DragonUser03_Jul83.pdf

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The independent Dragon magazine

60p USS2_60

July 1983

Brain-teasing

software

reviewed

Interview: Tony Clarke

of Dragon Data

WINDOW ONANOTHER WORLD

NEW RELEASES

S TA R J A M M E R - W v i n g th e s weat fr o m m y br ow. I s ear c hed th e mky blac k nes s , a h e a d for s igns

ol e n e m y l i g h te r s . T h o u g h S ta r J a m m e r w a s t h e b e s t s h i p i n t h e g a l a x y . tr l y d w i n d l i n g e n e r g y

WS W

r-equir ing o n e joy s tic k )

S UP E R S K IL L H A N GM A N - H a n g m a n as y ou v e nev e- play ed it befor e' A v oc abular y of over 1 O W

r n

wor ds , thr ee lev els ot difﬁ c ulty and an optional tim er m ak e this c las s ic wor d gam e a c hallenge For k ids

a d

ot all a g e s

N IGH TTL IGH T — A n ac c ur ate s i m u l a to n of ﬂ y ing a s m ote engine light air c r aft. Nightﬂ ighl allows for

tak e- oll a n d ne a n d a e n a

,e m a n e o u v r e s

S A L A M A N D E R GR A P H IC S S Y S TE M - A c om pr ehens iv e p i c tu r e d r a w i n g s y s te m for t h e hunts

i om puter le nu u d i a s t P i c tu r e s i n any m o d e or c olour s et, te x t o n th e le- r es s c r eens . a n d s tor age a t

n c

i n

th s

g tur es on ta p e . R e g u

pic

ORICoTR E K A p v er s on o t a t classic Dr agon T r * Ic r th e Onc - 1

rt e galax y n l e emv e featur es th a n y ou c a n s hak e a K tingon at. A m us t for all On c owner s t

, s

01 T e on and or l s

a o a y l s ln e cu k t y .

jc IC G A M E S C O M P E N D I U M - F o u r re m o ti n g g e m e s f o r t h e w h o l e fa m i l y D o n k e y D e r b y

t i

e , V iper and S pac eS tallic in•

K ingdom

Price Lis t Dragon Trek E9 95. Wiz ard War E7.95, Goff E7.95. Grand Prix

E7.95 Vulc an Noughts & Crosses E7.95 G ames Compendium D1 E7 95

Salamander Graphics System 0 . 9 5 . Super Ski!' Hangman £7.95. Star

,l a r n m e r i '

7 9 5

N i g h

t f ﬁ

h t

Send SAE for lull catalogue with details ol new releases.

Cheques or postal orders pay able to: SALAMANDER SOFT-

WARE, Dept. D, 27 Ditchling Rise, Brighton, East Sussex

BN1 40L, Tel: 0273 771942.

(

NOW AVAILABLE AT MAJOR BRANCHES

s e tu

p cr m

Contents

Letters

Ju ly 1983

Editor

GRAHAM CUNNI NG HA M

(01-839 2449)

Software E d it o r

GRAHAM TA Y L OR (01-839 2504)

Editorial S e cre t a ry

CAROLINE O WE N i 01-930 3 2 6 6 )

Ad ve rtise me n t Ma n a g e r

DAVID L AKE

Ad ve rtise me n t E xe cu t ive

SIMON L ANGSTON (01-930 3 8 4 0 )

A d min istra tio n

THERESA L A CY (0 1 -9 3 0 3266)

Managing E d it o r

DUNCAN S CO T

Publishing Dire c t o r

JENNY IRE L A ND

Ae&

Cover feature

Dragon Blitz

t o land

Adv ic e on t he Dragon s c as s et t e operat ing

system. graphics and generating

characters, plus our blunders corrected

Dragon Data s managing director Tony

Clarke interviewed

News

All the latest hardware and software

developments. including Dragon price cuts

and US moves

Destroy the skyscrapers, clearing a space

Play golf

Clubs

A croupier at an Edinburgh casino is the

driving force behind the Scottish Dragon

Club

All the joy of the golf course without ever

getting wet — detailed instructions on how

to program this new game from Philip

Brooks

Software showdown 1 2

Our man at the tv tests his mental powers

on some brain-teasing games. He's

rec ov ering now

Setting Forth

Fed up wit h Bas ic - try Fort h, if y ou can

cope with the stacking system. Keith and

Steven Brain look at the language and the

packages

Pick a printer

This review looks at six printers compatible

with the Dragon, ranging in price from

under E100 to over £400

Input/output

Ian Nic hols on guides you t hrough t he

Dragon' s input out put me mo r y — among

t he mos t import ant on t he ma p

Open File

Dragon Us er. Hobhous e Court , 1 9 Whit -

comb Street, London WC2

Published by Suns hine Books, Scot Pres s

Ltd

Typesetting by Ches ham Press, Ches ham,

Bucks. Print ed by Eden Fis her (Southend)

Ltd. Sout hendon-Sea, Essex.

Distributed b y S M . Dis t ribut ion, L o n d o n

SW9. 01-274 8611. Telex : 261643

Subscriptions

UK E8 f or 12 issues

Overseas E14 f or 12 issues

How to submit articles

The quality of the material we can publish in

Dragon User each month will, to a very great

extent, depend o n t he qualit y o f t he dis -

coveries that you can mak e wit h y our 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

of3u 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 by

typed. Pleas e leav e wide margins a n d a

double space between each line, Programs

should, whenev er pos s ible. 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. If y ou want t o hav e y our program

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

addressed envelope.

We pay for articles according to the length

and t he quality — it is wort h mak ing t hat

extra bit of effort.

We publish your programs: this month

Brick Out. a score routine, label printing.

Space Race, Nail and Thread and

Reaction

Dragon answers

4 9

Bugs. graphics, saving with hex. memory

maps C a t h y Hyde solves your problems

Competition Corner 5 0

Solve the puzzle to win a robot

Editorial

DRAGON DATA'S PLANS TO move upmarket this year. launching two bigger machines,

will bring it into an even stronger position to attack the educational market. This is one

area in which the Conservatives are particularly proud of their achievements, through the

micros-in-schools scheme. B u t h o w justiﬁed is their pride? And, mo re importantly fo r

Dragon Data, how free and open to attack is this market?

In fact, the Conservative record is less bright than they are willing to acknowledge, and

their achievements a re tarnished rather than burnished, Ma n y school children are still

never getting near a computer, o r are ﬁnding that their interests are not being matched

by the Conservative policies. S o far most secondary schools have no mo re than one

micro, and half the UK's primary schools are still left without a machine. The scheme's

declared aim is to provide schoolchildren with the instruction and hardware to prepare

them fo r the future. Obviously the Conservatives have a low expectation of schoolchil-

dren's survival — and high hopes of a fall in the birthrate,

The shortage o f machines is compounded b y divided government responsibilities.

The micros-in-schools scheme is sponsored by the Department of Industry but the actual

use o f the machines is mo re th e responsibility o f the Department o f Education and

Science. Th e junior Education Min iste r acknowledged this spring that it wa s no good

having the computers without the right software and admitted that a great deal more was

still needed. He also admitted that not all local education authorities had been able to

beneﬁt in equal measure. The Industry Department's response was to add small-scale

robot s to t he list of h a r d wa r e t hat it is willing t o s ubs idis e.

The micros-in-schools scheme is a lso put forward a s a p rime example of what the

Conservatives ca ll enlightened public purchasing, o r what others ca ll buying British.

Doubtless Clive Sin cla ir h a s so me unprintable opinions about h o w enlightened th e

scheme was when it excluded his machines, And Dragon Data, b y most counts the third

most successful British home computer manufacturer, is still excluded. For a party which

professes to believe in the virtues of the free market, the Conservatives are remarkably

keen to indulge in high publicity persuasion from above, while ignoring surges in popular

interest from below.

July 1983 Dragon User 3

V''\!

c l i n k s

.•

'\N

W C

ixat morc not) games fo

'\N

Draso1132

\ : ,

Apples: ﬁnd the stolen apples, then de-

/ Golden

feat the warlock. £5.95

N:,

Planetary Trader:

buy yo u r cargo, a n d l i ft y o u r 4

N,'\

•

ship. The hard part is delivery. e

£5.95

0 dragon,

but this is spells, a magic r i n g .?

'•

E8.45

the Rings'. not another 'Lord of t

,NN

series o f ?

aimed a t ﬁve graphic m a z e s .,"

children u n d e r 5 . "

£5.95

N N N

HAMBYSOFTWARE, Leverborgh, Isle of Harris

;

PA83 3TX

C N

Please send me:

Telephone 085 982239

: !

L I Apples L J Trader

S u r p r i s e E l Amazing

I-enclose a c hequepos tal or der for E

payable to Bamby Software

Name

Address

Tel: 01-769 2887

310 STREATHAM HIGH ROAD. LONDON SW16 6HG

Open Tues —Sal 10.30 am to 5.30 pm IClosed Mondays)

SOFTWARE FROM ALL THE BEST SUPPLIERS

— OVER THE COUNTER —

PLUS GROWING RANGE OF PERIPHERALS.

SEE IT BEFORE YOU BUY IT.

SAE appreciated for catalogue — but please specify

for which computer.

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Announce a New Game for the

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NEW! - BUFFER CLUB for regular customers.

Special Offers - Lectures - Foreign Trips -

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4 Dragon User July 1983

viSA — AC C ESS — AM ER iC AN EXPR ESS — D I N ER S CL UB

ALL CARDS WELCOM E

S O FTWARE

CASCADES NDO SE

L eo esL N

u •D A E

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GWENT

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0 0 0 A / B

SUPPLY CASSETTE 5 0 FOR

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I enclose c heque/ Ea

DU 7 83

MEMBER O F TH E COMPUTER TRADE ASSOCIATION — YOUR FAI R DEAL

GUARANTEE

Name

Address

Miul order on •

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

Page, Dragon User, Hobhouse Court, 19 Whitcomb Street. London WC2 7HF

Letters

Storing

data sets

WITH REFERENCE to David Law-

rence's article on ﬁle procedures

in your May issue, I woulo sug-

gest that listings 2 and 3 should

be modiﬁed as follows:

a) Lines 1050 and 1100 be mod-

iﬁed:

1050 OPEN •'O", t –1. U S

1100 OPEN " I " , E- 1 . ZYS

b) Two additional lines should be

inserted:

1045 INPUT " I N PU T F ILE

NAME": ZZS

1099 INPUT " I N PU T F ILE

NAME": ZYS

c) as a result of b), Line 1020

requires modiﬁcation at its end to

read

1020

ON G O

TO 1040, 1099

The result of this modiﬁcation

is that more than one set of data

can be stored and loaded for the

same program, each set being

easily identiﬁed by its individual

ﬁle name.

Seville 13 Holt,

Chorley

Hex

blunders

IWOULD like to congratulate you

on the May issue of Dragon User,

My only complaint is the poor

standard of the program listings,

particularly Hex. Whilst this was

only a slight annoyance for me. I

would imagine i t could cause

some headaches for an inexperi-

enced programmer.

The major faults in that prog•

ram were as follows:

Line 410 should read STEP-1

Line 430 should read FORI – 0

TON

Lines 540, 900 950. 1060 and

1110 should read PAINT

Line 550 should read PSET

(14,1.5)

Line 980 should read PSET

(196.169+1,8)

May I also give a small tip to

Mr Owen (or any other of your

readers who dislike typing): the

end of line 210 (after the colon)

and the whole of line 340 are

unnecessary, also lines 1200 to

1300 may be replaced by:

1200 IF AS<"A" OR AS,>"K"

THEN 1200

1210 A = ASC(ASS) –64

A lot of the repetitive typing of

co-ordinates may be saved by the

inclusion of a few FOR N E X T

loops.

P F Grubb,

Oldham.

Useful

advice

MAY I reply to two of the letters in

your May Issue and pass on some

more useful advice? S J Beal is

correct in thinking that the Dra-

gon has a delay built in to the

cassette operating system. This is

part o f the PRINT# –1 c om-

mand

When a PRINT* - 1 command

is found. the computer stores this

information in the cassette buffer

and then continues with the next

Basic statement. When the cas-

sette buffer has been completely

ﬁlled the cassette recorder i s

turned on and, after a short delay.

the data is written to tape. The

program then continues with the

next Basic statement. If the cas-

sette buffer is partially ﬁlled with

data it is ﬂushed on reaching a

CLOSE# –1 statement.

If some difﬁculty is experi-

enced in recording and recovering

data it is possible to increase the

delay time between the MOTOR-

ON and the SAVE routine. The

two locations which control the

delay time are 149 and 150.

Therefore if you POKE these loca-

tions with 255 it will delay the

saving procedure.

Anthony Edwards explains how

to reduce the amount of memory

reserved for graphics page 1 .

What he omits to mention is that

the default value for PCLEAR is 4.

le, on power-up the Dragon auto-

matically reserves 6K of RAM for

4 graphics pages whether you

need them or not.

Check this by switching off the

m c. switching o n again and

?MEM. This will show you that

there are only 24,871 bytes free

for Basic. I f you PCLEAR1 and

then ?MEM again you will see that

you now have 29,479 bytes free,

an immediate gain of 4.5K. This

is useful to remember for those

large text programs not requiring

any hi-res graphics.

I must say that I liked the

Character Generator program.

seeing lots of potential in this. By

using David Lawrence's tip on

memory saving I reduced the size

of array necessary to store an 8x8

pixel square from A(8,8) to A(2).

This allowed me to construct 26

graphic characters (instead o f

ﬁve) and store them in arrays

A(2) to 2(2). I PUT these into the

third quarter of the screen (page

3) so that I could save them onto

tape w it h CSAVEM"name".

4608, 6144, 1536. I could then

load those back from tape with

CLOADM'•name

from their locations on page 3,

andG E T

. store them back into the

arrays A(2) to 7(2) for use in my

t h e m

graphics programs. An extremely

useful facility, available on other

micros, but not originally avail-

able on the Dragon.

Just one tip to others wishing

to use these ideas. Occasionally

the program will crash with an

OM error message. Ignore this

and re-enter the orogram with

G0T09030, the program will be

reinstated, complete with graphic

characters and you can carry on

where you left off. The reason for

this is that the complicated mix-

ture o f GOTOs. GOSUBs. RE-

TURNs and jumping out of nested

loops results in the build up of

stack pointers.

If you have the patience to sort

Out the logic you can simplify the

procedure so that this does not

happen. Remember every GOSUB

should terminate with a RETURN.

Good luck!

Colin Mackie,

Harlech,

Gwynedd.

Keys for

Pacman

IN THE May issue of Dragon User

Pacman is a very good game. but

the ' M ' . l‘f and 'K• keys are

hard to use. So I use the cursor

keys. T o do this change lines

280. 290. 300 and 310 to read:

280 If OS = CHRS(94) THEN

M = M – 32

290 If OS = CHRS(10) THEN

M=M+32

300 If OS = CHRS(8) THEN

M =M – 1

310 If OS = CI-IRS(9) THEN

M=M +1

Even now it is still hard to keep

on pressing the keys for each

move of Pacman. So add these

lines:

271 I f OS 43= CHRS(94) OR OS

= CHRS(10) OR DS =

CHRS(9) OR OS = CHRS(8)

THEN 273

272 OS – CS

273 CS = OS

Now just push the arrow that

you want and Pacman will move

until you turn it in a different

direction or it comes across a

wall

Richard Holt,

Walsall,

Staffs

The right

commands

AFTER HEADING through the

Missile Command program pub.

lished in June I list below typing

errors.

1IF MM<50 OR INT

(MM)<>MM THEN 0

30 CLS: X-128 : Y=96 : TC=4

S=0 : N=0

180 PMODE3,1 : SCREEN 1.0 :

PCLS2 COLOR3,2

220 DRAW "C4,BM118,191;

E10; F10"

Delete line 360

460-500 replace C=C-1 with

TC–TC-1

570 FOR Z=1 TOM

610 IF Y>=MY(Z)–A AND

Y<=MY(Z)+A THEN SOUND

100.1 MX(1)=RNO(255):

MY(Z)=0 : N–N+1 : 5=5+1

620 IF N<MM THEN 590

Also in the section for movement

with keys

270 MS=INKEYS : IF MS–" •

THEN MS–NS

The POKE in line 20 (20 POKE

8,11FFD7,0) will cause some com-

puters to crash and i t will be

necessary to POKE 8 , 1

press reset) to CSAVE or CLOAD

programs. 0

IFF06.

Andrew Black.

( o r

Hereford

July 1983 Dragon User 5

Software Top 10

1 (1 ) The King

M i c r o d e

2 (4) Space War

M i c r o d e

3 (—) Defence

M i c r o d e

4 (6) Alcatraz II

M i c r o d e

5 (2) Katerpillar Attack

M i c r o c l

6 (—) Space Monopoly

M i c r o d

7 (—) Mansion Adventure

M i c r o d

8 ( 9) Ches s

a l

e a l

Data

9 (—) Typing Tutor

Data

10 ( 5) Dr agon Trek

S a l a m a

Chart c ompiled by Boots

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