Home

Vol 6 Issue 11 Jul 1986

1. 8 JULY tose SYDTRUG NEWS column A lt Character found at position specified by HL 2 lt Set if the operation was successful _ VIDEO POKE Registers Used AF BC DE HL B gt 2 Put the character in register C at the position specified by HL H gt Screen row 8 23 where is the top row L gt Screen column 8 79 where is the leftmost column C Character to be put at position specified by HL Z lt Set if the operation was successful SET CURSOR POSITION Registers Used AF B DE HL B 3 Move the cursor to the position specified by HL H Screen row 8 23 where is the top row L gt Screen column 8 79 where 8 is the leftmost column A lt Contains error code if an error occured Z lt Set if the operation was successful NOTE The cursor position is moved even if the cursor isn t currently displayed f GET CURSOR POSITION Registers Used AF B HL B gt 4 Obtain the current cursor position row amp column Screen row 8 23 where 8 is the top row Screen column 8 79 where is the leftmost column A lt Contains error code if an error occured H lt L H ll w BUFFER TO VIDEO Registers Used AF BC DE HL B gt 5 Moves a BLOCK of RAM to the Video RAM l HL Pointer to the user s RAM BLOCK to move to video HL lt Pointer to the last byte moved to video 1 A Contains error code if an error occured Z
2. 7 CONSEQUENTLY I ORDERED THESE FROM NAT PARTS AND CUSTOMER SERVICES WHO ARE STILL PHOTO COPYING THE MANUAL TD MY KNOWLEDGE THIS TOOK APPROXIMATELY ONE WEEK TO ARRIVE B SYDTRUG BROUGHT THE UNIT BACK IN THE SHOP AND TRIED TO FORMAT THE HARD DISK USING THE NEW SOFTWARE THEIR LDOS DISK AND THE INTERFACE LEAD THEY HAD PROBLEMS BUT TODK THE UNIT AWAY WITH THEM 9 THIS WAS BROUGHT BACK TO THE STORE AND WAS RECEIVED BY SERVICE ON 11 3 86 SERVICE SAID THAT IT WAS OK AND HAD NOT BEEN FORMATTED THAT WAS THE PROBLEM SYDTRUG COULD NOT GET IT TO FORMAT THE UNIT WAS RETURNED TO 2334 ON 17 3 86 WITHOUT THE THE INTERFACE AND POWER LEAD WHICH HAD BEEN LISTED ON THE REPAIR TAG 67618 THERE WAS ANOTHER DELAY OF A WEEK AS I WAITED FOR THE INTERFACE AND POWER LEAD TO BE RETURNED 16 THE UNIT WAS RETURNED AGAIN ON 19 4 86 AGAIN PROBLEMS IN THE FIRST FEW HOURS OF USE THEN IT WAS OK SERVICE RETURNED THE UNIT TO ME ON 16 5 86 AND SAID THAT THE UNIT S CASE HAD BEEN OPENED MENTIONED THIS TO SYDTRUG WHO WENT MAD APPARENTLY THE SERVICE STICKERS PEEL OFF EASILY AND THIS CAUSED THAT PROBLEM NO POWER LEAO WAS RETURNED AGAIN AND I HAD TO GIVE ONE FROM MY STORE STOCK a 11 TO CONCLUDE THE DEAL WAS 750 FOR THE UNIT AND SYDTRUG PAY ANY REPAIR BILLS THE TOTAL COST OF THE SERVICE BILL TO 2334 HAS BEEN 1678 25 PLUS APPROXIMATELY 75 IN CUSTOMER SERVICE CHARGES EG DISKS ETC SYDTRUG HAVE NOT PAID 1 SO FAR Pe REPLY Te TANDY from Michael Cooper NO
3. _ _Regi ered by Australia Post Publication No NBG 6767 To TT z w Fy iG n DA E 8 VE TATE RTE pE pw i i i su SYDNEY TRS 80 USERS GROUP NEWSLETTER P O BOX 297 PADSTOW 2211 Volume 6 Issue 11 July 1986 Title Author Page Editor s Soapbox Gary Bryce e Secretary s Sayings Darrell Hegarty 2 Group Positions Nominations Required Darrell Hegarty 3 Bits of Vice Jim Whittaker 4 The Comm Line Michael Cooper 4 Gamers Corner Morris Jones 6 Modem News Bob Barnes 7 Ldos Trsdos Corner Gary Bryce 7 Compdial CMD Wayne Mcillhatton 9 Keyboard PEEKing with BASIC Neil Porter il Mysteries of Filename Extensions Revealed Darrell Hegarty 12 TANDY Letter Neil Corkindale 14 A Reply to TANDY Michael Cooper 14 Public Domain Software o 15 Meeting News As always the first and second monthly meetings on the second and third Saturdays of mthe month will be held at the rear of Pattersons Florists Botany Rd BOTANY entrance from Chegwyn St while the third meeting Con the fourth Saturday of the month will be held at the ist Sefton Scout Hall 2 Waldron Rd SEFTON ail meetings commence at 1PM on the following dates July lth Botany August 9th Monthly General Meeting July 19th Botany August 16th Special Interest Meeting July 26th Sefton August 3rd South West Meeting Who s Who President Ted Romer 498 2399 _ Vice President a Jim Whittaker 772 2009 Treasurer Gordon
4. software controlled Should be an interesting demo please come indicate if Committee members CANNOT efficiently JULY 19 96 3 SYDTRUG NEWS _ Well that about covers it for this month sorry for the shortish column but I also wrote an articie see elsewhere in this issue which took up 4 bit of my time as well Happy computing sss GROUP FPOSTTIONS NOM ITIMAT IONS REQUIRED If we are to remain active as a Group we MUST have nominations for positions within the Committee and volunteer group for the ensuing year commencing September Following is a list of elected positions to be filled and non elected volunteer positions required and to go ahead ELECTED POSITIONS NOMINATIONS REQUIRED NG 1 President chairs both Committee and General meetings Ensures that the Group is running smocthiy and takes appropriate action the absence of and usually has 2 Vice president chairs meetings in President General backup to president some time to come up with some ideas 3 Secretary probably one of the heavier workloads Answers ali mail which requires an answer maintains the membership database takes and distributes minutes of all Committee meetings prepares agenda for same prints membership lists prints newsleter mailing labels etc etc the most important keeps the Banks ali funds controls the cheque book etc 4 Treasurer possibly books edits Has a fairly The Group will no
5. ANROID BAS Play ancient game of nim with the androids BASEBALL BAS Computerized basebal lt 1 or 2 players DOOMSDAY BAS Can you stop the destruction of earth FDRDOWNS BAS Bet on the ponies at FDR Downs GYPSY BAS Computer tells your future IMHOTEP BAS Become an Egyptian architect JUMBLE1 BAS Scramble words LONESTAR BAS Adventure in the old West MORSEPLY BAS Practice morse code CDDIGUT BAS Elimination game PEEKDRAW BAS Drawing board ROACHRAC BAS Race reaches down the hall SAVI OR BAS The human race needs a rescuer SCISSORS BAS Game of rocks scissors paper SHOOTGAL BAS Turn your TRS 86 into a rifle range SKETCH BAS Sketch pad STARBLAZ BAS Blaze across uncharted space STARS BAS Elimination game STINGRAY BAS Destroy the socialist empire TIGERSHA BAS Navigate the Tiger Shark into battle UNJUMBLE BAS Unscramble words WHEEL BAS Roulette PDGAME38 Games BSKTBALL BAS Computerized basketball 1 2 players CRYPTOSO BAS Solve cryptograms FTBALL1 BAS Use the computer as a grid iron FTBALL2 BAS Variation of computer football GOLDMINE BAS Search an abandoned mine for gold SYDTRUG NEWS GOLF4 BAS Play the computer 18 holes HANGMANS BAS Word guessing game HORSEBET BAS Can you pick the ponies LIFETWO BAS Build the perfect world MSTRMIND BAS Code breaking game POOL BAS Play pool and improve your geometry skills SLED BAS Jump the space sleds TREKIITI3 BAS Star Trek variation PDGAME31 Games ANAGRAM BAS Word game BOMSGUAD BA
6. Thus in line 2846 we need to check that NO key at all has been pressed i e IF PEEK 14591 then NO key at all has been pressed so return to the beginning of 2846 and rePEEK For keys L S and ANY other key we end up at line 2848 There are many other examples but you must have the idea by now and can try a few of your own variations The big questions is Is it all worth it If you have read this far then you must be interested in programming and if that is so then you must know that the easier it is for the user to use the more nit picking it is for the programmer to program Have fun Neil MYSTERIES GF FILENAITE EXTENSIONS REVEALED by Darrell Hegarty 02 560 9681 I have had a number of members remark tome that the content of the Newsletter is way over their head but they still like the Newsletter as it is s50 here is an attempt at either be in ASCII to their full problem is to load the program into a word processor an article for disk users who are relatively new to the world of flippies and floppies filename EXTENSIONS for MS DOS the in the I will begin with some common part which follows the or la filename These up ta 3 character extensions can give a whole new meaning to a filename and there are some standard extensions which are used for certain types of files There are also some reserved extensions CMD COM EXE BAT BAS JCL amp SYS are a few
7. Yes but the group has a Hard Disk Drive to show for it The article was presented as my experience in an effort to show how 1 feel about the whole episode I bear no animosity to thase involved but do hope that they learn from the experience In a later article I will present my views on Tandy the organization and its salesmen We will publish any experience good or bad al you have to do is tap it in and send it via the Bulletin Board Nominations for the committee are being accepted from now until the AGM Please please don t leave it all up to the same old people Its always easier to criticise someone else but if you don t give some input soon then we l just dry up and fade away My election speech comes later The group is selling Nashua Flippy Disks quaranteed for 29 88 per box of 16 Thats what we buy them for in bulk Hop in quick Would all COCO owners please give us some articles to publish We are also buying some COCO books eg i861 peeks and pokes for the COCO Whoops almost said 1661 uses for a dead sree Special Interest Groups SIG s As can only be expected the mainstays of our 1G6 s have run out of puff and ideas so it is now UP TO YOU no not up youd We have to keep our SIGs alive and we need your ideas Please help Next year 1 11 be able to give a few COBOL lessons but what are we going to do until then a subject then see me and we will be able to give you all the help and support tha
8. s issue they are all very much appreciated and especially those that are left in the News Room of the BBS or given to me on disk AS you Can see this is a bumper issue this month and I hope that this will continue for the incomming Editor after the AGM I know I will be doing my utmost to continue with articles for publication and I hope that some of you who have not managed to find time as yet will in the future Now off the specifics of the newsletter to which I generally tend restrict any comments and on to some points which have lately rankled me to the point of making comment in print I have previously tried to keep any critisisms off personalities especially when that person is not there At various times there have been disagreements and even slanging matches but where it involved other people I teft it up to them to defend themselves if they wished AS the slanging has now heen directed at me I will now take this opportunity to join in Boots and all I take great exception to the statement made at the June General Meeting by Jim Whittaker and related to me by four people at the Sefton meeting to the effect that It appears that the Editor has lost interest in the Newsletter and that HE lt Mr Whittaker will take action to see that the newsletter is not late again Particularly when I was not at the meeting to give the meeting an explanation of why the newsletter was late I was at the
9. instructions pass the return code back through the modules making up the chain For further reading on this SVC and Filtering refer to Chapter 2 Device Input Output Interfacing of Roy Soltoff s Programmers Guide to TRSDOS 6 and or the Software section of TANDY s Model 4 Technical Reference Manual Device Driver and Filter Templates pace 222 Registers Used depends on the chained filter modules IX gt Contains a pointer to the DCB assigned to the filter module This is recovered from the MODDCB field located in the module header NOTE IX should be saved before loading and restored upon return from CHNIO B gt Contains the I 0 direction code GET 1 PUT 2 CTL 4 C Contains the output character to GET or PUT l EXAMPLE CHNIO EQU 20 Declare CHNIO SVC LD C A Get char to PUT PFPUT LD B 2 sinit for PUT PUSH IX save the IX LD s IX lt PFDCB Grab the DCB vector LD A CHNIO Select SVC RST 28H 7Run SVC POP IX Recover DCB pointer RET Over the following months I will continue with these descriptions of the SVC s probably dealing with the System Control SVC s G IPL PAUSE G AS0RT G EXIT CMNDI CMNDR GERROR DEBUG G HIGH G FLAGS G BANK G BREAK CKBRKC amp CLS l mayat times devote the column to other issues but I will return to the SVC s until they have all been covered COMPO IALA CMD by Wayne Mcilihatton 681 1315 COMPuter DiALer is a programme 1 wrote to make
10. which you should NOT use for anything other than the correct file types I will attempt to cover TRS 88 type DOSes as well as MS DOS in the following table as the same of similar extensions are used for the two systems Similar conventions apply between the two systems as well There are some terms which will be used in the descriptions below which may need explaining i ASCII American Standard Code for Information Interchange this is a bit code with 128 possible combinations describing amongst other things the Alphabet It is used in microcomputers to store TEXT files which are readable by mere humans Sut my computer has 8 bit words you say what about the eighth bit ASCII only uses seven of the eight bits available the eighth bit being used during the transfer of machine code programs over the lines between computer and disk drive 2 TOKENISED A method of storing BASIC files on tape or disk so that they take up less room Each BASIC keyword or command is stored as a single byte on the disk This generally makes such a program unreadable by humans when read directly from the disk or tape 3 BYTE 8 bits of information Each bit may be a i or TRUE or FALSE ON or OFF HIGH or LOW 5 volts or 6 volts There are many different terms for the states of a bit all meaning the same The main thing to realise about a bit is the fact that it can have ONLY TWO states Bit is short for Binary
11. He has also kindly built a liitle add on relay box that permits me to change speed using the cassette relay in the Model 4 under software control Preliminary work has been done and I have had the BBS running at 1268 75 in test mode WOW does it go Unfortunately the mode switching box doesn t work quite right but this was caused by my specifications not Darrell s work He now has it back and is making a couple of mods to allow me to try further experiments When I have the 1208 75 operation functional this is how it will work SO PLEASE TAKE SPECIAL NOTICE The BBS will answer the phone at the 1286 75 rate to allow auto MODEMS to lock onto this carrier If after 8 seconds no 1286 75 MODEM is found at the calling end the tone will STOP BRIEFLY 1 sec and then return at 386 Baud for another 8 seconds If you have a manual 388 baud MODEM you will need to wait until you hear the speed change before connecting The Hard Disk has also arrived YEA and VERILY etc It works fine except I can t use it on the BBS without another type of hardware clock to one I am currently using a NEWCLOCK 8 Apparentiy there is a port address conflict between this clock and the Hard Disk 1 0 ports As soon as another clock can be built and tested with the Hard Disk I will make the changeover Changes to the Library mean that all catalogue listings show the most recent files first The DATE prompt now requires an ENDING date rather than a BEGI
12. Point pass arguments between your 1 available USR Variables in our cases except one we pass a string into the USR and get an integer out The BASIC statement takes the form Data Out USR Data In to be more specific in our case J USR C VARPTR BS The first thing a USR must do when called is to extract the input data from BASIC via a ROM call It then processes the data in some way and finally passes the result back to BASIC via another ROM call Study the code and you will quickly follow the technique 18646 i0050 16868 BASPRIMS BB2 HSH RAT HIT KX HH 10076 Include File for BBSDVR26 ASM 10088 16698 This module contains the BASIC Interface routines 18188 that work with SUPERBBS BAS Runtime Supervisor 180128 LOLSO 5 EE E EELEE ESE ETE EEE EEEE EEEE KK EET 18146 x 16156 3 BASIC Interface Primitives 18168 3 10170 5 HHH HKHH HH AHH KKK HH AL HK KKK EK KEE ERE 19188 102800 5 xxxxHKHKEX 16218 3 gt 180220 Get Varptr to HL 18248 10250 pRHHHHKHHHH 18268 16276 Get VARPTR to HL and length in B i8280 String is terminated by a BH byte 16290 18366 Returns 1603168 HL lt Points to ist byte in string 16326 B lt Length of string 10338 10346 IX is used 16356 l 10368 HLPARM CALL GETHL Get pass string VARPTR 18378 PUSH HL Transfer to 16388 POP IX IX 18398 Lb B C IxX Lenqth of string in B 18468 LD L C CIX 1 LSB of strin
13. Symonds 74 1901 Secretary Darrell Hegarty 560 9681 Newsletter Editor Gary Bryce 628 5058 Club 80 Sysop Michael Cooper 331 7136 CBBS Secretary Peter Wignell 759 8024 Hardware Co ordinator Errol Rosser 709 7646 MEMBERS if your newsletter label is still dated 86 06 then our records show that you have not yet renewed and as such this will be the sina newsletter you will receive SYDIRUG Bulletin Board CLUB 80 Bulletin Board operates for members seven days a week twenty four 24 hours a day on 02 332 2494 The data format used is as follows 8 data bits 1 stop bit No parity Full duplex CCITT Yel modem standard 300 bps set your modem to ORIGINATE mode Limited access is granted for visitors Articles for publication may be left in the News Room of CLUB 80 for collection by the Editor The contents of this publication are c 1986 by SYDNEY TRS 80 USERS GROUP All rights reserved Enquiries should be directed to the Secretary Sydney TRS 80 Users Group P 0 Box 297 PADSTOW N S W AUSTRALIA 2211 Material appearing in this publication may be reprinted in similar computer club newsletters and nonprofit publications if accompanied by the following notice Reprinted from SYDTRUG NEWS P O Box 297 PADSTOW 2211 SWOoTRUG NEWS x Efi S mant ce JULY 1 PSs Edi tor s Soar box by Gary K Bryce 628 5858 First of al I will take the time and space to thank al of the contributors to this month
14. digiT where binary means having TWO states FILENAME EXTENSIONS AST ASC for MS DOS ASCII but may be just plain text it can be read by LISTing TYPEing for MS DOS PRINTing to the printer or by loading into a WORD PROCESSOR If the file is NOT a BASIC file it CANNOT be loaded into BASIC It will generally give a Direct Statement in File error if this is the case Generally a BASIC file stored in ALWAYS an ASCII file so ASM ASM for MS DOS This is used to signify an ASseMbier source code file These files are normally created by an Editor Assembler before assembly to a Command CMD OR COM file Sometimes SRC SRC for MS DOS is also used but ASM is the preferred extension being automatically supplied by at least one Editor Assembler BAK BAK for MS DOS Usually signifies a BAcKup of the file with the same filename A lot of MS DOS programs such as word processors automatically create a backup BAK file before saving the document in the memory buffer to disk BAS BAS for MS DOS A BASIC source code file may or TOKENISED but is usually tokenised downloaded from a Bulletin Board sometimes give a Direct Statement in File error when attempting to load into BASIC This is generally caused by one or more lines being longer than 255 characters the maximum allowed length How is this so You may ask This happens when the program in question has been saved in ASCII and thus all the T
15. general meeting was hetd at Botany on the second Saturday of the month By the way did anybody spot our advert in Tuesdays Australian in the For Your Diary section Sorry it didn t have flashing LEDs Among the things we discussed was the fact that MISOSYS is advertising the complete commented assembler source code for TRSDOS 46 2 0 for 160 06 US The also have LOOS 3 1 4 for 20 88 US The group will be buying the first and we suggest that you all throw in and we do a bulk buy of the 314 DOS and become a fully registered user of at least one dos If we get enough we should be able to do a bulk deal Contact somebody on the committee if you are interested It should be about 35 68 46 68 landed Up till now we have allowed non members to partake in the services we offer e g PD Disks Re inking Year books etc Well in the tight of discussion it may be seen as running a business for profit From now on group services wilt oniy be available to group members Shortly we will publish a list of experts who can be contacted for help with anything from DOS to DBASE or Basic ta Bliss If you have some knowledge of a particular facet of computing and don t mind getting the odd cal from members in trouble then would you please give us your name for publication It was about here that Dennis popped up and concluded that his way of handiing Tandy and mine both end with the same result Well there are two answers to that
16. sPtr to end of string 12828 DEC HL Ptr to end of string 12030 SSLOOP LD A C sPrepare for pre test 12046 OR A Pre test for zero length 12858 JR Z SSEXIT sIf length thenRETurn 12868 LD A 26H sSpace code to Acc 12876 CP HL sCompare char amp space 12088 JR NZ SSEXIT sDone if not space 12898 DEC C sSubtract 1 from length 12186 DEC AL sPoint to 2nd last char 12118 JR SSLOOP 12128 12138 SSEXIT POP HL Get VARPTR to string 12146 LD CHL E sSet new length 12158 RET sExit to BASIC 12168 271898 SS 88608 88610 END EQU End of Program 80620 END Well thats the lot for this time Next time the final part of this series and hopefully lots more action on the BBS front Until then happy MODEMing Gamer Ts Corner by Morris Jones EARTHLY DELIGHTS Suggestive well er maybe Interactive fiction or adventure games as they are more commonly known have been immensity popular amoung users ever since they were first created on large mainframes that occupied rooms in the seventies being an attracive alternative for most people after tiring of Space Invaders Today I lock at yet another to surface from the cold stone halls of Silicon Valley where programmers are chained to their terminals and only let out on Sundays and the Count of Monte Christo s birthday Earthly Delights is a 64K adventure for the IBM PC which to me was a refreshing change from my earlier aimless wanderings through the sub
17. that Neil Corkindale thinks TANDY should be able to sell SYDTRUG goods that are not in working condition Uniike many of his customers we DO know the difference between a Hard Disk anda Horses Arse and thus are most unlikely to want to spend 758 of our money for what essentially was i x Power Supply 1 x Hard Disk Controller Card 1 x Plastic Box 1 x Hard Disk Drive Unit thoroughly fu d As secondhand parts the value is no more than 366 156 for Controller 80 for Power Supply 76 for Plastic Box 8 for Drive Unit Point 5 I have no dispute with this point Point Selling a Hard Disk Drive without cables manuals software and even a 240 Volt Power Cable is to say the least rather strange business practise Point 7 As at 24 6 86 we still have no manual from Tandy 6 months from date of purchase Never mind I got one from the U S in 2 weeks flat Point 8 Obviously the unit was taken away to ensure that it was a hardware problem and not simply an operator error not easy to establish without a user manual Point 9 Yet again TANDY service shows how effective they are in ensuring that the customers property is returned intact and complete Point 16 Again several points are covered here a According to TANDY service the problems were due to the mis alignment of a supposedly BRAND NEW ALIGNED TESTED and FACTORY SEALED 5 Meg Hard Drive Unit Sold at about twice the going rate for full heigh
18. that most of us use some version of Modem8 and knowing that there area few different versions around you will have to find the ENTRY POINT of your copy of Modem8 and change the EQU M8 in the source code of COMPDIAL to this entry point There are any number of programmes around that can tel you where a programme is entered such as cmdfilte Imoffset ect ect After you have assembied your version of COMPDIAL to disk its best to write a short JL file to do the loading ect such as this LOAD MODEM86 CMD COMPDIAL you can of course make the JCL file as long as you want so long as you know where the prompts ao etc etc AS you can see to use COMPDIAL you must LOAD Modem8 cmd in memory before running COMPDIAL which is ORGed above where Modems Sits 1 know that the Model 3 has a faster clock than the Model 1 so the loops in COMPDIAL will have to be lengthened so you get the right delays when dialing COMPDIAL calls a delay routine at 66H in ROM for its delays the EQU s you have to alter for a Model 3 are clearly marked in the source code COLGR 5 HHH HAH EEK KEK HE HEHK EKA EL KEELE EEE HEF AHFLERKEREFEE G11 3 COMPDIAL CMD 001280 3 COMPuter DIALer 00130 Written by Wayne McI thatton 06140 Sydney TRS 8 users oroup lt SYDTRUG 00150 3 C May 1986 USTA 5 HHHRKHRALRHAH KK AKRKKK KKH KKK HHH KHHE LE KKK EK EEK EK EKEFEEY 8178 NJEdas vers 4 2 Mode i 18 Change EQU M8 to the ENTRY point of your v
19. that must be answered before you can get started Although you are expected to type in the full response the program actually does a LEFT on the input string and checks only a single character The following line is an example 187 PRINT 832 Z SHALL I BUY SELL OR QUIT TRADING INPUT Q LEFT 1 1FQ B THEN SBELSEIFQ S THENIS9ELSE IFGS Q THENSB ELSE1 87 So altough you might be silly enough to fully type in SELL or QUIT only a single key input for the letters B 5 and Q is really needed The following lines are a suitable replacement 187 PRINT 832 Z2 SHALL 1 BUY SELL OR QUIT TRADING 189 IFPEEK 14337 gt 4THEN 9 ELSEIFPEEK lt 14348 8THEN 9SELSEIF PEEK 14348 2T HENS ELSEI 89 Line 189 translates as IF key B has been pressed THEN GOTO 198 ELSE IF key S has been pressed THEN GOTO 195 ELSE IF key Q has been pressed THEN GOTO 366 ELSE IF none of these three keys have been pressed THEN GOTO 189 and try PEEKing again NOTES You may have to do a bit of line renumbering to fit the changes in Also especially note that it is essential to return to line 189 after finding that none of the selections in the list have been chosen i e either the wrong key has been pressed or none at all If you chose to Stell next line of the program a problem arose when editing the The original program line follows 189 PRINT 832 Z2 WHAT ITEM SHALL I SELL TAIPAN sINPUTQS Q
20. the Avtek Multi Modem Il auto dial COMPDIAL was developed on a Model 1 using NEWDOS 86 for the Avtek Multi Modem Ii which is the setup I have so I can t guarantee that it works on other models 3 and 4 or other DOS s The ROM and DOS calls the programme uses I believe are common to most DOS s and TRS 86 s but again I am in the dark about compatibility We are a self help oroup of computerists so if you have a different setup to me and you change the programme to run on say a Model III then let others know what you did Ok COMPDIAL does nothing more than accept a telephone number of up to 15 digits in length dials the number and waits for a signal from the Avtek saying a Data Carrier Detect has been received upon receiving this signal COMPDIAL jumps to Modem86 in memory and away you ao Its wise to check that you enter the correct phone number into the computer because just as you dial a wrong number yourself COMPDIAL will dial the wrong number you give it and when a person answers there phone all they hear is your modem whistling Because the Avtek is waiting for a carrier tone ONLY it does nt know if its talking toa person a Busy line or a Queensland Cane Toad so make sure you enter the right phone number of course the programme prints on the screen each digit its dialing when you see that you ve entered the wrong number you can abort the dialing by hitting the break key or the key to return to DOS I assume
21. the following If it s a manual the ETI 699 300 Baud only 1985 MAY the AEM 4600 300 amp 1200 75 1985 DEC And for the auto everything kit whistles etc the AEM 4616 300 1200 75 1986 APRIL the ETI 684 150 9600 1200 75 1986 JULY P S so for my money a kit then its the AEM 4600 manual or the automatic ETI 684 top dog whistle blower and if I want one made up then it s an AVTEK Leas A TRS SDODOS Corner by Gaty Bryce 628 5658 In the May described the seven Character I 0 SVC s which are common to both LDOS 5 1 x and TRSDOS 6 x KEY DSP GET PUT CTL GPRT amp KBD This month I will deal with the remaining two Character 1 0 SVC s which are supported on TRSDOS 6 x only VDCTL and CHNIO issue As a note those registers listed as being used are either used in setting up the SVC altered in the execution ef the SVC or in the result output of the SVC and as such must be saved before setting up the SVC if their contents will be required after SVC execution VDCTL gt SVC 15 lt TRSDOS 6 x only This SVC is very useful for handling direct video access it performs various video functions depending on the function code passed in the B regiter they are as follows VIDEO PEEK Registers Used AF BC DE HL B gt 1 Get the character at the position specified by HL H gt Screen row 23 where 6 is the top row L gt Screen column 8 79 where 6 is the leftmost
22. very I have enclosed a copy of to my superiorssnatural ly seriously indeed Yours faithfully signed Neil Corkindale Store Manager notorious Hard Disk for the BBS JULY 1 F86 page 2 MODEL 3 HARD DISK FOR SYDTRUG 26 1138 1 GOODS BOUGHT ON 7 12 85 TKT NO 293431 50LD BY STEVE COOPER PAYMENT WAS BY CHEQUE 2 GOODS SENT OVER FROM PERTH ALTHOUGH THE GOODS WERE ORIGINALLY FROM THE THE NOW CLOSED DOWN STORE OF SUBIACO sACCORDING TO THE MANAGER THERE AS FAR AS HE WAS CONCERNED THE GOODS WERE OK 3 ACCORDING TO MIKE GREGORY lt CWHO WAS PRESENT DURING NEGOTIATIONS THE UNIT WAS TO BE SOLD FOR 758 ON A STRICTLY AS IS BASIS IE ANY REPAIRS WERE TO BE PAID FOR BY SYDTRUG NO MANUALS CAME WITH THE STOCK ETC 4 THE GOODS WERE RETURNED TO THE REPAIR DEPT lt WHO RECEIVED IT ON 24 12 85 0N 3 1 86 THE GOODS WERE RETURNED TO 2334 WITH A TECHNICIANS REPORT WHO SAID IT WAS B E R AND WOULD COST ABOUT 968 TO REPAIR A SCREW HAD BEEN PUT IN THE BUBBLE BUT ALTERATIONS MODIFICATIONS ETC HAD BEEN MADE WITH A VERY POOR LEVEL OF EXPERTISE BY THE WAY IT TOOK SYDTRUG FROM THE 7 12 85 TO 22 12 85 TO RETURN THE GOODS j 3 ON 7 1 86 STEVE COOPER RETURNED THE GOODS TO SERVICE WHO RETURNED THE GOODS TO 2334 ON 24 2 86 THE CHARGE WAS 968 25 6 SYDTRUG INSISTED THAT SOFTWARE LEADS ETC WENT BACK WITH THE ORIGINAL REPAIRCIE 22 12 86 ACCORDING TO PERTH NO ACCESSORIES WERE SENT QVER AND NONE WERE LISTED ON THAT ORIGINAL REPAIR TAG 7994
23. 8998 119090 11818 11428 11639 11046 11658 11866 11676 11886 11698 11168 11118 11128 11138 141148 11158 i1169 11170 11189 11190 11209 11210 11220 11238 11248 11258 112468 11279 11289 11290 11308 11326 11338 11348 11358 11378 11388 11398 11488 11418 11428 11438 11448 11458 11468 11476 11488 11490 11508 11518 11526 11538 11535 11540 11558 11568 11578 11588 11598 11498 11618 11426 11636 11648 11656 11668 11678 11688 11698 11788 1171 11728 11738 11748 11758 11768 JR GSTOER LD JR HEKEEERKE KEEKEKEKE CALLed as RETurns a a a Hou Ww tt 2 3 GSEXIT and exit HL FFFEH jJ 2 GSEXIT and exit x W Qutput a String 4 J USR2 VARPTR AS D OK Carrier Lost Error Timeout during XOFF ESC or Ct1 C gt fromCALLer Basic String output routine for SUPERBBS BAS 3 PUTSTR CALL HLPARM sB Length HL gt ist Char CALL OUT STR 4Send String JR C PSCDER 3Go if Carrier Lost Error JR 2 PSTOER Go if Timeout Error CP 1 sCheck forCALLer abort JR Z PSABRT 3Go if lt ESC gt or lt Ct1 C gt LD HL sAll Done OK PSEXIT JP PUTHL sExit to BASIC passing HL PSCDER LD HL FFFFH yJ 1 JR PSEXIT 3 amp exit 3 PSTOER LD HL FFFEH 3J 2 JR PSEXIT amp exit 3 PSABRT LD Hi FFFDH 3J 3 JR PSEXIT amp exit 3 a 3 s HER KKRKKKES x 5 Gutpu
24. And to it they have the AEM 4610 This kit is packaged at Gosford and distributed through the mag Again the heart is the World chip so it is to be assumed that this one would be ok and have frills lt 7 gt FINALLY the latest to come on the scene in kit form will be the ETI 684 and no doubt this will be better whistle blower etc The ETI 684 pcb sets will be commonly available but unfortunately the saga of it spread cut over x number of magazines makes it difficult to follow One would hope that ET package the 2 modems they have presented into a MODEM BOOKLET One point I raise is Do we the humble operator need a whistle blower No doubt if it is to be a remote operated unit e g a bulletin board then it is a MUST But for value and less number of do dads to break down the manual ones must be considered priority one courtesy BOB HAWKE The commercial ones available also have reputations which if honestly printed one would never be out of court It is advisable to have a telecom approved unit but there is no doubt it won t work any better if it s got a sticker on the back The more recent ones to come available are the NICE W A amp Thunderer at Bass hill and the new Dataphone 2 D S E wow to name a few However if it has the 7916 then I don t believe there would be much difference between them all Bottom line dollars what it does and backup service available SUTARY Se for the ordinary do it yourself kit
25. K i e FORZ2 1T0306sNEXTZ2 SYDTREUG NEWS JULY 1935 This needs to be placed after every screen question It allows you to lift your finger of the previous selection key but no time is lost because it takes you more than 1 second to read the next question anyway e g 195 is now i 195 PRINT 832 Z2 WHAT ITEM SHALL TAIPAN FORZ2 1 T0308 sNEXTZZ I SELL Ed Note A better solution until keys are no longer depressed next line would be to scan the keyboard then continue with the 195 PRINT 832 Z2 WHAT ITEM SHALL I TAIPAN TFPEEK 145913 COOTHENI9IS SELL This has the advantage of looping to itself until all keys are released and continuing to the next line as soon as all keys are released So that if you hold a key for longer than 1 second it won t fali through to the next line and result in the original problem This problem becomes more apparent when there is a series of questions that require a YES NO response This is a pain in the neck when running the Inn Keeper program for The Temple of Apshai game There are several questions of the type Hast thou a of Wilt thou bua that require a YES NO response The originai program insists that you press lt ENTER gt after every single key entry 8y PEEKing the keyboard you save yourself a lot of typing and time but if you don t include the above loop you could accidentally say NO to 4 or 5 questions in a row if you a
26. LEFTS Q 1 sPRINT S832 2 s FG O THEN21 BELSEI FQ S THEN Z3BELSEIFQS A THENZ5 ELSEIFQ G THEN278ELSE1 89 Where O is OPIUM S is SILK A is ARMS and G is GENERAL goods Remember that the program originally asked you to waste time actually typing in the WHOLE of each word The replacement lines are as follows necessary renumbering as 195 PRINT 832 2 WHAT ITEM SHALL 1 SELL TAIPAN 194 IFPEEK 14338 1 28THEN21 ELSEI FPEEK lt 14346 8THEN236ELSE IFPEEK 14337 2THEN2S ELSEIFPEEK 14337 1 28THEN2 7GELSE196 Line 196 translates as IF key O has been pressed THEN GOTO 21 ELSE IF key S has been pressed THEN GOTO 238 ELSE IF key A has been pressed THEN GOTO 25 ELSE IF key G has been pressed THEN GOTO 276 ELSE IF none of these keys have been pressed THEN GOTO 196 and try PEEKing again Well the tine looks perfect so what was the problem This method of single key input is FAST compared to other methods So if in the first question above you had selected Stell the S key before the next question you have no time to lift your finger off you find that you ve selected S itk in whether you wanted to or nat Sort of wrecks your game a little What is needed is a delay loop which slows the response time down just enough to give you time to lift your finger of the key before the next screen question appears but not too long to negate the speed of PEEKing the the keyboard About i second is O
27. MS DOS has a similar type of file called a BATCH file which uses the extension of BAT but is rather limited in comparison Ki K32 K48 K64 ete Usually indicates the memory required to operate the program LIB LIB for MS DOS LiBrary file extension usually used with compilers as their Library of subroutines LC Scripsit Lower Case file LST Microsoft BASIC Compiler LiST file Mi M3 M4 These extensions usually mean that the file is a Model 1 3 or 4 version The program could be a BASIC or Command file MUS MUSic files for CHORD CMD Model 1 3 4 NOW lt NOW for MS DOS This extension is usually associated with the filename of README A text file to be read BEFORE using the disk or programs on it as it usually tells how to use the programs or contains other important information NTS lt NTS for MS DOS Virtually the same as DOC This file is a documentation file in ASCII NTS stands for NoTeS l OBJ OB8Ject code files usually the same as machine executable code but not yet finalised for execution ORC ORChestra 86 85 96 music files OVL OVL for MS DOS This extension indicates an OVerLay file for the program indicated by the filename DOS overlays are also sometimes given this extension The OVL extension can also take the form of OV for OVerlay number PCL PCL for MS DOS Files with this extension are invariably ELECTRIC PENCIL text files PENCIL is a
28. NNING date this eliminates the system searching for a starting date and allows you to find the goodies quicker BUILDING YOUR AN BBS Fart 3 Last month you will recall I discussed the file output routines used by the BBS system That was the last of the strictly 2 B8 code to be used This month I will show you the TOP Level routines that BASIC program and the machine language over the past 4 months routines published All of the programs expect some parameters passed from BASIC as a STRING arguement and return an INTEGER Status Code The status code can be used by your BASIC program to determine what course of action to take For example one error code informs that the Carrier signal from the caller has been lost You can then take the appropriate action depending on your needs Some quick background on USR User Subroutines as defined by Microsoft BASIC You have calls numbered as USR to USR9 and each of these will have an entry address The entry address is set in BASIC using the DEFUSR statement one for each of the 18 For example to tell BASIC that a USR numbered 3 started in memory at address F 66H you would use a statement such as DEFUSR3 amp HFG8G You must tell BASIC this address BEFORE When calling the USR from BASIC you have 2 variables to play with One variable is used to pass data into the USR and the other is used to get data out Depending on your program these can be Strings Integers or Floating
29. OKENS i byte remember are E X P A N D E D cut keyword The ONLY way to correct such a find out the offending line number s and split the linets if at all possible This will be usually be possible because the offending Jlinets will probably be multiple statement lines with a colon separating each statement BASIC programs BAT No direct TRSDOS equivalent BATch file processing for MS DOS machines allows a form of automated execution of a series of DOS commands and executable programs Very useful for menu oriented operation den nea JY 1 ess 43 SYDTRUG NEWS BLD Usually a file built by the DOS command BUILD This is normally a DO file for automatic processing Note that not all DOS s have the BUILD command Bol This is an extension used by the later versions of Multidos to indicate that the file is a BASIC overlay file CIM Normally a Core IMage file This type of file is created by a Special form of the DOS DUMP command and IS NOT executable or cannot even be LOADed into memory It is readable by most disk zap programs and is normally used in debugging CMD lt COM or EXE for MS DOS Signifies executable code Any file with these extensions can be directly executed by the computer just enter the filename without the extension and the computer will execute the file These CMD or COM files are written in machine code and are normally loaded into m
30. OS with 02288 HANGUP LD D 6 the key 229 SL LD 8C 1 allow line to settle 81426 DB BAH 82386 CALL DELAY after hanging up 81438 D8 3 62318 DEC D 01430 ENTKEY DM PRESS ENTER KEY 82326 OR A 81448 DB 3 82338 JR NZ SL 614468 MESS3 D8 GDH 82346 JP RD No carrier redial 147 MESS4 DM Busy signal or noisy line 02356 BUSY POP 8c 81488 D8 3 82366 8USYI LD 8 8FFH monitor carrier line 1498 RESETS amp DISCONNECTS MODEM FROM THE TELE LINE 82376 SUSY2 LD A E8H for loss of carrier tone 156 RESET LD A 191 82388 BIT 5A recheck carrier 01518 OUT lt EAH A 82396 JP NZ LC carrier dropped out 01520 RET 82448 DJN2 BUSY2 153 MESSI DB 191 82418 RET carrier good JULY 1 SFSes 1 1 SYDOTRUG NEWS 62426 END START Kerbhoard Peeking with BASIC by Neil Porter I have frequentiy been continually press lt ENTER gt after frustrated at having to a single key input too The INKEY function is one However this often produces those funny black tines that flicker across the screen 1 did read n explanation of exactly what the cause of this is somewhere but I forget now Something to do with the screen hardware The technique of PEEKing the keyboard is cleaner and more versatile method of obtaining single key input It is obviously not as widely known as it should be judging by the number of otherwise excellent commercially available programs that insist on you typing in a single key fol
31. S Defuse the bombs FOKUL BAS Return to your space craft before the Fokuls GUESS BAS Guess the number game INBTWEEN BAS Another quess the number variation KAMIKAZE BAS Go on a suicide mission NEWPOWER BAS Control a neuclar power plant OTHELLO2 BAS Variation of this board game PICARIA BAS Medieval advanture POKERI BAS Can you bluff the TRS 88 at poker STARGEM BAS Find the lost Stargem STRMUSIC BAS Music Creator SUPFOKUL BAS Enhanced version of FOKUL SWORDS BAS Fence with the computer TARGET8 BAS Word game XWING BAS Pilot a rebel fighter against the Empire YRON6 BAS Fly the Xyron space craft YAHTZ BAS Variation of dice game PDGAME32 Games AMAZE BAS Maze printout BANDIT BAS Try to beat this slot machine BIORYTHM BAS Biorythm printing program BRICKS BAS Stop the brick before it breaks the window COKES BAS The loser of this game has to be buy the Cokes DICE BAS Roll the dice and know when to stop FIVECARD BAS Five card poker game JUSTLUCK BAS Version of Chuck a luck MAGICSG BAS Peg puzzle MATCH BAS Don t remove the last match from the r Ow MUSIC BAS Music Maker Programs NAUGHTS BAS Naughts and Crosses is Britsh Tic Tac Toe ORCONV CMD Convert Orchestra 88 files QRCONYZ DOC Documentation for ORCONV CMD ORGAN CMD Organ simulation for Model I or III ORGAN4 CMD Organ simulation for Model4 PAR2 BAS Golf game PLUS1 BAS Trace the paths REVERSE BAS Reverse your list before the computer does RISK BAS Version of board game RNDWORDS BAS Wo
32. TE This letter expresses the opinions of the author and not necessarily those of SYDTRUG Most members would have seen the letter received from Neil Corkindale of the Bankstown TANDY store and published elsewhere in this newsletter Because I was the prime motivating factor in having SYDTRUG purchase the now I felt moved to respond to the facts get in the the letter As Neil says never let way Of a good story Since the letter makes several I will deal with each in its turn points Point 1 I have no dispute with this Point 2 This begs the question Did the Manager know the goods were IN FACT in working condition or perhaps just ASSUME l Point 3 The unit was purchased NOT As Is but rather as A second hand but working shop demonstration unit Point 4 There are several issues covered in this one point a The long delays were due to the fact that Christmas Was near t m Ea JULY 1 FSS b I reject the implication categorically that we conducted Alterations Modifications etc had been made with a poor tevel of expertise If you want a definition of Poor Expertise just lock at any Model 4 Logic board wires and mods everywhere like like tangled spaghetti straight from the factory Cc From the amount of Customer Support that SYDTRUG needs to provide to TANDY purchasers it seems to it seems to me that any poor level of expertise is more likely to be found at store level d I am amazed
33. WDOS utilities NEWSCRIP BAS Quick reference for NewScript 7 8 PERMUTE BAS Calculates permutations and combinations PRODUCER RC Quick reference for The Producer SINEWAVE BAS Calculate sine waves VISICALI QRC Quick reference for VisiCalc VICICAL2 QRC Quick reference for VisiCalc PISCLATMHER No Patent liability is assumed with respect to the use of the information has been in the preparation of this publication TRS 88 Users Group no responsibility for errors east assumed for While every precaution the Sydney or it s appointed office bearers assume or omissions Neither i5 any damages arising from the use of any contained herein apmation containe herein af
34. al BINDIST BAS Binomial distributions DAYDIFF BAS Calculates number of days between two dates DECBASE BAS Convert decimal to base 2 to 16 DIALER ASM Assembly file for DIALER CMD DIALER CMD Telephone dialer program ENG2MET BAS Convert English to metric EXPRESS BAS Expression input output EXPRESS DOC Documentation for EXPRESS BAS INOUT FOR Assigns logical unit numbers for FORTRAN LINRCOEF BAS Correlates and interpolates two sets of data LPDESC ASM Create DATA statements in LPDESC BAS LPDESC BAS Print lowercase letters with descenders MATRIX BAS LPDESC DOC Documentation for LPDESC BAS MERGLN ASM Merge short BASIC lines into longer ones MERGLN BAS Merge short BASIC lines into longer ones MERGLN DOC Documentation for MERGLN BAS MULTSORT BAS Sort alphanumeric or numeric data STDDEVI BAS Calculates mean deviation and variance SUBINOUT TXT Documentation for INOUT FOR and TESTIO FOR SUPAS S ASM Assembly file for SUPASS CMD SUPASS CMD Returns checksum byte for Super Utility Plus SUPASS DOC Documentation for SUPASS CMD TESTIO FOR Demonstration program for INDUT FOR TRIGFUNC BAS Natural and derived trigonometric functions TRSPATCH BAS Patches for TRSDOS 1 3 PDUTILI6 Utilities EWEBSTER QRC Quick reference for Electric Webster NEWDBASI QRC Quick reference for NEWDOS BASIC NEWDBAS2 QRC Quick reference for NEWDOS BASIC NEWDOSi7GRC Quick reference for NEWDOS utilities NEWDOS2 QRC Quick reference for NEWDOS utilities NEWDOS3 GRC Quick reference for NE
35. ast 33ms 81196 JR NZ MAX 82828 LD BC T2 81280 RET swe got the enter key 928636 CALL DELAY 61216 MESSS5 DM CALL UNSUCCESSFUL 62646 POP BC Get org digit 61226 DB 63 82656 DJNZ X2 dec it pulse again 123 MESS2 DM Dialing number now 62048 LD BC T3 sdigit delay 86 ms 81246 DB 3 82876 CALL DELAY 91258 TITLE DM COMPUTER DIALER 32086 INC HL spoint next in buff 81246 DB BAH 62698 JR DIALNUM 1276 DM f C 1986 by W Mcilihatton 021060 CARRIER LD B 14H Increase for Mod 3 91286 D8 GAH 21168 CDR PUSH 8C save numb of loops 91298 DM 2 Sydney TRS 8 Users Group SYDTRUG 82128 LD BC 1 pdelay 91396 D8 BAH 62138 CALL DELAY 81318 DC 64 179 821468 IN lt BESH sRead modem status 61328 Di BA AH 82158 BIT 5 A Carrier detected 61338 DM LOAD MODEM86 into memory before running 621468 JR 2 BUSY Yes make sure COMPDIAL 82176 CALL ABORT Read K B 01348 DB BAH 62188 POP BC get numb of loops 1358 DM Set the modem to ORIGINATE and 62198 DJNZ CDR flick the connect 62288 POP AF time out clean up stack 81368 D8 BAH 2216 CALL RESET shang up modem 81378 DM switch to MANual COMPDIAL will dial 62226 LD A 1FH the remote 88S repeatedly 82238 LD HL 3DC H Clear 81388 DB BAH 82248 LD CURPOS HL The 81378 DM until the remote modem answers You may 62258 CALL PRTCHR Screen ABORT dialling with 62248 LD HL MESSS 01488 DB BAH 62278 CALL WRITE 81418 DM the BREAK key or return to D
36. e Country and interstate members may order via mail by sending a cheque or money order for 5 08 per disk plus 1 66 postage for each 4 disks or part therof ordered to SYDTRUG PO Box 297 PADSTOW NSW 2211 Cheques should be made payable to Sydney TRS86 users Group please Since this is the last release of the PD software all disks may now be ordered or purchased from the PD librarian at Botany meetings It is suggested that the first disk purchased be the catalogue and this way you may see what is available _PDGAME27 Games BACKPACK BAS Backpacking expedition BACKPACK INS BACKPACK instructions CHECKERS BAS Game of checkers CONVOY BAS Youre in charge of an army convoy GOMOKU BAS Japanese five in a row game PINBALL BAS You can t tilt this pinball game QUBIC BAS Variation of dice game REALTREK BAS Star Trek variation STARLANE BAS Keep trade lanes open from planet t planet TROLGGLD BAS Can you find the troli s gold PDGAME2Z8 Games DRAWPOKR BAS Play draw poker with the computer GAMEPLAY BAS Eight games of chance and skill LUNAREXP BAS Lunar lander amp explorer MEDIADV BAS Medieval adventure i POTATGES BAS The invading Space Potatoes are here SALAMI BAS Rule the mythical kingdom SCIFI BAS Science fiction episode SLOTIZII BAS Slot machine variation SPACEGAL BAS Space battle game SPACTREK BAS Star Trek game variation STARWARI BAS Star Trek game variation STUDPGKR BAS Play five card stud poker PDGAME29 Games
37. ed upon what has gone before 3 Dennis also has a way of creating RULES FOR RULES SAKE where the latest farce is tc 4 took ahead at what you can acheive and strive for some attainable goals Will take each point and give my opinions of them 12 If his penchant anything and everthing for trying to take the glory for that has been done by the committee over the last two years is an example I don t think much of his ideas on management The actions of the committee have been a combined effort of ali members past and present and will I hope continue to be so 2 If Denis and Geza lt along with the other committee members had been static and only concerned with what had been done before we wouldn t have the excellent BBS thank s Mike the Public Domain Library the Ribbon Re inker the group Modem Public Liability Insurance at group meetings and simple things like the membership badges and the Publication Library Because all of these services have been a result of newsletter to be the hard work done by all members of the Committee over the last two years 32 I don t know what he means about the latest farce as this business about UNOPENED MAIL was first raised by the secretary earlier this year after he complained that he was not receiving the mail from Al Bizys in an UNOPENED condition see Letter to the Editor in the March issue and Secretary s Sayings in the Apri
38. emory as a core image and executed The MS DOS EXE files are slightly different and are rather slower in loading These EXE files are usually the result of a program initially written in BASIC or some other high level language and then compiled CHN Files with this extension are usually the result of the Microsoft BASIC Compiler and are the final executable code They are run by issuing the command BRUN filename There must bea file called BRUN CMD on the disk to execute these files MS DOS has no direct equivalent COB COB for MS DOS Usually signifies a COBOL source file CTL Superscripsit control or system files which make up the complete Word Processing system DAT DAT for MS DOS gt DATA file usually created by a BASIC program and accessed by the statement OPEN This extension could also be used for any other type of DATA storage file accessed from any program DEM DEM for MS DOS A DEMonstration file of some kind usually in BASIC but could be almost anything DIF VISICALC Data Interchange File One of the two extensions used for Visicalc files and used on this particular method of data saving DOC pOC for MS DOS Usually DOCumentation for another command file or BASIC program and quite often a Word Processor document These files are plain ASCII and cannot be loaded into BASIC They can be read by LISTing TYPEing for MS DOS to the screen PRINTing to
39. en mildly confident that you may be able to help others on a particular aspect or more than one aspect of TANDY computers please contact ME either by phone or at metings and give details I wil add you to the list Each member is not limited to one subject nor is each subject limited to one member Think about it yet another G 0 Y A project but none the less a VERY important one for the month of May is a little Treasurer gets the hang of using The financial report more detailed as the VISICALC facilities to non members along The report follows Income to 31 5 86 Expenditure to 31 5 86 New members 199 95 BBS phone 38 08 New BBS memb 24 66 Newsletter print 108 08 Member renewa 168 86 Newsletter post 62 72 BBS renewal 46 88 Newsletter sundries 36 88 Items for sale 414 88 TOTALS 837 63 228 72 The members at the Botany meeting in May decided that the time was not yet ripe to hold an MS DOS meeting so we have dropped the subject for the time being but it WILL be raised again 1 can assure you There were about 20 phone enquiries about the Group 5 new members anda number of mail enquiries during May There was also an advertising blurb for a do everything modem for a mere 1808 06 odd an enquiry for some software for one of our clock projects more updates on PENCIL from Tony Briggs an enquiry for hardware one about CP M and some samples of graphics printed on a Gemini printer T
40. er table Some programs usually word processors have a default extension which is given to the document files when they are saved PENCIL is a notable one and gives the extension of PCL to its documents unless the user stipulates his her own extension Often on a disk you will see a program called RUNFIRST BAS RUNFIRST BAS for MS DOS or a file called README NOW CREADME NOW for MS DOS or similar You should do just this as the program or file will usually give you important instructions for using the rest of the disk This is becoming more frequent with more programmers distributing their software documentation on disk It is easier and cheaper to duplicate this way Naturally the file called README NOW CREADME NOW cannot be read by loading into BASIC you MUST LIST TYPE or PRINT this file to read it The listing can be paused after each screenful to read see your 00S manual for how to do this The above list is by no means complete nor is it meant to be hard and fast rules which MUST be followed It is merely a guide to the use of filename extensions and the meaning of some of the more common ones I will follow up with more articles for beginners time permitting in future issues of the Newsletter Please let me know either by phone or a short note of some subject you would like to see in the Newsletter and I will try to write an article for YOU The following is the reply from the Manager o
41. ersion 08178 of Modem8 You will have to lenghten Ti amp T2 6200 for Model 3 faster clock T2 33ms must be at 621 least half of Ti 6ms You will also need to 6 22 3 increase T3 for a Model 3 T3 is the delay 623 3 between each digit 86 ms or more COZ4D HRHKKAKAKKAE KKK HHHH EK HEE KE REE E HE KEKE REEEREKREKEEE BEES 88258 SCAN EQU 862BH sRom char input 626 PRTCHR EQU 8633H sRom char print 080270 DELAY EQU 668H Rom delay routine 80288 CLS EQU 1C9H Rom clear screen 6060298 CURPOS EQU 4 26H Cursor position 08368 DOS EQU 4 2DH DOS return vector 08318 M88 EQU B5 AH Change to suit 6326 Ti EQU 122FH Increase for M3 68336 T2 EQU 9 17H Increase for M3 68348 T3 EQU F amp H jincrease for M3 00356 pm mmr renee rere nn nnn nen cow e nn m m e 88368 ORG C GH 6080378 START CALL CLS 86388 CALL RESET 88396 LD HL TITLE 68488 CALL WRITE 68418 L LD HL 3FC H 22 60428 L D CURPOS HL 864386 LD HL ENTKEY 68448 CALL WRITE 00458 CALL MAX 66468 Li LD A 1FH cls from cursor to end 66476 LD HL 3D66H pof screen 60486 LD CURPOS HL 88496 CALL PRTCHR 88508 LD HL MESS 1 88518 CALL WRITE 86528 LD HL BUFF 6080538 PUSH HL Save start of buffer 86548 LD B 15D Max 15 chrs for tele 68558 CALL INPUT 08566 LD A 3 Byte 3 ends message 68578 LD CHL A Terminate input 68586 POP HL stest for null input 88596 LD A CHL 66666 CP 3H sNo tele number entered 68618 JR Z Li slo
42. f the TANDY Bankstown store to Jim Whittaker s column in the June issue of SYDTRUG NEWS reproduced EXACTLY as it was received by me warts and all I have formed my own private opinion to the saga and it will remain private I can only suggest that you form your own opinion as well and if you wish to relate any of your own experiences GOOD or BAD with TANDY please fee free to do so via this Newsletter But let s not have a long drawn out slanging match just for the sake of saying something nasty page 1 Tandy Electronics Australia Car Brandon Avenue and Chapel Road Bankstown NSW 2280 The Secretary SYDTRUG P 0 Box 297 Padstow NSW 2211 Tuesday i7th of June 1986 Dear Mr Hegarty Thank you for sending me a copy of June s SYDTRUG News it certainly made interesting reading As I believe there are still some responsible people at SYDTRUG I am sure you will only be too happy to allow my side of the story to be told Naturally I expeet this to be printed in a future copy of SYDTRUG News and I await written confirmation from you concerning this matter view detract from the magazine they Although the facts from my point of Mr Whittaker s eloquent contribution to do however give a truer and more balanced view of the problem What readily springs tomy mind is the well known saying Why spoil a good story with the facts the facts that I have submitted such complaints are treated
43. for Tittle or no return Well I know you will all strive just that little harder to get onto next years list Until then or next month whichever comes first regards Jim Whittaker THE COMM LINE by Michael Cooper lt SYDTRUS Sysop Lots of news this month about the BBS and also Part 5 of the continuing series on building your own BBS or remote System To begin with here is the BBS news JULY 17 85 SyYDTRUG NEWS BES NEUS Well so much has happened in the last month I barely know where to commence however 1 11 do my best to cover everything Current callers now exceed 12 166 and I m pleased te report renewed activity by lots of members A few old friends have finally remembered to give to system a ring to see whats happened and most were rather surprised at so many changes The Model 4 purchased by SYDTRUG to run the CLUB 86 BBS is now back with me and is running the system at the moment I have altered to software to allow it to run with a RAMDISK as drive this has caused lots of changes The first is the running speed which has improved by over 15 An additional benefit forme is the release of about 18K of high memory which held LDOS system files SYSRES ed in the configuration file You will see the effects of this extra memory as I start to add more features in each room The AVTEK Multi MODEM used on the BBS has been modified by Darrell Hegarty to permit 1286 75 operation as well as 38 Baud
44. g address 18416 LD H CIX 2 MSB of string address 16428 RET Done 18448 LO4SG 5 HH RA HHH AH AKA HKHK AK AK KALLE K ELE 16468 i 16478 USR Mainline Routines 1804B0 LO49D 5 HHH HH HHH HHH HH HAHAHAHA KKH ALE i0500 10528 sxxxxxxxHEE 10530 10546 Input String fromCALLer 18560 10576 xeRxRKEE RE i0580 10598 Basic string input routine for SUPERBBS BAS 18480 CALLed as J USR1I CVARPTR SAVS 18618 16628 RETurns 16636 The string lif any will be in SAV 16648 J 6 OK i0650 J i Carrier Lost Error 16466 J 2 Timeout Error 16676 14688 HL DE and BC are used 18698 16768 GETSTR CALL GETHL Get VARPTR of SAVS to HL 16716 LD lt INVPTR HL Save the VARPTR 10728 LD HL INPBUF sStart of Input Buffer 16736 CALL INPSTR Get the string 16746 JR C GSCDER sGo if Carrier Lost Error 18756 JR 2 GSTOER 3Go if Timeout 187468 LD HL SINVPTR Get VARPTR 16778 LD HL B sSet String Length 16788 LD DE INPBUF Point to Buffer Start 16796 INC HL sBump VARPTR Pointer 198886 LD HL E sSave LSB BUffer Address 16816 INC HL Bump VARPTR Pointer 16826 LD CHL D Save MSB Buffer Address 16836 LD HL 8 sJ 6 16846 GSEXIT JP PUTHL s and Exit to BASIC 160850 16866 GSCDER LD HL FFFFH 3 J i SYDTRUG NEWS g JULY 1 2s l p e N E o a Sa a a aA ai a aA 18878 10888 18890 18988 16918 18928 18938 10940 109350 18968 186 936 1
45. he June newsletter was once again very late partly due to the Editor being called away from Sydney work wise We are working to ensure that this does not occur again but sometimes these circumstances are beyond the control of the Committee as a whole and are only in the hands of one person I do sincerely apologise on behalf of the Committee for these abberations and can assure you all that everything possible is being done to prevent this happening again The Committee has decided to purchase two copies of the Sourcecode for TRSDOS 6 2 from MYSOSIS for the very goad price of US 99 86 each These copies will be placed in the library for borrowing by members A Co Co book on peeks and pokes will also be purchased and placed in the library The advert rom MYSOSIS also had an offer for LDOS 5 1 4 M1 and M3 being available for only US 26 66 This does NOT include a manual bu DOES include registration and a quick reference card We will negotiate a butk purchase with individual registration for members Please you are interested to any Committee member and become the REGISTERED OWNER of LDOS 5 1 4 We discussed the availability of the Club services and and decided that ALL facilities and services offered by the Club are to be made available to MEMBERES ONLY This includes re inking of ribbons purchase of year books etc The BBS will remain as it is at present and offer limited access for non members The main reason for this decisi
46. l issue 4 I agree and feel that these are the very actions that we have been attempting to follow at least during the time that I have been able to see as a member of the Committee After getting all of that off my chest and it really took an effort to make the decision to put it all in print I do really hope that the committee to be elected at the upcoming AGM where I will be standing for the position of President can get on with the job and not let personality differences reduce its effectiveness Until next month Keep on computing SECRETARY S SAYINGS by Darrell Hegarty lt 02 540 96B1 This month I have a fair bit to say about nominations for the ensuing years Committee PLEASE HAVE A SERIOUS THINK ABOUT IT AND CONSIDER NOMINATING FOR A POSITION In other words G 0 Y A You will see a nomination form in this issue to make your nomination easier although you DON T need a form just a slip of paper with your name and required position handed to a present Committee member wil suffice Remember one of the present Committee will second your nomination if you can t find a seconder I should remind you all that the quality of YOUR Club is oniy as good as the ideas which are usually originated by the Committee and any Committee can get tired after a period of time so we NEED new blood every so often to keep the Club going ahead in the proverbial leaps and bounds We have had a reply fro
47. le 4 Sefton key holders these positions require that the two occupants between them attend EVERY meeting at Sefton fourth Saturday each month to open the hall tidy up after the meeting and close and secure the hall S Newsletter wrappers at least two volunteers required who preferably live close to each other Required to wrap label and post the Newsletter each month At present the Newsletter MUST be posted at Padstow post office The President Vice President Editor are required to attend Committee meetings held once per month at a time OTHER than the Saturday afternoon meetings These Committee meetings are held at a place convenient to all Committee members and this place is decided upon by the Committee itself They should also be Secretary Treasurer and Ld SYDTRUG NEWS 4 JULY ITF Ss able to attend most of the attendance is NOT compulsory other Group meetings aj though The non elected volunteers should be able to attend meetings as detailed in the position description above All nominations received will be published in the August AND September Newsletters so please fill in a nomination NOW and either send it to the Padstow PO Box or hand it to any of the present Committee at a meeting Bits of Vice by Jim Whittaker Howdy Well at least I seem to have triggered some open discussion Boy the lengths one has to go to to get Tandy to contribute to the Newsletter AS is usual our
48. lowed by a lt ENTER gt key fy Further INKEY and normal INPUT are both case sensitive when you use an IF to check the string value that has been typed in PEEKing the keyboard just registers whether or not a key has been pressed regardless of whether or not you are currently in upper or lower case Similarly the key is detected as having been pressed whether or not it is shifted e g 1 and both register that that particular key has been pressed So what then is this keyboard PEEKing There are eight main memory locations related to the keyboard Each position on the keyboard is identified acscording to the current contents of that memory location The following table shows the relationship between the memory locations their contents and the keys pressed MEMORY VALUE contained when key has been pressed ADDRESS i 2 4 B 16 32 643 128 1 14337 i 7 A i B C i Dt E it Fi i 14338 i H i I ft J i Ki L Mt NG Ot i 14340 i P i Q i Ri S Ti U i Vi Wt i 14344 i X Yok e i i 14352 i 1 i 2 i 3 4 i 5i 6 i 7 44368 8 i F r F yg FE G 7 fot 4406 i ENT CLR BRK UZA D A LZA i RZA i SPC 14464 i SFT i ENT Enter CLR Clear BRK Break U A Up Arw D A Down Arw L A Left Arw R A Right Arw SPC Space SFT Shift 14351 lt gt 8 when a LETTER is being pressed i e no numbers 14591 when NO key at all is being pressed How does it all work Well fo
49. lt Set if the operation was successful NOTE BLOCK is 1928 bytes for TRSDOS 6 2 2048 bytes for ver 6 8 amp 6 1 VIDEO TO BUFFER Registers Used AF BC DE HL B gt 6 Moves a video RAM image to a RAM BLOCK HL gt Pointer to the user s RAM BLOCK A lt Contains error code if an error occured 2 lt Set if the operation was successful NOTE BLOCK is 1928 bytes for TRSDOS 6 2 2848 bytes for ver 6 6 amp 6 1 Also if in 48x24 char mode there must be a char in each alternate byte for a proper display SCROLL PROTECT Registers Used AF BC DE B gt 7 Scroll protect the number of lines specified in the C register from the top of the screen C Number of lines to Scroll protect 8 7 NOTE Once set scroll protect must be removed by executing the VDCTL SVC with B 7 and C 8 or by resetting the system Clearing the screen with lt SHIFT gt lt CLEAR gt still erases the scroll protected area but scroll protect still remains Also if C is greater than seven it is treated as modulo 8 CURSOR CHARACTER Registers Used AF BC DE B gt 8 Change cursor character to that given in E C gt Character to use as the cursor character A lt Contains the previous cursor character 2 lt Set if the operation was successful NOTE If the cursor is currently not displayed the character is accepted anyway and is used as the cursor when it is turned back on VIDEO LINE TRANSFER version 6 2 o
50. m Neil Corkindale Store Manager TANDY BANKSTOWN to our Vice president s column of last month This reply is printed in this issue The whole story of the Hard disk is one of contention and I don t intend to buy into it but to show that we are fair the reply has been printed in FULL for all members to see I think this reply has driven our SYSOP to pen and paper tor should that be keyboard and screen and Michael has written his own reply to the TANDY reply Form your own opinions New membership badges will be printed as soon as possible after the end of July and distributed at meetings and in the earliest possible Newsletter after printing probably September The reason for waiting to produce the badges is that we will know who does not wish to renew their membership by then and so not waste time and effort in producing a new badge which will only have to be destroyed Please be patient I have had a number of phone calls initiated from enquiries at various TANDY centres about problems the cafiler is having with his her Co Co I know very little about the Co Co but fortunately have been able to help all callers This brings me to a poirt that we don t have any resident experts except for Errol Rosser on hardware I thus propose to add a list of names and phone numbers to the front page of the Newsletter informing al readers who they can call for help on the listed subjects I now want NAMES If you fee ev
51. ned field MOONBASE BAS Opposing moon bases fight it out with nukes NORETURN BAS Don t fall off the edge of the fiat earth RACERL2 BAS Realistic simulation of a race for Level II ROBOTWAR BAS Destroy the ever producing enemy robots SOCCER BAS Two players compete in a soccer game SPCTARGT BAS Shoot it out in space SUBATTLE BAS You re outnumbered four to one TRIVIA BAS Challenging game for trivia buffs PDUTILI3 Utilities ART6889 TXT Documentation for ASM6889 PONG SETRES VARS ASM6889 BAS A 6889 assembler in Microsoft BASIC EDPATCH ASM Patch Model i version of EDTASM for Model 3 EDPATCH TXT Documentation for EDPATCH ASM JKL TXT Documentation for CENTRJKL and EPSONJKL PONG ASM Sample file for ASM6889 SETRES ASM Sample file for ASM 6889 VARS TXT Variable usage table for ASM 6889 VERFILE ASM Assembly file for VERFILE CMD VERFILE CMD File verification utility VERFILE DOC Documentation for VERFILE CMD PDUTILI4 Utilities BASICOMP BAS BASIC compiler for Models I amp III BASICOMP DOC Documentation for BASICOMP BAS BINCLOCK ASM Assembly file for BINCLOCK CMD BINCLOCK EMD Binary clock for Models I and III BINCLOCK DOC Documentation for BINCLOCK CMD CODE ASM Assembly file for CODE CMD CODE CMD ASCII file encoding decoding SAMPLE BAS Sample program for BASICOMP D4546 ASM Assembly file for SD456 CMD D456 CMD NEWDOS screen dump to disk file D456 D0C Documentation for SD45 6 CMD PDUTILIS Utilities BASEDEC BAS Convert base 2 to 16 to decim
52. nly Registers Used AF BC DE HL B gt 9 Transfer an 88 character line to or from the video E gt Transfer direction 9 Line from buffer to video l Line from video to buffer Video line to transfer 9 23 Pointer to user s 80 character buffer Contains error code if an error occured Set if the operation was successful uN NN m wu it NPB OZKI z z ya yn ka KS a a a Ha ES The following example demonstrates the use of the VIDEO PEEK and VIDEO POKE functions of the VDCTL SVC The code is taken from an article titled A Display of Character by Robert Refinetti that appeared on page 68 of the May 8 6 issue of 88 Micro EXAMPLE YDCTL EUU i5 Declare VIDEO SVC PEAK LD A CHL Get X from BASIC LD HA sand put it here LD A DE Get Y from BASIC LD L A and put it here LD A VDCTL Select SVC LD B 1 Select PEEK function RST 28H Run SVC i LD HL ADBDRESS Get RETURN address LD CHL A sand put result there RET sReturn to BASIC POAK LD A HL sGet X from BASIC LD HA and put it here LD A DE Get Y from BASIC LD L A sand put it here LD amp BC sGet character from BASIC LD C A sand put it here LD A VDCTL Select SVC LD B 2 Select POKE function RST 28H l sRun SVC RET Return to BASIC CHNIO gt SVC 20 lt TRSDOS 6 x only This SVC is used to pass control to the next module ina device chain It s use is restricted to device filters Filters are written t
53. o perform al 1 0 via the CHNIC Supervisior Call This SVC uses the contents of MODDCB which contains the DCB pointer for the module within the filter invoking the SVC Thus the filter I 0 is independant of any address by being handied completely through the SVC If you perform a system command such as FILTER PR USING x0 the operating system will swap the first three bytes of the PR DCB with the X0 DCB This will change the DCB table from that shown in Fig i to that in Fig 2 VECTOR NAME MODULE MODDCB PRINTER PR PRINTER PR XLATE x0 XLATE x0 Fig 1 VECTOR NAME MODULE MODDCB XLATE PR PRINTER PR PRINTER XO XLATE XO Fig 2 ia oie JULY 1 86 F Sy DTRUG NEWS Closely examine the arrangement in Fig 2 note that the contents of MODDCB for each module are exactly what they were initialised to Although the PR device has been filtered the module itself needs absolutely no change whatsoever An PUT to the PR device is now more complex but functions perfectly well The system first passes control to XLATE which is pointer to by the PR vector This filter performs its necessary functions and sends characters down the chain by picking up the pointer contained in its MODDCB a pointer to the X0 DCB then issuing the CHNIO SVC The SVC handies the call by passing control to the PRINTER which is the pointer now stored in the VECTOR field of xX0 Upon completion a series of RET
54. on is that we are ina rather grey area regarding trading with the general public and could be liable for tax etc All members who get ribbons re inked for their friends please note that this service is now available ONLY to members and not friends of members We have purchased some Nashua flippy double density disks for re sale to members as wel as using these for the PD software The purchase price has fallen to 2 98 each in bulk lt no cases labels or WP tabs and we will sel them for the same price See the PD librarian at any meeting or indicate by mail enclosing a cheque or money order plus a smal amount to cover postage Incidentally I WILBROPRINT on the had occasion recently to go to corner of Abercrombie and Cleveland Streets Chippendale where I purchased some more paper for the BBS Whilst there I noticed that they now have coloured ribbons for CITOH and EPSON printers in RED BLUE GREEN and BROWN They alse have EPSON refills in colour These ribbons cost 3 88 more than BLACK ribbons for the same printer eg CITOH black are 7 58 and colour are 18 58 each Remember also that we can re ink your RED BLUE BALCK BROWN and PURPLE ribbons At this stage we have no GREEN ink Michael HARRIS has kindly offered to demonstrate his new AEM Supermodem at the July Special Interest Meeting Botany Saturday 19th July This modem was described in the April May June AEM and is Hayes compatible
55. op back to Li 68626 RD LD A 1FH 66636 LD HL 3DC H 68646 LD CCURPOS HL scls screen from cursor 86656 CALL PRTCHR 80666 LD HL MESS2 66476 CALL WRITE 86684 CALL DIAL Dial number routine 66696 L2 CALL CARRIER Test for a carrier tone 66768 JR Z 0K good carrier _ s SYDTRUG NEWS 1i ss 1 O JULY 80710 LC CALL RESET jhang up modem 81548 DM KEY DOS LS 86720 LD HL 3DC H carrier signal may have 81550 DB 19i 98738 LD CURPOS HL been noisy tele line or 81568 DM BREAK KEY ABORT 00740 LD A 1FH sloud busy signal 01578 DB 191 88750 CALL PRTCHR 01588 DC 64 131 06766 LD HL MESS4 61598 DB BAH 867786 CALL WRITE 61488 DM Remote BBS telephone gt 86788 JR L 61416 DB 3H 88796 OK LD HL MESS3 sHL must point to CR so 81628 BUFF DS 16 Tele No buffer pilus 1 88868 JP M88 sModem88 can operate 61636 PRT MESSAGE ROUTINE MESSAGE MUST END WITH BYTE 3 68818 READ K B FOR DOS OR 8REAK ABORT 164 WRITE PUSH HL 66828 ABORT PUSH AF SAVE 81656 WRITE2 LD A CHL 86836 CALL SCAN 816468 CP 3 08840 CP Q7 RETURN TO DOS 81678 JR Z DONE 88858 JR Z DORAI 814688 CALL PRTCHR 868468 CP 1 s BREAK KEY 814699 INC HL 86878 JR Z DORA2 81768 JR WRITE2 68888 POP AF sNO KEY THIS TIME 81710 DONE POP HL 68898 RET 81729 RET 88908 DORAI POP AF 81738 Dialing routine B91 POP BC spop Toop counter 81740 DIAL LD A 125 Set DTR on 68926 POP AF spop call carrier 61756 OUT lt BEAH A via data bi
56. r example if you had just pressed i Letter A then 14337 would have a value of 2 ii Letter F then 14337 would have a value of 44 ciii Number 3 then 14352 would have a value of 8 iv Up Arrow then 14468 would have a value of 8 etcrses ROWs of Ed Note The the keyboard may be addressed as 14334 Rn where Rn 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 or 128 By using this method it can be shown that you may scan more than one row at a time i e to scan all rows at once 14336 1 24 44 8416432 64 128 14591 or the SHIFT 14591 128 14443 for all keys except Further both keys and values are ADDITIVE for a particular memory location e g if you simultaneously press the CLEAR and BREAK keys then 144868 will have a value of 6 E 2 4 1 BUY How can this be done in a program The answer is to PEEK the memory location use an IF statement to check its value thereby identifying which key has been pressed and THEN take appropriate action I you wish to check a SHIFTed key you will have to check that PEEK 14464 1 AND PEEK memory value are both true and THEN take appropriate action e g if you simultaneously press the SHIFT and i keys then 14464 will have a value of 1 AND 14352 will contain a value of 2 i e you have identified an exclamation mark Some further examples follow These have been taken from popular games that most users are likely to already own The game TAIPAN has several questions
57. rd game SOUNDA BAS Sound demo SOUNDB BAS Sound demo SOUNDC BAS Sound demo SOUNDD BAS Sound demo TSGUND BAS Sound demo TWENTY1 BAS Variation of black jack ULTRANIM BAS Version of Nim VERBOTEN BAS Don t use the verboten words WEAVER BAS Graphics demo YATC BAS Dice game with the computer as judge PDGAME33 Games l ATLANTIS BAS Explore the Lost Continent BLNKSLAT BAS Use Blank Slate as your drawing board DECICPHE BAS Deceode secret messages DOODLART BAS Doodle on the Screen rather than paper DRIVERL2 BAS Test your driving skills EMP IRE BAS Control your own worjd FAKEQUT BAS Who can you bluff FORETELL BAS A fortune teller in your computer KNOKOUT BAS S8reak through the walls MATCHEM2 BAS Match game NEWSPHOT BAS Use your camera to catch the right view RUSSIAN BAS Russian roulette SNIPER BAS Get the sniper before he gets you SOUTHPOL BAS Journey to the frozen continent PDGAME34 Games CFLEET BAS Cross 32 parsecs of enemy space CHICKEN BAS Legendary car challenge DEATHRAC BAS Car accelerates with each speriata killed DECIPHER BAS Word puzzles with three levels of play EXPLORE BAS Treasure hunt in the many chambered cave GALERYL2 BAS Shooting gallery with nine skill levels GOFISH BAS Relive your childhood with this old favorite HYPERSPC BAS Destroy 28 ships in the enemy fleet ISLATION BAS Isolate you opponent so he can no longer move JULY 1 res LABRINTH BAS You are King Minos s prisoner on Crete MINEFLD BAS Trudge through a heavily mi
58. re too heavy handed on the keys An interesting case arose when editing this Inn Keeper program In the above examples if either no selection or a wrong selection had been made the program looped back and PEEKed again The following fines show a case where you can t do that The original program lines are 2848 INPUT WILT THOU 8UY A SHIELD AS ITFLEFTS lt AS 1 N THEN GOSU82885 RETURNELSEPRINT SHIELD WEIGHT ASK PRINT SMALL TAB C11 sSWC1 3 TAB 22 SP 1 sPRINT LARGE TABC 11 gt SWC 2 TAB 22 SP 2 sINPUT WHAT SORT C 2842 IFLEFTS CS 1 L THENN 2ELSEI FLEFTS CS 1 S THENN 1 ELSEN 6 POKEKB PS RETURN The line of interest is 2842 wherein if you selected a L arge shield then N 2 if you selected a Small shield then N 1 but if you made any other response then N iLe when PEEKing the keyboard you can return to rePEEK ONLY when NO key at all has been pressed i e i 2848 PRINT WILT THOU BUY A SHIELD FORZ2 1T0380 sNEXTZ2Z 2842 IFPEEK 14338 64THENGOSUB2885 RET URNELSEIFPEEK 14344 2THENPRINT SHIELD WEIGHT ASK PRINT SMALL TAB 11 SWC1 TABC 22 3 SPC1 PRINT LARGE TA8 11 3SW62 3 TABC 22 5SP 2 GOTO02844ELSE2842 2844 PRINT WHAT SORT FORZ2Z 17T0388 NEXTZ2 2846 IFPEEK 14338 1 6THENCS L GOTOZ2848ELSEI FPEEKS 1 4348 8THENC S GOTO2848EL SEI FPEEK 14591 0THEN2846 2848 IFCS L THENN 2EL SEI FCS S THENN i ELSEN POKEKB 9 PS RETURN
59. s I will be nominating for both of the top positions and I will again make it painfully clear as to what you can expect from me if I am elected I promise you nothing I know I Said the same fast year and I ended up running around organizing Hard Drives RAM Printer Buffers and the like but these things just happened Until my course is finished no Charlie not penicillin course I will not be able to devote much time to the group but as to what happens after that well who knows To end off this month I present JIMBO s HONOURS LIST One day you will atl wish to be bestowed or is it endowed Darryl Heggarty for taking all of my moaning and making up for all of those things I can t do Bili McDougall for doing everything that is asked of him without so much as a whisper Andrew Bruno Charlie Samuel and John Agapidos for just keeping me amused Mike Cooper not for his patience but for his wisdom and innovative ideas expressed through the BBS Diane Whittaker and the kids for all their support Errol Rosser for his perseverence on the System 86 Gary Bryce for putting this all together in a cognitive format l Kevin Sheil for his dog like determination Johnny Mercer for his behind the scenes typing Greg North for giving it a gc Dennis Pagett for at least trying Jimmy Burns who should have been a Short Story writer Mick Rowney of Micro Bits fame who has contributed a great dealt of hardware behind the scenes
60. s no colour graphics card purely a text adventure but it does have some being good sound effects playing us a short tune at the start of the game It keeps the player interested throwing up new challenges all the time and part of your mission involves international travel punch ups qunfights escapes and car chases 1 found it became more addictive than Zork or any of the others but was rather short and ended just when expected much more In any case it is an interesting challenge for any gamer HINTS ON ZORK Alright I haven t yet completed it but nevertheless I have gleaned some information others may be interested in Try praying at the altar it does quite literally You may need to recover a treasure from Hades you will need the candles bell and book from the altar and the matches from Flood Control Dam 3 Take these to the entrance to Hades and work a spell the first step is to ring the bell The jewelled eqq which you find in the tree contains yet another treasure to open it you must give it to the theif and recover it from him later by killing him he will have opened it by then The sceptre from the Egyptian room is more than treasure take it outside and raise it to the rainbow The garlic in the sack is necessary to defeat the vampire bat in the mineshaft To restore order to the Loud Room type echo Jt is necessary to open the sluice gates on FCD 3 Sunken treasure get you
61. ser groups with thousands of dollars of free equipment for clerical and BBS use TANDY have never so much as given SYDTRUG a free lunch although they did gwe Geza Denis and Ia free morning tea once How about it TANDY SYDTRUG saves you about 148 006 per year in customer support and allows your stores to concentrate on selling without lots of customers cluttering up your system with minor questions and problems SYDTRUG disseminates information and facts about your products at NO COST TO YOU and provides facilities that match the best other user groups can provide at NO COST TO YOU yet here we are quibbling about a mere 1088 bucks or 15 I wonder how many SYDPTRUG NEWS so chicken feed to a large organisation YOU should have provided all the Hardware we needed to set up the BBS in the first place its a great tax deduction and it would have been the the cheapest P R bargain around l Perhaps its better you didn t though otherwise I may have had to pull my punches PUBLIC DOMAIN SOFTWARE Following is the last release of our Public Domain Software to be released this month July Each disk contains TWO volumes as described on the catalogue disk and there will be 6 disks 12 volumes released this month These disks will be available at the Botany meetings for 5 88 each to MEMBERS ONLY Each disk is a true flippy formatted in single density 35 tracks and containing about 2x88k 176k of softwar
62. somewhere the bird s nest in SOFTWARE CONES DObIN I walked into Tandy at Hurstville the other day and found TRS 868 software priced incredibly low Haunted House was less than ten dollars and FQuick Watson was less than five as was Micro Marquee Yes they re trying to shift it all Check in soon and if it s all too expensive for your tastes remind them that you may well be the only person who is going to buy it Sure sign of insanity Bedlam was nearly thirty five dollars MODEM NEWS by Bob Barnes i34 In response to ANDREW BRUNO s letter SYDTRUG vol 6 issue 1 JUNE 1986 The history of kit modems to date has been of questionable success The following summary of every modem kit produced in the popular electronic magazines should assist the newcomer to these items of devilment lt i The first to arrive was the Electronics Australia SODMY an accoustic modem and it surfaced 1980 SEPTEMBER seemingly works and no meds to date Other than background Moise to cause interference it worked fine and with no problem for telecom to say naughty 2 gt The next to appear was the Electronics today int ETI 644 direct connect well after revision 4 B8 C D E F 1 still have not met any one who has got this one to work yet circa 1982 october nov etc Not even ETI mention this in their 18 year index of all projects This unit was the greatest turn off for now and future modem kits lt 3 Next was
63. t 1 84936 CALL RESET DISCONNECT MODEM 81766 LD D 3 Loop 3 times 86946 LD HL DH 01770 DELAY1 CALL AS8ORT Read K B 86956 JP DOS 81788 LD SC 1 WAIT for dial tone 88968 DORA2 POP AF 81798 CALL DELAY ROM delay rtn 66976 POP BC spop loop counter 81838 DEC D 66 86 POP AF pop call carrier 81816 OR A 88998 CALL RESET DISCONNECT MODEM 81826 JR NZ DELAY1 Wait some more 91866 JP Li 81836 LD HL SUFF Get ist tele number 81018 KEYBOARD INPUT ROUTINE 81848 DIALNUM LD A HL 1628 INPUT CALL SCAN 81856 CP 3 jLast number yet 81838 CP Q 61868 RET 2 Yes return 31848 JP z2 DORAI ret dos via doral 61876 CALL AS8ORT Read K 8 81858 cP 1 315 it break key 1888 CALL 33H sPrint digit 81864 JR 2 DORA2 Yes cls amp reprint messi 61898 CP B7 Test for zero 919878 CP a ibs Greater than number 9 61988 JR NZ X1 1986 JR NC INPUT sfes than ignore it 81919 LD A 8AH Zzero 1 pulses 81896 CP DH Enter key 81728 JR XB 81198 RET zZz sEnd of input 61938 Xi SUB 38H sMake binary 81116 cP 8 sLess than 8 81948 X LD B A sSwap for saving 81120 JR C INPUT sYes than ignore it 81958 X2 PUSH BC Save it 01138 LD CHL A sput input into buffer 81968 LD A 127 Disconnect line 91148 INC HL 81978 OUT lt EAH A for at least ms 81158 CALL PRTCHR sprint input 1999 LO BC T1 81166 DJNZ INPUT 81998 CALL DELAY 91178 MAX CALL SCAN 315 chars reached 82988 LD A 125 Connect line 81189 CP 8 DH jwait for enter key only 82818 OUT BEAH A sfor at le
64. t 5 Meggers b That TANDY should assume service stickers not adhering correctly meant we had tampered with the unit was gross arrogance a typical trait of so many micro manufacturers c The unit as it now stands has yet again loose stickers and was returned from TANDY service in this condition Many a cynic like myself would probably fee this was deliberate attempt to weasel out of further obligations on a tissue thin pretext other TANDY customers have loose stickers POINT 11 This final point is the most fallacious of all The real agreement was for SYDTRUG to pay 758 for a 5 Megabyte Primary Hard Disk Drive used in a TANDY store in W A as a shop demonstration unit and cs working This we never received Having dealt with each point raised in Noel s letter I feel a few further personal observations are in order I am rather disappointed that both SYDTRUG and TANDY should have to engage in this rather unpleasant public slanging match when we are all trying to push in the same direction As a computer professional I can also say with some authority that the level of support provided to TANDY customers by SYDTRUG would be equivalent to the efforts of 3 Customer Support Officers If TANDY needed to employ these people to replace the efforts of SYDTRUG the wages and on costs would mount to nearly 106 680 per year It is also worth noting that unlike say Apple Australia or Commodore Australia who have both supplied u
65. t a File sEXXKKLERRE Routine to Output and Format a File from BASIC Basic File Qutput routine for SUPERBBS BAS 3 s 3 CALLed as JEUSRSCVARPTRCFIS J RETurns J OK J i Carrier Lost Error J 2 Timeout during lt XOFF gt 5 J 3 ESC or Ct1 C gt from CALLer J 4 Error 3 QUTFIL CALL Hi PARM B Len l HL gt ist Char Filename LD A B Get Length OR A Check no No Filename JR Z OFEROR Go if error CALL GETFIL Send the File JR C OFCDER Go if Carrier Lost JR Z OFTOER Go if Timeout DEC A sTest forCALLer Abort JR 2 OFABRT Go if Abort LD Hi J OFEXIT LD A lt QUTFLG Turn Paging Mode RES 9 A OFF LD QUTFLG A 5 JP PUTHL Exit to BASIC passing HL 3 OFCDER LD HL FFFFH 3J 1 JR OF EXIT s OFTOER LD HL FFFEH j J 2 JR OFEXIT 3 OFABRT LD HL FFFDH 3 J 3 JR QFEXIT 11778 OGFEROR LD HL FFFCH sJ 4 11786 JR OFEXIT 11808 118286 Ssess2SSSS 11836 i 11848 Strip Right Spaces from String From BASIC F amp 8 11850 RERHK ARK K ALAA AA KE KKH RKAK KE KK AH REEERE EEEE EEE 11868 11878 CALLed by J USRBCVARPTR BS gt 11888 118908 CALL 11988 i HL gt VARPTR for string 11918 11920 RETufns 11938 B B with Right Spaces stripped 11946 11958 3 Uses HL BC and A 11968 1197 STRIP CALL HL PARM sB Len Hl gt ist Byte 119788 PUSH IX Save VARPTR 11996 LD C B sLen in LSB 12068 LD B 12018 ADD HL BE
66. t you need As Daggles Says G 0 7 A and share some of the information that is locked up in your heads If you have some knowlege about On to the election speech These are my views not necessarily anybody elses Being a member of the committee means having a bit of fun and a chance to try out some of my own ideas on management As I see it the trouble with people like Oennis and Geza is that everything is so serious and static and based upon what has gone on before There is nothing wrong with that method but it leaves no room for innovation or forward planning Dennis also has a way of creating RULES FOR RULES SAKE where the latest farce is that eventhough I pick up the mail I am to give it to Darryl UNOPENED Well who is ever going to know I have an arrangement with Darryl as I have had for a long time and I have no intention of breaking it If you want me to tell you that I don t open the mail then I 71 do so but 171 be lying or will I gt This all reminds me of a song by James Taylor called DAMN THIS TRAFFIC JAM where he runs into the car in front because he is looking in his rear view mirror worried if the car behind is going to run into him The car behind is doing the same thing as is the car behind that AD INFINITUM Thats greek Well the moral of the story is not to keep worring about what s happened or how it was done but to look ahead at what you can acheive and strive for some attainable goal
67. terranean caverns of the Great Underground Empire Calm down the title is merely a reference to a painting which you as the main character in the story inherit from an uncle only to have it stolen soon afterwards Your mission therefore is to track down the culprits recover the painting and discover what secrets make this painting so important The style in which the game works is almost the same as Zork or any other adventure game where the computer describes your current situation and asks you what you want to do The program makes good use of the IBM s ten function keys which allow you to execute common commands such as i 00K AROUND with a single keystroke The numeric keypad controls direction with 8 meaning north 2 meaning south etc The vocabulary is unfortunately more restricted than similar games and often you have to type in exactly the right words to make something happen The program carries the famous Infocom remark of waking up inside a storybook a bit too far The game is divided into five chapters which you complete one ata time ee pe re PP Rp SS A 7 Se Ss EN A eee nnn eee en eee nee enn nn een eee JULY 1 Pes nn SYDTRUG NEWS aa a a a aa aaa O A A ar a o nce you have finished all the tasks you need perform in one the computer flashes the image of a book on the screen from which a page slides out informing us that we are progressing to the next chapter Earthly Delights require
68. the presented only available from AVTEK themselves This was the first kit modem available to use the WORLD CHIP 7910 and NOT derived from previous modem projects THANK GOODNESS The only similarity is that it also uses a 240 volt 3 pin plug A bit Fike comparing a ROLLS ROYCE to a push bike in previous modem to date projects This was reviewed in EA january 1984 It was the landmark reference to build all future modems to be regarded as good as an AVTEK This particular unit has 300 and 1200 later 1200 75 added P S they also have a minimodem using a world chip 300 Baud NO I am not getting a dollar out of this but this is still the standard to go against 4 gt Then along came the first el cheapo 7910 model ETI 699 1985 may they saved their soul after the ETI 644 debacle Specifications 300 Baud only good for local bulletin board stuff To date no mods soa it s the best little unit available now days 3 gt Then a unit presented to Aust Electronics monthly and duly printed called the AEM 4600 mki amp mk2 Chmmmm But the AEM 4600 MK3 is the only one to actually work from a kit and can purchased from Geoff Wood Electronics this one has ALL the mods to accomodate all components straight onto the board It has 300 and 1200 75 the 2 most commonly used baud rates at the flick of a switch lt 6 Now we have in AEM the next generation of modems that is the whistle blowers fancy do every thing auto answer baud rate etc
69. the printer or loading into a WORD PROCESSOR and printing from there Dol This is the extension for Multidos DOS overlays DVR DVR for MS DOS Normally a DriVeR program for one of the connected devices printer keyboard RS 232 etc gt This file usually needs to be invoked through a library command or a a SYS file for MS DOS FIX A patch file for FIXing another program Used with LDOS and TRSDOS 6 x for applying patches updates to programs FLT FLT for MS DOS A FilTfer file used to filter some input or output before processing or printing Used mostly with LDOS TRSDOS 6 x for keyboard filters print filters etc FOR FOR for MS DOS Usually signifies a FORTRAN source file GRF GRF for MS DOS Graphics data file May also be GPH or similar HIS HIS for MS DOS Used for saving HIgh Scores from some games programs l HLP HLP for MS DOS A HeLP fite usually callec from the main program by typing the H key ata certain point in time or By typing CTRL H gt or similar INX INdeX file usually created and used by a BASIC program May also be IND or similar JEL Job Control Language file This type of file allows some form of automated responses and command execution Most DOS s use JCL files and they are extremely versatile in allowing an automated function You can set up a demonstration using a JEL file and leave the computer unattended for the demonstration
70. time laid up in bed with a dislocated shoulder and had telephoned to say that I would not be able to get there The Committee had met on the Wednesday night prior to the General meeting where during the Editor s Report I related the circumstances which had caused the delivered late and which I asked to be related to the members should I not be able to attend the general meeting I had been sent on a One Day job to Newcastle and the Central Coast without prior notice which had lasted the full week Needless to say I had to buy a few things up there Admittediy I had not been able to stay for the full meeting but I had stated this fact before the meeting started and if anything was to be said I feel this was the place to say it AS I have said before being Editor does have some advantages and I am taking the one of having last say in any issue right now As I no longer feel restricted to keeping my comments Non personal and being the longest serving current committee member having seen various Presidents Vice Presidents Secretarys and Treasurers come and go let me first say that I regret that personality conflicts have been put in front of getting on with the job In his column Jim brings up a number of points 1 Being on the committee gives him a chance to try out some of my own ideas on management 2 The trouble with people like Dennis and Geza is that everything is so serious and static and bas
71. w supply a the Editor in preparation of the S5 Editor the most visible collects assembles and prepares the newsletter copy for printing free hand in the layout etc iS printer for use by Newsletter 6 Returning Officer conducts the annual election and any other election required under the Constitution 7 Auditors two positions required for the annual auditing of the Groups books The books must be audited each year in July NON ELECTED VOLUNTEERS REQUIRED The following positions are required to be filled by volunteers from the Group These people are ESSENTIAL to the smooth running of the Group as the five elected carry out their own duties as well as these Book and magazine librarian maintains the book and magazine library Continue the cataloguing of books and magazines started by the present librarian This position should be preferably filled by two or three volunteers who between them attend EVERY meeting at Botany 2 Software librarian maintains the small software library mostly of cassettes for somebody with a Model This position would be ideal i or System88 and NO disk drives 3 Public domain librarian maintains the library of PD software duplicates the software for sale to members and does the selling This position takes quite an amount of time to do the duplicating but the Club s Model III is used for the duplicating Preferably should attend as many meetings as possib
72. word processor and gives the extension PCL automatically to all its text files PIC PIC for MS DOS PiCture ASCII file usually a picture file to be PRINTed to your line printer Often a nude female form embracing a calendar to make it somewhat respectable PR PRI Dotwriter font files REF REF for MS DOS A REFerence file of some sort Often contains a table of references Could be ASCII or coded REL 08J for MS DOS Microsoft Compiler RELocatable object code files SCR SCRipsit files files Could also refer to SCREEN dump SRC SRC for MS DOS Used to signify a SouRCe code listing usually from an Editor Assembler although it could be ANY source code listing from COBOL FORTRAN C etc and not necessarily an Assembler source The extension ASM is probably the preferred for Assembler source COB for COBOL and FOR for FORTRAN SYS DOS SYStem files PENCIL overlay files etc You should not use this extension for any of your files as they could get confused with the SYSTEM in some cases TST TST for MS DOS Usually indicates a TeST file of some sort Could be BASIC Machine code or a word processor text file l TXT lt TXT for MS DOS A TexT file from either a word processor or some other editor Always in ASCII SyDTRUG NEWS UC Scripsit Upper Case files VC VisiCalc files saved in the normal format XRF A cross reference often produced by an Assembl

Vol 6 Issue 11 Jul 1986

Contents

Download Pdf Manuals

Related Search

Related Contents