI SOFTWARE SPECIALISTS FOR MAIL ORDER

Dig

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7

game, let me know.

Just to start you off, Level 9 has a lawn in Emerald Isle, yet the response to GO LAWN isn't quite what you would expect. Nobody’s perfect!

the Fliteen

6

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JUSI'“

Basic Compiler (D)

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ROM ) & T °° "(t'

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;


l'

m-

EVERY

so

often,

l

stra te

game

a

comes along that reeks of class. M.U.L.E. is one of those games. it will delight you, from its catchy theme music to your last auction. M.U.L.E. is a strategic game, involvingcunning and a

s

would takeafew pageslustto note them down, let alone explain them. To understand the game at its full potential, you really should read your manual. M.U.L.E. has three levels— beginner, standard and tournament. Each level is challen— ging and enjoyable. The game is fun to play arid has some nice little graphic touches and sound. ‘

t e

“a m 2

touch of the stock market. "What?" hear you say, “Not I

.

one marauding alien to blast into oblivion? Boring".

M.U.L.E.

emerge as you collude and haggle over p"°?5After the auction round has ?nished, YOU are then awarded 8 free Di0t Of land tO develop. think it's easy— Y?“ might bi“ just watch out for the pirates who will steal your hard—earned stock. Also, the storms will drive

anything but

is

enjoyed playing the boring. game for hours on end. The idea of M.U.L.E. is that you have been left on a planet and in order to survive you I

.

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However,

one

>

'

—-

that make

sure you never have dull moment. There are plenty of other features in the game, but it a

THE latest game from English

Software, Kissin' has an interesting

Buffo'n

where you can buy or sell your stock to the other players. This is where all you closet businessmen and women will

innovation

-

.

_

/

Kousins,

“a

“w"

'

snatch unless you reload the game. The only other speech | encountered was on the title Here a damsel in screen. distress was shouting "Save me i" This wasn't 50 impressive. more like a The voice sounded trainee female Impersonator

with

a sore

throat.

Still, this is

a

step in the

N,

i s“,

.‘\§:(1

"has

if“?

:

£2;ti” \

”"HM

“ngzmj‘w " Lannie a.“ "

M.U.L.E.

will

certainly

become part of my collection.

Pete Irvin

,

I I.

ping large red bombs, and each screen must be com— pleted within a tight time—limit. If you hit an obstacle, get blasted by a bomb, or just run out of time, you |ose one of Yourfivelives and must start at the beginning of that screen. When all lives are lost, the scene scrolls to reveal a large

hoarding showing ”Game

*

"

right direction and deserves full marks for effort. So what about the game itself? Well, I'm afraid it's not one of English Software's best. '

The is a

I

to disc. This is quality software from Electronic Arts, which is to be expected from this re— nowned software house.

Over".

,

,

you'll hear that particular

“m“

if

iii“

i ~

voice declaring “English Software presents

trouble is, that's the last time

n,

cheerful

'

'

kJ “2: L [

\__

Kissin’ Kousins is an arcade game in the mould of Hunchback, Popeye and others of that ilk. You must guide the tiny hero past a series of hazards in order to save the heroine. Immediately the game has loaded, you'll hear a clear and

Very impressive. Only

.

A.“’%f"til /\ \;.)

But don't get too excited—there's precious little of it, speech.

Kissin’ Kousins!"

L? g” \YE‘/<‘_/ ~

possible

improvement could have been the ability to save your game

T RY IN G H AR DI B u T

Afterdevelopingyourstock, you go to the auction round,

Q

..

“u“;

must develop the natural resources of the world. This is achieved by your M.U.L.E. (Multiple Use Labour Element)——a robot designed to do all your strenuous mining tasks. Each M.U.L.E. has to be out?tted for developing the different resources, which are food, energy and smithore. M.U.L.E.s are made from smithore, which makes it a DFBCiOUS substance. Once OUtfitted, YOU mUSt install it in your plot of land. In the one-player game, YOU are competing against three players. computer—controlled bUt YOU may play against your friends if desired.

a

m

your M.U.L.E.s. crazy. And there are other little problems

lmw

R

4.

SEE-f

backdrop to the game static street With buildings,

stores and hoardinQS, most Of the action taking place 0" a narrow strip of the screen. The obstacles on screen one include bushes, hydrants and dustbins with pop-up lids. These are placed at everdecreasing intervals, so _the timing ofyourjumpSiscritical. Just to add to the difficulty, a plane flies overhead drop—

Once you've safely reached the right—hand side,the picture scrolls smoothly to the left to reveal the next section. Screen two has wriggling caterpillars as the major

obstacle.

Later

sections

include bouncing kangaroos, bats and frogs_ The frustrating thing about the game is that there is no option to start again from the last screen completed. You

~

»

always recommence right

back at the very beginning. Although it's a fair game, Kissin’ Kousins lacks variety and excitement. Not one l'd 90 out of my way to buy, but worth a play.

Bob Chappell July 7985 ATARI USER

17


_—_______________________—___

WE leoked at Graphics 1 and 2 last month and saw how they were split screen text modes. We also saw that only half the character set was immediately available normally the numbers and we" me ..u.... Now we'll access the “hidden" half of the character set and see how we can use lower case letters in Modes

-

-

-

— -

1

and 2.

Let's start with one of the little programs from last month. Type in and run Programl:

g?

f

my

Program!

Part

It should produce our name in orange upper case letters and the word Ready should be in the text window at the bottom of the screen. The operating system can only see the haif of the character set containing upper case letters at the moment. However there is a location in memory which tells the system which haif to look at. Location 756 usually contains the value 224, which specifies the upper case half of the character set. If you'd like to verify this, Simply type. .

-

-

-

_

-

SETCOLOR 0,0,0 and the screen should be blank again.

A“ you've done is change the colour in register 0 to the same colour as the background. Hence the heartsare still they re lUSt there in_ one sense as the printed m the, same colour background. Its a bit like usmg black chalk on a blackboard. Unfortunately although our name is still there, we can't read it because its colour was also defined by register 50' We saw how to change colourlast month by lower case iismg letters to select a different colour register, so we can use this technique now to

the text window. The value 224 should appear at the top of the text window. In order to convert our name to lower case all you need to do is “change the value in location 756 to 226. You can do this by entering: in

POKE 756,226 in the text window. Try it nowand see what happens. There's our name in lower case as promised, but what are all those hearts d0ing there? if you ia'd the two halves Of the character set out next to eachother, lower case letters would line the up w'th the upper case letters. Thats why ATARI gets Changed to atari. The hearts arise from the fact that .

.

,

the

lines Up With the heart shape. Conse—

space character speCial graphic

quently changing the value Of

location 756 to 226 causes a heart to printed wherever a space was printed DfeViOUSiyl WhiCh in this case means most Of the screen. A screenful Of hearts might be be

on

useful on one particular day in February, but for most of the time they tend to clutter up the display. There are two ways we can get rid of the hearts, one by "cheating" and losing one of the available colours, the other by redefining the character set. With the screenful of hearts, enter:

PMNT PEEKi756i

.

restore our name. ,

of DA VE RUSSELL s the Atari graphics modes _

series

.

.

Three

Press Reset and enter Program Il:

1. “MRS

1

20 SEEN.“

0,0,0

3. m5 755,225 4. ”5171“ 5,5 is. "I" “i"atari

user"

,

Program //

When run it will producethefamiliar result in lower case, with the letters now being green instead of orange because register is selected. 1

.

_

The second method of removing the hearts requiresa little more work but introduces a technique which can put to good use in other ways. It requires us to redefine the character be

set.

When you turn your micro on the characters there because are‘already 1”

memory

Eth/‘atzhead readjonlly st e name imp ies, .

we can

only read from this sort of memory, we can’t write to it or alter it. NOW if the character set was in RAM random access memory, more properly called read GHd Write memory—we could change it at Will. What we 5 move the must do, then, character set lhtO RAM 80 that we can the heart character to —

change something else. We don't actually set,

simply

move

the it, just

lehal'aCtsr e ta We]otocopy.COT-if p_

t; efore we ingda this we need toovlvever now 0. hOW the micro represents the characters if we re gomg to change some of them. If you look closely at the heart shapes you'll see that they are made up of little dots. The micro represents each dot as a bit of information in its memory, and each memory location can store eight bits, or a byte as it's .

,

.

known. If you've been following Mike Bibby's Bit Wise series you'll know thata bit can be either i or o.- Ifit is i, then a dot gets printed on the screen. If it is zero, no dot is printed. Each character is represented as

_


in there. If we tell the micro that we've done this, it will do the necessary protecting for us. Memory is organised in %k (or 256 bytes) pages and so we need four pages of memory for the character set. Memory location 106 holds the current position of RAMTOP, the top

of RAM memory, so line 10 looks at the current value and line 20 moves the value down by 4 pages, giving us the necessary 1k.

.

Before we

the character set we must tell the micro that we've moved RAMTOP, otherwise we might write over the display list. The move

easiest way to do this is to issue a Graphics command, hence line 30. We'll call the beginning of the character set CHBAS. Line 40 tells the micro where CHBAS is to begin,

.

with line 50 location.

giving the actual

In ROM the character set begins at location 57344, so the loop from line 60 to line 80 pokes a value into ADDR corresponding to the value held in 57344. The loop counter increments by 1,

matrix of dots, and so requires eight bytes of memory. The bit pattern for the heart shape looks

into RAM

set

like this:

shape asaspace. However it needsto do some ”housekeeping" on the way, so II explain what each line IS dorng.

and

I

00000000 001101 10 01111111 01111111 001 1 1 1 10 00011100 00001000 00000000

sgseed‘timzvzllgagii mT5h7isBalrgcj1 :2 Sarried out 1024 (br 1k) tir?es resulting in a copy ofthe characterset being poked into RAM and starting at A D D R-

. 1

10 commute) 20 m5 Lemma-4

3. “3105 40

1

:

With not too much dif?culty you that the “form a heartshape against a background °_f 05' be Each row Of the matrix can also the read as a number_ by converting binary representatlon to decnmal.The top row Of the heart W0“? bf? t e Olht'hg t W 5 second row would be and so forth. row W°U|d be 127 In order to redefine the heart shape to set the bit as a space, we need pattern of the character to the bit can see

,

remember— it’s simply eight rows of eight zeros. All we need to know now is where the bit pattern is held in memory. We’ll know that when we decide where we're going to put the character set in RAM. Program III copies the character

.

n m: mm,mxxs7xum 30 m 8, ” cant.“ 1“ p95:m”‘cm’ 119 f“ 85. It 7 12. ii” a 13. M “an.“ 140 my a 15. M“ LLOJJJJJ 1“ m 755 ' man: 17° "5171“ 5:5 1“ “I" “SE!“ “POT“!

Program /1/ 22 git???ifspSCZ'pF?gt:niiteLyégLe

is character number 64 character requires eight memory locations. Since we know that the set begins at ADDR, we can work out that the heart begins at Lines 90

The heart

and

mama-4

3 xx?zum?x _

1

redefines the heart

an 8 x 8

The character set occupies 1k of memory, so we need to set aside this amount of RAM and protect itin order that the rest of our program doesn't interfere with it. The easiest way to do this is to move the top of memory down by 1k and put the character set

each

ADDBd+ rovr e ii4*8). e p ro 9 ram

atn:3:0 IS

wn

anormation. For each 'of the eight bytes of the heart character in turn the loop from 10 to 140 writes a 0, as taken from the data in line 150. This replaces the heart with a blank. Lines 160 to 180 give us our old favourite message, but this time it's in lower case orange. If you use this routine in your own programs, use: 1

POKE 756,CHBAS to access the upper case characters and:

POKE 756,CHBAS+2 to access the lower

case

The advantages Of th's characters. tec nique

_______> .

I

July 7985 ATAR/ USER

21


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————————_—Graphics mmmm

'

—mmmmmmm

mummm-mmmm mm—m—m -mm---—m m———--—"m-

“W“ -m—---—— --—----m mm

-

.~

Emma-In“ mum—“m1 "MM 1.

In Mode 0 these characters must be preceded with an Escape, CHM/27), to be printed.

Table I: Internal characterset

"cheat" colour—changing are that all the colours are available and you can redefine any of the characters. All you need to know over

the

method

the internal character number of the character that you want to change. For a simple demonstration of rede?ning the heart to something visible, change all the Os in line 150 to 13. is

Last month we saw how in Modes and 2 the COLOR command selects the character tO be PLOTted. BY adding 32 to the character, we 1

produced a different colour but didn't say where the number 32 came from. Now that we've seen how to use location 756, we can use the to COLOR/PLOT combination produce multi—coloured messages. In

POKE

order to

do this you'll need t0 use and 2, which are adapted pages 55 and 56 of the Atari

Tables

from Basic

Table

1

Reference Manual. (Note that 2 corrects an error in the

Original.) Find the character

'

I”

YOU want Table l- lfl'f'S'h It's part column1 hf? ofthe lfit ism column uppercaseset. 3 0T 4 It is part Of the lower case 381 Remember that at level we re

th? Operating we can’t le lower case characters SUPPOSE we

upper and _

want

19

DlOt an A l"

the colour contained in register 0 tells us that A's (orange). Table character number is 33 (column 2) and Table 2 tells us that in order to

or

plot column 2 characters in registerO colour we must add 32 to the character number.

756,224

POKE

756,226

SETCOL<>R2---_ ----SETCOLOR3

.

+

Table II: Character colour assignment

register 3's colour (purple), Table 2 tells us that we would have to add 192 to the character number. The registers contain their default values but we can alter them using the SETCOLOR-commandas we saw in the May issue ofAtari User. To illustrate the use of the conversion factors type in Program 4 while you've still got Program 3 in memory. It overwrites lines 170 and 180 and adds lines 190-220, using the same technique as we used last

-

,

month. ,

1?! m

it;

180 it!» a 133 (201.0! x

To 10 -

.

23. pun “5,5 213 EXT h m MT“ 55,116,133,242,?I,32,. 117,211, 129,82

-

7

'

rm .

7‘

Mode2

we'd wanted to plot the A in

1

SETCOLOm----

Mode1

If

rv

~

colours displayed by changing the of ?re regrerere vre serCOLOR You can 9 et some nice effects With a well—place FOR '

-

NEXT lOOD-

July 7985 ATARI USER

23


______———_—

_

beglns a series on how to produce spectacular dlsplays

'

n In

with

'

.

At a r I

display.

I -

.

This is a microprocessor in its own right and runs alongside the 6502 main microprocessor,freeing that for the user program. In addition there is the GTIA chip, which is also a micrOprocessor- This creates the famous Atari player—missile graphics and interfaces the computertotheTV diSplay. For those Of YOU WhO are new tO *your Atari the 16 modes consist of five modes that display text and 1 modes that display graphics. These are shown in Figure l. You may have noticed that there

pa 0

1

,

Basic mode number

Antic mode number

0

2 6 7

'

1

a .

mlghtv

2 3

8

4

9

5 6 7 8 9

10

10 11

12 13 14 15

11

,

13 15 15 15 15 4 5 12

14

They can only

Text or

graphics TEXT TEXT TEXT GRAPHICS GRAPHICS GRAPHICS GRAPHICS GRAPHICS GRAPHICS GRAPHICS GRAPHICS GRAPHICS TEXT/GR TEXT/GR GRAPHICS GRAPHICS

be obtained on the

Figure I: Graphics modes 24 ATARI USER July 1985

an

ONE of the Atari's most renowned and spectacular features is its graphics capability. The machine has 1 6 different graphics modes and can display up to 16 colours from Basic (256 using machine code). This is more than any of its rivals and more than many computers costing thousands Of pounds. The reason the Atari is able to perform these feats is the inclusion of a chip called Antic to look after screen

8

I I l

ROWE

MIKE

'

Atarl are two kinds of mode number, Basic and Antic. The Basic number is that used in a graphics call from a Basic

program. For example Graphics 0 gives you the standard 40 x 24 text mode.

The Antic mode number is the one stored in memory to be used by the Antic chip to tell it what kind of screen to display. This is calculated from the Basic mode number and stored in the correct location in memory by the the computer’s operating system Antic number of Basic graphics Mode 0 is in fact 2, Using the Antic mode numbers directly without a Basic graphics call will be explained in later —

articles.

Don't ask me why Atari had to make the two numbers different, but they did and we're stuck with it. From now on, when i refer to graphics modes l mean the Basic mode and if I want to refer to the Antic mode l will specify Antic. How does the Antic chip work? A television picture is created by a beam

Number of colours 2 5 5

4

Rows full 40 20

20 40

4

80 80 160 160

2

320

1*

80 80 80

2

4 2

8

16 5 5 2

4

of electrons hitting

a

fluore-

scent screen on the inside of your TV

40 40 160 160

400/800 computers

Bytes of memory needed 993

Rows

split

24 24

513 261

20 10 20

12 24 48 48 96 96 192 192 192 192

40 40 80 80 160 —-

273 i

537 1017

2025 3945 7900 7900

7900

7900

24

20

1152

12 192 192

10 160 160

664 4296 8138

by creating the mode yourself. I


tube (oversimplified). The beam is made to scan horizontally in sequen— tial lines across the screen and the whole screen is covered 50 times a

.\V'

.

second.

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and the by sma tlllte es tcznntpiliter 0 can ma ktherefore e. in between each horizontal scan of a line there is a small the delay horizontal blank. Also between each time the screen is drawn there is

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normal TV picture consists of 625 of the lines (in fact it consists of 312 interlacing, alternating lines). The computer display, to avoid overscanning the TV and losing data, consrsts of only 192 lines, Ieavmg a gap at top and bottom of the screen. Antic is able to control each scan line individually and up to 320 individual pixels horizontally. A pixel is a single point on the screen created A

/

l

\

/,;§-

,

“a”?

._

7—7

anbther delay the vertical blank. More of these later. The higher resolution modes (192 vertical resolution, say Graphics 8) use one scan line per horizontal row of the screen. However other modes use up to 16 scan lines per line of the graphics mode.

'Stored in

a

rather complicated way.

' .

.

, _

The scan lines used are:

mode

(1)

resolution

52

g 16

12

12 24 48 48 95 96 192 24

13 14 15

192 192

2 3

4 5 6 7

8-11

8

4 4 2 2 1

8 16

12

'

.

you

mustsplititintotwoparts.Thisis

done by firstly finding the number of times 256 will divide into it and secondly the remainder. The first number is known as the high byte of the number and the

remainder is the low byte. They are stored in memory in the order low

byte, high byte. For example, for 42000 you get 42000/256=164 remainder 16. The high byte is 164 and the low byte 16. lf 42000 was the location of the display ?st then 560 would contain 16 and 561 would contain 164 (if there is no remainder then 0 must be stored in 560). Conversely, to find where'the display list is located you multiply the number in location 561 by “256 and add this to the number in location 560, that is PEEK(561)*256+ PEEK(560) gives the location of the display list.

Most display

short,

lists are very

'

—‘——-—‘—"" '

1

-

Decimal

Hex

112 112 112

70 70 70

next question how does The IS,Antic know what to display? The answer lies in the display list, a small machine code program interpreted by Antic to give the display. It tells the chip two main things: 0 The Antic graphics mode number for each line. ‘ memory location Of the screen .

h '5 "Orma'w and m?” created, ipulated by the computer 3 operating system and the Basic programmer can forget it. The whereabouts of the display list

)3lines )eachof8blank

-

)scanlines -

,

66

42

=64 (LMS Instruction)

+2(GraphicsOIine) 64 155

She isplay.

_

a

1

.

.

modeline

,

stored in rather

complicated way, in memory locations decimal 560 and 561, because a computer does not work in decimal (base 10) as we do. It works in binary numbers (base 2). These are often expressed as hexadecimal (base 16) see Mike Bibby's Bit Wise article on Page 46 for an explanation of this. Every memory location in the computer can store a number between 0 and 255. Therefore to express numbers greater than 255 you must use two memory locations. So to store a number such as 42000 is

2

02

""

65 32 156

_

Figure

40 )Screen memory location 9C )=54+156'256

I/.' Graphics

41

20 9C

)23linesthe same

'

He. 23 Basic GraphicsOlines

=6.4+1Endofdisplaylist&JuMPto )

Memory location ofstart oflist

'

'

)=32+156*256

0 display list

,

July 1935 ATARI USER

25


D’is ploy L'is t

'

than 100 bytes. The

less

usually

————-———————

table gives the instruction codes that

instructions:

for Graphics 0 is display ‘” “9“ “' a“ .. SW" W“ To some extent the display list is

can be mCIUdEd In a display “St by

list used

M?-

fairly self-explanatory, however a few things "eed expammg' Fim'y' the LMS instruction. This means Load Memory Scan and tells Antic to look at the next two instructions to find .

Wh

be

9“?

'” mem‘W

‘ h 9 screen

5 h 0“

1 .

.

Id

12

70

8

96

7

22

28

g

48 32

30 20 10 00

4

16

displayed from. The above display list has only one LMS instruction but a display list can have several of these pointing to different memory locations, and can even have a different LMS for each

0

,

mg

303" “hes

”an"

We'll

articles.

-mm 16 32 64 128

3 2

,

“me" ” ‘° the Am” a... more of these in later

see

20 40

Verticalscroll LMS

80

Jumptothedisplaylist

Therefore any mode number can added to an LMS instruction to tell Antic to look for its display data wherever you wish.The above display list starts with three lines, each of eight blank scan lines to give 24 blank scan lines at the start of.the list. All the standard graphics modes start with this. The number 12 ($70) is 0an one of several "blank line"

'

.

1

°".z°"

interrupt.

1

This is all very interesting, I hear you say, but of what use is it and do really need to know all this? Well, if you are happy to have just the 16 simple modes provided then no! However, much more spectacular and attractive displays become avail— able if you can understand this and know how to alter things to your heart's desires. This is done by creating your own custom display list

The end of the display list can be split into three numbers starting with a 65 ($41). This can be divided into 1+64. The tells the display list to jump and the 64 is an LMS telling Antic that a memory location follows. The next two numbers are therefore the memory location that the list jumps to, in this case the start of the list. These two numbers will be the same as in memory location 560 and 561 respectively, as they point back to the beginning of the display list. Other instructions may also be included in the list and the following'

I

1

be

t a | scro ll

H

.

mode line.

_

10

and mixing modes on the same screen and by creating things called display list interrupts. More about these next time.

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the 6502 central processing unit, CPU for short, which is responsible for keeping your micro working. It does this by executing complex programs which are contained in memory. Machine code programs consist of binary numbers, each having a different meaning to the CPU Now we humans aren't much good at making sense of a series of numbers, but fortunately a disassembler trans— lates these numbers into assembly language. It's not exactly the Queen's English, bUt is a lo" easier to understand. The next thing we need to know is the location Of the machine code programs WhiCh keeps the Atari this is known as the working operating system or OS. The OS. starts at location 55296 ($D800) and ends at 65535 ($FFFF). 80 if you're in need of some machine code routines to examine then 55296 is a good place to start. Don't expect to understand it though. It's fairly complex. Another large section of machine code program is the Basicinterpreter. This can be found in locations 40960 ($AOOO) to 49151 ($BFFF). No matter what language you program in, it always gets executed by a machine code routine and you can have a lot of fun trying to fathom out how it Works. Program is the disassembler. is

EDWARDS Shows how to exa maChlne cade by employlng a d|sass KEVIN

-

-

Type it in and save it. It uses a simple machine code routine to convert a decimal number into hexadecimal. You can see what it does by disassembling it. When you run the program the will message “wait a moment...” appear. This is printed while the program reads in the data state— ments.

After this you Will be prompted for the start location. This must be a number between 0

and

55535

(0 and

$FFFF). Let's assume 40960 ($AOOO) has been entered. The program at the address will be disassembled. You'll get something like this:

me A“? “34 “06

“5 5“

L9“

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it“ SIX“ ill!

-

Mediate

-

Absolute

Iero

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A

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za ATAR/ USER July 7985

-

After the mnemonic comes the addressing mode. This indicates the way in which the command is to be used. For example, LDA $FF means

LoaD the Accumulator with the of location $FF. Figure gives a list of the addressing modes available, where $XX and $XXXX are hexadecimal numbers. Not all of the addressing modes are available for each command. This is why large amounts of data are needed to indicate which are valid. It would be much simpler to program if every command allowed every addressing mode. The program will continue disas— sembling memory until the end of memory is reached (65535,$FFFF) or contents

I

the 3 key

95 58

LDA

“9

45

ENE

SAND

is pressed. Pressing S stops the disassembly and requests another start address. You can stop and start the output

A008 A2 FF

Llll

”FF

from

MBA 99

TXS

05

DE

M

ENE SAME

I

t

t t

r‘

of all the Atari

computers, except the ST range,

The first number is the address of the program being disassembled (in hex, as with all numbers printed).The next number indicates the instruction type (the command byte). This can be followed by 0, or2byteswhich give about the additional information this speCIfleS a memory instruction location or constant used by the 1

command. Next, the mnemonic for the instruction is printed. A mnemonic is an abbreviation for the type of operation the command performs. For example, LDA means. LoaD Accumulator, and BNE means Branch if Not Equal. If the command byte is invalid three question marks will be printed instead.

the program by pressing Control-1. This is very useful if you're working your way through a complex routine where you need extra time to think.

When you've finished using the program you can,exit by pressing Break.

Let's take a look at how the disassembler works. All of the mnemonics are held in the string MN$. The mnemonic data for all the 256 commands are in the array

MNUM(n)—wherenisthe command number. we

So by accessing the array MNUM can find the corresponding

mnemonic number for the command. Multiplying this by three results in the offset for the three different mnemonic characters in the string MN$. Extracting this from the string


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gives us the desired mnemonic. This is done in lines 210 and 220. Next we must find which address— ing mode is being used and print it out. The addressing modes for the commands are found by examining the array ADM(n} n being the command. One of 13 subroutines is called

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Program /

_

July 1985 ATARI USER

29


D'lsassembler

——

-

0 '

.

on the prevrous result _

depending

230 and 240. Figure lI ShOWS the addressing modes and corresponding numbers used by the array ADM/n). Another array, BYT/IZ), indicates the number of bytes taken up by each see

lines

addressing mode. This is needed so that the program knows how many bytes to print after the address and by how many the memory address is to

incremented. mentioned, the disassembler has its own machine code routine at location 1664 ($680). This is

be

As

for converting a decrmal responsrble number into hexadecimal Ascii characters. It is needed because Atari Basic does not support any command to print numbers in hexadecimal. The rest of the program is quite ‘

_

I

Absolute

_

straightforward. Now it's up to you. You can begin by disassembling all those brilliant games to see how they work. Certainly, one of the best ways to improve your programming is to work out how other people’s programs achieve their effects.

2

-

3

-

4

_

5

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6

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Zero Page

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Relative Indirect zero page,y

Figure” ,

VARIABLES

'

MN$ MNUM(255)

BYTHZ)

000

String containing the mnemonics. Mnemonic numbers for each command byte”

Addressmg mode for .

ADM(255)

LOOP , LOOPZ, Ll; OFST

each com-

mand byte.

Number Of bytes taken addressing mode. Address currently being

I

by

up

START

NUM1 NUMZ

disas-

sembled.

3010 00m

10,35.0.0.0.35.3,0.14.3s,0,0

3020 00m

29.2.0.0.7,2.40.0.39.2,40.0.

3030 00m

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WE already know how skilled and creative Atari users are, and we look forward to receiving your programs and articles for publication in future issues of Atari User. However before you send your masterpiece off to us there are one or two points that you ought to bear in mind to make all our lives easier. We call them the seventeen . . . commandments

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pioblems by its vagueness. Okay, we'd_ have the program on record somewhere, but life would be lot

easier all round if its author were modest and admitted he was the genius behind “Mega—invaders". 0 Label everything with both the program's name and your own name and address. And put the word ATARI on it somewhere. You won’t appreci— ate the reason for this until you produce as many magazines as we a

'

photos are much appreciated,though not vital. Diagrams are always of use. Often a point that’s difficult to put into words becomesclear as crystal when you sketch it out. 0 Give a description of the program, what it does, why you wrote it, and outline the way it works and its

less

"

,-

WHILE not wanting to put programmers' creativity into a straightjacket we’ve found that life can be made a lot easier for the magazine, our readers and the programmers themselves if we stick to certain standards. it has also occurred to us that it’s no good our just knowing what we want, we have to tell you, our potential contributors. So here are our 17 commandments. Don’t be too daunted by the list it's mostly just commonsense and good program—

ming practice. 0 Send us your programs on tape or

There's no pointinjustsendinga listing and asking if we're interested. You can’t expect us to evaluate a program from merely reading a listing. We may be good, but we're not that good! A cassette or disc with the program on is a must. We don't use two part programs in the magazine. Games in two files may look professional but they're the kiss of death as far as the magazine is concerned. Too much can go wrong when them in. people type 0 Avord variables names that lead to confusron such as 0 1, O and and and try to use variable meaningful names as well ALlENS rs far more understandable than AL. 0 Tell us what the program is to do and refer to It by supposed name. You’d be amazed at the number of programs we get where the author forgets to tell us what it is all about. In any subsequent correspondence, reference to "my program" disc.

_

,_

do. Keep your own copy of it, too. So

far the only existing copy of one particular classic game hasn’t disap— but there’s no peared in the post reason to run the risk of yours being the first. If it's a game let us know how to “cheat" so we can test out the higher levels.We’re getting onabit here and our reactions aren't as good as they used to be. (Not that they were up to much when they were as good as ) they used to be —

.

A

.

-~

.

And an adventure—type game or

whatnot should come with a map of the rooms and any other crib sheet you possess. Much as we'd like to, we just don't have time to guess the name of Rumplestiltskin’s brother, no matter how much we admire your ingenuity. (Anyway he works in our artroom.) 0 Put more than one copy of the program on your tape or disc. And if

you want the cassette or dISC back let

.

l

variables and subroutines. if it's a game let us have a plot. You'll get an idea of the sort of thing we want by reading the introductions to one or two of our games. Maybe you could also give a few ideas for its improvement or expansion. Even if you can’t get your upgrades to work there’s a good chance that someone among our very talented readers will. Every subroutine ought to be titled clearly with a REM and should be referred to by it. Again, make the title meaningful. Also when you GOSUB use a REM to indicate which subroutine you're using. For example: 100 GOSUB 1000: REM Move

have

stamped addressed envelope with the name of the program on’rt. You won t apprecrate thls unless you've runacomputer magazine, but send each please different program on us

a

_

a

.

different cassette or dlSC. if not,

wejust can't handlethem.The one program

rule is,

per cassette or disc

though recorded several times on it. 0 Let us have a printed listing if possible. Screen dumps or off-screen

.

'

man _

_

_

_

1000 REM

mm

Move Man

a...“

_

_

1100 RETURN At first this may seem to be fartoo much fuss, but its not Just for the readers' benefit. As your programs growyou'llfind thatsuch REMs more than repay the effort by allowing you to keep track of your work. When you write out your list of subroutines (vital) try to do it in the form: 100 example Shows how we -

want

-

.

'

'

' ,

200 delay Holds thlngs up Where the line numbers refer to the '

'

'

l .

,/

‘ .

35 ATARI USER July 7985

L—k

L

f


W

at.

l

l

liii:

t" tiffi

where the subroutine is de?ned. Again, this helps by making things clearer to our readers and you! We don't expect your program descriptions to be classics of English literature, but it does help if they make sense and are easy to follow. Try reading them out loud—you’d be amazed how much such a simple technique can improve your writing. Also if you get stuck to put something into words try this trick: tellsomeone whatitisyou'retryingto put into words then write it down. Before you reject this hint, try it more than one professional writer lines

——

'

~

matter. This means leaving a blank line between each line of text — it's vital from our point of view. Try to follow our style. We have our own ways of doing things. We talk about in modes in general but Mode particular. We press the Return key, not the RETURN key as you might 1

Just look how we do it in the magazine. Ourprograms are Program I, Program ll, and so on, our diagrams Figure I, Figure ll. 0 Try to avoid long multiple lines if

thm?tewi$£2?xtittlztpgzg‘rlgm

friends for their criticism (painful though it may be). The acid test is to askthem to type itin. And—when you ?nd yourself muttering through clen— ched teeth, ”How could anyone be is that stupid ?" (the answer cast out the mote in "regularly“) your own eye and alter your program to account of the Itake t’s not easy to fgedback. o, as t h e all-too—frequent blood feuds among the editorial staff here testify, but it's worth it. Instructions can make or break a game. Make sure that your's really do instruct. They should be complete and it helps if the spelling and grammar are correct. Apart from causing confusion, such errors also make programs look amateurish. As well as misspellings, bad grammar, split words and general untidiness are all to be avoided. Following even the simplest pro— gram can cause problems for the most experienced programmer don't add to them unnecessarily. 0 Please do put lots of nice explanatory REMs in your programs. A couple of REM statements with iothing afterthem at the beginning of the program gives us room to put in our messages Withom messing Up a” the line numbersyou have referred to in your program description. 0 Double space all your written —

7

.

L.

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,

_

Of sheer peversrty they W'H' out '5 edu— ‘f the program particularly about cational. There ‘5 30m?th'“9 that brings out the CAlj programs devrl ‘" us all all the unlikely so try options—

.

program you'll Stand a better

_

'

'

,

_

‘f you

lf you follow these rules when a you SmeIt

0,“ some don

poor user W‘Ii'

t:

'

Fhanc? It publlshed

,

Actually it takesa lot-o'fskrllt‘oudrot pm“ a program, as ”5 delicately known m ?"? trade. Often you re 3° involved m getting to work as emen a etsrsluppostadi tot at yourust can't ma Lt thehprogram the it as to see needed leap passively does. So try ‘t out malevolent readler on your friends. '5 .

,

_

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_

Of haVlng

”7”;

y?fr?fw,y~"

A" "ght' the 93960“?!-m when ‘d'Ot type —99_9 shouldnt him hIS age, but you believe me, wasnt

mer

,

owes

number your 0 program, starting at 10m increments of 10. This way a missing iine stands out'like a sore thumb.

j

ask

expect.

—-

his career to it. it is good practice to

S'W/

some QhAnoqther en e se érsrrtationtgoqr g arkreeader

W

'

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'

"

PR'NT"

Exactly how many blanks is he supposed to enter? Use:

PRINT" .

Te” us

4 BLANKs

":REM

.

who. you

are. We hke to name and also

WOW younChrrstran to know it s

your age and interesting professron. After all,‘we mrght reject your program, bUt 'f W,e knew you were a fetlock fettler we d have been send V°u Obscure§9fts Eb'e .‘° fetlocks on the Atari for Fettlmg

;_

revrAelw. so

you can. Remember, people will be spending hours typing your programs into their micros, and long lines are harder to debug. 0 Please, when you send us your

work, include a separate page telling us that it is your own work, it has not been offered elsewhere and we have your permission to print it. If you don't, we'll have to return it. 0 It's always nice if a program can have an alternative key or joystick option. of 0 One of the malor causes is because the programs crashing user inputs something the program— _

_ b Gt h h b ‘ " nuhm e correct W“ t her anadte epkone wor $2.38COde ls {93W useful, and can save a [Qt Of time. 17 rules. m't f 0 ”Thusetndeth ese wthis you su|be°vU

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can owh_t to stand 'S e 't pu Sl'mhuch 2:9 ance us; O you” 20mm etter'c

More

more

'

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ll becomeafar importantly, you

professmnal programmer. become the the better. you satisfying n 'S'

And more

Contributions should be sent to Features Editor, Atari User, Europa House, 68ChesterRoad,Haze/Grove, Stockport SK 7 5NY.

7

'

,

July

7985 ATARI USER

37


i

I ‘

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In no time at all you'll be playing your own Atari master— piece and, if you're feeling ambitious, you could even supply a graphics keyboard. Let's see (or

TURN your Atari into a simple electronic organ with this easyto-enter Basic program from W.N. HOLTON. When you run it, the A to keys become the white notes while W, E, T, Y, U, 0 and P supply the blacks.

.

:

1

It!

man HERON liJJllILTM

5 PRINT cIIIISHZS) 10 ll:PEEK(764) 20

IF 0:255 WEI I!

30

IF.

40

PM 764.255

hear?) your creations at Atari User. Sounds like it might be fun.

is it

immune 26. IF 0:61’TREI transom 26. 110 IF 0:57 TEE! 1:72:50") 260 120 IF 0:1. TIE! Hanson 2“ 130 IF 0:5 TIE! “I“:GOTO 26. 140 IF 0:0 TIE! lzsxzcon 2“ 150 IF ?zz “El “7:50“ 260 160 IF 0:46 Ill-II $1145.70 I“ 17. IF ?=42 "If! lzl?hion 260 180 IF 0:45 “Kl 3:35:50" 26. HI IF 02“ THE! £76280" 260

2 RE! 8?

5. REFINE 350 60 IF 0:63 "El

uztztzeote 260 lzluzGeTO 260 8. IF lt=58 THE! “36:60"! 26. 70 IF “262 TIE!

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260 260

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IF PEEKW“) 0255 Tilt. “T0 18 0:55].le om THE! 2“ m 754.25526?0 I. ”I“ 0,0.6,5.6,6.6,i,6.6,i.6,8,6.6

290

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,6,5.6,6,5,5,5,$,5,5,5,5,$,S,5,‘4AAA

I

.4.4.t,4.4,3.3.z.z,z,z.1,1,o

1

1

BARGAIN

SOFTWARE

For the Atari

YO U a fl I‘St rate P R O G RA M M E R ?

(400 600XL 800 800XL)

ART ATARI (16k).’Create grap'hic mas'terpieces with your Atari. Up to 80 different colours can be displayed at once. Pictures can be saved to tape. Demonstration picture provided.

-

BLACKJACK (16k).

.

.

Page 6 issue

1

.

8

851

V8

subéec!

-

Of OthersGXpenence ' in EXp?r'ence th? SO?ware ‘ndUStry is “at '

72)

Acne-u cheeseburgers

P.F. Software

but this

is

'

In the latest program from you have the job of picking

avoiding the various nasties. (Telephones, potted plants, and more). Total M.L. game action with super Even the worst games players can't lose

Cheques and p_o_'st°; P.F. Software, Dept AU, 14 Kirkstall Avenue, Littleborough, Lancs OL15 9JA. 38 ATAR/ USER July 7985

.

.

.

.

n

a

1

.

1

'

1

programmers.

I

1

zmo?ghprrrirggengegts

(”Challeng/ng and arid/Clive at £2.95. You won? find better value anywhere" Page 6 Issue 75}

,

.

_

fruit from the orchard whilst

1

1

-

essential, but obvrously candidates must have wrltten QOOd quality SOftW?re m the paSt and samp|es W'" be requwed. Pay IS neQOtiablel depending on agar expenence and qualifications. There are excellent prospects for hard working, skrlfui .

ISSUE

Prices include p&p.

'

_

FRUIT PICKIN (16K) ARCADE

.

1

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FRUIT SALADnsk) Mastermind type game using colourful graphic “FRUITS". The game is not only a challenge for adults but with the “Fun Graphics" and "Total Joystick Input” it is also an instructive entertainment for younger children. For or 2 players. y

_

_

PICTURE PUZZLE (32k).Watch the picture ju7mble Two itself up. Can you recreate the original picture. pictures to choose from. Original picture recall.20 difficulty levels. £2.95 (“T/reprogramwi/Igivemanyhoursofen/oyment”.HPageSissue77} PICTURE TORMENT(16k) The picture is splitinto horizontal and vertical columns which are rotated "Rubik style”. It is then up to you to sort it out! Single or column (very difficult) option. Original picture recall. dcznéble different levels. Includes bonus program to design your own pictures for use in the puzzle. £2.95.

a

.

Award—Wlnnlng Database Software needs more programmers, both for freelance work and permanent DOSIIIOHS. ' ‘ mUSt be ?uent ln bOth Bas‘c Apphcapts and machine code on at least one of the DODUIGI' mICI’OS, and preferably have

(“Undoubtedly wort/7 everypenny”Page 6 issue I II

translations many the f?lgagérmlindbhas/ueen seen pfO leg/innate! age

'

—__-*

7/

Features realistic Hi-Res card display. Can you break the bank? £1.95.

I‘Anincredib/e bargain".4.Page6/'ssue

-

'

Then [am the Professronals!

£235

("Superb hi-res pictures can be composed",

.

Are

Computers

.

PleasesemiSAEpVandan example olyour work WhICh WI” be returned uncopied to:

PeterDavidson,SoftwareManagan DmbmSoftm, Europa House, 68 Chester Road, Hazel Grove, Stockport SK7 SNY.

1 '

1 ‘


BEFORE telling you aboutA'tari's DOS, let's first explain for what DOS is. cassette owners It stands for Disc Operatin System, and its job is to hand|g the storage of information on new

disc_

When you store anything on cassette, you can just use CSAVE and CLOAD,and the computer willdo the rest. So why the need for an extra DOS for disc drives? The reason is one of memory. The disc handlers have lot a more work to do than the cassette handler, and therefore take up about 9k of memory. Atari decided, quite reasonably, that owners who had only a cassette recorder would be more than a little upset at losing an extra 9k for something that they would never use. Thus, DOS is stored on disc, and will automatically load into the computer when you switch on.

Atari have released three versions of DOS so far, and a fourth is now available. DOS 1.0 took up 9k of memory, and was soon replaced by DOS 2.0. This has a core of 5k which loads into memory on power—up, and a menu taking up a further 4k, which only loads when you type “DOS". DOS 2.0 has become the standard for all third-party DOS manufacturers, and was well established when Atari came along with the new 1050 drive and the all-new nos 3. This offered extra storage space, but was very poorly received because it was clumsy to use/incompatible with DOS 2.0 discs, and very

wasteful-of space. Even aspokesman from Atari admitted that it was “a bit of a dog". Thankfully, Atari have backed

.

hard |Ong "

Taklng

a

IOOk

Ata"

a?

menu will prompt you with the following one~letter commands:

A D'lfecwfy 0 f f'/res 0" d'180B. Return Basic (or cartridge). to C. fl/e/S/ from one drive to -

s new

operatlng system,

COP;er. 6/70

ANDRE

W. LLEY ' that 't s reports very frlendly and makes the most Of enhanced density's eXtra Storage space

ED.ge/ete ename ?/e{s;.} ?le 3-

'

-

"Loo/<"fi/e/s).

F-

El vt/jq/OCD/(ég/i'cy' ?re [63 10 d'130. -

|-

Initia/ise

disc

(format).

J- Make duplicate K-

COPY Of a disc-

Saveab/ockofmemory/notBasic programs}.

L. Re—load a saved memory block.

M- Run a machine code program. N- Make a MEM-SA V file (see down, Wilkinson, of to Software, Optimized Systems write a revised version of DOS 2.0 to handle enhanced density. 083 were responsible for the original Atari DOS, Basic and Assembler/Editor Cartridge, and have since upgraded these products themselves into the excellent DOS—XL, Basic-XL and Mac/65. They have also released what consider to be simply the best language available for the Atari Action! Thus, the news that 088 were doing DOS 2.5 hit the Atari community in much the same way as the music world would take the news that the Beatles were re—forming. have been using a pre-release copy of DOS 2.5 for about a month and called in Bill

I

I

now, and it seems to do all that’s claimed for it. It is very user-friendly without being tedious to use, completely compatible with DOS 2.0, and capable of using the extra storage space of enhanced density. The main

“VOW/O. Dupicate ?le“) 0” single drive. P- Format (sing/e dEnsity only}. DOS 2-0 OWnefs Wi” recognise all but the i331 option, ThOUQh some Of the others have been slightly altered. Drive density is automatically selected, WhiCh means that when YOU type i for Initialise disc, the computer will detect whether you have a drive capable Of enhanced density, and format the disc accordingly. Should YOU WiSh a disc to he formatted for later use on an Old 810 drive option P Wi“ format a disc in single density regardless Of the drive type. Whenever YOU load a formatted disc into a 1050 drive it will sense the type 5° discs can be swapped about as you WiShThe duplicate disc option (J) Wi” format the new disc before copying, thus ensuring an accurate COPY. no matter what density the original was —

_______’ July 7985 ATARI USER

39


-“ recorded in. One interesting point is that any files you create on an enhanced density disc which would be beyond the end of a DOS 2.0 single density disc will show up with < > brackets around the filename, meaning that they will be invisible on a DOS 2.0

directory. Getting a directory (liSt of fiIGSI from your master disc will Show the following: _

.

I gag

25:33;

RAMDISK COM 009 .. SETUP COM 070 , COPY32 COM 056 * DISKFIX COM 057 * DOSMAN 019 * MINIMAN 147 573 FREE SECTORS (Or 270 FREE SECTORS in

I).

of D08 feature 2.5. The catch there 5 always one, isn't there? is that the contents of RAM are lost when you SWitch off the computer, WhIOh. means that you must always finish a seSSion by copying anything that you want to powerful

and useful —

.

Break out of a disc write, which can corrupt the VTOC Table. In plain English, DOS might not know how many free sectors the disc has, and even if you could only see a couple of files on the directory, DOS may show considerably fewer free sectors than it should thus reducing the amount of data you can store. DISKFIX willverify each file on the disc, check its length, and re— calculate the correct amount of —

space.

last

notallowyou todeletethem

without first telling it to “unlock" them again. The numbers after each name tell you how many sectors long that one sector is the particular file is smallest length a file can be, and can contain up to 128 bytes. Thus, the file —

RAM DISK.COM takes up 1152 (or 9 times 128) bytes of disc space. In enhanced density, a disc has a total of 1010 sectors available,which the directory shows as 999+, to ensure compatibility with DOS 2.0. In single density mode you will get the same amount of free space as with DOS 2.0 707 sectors. The file DOS.SYS which, some— what surprisingly, is two sectors shorter than on DOS 2.0 is the segment of DOS that loads on power—up, and DUP.SYS is the segment called up when you type —

“DOS”. This has the disadvantage that when you call DOS on either DOS 2.0, 2.5 or 3, your program will be lost. Therefore you must either SAVE your program before calling DOS, or DUt a MEM-SAV file on your diSC WhiCh Will using menu option N automatically save the program for you before DOS is called and restore —

keep back on to

a

real disc.

SETUP.COM allows you to change the system configuration—number of

drives allowed, buffer areas, read— verify mode and so on. It can also create an AUTORUN.SYSfile for you, which will run a Basic program and/orsetupthe RS-232 handlersfor modern use when you boot the disc. COPY32.COM is a utility which will allow you to transfer files from a

on

the disc

The two files an AtariWriter and contain document a Basrc program for Without a those will print a copy of an printer. These .. '-M anua I" to DOS 2 5 -

_

Mini

11 page

giVing

.

on

details

.

.

.

.,

and

.

.

The icmg the on

Super—DOS

goes

k e as f ar as ca is that you

this can

get it free. If you contact Atari’s Help-Line (Monday—Saturday, during office hours, on 01—309 7770) they will give you the details of your

after—write

DOS

back on to DOS 2.5. It will allow you to view the directory of the DOS 3 disc first, and then choose which files to copy. DISKFIX.COM is a handy little program which is designed to get you out oftroubleifyou do something silly to a disc. It is more than a little frustrating to find that, in a fit of temper, your little brother has just erased

3 disc

thelastthree months’workon

your latest Space Invaders program. Thankfully, DISKFIX allows you to un—erase the file again while you un—erase your brother. On DOS 2.0 and 2.5, the rename option would allow you to give two files the same name. This was fine until you wanted to separate them again, and you found that if ou tried to delete, rename, copy— or anything else one file, then both would be affected. DISKFIX allows you to give both files different names again. Another problem can occur if you —

,

general use,

compatibility With other D055, the use of the utility files.

.

The asterisks before each filename indicate that all of the files are "locked", which simply means that

40 ATAR/ USER July 7985

Table

You get a total of 499 sectors on this ”disc", and it is perhaps the most

single density)

afterwards.

The other files on the master disc are a series of useful utilities. The most interesting of these is RAM— DISK.COM. This allows you to use the extra 64k RAM on the 13OXE in the same way as you would normally use a second disc drive. The advantage of this is that it is dozens of times faster than a disc drive, and with DUP.SYS and MEMSAV'set up on the RAMDISK (which is handled by RAMDISK. COM), calling DOS is virtuallyinstant (see

*

DOS will

it again

Initial

h?g

DOSTYPE

to Basic

_n ——-. “—“

—-

DOSZ.5(130XEI

Tab/9L DOS Comparisons .

,


w

400/800

ATARI

48K GOOKL/BOOKL/ISOKE in

nearest user group or retailer who will be able to put DOS 2.5 on to a blank disc for you. Atari will NOT be selling it as such, and you Will not be charged for it though you can expect to be charged for the blank disc if you don't provide .

.

month Atari should have available a full 150-page manual giving far greater details of the more technical aspects, and this will cost in the region of £10—E12. Any disc drives shipped from Atari after July Will also contain DOS 2.5 and the full manual. However, if you ve already got a disc drive, and YOU re current'v us'ng DOS 3! the" you should think very seriously about shifting to 2.5 as soon as you can get From this

-

'

'

.

l

your hands on a copy. I’ve provided some comparisons between the various DOSs in Table I. In a future issue of Atari User, l'II begin a closer look at how DOS 2.0 and 2.5 work, and how they actually store information.

2» »

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a

7050 drive running

7.5,

”g

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capacity after main DOS files

have been written, but NOT including various optional DOS files, enhancements, etc. Basic-XL and DOS-XL can use extra memory management to give much more user RAM. Normal free memory (no DOS) : 37,902 bytes. ,

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July 7985 ATARI USER

47


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w

'

1?

ONE of the first things you have to think of when you log onto Telecom Gold is a password. The trouble is

looking at uses

*

the

a program that Atari's string capabilities to do

handling thinking for

our 0 SEE IT & TRY IT

us.

BEFOREYOU BUYIT 0

5 ?g § g g g g 5 5 55

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50 PRINT “How so 70

many

mm

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IlPllT MumER IF llll'llElKO oR MumERMa THEll com

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Don't delay do it today!!

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42 ATARI USER July 7985

200

w

24-00. made payable to the

Independent User Group

"was

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‘UK Atari Computer Owners Ciub',foryouriourissues

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Machine Code lLatsa Listings I Topical Tips . Realistic Reviews

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Stilton

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N0. 3 Password

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30 40

50,60 70 .

\

are just REMs telling humans what the program is called and who wrote it. Opens the keyboard up as a means of input while the program is running. We'll be using this in the subroutine that starts at line 300. Dimensions three string arrays. Ask for the number of letters you want in the password and store your reply in NUMBER, An example of what's known as a mugtrap. Here the comparisons make sure that you don't want a password with either a negative number of letters or more than. O. Ifyou do, you're asked again until you give a number that's in range. Uses SET$ to hold the letters that the password will be picked from. Here they are the alphabet. The more cryptically minded could use other selections of letters. NEXT loop with control Make up a FOR variable LOOP. This loop cycles once for every letter of the password, calling the subroutine at line 200 each time. The result is a potential password stored in PASS— WORD$. displays the putative password. Calls the subroutine at line 300. This checks

These

1

80 ’

90-110 /

120 130

.

.

s 3

provuder

,

Scope

10,20

\“

.

whether or not you like the password. If you don't the program produces another until you're satisfied. 140 If the flag variable FIN/SH is not equal to then the GOTO sends the program back to pick another password. Notice that F/N/SH hasn't been previously assigned and so initially takes the value 0. 150 Displays your final choice. 160 The END stops the program crashing into the following subroutines. 200 The start of the subroutine is labelled with a REM for clarity. 210 This randomly slices off one Ietterfrom SET$ 1

l

and stores the result in P/CK$.

230 Adds this letter to PASSWORD$. 240 RETURNS control to the statement afterthe ‘

GOSUB. 300 Start of the keyboard routine. 310-320 Asks if you like the password and mugtraps the results. If the reply isn't Y, y, N or n the GOTO ensures that the user is asked again. 330 If the reply was Y or y the flag variable F/N/SH is set to 1. This means that the GOTO of line 140 will be ignored and the main loop will come to an end.

July 7985 ATAR/ USER

43


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Program I: Simple powerroutine forsma/IP

To compare this routine's perforwith that of the built-in

s\

;

for the power routines. The times are

3:

N°te that the times f°t the ht’t't‘t”

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increase as the ”wet

increases-

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44 ATAR/ USER July 7985

5;

1,15; 352; j; /

fact

I

552225?

1:53

is. In

°Utpetf°tm5 h" Program illustrates this:

2

i;

wonder if

Wh‘Ch

fig/”é £55222???

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me to

Not surprisingly, there

{£5551

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caused

PRlNT

the built—in function is so slow that it is possible to write a Basic routine

if.

7

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and

with

number to the power of another.

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HAVE you ever noticed how slow the Atari's power function is? If you haven't try typing PRINT 1 1

-

the subroutine. subroutine out

you want to try the it in your

or use it is used as

follows. To Xto the power P let X=number: Pzpower: GOSUB 20: X=POWER

programs, .

If

raise


0555/ A‘ '

zf'.

,-.'7

‘f‘:.,.

"A!”

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Put your Atarl -

// f F5 %))

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1,41.”

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capabllmes FRANK

_’

_

power calculatmg wrth mto overdrlve s

-

-

O'DWYER's

where X is the number to be raised Pis the powerto which it is to be raised

POWER is the answer

re—

turned by the subroutine at line 20.

Note that P must be a positive integer— 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and so on. It is possible to improve upon the performance of the simple routine in by using a squaring Program technique as follows: To raise Xto the power of 8, write X=((x2)2)2 X10 the power Of 5, write TO l

raise IX x:((x2}

The r°Utine give” as Pr09'am “ this technique, and OUTDef' forms the built—in function for most medium powers P. Combine Program lI along with Program iv and the line 10 shown above as before to obtain applies

timing information. 2. IF 9:0 "IE! mtnznnerunl 3. votinzxtntu m. 6. 40 IF “Hum, so

'

“a

t .

f 5

-

...

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f

:

snzunnmmnzpmmntcom

“ 5. IF “1:9 "E. “m“ 7. BIT:IIN1:PMR=POI£M:GOTI so Program //-‘ Fast power routine for small to medium P

Note how the squaring technique leads to an improvement in perfor— mance for powers of 16 and 32. in fact performance will be best at powers of 0, 1,2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 and

-

routines

will steadily deteriorate as powers increase. Note also that for some powers, the built—in function outperforms the subroutine. This is not important, since on average powers will be small and the subroutine will outperform so on, and

the built in operator, again on average. This routine is a good all-round performer, and works equally well for small powers of P, as it does for medium powers up to about 24. A further improvement can be made to the squaring technique by applying it in feCUfSive fashion. T0 compute X“: Step 1:C0mpute X8 Step 2:Compute x4 Step 3; Compute x2 Step 4; Compute product of above results, and multiply by x, sucxuzncoro “’ 59:0th to ruin menstrual

1° ”I"

20 30 PM!=I:IIT=1 40 IF HINDU)? ”MEI so so unnnnntm?zntzmncon

“ so PzP-BIT?F

=snsn1=sosm 5'““‘5""?m 7. If "1 “El a. “I.“

”1 mil

snutsnwoatn utspzsp-npunmn

maau?mm?l?l

pmgmm ”L. Recursive power routine fo,/a,gep

Program ”I gives a subroutine to implement this technique, using a

N

i

L?

stack to hold intermediate results. Notice that the routine calls itself in line 60. Amazingly, this routine still

operator outperforms the bum“ despite its complexity and the

overhead associated with the stack. However it does not really begin to the squaring technique outperform above are “m" Of powers 32 and '3 therefore the reached. Th's routine Of P are to use h'gh best one '_f values Again, combine-Program anticipated. IV to obtain timing W'th !” Program

information. 1“ "I“ mam

“m" "t“ to 32mm" "' won to "M“ T’h'm" rmzu

"M'E'""""'E"""°5“'

1253.23.15: 11:1 to 1o:x:1.o1App-||Ext “a“ or ”m: MIG.“ u neutrons 139 tztp?zx(zoupssx(unzsswfixuaw “?owsgwun r, 145 FOR 1:13 to zowoxe Lauren 1 150 FM 11:1 to 1o:p=pP:n=1.01:sosun za lumen 10 1115110110115 or 5 txzm?m?rr unnouuug pom 168 T:(PEEK(20)+256*PEEK(19H65536*PEE r luau/sown“ 170 IE!" PP 1“ “0

120 F“

Program IV: Comparison routine for power subroutines

benefit of each of these subroutines is that apart from in— creased speed they also bring increased accuracy in comparison to the bunt—in operator. Try typing pRlNT 22 at the keyboard. On some machines the answer given is 3999991996 instead of 4. The subroutines give do not suffer from this problem. A useful

_

l

Now can anyone come up With routines which work for negative values of power and fractionalvalues, for example X to the power of 2.2? _

July 7985 ATARI USER

45


_

MIKE

BIBBY- continues his explanation of the fundamentals of the Atari's workings I AS

mentioned

have

we

previous articles, the Atari

exa

in and

based on the handles 6502 microprocessor its binary numbers in groups of eight bits at a time. Such a group of eight is called a byte. However, while handling eight bits at a time is satisfactory from the machine's point of view, from the human side of things it's rather all other machines

,

eelma

difficult to manage. Those 13 and Os are far too prone to error. Look at Table for instance. it contains an error can you find it? It's all too easy to slip up when handling binary numbers a single in the wrong place and all is lost! To make things easier to dealwith,when lam copying out binary numbers put a wavy line between bits 3 and 4 to I

1

Let's design another one that the advantages of the denary system with those of the binary. That is, it will be easy to read and write, yet will still allow us to perceive the binary manner in which combines

I

splitthe byteinto two equalgr0upsof four. For example, if 0

A

W°U|d

|

l

were _

1

19001111(_

copying: 4 3)

WF't95

%

100031111 .

.

.

Actually, splitting the byte into two Of four bits is standard groups Of four b.“ IS practiceu— eachugroup called a nybble ,would you believe? It’s not too hard to see that the .

the machine handles things. The system we want is called hexadecimal. This consists of using our standard digits O to 9 for the numbers zero to nine respectively, and the letter A to F for the numbers 10 to 15 In this way it allows us to code the numbers available in a nybble (that is, O to 15) with just one digit This digit will be in the ran 9 e O to 9.0r A to F

until it becomes second nature. Given that we can encodeanybble in one hexadecimal digit, and that a byte consists of two nybbles, it should

apparent that

be

readily

%1111

%1010,

and %

0000

respectively. After all, you've only 90t four bits to play with! So we can split up our byte into two nybbles of four bits each. Now when we split up a binary number in this manner we call the left-hand nybble the most significant nybble (MSN) and the right-hand nybble the least significant nybble (LSN). We have alread y created one new number system the binary system. .

of usmg letters of the alphabet for numbers, but it soon becomes second have to get nature. Y?“ ”1th used to counting.

/

\ ‘71001 °

1

3

$A

$9

\

$A9

1

2 3

4 5 5 7

'

numbers

we

as

Wlth

.

%, we

prefix

hexadecimal numbers with

$5,

9 10

our

to

-

$F means

15’

3135313?! ;:;:1’

studying Table ll will really pay lvldends suggest you practise writing down bit patterns of nybbles and their hexadecimal equivalents d_

8

.

preflxall our-binary

3,312ggn?zzfsnfo

46 ATARI USER July 7985

o

.

%10111011 = 137

Tab/e/

Decimal

team and F in a ru by ugnio/n tegm There are C monthsgin a V ear and E“ days In a fortnight.

'

»

J

criiiTigatfgr, Bheirr? {28,5213012212

_

%11110110=246

Ms You 'ust

.

Nowlust

/

That is:

0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D,E,F

.

1. 001;

71010 °

.

idea

can

a

n

we

byte as two hexadecimal digits side by side, for example:

encode

sp

lit the

Binary 0000 0001 0010 0°11 010° 0101

°"°

Tab/e //

into two

Hexadecimal 0 1

2

3 4 5

01" 1000 1°01

5 7 8 9

1010

A

11

1011

B

12

1100

c

12

“(1,21

2

15

1111

F

I

b y te u p


BitWise

#

most significant nybble, we have to shift it over to the left four times.

.

you cast your mind back to last month, this is equivalent to multiplying it by two four times in succession, If

, digit, that is, two column, hexadecimal number, as these are all

on the two

we need to store our bytes in. In this case the left-hand column is the “sixteens” column, the right hand the

.

Iumn.

.

”r"?O"_°°

te

s s

76 7 2 1 76 7 2 D 76 7

2i16+1

=

left hand and a ri ht hand nybble, encode each as g hexa— decimal number. then put the two —

a

side by side. You can go from

binary just

as

hexadecimal to

easily:

$

76 C

33

=

=

2‘16+13 =45

.

byte.

=

12.16“)

192

=

tWO digit "a”S'ate hexanumber into denary srmply multiply the number in the left-hand and add it to the column by 16 number in the right—hand column remembering to translate A to F if T_°

5?

demmal

the hexadecimal

To obtain

8’16+0=128

7

0

is

s 8 0: nybbles

2><2x2><2:16. This is why a the hexadeFimal digit representing. 16 times most Sigmf'cam nybble .'5 than represent— the. “We d'g't larger ing the least Significant nybble. can The “Or? largest number you ls in a two—digit hexademmal number : of This IS, 15x16+15:255. $FF the same as the largest course, number we could store in a binary we often refer to a two digit byte hexadecimal number simply as a

that

bOf)a| postrilve Zigéeger eq'unI/alent is the Ive/f? dmigeeitrblyr?GerTheGZiottism digit, the remainder the right hand, translating into A to F where necessary. For example:

hand

‘fjsk %1(&?

TN“ 000 That

”A“

92901

"01

That

is:

$A Hence

_

IS:

141 $80 = % 10001 101 Although you have probably never thought of it in these terms, you are well aware that the value a digit represents depends on the column it is in. The number 230 is not as large as 320, though both numberscontain =

the same digits.

In hexadecimal coding too the column a digit is in is important. For example, $10 is far greater than $01. In binary each column is worth twice the preceding one. In denary, our usual number system, each column is worth 10 times the preceding one. In hexadecimal, each column is worth 16 times the preceding one.

Believe it or not, the columns in 3 four digit hexadecimal number, from greatest to least, are worth 4096,

256, 16 and This means

necessary. The second column has the value 16 since the first column can only handle numbers up to 15 ($F) the largest you can fit into a nybble 1). After 15, you have to use a (%1 for 16, that is $10. Second column JUSt as '” denary,we "carry" at 10 smce the largest value our columns

respectively. that: 4096 + 256 + 1 = 4353 1

$ 1101 = For the moment let’s concentrate

1

1

_

9, so in hexadecimal we carry at 16’ since the largest our columns can handle is 15 ($F)It is the fact that we carry at 16 that gives this number system its “hex" name ”hexadecimal”_ here can

handle is

_

?tands fc.”

6,3

Hexadecrmal

dec'ma'

Z

6 + 10

Z

for ten16'

Givenasecond column$10,aswe 17 '5 erlbe'$11,wh|Ie $39” 16' $12 is.18'and so on until we reach 31, WhICh IS $1F. have

run OUt Of legal have then We digits for the units column, so if we want to 9° on to 32 we had better ourselves another16,and setthe give units column backtozero, that is $20. way looking at the t at it comes from secon Anzthelr co umn is 0; the most significant nybble. To turn the least significant nybble into the _

R 14

174+16=1° R

$E

174=$AE _

Anyway, here

,

5 a

program that_""'” to

6 "t 0” convertfffhmdeniry ings htexaltiljecimbal S

tor youa ar to ef inlor ,0 d 't' h OW veOW'd un 000 W' ?rm?” b cu rice Y?“ 1? hwriding onlettO Stenary.7convert exa .ron71_h e/Cira or "OW' ”797th ’/l gt;e ak' wayso lie)“ comb/n/ng oob/ngat ers. live mary num _

to m, 10 am mm 20 H” E?u?).???$m

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Program/ July 7985 ATARI USER

47


(?\

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0

a

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Nothing!

_

An arrow indicates the direction of 0 050

1050500: mm Nike Rome 1905

0m S(18,20):HIEH:”9 10 50000105 1+16:DL:PEEK(SGOHPEEKGM )*256:POKE 01+3.71 20 90511100 0.0:? 145 ;" + treasure hun t +" 5

25 55100100

the treasure

mill

";5000

IF 5:15 men 100 0,200,0.10:ron J:1 m 20:?E? t 0:50000 0.0.0.0 110 IF 5:5 00 5:10 00 5:14 1050 w:-1: 105

107 50mm

ml=130 120 IF 5:5 00 5:9 00 5:13 "IE! 09:1:m 0:130 130 If 50; "in 00:1:muz137 140 IF 5)0 000 5<12 Tutu 00:—1:mn:135 150 x1zx+ouzxr x1:0 00 01:19 men x1:x '

i

i

.

In

»

51

ROWE \

but may give two different answers subsequent interrogation. This is because it may tell you that the treasure is, for example, two columns or four rows away but you will not know which is which. The answer displayed is random

on

each time. Each time a square is interrogated your score is increased by one until the treasure IS found. IS to The object score as as and the low possrble score IS saved until the game lowest is

stopped. Although seemlngly complicated, the game IS actually very logical and easy to follow. '

.

559 5010 000 570 5030 500 500 500 1:255 to 50 STEP -5:50m|0

0.1.

10.10:||Exr 1:50000 0.0.0.0

190 u:x1:v=v1:5070

505 RETURN

100

550mm 50mm:

500

REM

505

sconszsconfuwosnmu

500 m4 001:

9.22:? 05:5

WRE

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570 50500 3000 680 POSITION 0.9:2

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500

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mu 19)? men

549 5070 500 550 IF IllN0))0.2 555 5010 500 550 ? urn-w"

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590 IF 5!10|((0)=15 THE! 590 595 5ttx.tv9=0:0051110|| 0.21:?

um"

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599 051000 890 RE" “£05005

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men 540

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5204500711510

529 5010 500 530 IF

510

620 POSITION 0,21?!

510 00511100

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MIKE

541 IF txzx

50500 500

48 ATAR/ USER July 7985

.

v1:0 00 91:21 "450 v1zv

539 7

5r015t0):0

current

x,v:? mmm?ountocntz x1.v1.0u>:905nml x1,v1:? usmmsuu

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5:5rIcu0):ox:0:0v:0:1r

from your

number of columns or rows .away from your position. lf an X appears, then the treasure is more than nine rows AND columns away from you. If you ?nd a bomb it will explode and move the treasure to a new position and all your previous clues will be inva|id_ Asquare containinga ?wullalway.s it contain an clue. arrow However also has a high risk of containing a bomb, so should be used carefully. Each square always gives the same type of clue in any one game,

535 IF 01mm

--

i—

[—

_|

position. A number shows the

40 50500 1000 50 some 2000 50 90511100 0.22:? 100

r-l

By

520 2

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Take advantage of our finger-saving offer on Page 61.

July 7985 ATARI USER

49


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we launched MicroLink we naturally expected it to generate quite a large degree of interest among micro enthusiasts. What we didn’t expect waswhat actually happened

WHEN

stampede of applications to join. They poured in from all parts of Britain, and even more surprisingly from places as far away as Tasmania. What has attracted them to MicroLink? For the computer buff it’s the thought of joining one big family of like-minded enthusiasts. Through the Chat facility he can “talk"in real time to people who are using the same micro as common problems and sharing hints and himself, discussing\ tips. \ And as MicroLink is part of Telecom Gold and Dialcom the largest electronic mail service in the world — he can also communicate speedily and cheaply with other enthusiasts in many other countries. For the businessman, MicroLink immediately provides an office tool that he might not have been able to afford before. At his fingertips are the same facilities that are enjoyed by every all of whom are subscribers to leading British business Telecom Gold. For a once—only payment of £10 he can turn his micro into a telex machine — which normally would cost him £2,000. He can send a telex message for as little as 5.5p, and even that is reduced by 10 per cent if he defers transmission until after 8pm! His micro can also become a terminal to the Telecom Gold —

a

.

I

I

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computer, able to tap its tremendous power and versatility and to use giant number—crunching programs that can only be run on a mainframe. No longer need he be tied to his office. He can use his micro from home — or golf club. And if he's not too confident about his spelling he can run his letter or telex message through the sophisticated Spell program before sending it off. One of the many advantages of an online service like MicroLink is its flexibility its ability to cope quickly with changing needs. Although it is only a few weeks old, new sections are being continually introduced to provide users with an even more comprehensive service. Among the latest are a definitive guide to all UK bulletin boards, which can be updated daily as new boards open up, or phone numbers or hours of access change. And there's a review of the computer magazines, so you can see what subjects are being covered in their current issues. Finally, why should the Tasmanians, of all people, want tojoin MicroLink? As they live right on the other side of the world, won't it cost a fortune to communicate with the UK? Not so. Because Tasmania is part of the international PSS network, instead of paying the normal telephone call rate of 96p a minute, they can call MicroLink over PSSforjust 10p a minute. For callers in Europe it's even cheaper—just 2.2p a minute. With incentives like this, we expect MicroLink to grow into a truly international service. —

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116 EDLESTON ROAD’ CREWE’ CHESHIRE. 0270-214118

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For the ?rs“: time, it combines the enthusiasm of many thousands of computer users with the power and versatility of Britain’s national database ’ Telecom Gold The result is an mtematronal communications link that is your passport to new realms waiting to be explored, new experiences to be shared with kindred spirits who enjoy telecomputing jUSt as much as you do yourself. Communicating the MicroLink way Is ultra-fast and much cheaper than you might expect. Wherever you live, you get direct access to the Telecom Gold

International satellite Iinkfor global communications, ‘

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computer at local call rates. With your own electronic mailbox you can send a message to .

for or to 500! destination less than you would pay for a first class stamp. You can send and receive telex messages worldwide, or have a two-way chat with other users in

one

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Telecom Gold

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trademark of British Telecommunications p/c.

and let Join MicroLink now you and your Atari be in the forefront of the new revolution in ———_-—'_—'———— -

communications!


of the innovative features you’ll be able to use when you join

These

are

some

.

What facilities

you

can

use

-

.

.

directly from your micro:

0 Access at any hour of the day or night to Microsearch, our exclusive product locater, which is constantly updated by Britain’s major distributors. Powerful, easy-to-use keyword searching means you should find what you want within seconds. 0 Direct contact, via electronic mail, with other users throughout the world. And because you’re connected via P88, and not the normal phone links, it’s usually much, much cheaper. 0 Full use of the closed user group bulletin board with a special section for Atari users. 0 Full service of news about new products and events. All presented in easy—to-read form to keep you right up to date with what is happening in the world of microcomputing and communications. 0 Send and receive mailbox messages of any length with other Telecom Gold mailbox users, the number of which is rapidly growing. 0 Send and receive telex messages, both within Britain and all over the world. 0 Send telemessages to any address in the UK If sent before 10pm they will get guaranteeddelivery the next working day, including Saturday (This service commences shortly.) 0 If you live outside the 01- local call area, use of PSS at local phone call charges, including access to the international Dialcom system. (This covers nearly 90 per cent of the population of the UK.) 0 Use, should you require it, of the Telecom Gold mainframe for storage of your own data. 0 Encouragementto combine with friends or colleagues to set up your own closed user group within —

MicroLink.

0 Provision of free telesoftware, which you can download into your Atari.

What you will receive when you join MicroLink: 0 Free registration on Telecom Gold — and your own private mailbox 0 Free paswvord, which you can change at any time you like. This gives you a high level of security in order to preserve confidentiality, and is known only to you. 0 Free instructional manual to introduce you to Telecom Gold and its many services 0 Free Help facility should you require additional assistance. 0 Free newsletter to keep you informed of future developmentsin this ever-expandingservice.

What you need to

access

MicroLink:

0 Any personal computer, portable computer, hand-held device or electronic typewriter with

communicationsfacilities.

0 Appropriate communicationssoftware. 0 Modern (you can use 300/300, 1200/75 or 1200/1200 baud as you wish).

What will it cost? 0

standing charge of £3 (compared to Telecom Gold’s normal £10

Monthl)y charge

a

month minimum

.

0 Connect charges: 3.5p a minute (cheap rate); 10.5p a minute (standard rate). Plus 2p a minute PSS charge if calling from outside the 01- call area. 0 Onceonly telex registration fee (if required): £10. 0 Outgoing telex 5.5p per 100 characters (UK), 11p (Europe) and 16.5p (USA). 0 Incoming telex 50p. 0 lntema?onal mail: 30p for first 2,048 characters, then 15p for each additional 1,024 characters. 0 Telemessages: £1.25 for a maximum of 350 words or 35 single spaced lines. 0 On-line databases on Telecom Gold: charges as indicated at time of log-on.

To

secure your inunediate registration, complete the form opposite and return it to: MicroLink, Europa House, 68 Chester Road, Hazel Grove, Stockport SK7 5NY.


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Tums and

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Whilst Database Publications Ltd isthe supplier of, all the servicestoyou, the commission and i "ll be handl d by T lecom Gold th bill“ ge is f Database Publicati Ons Ltd. Daltregofggmunem to beeon 15thaof month foallcsmaringncozrmencement. Please complete billing authorisation form A, B or C below.

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FOR OFFICEUSE ONLY:

l/We authorise you until further notice in writing to charge to my/our account with you on or immediately after 15th day of each month unspeci?ed amounts which may be debited thereto at the instance of British Telecommunications plc TELECOM GOLD.

w—_,—__

Mailboxassigned

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PM“

C. Please invoice the company/authority. D ll you select this option, which is ONLY AVAILABLE to government mblishments and public ( limited companies, you will be sent an authorisation form for completion which will require an official order number to accept unspeci?ed amounts.

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———————-———'———

Telecom Gold is a trademark of British Telecommunications plc.

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How much

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Initial registration fee: £5. mon or pa$3793: Sta'aflnng

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Applicable for duration of connection to the Service. Minimum charge. 1 minute. Cheap rate is from 7pm to 8am, Monday to Friday, all day Saturday and Sunday and public hOIld‘WS; Stande rate is from 8am to 7pm, Monday to Friday, excluding public holidays. -

-

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.

Filing charge: 20p per unit of 2,048 ‘

characters a month. Applicable for storage of information, such a tel“ short 00d“ and mail ?les. The number of units used is an average calculated by reference to a daily sample. ,

information databases: Vanous. AW charges obtain “063

are shown to you before to the database.

Microljnk

you can be paged automatically whenever a message is waiting m your mailbox -

90“

service: 2p per minute or part (300 baud); 2.5p per mmute or part (1200 baud). PSS

tion: £10.

i

call area.

.

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lntemational Mail: For the first 2,048

Outgoing telex: 5.5p per 100 characters (UK); 119 per 100 (Europe); 165i) per 100 (N' America); £1.15per40(Rest world)'' £2.75 Per 40

(Ships at sea). messages sent 0" ”1? Night service Deferred “V3 ”bled to a 10 per cent discount.

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users outside the 01- London

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-

Only applies to

-

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Telex

rate, standard rate. .

Radiopaging: No charge. If you have a BT Radiopager

MicroSearch, news service, bulletin board and similar sections of Micro?nk: No charge.

Telemessages: £1-25 for “P to 350 words.

10p; 15p. These charges relate to the transmission of information by the Dialcom service to other Dialcom services outside the UK and the Isle th dd M M I I _

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This contract is made betweenDatabase Publications Ltd, of Europa House. 68 Chester Road. Hazel Grove. Stockport SK7 SNY (DPL) and the subscriber whose name and address appears overleaf. Whereas DPL has agreed with British Telecommunications plc (BT) through its agent Telecom Gold Limited to Service) and BT through Telecom Gold Limited has agreed to supply the Service to customers of DPL. It 1.

is

sell

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and distribute the MicroLink Service (the

agreed as follows: Access DPL shall issue to the subscriber such user codes (called mailbox numbers) as it thinks fit in order to allow the Subscriber and persons associated with the subscriber, access to use the Service.

l

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2.

3.

The Service The Sen/ice shall be BT’s Telecom Gold Dialcom Service, and shall comprise such services and facilities consider appropriate, subject to the supply by BT of such services and facilities.

as

DPL shall in

its

discretion from time to time

Charges The subscriber shall pay for all charges arising under this contract from his subscription to and/ or use of the Service, and/ or from the issue to him of any mailbox number issued by DPL to the Subscriber. All charges are payable on demand. b) DPL shall give to the Subscriber not less than fourteen days written notice of any alteration in the applicable charges for the’ServicexThe charges applicable at the date of this Subscription are set out overleaf. c) Subject to any provision of this contract, liability for charges for service shall commence. unless BT notifies the customer to the contrary. with effect from the first day of the month in which BT ?rst makes service available to the customer. Limitations on use a) The Subscriber shall not use, or permit any person to use the Service otherwise than according to instructions given by DPL or BT, existing for the time being and in particular. shall not use the Service for the purpose of sending abusive. offensive, indecent or menacing communications, or for sending communications which cause annoyance, inconvenience. or needless anxiety. b) The Subscriber shall not permit any person to use the Service by means of a mailbox number issued by DPL unless the name and relationship of that person to the Subscriber has been disclosed to DPL. a)

4.

5.

Termination a) This contract may be terminated by either party giving not less than one month's written notice, such notice to expire on the last day of any calender month. b) DPL may terminate this contract forthwith without notice if the Subscriber shall fail to pay any sum payable under this contract or payable under any other contract with DPL to which the Subscriber is a party. i) ii) be adjudicated bankrupt, enter into liquidation or any arrangement or composition with his creditors, or if a receiver is appointed of any part of the Subscriber's assets and not discharged within seven days. or if any judgment against the Subscriber remains unsatis?ed for more than seven days. iii) fail to comply with any term of this contract. or any instruction given by DPL or BT under clause 4 of this contract. c) DPC may terminate this contract without notice in the event that BT and/or its agent Telecom Gold shall cease to supply the Service. d) If the customer fails to comply with any provision of this contract he shall nevertheless continue to be liable for all charges due and to become due for service provided during any period of such failure.

6.

Assignment

7.

The subscriber shall not, without the written consent of DPL assign this contract, or any rights or obligations arising under this contract. Limitation of liability a) For the avoidance of doubt neither DPL nor BT has an obligation duty or liability in contract, tort, for breach of statutory duty or otherwise beyond that of

a duty to exercise reasonable skill and care. b) In any event in no circumstances shall either DPL or BT be liable in contract, tort (including negligence or breach of statutory duty) or otherwise for loss (whether direct or indirect) of profits, business, or anticipated savings or for any indirect consequential loss whatever. c) In any event DPL’s liability in contract, tort (including negligence or breach of statutory duty) or otherwise arising by reason of or in connection with this contract or howsoever otherwise shall be limited to £500,000 for any one incident or series of incidents and film for any series of incidents related or unrelated in any period of 12 months. d) DPL does not exclude or restrict its liability for death or personal injury, where such arises as a result of the negligence of DPL or its employees. e) The Subscriber shall indemnify DPL against all loss, actions, proceedings, costs, claims and damages arising from i) any breach by the Subscriber of his obligations hereunder; ii) the use of the Service by third parties by means of any mailbox number issued to the subscriber. f) DPL shall not be liable for any loss or damage occurring through any act or ommission of BT or its agent Telecom Gold Limited, in the supply or failure to supply, the Service to DPL. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained hereby, the supply of the Dialcom service shall be upon and subject to the standard terms and conditions of BT from time to time and of which the subscriber shall be deemed to be aware. g) Neither party shall be liable for failure to perform its obligations if the failure results from Act of God, Act of Government or other Authority or Statutory undertaking, fire, explosion, accident, power failure, industrial dispute, inability to obtain materials or anything beyond such party’s reasonable control. h) DPL accept liability hereunderfor direct loss caused to the subscriber where such loss arises solely due to acts or omissions of DPL or its employees in the provision of access to the service up to an aggregate maximum of £1,000 or a sum equal to one month's average service charges to the subscriber over the previous 12 months’ period, whichever is smaller. Save as otherwise provided herein, DPL shall be under no liability for any loss suffered by the subscriber or by any other person arising from negligence or otherwise. 8. Any notice, consent or other communication required to be given hereunderby either party to the other, shall be made in writing and may be served by first class post to the address of the other as set out herein, and shall be deemed to have been received 48 hours from the time of posting. 9. This agreement constitutes the entire agreement between the Subscriber and DPL in respect of the Service, and no representation, statement, warranty or condition not expressly contained in this agreement or incorporated herein by reference. shall be binding upon DPL as a warranty or otherwise. 10. This agreement shall be governed and construed in accordance with the laws of England, and the English Courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction to determine any disputes arising hereunder.

"

_


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directly into your Atari. You will be able to join Micronet/Prestel, which will immediately open up to you a vast menu of 750,000 pages of information instant world news, sports, holidays, hotels, train and airline timetables, all regularly updated. And you can become one of a growing number of enthusiasts who are joining MicroLink, the giant database set up in conjunction with Telecom Gold, which is described more fully in this issue. But first, send for the Miracle package and enter the fascinating, limitless world of communications! —

Use the order for“)

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Page 61

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help from TeleLink TeleLink,Britain’s pioneering communications magazine, is full of helpful advice about all the fascinating things you can do when you link your Atari to your telephone. in the latest issue, now on sale, are special features on

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0 Why PSS is the most economical way of accessing systems all over the world. . Communicating With a portable: a detailed suwey of all the latest lap-held micros. 0 Guide to the latest telesoftware you can download from Prestel. 0 Pages of upAto-theAminute news of happenings in the teletext and viewdata industries. 0 Setting up a viewdata system: a ?rst-hand report of how it’s done. 0 Communications in the City: a look at what can happen when ?nanciers go on-Iine. ‘

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.

. .

how

you explained

to disable

the Break key in

Basic

a

program. is it possible to disable the Reset key in the same way, so that a Basic program cannot be listed? Next, if you PEEK/53279}

10

youcanusetheSe/ect,0ption,

30

x”";%;£:2’2

e r p m'Z'?yL/SZI" g POINT commands. / know that it is possible to Off? disc file and one-byte 00 at 't' 53k? . lsitposs1ble tolthen change ”7 that byte the information ’t ”7 rep/ace the 33m? place ‘?"d ”7 same f’le W’thOUt

changing any

. “1.12.0, . 'D.Fxlenane.Ext

1.

:l_P1532:1:':l'.

ll

how?—~

updated each time the Help key is pressed. The values obtained are as follows:

byte. If'

b'

x

_

.

=

HELP only <Shift> HELP

chan't 3°ti V°ursev}??? .ge'IsPaOmy-Fe

145

=

<Ctrl> HELP

293” or example,

1

Once you have changed these lines, you will find that you will be able to use a joystick. lalso havea question: .

40 OPE!

»

"

100 GET

GIIITM! TIMING

0

ID“ :PRIIT "Press any key for 5,0 a, E" FOR 5:1 to 6

70 PRINT , G, 0,

80

um

800XL and old 400, / don't know if all Ataris are the same, if not a slight adjust— ment to the data line should correct things. Keep up the good work. —

Bruce Burke, Canterbury, Kent.

131.01!” z,a,1a,a mm“ "String Io "n;

no son» 120 Pill!“

“1.4.0,"K"

PRIIT H’RIIT

111

90 REQD 0

so GMPHICS o 60

at

from' time to time, and also when i re-string it. / am sure many readers own a guitar but perhaps do not own a tuner or pipe. This little routine does help to keep you in concert pitch. The notes are correct on my

_

is it possible to disable the Reset button r if so is there a program or a POKE command for the XL series?l would be very grateful if you could help r

Tim Keats, Bracknell, Berks. 0 Yes, the Reset key can be disabled. See the reply to Mr me.

Bishop above.

THE! 0070 1250

This method will work with 2 or 3, as it uses absolute, rather than relative, addressing. Don’t try to exceed the end

DOS

Guitar Tuning Old 20 RE" by Bruce Burke 10 RE"

.

_ S-STICHO) IF 5:7 an» M16 “E“ 5070 12“ 1050 IF 5:11 ?lb it)!

.

.

END

4.“ 1040

“of 2,

I AM writing to say how pleased / am with your new magazine. It really is nice to see Atari coming back on tap where it deserves. I enclose a little program which I find quite useful when I check the pitch of my guitar

110

8 /'k d FOR t h ekm_ 3 egse‘,’ feta. inst, h [fan eeyd Z’ odpre etr [loyshlc tlfzfse 53:42}, lini‘lseiz Attg ck Squash in the first issue of Atari User to:

and PUT V°”'"e‘” da‘athe program above will change all bytesina file with a value of to a value

gun

place

com some" Get another byte 100 ctosz lumen Close file

f

you

=

can your

its so

* * *

.

17 81

The operating system will not clearthe value for you,so it will remain in location 732 until you POKE it to zero, or the Help key is pressed in a different combination. To change single bytes within a disc file you must first

EH

goto li

_ . . IF H-l POIIT “LLB-Pl“ TtlEl ”1.0.0 If byte IS 1, backspace & Put 2 m

of the file using this method, as Append mode is the only way to do this. For an answer to your question on Reset protection, see next month's issue, where there will be an article on protecting your Basic pro— grams from prying eyes.

-

This Wl” the me ready 59} Up 10 read the flfSt byte Of data. YOU may "OW PUT 0' GET bytes as you \_Ni5h- lf YQU PUT bytes they W|ll overwrite the existing data. So if you want to read a byte then change it, NOTE the ?le position first, then GETthe

A.K. Blshop, Cheshunt. Herts: 0 Location 732 ($2DC) is

50

_

'

_

m JEN 0

ammonia! uote position “1.8.05" Get byte

open the file for update, with:

at the other

”30:

um

40 GET

.

bytes In that me?

.

OFF!

pen ?le for update 20 "MP 100mm an End—Of-File no 100

and Start keys. / know the codes for those three, but is one for the Help key-7, there

the

bug

130 NEXT G 148 GET “MIN" 150 GLOSE “1 160 RI"! 170 NH“ ‘7,53,80,107,143,191

Squash swap HAVING typed the Attack Squash listing fromAtari User into my 800XL / suddenly realised that there is very little that bores me more than a good ame of squash solset thisprogram aboutgconverting to something more interesting

The/istingbelowifaddedto

the Attack Squash listing will produce a Breakout type game that I feel is perhaps a wee bit

As in the Squash program, every time a ba/{ 13 hit the bat ?ne-

”WV”

up one Each two" at

W5”

de’t’Ol’Sh

0.79

breakout

twrce ’t' Fm” h" scores

must

bf?

to

h’f

one

pom t and the second h” scores a further two

”If

awar

e ar 0 I my e 9 efor

paints. ’

a in? It):e Zt/S/

with the bat, which means there is a maximum score of 324. is hit for the

After the brick Zgjjoamfeé’tazhjggf: gags/1.3 '

rectangle andagfterthesecond time a brick has been hit it disappears. The bat controls are just the

—————-——-. July 7985 ATARI USER

57


?

same

in the Squash

as

the left/right arrow program keys move the bat left and —

right respectively.

_

The ’?’°.s“"te’e“’"~" “pm of this listing, from aprogramming point ofview, is probably the use of the LOCATE command to "see”if the bal/is over a blank a hollow square, 0’ 6 ’ECta"$/e SW"! ”Hang/f? returning a value in 2 that is used to determine the score increment. Line 655 turns a hollow rectangle

intoasolidrectangle

2770129355?7222?

T5?

breakout wall. Lines 1577 to 7678 define the hollow rectangle brick shape and lines 3000 to 30 70

increment

the

score

as

mquired and pmduce the new sound effects_

Line 230 stops the bat going higher than the breakout wall as it moves up the play area.

Lines 270 and 3 70 reposition the ball counter and score

230 270 310 551 562

as now

program

it looks prettier that

700 stops the ball the play area and line leaving 740 ?nds out what the ball is laying over—2:38 if ball lays overa hollow brick andZ=36 if ball lays over a solid brick. Line 743 sends the pro-

39‘9 sou“, o'p,14’3 3.50 lEllT G m sou-v mm 397° RETURN

.

.

.

.

-

-

voice accompanying

Up until a few days ago these cassettes loaded and‘ played with no prob/em,

Howevernowtheyloadand play normal/y except there is no tutor’s voice with any ofthe lessons. / would be grateful if

that

are

noticeably lacking

magazines

YOU

code

often

in many

Anthony

Smith. Huddersfield. West

Yorkshire.

just read from cover to thefirstI edition'ofAtari thh foundd informal— exce well presente ’ o -

comprehend. I have one query to make. I bought the program cassette States and Capitals for use

with my 800XL. Side two (game only) loads

with no trouble, but

Tysler, Glasgow. Q It sounds as though the playback head on your cass— ette recorder might have become misaligned. Alternatively. the channel through which the voice plays back may have stopped WOFking. Make sure there is no dirt on the playback head, and try

adjusting it slightly.

programs

me,

the less-

many machine

lent typography, and extremely easy to read and

.

you could give any comments this should happen and any advice on how to get the tutor's voice back. E.

ans.

include

Llser,

.

as to why

-

Pub/ism?" ”exert that

I HA VE cover

Atari User Euro a Ho so 68 c: ester “R 03 d "m“ G’°"° Stockport SK7 SNY

Th 8 ' GSt

I would just like to suggest, especially now that you have

protectron

'

c h or d

-

Software

Moilbo 9 .

Brighouse, West Yorks. 0 With the tape in the

58 ATARI USER July 7985

IF 2:35 men utznnzwzue

WE welcome letters from readers about your experiences using the Atari micros, about tips you would like to pass on to other users and about what you would like to see in future issues. The address to write to is . . M allbag EdltOl’

[ow/v an Atari soon and an Atari 470 recorder. All my programs load and play nor— mal/y except for the Invitation to Programming series of cassettes which have a tutor’s

recorder try holding down the Start and Option keys when You turn the machine on. When you hear the buzz, press Play on the recorder and then press Return.

3,“

302° If 23“ "E. HT=HT*1:P:200 3030 Fort 6:1 to 5

cannot be turned off will! be able to run this tape with the aid of an expansion module? ”(how the simple answer/s to get a better machine, but/ would like to know without the added expense- C- Thomas! —

3000 lt-H

gram to work out the score ifa brick has been hit and/ine 746 steps 8 going out of range. Line 743 is Ill/St line 740 Of the Squash program. but it was necessary to move it I hope you like this little addition to the Attack Squash program.

NAQU wgg?

.

feSf

1672 POKE sinuses-a")-32)*s+1,zss 1673 NE cmmsc ("t") -32)*8+2,195 1674 MRS cm(asct"&")-32)*o+3.195 1575 mm cmusct--&'-)-32)*au.us 1676 PDKE cm use (“t") -32)*8+5,195 167? port: CIIHASC("&")-32)*M6,255 1573 POKE curmsct"&")-3zx*ef7,zss

‘321*8+0,255

Line

COULD you please tell me if it to turn Off the self test program on my 6.00XL' , bought an Atari game to be for cal/edZaxxon,. stated . any 76kAtarimachine, but the tape aborted just as loading was finished. I changed it, only to find it happening again. / asked the machine for the available free RAM, which was 13375. So myconclusion is that the

/f the 59”

FOR

way.

is possible

overloading.

0.21 9.21

1571 POKE CH‘HQSC("l")

problem

game baing 76k and my machine being 733 73 the memory wiped itself to stop

POSITION POSITION

1:1 70 5 F0! H=1 m 18 5“ "05171“ mnnm “55"‘r" 5“ m" N 555 IEKT I 555 IF 1:38 menu new owns-mom on ' 700 IF 8—2 THEN Hz—H'GOSIIB 2000 ' 7“ LOCME n,o,z 7“ IF 1:35 on ZZIB THEN (“?lm 3000 745 IF 5:1 m5" uzassuo "8 “mm" “t“ 820 RE“ DELETE THIS LIIE FROM SQIIQSH

Self—test

.

3:7

If

that

doesn't restore the voice have your recorder checked by your dealer.

I am

unable to load side one. If I have to disconnect disc, printer, et'c each time I wish to use the game it's going to be a confounded nuisance. Is there some other way to load this side? — Alan W.

Thorpe, Southampton. 0 We're not familiar

with

States and Capitals, but some software protection schemes require that peripherals like disc drives and printers are switched off. They don't have to be

physically

disconnected,

merely "Of switched on.

W

States and Capitals is of this type there's not much you can do about it.

.


——————————Moilbog Faulty

,

a

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er?

FI'O

5!

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3

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0

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[few e is mg f:"’/°."t.°’"‘f‘a-”U§/se’ or_ egame rog / typed it

Jump .n

m-

,

.

ii”??? 1°51”! "iii" ep pu ing oun

wondered if there was . something wrong mm the listing. If so, could you tell me where it is wrong. — Christopher Weathery, Ulverston, Cumbria. 0 There were no errors in the I

.

_

,

'

.

listing so you must have made a typing mistake somewhere. Error 5 is a string length error, so make sure thatyou've entered the strings exactly as listed. For example, since line 340 is mentioned, have you typed in line 130 exactly as listed? L2$ should contain only 20

* at t l ENJOY your magazine

I

herd, Ambergate, Derby-

shire. . Error 13 means that the

_

{RUG

’\

-

nu"?

__

"

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computer has encountered a NEXT statement in the pro— gram but hasn't previously seen a corresponding FOR Statement. You should check that line 170 in yourprogram is exactly as we printed it. Make sure you've got FOR 0:0 TO 2048 here and that line 1200 has NEXT Q With letters like 0 it's easy to read them as a letter 01

L e ft 0" t on cassette .

Zaezvfo?fef?il,8?,ix?f,?i favourite games, Zaxxon, is available on 76k cassette and

32k disc. lhavea 707 Ocassette deck

Shop, 1-4 The Mews, Hather— Iey Road, Sidcup, Kent. Tel: 01-309 1111.

“S““Y 32“-

thhzresgiUiggairreransigaiA

and am therefore forced to get the 16k version, so why is the superior 32k version only on disc? Also, Ghostbusters is here. Great, but is it available on cassette? No chance,iust disc again! are certain games only Why , available on disc rather than cassette? After all, the disc drive would be put to better use in a business rather than . games playing. Nigel Ward, Stockton—on-Tees, Cleve—

Change In t|me

release a disc-only game. A tape version might take too long to load discs are more tapes are too easy to

_

_

'

-

Legs/ole,

We don't

.

know

why

Ghostbusters is disc—only ' but suspect its some combi -_ nation of these reasons. -

we

.

,

.

.

42/015 ?f/Iizstlike ls g g ou lfoathink. fl typz magazme for the Atari and wi 5 h you every success "7 the .

'

futwe. M ay

/

suggest

program 59mm."

th

.

m th .e m

at Timer

your first

Memory

.

C

issue line 740 be han g ed to read 740 TIMER: *

boost

65536 + PEEK/79) PEEKl20ll/50. think you will find this

TEE/«781 256 +

land. 0 The game is the same size whether it's on tape or disc.

IS the memory on my Atari 600XL always going to be the

However, the disc version also

same

I

gives a more accurate time. J. French, Garforth, Leeds.

old 76k or is someone

——__—__—'__—

n er

ropzone megas ars

e

,

a lot.

have/ust finished ‘FrogJump' in your June edition of Atari User. I typed in R un and pressedReturn and/t came up ‘Error 13 at 12001 / tried to solve this error, but did not succeed. I would like you to put me right. __ Sarah Shep—

-

,

a I

“Error 5 on line 340” so I checked line 340 and found it was all right. Then / looked at all the other lines and they also were perfect/y all right.

.

1

,

June WHENglgreceived \ the and

of DOS

-

W

going to print a name and address of a shop that sells RAM packs. G. Thornton, Normanton, West Yorks. 0 We'll print an address —the rest is up to you. Try Silica

needs to contain some version see André Willey's article in this issue. Hence, if the game needs say, 15k, 3 disc version will need 15k plus DOS. This might only be 20k in total, but the next size machine from a 16k one is

' '

AFTER reading the second of your magazine I issue noticed that one of your

to

Last/y,

improve

magazine

readers scoredover87,000on the US Gold game Dropzone, / {50 thought YOU may be score on the interested-in my game, which is 7,039,980. . On is

/ hope you continue your excellent With more program— and routines on all

ming.tips Atari—related subjects for many years to come. Cameron McDade, Wake?eld, West Yorks. 0 Actually, Stephen Edwards (see next letter) beat your score and wrote to us first, but you still deserve Megastar —

theh/ghscorescreen the caption Mission cam-

pletea', you are a megastar". tell me am Qould you the first person to achieve this score? ' the _On subyect ofprogramming, l have included a small subroutine that may be of some Interest to your readers. It theme music from plays the the film Close Encounters’ and couldbe used as part ofa space game.

ifl

status.

Thanks for the theme

muSic. We thought the last note sounded a bit off, but we'llleaveourreadersto make up their own minds about it.

* * * buying your ?rst two

copies! was

99 RE! HOSE ElcnIlITEItS IIISIC 100 REQD 0,0 110 IF 0:0 THE! SOIIID 0,0,0,0:50Illb

very impressed at

1“

Edwards,

1,

no son“

Stevenage,

Herts. 0 We believe you even without the photographic

evidence!

D

3,a+3,1o,a 11:0

to mm“

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200 GOT0 100 210 iiiitii 72,155,64,155,a1,170,162,210,

”MN!

F0“ 0:0 T0 15mm“ 140 SN!" 1i0*1.10.8 150 FOR 0:0 70 15:05!"

150 sou“ z,a§2,1o,a 170 FOR 0:0 T0 15:IEHT

s,o,o=soiiiiii 2,0,0,0:50Ill0 3,0,0,0:GOT0 we ran 230 129 5011”

Ifyou would/ikeaphotofor

evidence I would be happy to provide one. Stephen

.

AFT_ER

such an informative magazine. the letters While reading read that D. Gratton section,l from had written in Leicester and said that he had scored 89,970 on Dropzone. / near/y laughed till I cried. My highest score to date is 7,375,550 even though you may not believe me. It took 7 % hours to achieve andl became a megastar and the message said that my mission was completed.

5 0

121,200 220 MM 0,0 230 RE" REST

OF

PROGMH

HERE

July 7985 ATARI USER

59


7 still”

for all

FREE. fl

new

"

Here’s a real] offer unbeatable for all Atari users!

,

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This top-qualityT-shirt, woven in an attractive shade of grey with the Atari logo in red, is a genuine American ‘Fruit of the Loom’ product, made fror

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60 ATARI USER July 7985

L:rge

much

_36"-38"

Mm;ium

of

a

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38"-40"

chore?

JUNE: Frog Jump: Guide the frog across road and river to his home in this version of arcade classic. 1300705 Ram Power: Use 64k memory to QOOd effect, or use extra Of.

the the the the

drawmg routines to produce some pretty displays. Scuttle the

submarines and practise a Submarine: little coordinate geometry at the same time.

Etcha-Sketch: Draw pretty pictures with only a Random Numbers: Get random numbets from machine code. Filthy Fifteen: Can you keep the ?lthy Fifteen happy in their cells?

joystick.

,

MAY: Alphabet Train: The combination

of colour, sound and animation makes this early learning game a winner with the children. Sounds Interesting: Drive your neighbours potty with these ready-made sounds. Hexer. Enter, display and run machine code programs with this hexadecimal loader. AttackSquasthfast-action game to keep you on your toes. Reaction Timer. See how fast your reactions really are. Binary: Use this program to convert denary numbers to binary notation.

Double the capacity of your discs with this money-saving offer! ,

,

order on our of?cial order form.

mess Of ropes in the belfry?

'

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glad}? thre§4siz§sén

JULY: Bomb Run: Flatten the deserted city and land safely. Disassemble: Find out what’s going on deep inside your Atari. Treasure Hunt: Use logical thinking to find the treasure. Password Generator: Keep generating passwords till you find one you like. Keyboard: Convert your micro into an organ. Quasimodo: Can you sort out the

0

u

right!

Then give your ?ngers a rest by sending for our monthly disc, containing all the programs from each issue of Atari User. See orderform opposite.

,

N ?ag

the

The T-shirts are also 0" 50’e at £425

too

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Worth £4.25, it will be sent FREE with every new subscription ordered on the

Allows you to cut out a correctly positioned notch which Will enable you to use BOTH sides of the disc— and HALVE your costs. Extremely well made toacompact design, it has a unique position guide to assure pin-point accuracy! .

Dagm 008MB} ,

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£

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7003 7004

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June 1985

7005 7006

£1.25UK £1.50 Overseas

£ 1 25 ‘

TOTAL

|_________—| Monthly M

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Pro?le of Jack Tramiel, preview of the new machines, Attack Squash, Adventuring, Alphabet Train, Hexer utility, Software reviews, Sounds, the 6502, Microscope, Atari Insights — regular series of tutorials: Bit Wise, Beginners and GraphiCs, PLUS News and Mailbag. In-depth analysis of the 130XE, Submarine, Adventuring, Random numbers, Software reviews, Frog Jump, Microscope, Sounds, Atari Insights regular series of tutorials Bit Wise, Beginners and Graphics, special 12 page feature on Communications, pLUS News and Mailbag.

June issue:

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stale size

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___———

small 7047 Medium 7048 Law 7099

T.Shirt £4.25

TOTAL ————_—_—_

Dust Cover

(130XE only)

|:|

7031

£3.95 (UK & Overseas) ___—__——

magazine’s

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*

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ln-depth independent evaluations of all the new hardware t° add'ms "°W 99“ Ala" mud‘ ma“?ean muc more versah more powerfulbangdmgfped Reviews of all the very latest games, educational and business programs now being produced for the Atari. you will be able to key in yourself gamemutili?es, graphics.

* PLUS

lots

of listings

TOTAL

D

Access/Mastercard/Eurocard

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Cheque/PO made payable to Database Publications Ltd.

Name _________-—————

* Lots of easy-to~follow features on everything to do with Atari computing. Whether you’re a beginner or an expert, you’ll always find something to delight and intrigue you.

____________—__—-————

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I I I I

Send to: Atari User, FREEPOST, Europa House, 68 Chester Road, Hazel Grove. Stockport SK7 5NY. Please allow 28 days for delivery

(No stamp needed if posted in UK)

‘ —

Address

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Payment: pleaseindicate method (J)

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Only £3.95 (UK)

Look what’s coming in Atari User! M

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7050

£995 ——_———_——

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and bearing the Atari User logo, this handsome binder will hold a year’s supply of the magazines firmly secured in place with metal mds'

@

7029

£395 UK £5.00 Overseas ___——_——_—

Bound in chocolate brown pvc

1090-

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How to keep your let w ll i

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ATARI

400 600 800 XL

Cartridge Transfer System

ADVE RT' 8 E Rs I N D Ex

Transfer your cartridges to tape or disc. Simply plug the supplied cartridge simulator board into the cartridge socket and load in the tape/disc copy as -you would any other program. 48K RAM minimum required, specify tape or disc version. No modifications to your computer required. NEW 60/800XL version £25.00 Original 400/800 system £15.00

Anvil Software 62 Ariolasoft 31, 64 Ata 2 & 3 Bullrdck Software 16 Com uter Su ort 26 En 9 IiZh SoftwpaFie 41 Homevtew V'deo 62 LlamaSOff 27 Lowmac Software 62 62 Magical Electronic Service M'mm b yte 42 P-F- SOftWBi e 38

Disc Transfer

Tape to

DOS based single stage tape to disc transfer Menu program suitable for single keystroke

Utiéity utility. upplie d

Wit hf ree A uto loading of DOS files. _

Tape to disc £6.50.

TapeDuplicator

Duplicate almost all of your BASIC/machine code tapes whether they are single or multi-stage. 48K RAM recommended. Tape Duplicator £6.00.

,

Fast Loader

Reduce

loading time by re—recording BASIC/machine code tapes at

tape

single/multistage 496 faster). Fast Loader £6.00.

almost a

all of your data rate (up to

faster

Prices include p&p. Send SAE for further details of these and other utilities. Add 70% for airmail postage outside the UK.

50

Page 6 Silica Shop Silicon Chip SJB Software Express Stocksoft Sunaro

-

.

,

.

63 13

.

35 22 62 62 62 42

S.Terre|l UKAtari Club W 00 tt on C 0 m D uters

50 5

Zoomsoft

s. TERRELL,17 Cock Close Road, Yaxley, Peterborough PE7 3HJ.

co M PUT E—A—WI N COMPLETE PROGRAMS

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SijgdgANEmL?A?A'?FNG

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(16K)

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Post Free

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ALL MODELS

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CASSETTE ONLY £6.95

LOWMAC SOFTWARE

”95

1° “10 hm“ sided disk at

range version £10

“99 "’

disk Post Free

£10

you to play games written on your XL. Tape version

.

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post free. Mail

3"”pa01:1er “

£8

a .

'

_

1°!"

“ism" ers an13m?!“ using “Til/SW spaa “MW “mm”show to on screen

Y°“’

light 16K on TDK Cassette

a mum! through 256 colours. £10. Post Free

WINTER GAMES a 5°” ll‘'““ Sk‘-G am“

n'" k

SKI-CDNSTRUCTIDN This utility was written

SET to construct

.

'

order only.

hour

24

°“' mu I

'

P “5‘

F

"ii

'Winter

Game" Rood.

and allows vou to construct vow own I hour no programming games within Disk £15 knowledge required arcade

IDE

B30

Birmingham

SUNARO SOFTWARE

‘NOWAVAlLABLE FORYOUR48KATARI’

Order any two titles deduct £1 extra

13 |

"\¢M

ROM \‘

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32k CASS

MINER

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OUEST

FOR TYRES

ROBOTRON

DECATHLON PITFALL

5

BHEEE' 1

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BRUCE

A

oui‘ful, machine—code action. Place Your Bets facrlity 10 race cards. Bankroll Table. Q XL & XE compatible. PRICE £8.99 (Disc only Basic required) Cheques/P03 to: Anvil Software, 258 High St, Gt. Wakering, Essex ,

DASH

WARLOK

DROP ZONE POLE POSITION

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9.50 8.75 7.95 6.95

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37.95 14.25 8.75 13.25 17.50 17.50

ATARIWRITER

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BEST roe ATARI SOFTWARE

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Editor.

1.11'i£l°’i:.l£“:?§gl:i11:2. £10 each Memmx mm 2'13."rllrls3;frl§£”

mic? “V

Disk

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CREATOR

-W'

Ior400.

PICTURE DISKS 4 Disks crammed With graphics, pictures and a 's to show the wold At ri's No. 1. Comes a?mr?ro double sided disrks ataonly £15

15 Woodhrooke

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medicaid

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play the game,

Now

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Seen the film?

Comes on double

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t'

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on TDK,

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Each D ro g ram covers all tracks in En g land & Scotland Each allows c h eice o f self contained program 1. QUICK selection using any daily newspaper (no racmg knowled .g 6 re q uired) 2. SPECIALIST selection usm g information men in a p o 0 ular 'R acmg paper e.g. past f orm, weig h t carrie dg d raw 6 d vantage, trainer/Jockey ratings, Speed ratings etc, etC_

on tape?

programs

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.

TRANS-PAC

THE TRANS PAC as ‘t. M u ti tape to d" is k disk to tape, tape r3°ivrst,'nst in disk. multi mover. etc. Comes on two double sided Memorex

.

All Ior only £10

1

-

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Boughtadisc

I

THE PRICE OF

FOR

THE

M/C pings to screen, you edit. download personalised _or k d Hours version 0 un cwith (ex 0 lIII/c eave anging without pzssvgnealuienessages on screen. Stuck on an adventure search Ioi clues. list

your

USE YOUR ATARI T0 SELECTWl N NERS ALL YEAR ROUND 2

CRACKER Will

1252 .

COMPUTERS

800XL DISK

240.00 165.00 675.00

PACK

130XE

5208T

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New titles available immediately on release All prices include 0031100 8: VAT

. l

SUNARO SOFTWARE (AU) PO BOX 78, M3°C|93?9|dr Chasm” SK“) 3”:

~

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Write

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Provide

momma

him:

ATAR'81° and 105“ D|SK DRWES AUTOTECT MODIFICAT|ON Consists

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ATARI Cass.

otasmall circuit board and small box. Features: on reverse of disk without cutting notches. 3 810 version guietens write protect without labels. 4 Flashing Red/Green

Drop Zone

drive down. indicator.

state

£9.50

g:?;f;':dih°ss

SPEECH SYNTHESISER

£828

.

Supplied

.

wrth Please

.

59-50

5:33:11”

demos

state

and

word construction

whether 400/800

.

program.

or XL

and

A manual

whether disc

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is also or

WA .

' ”isobar °

Bounty

Bah

Plus Miner

8mm

Back

2049er.

Oils Well,

other items.

i710... '

130XE

Shuttle. Bruce

Tegnis, in Lee,

o PBCls nsrtion. Clue?

614-50

Fill'ci?i'??'s?g?h' AtariWritearM 1000's

more titles

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£1123 94-50

SV""'°

x-ac 11,

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321 BROCKLEY RD, BROCKLEY, LONDON SE4 202

62 ATAR/ USER July 7985

£125.00

£245.00 Phone

CALLERs WELCOME ACCESS

HOMEVIEW

£38.50 £45.00

win...

PHONEtg?asfgessENPtii?yE CREDIT CARD HOT LINE 01-691 0207 RING

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tape.

ITiIZ: All”ocayp

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£12423.

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£33 inc. Magical Electronic Services 14 Durham Close, Little Lever, Bolton BL3 1XA.

£13.95

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This 2

Space (trellis,

£2323.. 32:23:.

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unit plugs into the joystick ports(3& 4on 400/son). Features: Built in speaker. 3 Unlimited vocabularylallophone synthesis). Volume control and busy LED. 4 Also works on XL.

400.800.SIJOXLsooxL

Disk

s°l°

"' a" Erwikz?a?, N” Y“ City

£17 inc. STATE WHETHER 010 or 1050

1

G

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Mas-calElectron-cserv-ces

._ ~


Great news for games addicts who appreciate high quality graphics and sensational arcade action gameplay. For Only you can buy a 16K Atari 600XL Computer with two top arcade ROM cartridge titles and a joystick. These two ROM titles are the famous arcade hit Donkey Kong and another favourite Oix (We only have a limited number of packs with Qix, When these run out. Qix may be substituted for an arcade entertainment cartridge of the same value). The 600XL Entertainment Pack offers real value for money and enables you to save £63.96. nearly half of the normal RRP's of the pack items when purchased individually. Silica Shop have a wide range of ROM cartridges available including arcade favourites such as Asteroids. Centipede. Missile Command. Popeye. O'Bert. Star Raiders, Super Cobra for only £9.95 each! The is a programmable home computer with the Basic SOOXL Programming Language built in and if you later add a 1010 £34). a range of hundreds of Program Recorder (XLP 1010 cassette programs will become available to you. The Atari SDOXL is recommended as a first class games machine.

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PACK ATARI ENTERTAINMENT GlOOXL 299-99 16K Ala” GOOXL £14.99 Donkey Kong (R) £9.99 Qix (R) -

”?sgz?g

£69.

2

PACKAGE PRICE (XLC 1600)

~ 7; ,

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£13296 _ £63.96

.

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ATARI PACKS

-

POWERWITHOUT THE PRICE!

The 64K OOOXL is packaged here with the 1010 recorder. an economical storage and retrieval unit. a smash hit arcade game and programming aid, all for a package price of only £129 (ref: XLC 1010), a saving of £55.96 off the RRP's of the £194.96. The game included in this indixidualPitemspwhichtotal is ole osition. ow on cassette from Atari. Pole pac Position is an accurate reproduction of Atari's own highly successful arcade driving game which has all the thrills and racetrack. the reverse of this spillsuof e isthedgrand-pritx a emonstra ion program 0OnA tari‘s amazing sound casse and graphics capabilities giving an example of the high quality performance of the Atari 800XL. Also included is an invitation to Programming 1 cassette which takes you step by step through the first stages of programming in Atari Basic using Atari's unique soundthrough facility which allows prerecorded human speech to be played through your TV speaker. All you need is a joystick (ATJ 0400 £7.90 for Pole Position), to be up and running with this package. The Atari 800XL in this pack comes with a Silica two year guarantee.

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into UK six Atari Since the Viglcames ucts and iica op 0; as been ing Atari pr the years ago. instr'oducsti'pn summing mm mm," m, a whim mung mice which we believe is unbeatable. We stock over 1.0“) Atari related product lines and have a mailing list including over 300.000 Atari 2600 VCS owners and over 50.330 Atari Home

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ATARI 800XL + DISK paws PACK 64K Atari 800XL £12999 105OD'kD'Wf. "V3 19999 'S, .. £24.99 Home Filing Manager (D) ---+ The Payoff Demo Prog (D) . _. £9.99 ' ' ' £36436 Tom' m. ”Wham Mame”) -

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128K computer. the Atari 130XE offers an enormous 131,072 bytes of RAM for only £169. comes with built in Basic and full operating instructions and is now in a newly designed modern full stroke keyboard. The XE is fully compatible with both the 400/800 and the XL ranges of machines. this means that it can run approximately 90% of all Atari Computer software on the market. This provides a range of over 1000 software titles as well as a large selection of accessory and peripheral items. Initial stock of the 130XE will be limited. so it's first come first served. 130XE

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