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More Than An Action-Packed Novel! Includes 7 exciting Programs

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1. Hey you start to object and then shut up as he points excitedly at one particular symbol It s an octagon the size of a saucer When he touches it the solid rock inside the archway begins to pulse and a tingly sensa tion runs through your body Everyone jumps back as though they ve just gotten an electric shock Dirk takes his hand off the octagon The pulsing and the tingling stop abruptly as though a switch has been turned off What was that Bronze gasps Td say touching that thing has short circuited some sort of electrical device Arch answers And I ll bet there s a missing oc tagonal piece that s designed to complete the thing properly But I don t have any idea what it is or even what material to make it out of As he speaks the members of the BRUTE team exchange loaded glances Then Flint clears his throat and turns to Frieda You know we have something that just might work he says casually Oh she retorts Dirk rummages in his pack for a moment and then pulls out an object that glitters and sparkles in the shadows of the rocks It s an eight sided aqua stone that s one of the most beautiful things you ve ever seen What s more it looks like it was cut to fit exactly that in dentation in the wall 58 What s that and where did you get it Bronze challenges If you had a BRUTE top security clear ance we might tell you
2. Yes sir You automatically snap to at tention At ease Come join us You pull up a chair and look around the conference table with interest Roll call Code names only the gen eral orders turning to the pleasantly plump blonde woman on his right Frieda anthropologist and ACT coor dinator for this mission On loan from the Fed eral German Museum she recites in a lyrical voice Bronze says the powerful young man in the next chair unconsciously flexing his arm muscles Nordic Combined Olympic medal ist representing Sweden Just call me Arch the small dark man on his right announces somewhat less for mally My specialty is civil engineering You notice his briefing sheet has been folded into the shape of a suspension bridge And I m Orion You complete the ros ter Computers are my game You expect the general to welcome you on board and make some complimentary com ments about the ACT organization Instead he gets right down to business Im sure you re all aware of the spo radic but violent disturbances that have been occurring in your own countries What you probably don t know is that these have been taking place worldwide And even worse than the earthquakes and high tides there have been six unexplained time gaps So far we have lost a total of 13 seconds Why is losing 13 seconds so critical Frie
3. Frieda cautions But it s too late The guy has disap peared leaving most of the ACT team s be longings strewn all over the rocky ground Frieda glares at Bronze I wanted to ask him some more questions He didn t quite fit into the profile I would have expected for this area and I wanted to explore the cultural ab normalities 37 You ll just have to file that away for fu ture investigation Bronze counters That is if there is a future While Frieda and Bronze talk things out Arch puts together his apparatus You watch as he fires a piton across the gorge with a spe cial air gun It drills into the rock on the other side The attached line is so thin that you can hardly see it But when he gives it a sharp pull with his gloved hand it holds fast That flimsy piece of string doesn t look like it would even support me let alone Bronze you say Looks are deceiving This stuff is a new fiber that s stronger than steel cable Arch answers proudly But it s so thin it will cut your hands to ribbons if you try to work with it manually That s why ACT has teamed it up with a microprocessor Now I just have to hook up the auto matic breeches buoy and we re all set What s a breeches buoy you ask not wanting to sound stupid but not wanting to risk your life on some unknown device either It s like one of those canvas
4. It must be too sophisticated for my ma chine you guess Thoughtfully you look at the program But maybe I can substitute a statement that will work on my micro List the program again and study it Substitute a legal BASIC statement where it seems appropriate and run the program again See page 116 in the Reference Manual if you need help Were back to square one you sigh You ve got to have the Magor Stone to walk through that archway l Flint shakes his head ACT is even slower than I thought What do you think that glowing octagon is you dummy So all along you ve had what that ap parition has been practically killing everyone 62 to get back Bronze says How did you get it anyway It was a gift Flint shoots back Then his expression grows thoughtful Of course this could still be a trap he muses Then he looks in your direction Okay shrimp since you re still alive let s see if your luck will stretch through that wall You gulp Then without blinking you reach up and pull the stone from its resting place in the wall Don t try any funny stuff if you make it through Flint rasps We ll be holding your buddies hostage right here You don t bother to remind him that everyone is the apparition s hostage Instead you turn and take a step toward the archway Clutching the stone t
5. Flint gloats But since you don t we won t PII bet that s the missing Magor Stone the one the apparition has been looking for you whisper to Frieda She nods And who knows what powers it has Flint holds out the stone to Frieda Well why doesn t one of your team stick it in the wall and see what happens Wait a minute Arch protests There was already a weak electrical circuit just from touching that spot The person who inserts the stone could get electrocuted or worse Exactly Flint agrees That s why one of you is going to do it And it s going to be the shrimp As he speaks he slaps the smooth cold gemstone into your hand and pushes you purposefully toward the wall 59 CHAPTER You open your mouth to protest and then close it again You don t know what will happen when you stick that stone in the matching depres sion But then anything would be better than spending eternity with Flint Dirk and com pany Trying not to tremble you raise the spar kling octagon and ease it into the opening As you do your whole body starts to tingle You try to pull away but the current has you in its grip You can feel every hair on your body standing at attention Worse you can see looks of horror on your friends faces We ve got to save Orion Frieda shouts starting forward Flint grabs her arm and holds her ba
6. Nobody has to tell you to dive for your ACT standard issue pistol But when you pull the trigger it doesn t work either What do we do now Flint one of the BRUTE team shouts to their leader This he growls throwing down his gun and advancing menacingly in your direction If we can t shoot them we ll tear them apart with our bare hands Bronze steps forward I ll handle him he shouts and this one too In the next second his foot flashes out and Flint hits the 51 grass But he bounces up again like a prize fighter and the other BRUTE is on Bronze too You don t have time to watch them go an other round however You re suddenly in the ring yourself The goatherder lunges for you Although he s small he s strong as coiled steel And that essence of goat he s still wearing could knock you out all by itself Unfortunately the BRUTE commandos have the upper hand They ve got a whole ar senal of dirty combat tricks and they ve ap parently been in this refuge long enough to get their second wind You don t know about the rest of the team but as you give the goatherd er everything you ve got you can feel your muscles weakening and your breath burning in your chest He goes for your throat again and you know that you ve got no choice You ve got to keep on fighting for your life The goatherder has you down on the ground and his han
7. t starve or go thirsty That s not going to help us get away Bronze says 56 We ve struck out too Flint admits He goes on to explain that the sky at the top of the rocks is just an illusion You re actually inside a sealed dome so going over the top is out of the question Just as you re assimilating the bad news you hear Arch shouting Come here I ve found something Everyone including the five BRUTEs races to his side He leads you back around a rock outcropping where an archway is defined in the rock face Unfortunately it doesn t seem to lead anywhere Filling it in is more solid rock But carved into the wall is something that looks like a set of words The only problem is that they re as undecipherable as hieroglyph ics Frieda steps forward to have a closer look You d like to join her but since you re the smallest one on either team you re shoved to ward the back of the anxious group This has some characteristics of ancient Sanskrit and also early Incan Frieda muses Unfortunately I had time only for ACT s familiarization course in translation I got pulled when Leakey made his last discov ery in the Transvaal You re So intent on trying to think of a way to decipher that code that you don t pay any attention to the BRUTE contingent until Dirk practically knocks you down in an attempt to get closer to the carvings 57
8. manicured lawn Bronze wanders over to a nearby tree and pulls off a ripe peach The juice runs down his chin as he takes a bite This is like nectar of the gods he marvels Maybe you d better not eat it Frieda warns All of this could be a trap It just doesn t make sense that it s here Maybe we ought to have a look around before we relax You know that she s reciting chapter and verse from the ACT operations manual But you just can t resist the temptation to pick a bunch of dark red grapes and rest your aching feet Tli be ready for active duty again in a few minutes you apologize flopping down beside Arch and offering him half the grapes After the freezing rain outside the warmth in here is making you drowsy Even Frieda can t keep her guard up She picks several apricots and joins you on the grass Your eyes are just about to close when a flicker of movement at the front of the temple catches your attention Before you can push yourself to a sitting position five men appear on the steps And they don t exactly fit your 48 profile of a welcoming committee They re just as dirty and disheveled as the ACT team but they ve all got the hard disciplined look of mercenary soldiers The effect is particularly chilling because they re each carrying a shiny black rifle And they re pointing those deadly weapons right at you 49 CHAPTER 8 Your throat is t
9. you say slowly LoDar nods And luckily that set off an alarm that awakened me But by the time I was in full possession of my faculties Bymak had left with the stone and fallen into BRUTE hands With the stone gone I could no longer see clearly That s why I didn t know which team coming toward me had the stone Did BRUTE kill Bymak Arch asks They didn t have to This valley is sur rounded by a special protective shield Once Bymak was out of its influence he aged ra pidly and died LoDar has given you quite a bit to think about We re honored that you trust us with such awesome information Frieda murmurs LoDar turns to her and smiles But there s something about the look in his eyes that sends a shiver up your spine It s a trust I must make sure you keep he says Now that you know the secrets of Tanzia you must remain here But I do promise to make the rest of your lives very pleasant and comfortable For example I can give you unlimited access to the hall of technology 89 You had wanted to explore that fabulous place but not forever There are a lot of other things you want to do with your life as well Bronze puts your objections into words You can t do that he protests I m still in training for the next Olympics The guardian shakes his head sadly I m afraid your life as you knew it is over You must live out t
10. 100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 200 210 220 230 80 PROGRAM 6 DIM C 5 CLS C 1 20 C 3 40 C 5 10 B RR RRR HER E EEE TEESE E S 20 40 10 GOSUB 500 PRINT B LY 3 GOSUB 510 PRINT S LY 5 GOSUB 510 PRINT B X 1 Y 3 PRINT PRESS ANY KEY TO STOP STRUM LY 4 GOSUB 510 GOSUB 540 IF Y gt X THEN 160 PRINT TAB Y TAB X GOTO 170 PRINT TAB X sTAB Y CS INKEYS IF CS lt gt THEN 230 X Y Y Y 5 IF Y gt 25 THEN Y 3 GOTO 110 Z INT Y 5 1 240 250 260 270 280 290 300 310 320 330 340 350 500 510 520 530 540 550 This program will run on all personal IF Z 2 OR Z 4 THEN 340 SUM SUM C 2 LY 8 GOSUB 510 PRINT YOU VE SCORED C Z POINTS PRINT YOUR SUM IS SUM FOR I 1 TO 100 NEXT I IF SUM gt 100 THEN 320 GOTO 100 PRINT YOU VE MASTERED THE SECRETS OF THE STRUM END PRINT EARTH SPINNING OUT OF CONTROL FOREVER END LY 1 LX 1 LOCATE LY LX RETURN SOUND RND 500 500 5 RETURN appie Radio Radio Shack Commodore atari computers checked in the chart above See the 81 Reference Manual page 117 for changes for Atari Apple Commodore 64 and VIC 20 Ra dio Shack TRS 80 and Color By the time you ve accumulated the right number of points you re drenched with sweat The guardian forgot to mention that the light started moving faster the closer you got to the necessary sc
11. 15 550 POKE 36876 INT RND 1 128 128 560 POKE 36876 0 POKE 36878 0 570 RETURN Commodore 64 20 PRINT CHR 147 170 GET C 180 IF CS lt gt THEN 230 520 POKE 781 Y POKE 782 X 530 POKE 783 0 SYS 65520 RETURN 540 POKE 54296 15 POKE 54277 90 POKE 54278 200 550 POKE 54273 34 POKE 54272 75 560 POKE 54276 33 570 FOR ZZ 1 TO 200 NEXT ZZ 580 POKE 54296 0 590 RETURN 118 What the Program Does This program controls the time strum In order to stop the strum so that LoDar can in sert the Magor Stone you must accumulate 100 points by playing Press your Luck You must try to stop the moving light directly un der a score If you miss you ll send the world spinning hopelessly out of control How the Program Works The playing board is made up of five cells denoted by the array C Cells 1 3 and 5 con tain points and if you stop the under one of those you receive the number of points contained in that cell Line 30 assigns the val ues for each cell Y represents the current line position of the character on your screen X keeps track of the previous position of Y so that once the new Y has been determined the program can print a blank space over the old Y to give the impression that the is moving across the screen Your running total is kept in the variable SUM Once you ve reached 100 points you ve mastered the secrets of the strum 119 PROGRAM 7 SPEED AROUND THE
12. Connection Team your job as al ways is to defend the cause of good against evil It won t be easy because BRUTE the Bureau of Random Unlawful Terror and Evil an international organization bent on wreaking havoc throughout the world will be fighting you every step of the way Your computer ex pertise will be vital to this mission So turn on your home system Throughout this adventure you ll be called upon to program it to get the ACT team out of some really tough spots Look for the chart next to the program instructions It will tell you which micros will run each program If the program won t run as is on your computer consult the Reference Manual in the back of the book fast Good luck This message will be erased from mem ory in 30 seconds CHAPTER 1 The words flashing on your computer screen look like gibberish but you know they re an urgent transmission from ACT Central After all as the Adventure Connection Team s top computer expert code name Orion You ve been through this before C TVJ QCV HMT ACTV GP FCQVTSAVGMP SPNCQQ You reach for the decoder manual the latest issue of X Men Comics But before you can slide the special transparency over the third to last page the room starts to vibrate and the computer transmission breaks off What s going on you wonder as the 10 20 30 40 50 h anging lamp above your desk sways wildly and the floor trembles like a 747 takin
13. STRUM Modifications for Other Micros Apple II and Ie 10 HOME 620 HTAB X VTAB Y Atari 400 800 5 DIM BS 15 D 15 10 PRINT CHR 125 620 POSITION X Y Commodore 64 and VIC 20 10 PRINT CHRS 147 620 POKE 781 Y POKE 782 X 630 POKE 783 0 SYS 65520 RETURN Radio Shack Color Computer 620 PRINT Y 32 X Radio Shack TRS 80 620 PRINT Y 64 X What the Program Does This is the controller for the revolving circles on the floor in the time strum room How the Program Works The B and D variables show which way the two innermost circles are moving SP is 120 the speed variable The higher you set SP in line 60 the shorter the wait loop in line 580 and the faster the floor rings move If you set SP high enough it will fling BRUTE into the strum APPENDIX ASCII Code Character 0 32 Special system control characters 32 Space will look blank 33 34 ie 35 36 37 38 amp 39 f 40 41 42 i 43 44 45 46 47 48 0 49 1 50 2 121 ASCII Code Character oi A OONOU A W N VOZSBrFAST TOMMONOWPOVYViiA ASCII Code Character e2 I IN lt XS lt CHHDO a 97 122 lower case letters 126 255 alternate character set on some computers these codes are used to represent graphic symbols Check the ASCII chart in the back of your computer s user guide for what these codes mean on your system 123 RED Your code name is Orion and only you A
14. Shack Color Com puter Each machine has its own operating procedures for starting up BASIC and editing programs So make sure you re in BASIC be fore trying to run any of these programs and check your user manual for instructions on how to edit lines Also make sure you type NEW before entering each program to clear out any leftovers from previous activities The version of the program included in 103 the text will generally run on the majority of the computers listed above However a few of the commands used are not available on some home systems If the program as given does not run on one of the micros listed above modi fication instructions will be included in this Reference Manual Even if you re using a computer other than the ones mentioned the program may still work since it s always written in the most generalized BASIC If you need help with one of the com puter activities in the Micro Adventure or want to understand how a program works you ll find what you need in this manual Naturally programs must be typed into your computer exactly as given If the pro gram should run on your computer but you re having problems do a list on the program and check your typing before you try anything else Even a misplaced comma or parenthesis might cause a syntax error that will prevent the whole program from working TERMS YOU NEED TO KNOW Computer experts have a special lan guage they use
15. exactly happened you hear Arch stammer To your relief you realize that your teammates have at least partially regained their strength The guardian smiles kindly The miss ing stone caused more than earthquakes and other natural imbalances There were serious temporal disturbances as well Suddenly you remember what you had been told about time gaps Do you mean pieces of time were lost Exactly gt LoDar says Their loss was making the earth spin faster But now they have 84 been restored Those were the flickering im ages around you You mean everybody on earth just re lived parts of their lives Bronze asks To some small extent the guardian re plies But the experience was much more vivid here in the strum room On the rest of the earth people probably thought the interlude was a daydream Only we know differently LoDar glances around the room You have done well my friends The world is in your debt Come let us celebrate our suc cess As he speaks a panel in the far side of the strum room slides open Suddenly you re standing in the sunlight again LoDar leads the four of you to an open tentlike pavilion set up under flowering plum and cherry trees Inside is a banquet table loaded with everything you love to eat Sit down LoDar says He pours all of you a cool drink from a golden pitcher and proposes a toast
16. frequently used task In some of the programs in this book subrou tines are used to position the cursor or get in put from the screen Variables are names used to represent values that will change during the course of a pro gram For example a variable named D might represent any day of the week It may help you to think of a variable as a storage box wait ing to receive whatever information you want to put in Variables that deal with strings of symbols are always followed by a dollar sign Variables that end in a percent sign always hold integers the whole numbers like 1 2 3 500 108 Variables with a pound sign or no special character at the end hold numbers that may contain fractions The number of characters allowed in a variable name varies from com puter to computer PROGRAM 1 DECODE MESSAGE Modifications for Other Micros Atari 400 800 5 DIM M 45 B 1 60 C ASC M N N What the Program Does In order to receive your mission instruc tions from ACT you must decode their scrambled message This program decodes the message However the earthquake disrupted communications before the transmission was complete so you get only part of the mes sage How the Program Works The message is scrambled because each letter has been encoded using an odd even al gorithm If the ASCII value of a letter in the plain text was odd e g 67 for a C then the encoder subtracted 2 from the ASCII va
17. future clearly Is the time strum the oracle that BRUTE was trying to take over you question In a sense though that s a very sim plistic view the guardian answers The strum can show the future just as it can show the past The guardians are only allowed to use its power to set the course of human history back on the correct path whenever it strays I shud der to think what would happen if an organi zation as evil as BRUTE tried to interfere for their own selfish purposes Everyone has dozens of questions about 75 the strum s secrets like how did the stone fall into BRUTE s hands in the first place But just then the guardian draws your attention to an image in the depths of the blue liquid It s a volcanic eruption And as you watch in horror you see lava flowing over a large city That scene will become real very soon if we do not put back the stone and stabilize the strum the guardian warns Initially it took seven guardians to start the room mov ing It was arrogant to think that work would never have to be undone You must realize that you were all brought here for this purpose The guardians have chosen you for you each possess a special energy to restabilize the time strum It will take all of our combined ef forts to stop the motion of the strum if it can be stopped at all What do you want us to do Frieda asks LoDar points to five
18. he asks Your eyes widen He must be from ACT transportation 6 In the cockpit the pilot confirms your educated guess Buckle up Orion he shouts above the din of the engine Soon you re high above the disaster area From this vantage point you can see just how widespread the destruction really is As you arrive at ACT headquarters you suppress a gasp The whole side of the mountain that used to hide the facility has been smashed That ex plains why you lost communication You won der how many casualties ACT has sustained The chopper heads for a nearby cornfield From the air all you can see are waving green stalks But once on the ground you realize that most of the field is camouflaged tarp Under neath is a tent and Quonset hut city Temporary headquarters We had to borrow some personnel from the military to bring us up to minimum operating strength the pilot explains You re meeting the rest of the assault team in tent 37B Good luck This could almost be a military camp ex cept that you know the regular army doesn t have android recruits robot tanks and dozens of civilians marching around After passing the mess tent three times you finally ask direc tions from a voice operated vending machine The meeting is just getting started as you pull back the flap of 37B and step inside Orion questions a tall gray haired man wearing a lieutenant general s uniform
19. nothing happens As quickly as the glowing apparition came it s simply gone For a moment everyone is too shaken to speak What was that Arch finally croaks I think we ve come face to face with that Doomsday specter the general was talking about you mutter But I thought he said it was connected only with computers Frieda points out Bronze shakes his head Maybe now that we re in its home territory it has even more power But it did start on my computer you say I ve still got the program it downloaded Maybe it s got some clues If you have been able to save Program 2 run it now If not input it again You ll find it on page 20 After you stop the lightning you have to find the Guardian Latch in order to get the information out of the program Study the program listing and see if you can figure 22 out what data needs to be entered to find the Guardian Latch Hint Use the ASCII table in the back If you need help check page 111 of the Reference Manual Good going Orion Frieda congratu lates you Now at least we have a little more information We may not know what the stone is Arch adds but we do know that someone named Bymak stole it from somewhere called Tanzia Do you suppose that s the name of the valley we re headed for Sounds like a good guess to me Bronze says Now that the com
20. 0 INPUT SP 80 IF SP gt 92 5 2 THEN 190 90 IF SP gt 400 J gt 500 THEN 160 94 100 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 200 500 510 520 530 540 550 560 570 580 590 600 610 620 630 640 650 660 670 680 690 IF BX gt 14 THEN GOSUB 640 GOSUB 500 IF DX lt l THEN GOSUB 670 GOSUB 540 J J 1 GOTO 90 FOR M 1 TO 10 PRINT B NEXT M PRINT BRUTE HAS FALLEN INTO STRUM END PRINT THE SPEED HAS SEND THE EARTH OUT OF ORBIT END BX BX 1 Y 1 X BX GOSUB 620 PRINT gt RETURN Y 3 X DX GOSUB 620 DX Dx 1 PRINT lt RETURN FOR K 1 TO 2000 SP NEXT K RETURN Y 1 X 1 LOCATE Y X RETURN GOSUB 600 BX 1 RETURN Y 3 GOSUB 610 DX 14 RETURN 95 This program will run on all personal computers checked in the chart above See the Reference Manual page 120 for changes for Atari Apple Commodore 64 and VIC 20 Ra dio Shack TRS 80 and Color You ve done it The floor adjacent to the strum begins to speed up It makes you dizzy just watching But the BRUTEs who are trapped on the moving ring don t have a chance You watch as they try to stand and get away Instead they are pulled by centrifugal force toward the strum center One by one they tumble into its blue depths There s a mighty shockwave as each man is sucked down and disappears Where did they go you gasp Each of them has been absorbed into a different era of history gt the gu
21. 0 PRINT Y 32 X What the Program Does The program controls the pulley that will carry the ACT team to safety The timing mechanism is not working correctly proba bly due to the goatherder s tinkering with it Unfortunately for Bronze when the timing mechanism CL is not functioning the pul ley goes crazy You must adjust the clock to bypass this malfunction and then enter the cor rect commands to move each member of the ACT team across the gorge How the Program Works CL is the clock variable You ll notice in lines 120 through 200 that if the clock is OFF then poor Bronze dangles dangerously above the rapids To get around this you must change the value of CL to anything but OFE Try ON Once that hurdle has been passed you ll need to enter the commands to move each member in turn across to safety Only L for left or R for right are allowed A wrong 115 move could send an ACT member for a very cold swim This program uses subroutines to move the pulley left or right and also to position the cursor for printing For example lines 560 through 610 are the instructions to move the pulley right one position PROGRAM 5 SPECTER S MESSAGE Modifications for Other Micros This program as is will not run on any computer The specter has downloaded a pro gram with statements that aren t allowed in BASIC If you try to run them you ll get syntax errors whi
22. 40 FOR I 1 TO 10 150 GOSUB 560 160 NEXT I GOSUB 680 170 FOR I 1 TO 10 180 GOSUB 620 190 NEXT I GOSUB 680 200 GOTO 140 210 GOSUB 700 220 IF BX lt 2 THEN BX 2 GOSUB 350 230 IF BX gt 20 THEN BX 20 GOSUB 420 240 Y 5 GOSUB 710 250 PRINT ENTER L OR R 260 INPUT MS 42 270 280 290 300 310 320 330 340 350 360 370 380 390 400 410 420 430 440 450 460 470 480 490 500 510 520 530 540 550 560 IF MS R THEN GOSUB 560 IF MS L THEN GOSUB 620 IF MS R MS L LS _ THEN 210 FOR KK 1 TO 10 PRINT TAB 5 L NEXT KK PRINT YOU DROPPED ACTS J END IF B 0 THEN 380 PRINT AT STARTING POINT RETURN PRINT PICK UP ACTS J LS LEFTS ACTS J 1 B 1 RETURN IF B 1 THEN 450 PRINT HARNESS IS EMPTY RETURN Y 4 GOSUB 710 PRINT ACTS J MADE IT Z ZS L Y 10 X 20 GOSUB 720 PRINT Z J J 1 B 0 LS IF J lt 5 THEN 540 PRINT ALL ACT MEMBERS ON OTHER SIDE END GOSUB 700 PRINT FETCH NEXT MEMBER RETURN BX BX 1 43 570 Y 10 X BX GOSUB 720 580 PRINT 590 Y 1l1l GOSUB 720 600 PRINT L 610 RETURN l 620 Y 10 X BX GOSUB 720 630 EBEX BX 1 640 PRINT 650 Y 11 GOSUB 720 660 PRINT LS 670 RETURN 680 FOR K TO 500 NEXT K 690 RETURN 700 Y 1 710 X 1 720 LOCATE Y X 730 RETURN ram Appie Radio Radio shack Commodore atari PC amp i TRS 80 400 800 PCjr This program will run on all
23. ANZIA 0 END 0 VS INKEYS 0 RETURN 20 ram Apple Radio shack Shack Commodore atari PC amp 14 te TRS 80 Color VIC 20 400 800 PCjr This program will run on all personal computers checked in the chart above See the Reference Manual page 110 for changes for Atari Apple Commodore 64 and VIC 20 The ACT team has drawn itself into a de fensive knot facing the glowing apparition At least that thing doesn t have control of the computer anymore Frieda whispers trying to look on the bright side Yeah but does anybody know what it s talking about I don t even know what the Ma gor Stone is let alone how to return it Bronze says In the face of this ghostly terror his voice has risen two octaves and his self confidence seems on the verge of snapping No one knows what the message means But it sounds serious especially when the lightning that you ve banished from your screen suddenly begins to snap crackle and pop at the specter s fingertips As you watch in horror he aims his hands 21 at the campsite There s nowhere to take cover as lightning begins raining down around you When one of the backpacks goes up in flames you feel Bronze s hand on your shoulder shak ing like a leaf Or is it you shaking Another bolt hits and Frieda gasps If this doesn t stop we re done for You can feel everybody tense waiting for the next one to hit But
24. I can t help you do it Even that small act would be against our creed All I can do is let you try But it took a lot of power to open it be fore you say suddenly scared You ve got to do it for me again I did it then because the crucial stone was missing Now you can do it for yourself So it s up to you to save the world Trying to keep your hands from trembling you touch the access panel It slides open wider than it 93 did before Now you see not only the blinking control lights you used to stop the strum but also a key pad and miniature screen It looks amazingly like a modern computer But then why not The guardians have apparently been seeding today s technology all along After glancing quickly over your shoulder to make sure Flint and his men are still occu pied you call for a listing of the control pro gram and study it Input the following program and run it See if you can find the variable that controls the speed of the inner circle of the strum room floor You must change it to a value that will be fast enough to throw the BRUTEs out with out sending the strum into a destruction se quence Lines 160 170 and 190 must each be typed as one line on your computer PROGRAM 7 10 CLS 20 BS gt gt gt gt gt gt gt gt gt gt gt gt gt gt gt 30 DS XC lt RK REE ERE 40 GOSUB 600 PRINT BS 50 Y 3 GOSUB 610 PRINT D 60 PRINT ENTER SPEED SETTING 7
25. LERT can stop the world i from spinning wildly out of orbit The world is headed for disaster Tidal waves and earth quakes are only the beginning As computer whiz on the ACT Adventure Connection Team it s up to you to set the world back on course You must use your micro to Play a game of skill that tests your reflexes and your nerve Break the enemy s Doom Stalker is more secret code than a great adventure Debug an equipment story It is danger malfunction before it action suspense sends your teammates plus computer programs plummeting to a sudden for you to run death The programs will run In BASIC on the IBM PC IBM PCjr APPLE Il lle and lic COMMODORE 64 VIC 20 533382 ATARI 400 800 and RADIO SHACK TRS 80 and COLOR COMPUTER 0 Includes a reference manual with user ti 8073 00195 d f eea eri ISBN 0 590 33382 8
26. More Than An Action Packed Novel Includes 7 Exciting Programs For Your Computer Scholastic 0 590 33382 8 1 95 Aa Nw a rN el rl sme a A R22 ee a ee ee ee ee ee CV i my oe pe pee pee pee pee peer ae l a MICRO ADVENTURE OO T DOOM STALKER by Ruth Glick and Eileen Buckholtz A Parachute Press Book SCHOLASTIC INC New York Toronto London Auckland Sydney Tokyo Book was designed by Gene Siegel No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part or stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means electronic mechanical photocopying re cording or otherwise without written permission of the publisher For information regarding permission write to Scholastic Inc 730 Broadway New York NY 10003 ISBN 0 590 33382 8 Copyright 1985 by Parachute Press Inc Eileen Buckholtz and Ruth Glick All rights reserved Published by Scholastic Inc MICRO ADVENTURE is a trademark of Parachute Press Inc Eileen Buckholtz and Ruth Glick ATARI is a registered trademark of ATARI Inc TRS 80 is a registered trademark of Radio Shack a Tandy Corporation VIC 20 is a trademark of Commodore Computer 12 1110987654321 l 567 8 9 8 0 9 Printed in the U S A 01 Warning The following information is cru cial to the success of your mission Read it carefully It may save your life As a certified member of ACT the Ad venture
27. To the ACT team who saved the world You take a sip it s the most delicious fruit punch you ever tasted Rhine wine Frieda exclaims No it s Peruvian ale Arch insists But you know it s just one more thing you can t explain about the valley of Tanzia After the drink you tackle the food It s 85 been a draining experience for all of you and you dig in with enthusiasm You re so hungry that you spend your first 15 minutes trying everything from roast turkey to strawberries Romanoff Finally you look up to see that LoDar isn t eating anything Aren t you hungry you ask He shakes his head We in the valley of Tanzia are not like mortals Our food is a spe cial concentrated nutrient And just who are the guardians of Tan zia Frieda dares to ask He gives her a patient smile The se crets of Tanzia are guarded with our lives However I think the ACT team has earned the right to know You lean forward eagerly At last you re going to find out just what brought you here The guardians are survivors of an ex traterrestrial civilization that was foolish and arrogant enough to destroy itself in a senseless conflict LoDar begins sadly Just before the final confrontation a few of us escaped to other parts of the universe We pledged ourselves to ensure that the fate of our world would not be fall other planets where life exist
28. a new feature from the ACT research lab Who knows whether it works or not But it s your only chance to preserve the memory of this mission You ve just slipped the disk into your pocket when LoDar turns to you Give me your computer Orion he asks It s not really a request it s an order I presume you had a built in trip log he adds as he passes the computer through a magnetized circle You flinch as the field pulses on and off You know that every bit of memory in your banks has just been reduced to zeros And now my friends this is good bye ACT s help has been invaluable and I only wish that you could remember your valiant service to the world Unfortunately it must be this way I wish we could remember you at least Frieda laments LoDar nods Perhaps we will meet again somehow Come take a final look at the strum before you go Obediently all of you look into the vis 99 cous blue pool in the center of the room Again you see images of history only now they flash past in sequence not at random Once again you are almost hypnotized by the fascinating flow of events And you hardly notice when the blue of the strum becomes more opaque and the images fade to flickering lights It s almost like sunlight and shadow dancing off water The next thing you know the ACT team is standing on the bank of a mountain stream looking down into the water Bronze
29. a glimpse of the portable ACT model that s hanging from your belt And then your eyes pop as you see what must be the com puters of the future You could spend weeks soaking up all this stuff But LoDar urgently presses you forward Thousands of years of technology are repre sented here Yet all they have done for man kind will be for naught he explains if we do not insert the stone in its proper place You know he s not talking about just the machines preserved in this room but about all the prog ress humans have made since the discovery of the wheel In the heart of the building is a spherical enclosure about the size of a planetarium The outside is as smooth and featureless as a gi gantic ball bearing 73 The guardian stands in front of a section of the curved wall and speaks a few low syl lables The wall parts for the five of you to en ter Once you re inside it closes again There s a hushed silence from the whole ACT team Suddenly you feel as though you ve entered a huge blue crystal There are small octagonal pieces all over the curved walls and ceiling At first glance each of them resem bles the Magor Stone that LoDar is holding Yet they all lack its special iridescent glow There s more to marvel at here than just the octagonal facets Looking around you see that the walls are moving clockwise The floor is divided into several tracks that are turning counter clockwise at di
30. an 87 yours we could never have carried out our task for so long without the aid of special cham bers After the first crucial century here we used them to put ourselves into a suspended state much like hibernation Most of us are in those chambers now It is my turn to keep the watch for this century You mean only one of you is awake at a time Bronze asks Yes LoDar replies The system has worked for thousands of years until very re cently Bymak the guardian who was sup posed to be on duty now was affected by some freak malfunction in his slumber chamber Bymak You remember that name He s the one who took the Magor Stone to BRUTE From what I can piece together LoDar continues his lapses were intermittent at first But they were enough to allow the world to teeter on the edge of destruction You must know that during the last 50 years the world situation has become more dangerous than it s ever been before Think about the evil of Hitler the Iron Curtain the Vietnam conflict and the threat of nuclear war You mean all that s his fault Bronze whispers LoDar shakes his head No mankind made its own mistakes But Bymak did noth 88 ing to prevent them And when his condition worsened he did something that set the world on a path toward certain destruction He took the Magor Stone out of the strum
31. ar ranged the letters of the key Let me try List the program and modify it by using another combination of the letters in the sub stitution key Keep trying until you come up with a key that will work If you are stumped there s help on page 113 of the Reference Manual 31 Once you get the decoder working on the initial intercept the BRUTE transmission is a fountain of information So now we know for sure that they are heading for the valley of Tanzia too Frieda says Just then another burst of data comes through You decode it and stare in disbelief BRUTE assault team will gain control of Tanzian oracle in 12 hours it announces Oracle Isn t an oracle supposed to pre dict the future Arch asks Is that what s really in the valley of Tanzia I thought oracles were just a myth you Say Well BRUTE assumes it s real enough to have mounted a multimillion dollar expedi tion to get control of the thing Frieda points out Do you think it has anything to do with the specter that keeps appearing Arch asks You shrug I don t know But have you noticed that the closer we get to Tanzia the bigger and louder the thing gets Yes three voices chime in And then there s that Magor Stone it wants back so desperately Bronze adds Could that have something to do with the or acle Frieda brus
32. ardian ex plains But I didn t know that was going to happen Can t we get them back you ask panic stricken It s bad enough coping with 96 BRUTE in the present There s no telling what they might do in another time LoDar shakes his head There s no way to call them back We must be content that we have saved the world today I know it s a hard concept to grapple with but if they ve gone into the past we have already dealt with them And if they re in the future we will have to be pre pared to thwart them with the help of the strum LoDar waits while you reset the floor s speed control back to normal Then the two of you leave the strum room once more Outside the chamber you find the rest of the ACT team waiting anxiously What happened Frieda questions It was BRUTE you tell her They got out of the refuge when the time loss was being restored Arch looks confused Then where are they now They decided to delve a little tees into history LoDar explains You glance in his direction realizing it s the first time you ve heard this solemn guard ian make a joke Quickly he describes exactly what happened Though you re all glad that doom has been averted you re still worried about what LoDar told you just before BRUTE took over the strum 97 room Tanzia is a nice place to visit but you re not so sure yo
33. ch means that your system doesn t understand what you want to do You must substitute a correct BASIC command for the DPRINTs throughout the program in order to get any information from the specter The corrected program should be 10 PRINT TO LEAVE THIS ROOM 20 GOTO 50 30 PRINT YOU CAN WALK THROUGH THE ARCH 40 GOTO 70 50 PRINT YOU MUST CARRY THE MAGOR STONE 60 GOTO 30 70 PRINT AND LIVE TO TELL ABOUT IT 116 PROGRAM 6 PRESS YOUR LUCK Modifications for Other Micros Apple II and Ile 20 HOME 520 HTAB LX VTAB LY 540 PRINT CHRS 7 Atari 400 800 5 OPEN 1 4 0 K 7 GRAPHICS 0 10 DIM C 5 B 25 S 25 V 1 D 15 TAB 25 15 TABS 140 PRINT TAB 1 Y TAB 1 X Y 160 PRINT TABS 1 Y 180 IF V lt gt THEN 230 170 GOSUB 570 520 POSITION LX LY 540 SOUND 0 RND 0 255 10 10 550 SOUND 1 0 0 0 560 RETURN 570 IF PEEK 764 lt gt 255 THEN 590 580 vS RETURN 590 GET 1 M VS CHRS M 600 POKE 764 255 610 RETURN Put 25 spaces between the quotes in line 15 Radio Shack Color Computer 520 PRINT LY 32 LX 540 SOUND RND 128 5 10 117 Radio Shack TRS 80 520 PRINT 64 LY LX 540 RETURN Commodore VIC 20 20 PRINT CHRS 147 40 BS H tH FFs Hse gs FFE EEE TESTE 50 S 20 40 10 90 X 1 Y 1 170 GET C 180 IF CS lt gt THEN 230 210 IF Y gt 22 THEN Y 520 POKE 781 Y POKE 782 X 530 POKE 783 0 SYS 65520 RETURN 540 POKE 36878
34. ck Look at the archway he hisses All eyes shift in that direction The space that used to be filled 60 with solid rock has now become a heavy translucent curtain Dirk rushes over and tries to push his way through But he simply bounces back onto the hard ground At least something s happened Flint insists We ve got to see this thing through no matter how many ACT agents die in the attempt The current has you too paralyzed to ar gue And then to your amazement you hear your computer start to beep It s hard to make your body move but somehow you reach in your pocket for your micro The minute your fingers touch the familiar case the electric current that s holding you captive snaps off Incredulously you look down at the port able unit The downline loading light is flash ing Just like the time the apparition sent you that program something is being downloaded into your computer again What is it Frieda whispers I won t know until I run the program Input the following program and try to run it Lines 30 50 and 70 must each be typed as one line If you can save the program PROGRAM 5 10 DPRINT TO LEAVE THIS ROOM 20 GOTO 50 61 30 DPRINT YOU CAN WALK THROU GH THE ARCH 40 GOTO 70 50 DPRINT YOU MUST CARRY THE MAGOR STONE 60 GOTO 30 70 DPRINT AND LIVE TO TELL ABOUT IT 80 END All you get for your efforts is a syntax error message
35. cnic before we slipped in here You glance at LoDar but you already know what s happened The BRUTE team must have escaped during the time restoration epi sode right after you put the stone back It was a hard trip but it was worth it in the end Flint gloats Now the power of the stone is ours Move inside he says gesturing with his gun And stay out of the way while we try to figure this thing out Silently you and LoDar obey Can t we do anything you whisper He shakes his head Violence is forbid 92 den here We cannot use force We can only wait You feel helpless If BRUTE makes the wrong move the whole human race could dis appear in one terrible earthquake But what can you do You rack your mind as you watch Flint and his men explore the inner circle that re volves around the strum They re so entranced by the pictures they re seeing in the strum s depths that they seem to have forgotten you re even in the room Maybe that gives you an advantage you think And then you notice exactly where you re standing The access panel to the room s con trols is only inches from your foot You know there is a way to stop the strum room so there should be a way to speed it up as well and make the BRUTEs so dizzy that they fall off Quickly you whisper your plan to LoDar He nods That makes sense Orion he agrees But
36. ct you Frieda and Arch all have to stop fre quently to catch your breath That s normal Bronze assures you You re going to feel this way until you adjust to the altitude Lunch is a few handfuls of trail mix and a high protein bar which the ACT team eats sitting on a large boulder overlooking the spectacular valley below If you were seeing this from the comfort of a movie theater you d be impressed with the view As it is looking up makes you dizzy and looking down is even worse And your feet feel as though you ve trekked from Nepal to China Just then your solid seat starts to vi brate And all around you rocks begin to slide There s an overhang at the foot of the boulder Get down there quick Bronze yells It s another earthquake The four of you huddle in the big rock s protection as pieces of earth and stone tumble past If you d stayed up on that narrow ledge you would have been goners You glance over at Arch and Frieda They look as pale as the snow covered peaks And you suspect your face is just as white 15 Luckily the disturbance doesn t last long Now we really have to make time this afternoon gt Bronze says as he surveys the rearranged landscape Quickly you resume the trail And thank goodness there are no more incidents while you re out in the open By late afternoon you descend into a sheltered valley between two peaks Bronze g
37. da asks You can tell that the general is forcing his voice to remain calm The effects have been cumulative It means the planet is spinning faster If we don t figure out how to stop the time gaps the earth is going to be spinning so fast that everything that isn t tied down will be flung right off into space CHAPTER There s silence around the table as the ACT members picture that horrible finale for the hu man race Frieda recovers first Why haven t we heard about this Has there been a cover up Suddenly you see the analytical mind beneath that soft looking exterior You could call it a cover up the gen eral admits reluctantly But what good would it have done to let the public know that the earth seemed to be set for certain destruction You wouldn t have flown this team here Arch interjects if the situation were absolutely hopeless Correct There is a slim chance the general concedes And this ACT team is it He lets that sink in and then continues There s one more piece of the puzzle that doesn t fit anywhere Accompanying the nat ural disasters we ve been hit by weird com puter disturbances all over the Defense Communication Network Terminals from Seattle to Cape Hatteras have been taken over by some sort of apparition It s always the same hawk nosed figure with eyes that seem to burn right out of the scree
38. dom Number Generator This function which is called RND in BASIC lets you gen erate numbers at random just as though you were throwing a set of dice and didn t know which number was going to come up next In most home computers the RND function re turns a fraction between 0 and 1 To get num bers in a larger range the program must multiply the fraction by a larger number For example RND 10 will produce numbers be tween 0 and 10 REM This command is used to tell the com puter that whatever is on a particular line is just a comment and should not be executed An example might look like this 10 REM THIS PROGRAM DOES A COUNTDOWN Strings are groups of one or more letters numbers or other symbols that are treated as 107 a unit In the English language a collection of letters that make up a word can be thought of as a string In a program the information in a string is often enclosed in quotation marks to let the computer know that the symbols are to be treated as characters In the string 123 the program is dealing with the characters 1 2 and 3 not the larger number 123 The computer is storing these as the ASCII values for 1 2 and 3 which are 49 50 and 51 A string that is empty and has no characters in it is called a null string and should be repre sented as Subroutines are parts of a program or a se quence of instructions called by a program to perform a general or
39. ds are just closing around your windpipe when thunder rumbles overhead and a bolt of lightning singes the grass three feet away It catches your assailant s atten tion and everyone else s What Flint starts to demand but the question freezes in his throat The apparition is back with a vengeance This time it s standing on thin air above the temple bigger than it s ever been before The 52 thing s now 50 feet high and glowing fire red VIOLENCE IS FORBIDDEN it rum bles in a voice that makes the ground shake The ACT and BRUTE teams gape as it floats down from the temple and hovers above the field of combat RETURN THE MAGOR STONE it orders What Magor Stone We don t even know what the Magor Stone is you shout back We don t have it either the BRUTE captain adds But just for information pur poses what happens if no one hands it over This is the first time the specter has ever recognized a response But you don t find its answer comforting IF THE MAGOR STONE IS NOT RE TURNED YOU WILL ROT HERE FOR ALL ETERNITY 53 CHAPTER 9 The apparition vanishes But its awful threat still hangs in the air Somehow the fight be tween your side and the BRUTE team just doesn t seem worth continuing And you don t particularly want to find out what will happen if you break the specter s commandment With thoughts of fleeing everyon
40. e he exclaims sur veying the rugged landscape We re going to be the first to conquer this baby While he talks he passes out ropes and safety harnesses and then snaps out 50 push ups as a warm up Frieda and Arch look as doubtfully as you do at the mountain climbing gear The closest you ve ever come to something like this was the jungle gym back in grade school But be fore you can protest your Olympic teammate is cheerfully helping you strap into the safety equipment All too soon the whole group is hooked together and ready to go Although Frieda is the team leader she has obviously decided to defer to Bronze during this phase of the operation The valley we re searching for should take us about two days to reach he tells you After consulting his map and compass he points toward a two foot wide ledge that seems to wind around the side of the mountain That s the best way to get across As he speaks he non chalantly ambles over to the edge and looks down When his boot dislodges a piece of loose rock you watch it fall and fall and fall Time to move out Bronze announces We ve got to reach the other side of Mt Kleinberg before sundown or we have to sleep 14 standing with our backs to this rock That s just the motivation you needed Resolutely you tuck your fears away and fol low Bronze down the narrow trail It s harder work than you thought In fa
41. e into the matching opening Immediately you re struck by an unearthly sensation The strum room LoDar and your teammates seem to disappear For a moment it s as though you re suspended in a timeless void Then suddenly images from the past few days swirl around you like autumn leaves in a whirlwind All at once it s as if you re back where this adventure started in your bedroom in front of your computer screen seeing the specter s faint image for the first time You reach out to touch the CRT But it vanishes before your eyes In a millisecond you re back on the trail to Tanzia with the rest of the ACT team You re about to be crushed again in that rock slide But before you have time to throw your arms protectively over your 83 computer you re in the valley fighting off Flint and the rest of the BRUTE team What you gasp Time is being put right LoDar s voice floats reassuringly around you even though you can no longer see his body There are more snapshots from your re cent past The pace speeds up and your head spins Finally it s over You find yourself standing in the strum room with your teammates again The floor and walls begin to move slowly The surface of the blue pool in the center begins to undulate like a waterbed It s much calmer than when you first came into the room The boiling images of past present and future have submerged beneath the surface Wh what
42. e mention of electromagnetic variations before several of the recent disturbances The words are hardly out of her mouth when the earth beneath your feet begins to shake just as it did during yesterday s quake But this is different Hovering ominously in the sky above your heads is that awfully familiar ap parition And if it looked angry before this time its expression would freeze boiling water GIVE BACK THE MAGOR STONE NOW it thunders We haven t got your Magor Stone We don t even know what it is Arch has the nerve to answer back But the image doesn t seem to hear GIVE BACK THE MAGOR STONE it thunders even more loudly The mountain is 26 already trembling and the vibrations from the specter start a small rock slide that quickly es calates into an avalanche This time there s no place to take cover Quick into defensive position Bronze shouts dropping to his knees and clasping his hands over the back of his neck The rest of the team follows suit though your instinct is to curl protectively around your computer The ground is swaying sickeningly now And high above you hear more and more rock breaking loose You sneak a quick look up and then wish you hadn t A ton of stone is tumbling down toward the ACT team You hold your breath expecting to be crushed under a mountain of rubble The slide is within 50 feet of your head when a very strange thing happen
43. e turns back toward the crevice in the rock Right be fore your eyes it starts to shimmer In the next instant the opening fuses into the wall of solid rock One of the BRUTEs jumps up and rushes over to the spot where the opening used to be You see him run his hands frantically over the gray rock You re wasting your time Dirk the BRUTE leader calls It s obvious that no one will be leaving by that route Somehow 54 you knew all along that the specter was capa ble of making good its threat As if by mutual agreement the two fac tions separate into huddles at opposite ends of the lawn I think BRUTE s lying about not having the stone Arch hisses Obviously Frieda agrees But our main concern has to be getting out of this place We ve got to continue our mission And I cer tainly don t want to spend eternity no mat ter how short it might be with BRUTE What are our alternatives Bronze asks That specter knows it s got us trapped Yes but maybe if we can get BRUTE s cooperation we can all get out of here How can we trust those goons Arch asks skeptically In the long run we can t Frieda ad mits But if it s to their advantage to form a temporary alliance with us you can bet your ACT code book they will You glance over in BRUTE s direction As if to confirm Frieda s words
44. ed Though we have monitored the destiny of earth from the beginning let me assure you Your achievements have been your own We have taken an oath not to interfere in the day 86 to day affairs of human beings Only when it seems that you are about to steer a path toward total destruction or miss an opportunity to bet ter life on earth have we stepped in Frieda is particularly struck by his words I want to understand this better she says carefully The guardian nods There have been crucial turning points in your history when the wrong outcome would have spelled disaster What would have happened if man had not gotten control of fire if Jenner had not dis covered the smallpox vaccine if Abraham Lincoln had not been elected President But Lincoln was assassinated what about that you ask As I said we have kept our interference to a minimum he answers Although Lin coln s assassination was a senseless waste the course of history had already been assured LoDar s revelations give you a spooky feeling And they raise more questions than they answer There are still some things I don t un derstand Arch speaks for the rest of the group How have the guardians managed to survive for thousands of years LoDar turns to him A good question There are only a few of us here on earth And although our lifespan is many times longer th
45. ers with a let down feeling But back in your room where the whole mission started you pull out the tiny circle of plastic and look at it under a magnifying glass It s a miniature data disk Quickly you insert it into a special auxiliary drive on your micro The disk turns out to be your trip log But it s not just in words it s like a movie The first part matches what you remember of the mis sion But the further it plays the stranger it gets Is someone trying to play a trick on you you wonder And then like a bolt of lightning it hits you This is what really happened This is what 101 LoDar wiped from your memory Fascinated you sit back to watch the whole adventure unfold And as soon as it s over you reach for your keyboard to send a message to ACT But before you can connect a familiar image of the specter you ve come to know as LoDar appears on your screen Orion this secret must remain between the two of us he whispers T understand you agree And then you watch as the system erases the disk but this time not your memory of what really hap pened in the valley of Tanzia 102 REFERENCE MANUAL Note to user The programming activities in this book have been designed for use with the BASIC programming language on the IBM PC and PCJr Apple II Plus or Apple Ile with Applesoft BASIC Commodore 64 Vic 20 Atari 400 800 Radio Shack TRS 80 Level 2 or greater and the Radio
46. ers now shoots forth in two narrow beams from his eyes For a few frantic beats of your heart nothing more happens And then the tile in front of you seems to slowly dissolve revealing a panel with five rectangles A tiny light under each rectangle is illuminated in turn You kneel down to have a closer look and see that two of the boxes have exclamation 77 points and the other three contain numbers The strum must be fixed now Orion LoDar warns his voice crackling with static If you don t stop the light under the correct boxes the world will be destroyed 78 CHAPTER 13 Listen to me well he continues in a voice low and clear the static now gone from it The strum control was designed like a game a game that only a mortal with the quickness of youth has a chance of winning This will re quire all your skill and concentration It s up to you Input the following program and run it Lines 100 270 320 and 340 must be typed as one line on your computer Now you must play the game In order to stop the strum a player must accumulate at least 100 points You can stop the light by hitting any key on your computer If you hit a key when the light is un 79 der 40 you get 40 points 10 you get 10 points BUT if you stop the light under an ex clamation point you lose and the world spins out of its orbit 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90
47. ess he can catch the tone of your voice she says sternly With that she turns back and begins speaking gently to the goatherder while moving her hands in a series of stylized gestures What are you doing Arch questions Asking directions A few moments later you see her shaking her head vigorously What s the matter you ask Are we going in the wrong direction I don t know yet He s offered to trade me two goats for your computer After they get that little misunderstanding straightened out Frieda seems to make a bit 36 more progress When she mentions Tanzia he nods his head vigorously and points across the gorge Frieda looks excited and keeps gesturing He says it s definitely the fastest way to get there she relays excitedly But he thinks it s passable only in winter when the water s frozen That s without the benefit of ACT s new pulley system Arch points out I wish I had a present for him Frieda murmurs The goatherder seems to have the same idea He picks up a pack paws through it and throws it on the ground again Hey my equipment s in there Arch yells But before he can stop the guy two more packs have been ransacked Cut it out Bronze demands Despite the language barrier the six foot two athlete gets his message across The goatherder drops the pack and backs away Don t
48. f a tornado grab you Looking fearfully at your comrades you realize that the whole ACT team has been caught in the grip of the same whirlwind that took care of the BRUTE team But instead of sucking you back through the archway it picks you up up up Before you know it 68 you re flying high above the mountain And then you re being propelled forward at a speed that plasters the hair to your head and makes your jacket whip around you like a flag caught in a gale It s the ride of your life Snow capped mountains and gemlike valleys spread around you for miles It s like flying on the back of an eagle or being one yourself You glance over at Frieda and see the same exhilaration on her face Ahead you can see a small valley shrouded in low mist The whirlwind brings you gently down through white hazy layers It s as though gauzy veils are being pulled away re vealing unimaginable beauty You catch glimpses of sparkling golden temples lakes as clear as sapphires and brilliant flowers blooming everywhere If the valley where you and BRUTE were trapped was lush this place looks like Mount Olympus where the ancient Greek gods lived You glance around in awe at the formal buildings and carefully laid out gardens You never imagined a place like this existed on earth As if to complete the picture a giant of a man comes striding toward you along a wide marble walkway He s dressed in a flowing white toga trim
49. fferent rates of speed In the exact center of the room is a glowing pit of seething blue liquid Behold the time strum the guardian says reverently waving toward the boiling pool You peer into the churning depths From the activity of the stuff you d expect it to be hot But instead you feel an icy chill wafting up from the strum LoDar may be accustomed to looking into this seething azure pool but for you and the rest of the team it s almost hypnotizing As you continue to watch flickering images fade into each other and disappear only to re emerge a few seconds later It s almost like a kalei doscope only the pictures aren t broken up 74 Each is sharp and clear and self contained Many go by so quickly that you re not sure what they are Some stay in focus for a few sec onds You see Rome burning pictures of sleek missiles blasting off into space a picture of an underwater city that looks as if it s from a sci ence fiction adventure cavemen working on a wheel and President Kennedy giving his in augural address What is all this Bronze asks inching closer LoDar puts a hand on his shoulder to hold him back from the edge That is the time strum he explains It is both very powerful and very dangerous It controls time on earth Without the Magor Stone it is unstable As you can see the images in time have lost their se quence We can no longer see the present or the
50. g off y Oh no what a time for an earthquake ou think checking your computer screen to see if there s any damage What you see makes y our blood turn to ice There in living green and white is a high resolution graphic appa rition His nose is like an eagle s beak His lips are thin as lead disks And his piercing eyes seem to burn right out of the CRT For a moment the image flickers eerily Then it shrinks to a tiny dot on the screen before winking out of existence You re wondering whether you re hav ing flashbacks from the horror movie you saw last night when the power comes back on and your system automatically reboots You wait for the rest of the ACT mes sage but nothing comes through Maybe you d better just decode what you ve got Input the following program and run it Enter the coded message 4 PROGRAM 1 PRINT Dkkkkkkkkkkkkkkk kn PRINT TYPE IN LINE OF MESSAGE INPUT M L LEN M FOR N 1 TO L 60 C ASC MIDS M N 1 70 IF INT C 2 2 C THEN 90 80 C C 2 GOTO 100 90 C C 2 100 110 120 130 140 150 160 PRINT CHRS C NEXT N PRINT PRINT MORE TO DECODE Y OR N INPUT B IF BS Y THEN 20 END ram Apple Radio Shack Commodore atari PC amp i TRS 80 Color 400 800 PCjr This program will run on all personal computers checked in the chart above See the Reference Manual page 109 for changes for the Atari You can t belie
51. h it to an eight inch antenna dish But when you try to raise the ACT emergency channel all you get is static The rest of the team hov ers anxiously over your shoulder It could be that they can t broadcast on the regular frequency Frieda says Try scanning the range Following her advice you key in instruc tions for your micro to monitor any activity on 28 the wideband At first there s only noise But suddenly a burst of characters appears on the screen TPURM WFII PMSED RSKZFS WFRDFK RMK DLUPQ WM WFII QMEUPM LPSEIM BLP TPURM I think I ve got something you shout It looks as if it s in code but I can tell that it s not in ACT format Then what is it Bronze questions Do you think it could be generated from that specter I don t think so you reply Re member we didn t have any trouble under standing that You continue to study the groups of letters on the screen Suddenly you know where you ve seen something like this before Excitedly you turn to Frieda I d bet my new optical disk that this is a BRUTE code Can you break it she asks With the new optical disk ACT has been able to store seven million bytes of pre viously used BRUTE codes It ought to be around here somewhere you say as you be gin to search through the data base After churning for several minutes the computer s
52. he rest of your days here in Tanzia CHAPTER 44 You re trying to come to grips with this last distressing piece of information when a jolt something like the disturbances of the time strum hits the banquet pavilion Chairs tip and food and drink spill everywhere What s happening Arch groans from where he landed under the table Didn t putting back the Magor Stone fix all this you ask I can t understand it LoDar says It Should be functioning properly I must check the strum room at once Unsure of what technical problems might have cropped up he takes you with him The two of you head for the domed building where the strum is housed But when you and LoDar 91 step inside the familiar round enclosure you can t help gasping Standing along the edge of the dangerous blue pool is the BRUTE contin gent you thought you d never see again How did you get out you demand about to rush forward But LoDar puts a firm hand on your shoulder While they command the strum room we dare not evoke violence he whispers Flint grins evilly as he answers your question The world went spinning and all of a sudden we were outside that trap and looking down on this valley Convenient wouldn t you say It was so nice of you to show us where you d put the stone We watched you leave this building and then waited till you were having your little pi
53. hes a wayward strand of blonde hair back into her bun I wish I knew But it 32 would be extremely dangerous if BRUTE could predict the future The next step after predict ing the future is controlling it I hate to think what awful plans they could put into effect Now it s more vital than ever that we reach Tanzia before they do 33 CHAPTER You may have gotten some startling informa tion from BRUTE but it s still impossible to contact ACT I guess we re on our own Bronze says with a sigh We might as well start trekking back to the last fork in the trail Wait a second Arch puts a hand on Bronze s arm Do you see that gorge over there If we could get across we d save a day s travel time The team scrambles over to the sheer drop Fifty feet below is swirling white water that would put the Colorado River in flood season to shame Bronze rolls his eyes Even I m not crazy enough to try to swim across that And with 34 the compass going wild we can t even be sure that that s the fastest way to go How would we get across anyway you ask ACT has a new pulley device that I think will do the trick although it s never been tested under field conditions I have it right here Arch says He starts to rummage through his pack when you hear the sound of tinkling bells In the next instant a small wiry man dressed in a tat
54. ight with panic Only Frieda seems to have guts enough to challenge this dangerous looking squad Who are you and what s the meaning of this she demands drawing herself imperi ously to her feet Who do you think we are lady the Girl Scouts the head honcho sneers We re a crack BRUTE assault team and you ve just reached the end of your little trek In case you had any doubts one of them steps forward and calls Chestaaaa ches taaa then laughs uproariously It s the goatherder in wolf s clothing now You ought to have seen them playing ring around the rosy with me he tells his buddies But 50 then compared to us ACT never did graduate from the sandbox set Well the mystery of the malfunctioning breeches buoy is solved But it doesn t look as if it s going to do you much good Too bad you got across that gorge after all the fake goatherder taunts It makes us have to go to all the trouble of shooting you Say your prayers ACT the chief goon orders Raising his gun he gives the order to fire Instinctively you squeeze your eyes shut But the rifles never fire Are they playing games you wonder You open your eyes to see that the BRUTEs are clicking madly away with their rifles but nothing is happening And they look just as mystified as you Arch recovers first Their guns aren t working he shouts
55. ightly you shoulder your way into the curtain of what used to be stone You feel as though you re stepping into a swirling vat of molasses And then suddenly you ve broken free to the other side You look back through the archway and see the group on the other side quite clearly But it s obvious that they can t see you Did you make it Orion Frieda calls out anxiously Yes but you don t have to shout I can hear you perfectly This thing must be like a one way mirror you say I can also see you perfectly 63 Cut the chatter Flint orders Throw back the stone so the rest of us can get out of here You clutch the octagon in your hand I think we d better get some things straight first you say Why you little double crosser Dirk growls Pm not going back on the deal you assure him with a sense of power you ve never felt before After all you ve got a crack BRUTE team at your mercy Do you agree that we re going to return the Magor Stone to the apparition you ask You hear Flint curse under his breath If that s what it takes to get out of here he fi nally relents Good thinking Frieda shouts through the curtain Then she turns to Flint I also think you should give your word that there will be no more BRUTE dirty tricks All right you ve got my word on that Fl
56. int agrees quickly Then we ll alternate Frieda suggests The next man through will be a BRUTE team member Then one of us and so on until everyone is on the other side So toss the stone back in here kid Dirk directs You do As it passes through the arch way there s a flash of sparks The glowing 64 octagon lands at the goatherder s feet He picks it up and walks through In a few minutes all the captives except Flint have passed through the opening in the rock As soon as the ACT team is back to gether you gather for a quick conference I know that was risky Frieda concedes but we really had no choice Sometimes the ACT regulation against taking a life makes things pretty tough No one is watching as Flint steps through and he takes advantage of it at once Okay the party s over ACT he says You thought you could make us look like fools but the last laugh s on you You whirl around to see the BRUTE team pointing their weapons at your huddle To let you know the guns are working Flint fires a shot above your heads You gave your word Frieda says I had my fingers crossed behind my back he sneers Stupid of you to trust us You watch in dismay as the goatherder pulls a length of rope from his pack We could kill you Flint says But I think it would be more fun to let you die of expos
57. k and forth Bronze is hanging on for dear life As you watch in horror you see that the once taut line is dip ping lower and lower toward the raging river 39 What s happening you shout Is something wrong Something s happened to the control ler Arch moans And if someone can t fix it Bronze is a dead man 40 CHAPTER 7 Let me have a shot at it you offer looking for the serial port on the micro s chassis Quickly you plug in your own portable com puter and run a diagnostic program All the while Bronze is dipping lower and lower toward certain death But you try to work calmly as you analyze the program Input the following program and run it Lines 230 290 520 and 540 should be typed as one line on your computer List the program and study it to find the bug that causes the pulley to move back and forth rather than for ward Hint Look for the line of the program that sends the program to the end skipping the whole middle part Change that line Once 41 it s fixed move Bronze and the rest of the team across the gorge For help consult page 115 in the Reference Manual PROGRAM 4 10 ACTS 1 BRONZE 20 ACTS 2 FRIEDA 30 ACTS 3 ARCH 40 ACTS 4 ORION 50 J 1 B 1 Y 2 60 LS B Z 70 CLS OFF 80 CLS 90 Y 10 GOSUB 710 100 PRINT 110 Bx 2 120 IF CL lt gt OFF THEN 210 130 Bx 5 1
58. lances at his watch We could do another two hours before sunset he sug gests But the groans from the rest of you veto that idea You can identify every bone in your body because they all ache Pulling off your pack you sprawl on the lichen covered rocks If you have to carry all of this stuff tomorrow you may not make it What do you really need besides clean under wear and your computer you wonder Perhaps you can jettison the trench shovel and extra hiking boots the supply officer made you bring along After a well earned rest you set up camp By the time you re relaxing around the fire you feel better Everybody seems to be in a mellow mood probably aided by the smell of golden marshmallows roasting over the coals For first time climbers you all show Olympic potential Bronze praises the team Arch grins weakly Thanks But I m not 16 just a first time climber This is my first ACT mission Everyone looks surprised We thought you were a veteran just like the rest of us Frieda remarks No Arch says I signed on two years ago But I guess this is the first mission where my talents were needed It s too bad it had to be at the end of the world But Bronze tells Arch they re all like this Flirting with disaster is what gives these ACT missions their pizzazz Then he launches into an account of the time he and BRUTE s best all around ath
59. lete were pitted against each other during a free fall parachute descent with a live nuclear bomb Frieda has some equally entertaining sto ries like the time BRUTE sealed her up in a pharaoh s tomb with a tribe of nomads She persuaded them to stand on each other s shoul ders so she could climb out through a small slit in the rock near the roof And you re no novice either As you put together a S more you relate the time you were caught between a school of trained killer sharks and Damian Hale s mind controlling biologi cal chips The campfire ends with a friendship cir cle in which each of you teaches the group a song from your native country Frieda who s obviously had some professional training is the 17 best singer But everybody turns in a pretty good performance By starlight you find your way back to your sleeping bag Now it is utterly quiet un der the black velvet canopy of the night You ve almost succeeded in getting to sleep on the rocky ground when the portable ACT computer by your pillow activates itself You hear the auto reboot beep and open your eyes in surprise just in time to see the downline loading light flash Something has taken over your computer and is sending it a program What s going on you wonder And then to your horror fifteen feet away and five feet above the ground an all too familiar appari tion appears 18 CHAPTER 4 You re not the only one wh
60. lue to produce 65 or the ASCII value of A To 109 decode an odd letter Orion must do just the opposite add 2 to the ASCII value Now if the ASCII value of a letter in the plain text was even e g 68 for a D the encoder added 2 to the value D would be encoded as F Thus the decoder program must subtract 2 whenever the ASCII value is an even number Lines 70 through 90 take care of decod ing odd and even values PROGRAM 2 LIGHTNING Modifications for Other Micros Atari 400 800 2 DIM AS 1 V 1 5 OPEN 1 4 0 K 7 GRAPHICS 0 30 PRINT CHRS 125 70 POSITION 15 I I 75 PRINT 90 PRINT BOOM 170 IF PEEK 764 lt gt 255 THEN 190 180 VS RETURN 190 GET 1 M VS CHR M 200 POKE 764 255 210 RETURN Apple II and He 30 HOME 170 VS CHR 0 M PEEK 16384 110 180 IF M lt 128 THEN RETURN 190 VS CHR M 128 POKE 16368 0 200 RETURN Commodore 64 and VIC 20 30 PRINT CHRS 147 170 GET VS 180 RETURN What the Program Does The specter has downloaded a program into your computer The program continu ously flashes lightning on the screen and de mands Return the Magor Stone You must examine the code and figure out what input will stop the loop Also you must figure out what the Guardian Latch is How the Program Works Lines 10 through 100 form a loop that will control your computer forever unless you press the letter tha
61. med in purple Golden sandals adorn his feet and on his head is a wreath of 69 olive leaves But it s his face that rivets your attention You ve seen that hawklike nose and those piercing eyes enough times to know he s the specter who s been haunting your journey Automatically you shrink back But as he comes forward in the sunlight somehow the flesh and blood rendition isn t as menacing as the image you ve seen projected everywhere from your computer terminal to the sky itself Welcome to the valley of Tanzia he greets the ACT team His voice is the same one you ve been hearing too But now that it s no longer amplified it s taken on a fatherly qual ity There is no need to fear LoDar the Guardian he assures you And now give me the Magor Stone Bronze tiptoes forward to hand it over Even the brawny athlete must look up a good foot to the guardian s face With a hand that trembles only slightly Bronze offers the spar kling octagonal stone in an upturned palm You re fascinated at the reverence with which the guardian accepts it For a moment he holds the stone cupped in his two hands and intones a strange sibilant chant Then LoDar looks down at the ACT team By returning the Magor Stone you have made it possible to save the world from certain de struction However a task far more dangerous than any you ve encountered up until now awaits 70 you We mus
62. motion has stopped the athlete seems to have regained his poise You know he muses the weird thing about that specter was that it spoke in Swedish How did the rest of you understand it Arch looks at Bronze as though he s lost his mind That thing wasn t speaking Swed ish it was speaking my native language Portuguese I distinctly heard it in German Frieda argues l The only natural language I understand is English you say So how did I get the message From your computer terminal Frieda points out But that doesn t explain what the rest of us heard 23 Everyone looks mystified This is getting spookier by the moment Apparently Bronze agrees It s obvious that he d rather think about more concrete problems Let me go check out the dam age he offers In a moment he s back look ing like he came in ninth out of 10 in a cross country ski race Two of our packs were hit What did we lose Frieda asks The gifts we were going to give to the natives and some of our food We re going to be on short rations from now on Oh no Frieda exclaims not the gifts I was counting on them to show the local tribesmen our goodwill She may be worried about goodwill but you re more concerned about the food when you find out that only the dehydrated vegetables and a few packets of
63. n The hair on the back of your neck bris tles Sir you say I ve seen it too Dur ing the earthquake that thing took over my screen when ACT was transmitting But I thought it was my imagination No it s real all right And it can t be a coincidence that it appears every time there s a natural disaster It s almost as though the ap parition controls what s happening The general pauses to push a button on the side of the table The metal top rolls back to reveal a three dimensional model of gray snow capped mountains We ve traced the apparition s source to a set of coordinates in a valley in the Hima layas the general explains He points to a spot on the model that looks no different from the rest You can see why it s always been as sumed that that area was uninhabited Even aerial reconnaissance hasn t picked up any thing But there s obviously something strange in the area 1 And this ACT team is supposed to go there and turn off the Doomsday specter or whatever it is Frieda finishes for him At least we know the worst now Bronze says Not quite There s one other small problem BRUTE has also mounted an expe dition for the Himalayas Our reconnaissance shows they re heading for the same place you are Only they have a day s head start Do you think BRUTE s behind all this y
64. ng at the two lines you can see that the code letter for A is T The code letter for B is E The rest of the alphabet follows the key omitting the letters in the key word Unfortunately the letters in the keyword have been rearranged by BRUTE to form an other keyword STEAM If you substitute STEAM for TEAMS in line 20 the whole message will decode correctly In order to get a readable message the program must look at each character in the message in turn and substitute the correspond ing decoded letter Can you tell which lines in the program do this It s lines 70 through 120 Decoded the message reads BRUTE WILL REACH TANZIA WITHIN TEN HOURS WE WILL SECURE ORACLE FOR BRUTE 113 PROGRAM 4 PULLEY Modifications for Other Micros Apple II and Ile 80 HOME 720 HTAB X VTAB Y Atari 400 800 10 DIM ACTS 24 CLS 10 L 1 2 6 M 1 S1 5 15 Sl 20 ACTS BRONZEFRIEDAARC H ORION 30 GRAPHICS 0 REMOVE LINE 40 80 PRINT CHRS 125 310 PRINT S1 L S1 330 PRINT YOU DROPPED ACTS J J 5 380 S PICK UP ACTS J J 5 S1 390 L ACT J 430 PRINT HARNESS IS EMPTY S1 460 PRINT ACT J J 5 MADE IT 470 2 LEN Z 1 L 500 J J 6 B 0 L 510 IF J lt 24 THEN 540 720 POSITION X Y Commodore 64 and VIC 20 80 PRINT CHRS 147 720 POKE 781 Y POKE 782 X 730 POKE 783 0 SYS 65520 740 RETURN 114 Radio Shack TRS 80 720 PRINT Y 64 X Radio Shack Color Computer 72
65. o hold on to the treasure he was willing to kill for But an invisible force pries his fingers open and tears the stone from his hand Wide eyed you watch as it sails through the air in the di rection of the ACT team Bronze automatically reaches up and catches it But that s not the end of the specter s performance The winds around you begin to howl Suddenly the BRUTE team is pulled back toward the archway where the apparition is 67 standing To your amazement the BRUTE members pass right through the specter s im age and back into the prison from which you just escaped You see them hit the ground on the other side and then lie there gasping Those who defiled the Magor Stone de serve to rot here for eternity the specter re peats As the fearful apparition turns back in your direction it s hard to keep from trembling Now that he s taken care of the BRUTEs what s he got in mind for you But his next words aren t the sentence of doom you ve been fearing I am LoDar one of the guardians of Tanzia I have been watching everything that occurred in this place You who are honorable will bring the stone to the sacred valley You look at the mountains ahead and wonder how you re going to accomplish that task Tanzia is still a hard trek away And you re in worse shape than you were when you started this journey But the specter has an alternate solution Suddenly you feel the force o
66. o sees it Everyone is sitting up now unable to look away from the terrifying image It was bad enough viewing it on a 12 inch screen Now it s 10 feet tall and right in front of you in living 3 D This time the specter is a pale ghostly white and seems to shine with a light of its own Its thin lips begin to move And as it speaks in a raspy voice something makes your eyes flick to the computer screen It s unbelievable but its words are being reproduced on your CRT along with electronic surges of light ning that could blow the computer s memory chips 19 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 Input the following program and run it You must find a way to interrupt the program or else you ll never gain control of your com puter again Hint List the program and ex amine the code to figure out what letter the program is checking for to break it out of the loop If you re completely stumped check page 111 in the Reference Manual Save the program Once you ve broken out of the repetitive loop you ll be able to use it to get some more information about this mis sion PROGRAM 2 PRINT RETURN THE MAGOR STONE FOR K 1 TO 100 NEXT K CLS GOSUB 170 IF V Q THEN 110 FOR I 1 TO 15 PRINT TAB 15 I 1 Yh NEXT I PRINT TAB 15 BOOM 0 GOTO 10 0 PRINT ENTER GUARDIAN LATCH 0 INPUT A 0 IF ASC AS lt gt 88 THEN 10 0 PRINT BYMAK REMOVED THE STONE 0 PRINT FROM T
67. ore But to your relief the strum and the rest of the room has stilled The liquid in the blue pool is no longer churning Now it s like a mountain lake on a windless day And the walls and floor are stationary You ve be come so used to the movement of the room that oddly enough the stillness makes you feel dizzy As you glance over at Bronze you can tell from his expression that he feels the same way But he doesn t move He and the rest of the team seem temporarily paralyzed just as you were at the archway in the refuge Their faces have turned deathly white It s obvious that what just happened is still draining energy from them And you know it could be fatal for them to continue this way for long You also know that the Magor Stone still has to be put back Now that the circular tracks are still you can see a band of particularly vibrant octagons along the juncture where the floor and walls meet One of them is missing 82 Orion return the Magor Stone to its proper place LoDar whispers We have only a few seconds or the light sequence will start again You don t want to risk the safety of your friends or the world with another round of that deadly game Quickly you glance up at LoDar His face too is pale and drawn You realize that even with the energy he s getting from the rest of the ACT team he can t hold the panel open much longer With trembling fingers you push the ston
68. ou ask remembering some of the confronta tions you ve already had with the Bureau of Random Unlawful Terror and Evil The general shakes his head No The disturbances are on too wide a scale They re beyond even BRUTE s awesome capacity But apparently BRUTE s out to take advantage of the chaos if they can So you mean we have to save the world and fight off BRUTE at the same time Frieda sums up Affirmative Somehow the positive way he answers doesn t do much to bolster your confidence 12 CHAPTER 3 ACT works fast when they re in crisis mode Within hours another helicopter has dropped you and the rest of the team at the foot of Mt Kleinberg The commemorative marker in forms you that it was named after the famous British explorer who lost his life trying to scale its rugged slopes So much for tourist infor mation You re on your own now the pilot ex plains as he prepares to depart Communi cations and transportation are marginal since most of our equipment has been damaged by the quakes So we don t know when we ll be able to pick you up Then again if your mis sion fails there may not be anything to pick up With that grim observation he lifts off leaving you to stare at the sheer peaks and cliffs 13 ahead Even though it s summer the moun tains are capped with snow Arch shivers Bronze looks positively ex cited What a challeng
69. personal computers checked in the chart above See the Reference Manual page 114 for changes for Atari Apple Commodore 64 and VIC 20 Ra dio Shack TRS 80 and Color 44 Finally the team is safe on the other side of the raging water I can t understand what happened Arch says ACT wouldn t send us out with unre liable equipment or software It wasn t really the software you point out It was the clock in the hardware that was out of sync Maybe that goatherder dropped it when he was pawing through the packs Bronze suggests You know Frieda says slowly the more I think about that guy the more suspi cious I get His shoes for example They should have been hand sewn goatskin but they looked more like Italian leather And his face should have been more lined from exposure to the weather And then her blue eyes widen I just thought of something Do you suppose he could have been a BRUTE agent sent to sabotage our equipment We may never know Arch says But there s no time to sit around worrying about it We ve got to get to Tanzia After a surprisingly tasty lunch of mashed carrots and rutabaga you start to climb again But things aren t any better on this side of the gorge In fact the terrain is getting more treacherous with every step you take And if that s not enough an icy wind starts whipping aro
70. red circles spaced equally around the outer ring of the floor When I give the signal Frieda Arch and Bronze must stand in three of those circles leaving an empty one between each of you That should give me power enough to keep the ac cess panel open now that the stone has un balanced the system While I perform that task Orion our computer expert must enter the se quence that will stop the turning Only then can the stone be returned to its proper place 76 You wonder exactly how that s going to be done but you don t have time to worry about your own assignment You watch as your three teammates take their places in the appointed circles Then LoDar walks to a certain spot on the moving floor You hold your breath waiting for what ever will happen next For a few moments nothing does and you re afraid that LoDar s plan is not going to work But then you hear a low hum It seems to vibrate in the curved walls then circle the trio that stands along its edge Down at their feet you see a red mist of pure energy begin to pulse It grows in intensity moving up their bodies until they are completely enveloped in radiant pulsing red Flickers of red arc toward the center of the room and then return to the trio And then LoDar raises his arms and all the energy just created coalesces in his hands For a moment he concentrates intently on a spot near his feet The power that entered through his fing
71. s Instead of continuing to fall straight down the river of tumbling rock deflects sharply away to the right In fact it looks as if a giant invisible hand is pushing it off to the side The ACT team watches in amazement A few stray boulders fall around you but the main slide is on the trail up ahead When the dust settles Frieda takes stock of the situation and makes sure that no one s been injured Did you see what happened Bronze croaks We would have all been killed if something hadn t diverted that avalanche 27 You take a deep breath Do you think the apparition saved us It may have Frieda answers but re member it caused the rock slide in the first place Maybe it was trying to give us some kind of warning I guess it s more important than ever to get to Tanzia and find out what that Magor Stone is Arch says But how are we going to do that Bronze asks pointing to the right The trail that stretched before you moments ago is now to tally blocked What used to be an open pass is now a five story mountain of rubble Bronze shakes his head We re going to have to backtrack And that means we ll lose half a day at least Listen you suggest let me try to contact ACT Maybe they have a suggestion Or maybe they ve learned some more about the apparition Quickly you get out your computer and attac
72. shakes his head as though he s dis oriented What are we doing here he asks Darned if I know you murmur Just then the whir of a helicopter catches your attention You look up and see the bright red ACT insignia When the pilot sets down you all rush over Tve been sent to pick you up he ex plains The crisis is over Sorry you were wandering around in the mountains for noth ing he adds It turned out the situation sta bilized on its own The four of you exchange glances Some how you do have a vague memory of wander ing around in the mountains Something about an earthquake and lightning that destroyed part of your rations But after that everything is like a fog 100 You didn t see anything unusual did you the pilot asks Frieda shakes her head I guess this mission was just a dud You ve climbed in the helicopter and are soaring over the mountains when you happen to stick your hand in your pocket Your fingers close over something the size of a button When you pull it out you see it doesn t match any thing on your shirt or jacket You re about to toss it away when you get a shivery feeling Somehow you know this thing is important and secret Maybe you ll just wait till you get home to check it out For once the ACT debien doesn t last long After all there s nothing to tell Every body including you leaves ACT headquart
73. slings they use to rescue people from burning buildings Arch explains Ours is made of a specially treated silk and weighs only eight ounces Now who wants to go first he asks looping the buoy s pulley over the thin strands that now cross the gorge 38 You ve edged to the back of the line but Bronze steps forward jauntily I m always ready to try out a new ski lift he says Let s get going Now that you know you re not going to be the initial guinea pig you watch with in terest as Arch straps Bronze into the contrap tion After asking Bronze what he weighs Arch keys a set of numbers into the microprocessor When he finishes the pulley starts to move smoothly along the rope taking the breeches buoy and Bronze along with it You watch as the athlete glides across the gorge suspended above the seething churning rapids Everything seems to be going accord ing to plan when the activation light on the microprocessor flickers and then goes off At the same time the pulley gives a violent lurch and the silk sling rips under Bronze s weight Help he shouts reaching up and grabbing the rope But the moment after he grasps it he screams again He s cut himself on that thin line Frieda gasps And that s not the worst of his problems The light on the microprocessor has flicked on again But instead of moving the breeches buoy forward it s shaking it bac
74. t she questions from the rear of the line Look up ahead Bronze points excit edly At first you don t see anything and you wonder if he s suffering from exposure Then your eyes focus on a shaft of sunlight cutting through the gloom like a beacon I hope it s not a mirage you whisper But as the team staggers forward the light seems to grow stronger In a few moments you re facing a crevice in the gray rock On your side of the natural wall the temperature is way below freezing and it s dark as a moonless night But only a few feet away through this rugged portal you can feel warmth and see the gleam of sunlight This can t be the valley of Tanzia It s not in the right place Bronze says Who cares about that you shout above the raging wind At least we can thaw out Taking a deep breath you squeeze through the entrance The rest of the team follows Soon you re all on the other side weak with disbelief It s as though you ve stepped from the Arctic night into a warm sunny Roman spa complete with pools of heated water fruit trees and grape arbors In the perfumed air you hear 47 the strains of a lyre Off to the right you see the white Ionic columns of what looks like the entrance to a temple This place can t be for real Arch says But as he speaks he s already throwing off his pack and flopping down on the beautifully
75. t is checked for in line 50 Once you have stopped the lightning loop you are asked to provide the Guardian Latch Here you ll need to key in the character whose 111 ASCII value is 88 see line 130 You can check the ASCII table in the back of this book to find the correct key to press If you press the wrong key the program will start again on the infinite loop PROGRAM 3 DECODE BRUTE S MESSAGE Modifications for Other Micros Atari 400 800 5 DIM B 30 A 30 M 30 N 30 R 1 90 IF MS I 1I A K K THEN 110 110 NS LEN NS 1 B K K What the Program Does BRUTE has used a key substitution code to encode its message Orion has one version of the BRUTE decoder program that uses the key TEAMS When the message is de coded by this program something strange happens Some of the letters seem to be de coded correctly while others are still gar bage It looks as if Orion has the right program but the wrong key Can you transpose the let ters in the key to make another key word and try decoding with that 112 How the Program Works The message is scrambled because a key substitution code has been used Here s how it works Notice that the letters of the alpha bet appear in order in line 10 of the program In line 20 there is a keyword in this case TEAMS followed by the remaining letters of the alphabet in order omitting the letters T E A M and S Looki
76. t put the stone back in the great strum room if everything is to be set right I must ask that you risk your lives once again for if we fail in our attempt the earth itself will perish 71 CHAPTER 2 The guardian leads the way down an avenue paved with marble and lined with poplar trees At its end glitters a majestic domed structure even grander than the other buildings in the valley Its door glides open as the ACT team and LoDar approach You are the first mortals to enter here he says as he ushers the four of you solemnly across the threshold There are no windows but everything inside is suffused in a vivid blue glow We must pass through the halls of tech nology before we reach the strum core he says leading the team past what looks like museum displays Frieda s eyes widen as she 72 takes in priceless exhibits of ancient abacuses sun dials and other counting and measuring devices When you get to Charles Babbage s first gear driven computer you re the one who drags his feet Arch too seems as tounded by the wealth of technology on dis play but the guardian hurries all of you forward What s ahead is even more intriguing The next displays feature first generation com puters with vacuum tubes and transistors that you ve only read about in books Then come more current machines with solid state circuit ry and silicon chips As you near the end you catch
77. tered wool shirt and pants steps from around a large boulder As you watch he shakes the bell and calls out chestaaa chestaaa ches taaa When he sees the ACT team he looks as surprised as you do and darts around the rock No come back Bronze shouts springing up But before he can sprint down the trail Frieda grabs his arm No Don t scare him away He may be able to give us directions Sit down everybody join hands and sing a slow ballad That s a sign of peaceful intentions in this area You ve barely joined hands and started the first chorus of Home on the Range when the sound of bells joins the soprano section He s playing rhythm with us That s a good sign Frieda whispers Letting go of Bronze s hand she motions 35 for the newcomer to join the circle Soon he s sitting around with the rest of you humming along As the song ends he turns to Frieda Chesta She shakes her head and they go into a game of charades both of them trying to act out words and guess each other s meaning at the same time Finally Frieda turns back to the group He s looking for his goats she pants I could have told you that from the way he smells Arch mumbles Frieda gives him a fierce look Quiet You don t want to offend him But he obviously can t understand a word we re saying Arch points out Neverthel
78. u want to live here permanently So the guardian s next words make you so happy you feel as though it s Christmas and your birthday all rolled into one That near catastrophe with those BRUTE evildoers in the strum room has given me something to think about Earlier I told you that I could not let you leave Tanzia But now I re alize it would be unfair and unwise to make you Stay What do you mean you ask hardly daring to hope that he s changed his mind I see now that the power of ACT is nec essary to keep the evil of BRUTE from over whelming the world If I removed four such courageous ACT members from its rosters I would be crippling the organization s heroic efforts More importantly it would not be fair to make you live out your lives here in the sol itude of Tanzia But you said the knowledge of Tanzia had to be guarded Frieda says She would remind him you think Indeed but I can remove that knowl edge from your brains before I let you go LoDar explains Come let us proceed Before anyone has time for more discus sion he s led the four of you back into the strum room You re glad he s going to let you 98 go But you don t want this episode of your life wiped out While LoDar adjusts the dials on the strum you activate the back up trip recorder on your portable computer It spews out the trip log to a disk the size of your thumbnail It s
79. ug in the program so that it will work correctly Functions are ready made routines that per form standard calculations in a program It s sort of like having a key on a calculator that computes a square root or percentage of a number The programming language BASIC comes with a number of standard functions to perform certain tasks For example the func tion SQR x will find the square root of any number when x is replaced by that number You might want to check the BASIC manual that came with your computer to see which functions are available on your system INT is a function that changes any number that you supply into a whole number or integer For example INT 4 5 will return the value 4 For numbers greater than 0 INT just throws away any fractions and supplies you with the whole number LEN is a function that tells you the number of characters in a string of letters numbers or other symbols For example if a variable string called A contained STOP then LEN A 4 Loops are sections of programs that may be 106 performed a specified number of times or un til certain conditions are met For example if you wanted to write a program that would count from 1 to 100 a loop could be used to keep adding 1 to a counter variable until the number 100 was reached Loops are most commonly formed with FOR NEXT state ments or GOTO commands You l find many examples of these in the programs in this book Ran
80. und the side of the mountain like a small 45 hurricane Your fingers have gone numb and several times you lose your handhold Only the line attached to the team members on either side of you keeps you from blowing away To the right and left you can hear Frieda and Arch panting hard Altitude Arch gasps Its really getting to me You nod your agreement Every breath is such a struggle that you don t have any left over for conversation What s more every gasp you draw into your lungs is so cold that you feel as though you re breathing icicles T thought it was supposed to be summer around here Bronze groans wrapping a T shirt across his nose and mouth to cut the wind It is summer that s why ACT didn t issue us any thermal gear Maybe that appari tion is behind this too Frieda sighs I just hope it doesn t snow You look up in the sky afraid of what you might see But you see only gray clouds and hear the howling wind Freezing rain soon follows The icy water cuts straight through your lightweight cloth ing You shudder to think what would happen if the team weren t linked together by safety harnesses Too bad ACT hadn t anticipated weather like this It s a good bet you can t survive much more You can see less than a yard in front of you When Bronze stops suddenly you bump 46 into him Arch and Frieda pile into the back of you What is i
81. upplies you with a decoder pro gram that has a 75 percent match factor with the intercept 29 10 26 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 Input the following program and run it Enter the coded message If you can save the program after you ve input the coded mes sage Lines 10 20 90 and 140 must each be typed as one line on your computer PROGRAM 3 BS ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWX YZ 4 AS TEAMSBCDFGHIJKLNOPQRUVWX Z cease PRINT ENTER LINE OF MESSAGE INPUT MS L LEN MS FOR I 1 TO L FOR K 1 TO 28 IF MIDS MS 1I 1 MIDS AS K 1 THEN 110 100 NEXT K 110 NS N MIDS BS K 1 120 NEXT I 130 PRINT N 140 PRINT MORE MESSAGES TO DECODE Y OR N 150 INPUT R 160 IF R Y THEN 30 170 END 30 ram appie Radio Radio Shack Commodore atari PC amp i TRS 80 VIC 20 400 800 PCjr EA Ee This program will run on all personal computers checked in the chart above See the Reference Manual page 112 for changes for Atari The results are somewhat disappointing Most of the words look like English but some of the letters still seem to be jumbled Bronze states the obvious I can almost read the text But it doesn t make any sense Maybe they ve modified the code from the version that I have on file you muse looking at the garbled output It can t be a completely new key because too many letters are coming out okay Maybe they ve just re
82. ure while we take the Magor Stone and capture the power of the oracle 65 CHAPTER 11 With Flint holding a gun on you Dirk begins to wind the rope painfully around your wrists Frieda Bronze and Arch are all getting the same treatment The BRUTEs are so intent on what they re doing that they don t see the archway behind them start to glow and pulse with new energy The translucent curtain begins to coalesce into a new shape Before your eyes a familiar image forms It s the specter And though it still shimmers around the edges this time it s more solid and real than you ve ever seen it When it claps its hands together the whole mountain shakes from the vibrations 66 Flint and the other BRUTEs whirl around Those who defiled the Magor Stone must atone it thunders With a sick feeling in your stomach you wonder exactly what he considers defiling the stone Was taking it through that archway for bidden The BRUTE team have dropped their ropes and formed into a defensive knot around Flint who is still holding the stone They re the ones who took it he shrieks pointing at you We were only bringing it back to the valley of Tanzia where it belongs Waves of menacing energy pulse over the form of the apparition LIES the specter rumbles Return the stone This time Flint doesn t seem to have any choice His muscles twitch with the effort t
83. ve it It sounds like Doomsday is here As if on cue the floor gives another sickening lurch This time it feels like a ma jor earthquake Yov d better get out of the house before it comes crashing down around your 5 head But after that message from ACT there s no guarantee that things are any better outside After grabbing your valuables your portable computer that is you dash for the door When you hit the sidewalk you find that most of your neighbors have the same idea The street is full of dazed looking people wander ing among fallen trees overturned cars and broken glass Jagged cracks run like fresh scars up and down the street At the other end of the block water spurts from a broken main Al though the ground has stopped shaking your neighbors haven t They look like refugees from a disaster movie You ve got to get to ACT headquarters fast But how The streets obviously aren t safe Just then you hear the deafening roar of a rotary motor Looking up you spot a Red Cross helicopter As you watch it lands in the mid dle of a nearby vacant lot A medic hops out and strides purpose fully in your direction Come on you ve just been drafted into the emergency relief squad he announces But I ve got to get to gt You stop in midsentence You can t tell this guy you re an ACT agent What could be more important than the destruction of the earth
84. vitamin pills survived Even the rest of the marshmallows were charred to black lumps 24 CHAPTER 5 When the first gray streaks of dawn invade your sleeping bag you pull the down cover over your head and try to go back to sleep But Frieda has a wake up routine that can t be ignored The crisp mountain air has inspired her to break into song And you quickly discover that she has projection that would put a Wagnerian so prano to shame At least her Flight of the Valkyries gets you and probably everyone within a 10 mile radius moving After a quick breakfast of dehydrated spinach and butter beans you re on the trail again and not looking forward to lunch Bronze is still lead man And at least there s one piece of good news According to his compass readings there won t be as much 25 climbing today Tanzia is due north along a wide trail that seems to have been carved out be tween the towering rocks Compared to yester day you feel as though you re on an interstate highway You ve been on the trail about an hour when Bronze turns to Frieda with a worried look It s these compass readings gt he ex plains They re not holding steady He passes the instrument back down the line to her Look at how the needle s swinging 45 degrees plus or minus true north Tve never seen anything like it Frieda muses But in the briefing material there was som
85. when talking about pro grams Here are some common terms that will help you understand the explanations in this manual 104 Arrays are groups of two or more logically related data elements in a program that have the same name However so that the individ ual elements in the array can be used each is also identified by its own address called an index by programmers You can think of an array aS an apartment building One hundred people might live at the Northwest Apart ments or 100 pieces of information might be stored in the NW Array But each unit within the building has a number like Apt 14 so it can be located and receive mail In the NW Array 14 could be the index to find a partic ular piece of information and would be writ ten NW 14 If you put the 26 letters of the alphabet into an array called Alpha then Al pha 2 would equal B because B is the second letter of the alphabet ASCII Pronounced asskee is the standard code used by most microcomputers to repre sent characters such as letters numbers and punctuation A chart of the ASCII codes ap pears in the appendix to this manual ASC is a function in BASIC that will supply a character s ASCII code For example ASC A will give you the number 65 Bugs are errors or mistakes in a program that keep it from doing what it s supposed to do 105 Some of the programming activities in this book will ask you to find and fix a b
86. you see a dirty white sock hoisted aloft on the end of a bay onet I think Frieda s right you observe Your leader straightens up and takes a step toward them All right let s talk deal she calls out Flint steps out of his circle I think we have an offer you can t refuse Let s call a truce 55 and work together to get out of here Frieda pretends to consider the offer Why should we cooperate with you she asks Because it s your only hope If we pool our strength and our brain power we can ex plore every inch of this place and find a way out if there is one In your gut you know that you can trust BRUTE about as far as Red Riding Hood could trust the wolf But they re right What choice do you have While you eye the other team suspi ciously Flint and Frieda work up a plan of ac tion Our first assignment is to determine the layout of this place Frieda tells your team We re going to investigate the ground level BRUTE will climb up and see what s at the top of the rocks After an hour you meet back for a prog ress report Arch hasn t returned yet but Frieda elects to start without him Most of the news is discouraging The ACT members reporting in have found only more fruit trees and a clear underground spring that gushes up behind the temple There s no animal life here Frieda notes but we won

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