PersonalComputerNews068-07Jul1984.pdf

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is ~here
a
:,•
.wap
#or
Osborne's
E.1core7
THE TRUE
Arm
H1GHTEc
-
. . .
FROM
JAPAN'S
MOSTADVANCED WELL-ffiOWN
AND
MICRO/MINI
COMPUTER
MANUFACTURER.
PAIIAMCOM.
TIEDUPWITH
SAUTA.
128K--IDS12K
MS-DOS 125.1200
Ver
CPIM-86
16Bir.
..
_....,,_
ltal
8086
runnlnll
8
MHz
11
-
BASIC.Bfl-AdvonadBASIC.1,D
COBOL
FOIQIS-2,
ANDUJORMulllplon.WordSW.
SpelIStot
lhl!M<>i<
TSS
supponprqJam.
.
1·3270......_
colour
monochrom<.
or
640 •
400
ptuls.
ASCII
UK.
mnch
and
G<nMn.
.
Otha
local
kqboards
av~
it
on«qu..._
Communlcdon
2-Krtal
port
and
OM
Cmtronics
paroild
port ..
SW>dord.
IEEE
·488
is
optional
ii
lnte~ated
Desk Top Mkro
as
wt1J
as
portablit
for your buslfless. supportied
by c:Wf'Cffltappbca-
uon
padcai£S.
Fast est
sp«d
wtth
uctllent
colow
capability
and
full
rai,Qe
ol
softwara.
W
dl datQn~ to
me
et c:urrmt
and
~
demand
Qualrty
micro
wtth
~a
Sytean
upWllkln
Unit
ble
prlc:t:
you
havit
n~
sc<n.
!COUPON
"'--~~--
lo
DUET
6
-1
OPl'trttn
I
o
PloMn
I
I•-
c..
O
Monil<ln
o
Floppy-OWi
Dl'tw
I
l<kridMl'l
15.
D-4010Hldm.
WatGcmw,y
Td.0104921035730
Tix85Bl~Slild Tddu021
1-32
59
UI
A
SAKATA
SHOKAIGmbH
I~-----=
-"'°=
--~...!.:
---
SAKATA UK
Rep
Office
:
46
Sutto
n Park. Broad
Blunsdo
n,
Swindo
n, WUuhir
e. SN2
4VV. Tel:
079l
n
tUQ
.
Th
:
449666
.
Other products low cost peripherals
-
prin
t
ers plotters monitors and floppy-disk drives Now available Please enquire
*
REGULARS
Monitor
2
Consumers Association
att acks
Sinclair, page
2;
Acom
man
oeuv
res
around the
BBC
range
,
pa
ge 3;
AT&T brings Unix to Europe,
page
4;
and ACT
tak
es over
the Albert
Hall
to
launch Apr
icot
additions
,
page
5.
July7,1984
MENU
No68
PERIPHERALS
.J
PCNCharts
Now weekly
games charts-
PCN
gives you
the very
larest Top
30.
6
9
Kenn
Gar
roc h
expe
riences
a
taste
of
jo
ystick
interfacing for the
Electro
n
from First Byte
.
RandomAccess
Routine Inquiries
Readers' lett
ers
-
and a tenner
goes
to
the
best.
34
Acorn
's
2.80
second processor is on
the
stre ets at
last.
Simon
Horne r
investigates.
10
14
You
think
you've
got problems?
Just
see
what other
readers
were
stuck
with until
PCN
stepped
in
.
SOFTWARE
We rela
y
first
impressions of
th
e
packa
ges
that arrived
in
PCN's
offices
during th
e
last
week.
Microwaves
Clubnet
in
computing
is
blowing through
H
ertford shire.
Make waves while
the
su
n
shines.
Hot
tips for the
costa
del computing.
15
50
COVER
STORY
Pasca/64
Th
e
much-menti
o
ned
wind
of change
Osborne again
28
Readout
Lookins
for a good co
mput
er
book
?
We advi
se
on
what to
buy
.
Billboard
Can
you afford
not
to turn
to
our
seco
ndh
and
bargains page?
51
56
Osborne
Co
mput
er
is once
more
set
to
take
centre-stage
of
the
lap-h
eld
scene with
th
e
Encore. Stuart
Coo
ke
was
first in
the
stalls
for
th
e
preview
of
this
possible
show-s
teale r
featuring
a built-in
disk
dr
ive.
A 64 version
of
Pascal
which
is
a
full
implementation
of
the
original
with
some extra
features
to exploi
t the
Commodore 64.
Hobbit help
24
Sage additions
New
feat
ure
s
now
sported
by Sage
Plus mak
e it
an
even
more attractive
accounting package
.
Quit/Datelines
Our
mistakes,
someo
ne
else ·s
mistak
es
and
your
diary
's
weekly
dose
of
dat
es.
Hint
s on gelling
out
of
tight
spots
for
Hob bit ad
ventur ers,
plus
a
nud
ge
in
the right
dir
ect
ion
for
you
Urban
Upstarts
.
HARDWARE
SPECIALS
GAMEPLAY
BasicSpectrom
the
micro's Basic.
18
With
your
Spectrum
in
one hand
,
an
Interface
I in
th
e ot
her
and Gavin
Monk
's
instructions you can
impro
ve
,
--
Memo-text
The Mem
ot
ech te
xt-handling
language
gets
th
e
nod from
Chris
Goddard
.
22
•
32
Spectrom
Four
frant
ic games
to keep
you
finger- nick
ing
happ
y.
44
Dragon
Aim
for a
million
,
or
just
head
straight
for
outer spa ce.
45
PROGRAMS
MSDOSTandy
Orie
A pr
ogrammable
drum machine
fromyour
Orie 1.
46
49
Tand
y's
new IBM
-compa
tible
has
tak
en
the
popular MSDOS trail
:
Stuart
Cooke found
th
at its ot
her
features
make
it
sta
nd
out as a
n
attractive buy.
PCN
JULY71984
Atari
System
re
sets
for
Basic
programmers.
Watchdog
watchesQL
Sinclaar
Research
could
be
m very
.hol
v.atcr over a disclaime
r
pub-
lished in
the
OL manual. according
to David Tench of
the
Consumers
Associat,on.
The di5daimcr
says
tha
t
Sinclair
Resear
ch
and
PsM>nwill in no
circumstances
be
liable
(or any
now
lhat no
aspect of
the OL will
escape cnucal discussion
The fact
that
the dddaimc
r
is
in
the
ma
nual
that's
in
the
box that's
in
the
post
some time
after
customers
have
actually
made their contract of
saJc
with
Sinclair
Research
also
ma.kcs
it
k>ok distinct
ly
nimsy.
You
can't
unilaterall
y
alte
r
the
terms
of
a
contract that's
already
been
made
without
consulting
the
othe
r
party
tlno~"""'-..s.nc:t.."--chl.JmlwdorPSIONl..inwlldbll._.
for9'1YdHCt.l'ldirC1.ineldent
..
Ol'~dimegsorlwsindudlnQblllno4
limtld1oia..ot~.llor«ICS.U.proficorconv.ct.~mey-from.ny.,..o,,
def.ctorf
.....
of
hOl'*dw"-or
IN.ol'1w••9',ppildwithil
hN I poky
of
CONt8l'il
~
8l'ld
lffllPl'owmenl
of
1tw'
P"odur.u
n...-
ltW
ngN
•~to
dl8l-ve,...,.....,
herdw-.
aoffw••
81'1dflm'wrt- ... .nybn"a81'1d""'""'°""notlCII
s.nc.,
ANNrct,
losses
the
user
sustains
arising from
·any
error,
de
fect
or
failure
of
the
OL hardware
or
the
software
supplted
with
it.'
According to Mr Tench
this
dascla1mcr
may
pro,·c mvahd under
the
Unfair
Coniracts Terms Act
of
1977.
as
11
purports
to
take
away
rights 1ha1the buyer has
under
the
law.
Thcracttha111docssocou
ldbcan
orfcncc
under the Fa ir Trading Act
Dodu-.No,_,_INC...._.-.
believed the
ddelaimcr
was stan·
dard prachct
,
althou
gh
he con·
ceded lhat
suc:h
lhings
hadn't
pre·
VIOUSly
been Sinclair's practioc.
H
e
was
unaware of any legal problems
.
connected
w,th 11
But
c,·cn
on the new deaned-up
tem
(Issue 66)
AH operati
ng
s-ys
there
arc a
few
odd111cs.
some
of
w
hich
m1&ht qualify u bup.
TilC
pnnt separator
•
..,.hich
is
•
comma
on the OL
.
shou
ld
pnnt characters
to the
screen
1n every
eighth
pos1tt0n. but will
not
do
so
on
colum
n3
2cvenift
her
e's
room.
TilC
PAN
com
mand
,
..,.h1
h
1s used to
c
scroll
the
screen.
won·, opcntc 1n
s.ingkun
1
.
U
By
a chan1ab
lc
intcrp
r
cta
11
n
o
you
may consider these
and other
pcculiar~t1
asca:entnci
hes rath
e
r
t they
arc certa
inly
not
1han
bugs
the last
rd
1n
user,fnend
hness.
Finally
,
a message to those of
you
who np
open the
box of
•
new
machme, pfogin and prcs,Con1roU
A
ltl7
together -
don'
1,
as you're
0
habk
1
hang
the
machine
,
first.
From
the poin t of
view of
the
uscr
,
though, thcrell$Ol1$forinscrt-
ing
the
disclaimer
arc
probably
more
scrious
than the disclaimer
itself.
It's
not somct
h
ing1hat'sbec
n
Wlth
found
necessary
in
connccltOO
previous
Sinclair
machines,
so
wh a1's so special
abo
ut
the
OL
?
Is
it
liable to ca
t
spr eadshttu? When it
puu
two 1nd two together
do
you
ge
t
680081
A Sinclair spokesman said that he
spoknman
.a
id
that
any
uscn
in
d1fficu1t1csshould
return
their
kit to
S111d
1r
to
have
11inspected
and,
if
a
fauhy.
replaced
.
The
incompatibility could be
exacerba
ted
by Sinclai
r's rcvolu
·
t1onary
repair
and
return
service:
u
sers sending
an
wue
2 or
issue
3
Spcctrums for
repa
ir
might ,n
theory
find
an
issue I mac
hine
returned. But
the
company
said
tha t
the hkchhood
o
f1h1s
was
shght,
pointin
g out
th
at
there
arc only a
few thousand 1.SSue Spcarums
m
I
'The
only
issue
I
drculation.
machines
around
are
the
systems
that onganally went
out
by
mail
order.
of
1973.
The
documcntatt0n
of
lhc
OL
has hitherto
btt
n
the
system's
least
controvu s1a
feature, but
11seems
l
Sinclair ducks
ROMissue
Sinclair
has pleaded
ignorance
to
the cha
rge
that issue I Spcctrums
will
not
wo
rk
wit
h
the latest
release,
of
the
In1crface
I
and
Microdrivcs
.
Some UKn da1m 10
have
de·
1
tectcd
a
n
incompatibL11
y
be
tween
their
systems
and peripherals
,
ap
parently
due to differ
ence$
be-
tween the
ong
m
al
Interface
I
ROM
,
where there was
a
problem,
an
d
the
latest
vers.ion.
Sinclair
said
that II had not
encountered 1he problem.
but
a
Psion
switch
Software
Software
house
,
Psion,
is
branch
ing
Mu
sical
Apple uscn
have
a
new out
1n10
1he hardware business with
mea
n
s of
1uming
their
scales
1n10
a 'pocket compu
ter
'
costing
£100
.
It
1salso rclcasmg the integra
ted
sympho
nies;
Grccnaate Produc-
Pocket money
sof
twar
e
has
rc-
ttOns (0'42 3496)
has
launched
1u
packages
&i\'Cn1way free Wlth 1hc
ceh
·cd
a
new
boost with scvcral
OL
m
\'ersion
s
to run
on
!he
IBM
OSJsys1e m
.
compan.e,
a
nnounc
ing
games
that
In words of
SC\-eral syUables
the PC
and othe
r
16-bal micros
undercut
convcnhonal
prices.
Look
mg
more like
an o,·eNcight
0
53
is
a
digital sound sampling
the
sequencer
.
For the
Apple
It
and lie,
progr
ammab
le
calculator,
053
comes
as a
circuit board (for
Organiser
Pocket
Computer
is
8n1
-
titles
for the Spectrum
to
£1.99.
1
sh-dcs.gncd and
Bn11
sh-made.
slot
Sin
the motherboard),
a Staner
'J\1r
o
f
the
games.
Ruby
Run
ab-
o
It
features
a
16-charactcr,
smgle-
o
kit, a
manual
and
an
app
bca 11
ns
ou
t
and
Code Book Caper arc
hnc
LCD
Krccn
and
J6
,akulator
&uidc
for
£250.
,
graphic adventures.
For
ano
ther
£450 you
can add a style
keys Inside
the
box 1s
a
Anothe
r
che ap ga
me
for the
five-octave keyboard with interface
l-l1tach16JOI
S.b1tpr occssordnving
Spcclrum is Froot Loop
from
NTD
and
ext
ra
software.
'The
s-ys1em
4K
of
ROM
and2
KofRAM
.
Software
(01·
7369009).
Offcnna60
TilC
small ,mount of
memory II
requ
ires
at
least 48K and a drtk
misleading. The power
of
the
levelsofpl1yi t
will sell for
0.
drive
.
Phoenix
Software
has
squeezed
machine
comes
from
the plug 1n
'datapali.s'
that
Psion
hkcs to
de·
its twin
-ca»cne
packages onto
a
scnbcasso
b
ds1a1ed
nve
s.
They
are
Slngle
tape. Side
one of
1he tape
in fact
plug·1n
Eproms
features the
•rcadc
game
wh
1Ch
'The
user
can
wnte
data
to the
provulcs
the
cl
ues
for
runnin
g
the
Eproms. and by 1he
simple expe-
ad,cnture
game
on 11detwo.
dient
of
tellin
g
the
softwa
re
to
As
a
r
csull
the cost of 1he
twin
ga
me
packa,e
has
comedow
n
from
ignore
cer
tain
data 11is possible to
deletc1t
.
£9.9910£6
.99.
Low-cost
software
from
the
US
lS
When
• da1apak
becomes full
it
has 10
be
'forma
n
cd',
lr
erased
ma
1lso
on the way Video Vauh says
forma11erc11her
at )OUr
local de1ler
that it soon
hopes
to import
soft·
of
m
)'OU ow
n
formatter
oostm a
r
ware from
around the wo
rld
with
£45.
prices
startin1 at£3.9S.
Appleopus
llloOrpoiw-l'lloo-•loWlwtN_,_
TilC
opcn11ng system
has
a
bui
lt
-in
dat
abase
facility ma king
the
system
ideal forstonng information
hke names,
addresses and
tclc
·
phone numbers
.
In
ackhtion. o
rfthe
she
lf
software
1snailable..,.11h
16K programpacks
for
Finance,
Mathcmatia, Science
and
Eng1necnn1
.
lbc:sc
packs
rose
£20.25
each
You
can also
program the
machine using POPL.
a
program-
mmg
language
"¥r
four
s.impl c
ath
commands
and a
r
ange of ant
h-
metKal functions.
The
machi
ne is
avai
lable
now on
mad
order
and
should
be
m small
retailers by August
Exchange
IS the
ooll«l.ivc
na me
for
the OL packages
to
be
r
eleased
at
th
e
end
of
AugU5t for
other
machines mdudmg the
IBM
PC,
Apno1
1nd
Sirius
In
1hc late
autumn the hst will be
extended
to
include the Apple
Macint
osh and
DEC Rainbow
.
Using
the
same
names
as
on the
OL.
Exchange
currently
consists
of
four programs Ou1II(...,ord proces-
sing);
Arch1\e (database); Abacus
(
financial
planning);
and
Ease
l
prices spiral
h
~i:~r:t;~::;:t:i~1
~--•.trt.No.
(graphocs).
PCN
JULY
7198'
.,.
Amid
Acorn rings changes
__
rumours
that
Aoorn
is
work1n1on
I
mode
l
C\oCrstOn
the
of
BBC
mlCrOcomes nc•'S of
changes
to
the
models A
and
B that
suggest
that
iOmcthmg
might
be
up
For 1hc model A
1
as a death
1
sentence.
The
machine wall no
lon1cr
be
1<>
from
September
For
ld
the
model
B
there
1sa
promotional
push
,
Wlth a free data recorder
and
five
frtt
programs. total
value
£80,
given
away
with
c~ry
purc
hase
made during J
uly
.
The
mode
l
A
's
da)'S •ere num·
bcrcd from the 1,mc 11wu
brought
out
Its
smaller memory
and
fcv.
cr
·
features
compared
to
the
modd
B
vinually guar anteed
a
low
lc\icl
of
sales.
The
launch
or
the
lower
pnced Acorn Electron
111hc
end
or
lut year
ensured
its
demise
Thc
July promotton for
the
model B
is, m
the
wor
ds
or
Peter
O'Keeffe
.
Acorn's sales
d1rce1or.
'designed
to
s11mu
la1c new
purth·
ascs
inwhat
is
typtcally a
rclat1\'ely
qu
iet
pcnod
for consumer sales
throughout 1hccompute
r
industry.·
It may
be
bad for
1hc
home
compu1er
bus.mess
as
a
whole but
11
is
perhaps c,·cn v.·orsc
for
Acorn
The most recent
PCN
chart shows
the BBC
8
sales shpptng
compa
red
to 11S
compet
1t
n
o
In
lhe past Acorn has
studiously
a1o·o.dcdthe
pncc wars
and specia
l
promohonsrvnbyo
thercompanies
for 1hc
simple
reason
that
11could
sell
e,·ery
machmc 11produced
So
t
he
special promottOn may
be as1gn
thal Acorn 1sfindm& 1hcgo1n1
a
bit
toug h
As for 1hc n.imoun.
Acorn 1s
51yin1not
h
m1. ltsco
n
1ract..,... thc
1
th
BBC1scommgupforrencwa
t
a
nda
new model with an
en
hanced
per·
formancc may
be
just the
1h1n1
to
seal
the
new
co
n
tract
An altema1
1vc
theory is
tha
t t
he
model
C
is.
m
fact,
a rewo
r
ked
mode
l
B
board
that
will
be
the basis
of1he soon
10
be
announced
Acor
n
Bus.mess Madunc
,
Insiders
arc
prcd1ctm1 that
this machine
will
come
wuh
integral
colou
r
moni
tor.
Z80
second
prOCC'SSOr
runni
ng
CPI
Mand built-in
modem.
And if
that
sounds
fam1har
you
would
be
right
.
h
1s the same
specification
of
the
ong1nal
micro
from
Torch.
the micro
ma nufaccur·
er wh.c:h
-.as recen
tly
bought
by
Aoom
Wh ich all
adds
to the conrusK>fl
over what Acorn's mar
kctin&
stra
tegy
is. A
ll
should be revealed
soon.
--~
--=
-
st-Tr- miel
~
efe- t ions
Po
--=-= ---=-
d~
~
c
~
_ _ ~--:-J
~
a
spreadto Commodore
UK
7
Commodore UK's
marketing man-
s
ager
John Bn
ter
1 to
leave
the
company
wtth1n
the
next
three
months
.
On
an
extended hohday
,
Mr
Baxter was
not available for com·
men
t last
..,...cck.
company spokes-
A
man could say
only
th
at
he was
lcav1n1
'
to
do
something cxatin&
w11h
somebody else', and
that
his
departure was definitely
not con·
ncc
tcd
Wlth the
company's
impend·
1nJ
move
to
a
s11c1n Corby
In the
absence of
Mr
Bax1er
('
H
e's
on
tv.o weeks holiday
and
this 1s the th ird .....
cck.' said
a
sccrc1ary)
there
can
only
be
spc·
culattOn about
his
mo1o
H
e
1s
·e.
thought to
be a
Jad.
T
r
am1cl fan.
an
d 1f
so
cou
ld
be
the latest
Commodore defcc1or
in
a 1row1n1
hnc
since
Mr Tram1cl's departure
from
Commodo
r
e
1n the US earlier
thJS)'Clr,
Oxford
.,.
_
_
Blues
Radofindrives floppy bargain
A £119 disk
sysicm
that
will v,,ork
w11
the
Spcctn.im
or
the
Aquarius
h
has
been unveiled
by
Radofin
Elcctronia,
Aquarius maker
.
Called
the Qutd:d1sc. the unit
hold$ twin
H1tach1
Maxell
2
81n
d
isks.
with
a capac
ity
or
144K
un
rormaned and
102K
rorm
a
ned
on each
The unal. with
its
()14,n DOS.
PC~
JLLY71984
anac:hcs
10 the Aquarius and the
Spectn.im
t
hrough
the
systems'
pn
nter
port s.
11
1s
expecied to be
available
tov,rardsthccndoCAugust. Radofi
n
is
curre
ntly
looking
for
dea
lers
10
d1stnbute th e dm·c
It
can be
contacted
on
01-205
0044,
•
The Aquanus
JJ
1sPro-Teitcd
1n
PCN lssuc71.
Thc
Commodore
sys1ems
50ftware
.specialist Oxford Compu1er
S)"S·
tems
(OCS)
has
ceased
tr
ading
The axe
fell at OCSlast
Th
ursday
(June
28)
afte
r
ncgo1ia1ions wuh
a
ve
nlure
capital oraanisation
had
rane
n
th rough.
A
spokcsv.oman
said:
'We
had
no al1
cmat1,c but to
cease
1rad1n1,'
The next
step could
depend
on
OCS's banken:
as
PCN
..,...cn 10
t
press no rece
iver
had been
appointed and
the
company
could
try
to
1read wale
r
wh ile 11calls
in
debts. The level
of
its
own debts
is
not
thouaht
to
be
h
igh,
and with
luck 1he
company could struggle
throuah
But the
r
e 1sno
doubt
tha111 hit a
cash
c:r1s1s.
and 1o-cnturecapi1ahsts
arc
~
r
r-lyw1lhn1
to fund
compa
nies
th at have outstanding hab1h1ics.
OCS's
spokeswoman
said
that lhc
company
had needed
cash
pan
I)·
to
fund
dc,·elopmen1s and
partly
for
day·to-day running. She
could
not
comment on
the
shor
t
or
lona·term
prospects
for
OCS
starr
and pro-
ducts
0CS
was founded in 1978
by
Alan Wyn Jones. 1u.
managin1
director.
and
Tony W
ilkes. tcchnic·
al dtrcc:tor
.
Pct.5pecd was its first
product. for the
Commodore
s<nl.
It
later
produced for
the
64
a
comp
1kr wh.ch
Commodore
toot
on itself.
One
or
1
most
succcssf
ul
1s
p
roducts has
been
lnterpod,
and
it
has acquired
a st
rong
repu
tation
for
and
comp,lcn, cross-comptlen.
l
generators
,
tr
it
aocs
undc
r
sc1o·era
thousand
lnterpod users will need
techmcal
support
h
I
n Apnl 1
is )'tar
1t
cstabhshed
a
trading company,
L1mbK:Systems.
m
t
he
US.
Then
at
the Commodore
User Show (Issue 65)
11 launched
first
Turbo-64. 111.
aamc
and the first
product
of
a
sutte of games
design·
mg
tools
.
Only
a
few v.ecks before
OCS
had re,ealcd a numbe
r
of
products
(OCS
Pasca l
-
sec paac
39)
and plans
at an
open
d
ay.
The
general reactt0n
to last
v."Ctk'snews
wu
astonis
h
men
t.

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