DragonUser68_Dec88.pdf

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The independent Dragon magazine

December 1988

Contents

Letters

Disc protection, rights and wrongs

strange scenarios „, CAD line missing - ver-

tically M i c r o n e t mystery s t i l l a

Dragoner.

Pulser, Bust Out from Dragonﬁre, North Sea

Action from Orange, Ball Dozer from Kouga,

The Curs e o f Camarc f r om Orange.

Sherlock from Orange and Utopia from

Pulser. Gasp.

Editorial

2 Dragonsoft 13 1 4 1 5

MY conscience is salved - I'm up

Orange FLEX 1 from Orange Software, rib-

to date (as of six weeks ago, as far

re-inking by Alladink, Discup from

as you the readers are concerned)

2 2

bon

with prize tapes and the rest. IF

there i s anyone out there who

thinks we owe them a tape, and

News desk

who hasn't received i t by now,

please drop us a line (state the

WIMPS and show news from Dragonﬁre

Seige 14

Pro-tech out of Cumana disk interfaces but Richard Boryna says, put yourself in the

issue). No hurry.

have Premier cartridge boards S t e w a r t position of a mangonel. It beats being the

Here I am at that time of the

Orchard v oic e synthesiser O r a n g e

target.

enlighten o n DO Splus DELT A

Write:ADVENTURE 2 2

month again, wondering i f our

Whitehouse power supplies cease N e w

Dragon will make it out in time for

Pete Gerrard sizes up the role of roles in

Era problem solved K o u g a licenses disc

the start of next month. This time

role-playing games.

rights to Orange.

we have th e Colour Computer

Adventure Wail 2 4

Convention coming along, and

This month, Pete riﬂes through the ﬁles and

Expert's Arcade Arena 6

want to make sure that nobody

comes up with some hints on the golden

The Expert dons his ﬁns, checks out Ball oldies.

has an excuse for not knowing

Dozer, and reckons that small is beautiful.

about it. Cross ﬁngers, get on the

Competition

Gordon Lee has one of his famous wordgrid

phone A n d will yours truly

Decision maker

make i t to Weston? Another of

contests for computers or non-computers

David Rothery feeds t h e Dragon t h e this month. Win an accounts program from

life's mysteries.

evidence and gets it to make up his mind for

him. But will he listen?

New Era Software.

Dragonsword

In between being depressed about apathy,

Paul Grade squeezes in some thoughts

about Dragon shows.

We h a v e a pheonomincal

amount of software under review

Brian Cadge blew up this month.

this month, plus new information

Apologies to Ken G. Smith, whose review of

from old friends Penn and Com-

Copycat appeared under Roland Hewson's

name last month, and thanks to Roland for

pusense. Something fo r every-

one this Christmas. Start saving!

pointing this Out in Ken's absence.

Classiﬁed ads.

Telephone number

(01) 570 8335

Subscriptions

ISSN 0265-177

How to submit articles

The quality of the material we can publis h in

Dragon User each month will, to a very great ex-

tent depend on the quality of the discoveries that

you can mak e with y our Dragon. The Dragon

computer was launched on to the market with a

powerful version of Basic, but wit h very poor

documentation.

Articles which are submitted to Dragon User

for publication should not be more than 3000

words long. All submissions should be typed.

Please leave wide margins and a double space

between each line. Programs should, whenever

possible, be computer printed on plain whit e

paper and be ac c ompanied by a t ape of the

program.

We cannot guarantee to return every submit-

ted article or program, so please keep a copy. If

you want to have your program returned you must

include a stamped addressed envelope.

UK E14 for 12 issues

Overseas (surface) E20 for 12 issues

Address: Dragon Publications, 49 Alexan-

dra Road, Hounslow, Middlesex TVV3 4HP,

United Kingdom.

Published by Dragon Publications 1988

.(s) Dragon Publications 1988

Typeset by Artset Limited, London NW1

Printed by Headley Brothers Ltd_ Ashford,

Kent

Registered at the Post Ofﬁce as a

newspaper. Dragon and its logo are

trademarks of Eurohard Ltd.

Editor

HELEN ARMSTRONG

Production Editor

HELEN ARMSTRONG/ARTSET

Administration/Advertising

BOB HARRIS

Publisher

DRAGON PUBLICATIONS

lir

Letters

Ed's word

Brian Cadge has suffered a

computer blowup, which has

put hi m out o f action thi s

month. He also says that he

has been using up his letters

faster than usual, s o if you

want to know anything about

the Dragon, now isthetimeto

get in ahead of the crowd.

I a m a l s o look ing f o r

volunteers to review Starke

Island, a Hargrave adventure

on ta pe , W a r Ha m m e r o f

Gillibran, a two-disc adven-

This is your chance to alryour views— send yourtips, compliments and complaints to Letters

49 Alexandra Road, Hounslow, Middlesex TW3 4HP

Investing in an interface for

my Dragon in April this year, I

Every month we will be shelling out a game or two,

courtesy of our supplies, to the readeris

who send the most interesting or

entertaining letters. So send

us your hints and your opinions,

send us your hi-scores and

suggestions. Send us your

best Dragon stories. What

d'you think we are,

mind readers?!

looked forward to enjoying a

friendly, informative and learn-

ing exploration into what I ex-

pected to be an extention to the

knowledge I was attempting to

acquire aboutthisfriendly com-

puter_ Alas, it was not to be.

To be greeted with 'Seasonal

Greetings' in April, lthoughtwas

a bit old hat, however, still tosee

them in Octo b e r leaves me

dumbfounded.

I have been a Dragon userfor

twoyearsand I belong toathriv-

ing although small group of en-

thusiasts. I h a ve g ive n m y

grandchildren a Dragon each,

and f r o m m y co n t a ct w i t h

Protection, no racket

l am writing in response to Paul

Grade's comments about soft-

ware protection in his October

column. I assume that he is

referring to disc software, as

tapescanveryeasily be backed

upwithadoubletapedeck. Most

Dragon discs can be backed up

simple by using the commands

available t h r o u g h D O S .

However,thereareafewexcep-

tions. T o my knowledge the

discsthat cannot be backed up

are only those published by

Pulsar Software, inc luding

several of myown titles. Conse-

quently I a s s u me t h a t h i s

ware infringescopyright,which

ture from Orange. and Sprite

De s igne r, a u ti l i ty f r o m

Orange. Drop us a line.

Ed.

Board bother

I write to you in an attempt to rid

mysellof Sheerfrustration,inthe

hope that you can bring your in-

ﬂuencetobear to end its cause.

What I am rambling about is

thefrustrationcreated by aUser

Group that supposedly has a

bulletin board on Micronet. lam

referring o f course t o The

Dragon's Tail.

ALTHOUGH there isn't any-

thing in the law of nature to

suggest that software users

should havetherighttomake

backup copies, in industrial

software this right is granted

chaos caused by thelailureof

an only copy is so severe that

the software isgenerally con-

sidered non-viable w i thout

that capability.

The same can't be said of

games software. The theory

that publishers will replace

corrupted discs on return of

ithe original is ﬁne in theory

m often worksvery well (and

and

e sometimes vital. It is stan-

,dard practice to replace failed

Sinclair 01_ microdrive car-

tridge s o n d e m a n d , f o r

instance, even though they

can be backed up, because

corruption or incompatibility

is sufﬁciently common tha t

theservice isneeded to main-

tain fa i th i n th e me dium).

tHowever, mos t users have

2 IRragon User December 1988

is illegal, s o b y dev is ing

methods of protection we pro-

grammers are only enforcing

the law which isthere to protect

us,

Paul is rightwhen hesaysthat

if s omeone is deter mined

enough they will break any pro-

tection. However, not everyone

who might pirate software has

the knowhow, and so may give

up. If !sell just one morecopyof

a protected game, it isworth it_ In

my opinion software should be

various users of this excellent

computer it isfar from an unwor-

thy end. There are many users

with modemswho must feel the

sarneway. notonly can you con-

tact them but also other com-

puter users on all manner of

micros. Thepotential is there for

a multi user group.

Buttoget backto the Dragon

would it be worth the magazine

runningthisboardalongsidethe

publication? If not, could not the

'Editor' o f Dr agon's T a i l

(Micronet page No. *810427*)

be interviewed as to his inten-

tions? Ju lia n Cro xh a ll, mb x

992893036 is the man, and I

have attempted to push him in-

to r e p l y i n g w i t h v a r i o u s

a nd-s o's re c ord/ CD/ ga me

criticisms are aimed at those of

uswho have workedfor Pulser.

As a programmer, I dispute

Paul's view of him 'having the

righttobeableto make a backup

copy' of any software he buys.

Anysoftwarewrittenisunderthe

and/or the publisher. Protection

is a d d e d t o enfor c e t h e

stops people making backups

as a side effect of its real pur-

pose. Like it or not, there are

always people who will try to

pirate software, even o n th e

Dragon. The protection isthere

simply as an attempt tofoilsuch

efforts. T h i s s u re ly ca n n o t

be wro n g , a s p ira tin g so f t -

bought on its merits, ratherthan

on whether it can be copied. If I

cannot get back enough for the

work I do for the Dragon, then I

will have to stop programming

for it and divert my attention to

anothermachinewhere I will be

properly paid for my efforts. To

set Paul's mind at rest, if he or

anyoneelsedoeshavetheirdisc

corrupted, I 'msure iftheyreturn

it to the publisher explaining

what has happened theywill get

a replacement.

Onalighternote. I mustcome

back to D J Platt's letter of the

same issue_ I haven't written a

Cobol shoot'em up, but I have

played one! It was a space in-

vaders gamecompiled with Pro-

fessional Cobol ,on an Epson OC,

and pretty darn difﬁcult it is too.

next t im e yo u w alk int o

Virgins' canevaporateinafew

days t o b e re pla c e d w i th

another, etc., etc., sothat on-

ly a small fraction of the units

youthoughtyoucouldn 't live

without actually get purchas-

ed. Purchasers only have so

much money.

It t h e n b e c o m e s t h e

publishers c hoic e w he the r

to l e a v e di s c s o p e n a n d

lose units ot casual copying,

or c l os e t h e m , a n d l o s e

sales t o p e o p l e w h o

don't trust discs/ were look-

ing for something to shell out

to theirtriends.

Certainly Paul isrightabout

onething: alltheprotection in

theworld won't help itgames

a re n't s e l l i ng. T h e b e s t

guarantee of increased sales

is. to write really attractive

games, an objective which a

number of Dragon program-

mers have been meeting in re-

cent months.

Jonathan Cartwright Starship Software. 23 Tintem Road

Cheadle Hulme, Cheshire SKA 7QF

come across software com-

panies which are simply not

organisedenoughtomaintain

a re l i a bl e re pla c e me nt

service.

Dedicated pirates can a l-

ways ﬁnd a way round copy

protection. The question in

my mind is whether protec-

tion o n dis c s discourages

enough casual knocking-up

otcopiestortriendstomake a

real difference to the market.

Figures have been compiled

which show the record in-

dus try l os e s m i l l i ons o f

pounds' worth o f business

from casual consumer copy-

ing. Bu t I remain sceptical

about the extent of the loss.

We all know that a ﬁrm, un-

shakeable intentionto buy so-

messages, but to no avail. He is

alive and we ll, because he is

advertising i n t h e Fo r S a le

sections.

So please, all you Dragoners,

let's create some enthusiasm

and instead °ﬂaying ourfriend-

ly Dragon to rest let's become

more positive about its further,

becausethereislotsoﬂifeinthe

Old Dragon yet.

Trevor Purnell

5 Ewood Drive

Can ﬂay

Doncaster

S. Yorks

DN4 6AU

what happened to me on my

last hols, if anyone wants to

write an Adventure about it.

The north of Scotland andthe

Shetlands is one of the most

impressive aerial panoramas

I have ever seen. What a nice

place t o liv e , a l be i t a b i t

remote fr o m th e Ha mme r-

smith Odean.

Missing: a

crocodile of

characters

ONCE again DU has broughtus

a clever program in the April

issue, fordrawing electroniccir-

cults, by D A Craig,

Unfortunately, as printed (in

my copy, anyway), the program

su ffe rs f r o m w h a t B e a c h -

comber in The DailyExpress us-

ed tocall Printer's Frolic. (To be

fair, p rin te rs and typ ists a re

often blamed for errors in the

original draft).

As printed, the following line

numbers a re lo n g e r th a n a

'magazine page line' and have

acharactermissingattheend of

the ﬁrst (orsecond)page line. To

make itquiteclear, I givethe last

three characters of the page-

lineas printed, together with the

missing character in brackets.

When inserting the character.

the brackets shouldof course be

ignored:

Line no.

2070 U3N(L)

2080 U3N(L)

2090 U3N(L)

2100 U3N(L)

2110 U3N(L)

2120 D3L(1)

2130 (ﬁrst) D3N(R)

2130 (second) U3N(L)

2140 (ﬁrst) D3N(R)

2140 (second) U3N(L)

2260 (ﬁrst) UlL(1)

2290 U4L(4)

Also attheend of the pagelineof

the following, the character in

the brackets should bedeleted,

again ignoring the brackets:

2250 L1D(1)

2260 (second) D2U(1)

I think Mr. Craig has produced

a remarkable program for our

faithful Dragon , but I was a little

disappointed that as published

it will not print out the diagram

as h a rd co p y. T h e scre e n

dump referred to as 'later on

the tape' has notappeared Not

everyone w i l l h a v e t h e

November ' 8 7 a n d Ju ly '8 4

issues of DU referred to for the

dump. A n y ch a n ce o f Mr.

Craig's dump appearing in a

future issue, please?

Has anyone an inspiration as

to the signiﬁcance of the hand-

written '8 a t the far right of line

400?

B Yeoman Walker

Forest House

Liverpool Road

Prescot

Merseyside

REMARKABLE! Or. Weird! as

my friend the engineer said.

Thebest we can come up with

Is that somebody in the art

department has a brainstorm

when cutting outthe bromide

andscalpelled off onestripof

characters to the right. You

will observe tha t line 1830

above is one character wider

thanthe 'truncated' lines. Art-

set has beenknown tolosethe

oddcharacterinturning aline,

but 'tis rare, and something I

can check for. Losing an en-

tire right margin is u nknown in

the annals, but we can'tthink

of a n o t h e r e x p l a n -

ation.

The '8' is very simple. This

is a v e ry ra re example o f

'Pasteup P e rs on's Frolic ',

wherean editorial markonthe

artwork (the orignal listing

was eight inches wide at this

point) is le ft behind on the

page a n d no-one notices

until the copies are posted.

Now, that isn't so rare.

I will look into the dump

question. D o a s y ou s ug-

gested a bout the hardware

project. My role in Practical

Electronics. apartfrom racing

the Editortothe headlines, is

to c he c k the spelling a nd

make sure the commas are in

the right place. Stop laughing

there at the back.

From one

madhouse

to another

WITH referencetoPaul Grade's

Dragonswordot October 1988,

I would like to make two points.

1) The NDUG is often men-

tioned in Dragon Userbutthead-

dress isn't(' know, it'son page4

this month).

2) He asks about adventure

p ro g ra ms w i t h a d if f e re n t

scenario. I have a Radio Shack

TRS-80cc game which runs on

my Dragon 32, and is called

Bedlam. In itone is mistakenly(!)

locked up in a lunatic asylum

and has to escape with the help

or hindrance of the staff and in-

mates. I can't! Keep upthegood

work.

Kevin Barrett

c/a BIH Ltd.

Sumburgh Airport

Virkie

Shetland

could not be further from the

truth! It istruethat the majorityof

my w o r d p ro c e s s in g a n d

spreadsheet wo rk is done on

my, dare I sayit,Acorn 512com-

puler. This is primarily because

of the 80 x 32 text screen and

secondly because my n e we r

NILO p rin t e r p lu g s in t o it .

However, my Dragon is still in

regular use.

I have two databases on it for

my personal ﬁling, one of 1500

records and one of 500 records.

These both use the database

package DRS a n d I h a ve a

numberof smallerdatabases on

FILMASTR.

Inaddition I have my personal

ﬁnances on it, using a program

I wrote myself and which I hope

you will be publishing one day

soon.

I still d090okof myprogramm-

ing o n it, because using th e

Dragon's Microsoft Basic has

become second nature to me

and I hopetogetsomeof mypro-

grams published in your hallow-

ed journal. Anyway, enough of

this creeping.

Computing has become an

all c o n s u min g h o b b y w i t h

me, and it is only natural that

myself and other enthusaists

should w a n t t o t r y n e we r

ma ch in e s. Y o u w o u l d n ' t

ﬁnd a c a r f a n a t i c d o i n g

all h i s d rivin g i n a Mo rri s

Minor.

However, I agree with you

that ju st because th e re a re

newer ma ch in e s about, t h e

Dragon sh o u ld n o t b e d is -

carded like an unwanted toy.

Dragon u se rs h a ve b u ilt u p

a lotof expertise, aswellassoft-

wareand hardware which is not

worth a lot on the second hand

market, but is still useful. I hope

to be using my Dragon for many

years tocome, and who knows,

it might become a collector's

item in the same way that the

aforesaid Morris Minor has.

Clive G. Scott

62 Berry Meade

Ashtead

Surrey KT21 1SG

am not going to tick you off

about yourdescription of car

fanatics a fte r so g e n tle p e r-

sonly an apology! I shall wait

insteadforthehordesof Mor-

ris Minor fanaticsto send you

stern p o s t c a r d s . D r i v e

another car? Why, the very

idea of it!

Actually, I knew (most of us

indeed, knew) a person who

gave u p hi s Dr a gon, a n d

mayhap much else beside, for

a car. But he wa s a male.

They'rea bit funny, these men

persons.

December 1988 Dragon User 3

OH,wetrytoslottheminevery

two or three months. Talking

of strangescenarios, imagine

arriving at Sumburgh airport,

late a fte r losing y our ﬂight

electrics over Carlisle. The

pilot, a singing Dutch com-

puterprogrammer, walks into

the airport with a shield and

quarterstaff slung over he r

shoulder, and a jolly man in

tweeds and a little beard gets

the shop to open up and sell

you some sarnies. Eventual-

ly, a fte r ma ny adventures,

you arrive byVolvoat Uppsala

Castle, whereGandalftriesto

eject you for, being late, you

havenotyetdonnedthe man-

tle of the Forodrim.

I s uppos e th a t d o e s n 't

count, because we' re backto

Tolkien again. Anyway, that's

Still Dragon

THANK you for publishing my

letterand reviews of Edit + and

Dyna fast in theOctoberDragon

User. I humblyapologiseforcall-

ing you Sir, I a m not a male

chauvanist really.

My reason forwritingthistime

is to correct an impression that

readers may have got that I am

no longer a Dragon users, This

News desk

THEColourComputer Conven-

tion is set to roll on Sunday 4th

December with more additions

totheline-upof Dragon andTan-

dy supporters. The full rosterat

timeof writing isJohn Penn Dis-

count Software. R 8,AJ Preston,

Ha rris Mic ro S o f t wa re a n d

Dragon User, Orange Software.

Computape, Pulser Software,

Broomsoft, the National Dragon

Use rs G r o u p , t h e D U D E

(DeltaDOS) group, the National

Amstrad, Tandy and General

Users Group, New Era Publica-

tions and the organisers, soft-

ware a n d p u b lish in g h o u se

Dragonﬁre Services.

Proprietor An d re w Hill a p -

pealed directly to Dragon users

to support the show in Dragon-

ﬁre's newsletter: 'I know we're

organising it, so I feel that I'm

taking a little advantage when I

say, and I'll keep saying from

now until December, YOU'VE

JUST GOTTA GO. I 'd sa y it

anyway, and I havesaid it about

previous sh o ws which we 've

had nothing to do with, Basical-

ly, if thisshow is notverywell at-

tended,then notonlywillafuture

show be highlyunlikely, butalso

oneortwotraderscoulddropthe

Dragon._ leaving a showout of

reach, S o a t t e n d , p le a se .

If you have any new products for the Dragon — software or hardware —

please write to The Newsdesk at 49 Alexandra Road, Hounslow, Middlesex TW3 4HP

Colour computer convention rolls

Weston is VERY easy to get to

from t h e South East, South

West, Wales and the North. Be

it bycar, train or bus, your effort

will surely be rewarded, This is a

national s h o w, a n d n o t a

regional one - everyone who

supports t h e Dragon will b e

there (and maybe one o r two

others). Ne w software will be

released at the show, and you

have a chance to talk to those

whosupport you. So attend, and

make it a worth-while day for

everyone."

Andrew wants to see at least

200 but hopes for as many as

300.

The show site at the Arosta

Hotel, L o we r Ch u rch Ro a d ,

Weston-Super-Mare, w i l l in -

clude a lice n se d b a r f ro m

11.30am till 2,30pm and sand-

wiches forsale from the barfrom

12 noon to 1.30pm. Entrance

charges a re E l .50 adults, E l

children u n d e r 1 6 , f re e t o

registered disabled Forturther

detailscontact Dragonﬁre Ser-

vices o r phone 0495 292088

(evenings).

In the meantime, Dragonﬁre

are promotingtheir new Dragon

WIMP System_ Running on the

Dragon 64 with a disc drive and

ﬂoating joystick as the mouse

pointer d rive r, i t ru n s u n d e r

SuperDOS (E6), DragonDOS,

and Cu ma n a DOS V 2 (state

DOS required), and includes

system software with a graphics

package, icon designer and 30

page manual. WIMP System is

fully compatible with standard

Basic a n d Do s co mma n d s.

Features offered include text

windowing, a 'blue' screen, and

over 64 icons on the disc.

WIMP S yst e m co st s E l 2

inclusive of post and packing

(UK only. Add E1 .50 overseas)

from Dragonﬁre Services, 13

PArry Jo n e s Close,I Blaina,

Gwent NP3 3NH. " Th is is our

major autumn release, and we

have another ma jo r release

planned fo r the winter, to be

released a t the Colour Co m-

puterConvention," announces

Andrew Hill.

Other releases available now

or in the immediate pipeline in-

cludeSpace Trek! and lion tape

or disc, special edition Space

Trek I ll on tape only, Dre a m

Airball Screen Construction Kit,

(E5 each on disc only) both re-

quirethe original versionot their

respective games to redesign

screens to your own taste.

Dragonﬁre is also starting a

public domain software service,

and wo u ld like to hear fro m

users in possession of public do-

main software, o r willin g t o

donate software o f their own

creation.

Forfurtherinformationonany

of the above, please send an

SAE to Dragonﬁre Services at

the address stated. Postage

and packing on cassetteorders

is5Oppercassettteupto E2.50,

El .25 p e r cassette (n o limit)

overseas_ Payment in pounds

sterling only.

Machine, The Time Machine

Search and The ImmortaiStrain

on tape and disc. All these cost

E4 each. Ha ck-it on tape (E3)

helpsgamesplayers to hack in-

to programs for extra lives. Jet

Set Willy Screen Designer and

Please note that software is not

in the public domain unless it has

been donated for this purpose by

the author. Programs appearing

in Dragon Us er and other

publications are the copyright of

those publications, or of the

author, a n d mus t n o t b e

reproduced withoutthepermis-

sion of all the copyright holders

concerned, even for non-proﬁt

purposes.

Era counts

NEW E RA Software say that

problems with their Ne w Era

communications interface have

been solved.

Several users reported 'soft-

ware failures' and 'unexplain-

able occurrences' while using

scrolling bullentin boards with

the software_

The problems, which are at-

tributed to the software's inter-

pretation o f scre e n cle a rin g

codes, have been investigated

and ﬁxed by Roger Seawood,

system o p e ra to r o f th e Jo lly

Roger Dragon/Tandy Bulletin

Board (01 742 1640) with the

help of user Ian Jones.

New E ra i s e xp e ctin g t o

release a new accounting pack-

10 co p ie s a s p rize s i n t h is

month's Gordon L e e Puzzle

(page 26).

Enquiries to New Era Soft-

ware, 3 7 Co llin s Me a d o w,

Harlow, CM194EN.

age,Accountancy Plus by Mike

McCullough, in early October.

No price or further details are

available a t time o f going to

press. but New Era have put up

4 Dragon User December 1968

D A CRAIG, author of the CAD

program published by Dragon

User earlier this year, has of-

fered tosupplycopiesofthe pro-

gram free of charge to readers

sending either a blank cassette

or a 5,25 inch double density

disc, stating whether 40 or 80

track fo rma ttin g i s required.

Alternatively, adisc version can

be supplied o n t h e re ve rse

side o f th e cassette so that

the usercan load the program in

from cassette and then save to

disc.

Contact D A Cra ig a t 2

Milebush Close. North Road,

Ca rrickfe rg u s, B T 3 8 7 RX ,

Northern Ireland.

•

LowerChurch Road, Weston-Super-Mare, Avon BS23 2AG

Dragon

will speak

to order

Stewart Orchard reportsthat

he can supply voice synthe-

sisers for the Dragon, T he

synthesiser, originallydesigned

for the BBC Micro, has been

adapted f o r us e w ith t h e

Dragon's printer port. The audio

output can be used to drive

either an ampliﬁer, or head-

phones_

Stewart conﬁrmsthat the unit

is easy to use from Basic or

machine code provided theuser

isconﬁdentwith arrays and Data

statements. The package in-

cludes a cassette containing

starter software and information

about the unit.

The units are based on the

SP0156-AL1 whic h uses the

allophone method tosynthesise

speech, giving an unlimited

vocabularly.

Unitswillonlybeconstructed

to order, so allow time for com-

ponent buying and construction

when awaiting delivery. Units

cost EIS each from Stewart Or-

chard, 6 Hendon Av enue,

Ashtree Park, Carbrooke, Thet-

ford, Norfolk IP25 6J W.

One disc

runs out,

one arrives

Pro-Tech Systems have an-

nounced that they are now

coming near to the end of their

stock of Cumana disc interface

cartridges for the Dragon.

These are available with disc

drives from as low as E110 (inter-

face and uncased drive) or from

E173 w it h f u lly .packaged

Cumana drives.

On a more positive note, Pro-

Tech have obtained asupply of

Premier disc cartridge pcbs

which will be available for the

ﬁrst time to kit builders. These

can be supplied either with the

original Delta2 DOS chip, orthe

latest Phil Scott DragonDOS

Plus PR Rom for Pr emier

boards. This gives full com-

patibility with Dragon DOS ﬁles

and programs, as well as all the

corrections and improved facili-

ties which Phil Scott has incor-

porated into his DragonDOS

Plus V4.

Pro-Tech has als o made

arrangements to supply units

fully made up and tested by

Dataspan Ltd. Details are avail-

able from Pro-Tech Systems

(please send two loose ﬁrst or

second class stamps and your

name and address incapitals) at

25, Pelic an Road, Pamber

Heath, Basingstoke RG26.

Power down

HARRY Whitehous e has

decided to discontinue his ac-

claimedA ISupasmooth Power

Supply, which has been an im-

portant replacement power unit

for the Dragon.

"We can only produce the

product in batches of ﬁfty, and

that just isn't viable any more.

We have only had one order in

recent months." says Harry.

H C Anderson Computer are

now the only source stocking

Dragon Data type power sup-

plies, costing E25. For informa-

tion and import dotal Iscontact H

C Anders on, Englands v el

DK-2770, Kastrup, Denmark.

•

Simon Jones

This might prove us eful t o

future DOSplusDELTA users.

or ev en DragonDOS users

who have friends with Delta-

DOS."

"DeltaDOS us er s s e e i t

as t h e answer t o a ll their

prayers, but manage to miss

the important bit about not

being able to read DellaDOS

discs. DOSplusDELTA gives

you Dr agonDO S fac ilities

from a DeltaDOS cartridge -

effectively it is DOSplus 4.6 in

Delta cartridge format."

Phil Scott is now working

on a new DOS which, says

Graham, c o u ld b e c alled

'DosplusTandy' o r perhaps

'CoCoPlus'. This is designed

to ﬁ t i n t o a DragonDOS

cartridge t o allow i t t o b e

plugged into a Tandy CoCo.

This would be useful for people

who own both a Dragon and

a Tandy, but only own the

DragonDOS cartridge.

They would be able to use

the disc drive to store their

Tandy programs, Programs

written on the Dragon could

be loaded onto the Tandy, but

would o n l y r u n i f t h e y

were alr eady T andy c om-

patible. Basic programs would

have to be converted to Tandy

tokens, and vice versa for the

Dragon.

Enquiries 'to Orange Soft-

ware, The Garth, Star Road,

Nant-y-Derry, Abergavenny,

Gwent NP7 9DP,

December 1988 Dragon User 5

Orange explains DOS plus DELTA

Orange Software has ob-

tained from Kouga Software a

licence t o produce Kouga's

games Ball Dozer arid Man-

dra gore on disc_ In a letter to

Dragon User earlier this year,

Graham Smith of Orange Soft-

ware said "We would dearly

like to hear from the author of a

game that I brieﬂy saw a review

copy of i t was in beautiful

scrolling 3-D graphics, nothing

short of a masterpiece." That

game w as Mandra gore b y

John Foster, and Orange got

their wish.

The games are available for

DragonDOSandTandyDOSat

E4.00 each, or both on one disc

for E7.50. inclusive of postage.

Please state which DOS is re-

quired. DU was tickled to see

that t h e Ba ll Doz er leaﬂ et

features a dinosaur wearing

.oneof Boogerall Money's 'I like

beer, m e ' t-shirts. Cassette

versions o f t h e game a r e

available fr om Kouga Soft-

ware, 94 The Oval, Firth Park,

Shefﬁeld S5 6SP.

Orange als o has a new

music control program, Com-

poser X, in the pipeline_ The

authors have been incorporat-

ing suggestions m a d e b y

Dragon Us er reviewer Ken

Smith on a preview version.

and the production version is

now ready for review. "We will

bepricing it at El .99 as wethink

it is one of those handy little

utilities that people might buy

as long as the price is not too

high. Like so many other items

of software for the Dragon, the

price just cannot do justice to

the amount of work the author

has put into it", says Graham

Smith of Orange. Composer C

allows the user to modifysongs

compiled w i t h Mic rodeal's

popular program Composer.

Orange has had enquiries

about Phil Scott's DOSplus 4.6

and DOSplusDELTA which has

led them to clarify the purpose

of DOSplus

"It would seem that people

are expecting DOSplusDELTA

to do slightly more than it ac-

tually does ", s ay s Graham

Smith. "It's not some sort of

DragonDOS/DeltaDOS s oft-

ware converter. We are talking

about two different versions of

the same operating system.

DOSplus 4.6 is a direct replace-

ment chip for the Dragon Data

DOS chip in a Dragon Data

DOS cartridge (or any of the

clones), a n d giv es several

enhanced features and some

totally new facilities. DOSplus-

DELTA g i v e s t h e s a m e

facilities but has been specially

developed so that it will directly

replace the DeltaDOS chip in a

DeltaDOS c ar tr idge. T h e

DragonDOS a n d DeltaDOS

cartidges us e different con-

troller chips and therefore the

disc operating system has to

be different in each case_

"DOSplusDELTA has been

developed t o allow anyone

with a DeltaDOS cartridge to

have access to the software

developed f o r DragonDOS

users, without the expense of

buying a DragonDOS c ar -

tridge. With DOSplusDELTA

installed you will not be able to

read your DellaDOS discs, but

you c a n r ead DragonDOS

discs. It cannot do both at once,

but with a simple hardware

modiﬁcation to your DeltaDOS

cartridge it is possible to have

both chips in the same car-

tridgewithan externa I switch to

swap between them_ T his

would mean that you would

lose the use of the spare socket

in the cartridge, which is nor-

mally reserved for the optional

utility chips Encoder09 or Tool-

kit. You cannot switch between

the two chips while a program

is running because it is necess•

ary to RESET the Dragon after

switching, but with a bit of pro-

gramming i t is possible t o

preserve any data stored in the

memory as long as it does not

occupy the DOS workspace,

which is in a different area for

each DOS,

"I personally would prefer to

switch the Dragon off when

switching from one DOS to the

other, so I do not recommend

that last option. We do have

some software under develop-

ment which will read DeltaDOS

programs, w h i l e r u n n i n g

DragonDOS ( o r DOSplus).

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