$1.50

NEXT Meeting: Ir IDE

KILLRRNY COHHUNITY CENTRE This Issue.............. 2 6260 KILLARNY STREET Bits & Pieces... eeu 2 Viae ERRATUM reri necu rna 3

FRIDAY BOLD Prints odisse ionis 3

Meeting Calendar........ 3

FEB 13/87 MINUTS MORARI 4

Playing With, Cont...... 5

7:00PM Poor Man's WP........... 6

z Software Review......... 7

Security Alarm Pgrm..... 7

ZXAPPEAL IS A MONTHLY Hardware Review......... 8 VANCOUVER SINCLAIR USERS GROUP i A elena Baik a RM AO ae, — om m ve Static Electricity...... 10 1000 Bar Graph Pgrm..... 11

2068 Graphics Pgrm...... 11

Member Profile.......... 12

2068 Scrn Saver Pgrm....13

E NEWS 3.665 ce RR XEe RS 14

We D DAFFYnitions............ 14

v Hardware Review......... 15

sinclair

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THIS TSSB. sre shee 3e n a seth, bse ess aera

As Johnny Fever says "hey, fellow babies!" After my gentle reminder last month re: participation, I found the bag o'mail overflowing with submissions. Don't stop now - we're on a rolll We continue Harvey T's article on a serial interface for the OL. Rusty T. turns up with his 'Poor Man's WP' for the 2068. Ken A. offers a timely reminder re: static electricity and also a book review. New Member Bob D. submits a member profile and a 2068 program he uses

in a professional capacity. Gerd B. tenders a software review. Glenn R. offers a hardware review. Bill R.

presents a 2068 program to allow partial screen saves. If space allows we'll also try to include Some interesting programs, articles and other stuff garnered hither and yon. Oh yes, Vince L. would like to make a small adjustment to his little hardware project of last

month. ck ke he ke e e e e ke e e ke ke ee e ce e ke e ke e kk ko ke ke e kx kx kx kx x A BITS-& “PTE CE Giese. wr ele e ira

Just a few things to bring to your attention this month

... the computerfest, sorry, THE SECOND ANNUAL MIDWEST TIMEX-SINCLAIR COMPUTER FEST is gathering momentum and appears to be well on its way to being a much bigger success than the one last year. May 2 - 3, Holiday Inn North, Indianapolis, Indiana. Many groups are going to be represented as well as almost all TS dealers and magazines. Seminars both days; TS swap meet and flea market, and a whole bunch of just plain TS fun. If anyone wants more info give me a call. I'll be putting further details in a later newsletter.

-..be sure to attend the FEB meeting and pick up the latest CANADA COMPUTES mag.

--.CITY-LINK BBS is up again at 222-2000. Completely revamped. I can't think what they might've left out. The extra features are only

open to pay members but there's lots left for the casual tourist. Have a look.

-..New Member Bob D. apparently didn't believe me about the Timex Service turnaround time. Now his machine is going to the big repair depot in Little Rock. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to Hackers Anonymous.

-..what if the SCLD in your 2068 went and Timex was no longer offering service, would you know what to do? Would you, Bunky? The SCLD is the only 2068 chip not available commercially but CATS, the Washington, DC, group has purchased 100 chips directly from Timex Portugal. These can be purchased for $20.00US each, with a discount for volume. Pretty cheap insurance to make sure your pride and joy 'keeps on tickin'.

...the Robot SIG (Vancouver Robot Club) had a great meeting at Al W.'s place the other week. The word is that Karl's article might appear in BYTE this spring. Karl's last class is underway. Anyone interested in Robots has missed the boat as far as Karl's class goes but the club meetings are a great place to learn. -..Iake sure you don't miss out on the Great OL Draw of '87. Tickets will be on sale at the meeting. Just

82 left! KKK deck deck kk kk deck kk ek EK de kk kk kk kk ke kk

RENEWING MEMBERS:

Brad Thomas, Wilf Rigter, Bob Denison, Dave Ross

NEW MEMBERS:

Tim Stoddard, Rego Park, NY Bob Dick, North Vancouver, B.C. Jay Mundy, Vancouver, B.C.

Remember to renew at the meeting if you received the dreaded EXPIRY NOTICE.

ERRAT UH

FFF BOLBSS

THIS LITTLE ITEH APPEARED SOME TIRE SAEK BUT A HURBER OF HEHBERS HISSED IF FIRST TIME HEDUHD. THIS PROCEDBH BEL CRUSE THE 2648 PHINTER TD PRINT IH "BOLD" TYPE- -"Hii THE BETTER TD PHOT

COPY YOU, HY DESP”,

Rhem...-Ladies and Centtiemen. Hay I just have a BGoment to drg Something to your attention. Uince Lee advises that there wes a small error on the zchemalic

Months issue: the transformer Labeled. Ti uas in backwards. The correct placement if 25 below. ACtUvat iy, this Wee a test io see how Many Of YoU Jus FoLiow Grderz. “HELL Done" toa atl whe Bre RoW making thes £iighti correction.

“ise RARDORIZE USR 138 REM BAJE “HOLE” CODE 65587

tu

2S st direct Commend ai 146 REM Load "BG D" CODE and ih en RPHSDOHIZE USR 65587

MER 4 i

I

erii So Iw 158 REM to return iG the sSitends AS Si Eg Nec PE rd character set POKE 23587,68 ST i r poe | ins 158 REM this progres Boris Sith a i | | i i i iz LEIST, PRINT, and COPY

. i S E i à is

Vois Elus =

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Peer er or eS Seer eee eee ee Te tee

Meeting Date...

FEBRUARY | sun] non | Tue] veo | ruu] rez [ sar]

ESESERESESERES [e | 9 [1e [ss [se] a3] 24 as [1e [az [ae [1o [2o fea |

jee |20 [ea se [ac |e [20 |

46 TICKETS i sop

3

MINUTES JAN. 9/87 ( 23 present ) -by Your Humble Scribe

The meeting opened almost on time at 7:18 PM due, according to the pres, to your humble scribe's late arrival. Ken mentioned that Rois Harder is back in town & will regale us with tales of sunny arabie one of these months. Hopefully be has his QL with him. The pres then raised the idea of a HELP REGISTRY for people having hardware problems, or wanting buying advice. The outcome of this discussion was that we each should bring a list of the hardware we have to the next meeting. Areas of expertise are also relevant in this matter.

Bod, the editor / treasurer then stood to tell us we had about $280.00 in the credit union. He mentioned that he had ordered the QL raffle prize from the states & he had got 199 tickets printed. These are available from him for $2.99 each. He then proceeded to do some serious bitching about the queen's most loyal post office. Next day service ain't what it used to be. The upshot of this is that many of the stamps on the newsletter were not cancelled & people were wondering about reusing the envelopes. At this point the pres popped up with "We don’t just talk cheap, we are cheap!" Tune in next month for the amazing timex stamp rerun.

There was some discussion about libraries. There is concern that because the 29068/QL markets are still viable, we should not have anything but expressly public domain software in the club library. Ian,the ZX81 librarian, stood to discuss loading problems. The upshot of much discussion about azimuths, residual magnetism & volume levels was that next month we will have a hardware session on alignment & hopefully describe a club standard.

Harry Slot publicly disavowed any affiliation with the Ayatollah Khomeini.

The door prize of Cruncher won by Glenn Read.

The meeting degenerated into demo city with John Brohman from Weymil pushing Sinc Artist Hi Res 2, Rod demoing ARTWORX for the 2068, & Ken demoing the new ZSpeak board running his ZVoice phonetic speech software (ZX81). Ken is by the way looking for volunteers to adapt that software for the 29068. | John later demoed TIMACHINE, a basic compiler, as well. |

The next robotics club meeting is Jan.21/87 at ka

Granville. FRANK & ERNEST BOB THAVES

| TVE BEEN Serre AT Na Bh MY PERSONAL COMPUTER ^ s)

« CS 98 fo LONG IVE DEVELOP zi

=—, A FLOPPY DISK.

—

ARX M emren Twas 3-4. 4e:

Part 2 of Harvey's article about building a Serial Interface for the QL.

Sul techies

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109 REMark PRINTER TEST PROGRAM

119 REMark

129 REMark Select appropriate BAUD here 138 BAUD 9699

149 OPEN#3, serlhr

158 FOR n=32 TO 127: PRINT#3, CHR$ (n) ; 166 PRINT#3, "That's all!"

179 CLOSE#3

^ WORD-PROCESSING WITH YOUR

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acquired a The original program and a stack o fagazinez, and much fuller explanation of it while bi through them Can be found in the SYNC issue came aci short and si of NOU^/DEC 1882. word-proces 3 pros an th was written T E T518088 ae E n d - - computer for use with a small Lime 45 written for the TS51000 Printer such as TS2040. Line 48 used CHRS$ O which I

nave changed to CHRS$ 32 for uze With mu TSs2a66, Also, I Since I include myself in did find one bug in the program the group of TS2040 owners who in that it wouldn’t LPRINT Bi v are reluctant to Learn a text string ofiess than 32 complicated word-processing Characters andvor spaces. This Program just to put out a Few I corrected bu the insertion 37 words of readabie text on nur Line 15. Um small printers,I'm bringing the Program to your attention with the hope that it might zpur a Following isthe proaram az few others to dash zam ing Used in producing this article, off for Rod to use in newsletter, 18 LET R$z"iYour text string" The Program treats your £252 Ti PPRINT g text input in Line 10 as à 4 (^ IF LEN R$(-32 THEN LPRINT n string, whether it's a title, a 20 Fo 32 Ta N At STED ^23 sentence, of a paragraph. You 50 FOR Koo To 35°" Loic can't LPRINT more than one af 40 IF ASIR-Ki=CHRS 32 THEN CO them at a time unless they're TO 88 A nh joined together with spaces, 50 NEXT K and figuring out the correct 60 LPRIHT R$iiR-S311) TO iR-E11 umber of pareo seu would need 70 LET RR MEE. O join each text string could a8 iB 4 Tp UNES take more time than LPRINTing 188 dito TOROS THEN 2G. TO one text String and starting a GO NEXT R

new one. 180 LPRINT A$iiR+1) To ;

So just tupe nut one text String at a time, ignoring Lines that seem to end or start With & Space and words that = Start on one iine and finish on the next one. ENTER Line 10 with your completed text String Dee the = rogram, RUN it and when xx : LORINTEd, your text string wili fTT5VvYS&S i TEM: = = Come out properly spaced and - TIHEX 1588 Without anu broken words u _ p 32K : could change ara à = E Sc aoa SU P75 = PRINT it ta én and then - ETUR á 9U P7 = CDF D^ it. but end up == — BISE DRIVE i eii ERFROE = EGPYing a Lo k screen. : - DISK DRIVE & CABLES = * : — BRIVE POULTEH SuUPPiy = = ] — DISKS UITH PROGR HRS After LPRINTina one text == : = string and re-iISTina the sz URIGINAL COST-£55e.288 = program, I found it more : HOKING $565.86. VILL BREAK UP E convenient to start a new Line CALL: AL Una 10 than to EDIT the one Listed LE T-OR TOH er Since this left mu previous = ofiice: 631-9531 text string visible for z home: mee I STF reference at the top of the = een EE screen, and after that my earlier text strings could be referred to on the printer 6 tape.

Slice: control of Ivo izcund generators =} FFOR Within

rror trapping lakes

rtualig Crashproor, £t Flag synt aT like your resident

BS uou Like may be |: REM statemen iinet of the ZXCl.4/ T5 :

imme diatelu without screen Basic ! ( Not

The program, up only 3.5

ao atid workind versions) difficulty. The

ith ot her RE red HaChkaur is clea P v

: x addition the reszed into à =3 Page

E H . inta EXTEHDED BASIC

EXTEND (tor prog" ants ine bu t. nd in the esc, api adi

m^ ^ 7, srt Page 2a Of fi on how Of PEEK, POKE, or USR. Ins program on page 20 of the manual

are placed in REH limes pre EXTENDED BASIC can be used ta create

2 ~

a. screen display pizzaz : I soon got stuck

t e

co ities add and learned very quickly the importance of T T!) display colons, semi-colons and Commas and their e ines of the correct placements in program lines. s There are display, data & slicing and = Zanr ex ; 4 i i MAN Por graphics , data Hew CLS and SCROLL Commands will not d commands For grat s New C UDUF dispiag File. hand] ing and per ral control. With Au x PRINT automatically scrolls when the rogram itt U Can now enter SIC bottom line is reached : no more 57 error ade dien d writtei other machines, IF codes ! Ucu like writing your cam programs, vou

* REBD./DRTRÁ/RE: aore with EXTENDED

(fd. LEFTS/MIDS/RICHT$ Will enjoy it commands mak :

arie en TrON other BASIC.

BAZIC: & snap, TEH dimefnticns to Publizhed by : gour Prod aa nie Thomas B. hoods

P.0. Box 64, Jefferson, MH 03583 United States of America

OCC COO O0 CO XO QOO XO XO CO COE XOCXXEDE IEQEBSEOQEXGOE AAAA

1 REM securitu atarm program for P9658 or Spectrum. Reprinted from Jan/;87 ZX Computing. Embatfass5 your friends...catch your little brother a5 he messes Bith your stuff.

2 REM be sure to SBUE a copy rive RUNNING. REH then touch a

eu.

2€ CLEAR 65345: FOR n-65345 To 65367: READ a: POKE n,a: MEXT n 4@ PRINT H@;"& 2082 Sinctair R

€£8arcth Ltd £j 1983 Timex Comp uter Corp” 586 PAUSE @: CLS : PRINT AT ig, 9; FLASH 1,;"SECURITY BIEHT" 68 RANDOMIZE USER 55346 78 DATA 58,72,92,15,15, 15,385,280

:243, 211,254,235, 16, B7. 16, 254, $28 ror, 246, 251, $4, 234

THOMAS J. BENT's ZX81/TS1000 ROM UPGRADE

By Glenn Read

There is a large quantity of software available for the ZX81 - TS1000 but it is not to often that Software changes to the 8K ROM itself are made available.

Thomas J. Bent has done exactly that with his 8K ROM upgrade of the Sinclair operating System.

The upgrade consists of a new 8K ROM and a thorough documen- tation package. Changes in the new ROM are categorised in two sections:-

1. New features. 2. Fixes to existing bugs.

Some of the most useful new features of the upgrade involve Speed increases such as a fast initialisation on power up that gives a faster time to the 'K' cursor even with just 16K RAM, for 64K users there should be a impre- ssive improvement.

The second speed change is making all command line entries automatically in fast mode, even if you were previously in slow or display mode as soon as a command line is entered it will switch to fast.

Other improvements to existing functions speeds area faster scroll and changes made to the display system so when you do a CLS the screen is cleared with - out the painfully slow collapsing of the display file.

There have been changes made to the tape load routine so if there is a bad load the machine is reset as if you had used NEW this is supposed to clear memory much more elegantly than the existing system.

One very useful change enables you to create very large arrays (No not the radio telescope type).

3XOODODODOOPOOOOUD QOO ORO QOO

3C OE ec ee eee COE

CO

Finally there has been a number of changes to the character display the Q,W,V,K,0,0 have all been tidied up and the pound sign has been replaced with a apostro - phe. This last change I have found not to useful as I use my 81 for Circuit design and documentation and it is a international standard to donate Negated logic levels with the pound sign - the mathematical / logical overscore being very difficult to print - unless you own a laser printer.

No more Bugs:-

Existing bugs that have been fixed are the LPRINT nuisance and divide bugs - the nature of these bugs are covered in detail in the documentation for those who have been fortunate enough not to have come across them.

The documentation gives listings of the machine code changes made and each of the improvements are also fully cover- ed.

Overall I found the changes very useful especially to the pro- grammer but mostly it illustrates what can be done with some persev- erance to make changes to the Operating system itself - I hope this review has given some insight to this upgrade and look forward to further upgrades in the future. High res' and built in fast load perhaps (Hardware group- hint hint).

FERRE EK EH HY

28 REH +322 SPECTRO BoE ssiszs

Sé FOR n=38888 TG 32855: AREAS B: PORE P,a: HEAT n

48 DATA 33,8,61,17,8,118,1,8,5 2237 ,176,33,8,118,6,55,157 35,35 735,55,6,4,1265,75,233,63,177,115 33,156,247 ,155,156,237,28i1

S8 HRHHDOHITDP USA 262908

GS REH R FSi then PORE Z Sone PORE = 2347 io nciiva e

i6 REM By Frank Bouldin, Fori Worth T75 Users E£reup iS REM Reprinted from the Jans 87 issue of “The Data Expansion" —— ng£usietter of the Fort Usrth T75 Users Broup 26 REM ----for T5 2868 machine 38 LET d-286: LET p-1868- Cis 48 RESTORE p: RERS a,b: BEEP . 85,34: PLOT a,b- LET f=p418- RES TORE d 56 FOR n-1 TO 18: LET b-INT iR NDaiPB)415: READ X: RERD y: DRAU xX,9: BEEP .85,b 68 NEXT n: IF p-is8 THEN GO TO se 78 LET d=d3+28- £O TO 48 68 RESTORE 388: PRINT uB;AT 1, 16; “Press Any Key": PRUSE Ø: FOR uy-á TO 26: READ c 96 PRINT i8,;HI 1,4; CHR$ C: BEE P .65,x: LET x-xai: HEXI uy: PRUS E 6: CO TO 38 168 DATA 112,182 3118 DATA 28,13 i26 DATA 1693,85 338 DATA 224,3 286 CATA 14 ,21,34,-22,-45,8,46, 76,188 ,-152 218 CATA -13,-16,-1987,0,—-9,15,9 6,153,22,8 226 CATA 85,8,—25,34,—31,-18,24 78,-45,8 238 DATA 32,51, 78,8,-24,33,18,i 6,34,-54 248 DATA -iS,8,-21,-16,-48,8,-i 1,—-17,11,17 258 DATA -18,15,45,-66,67,8,-23 736,186,156 266 DATA -44,567,-23,-37,24,8,-4 5,8,35,51 278 DATA —45,—-556,1:1,10,-24,35,1 , -20,12,20 3658 DATA 64,72,5695,32,73,77,805,7 9,83,83,73,66 318 CATA 76,52,32,84,82,73,65,7 8,71,76,63

TCS, & tup 401.1 fü&., acauainted uou ds have High PROFILE

, Fred

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12

MEMBER PROFILE by Bob Dick

My first computer was a ZX-81, purchased in early 1983 whil I was working on a project in northern Saskatchewan. Due to the difficulty of obtaining software, and the unsatisfactory keyboard, I remained stuck on some very simple applications, using an old black-and-white television set. Later that year, I bought a Zenith green-screen monitor. Just as I was beginning to enjoy the clear display on the monitor, ram-pack wobble caused the computer to fail.

Upon returning to Vancouver in 1984, I bought a T/S 2068, along with some software. With the improved keyboard and (somewhat) clearer owner's manual, it became much more fun using the computer for games and for job-related calculations. Copying and de-bugging listings from IBM and TRS-80 literature provided good practice in simple programming methods.

Recently, the lack of a printer became inconvenient. I purchased a

T/S 2040 thermal printer for hard copies of listings, and for graphics. For letter-quality printing, an Olympia "Carrera" electronic typewriter was also purchased. This will print at a rate of about 120 words per minute when connected to the computer through an Aerco parallel interface and an Olympia interface box. This will be in working order in a few days, when the Olympia interface is delivered.

Both the ZX-81 and the 2068, the monitor and some software were ordered by mail from Gladstone in Toronto. I found their service to be quite prompt, but they would substitute items (eg: the first ZX-81 was a British model) or neglect to include all necessary parts (eg: the monitor kit required for the ZX-81). The 2040, Aerco interface and Mscript were ordered by phone from Knighted Computers on 18 December; in spite of the Christmas rush, the order arrived at my door on 24 December, complete .

My job applications of the computer are quite simple, but save many hours of dull, repetitive work. An example is the calculation of subsurface stratigraphy from seismic refraction data. The sequence is: measure the slope of each straight portion of a plot of time vs. distance;

using a conversion factor for the coordinates, the wave velocity in each is calculated; the distance to each change of slope is measured, and the

depth to the harder soil or rock is calculated as D-(£/2)V (V, -V]/ (544). This entire sequence is carried out by the simple program attached.

After getting the word processing programs working on the type- writer, I plan to install a modem. I would also like to obtain a ready-to- run statistics program which will work on a spread sheet.

10 REM SEISMIC CALCULATIONS

15 CLS

20 PRINT AT 2.0; "SEISMIC CALCU LATIONS"

25 PRINT AT TROD"

25 PRINT AT NE 19356"

es PRINT A ime Per grap

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at PRINT AT 6.

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40 PRINT AT 18,8,"

INPUT ai

45 PRINT AT 28,15

50 PRINT AT 11,0;"

a

INPUT až

SS PRINT AT ili,i5;aZ2;" degrees

BB PRINT AT 22,08; "Enter a3 I MPLT az

65 PRINT AT iz,15;a2;" degrees

70 PRINT HT 14,0; "Enter Liz INPUT Liz

75 PRINT AT 14,15;L12 n

S8 PRINT AT i2,0;"Enter Lea" INPUT L23

SS PRINT AT 15,15;LĒ3 .

n y TAN (als2zsPI»;3e00! lae ^ .*THM (a2s2sPI/;28581 185 IF a3z8 THEN GO TO i128 118 LET .*THM ladef4ePIv 360) 126 LET d (Lli2;22)s5ü0R (iv2-v1

3otvaexve1211) 130 IF LZ232z THEN GO TO 158 140 LET dz3ziL23:;2)s5üR i(va3-vE boAtv3£ve21) 1580 PRINT AT i5,5;"v1- Mee 155 PRINT AT i?,10;"dil2- "idle 166 PRINT AT 185,52;"v2-2 "sve 175 IF L23=8 THEN GO TO san ?—— 190 PRINT AT i12,18;"d23-2 ";d23 182 PRINT AT 29,5; "v3= "sus 220 PRINT AT 21,0; "For next spr €ad, Press RUN” r-—————— tape loop write protect lug tape loop —— label a Microdrive cartridge

FOI III III IIIS ISI Ae e III III III III III IIIT II AI III IIS II II II III III IIA TTI I III IIIS AI IAIAAA

PARTIAL SCREEN SAVER (2068/SPECTRUM) The Screen Display is saved as SCREENS but can be saved as CODE 16384,6912 DISPLAY "ues 0-7 Start 16384 Bytes 2048

8-15 "' 18432 * 2048 " 0-15 "16984 " 4096

Sections above can be SAVED with or without attributes, Sections can be require? 16384,2048 can be 18432,2048 to move

moved up or down

ae r=22528:; LET dfb=

zt d

i for lines ô 2 for lines 8 3 for lines 0

- 45"

40 PRINT AT 15,0;" FIRST PRESS ANY KEY W HEN READY':PAUSE O: PRINT INVERSE 1;ÀT 15,0; " NOW LOAD YOUR SCREENS ": LOAD ""SCREEN$

50 PRINT AT 20,0;" 32 spaces i AT 21,0;* 32 spaces"

60 INPUT "Save Section (1, 2 or 3)?";ss

70 IF se{1 OR ss)3 THEN GOTO 60

80 IF ss=i THEN GOTO 110

90 IF ss=2 THEN LET dfzdib:LET attr=attr *día: GOTO 110

100 LET dfb=2#dfb: LET dfaz2scía

110 INPUT "What title?';t$: IF LEN t$ ^10 THEN GOTO 110

120 INPUT "Do you want attributes?(y/n)" 10$: IF g$z*N" OR g$="n" THEN GOTC 140

130 SAVE t$CODE attr,dfa

140 SAVE t$CODE df,dfb

190 IF g$z'N* OR g$="n* THEN GOTO 170

160 PRINT AT 20,0; "Attr. :*; t$; CODE"; atir i") "jdfa

170 PRINT AT 21,0;"Disp]";t$;"CODE";df;",

"idib 13

RCMP raid nets irated software

by Paul Weinberg (CC Correspondent)

TORONTO - The largest-ever hau! of allegedly pirated software in Canada was recently con- ducted by the RCMP in the To- ronto area.

An estimated $3 million worth of bootleg software programs and manuals were seized at the end of November during RCMP raids of three basement operations.

Invoices. customer lists with hundreds of names. and three computers were also seized in the

and ordered to appear in Ontario provincial court on January 14. Those charged include:

* Brent Murray Radbourne of Brent Computers, Etobicoke. Ont.:

Soft City claims to have been a software evaluation club.

The five charged men are al- leged to have fraudulently copied and sold programs owned by hundreds of manufacturers.

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates' personal net worth jumped to

$350 million plus when his com- pany went public last Spring.

raids. The programs were sold across

The three raided companies Canada. the United States, and were shutdown immediately. Bermuda at prices ranging from Five men were individually | $100 to $200. said RCMP Const- charged with fraud over $1,000 able Pierre Riopel.

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**** DAPFYnitions ****

by Bob Crecco, reprinted from the Sinclair Louisville Users Group (SLUG) newsletter, Nov/B86.

ASSUMED DECIMAL POINT - located two positions to the right of a programmer's current salary in estimating his own worth.

BIT - the increment by which all programmers slowly go mad.

CHAINING - the method of attaching a programmer to his desk to speed up output.

ERROR - what someone else has made when he disagrees with your computer output.

FIXED WORD LENGTH - four letter words used by programmers when in a state of confusion.

FLOATING CONTROL = occurs when you have to take a wizz but can't leave the computer.

FLOATING POINT - absolute limit before FLOATING CONTROL is lost. :

FLOW CHART - graphic representation of the fastest route to the restroom.

INPUT = food, whisky, beer, aspirin, etc. MACRO - last half of expression of surprise:"HOLY MACRO!" 14 MEMORY DUMP - amnesia,can occur after certain types of INPUT

CORE DUMP - the 2's complement of FLOATING CONTROL.

Reprinted from QUARTERS Fal1/86

REVIEW: Zebra O0S-64 Sixty-Four Column Cartridge by Chuck Dawson

You iay have read in the 18-2058 manual about the 44 column capability of the computer but never got it to work. Welcome to the club! Until now, with the possible exception of the MSCRIPT word processing program, no one could get it to work properly. Now, Zebra Systems of Woodhaven, New York, has introduced the 0S-64. It is a cartridge that fits inside that little door on the 29058. When you power up, there it is! It is that easy. You can PRINT AT; TAB; LPRINT; and LLIST in 64 columns. LFRINT and LLIST go to a full sized 80 column printer. The interface driver is built in. COPY will work if you have an EPSON (or compatable) printer.

The limitations are not those of the cartridge but of the computer's built in operating system. When 64 columns are in use, you can have only one paper color and the border will match. No local color assignments are allowed. The whole screen will be one paper color and one ink color. The ink is automatically chosen by the system. Blue paper gives you yellow ink. White paper gives black ink. The combinations are fixed. This has consequences you might not think of right off hand. For instance, when LOADing, you don’t get that striped border to show how things are going. The picture just sits there with no indication that anything is happening. I hope you have a vu needle or a light on your recorder to tell you when to shut the thing off. Also, the memory map is changed. That means that many programs will not work without modification. Most machine code is placed high in memory to keep it out of the way, but with 64-column in place, this area is used for Stacks and system variables that will cause a crash when overwritten. I tried it with Smart Term II hoping to get a 64 column display when receiving text via the modem, but it didn't work. Some Smart Alec will probably rewrite it and make it work but it won't be

Strangely enough, FLOT, DRAW, and CIRCLE work as they do in 32 column with x in the range of 0-255 and y in the range of 0-175. It has been well written and so far the only bug I have found is the inability to supress a line feed which is sent along with the carriage return during COFY. I had to change the switch in my printer to get a proper COPY. They did provide a way to center the COPY on the paper so I guess we came out even on that one. They mention in the instructions that you will probably want to use a monitor instead of a TV. Well, I use a TV and I think the quality of the display is very acceptable. So, in summary, for many applications (where color is not important but lots of text is) this cartridge is just what we have been

waiting for.

JEES

THE VANCOUVER SINCLAIR USERS GROUP HAS

BEEN IN EXISTENCE SINCE 1982. WE ARE A

SUPPORT GROUP FOR THE OWNERS AND USERS

OF THE: MICROACE, ZX80, ZX81, TS 1000,

TS 1500, SPECTRUM, SPECTRUM *, TS 2068, AND QL COMPUTERS.

PRES.--KEN ABRAMSON VIPRES.-- ? TREAS. & EDITOR--ROD HUMPHREYS

OUR MEMBERSHIP DUES ARE ONLY $15.00/YEAR AND MAY BE SENT TO THE TREASURER.

ROD HUMPHREYS 2006 HIGHVIEW PLACE PorT Moony, B.C., V3H 1N5

MEMBERSHIP INCLUDES A SUBSCRIPTION TO ZXAPPEAL - OUR MONTHLY NEWSLETTER. ZXAPPEAL ACCEPTS ADVERTISING, OUR **PREPAID** RATES ARE:

$20.00 -- FULL PAGE $12.00 -- 1/2 PAGE $8.00 -- 1/4 PAGE

ZXAPPEAL HAS A PRINT RUN OF 75 COPIES PER MONTH FOR MEMBERS AND IS ALSO DISTRIBUTED TO APPROX H0 OTHER SINCLAIR USER GROUPS THROUGHOUT NORTH AMERICA AS WELL AS OVERSEAS VIA THE NETWORK.

NETWORK_CORRES TO THE EDITOR