DragonUser52_Aug87.pdf

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The independent Dragon magazine

August 1987

Contents

Letters

News

Dragon Answers

DeltaDOS t h o u g h t s o n B a sic 4 2

autorun solution a n d plenty more.

Dragon show in September 6 7 Dragons

in letterbox n e w light pen software

modem for Dragon 64,

Editorial

WALES, home of the Dragon. The very

Sound tothe cassette port co n n e ct in g an

place for a summer holiday — as long

Anadex printer F l e x or OS-9?.

as you stay indoors. No, seriously, it's

not like that. It only rains in the morn-

Super SAM

ings. Anyway, I'm off next week, so if

Treat yo u r Synchronous Address Mu lt i-

you see a puff of smoke and ﬂame along

plexer gently — it doesn't mind being inter-

Hay Bluff, it won't be me, 'cos I'm not

rupted, b u t i t hates being poked, sa ys

telling anyone where I am...

Matthew Lodge.

...just like The Expert, in fact. We

would like to think that he's lost in the

Electronic author 2 3

Philip Beed writ e s up Ouickbeam's Elec-

post, the postal strike started after he

should have been here...

tronic Author.

The best news this month is that

Two special offers 2 5

Pulsar Software are planning a show in

Three popular books of Dragon programs,

Rochdale later in the year. Somebody

no lo n g e r available f ro m t h e ir o rig in a l

else has an eye on a London venue, and

publishers, and a FREE GAME with the ﬁrst

some of the NDUGs are putting on an

450 orders. ALSO Dragon Home Accounts

informal show on the south coast. The

for the Dragon 32, a t less than h a lf the

future of the Dragon lies in bringing

original price.

together suppliers, users and software

Write: ADVENTURE 2 7

writers in a setting which is substantial

Peter Gerrard gets back to his parser and

enough to draw people from all over

digresses into a little marketing advice.

Britain, and informal enough to accom-

modate moderate numbers in comfort.

Adventure trail

No more echoing halls.

Retailing Ba sic g a me s (wh y they don't),

And don't miss our special book of-

pokes for Keys of the Wizard.

fer. Dragon books are getting harder to

ﬁnd as big publishers look elsewhere.

Competition

Gordon Lee is looking fo r a mysterious

Now is a good time to buy out of print

factor. wh ile Peaksoft a re shelling o u t

books at remainder prices. Have a look

T-shirts.

and see.

Managing Editor

PETER WORLOCK

Publishing Director

JENNY IRELAND

Subscriptions

UK 0 4 for 12 issues

Overseas (surface) E20 for 12 issues

ISSN 0265-177. Telex: 296275

Dragon User. 12113 Little Newport Street,

London WC2H 7PP

US address: do Business Press International.

205 East 42nd St, New York, NY 10017

Published by Scot Press Ltd.

: Sc ot Press 1987

Typesetting and Production by Artext 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.

How to submit articles

The quality of the material we can publish in

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

tent depend on (he quality of the discoveries that

you can mak e with your 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 bomputer printed on plain whit e

paper and be accompanied by a tape of the

program

We cannot guarantee to return every submit-

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

you want to haveyourprogram returned you must

include a stamped addressed envelope.

Dragon soft

The Answer

Prism modem package for the Dragon 64,

by Hayton Software.

Not only do we have the answer to the May

competition, but we have the answer to the

April competition.

Puzzle FORTH

J. B. Slinger investigates FORTH b y u n -

tangling past Gordon Lee puzzles.

Winners and losers 1 5

Gordon Lee looks at some of the solutions

to the March competition. and compares

run times f r o m 10.96 seconds to 3 hours.

The Show goes on

1 6

Ken a Smith ﬁnally makes it back from the

6809 Show and reports to HO.

Down in the dumps 1 7

We askad for dumps, you sent us dumps.

These three are for the Epson FX-85, OKI-80

Microline and Tandy CGP-155 plotter.

Telephone number

(All departments)

437-4343

Editor

HELEN ARMSTRONG

Production Editor

BARBORA HAJEK

ANNE MARIE ALLEN

Editorial Secretary

Advertisement Manager

ATHENA PEERMAN

Administration

GABRIELLA PISCINA

Marketing Manager

HELEN PERRY

Letters

Basic

extension

HAVING j u s t r e a d R o y

Coates's re vie w o f Ba sic 4 2

again, I decided to add some

comments.

Firstly. Roy's review and the

ads might lead some to sup-

pose, on booting the system.

that yo u co u ld e xp e ct mo re

memory sp a ce a va ila b le t o

Basic than when operating in

32K mode. This is not the case,

in fact, it is exactly the same.

There are 3.75K extra available

for ma c h in e c o d e o r d a t a

storage, butthis is thearea used

by the utilities and it cannot be

used if you want to use the non-

destructive window 9.

Another pointis thatwaswith

Compusense's Hi Res , once a

characterisdrawnonthescreen

it is forgotten. so a high resolu-

tion screen dump is required if

you want hardcopy of your infor-

mation. This is not a problem if

you havea machinecodedump

routine, as the start and ﬁnish

a d d re sse s o f t h e c u rre n t

window a re readily available

and can be sent to the dump

routine so that just the current

window i s printed. Th e ke y-

board response seems to be

slower and I ﬁ n d that I lo se

characters. Th is seems to be

alleviated b y shortening th e

delay before autorepeat.

Because t h e s y s t e m r e -

cognises PRINT@ and prints it

relative t o the window being

used, ru n n in g e xistin g p ro -

grams on Ba sic 42 can give

some u n e x p e c t e d s c re e n

displays. The best way round

this is to use the FRAME com-

mand and deﬁne a window 32

characters wide and 16 deep,

usethiswindOwandthedisolay

is T h e use of windows

givesa much more professional

look toyourprograms, making it

possible to display a program

title at the top of the screen while

all the action takes place below.

If a command window is then

usedatthe bottom of the screen

for re q u e stin g in p u t s, k e y -

presses etc., the result can be

very impressive.

Fin a lly, a c c e p t in g c o m -

mands in lo we r ca se letters

may b e very desirable when

programming, b u t it ca n b e

infuriating when all INPUTsand

LINE INPUTs are treated in the

same way, ieconverted to upper

case. Unfortunately, t h is i s

exactly wh a t happens! He lp

2 Dragon User August 1987

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

courtesy of Microdeal, to the reader/s

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?!

Delta users

DUDE stands for Delta Users Data Exchange. I initiated it after

spending a long time struggling without information, professional

software etc. As time passes it becomes increasingly obvious that

the Dragon community is forming intospeciﬁc user groups and it *

natural that Delta users should alsohaveacommon base. Thegroup

isstillyoung and hasno deﬁnite structure, as I am stillwaitingtosee

if there is a good response from the details given in DU.

If there is, then it's likelythat a NEWSDISKwill be puttogether, as

the0S-9Group havedone. Thiskeepscostsdownforthe members

and allows easytransfer of software. Having alreadycontacted a few

people, the initial response seems favourable and I have made

several new 'f riends' (if onlyover the phone!). I didn't realisejust how

helpful some peoplecan be, notto mentionthe enthusiasmthey have

for Delta(it IS the best DOS!). Thegroup will onlythrive if other Delta

users get in contactand show some interest, so wntetome or phone

on (0703)38042 and ﬁnd outwhat you're missing! If you don't need

something now, you may do in the future, and you could make a

valuable contribution.

Dave Martin. 44 Firgrove Road, Freeman tie. Southampton,

Hants SO1 3EN.

PS To all the people who 'registered' at the show, but have not

contacted me since...you should beashamed, getyourwriting pad

Out NOW!

THEusergroupsarethebackboneof specialistOragonisation

just as Dragon User is the backbone of general Dragonisation.

They form the networks which keep users in touch. I strongly

suggestthatDelta users get in touch with Davidtoﬁnd outwhat

is going on, even if they don't see how a group would be of

immediate beneﬁt. Then, if nothing else, someone would have

a register where Delta people could get in touch.

England wecould have an inter-

national Dragon Show. I sup-

pose it is all just a dream but it

might make people take notice

of us.

Ken G. Smith

33 Glack Road

Deal

Kent

Curve

warped

THE euphoria o f ﬁ nding m y

name mentioned threetimeson

Gordon L e e ' s Win n e rs a n d

Losers page June 1987 soon

evaporated when two mistakes

were spotted in m y Dra g o n

Curve program listing. If anyone

has tried the program then it

would have crashed almost in-

stantly. The following co rre c-

tions will rectify matters:

Line 60 had a bracket missing

and should have read:

60 D D + (S(C)= S(C + 1))

-(S(C)< )S(C + 1))

Line 150 included the number

570,theonly570Iknowishouse

number, perhaps that wa s a

hint, it should have read:

150 IF S(0) = 0 THEN D = 0:

GOTO 50

DJ.Gra y

570 Acklem Road

Middlesbrough

Cleveland

TS5 SHE

AFTER everything else. too.

Never mind. Let's hope this

correction puts th e c urv e

straight, so to speak.

is at hand here, tor when I con-

tacted Bob Harris he advised

that POKE 57685, 41 switches

the lacilityoff and POKE 57658,

15 puts it back on again. Once

these were incorporated at the

beginning and end of the pro-

gram, the problem is solved.

After reading this you might

think that lam somewhat disap-

pointed with the package, but

you would be wrong. Using the

system i s simp licity itself, a

quick browse through the ex-

cellent manual and I was ready

toga. and the overall effect was

that it made my work look good

and in doing so made me look

good, and wh o could ask for

more than that? I shall have to

getthe spool utilitythough, as at

present !can makethetea while

the machine dumps the hi-res

screen.

Ken Smith

33 Glack Road

Deal

Kent

CT14 9ND

Revoxed

RECENTLY my Dragon 32 lost

its voice. Occasionally it does

return for brief periods, but is un-

predictable. Since all the soft-

ware still worked OK on it I was

loath to send it to be repaired in

c a w it 'died' on the operating

table.

I had resigned myself to its

silence until last week. I use a

Saisho DIR10 d a t a re co rd e r

Dragon

chunnel

WITH regards to shows, has

anyone thought of using Dover?

I knowwe have many Dragon

owners in Belgium and Holland,

not to mention France. If n o w

add those fro m the south o f

This is the chance to air your views — send your tips, compliments and complaints to Letters

Page, Dragon User, 12-13 Little Newport Street. London WC2H 7PP,

which has a switchable monitor

and L ED indicator. I had just

loaded a game, and forgot to

press th e STOP button, a n d

started playing. I was surprised

to see that the LED indicator

was jumping in time with the ex-

pected sound effects. I switch-

ed on the monitor and was sur-

prised to ﬁnd the Dragon was

using the cassette to speak to

me. I have since played around

and found the sequence to get

the n e w vo ice i s a ) h a vin g

loaded press STOP to release

the head, b) put a blank tape in

to keep the sensor pressed and

press RECORD only, c) switch

the monitor to on, and reduce

the volume considerably. The

Dragon sends all sound output

to the data recorder.

I managed to ﬁnd someone

else with a fully working Dragon.

whotried this and found it work-

ed on his also. In fact the sound

came both from the television

and the cassette recorder, so

you can havea stereo Dragon....

I believe the original problem

with my Dragon is simply a dry

joint somewhere, but now I don't

have to worry about it.

Thank you for your excellent

magazine. L o n g L i v e t h e

Dragon.

M. Hall

103 Mandarin Way

Wyman's Brook

Cheltenham

Glos,

GL50 4RS

PS I persuaded my friend with

the w o r k i n g D r a g o n t o

subscribe to Dragon User, do I

get commission??

magazine w i t h o u t p u t t in g

the o d d six-p a g e list in g in ,

y'know.

OK, lets get back to wo rk:

the great printer issue is over

and done, a lth o u g h we st ill

have a stock of screen dumps

which we shall be running in

clumps. NOW wewould liketo

hear from anyone who would

like t o writ e a re vie w, d e s-

crip tio n or educational piece

on d i s c d r i v e s o r d i s c

operating systems. The hard-

ware doesn't have to be new,

but it mu st either be current-

ly available or widely owned.

Drop me a line and I will write

back with details.

the printer exactly what in the

screen, regarding printerwidth,

but it has a small mistake.

In short, the following Basic

Direct (without lin e n u mb e r)

statements set up the printer

width to be the same a s the

Dragon's display width, of 32

characters per line.

Poke 8,H148,0

Poke 8,1-19B,32

LLIST

That has a mistake in it in the

book, with a S instead of the cor-

rect &

I would like totake this oppor-

tunitylothank Pam D'Arcy who

in the Dragon User of Sep. 86

pointed o u t a n o t h e r s ma l l

mistake on page 215 of Inside

the Dragon (le, the cassette gap

byte being $01 for 'continuous

stream' whereas it is actually

$OO).

In m y o p in io n In sid e t h e

Dragon is th e best book fo r

serious programmers, b u t to

clear out the bugs and get an

OK message, one still needs to

take a good look at the Dragon

User M y compliments to the

Editor and all the staff.

Joe Brincat

73 Annunciation Street

Hamrun

Malta

JOE i s a n o t h e r o f t h o s e

Dragoners w h o i s a re a lly

useful h u ma n b e in g , a n d

write s us nice letters, too.

and control programs including

using the Telewriter word pro-

cessor programs.

I have fourdiscs of 750K each

on each Dragon, and have not

even had a seek error on a run

program in six years. I wish I

could say the same of Tandy

Dos (it does ﬁveor six seeks per

read or write!).

The reason for this low error

rate isthat I run the socalled ob-

soleteDeltaDos which runs like

a good mainframe unit. It allows

chaining and other important

features, and does not have any

of the bugs that I keep reading

about in your journal. I also run

both Mx80 and Mx100 Epson

printers and a Juki daisy wheel

printer. The Juki has only two

problems (it is slowand it throws

away any characters over one

line length, you cannot linewrap

as with the Epsons). I feel it is

time someone sp o ke u p fo r

these very high powered but

small computers. B y the way

what has happened to Eurohard

the company that bought out

the Dragon? A re they still in

business? If so can Dragons still

be obtained from them (even if

the ROMS have to be changed

to English ones)?

I worked for many years on

mainframe computers and I can

run the same sort of jobs in the

same sort of time on a Dragon!

I have not seen it done on any

other small computer.

A.CEamshaw

23 Dellﬁeld Crescent

Cowley

Uxbridge

Middlesex

Autorun

LOOKING back in the life of the

Dragon, people have always

made hard work of autorunning

a Basic program. Here is my

short solution.

1) L o a d b a s ic p ro g ra m a s

normal.

2) To save type:

PCLEAR 1 : CLS:?a235,

CSAVEM "Name", 166, 256

PEEK (27) + 255, 0:

POKE 25, 12: POKE 27. PEEK

(126): POKE 29. PEEK (27):

POKE 31. PEEK (27): RUN

This works by saving the direct

command along with the Basic.

so when reloaded it carries on

with the command from where

it left off causing the locations to

be reset and a RUN command.

Paul Burgin

18 Moorﬁeld Road

Fulwood

Shefﬁeld

S10 4GS

UB8 2ET

WELL er not as such, but if

your friend ﬁ n d s he doesn't

like us you can come and hide

in the ﬁling cabinet here for a

bit. Um, can you type, by any

chance?

Main

man

I have read your magazine since

it ﬁ rst ca me out, a n d I a m

amazed a t t h e a mo u n t o f

detrimental ru b b is h st a t e d

about b o th t h e Dragon a n d

Tandy Computers.

I have been using both makes

for some years and apart from a

very sma ll a mo u n t o f c o m-

ponent failures (1 modulator. 1

joystick input chip), I have had

no other problems.

The main trouble seems to be

that your readers only liketo play

games. The Dragon and Tandys

are amongstthe most powerful

of the 8 b it computers I have

ever seen. I have been running

random access sorts (several

Megs long) and other business

WELL, er, thanks for the tips,

AC. Actually. most of thefolks

I kn o w wh o wo rk o n ma in -

frames s p e n d t h e i r l u n c h

breaks p l a y i n g ' C o l o s s a l

Adventure'.

As far as we know, Eurohard

are still in business, b u t no-

one o ve r here se e ms t o be

able t o b u y a n yth in g f ro m

them, s o we a re n 't e n tire ly

clear what in business' con-

I have delayed renewing my

subscription as I have become

rather disappointed wit h t h e

magazine recently as it appears

to contain little but long pages of

listings. The June editorial in-

dicates some hope. so I will now

renew,

B.P Collins

STREWTH! It's a tough lifetry-

ng t o r u n a c o m p u t e r

Listings

lamblasted M a l t a

message

THROUGH the medium of your

magazine Dragon owners have

remained united, and help each

other. It's with this in mind that

I'm writin g th is letter. Others

helped me, so I should help

them.

In the book Inside the Dragon

on page 207, I found a ve ry

important poke. How to print on

sists of.

Footnote

' Footnotes D o n ' t forget to write

to us if you would like to write

about y o u r d i s c d rive s f o r

Dragon Us e r a t la st Ke n

Smith got h is Basic 42 letter

printed — even if it did catch up

with the next one.

August 1987 Dragon User 3

News desk

Dragon Show

in September

PULSAR Software are organis-

ing a Dragon show in Rochdale,

Lancashire in September.

The show, titled the North of

England Dra g o n S h o w a n d

Convention, will take place on

Saturday 12th September at the

Bishop Hanslow Upper School,

Rochdale.

all W software dealers" says

the

Pulsar. '' and they all want to

come, a p a rt f ro m Micro d e a l

who weren't too sure. Its too

early to ﬁnalise anything yet, but

we have a panel of 'experts from

the local user group, and people

to do demonstrations. We want

to e

make this a bit more wide

MACGOWAN Consultants have

rewritten t h e previously d is-

appointing so f t wa re w h i c h

accompanied the Trojan Light

Pen. T h e n e w v e rs io n i s

available on tape for E7.00 or

disc fo r E8.00. The Light Pen

itself is also available for new

users.

Among the improvements in

the new software are full screen

availability, a ll machine-code

program .and PMODE 3 and 4

screen dumping for 114different

printers.

"All our products are printer

orientated" s a y s B i l l M a c -

Gowan. " I a m t h e country's

leading expert on printers now,

and as far as I am concerned,

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

ring the News Desk on 01-437 4343

Control word processor. It gives

a new text font in a squared.

semi-graphic style, useful fo r

display or for short texts like in-

vitations o r messages. Price:

E2.00.

These p ro g ra ms c a n b e

obtained f r o m Dra g o n ﬁ re

Services, 13 Parry Jones Close,

Blaine, Gwent, N P3 3NH.

countrywide, and fu ll instruc-

tions.

The software comes on tape

or disc fo r DragonDOS only.

Hayton Electronics i s a t 3 6

Laurel Drive, Willaston, South

Wirral, L64 1TW.

ranging than a normal show."

"There will b e a computer

clinic, where anyone can come

and ask about any computing

problems they are having, and

we'll be having a forum where

people can ask questions."

'We've organised a snack bar

and we are applying for a bar

licence." The show will be open

from loam to 4pm, and the gate

charge will be E1.50 for adults

and E100 for children.

adventure

COWEN Software called to say

High

Subject to the normal limita-

tions imposed by doing three

jobs atonce. the editorof Dragon

User is looking forward to ﬁnding

Out where Rochdale is in time for

September.

that .Adventure Writer, reviewed

in la st month's DU, i s n o w

available only as an improved

version at the higher price of

E14,95, and is being distributed

by Peaksoft.

South

coast

show

PHILIP Beed, Dragon person

and NDUG regular, is putting

around the word that he and

some south coast friends are

organising a non-commercial

'show and get-together' in the

late autumn °ready winter. The

likely venue will be in Gosportor

Portsmouth, and chosen to suit

numbers.

Philip says that his intention

is p rima rily t o g e t p e o p le

together t o d i s c u s s a n d

demonstrate aspects of com-

puting, b u t th a t i f sufﬁ cient

numbers a re interested th e y

may be able to organise dis-

counts on some computer pro-

ducts. The cost of mounting the

meeting should, he reckons, be

between El and E3 per head.

All those interested in taking

part or going along should con-

tact Philip at 27 Eindon Road,

Elson, Gosport, Ha n ts P 0 1 2

4EP with a stamped se lf ad-

dressed envelope for the latest

update.

New Trojan light

pen software

anybody ca n rin g u s u p f o r

advice on printers at any time

with no obligation. I'd rather they

did, because I can then tell them

what's wrong with the printer

they want to buy."

MacGowan, w h o i s a ls o

writing screen dumps for Com-

modore, BBC and Atari micros,

stresses that their products are

unconditionally g u a ra n te e d

and " a re u p to th e standard

which o u r cu st o me rs h a ve

come to expect." MacGowan

consultants a re at 6 Arnhem

Drive, Caythorpe, Nr. G ra n -

tham, Linos NC3 2 3 0 0 (tel:

0400 72085), but their products

can a ls o b e obtained f ro m

Harris Micros.

Modem

package

A complete modem package for

the D r a g o n 6 4 i s b e i n g

marketed by Hayton Electronics

for E45, in clu d in g p o st a n d

packing.

The p a cka g e in clu d e s a

Prism Modem 2000, a connec-

ting lead , software to enable the

computer to access viewdata

type boards (Presto!, for exam-

ple) and scrolling ASCII boards

which run on 100/75 baud, a list

of o ve r 2 0 0 bulletin b o a rd s

67 Dragons wedged

in a letterbox

TALKING of Lancashire, com-

puters —other computers, that

is — a re n o t yo u r Ed ito r's

favourite subject ju st a t th e

moment. N o r a re t h e y t h e

favourite subject o f reader P.

Clayton of Chorley, Lancs.

The rest of us blame the com-

is awaiting the ﬁnal four.

"I couldn't believe my eyes

when the postman brought the

sack round." he said.

Comments ofﬁce supremo

Anne Ma rie Allen: " Th e bug

must have been waiting since

his subscription was entered a

year ago. Fortunately, he hasn't

received 6 7 c o p i e s e v e r y

month."

So if your Dragon User was a

little late this month, check the

postmark— it might have been

to Lancashire.

Printer

progs

DRAGONEIRE Services have

three new utility launches, all

Versions are available for the

Brother HR-5 TTP, Seikosha

GP100A, a n d E p s o n E X

compatible printers. Cu sto m

versions ca n b e supplied —

SAE for details. Price: E4.00.

The Se ik o s h a S c r e e n

Dumperdoes just that. dumping

hi-res modes 0, 2 and 4 in mini

or large (roughly A4) size to the

SeikoshaGP100A printer. Price:

E2.00

under E5.00. Printer Prompt

(version 2.5) is a new version of

that p ro g ra m g iv in g a 6 4

ch a ra cte r-p e r-lin e s c r e e n

display, WY S I WY G , d o u b le

width letters and an *address

b locker' routine.

4 Dragon User August 1987

puter w h e n Dr agon U s er

Fontasia Computa-Text is a

p ro g ra m f o r u s e w i t h

MacGowan Consultants' Printer

doesn't a rrive o n t ime . Mr.

Clayton is blaming the co m-

puter because Dragon Userdid

turn up on time a l l 67of them.

In fact, at the time of writing,

Mr. Clayton has received 63 and

News desk

METASOFT is a new software

house launched by Chris Jolly,

who is already well known for his

work on Dragon software.

Metasoffs ﬁrst production is

Prolog, which runs under CIS-9

on a Dragon 64.

It is 'an extremely powerful

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

ring the News Desk on 01-437 4343

Personal privacy as a matter

of concern was ranked fourth

after law and order, unemploy-

ment and education. People

were most concerned about the

misuse of ﬁnancial information

and medical records.

Surprisingly p e rh a p s co n -

sidering the publicity which is

given t o th e se issu e s f ro m

time to time, there was a high

level o f t ru st i n t h e police,

health service, and banks, while

mail o rd e r co mp a n ie s a n d

credit re f e re n ce a g e n c ie s

were re g a rd e d w i t h m o r e

suspicion.

While we must assume that

the DPR's ofﬁce wantto show a

level of public support forthe Act

after the consternation that it

has caused among computer

data users, there is no doubt that

people are concerned that infor-

mation about them mig h t be

stored and used without any

means o f cro ss checking its

accuracy.

If th e Da ta Protection A ct

can p re v e n t t h i s t o a n y

degree, it will be doing a good

job.

New company sells ﬁfth generation

5th generation language f o r

applications demanding built-in

intelligence.'

Prolog programs consist of

facts, rules and relationships,

and execution consists of acon-

trolled deduction through the

facts and ru le s to arrive at a

conclusion.

Says p ro g ra mme r A la in

Colmerauer -

the

p r o g r

a m m e r

who comes to Prolog after using

a classical language will ex-

perience t h e s a me s o rt o f

revelation a s someone wh o

moves from arithmetic to the

ﬁrst steps of algebra."

Prolog c o s t s E29.95, i n -

cluding post and packing and

an 1 0 0 p a g e ma n u a l, f ro m

Metasoft at 4 Pinehurst Walk,

Orpington, Kent BR6 8DD.

Reprocess

DR. Anthony Daniels writes to

say that there is a small bug in

last month's Graphics Screen

Word Processor.

The correct line 570 is:

570 IF PEEK(341)=247 AND

LS )13 THEN AB=BrB=LS:

S=LS•512:GOSUB3390:

IF AB>0 THEN MX=A:

MY= LS•512:GOSU83920:

RE-0:GOSUB260:

Y=480:M=143:XA=X:AB=0!

PRIN.Ta.X,CHRS(143);:

PRINTO

GOT0500 ELSE 500

0,CHRS

(143):

Data protection survey

reveals public approval

legislation to control the type of

data wh ich ca n b e kept, t o

establish the right to have per-

sonal data added toor removed

from a ﬁle where relevant, and

to extend these protections to

paper records as well as mag-

netic records. The most impor-

tant right was felt to be that of

inspecting records, and having

them corrected where neces-

sary

A su rve y co mmissio n e d b y

the Data Protection Registrar

shows that seven o u t o f ten

people surveyed wanted to be

able to gain access to informa-

tion about themselves held on

computer ﬁles. There was also

support for companies charg-

ing a small fee — up to f o r

supplying data on request.

Most interestingly, a majority

of those asked wanted to see

Dragonsoft

Package: Dra g o n 6 4 P ris m

Modem 2000 comms package.

Supplier:Hayton Electronics,

36 Laurel Drive, Willaston, S.

Wirral L64 1TW.

P rice : 4 5 including post and

package. Disc or tape version

available.

WHEN a complete communi-

cations package, leads and all,

is on offer at this price, the ﬁrst

thing y o u a s k y o u rs e lf i s

"Where's the catch?". We ll, I

have t o s a y t h a t a f t e r t wo

months. I have not yet found

one.

The modem is a ve ry neat

Prism 2000, which operates in

1200175 (V23) mode or, for one

way communication, 1200 baud

half duplex.

All the Input/Output sockets

are at the rear leaving the front

clear for the three LEDs and the

'mode' and 'data' buttons. The

three indicators are for Mains

On. L i n e (t o in d ica t e t h a t

it is online), and Signal, which

New software for review should be sent to Dragon User

12-13 Little Newport Street, London WC2H 7PP.

Great modem, shame about the software

shows when a carrier wave is

established a n d in fo rma tio n

can be exchanged.

Using the system could not

be easier. Once the software

has loaded, it is simply a matter

of dialling the relevant number,

using a n o rd i n a ry p h o n e

plugged into the back o f the

modem. As soon as the high pit-

ched carrier tone is received,

press t h e d a t a b u tto n a n d

replace the telephone receiver,

You should then be online, and

receiving data fro m th e host

computer. The telephone can

be left plugged in and will still

function n o rma lly wh e n t h e

computer is not using the line.

The hardware works very well;

itcopes admirably with my noisy

phone line without corrupting

the incoming data. In fact the

only time this has occurred was

when someone tried to use the

extension.

The software consists of four

programs on a cassette and is

the weak point o f the whole

package. The instructions can

best be described as vague and

the programs themselves have

an amateur feel to them.

One example of this is in the

VIEWDATA program. If you are

not going to provide a save to

tape routine, and I agree it is

impractical, then there should

be a DOS detection routine to

stop the system crashing when

a tape user presses the wrong

key. Likewise, in th e bulletin

board program, what excuse

can there be for allowing the

buffer to overﬂow and corrupt

the program? A 'b u ffe r f u ll'

routine which referred the user

back to the main menu could

have saved a lot of aggro.

Even the MENU program has

a problem; it lacks a CLEAR

command. Any attempt to read

back the information stored on

disc without ﬁrst running the

ASCII routine results in a system

crash. There is also no provision

for reviewing saved VIEWDATA

screens. These may be fairly

insigniﬁcant faults t o a n e x-

perienced programmer, but to

anyone relying solely on th e

software supplied, it could be

enough to make them give up

altogether.

On the plus side, Tim Hayton

is always ready to enter into

correspondence t o so rt o u t

your problems and, so far as

backup is concerned, you will

not ﬁ n d better. H e mo ve d

heaven and earth to ﬁnd me a

POKE to cure the problems I

experienced with my SUPER-

DOS, and helped me out with

ﬁnding local boards.

Taken overall, the package

represents outstanding value

for money, th e price really is

unbelievable. If only the soft-

ware had been a little more pro-

fessional, it would have been

truly superb.

Ken G. Smith

kft;

August 1987 Dragon User 5

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