DragonUser12_Apr84.pdf

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NEW RELEASES FOR THE DRAGON 32/64

FROM SALAMANDER SOFTWARE

GRAPHICS

R • LE

DATA R E T R I E V A L S Y S T E M

DRS is a powerful database package for the Dragon

computer, supporting ﬁles stored eftsr on cassette or

disc (using the Dragon Data DOS).

DRShas been designed for ease of use and ﬂexibility. You

can design your own database, specifying number and type of

ﬁelds. Powerful full screen editor allows easy design of yourown

screens.

DRS contains full facilities for adding, maintaining and

deleting records. Fields may be added to or deleted from existing

ﬁles even after records have been added. Search facilities allow

for selection of records by any portion or combination of ﬁelds.

DRS also has an extremely ﬂexible report generator, allowing

for anything from printing of labels to paged reports.

• 22 000 characters of data per ﬁle

• 154 (K10characters of data per disc ﬁle.

• Each record mayCOMBO a maximum of

480characters, 26

alphanumeric ﬁelds

and 10 numeric ﬁelds.

• Inclusive, exclusive

and ranged searches

on alphanumeric

ﬁelds.

• Comparative

searches on numeric

ﬁelds.

• Add, delete and

change records.

• User deﬁnable screen

displays.

• User deﬁnable report

generator.

• Record formats may be

changed at any time.

• Disc ﬁles require Dragon

Data DOS.

This program has been designed to provide a method of

drawing pictures with your computer which is both fun

and educational, and yet simple enough to be enjoyed by

the young or inexperienced computer user and the

enthusiast alike.

Pictures are drawn by telling the "turtle" to move forward

and turn so that it traces a picture on your TV screen or 4 colour

printer/plotter.

Powerful "repeat" and "word library" facilities allow you to

build up new commands as you progress, and you can save your

"word library" on cassette tape or ﬂoppy disc.

The end result of using a system such as this is an increased

knowledge of geometry, and a basic understanding

of simple programming, making the program

an ideal educational tool for all ages.

• Snappy 32 page manual included,

• Runs from cassette or disc (using

either Dragon Data DOS or Premier

Microsystems DOS).

• Simple command structure.

• Repeat command sequences -

can be nested to 32 levels.

• "Word" deﬁnition -

can be nested to

30 levels.

• Powerful "word

library" handling.

• Save and load

library using

cassette or disc.

• Dynamic editing of

command strings

and word library.

• Scaling and

stretching commands. A

• Will draw pictures

on 4 colour

printer/plotter

(IRS-80 GCR115.MCP-40,

or compatible

plotter).

Price el 4.95

Price

£9.95

Please add 50p R&P.to all orders. Send AS SAE for full catalogue.

Cheques or postal orders payable to:

SOFTLIUFIFIE

Lerok out for these other new releases from Salamander Software.

B B C : Eagle £7.95 (Original Arcade Action). Turbo C9.95 (BASIC Compiler)

amanber

Tape duplication by

DATACLONE

17 Norfolk Road, Brighton, BNI 3AA. Telephone: Brighton (0273) 771942.

D R A GON : Wings of War E7.95 (WW ll Adventure). T h e Crickktwood Inch:knit £7.95 (Weird& WonderfulAdventure).

‘ iJ

wt„,

Telephone n u mb e r

(All departments)

01-437 4343

Editor

GRAHAM CUNNINGHAM

Assistant Ed ito r

GORDON ROSS

Software Editor

GRAHAM TAYLOR

Editorial Secretary

CLEO CHERRY

Ad ve rtise me n t Manager

DAVID LAKE

Ad ve rtise me n t Executive

SIMON LANGSTON

A d min istra tio n

THERESA LACY

Managing Ed ito r

DUNCAN SCOT

Publishing Dire cto r

JENNY IRELAND

Subs c ript ions

UK LI D for 12 issues

Overseas (surface) £16 for 12 issues

ISSN 0265-0177

Dragon User, 1 2 1 3 Little Newport Street,

London WC2R 3LD.

US address: c.'o Business Press

International, 205 East 42nd St. New York,

Contents

Letters

Including this month information on scroll-

ing the screen sideways, tips on cassette

recorders and printers, and a stalemate

solution from Oasis

Turbocharged Dragon 3 1

Announcing the arrival of Dragon D ata

0S9 disk operating system and range of

associated software for the business and

professional sector

News

Featuring the latest from the LET 84 trade

Show, recent developments on the air

waves and an update on new products for

y our Dragon

Light pen

Software scrutiny

Magic Machine

Plug into Presto!

For those mere mortals among us who

want to try experimenting with their Dra-

gons. but lack the know-how and extreme

conﬁdence necessary to tackle complex

circuitry

John Scr i ven goe s o n a n eveni ng's e x -

ploration through the software jungle

Open File

lication

Bob Liddills back again with the second

saga of the magic software machine

Motor Cross, Mash and Composer are this

month's creative offerings chosen from a

wide variety of programs sent in for pub-

Dragon Answers

More than a quarter of a million pages of

useful information can be accessed using

y our Dragon (Cov er photos: Pres t el)

Brian Cadge takes you out of the maze

and solves your problems

Dragon talk

Competition Corner

Don't be an April fool, use your wit and win

a Seikosha printer from DRG Business

Systems

Do Welsh-speaking Dragons really exist or

is it the machine code mutters that they've

acquired?

NY 10017.

Published by Sunshine Books. Scot Press

Ltd. ©Sunshine Books 1984.

Typesetting by Ches ham Press, Chesharn,

Bucks. Printed by Eden Fisher (Sout hend)

Ltd, Southend-on-Sea, Essex.

Distributed b y S. M. Dis t ribut ion, London

SW9. 01-274 8611. Telex: 251643

Registered at t he Post Ofﬁce as a news -

paper.

Dragon a n d u s logo a r e t rademark s o f

Dragon Data Ltd.

How to submit articles

The quality of the material we can publish in

Dragon User each month will, to a very great

extend, depend on t he quality of t he dis -

coveries that you can mak e with your Dra-

gon, The Dragon 32 computer was launched

on to the market with a powerful version of

Basic, but with very poor documentation.

Every one of us who uses a Dragon will be

able to discover new tricks and quirks almost

every day. To help other Dragon users keep

up with the speed of the development each

of u s mu s t as s ume t hat w e ma d e t h e

discovery ﬁrst — that means writing it down

and passing it on to others.

Articles whic h are s ubmit t ed t o Dragon

User for publication should not be more than

3000 words long. All submissions should be

typed. Pleas e leav e wide margins and a

double space between each line. Programs

should, whenev er possible, b e c omput er

printed on plain white paper and be accom-

panied by a tape of the program.

We c annot guarant ee t o ret urn ev ery

submitted article or program, so please keep

a copy. I f you want t o hav e your program

returned y o u mu s t inc lude a s t amped.

addressed envelope.

Editorial

" T H E E N T R A N C E F R O M t h e wi n g s of G E C wa s not ent irely unex pec t ed w a s o u r

comment last October when Brian Moore, formerly deputy managing director of a GEC

subsidiary, took over the running of Dragon Data. So it was no more of a surprise when

the electrics giant moved further into the spotlight earlier this year.

It was announced that sales and marketing of all Dragon Data products had been

taken over by another GEC subsidiary, GEC McMichael (this is one way to tell you're

dealing with a giant company, when you ﬁnd it's got subsidiaries everywhere). GEC now

has a ﬁnger in a lot of computer pies, ranging from such things as specialised chip

manufacture to viewdata. It's not clear at this stage exactly what GEC's grand strategy is,

but it certainly has enough cash to support any moves it cares to make. And it's also

prepared to play a waiting game. Early last summer GEC was involved in talks with

another British micro manufacturer, Torch, These talks came to nothing, and only now

has the company's interest in the micro market been publicly revived,

However, GEC has missed one chance to invest in Dragon Data. Toy-maker Mettoy,

formerly a shareholder in Dragon Data and the founder of Dragon computers, went into

receivership at the end of last October — nearly a year after selling Dragon Data oft to a

consortium of investors. This meant that Mettoy's shares were up for grabs, with the

other shareholders having ﬁrst refusal. At the same time as news of the GEC marketing

deal broke, it was announced that existing shareholders had taken over Mettoy's

holdings. So one string with the Dragon's past was ﬁnally broken, as the GEC strand

continued to unravel. The main shareholder in Dragon Data is in fact Prutech, the high

technology investment division of Prudential Assurance, itself a shareholder in GEC.

What this manoeuvring means for Dragon users is hard to say. GEC's marketing

inﬂuence seems more likely to beneﬁt Dragon Data's move into the business market —

how much clout the electrics giant can bring to bear on the home computer market

remains to be seen. Intriguing, too, is how "interactive" the relationship between the two

companies will be. Obviously Dragon Data will be concentrating on developing products

GEC is keen to market — so in this way GEC 'will be playing some role in deciding

Dragon Data's direction. Of course there are two sides to being involved with a giant like

GEC. Its very size suggests that it will be, on the one hand, lumbering, but on the other,

stable. The ﬁrst seems a little inappropriate for the home computer market but the

second does have advantages for users — for example, Micronet's interest in providing a

Dragon service has been encouraged by GEC's arrival. And GEC has a reputation for

avoiding many of the problems of sheer size by allowing its subsidiaries a great deal of

independence.

April 1984 Dragon User 3

Letters

Oasis

replies

I'M AFRAID Maurice Brown has

caught us out! The ﬁrst version of

Dragon Chess did have this prob-

lem, It was not very sporting to

say the least, and did sometimes

resign before losing. Not deliber-

ate I promise but a genuine bug.

We cured this a long time ago

and I can only think you must

have an old version. Please call

us or send your full name and

address for an immediate replace-

ment. We do. of course, offer this

to any other readers with the

same problem.

By way of compensation, Oasis

Software would like to offer to

anybody replacing their Chess the

other four games — Backgam-

mon, Othello, Dominoes and In-

vader Cube — for £9.95 (the full

retail price for the Compendium

being E19 95).

By the way, our new address

is: Oasis Software, Alexandra Pa-

rade, Weston-super-Mare, Avon.

Phone (0934) 419921.

John Gross,

Oasis Software.

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 WC2R 3L13.

readers with assemblers with par-

ticular quirks, or having problems

entering directly from the dis-

assembled listing, should write to

Dragon U s er (enclosing a

large, stamped and addressed

envelope) for a copy of the Dream

listing.

I note with interest the com-

ment in Margaret Norman's arti-

cle in February's issue (page 31)

regarding ﬁnding out by trial and

error how many records may be

held in the Addﬁle program. The

techniques detailed in my OM

article in the March issue should

be of great assistance.

Pam DArcy,

High Wycombe,

Bucks.

sions. You can print our your

own program listings with the

Printlace b y going through

screen by screen. The Dragon

version is not cased but the

electronics are hidden. Make

sure, though, that if you buy a

Sinclair printer the power supply

is included.

Still on the subject of printers

— we got the price of the Tandy

CGP-220 wrong in our February

issue, it's E499 not E149.

Screen

scroll

WITH REGARD t o T Harvey's

letter in Dragon Answers in the

February issue. I have written the

following program to scroll the

screen sideways. I hope this may

be o f some assistance t o Mr

Harvey as well as any other reader

with this problem.

31990 Holds the start address

31992 Holds the end address

7000 71300

7000 B

7 1 1

7002

3501 ADR

7004 66

71305 3401

7007 30

7008 4A

7009 81

7D A 2EF

7130C B

7000 2FF2

OF 39

7010

O G 32000

LOX 31990

LDA $ B 9

PULS CC

R ,X

PSHS CC

LEAX 1 .X

D A

CM 0 0

BGT A D R

CMPX 31992

BLE A DR1

Back to

Basics

IHAVE spent a number of nights

glaring at the monitor screen in

frustration before the following

pennies eventually dropped. I

pass the information on to save

other machine-code freaks from

similar pains.

The Dream package (editor)

assemblermonitor) is an incredi-

ble piece of software, bristling

with delights b u t take a look

at the following feature:

O G PAG E5

P PAG E5

PAGE5 E Q U 7 6 8 0

In the above, because the ORG

and PUT labels were deﬁned after

being used, the assembler, on its

ﬁrst pass, tried to assemble the

code in PAGE 0, which is heavily

committed to the operating sys-

tem, and as a result. all hell

breaks loose_ Labels used in ORG

and PUT lines must be deﬁned

before the ORG and PUT lines.

When a machine code routine

wants to get back to Basic with an

RTS instruction, you must be

sure that the OP register contains

azero o r you will never arrive

at Basic.

Alun Evans,

Ynysforgan,

Swansea.

Which

printer?

IHOPE I am in time to prevent

others being disappointed.

In the February issue Brian

Cadge, in Dragon Answers, sug-

gested the use of the Microtanic

Printface to enable a Sinclair prin-

ter to be used. I consider that

both Brian's statement and Mic-

rotanic's advertisement are mis-

leading.

The BASIC program for the above

is:

Tapescan

code

HESE I SIAN routine in Febru-

ary's Dragon User's not to gener-

ate the initial Tapescan code as

implied in the text, but is a simple

Basic program to make loading

and copying of the initially saved

program easier.

It prepares the machine for the

machine code load le the CLEAR,

reads In the Tapescan machine

code program, and is then menu

driven allowing various options

such as motor onion to position

tapes for copying the routines to

and automatic copying of both

Setscan and Tapescan to further

tapes.

I have just spotted a minor

error in line 37 of the program

listing where the screen message

will appear as ". T H E N CON-

CLUSION . " rather than ".

THE.

I suggest that Bruce Devlin's

excellent short Machine Code

Loader routine (page 51 of De-

cember's issue of Dragon User)

be used to initially set up the

Tapescan code.

At last I have managed to get

the Dream cassette and have used

it to assemble Tapescan. Any

4 Dragon User April 1964

The interface uses the cartridge

port. not the printer port. It will

only print what is on the screen. It

does not respond to the normal

print commands. I t requires a

software input ﬁrst. And the Dra-

gon version (unlike the BBC

shown in the ad) is not cased.

F Thornton,

Taplow,

Maidenhead,

OUR apologies f o r raising

hopes. The Printlace comes with

screen dump software (cassette

plus listing). Users can study

howthis works and develop their

own hi-res programs — and

well certainly consider pub-

lishing any readers s ubmis -

10 'SCREEN SCROLL

20 'WRITTEN BY P PHILLIPS

30 FOR X = 1 T O 16:READ

XS•POKEX+31999.XS:NEXT

40 DATA BE, 96, 35, 01, 66, 34.

01. 30, 4A, 81, 2E, F6, BC,

2F, F2. 39

P Phillips,

Port Talbot.

West Glamorgan

Tandy

recorder

IN VIEW of the continuing saga 01

the I/0 error, some readers may

like to know that in a year of

trying various cassette recorders

with my Dragon, the only one to

record and play back data fault-

lessly has been the Tandy Colour

Computer.

This has operated with all the

plugs in all the time (even in long

programs). In view of the Dra-

gon's ancestry, this compatibility

is not surprising.

A good feature is that the fast

forward and rewind keys are not

on the remote control circuit, and

one does n o t need t o ty pe

OTOR ON to rewind for data

ﬁles etc. The bad feature is that it

is not cheap.

Phillip Birch,

Rushey Mead.

Leicester

Software Top 10

1 (—) The King

M i c r o d e a l

2 (—) Eightball

M i c r o d e a l

3 (5 ) Scramble

M i c r o d e a l

4 (—) Leggit

5 (—) Transylvanian Tower R i c h a r d Shepherd

6 (—) Dragon Chess

O a s i s

Software

7 (—) Grand Prix

S a l a m a n d e r

8 (3 ) Cuthbert in the Jungle M i c r o d e a l

9 (—) Devil Assault

M i c r o d e a l

10 (6 ) Ring of Darkness W i n t e r s o f t

Chart compiled by Boots

CHALLENGING S O F T

A R E

v ow

IMEGSP/EL:

A thri/linggame ol strate

to be *aye ti against the

Alizt r

Dragon otany other

devious oAoonent.

I enclose a

Cheque payable to

BEYOND. OR charge my credit cord.

Cord Nu mb e r

Visa. Access (Delete as necessary)

Postal

Ord e r

BEYOND Competition House, Forndon Rood, MARKET HARBOROUGH Leicestershire LE19 9NR,

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