Practical
Com
- July 1982
Clive Sinclair
interviewed _
Reviews:
2X Spectrum
Atari graphics
Qume Sprint 9
CP/M file copying
Miéro ergonomics
S | ctured Basic
Cromemco System One
MicroCentre introduce Cromemco’s new System One computer,
available with an integral 5 megabyte Winchester hard disk, at a
new low price.
The System One supports the full range of Cromemco interface cards,
including high resolution colour graphics, and software packages.
The choice of operating systems includes CDOS, CP/M and
CROMIX—Cromemco’s answer to Unix.
Call MicroCentre for (J Cromemco
30 Dundas Street
MicroCentre Ltd Britain's ind dent :
(Complete Micro Systems) Bae ies imporier Edinburgh EH3 6JN
@ Circle No. 101 Tel: 031-556 7354
apace
Sprints
fle copying
ergonomics
ctured Baar
The Sinclair interview — page 54
Editor
Peter Laurie 01-661 3500
Assistant Editor
Bill Bennett
Reporter
lan Stobie
Production Editor
John Liebmann
Sub-editor
Meirion Jones
Prestel Editor
Martin Hayman
Editorial Secretary
Julie Milligan
Consultants Nick Hampshire,
Chris Bidmead, Peter Wood
Advertisement Manager
_ fan Carter 01-661 3021
Assistant Advertisement
Manager
Kenneth Walford 01-661 3139
Advertisement Executives
Fiona Howell! 01-661 3500
Robert Payne 01-661 3500
Advertisement Secretary
Janet Thorpe
Midlands office:
David Harvett 021-356 4838
Northern office:
Geoff Aikin 061-872 8861
Publishing Director
Chris Hipwell
Published by IPC Electrical Electronic
Press Ltd, Quadrant House, The Quad-
rant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS. Tel:
01-661 3500. Telex/grams 892084 BIP-
RESG.
Typeset and printed by Eden Fisher
(Southend) Ltd, Southend-on-Sea.
Distributed by IPC Business Press
(Sales and Distribution) Ltd, Quadrant
House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey
SM2 5AS.
Subscriptions: U.K. £10 per annum;
Overseas £16 per annum; selling price In
Eire subject to currency exchange fluctu-
ations and VAT; airmail rates available
on application to Subscription Manager,
IPC Business Press (S & D) Ltd, Oakfield
House, Perrymount Road, Haywards
Heath, Sussex RH16 3DH. Tel: 0444
59168.
©IPC Business Press Ltd 1982
ISSN 0141-5433
Would-be authors are wetcome to
send articles to the Editor but PC
cannot undertake to return them.
Payment is at £30 per published page.
Submissions should be typed or
computer-printed. Handwritten mater-
jal Is lable to delay and error,
Every effort is made to check articles
and listings but PC cannot guarantee
that programs will run and can accept
no responsibility for any errors.
r-
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183
CONTENTS
Editorial / Fussing over 16 bits
Feedback / DAI users’ group; WordStar on Apple; Editing Microsoft
Basic
Printout / Software rental bank; DEC’s micro; ZX-81 Prestel adaptor
Printout extra /Commodore unveils a new range of microcomputers
and peripherals
The Sinclair interview / An in-depth interview with microcomput-
ing’s most prominent personality, conducted by Martin Hayman
ZX Spectrum / Bill Bennett pulls apart the colourful new micro from
Sinclair Research
Atari 800 graphics/ At the other end of the home-computer market
lies the Atari; Jack Schofield investigates
Sord M-23/ Ian Stobie takes a look at the latest offering from Japan’s
second-in-line equipment manufacturer, and some software supplied
with it
Qume Sprint 9/ Those clever little Americans take on the Japanese at
their own. game with this high-quality daisywheel
MBasic / Concluding Chris Bidmead’s appraisal of the compiled
version of microcomputing’s lingua franca
Power/ A programmers’ utility package for the Pet examined by Peter
Wood
Structured programming / Graham Beech shows how a logical
approach to program planning provides structured Basic routines
Art / Brian Reffin Smith continues his series on graphics applications
Fiction / OK Petrax; Your Time is Up, by Charles Chambers
CP/M / A file-copying utility for CP/M 2.0 systems from David Meeks
Telesoftware / Martin Hayman assesses Prestel’s prospect as a
software transmission medium and a networking proposal for ITECs
Micro ergonomics / Computing can damage your health — a
survival guide by Philip Latey
Open file / A 14-page section of readers’ programs for BBC, Sinclair,
Tandy, Apple, Pet, Z-80, 6502-based and CP/M machines
Book reviews
Micromouse / How the crown was lost and won
Puzzle
Pet subroutines / More powerful machine-code routines from the
depths of the Pet
Microcomputer buyers’ guide
The War Machine / Midway — a naval-warfare simulation game
Prestel page number 357
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
WATFORD ELECTRONICS
33/35, CARDIFF ROAD, WATFORD, HERTS, ENGLAND
Tel Watford (0923) 40588. Telex: 8956095
COMPUTER
{C's
1702
4802CP
2101-2
2112-2
2714-1 300n
2114L-200n
(CMOS2114)
4816A-120n
4864.3
6116-150nS,
6530 RR10T
6532 A10T
6545 CRTC
AM26L531C
AM26L532A
AY-3-1015
AY-3-8910
AY-3-8912
AY-5-1013
AY-5-2376
COM81166
Aseaist
88LS120N
FDI771
FO1791
FD1793
FD1795
FD1797
(NSBO6ON
INS8154
(M6402
MC1488
MC 1489.
MC 14411
MC14412
MC3447P
MM5280D
MM58174
MM74C922
RO-3-2513L
AO-3-2513U
SFF96364E
TMS2716-3V
TMS6011
ULN2003
uLN2004
UPA7002
ZB0CPU2.5
Z80ACPU4M
Z80P10
Z80AP10
zeocTc
ZB0ACTC
Z80DMA
CRYSTALS
32.768KH
YOOKHz
2OOKHz
455K Hz
1MHz
1,008M
1,6MHz
1.8MHz
1.843M
2.0MHz
2.4576M
3.2768M
57534M
6864M
4.0MHz
4.032M
4 BOMHz
4.1943M
4 433619
5.0MHz
$.185M
5.24288
"Z80S 10-1
Z80AS10
Z80DART
Z80ADART
ZNA234E
ZN41SCE
ZN423E
ZN424E
ZN425E
ZN426E
ZN427E
ZN428E
ZN429E
ZN1034E
ZN1040E
743132
748138
748188
74S189
743194
748201
74$241
748262
74S287
74S288
748470
748471
748472
748478
748571
75107
75108
75182
8.867237
9.0MHz
9.375M
10,0MHz
10,7MHz
19.24MHz
12.0MHz
12.52BM
14.31818
\16 OMHz
\S.OMHz
18,432M
19.963
20.0MHz
24.0MHz
24.930M
26 69M
26.67M
27: 125M
27,145M
IDC CONNECTORS
(Speed PCB PI
Block
type Str
Pins
90p
130p
145p
175p
205p
220p
235p
2x5 way
2x8 way
2x10 way
2x13 way
2x17 way
220 way
2x25 way
JUMPER LEADS: Aibb
ug
with latch
Angle
Pins
99p
150p
166p
200p
236p
250p
270p
ion Cable
Assembly DIL PLug (Headers)
Single Ended Lead, 24
Length I4pin 16pin
24" 145p =: 165p
Double Ended Leads
6" ‘185p 205p
123 198p 2175p
24" 210p 235p
36" 230p 250p
"Long
24pin
240p
300p
315p
345p
375p
socket
85p
4110p
125p
150p
160p
180p
200p
4411
4412
4419
4422
4433
4435
4440
4450
4451
4490
4500
450%
4502
jt0344503
DIL SOCKETS
8pin
14pin
16pin
18pin
20pin
Low
Prof
8p
10p
10p
16p
22p
Wire
Wrap
25p
35p
42p
52p
60p
ALL DEVICES FULL,SPEC. AND FULLY GUARANTEED. TERMS OF BUSINESS:
CASH/CHEQUE/P.O,.S. (OR ACCESS) WITH ORDER. GOVERNMENT AND EDUCA-
TIONAL INSTITUTIONS OFFICIAL ORDERS ACCEPTED. TRADE AND EXPORT
INQUIRIES WELCOME. (P&P add 50p on all cash orders).
ALL PRICES ARE EXCLUSIVE OF VAT. PLEASE ADD 15% TO THE TOTAL
VAT
COST INCLUDING P&P.
-SHOP HOURS: 9.00am-6.00pm MONDAY TO SATURDAY.
_-AMPLE FREE CAR PARKING SPACE AVAILABLE.
WATFORD’S
UNIVERSAL |
MICRO EXPANSION
SYSTEM
Designed by Walford Electronics, this
extremely versatile and economical Ex-
Pansion System as published in E.T.I.,
starting from Dec. 1981 issue, offers a
low cost flexible expansion system for
ZX81, UK101, SUPERBOARD, ACORN
ATOM, PET, TANGERINE, etc.
The Motherboard (interfaces with the
computer) has capacity to accept up to
five daughter cards and can be paral-
leled for even more daughter cards.
All PCBoards are of computer grade fin-
ish and are supplied in kit form.
Just look at the Expansion possibilities.
MOTHERBOARD — Accepts up to five
daughter cards. Full kit: £36.50
SOUND CARD — Utilising up to three
AY-3-8910 sound chips (one supplied
with the kit}. Full kit: £24.95
PIO CARD — Using two 6520 PIA chips,
this Board offers Centronics parailel
printer driver, digital to analogue con-
verter and a host of other output facili-
ties. Full Kit: £19.95,
PROM PROGRAMMER — This simple
but extremely useful card can blow
2716r single rail EPROMS. (2732) Full
Kit: £25.95
PROM CARD — PCB cards for housing
four 2716 or two 2732 EPROMS.
(4 x 2716) Full Kit: £11.95
(2 x 2732) Full Kit: £11.75
RAM CARD — 8K RAM card. Accepts 16
x 2114 RAMs. Board is supplied fully
populated. Full Kit: £28.50 ;
Soon avatlable: SPEECH CARD; HIGH
RESOLUTION GRAPHICS CARD; DISC
INTERFACE CARD; 32K DRAM CARD
{N8 PCBs may be bought separately).
WATFORD'S
Ultimate
MON Monitor IC.
A 4K Monitor Chip specially designed to
produce the best from your Superboard
Series | & ll, Enhanced Ri pekbeard & UK
101. As reviewed by Dr. A.A. Berk in
Practical Electronics, June 1981.
we
Price only £15
NEW
SEIKOSHA
GP100A
Unihammer Printer,
gives normal and double
width characters as well as dot
resolution graphics 10 Tractor feed.
Parallel interface standard. £190 + p&p
SOFTY-2
As reviewed in PE September 1981. The
complete microprocessor development
system for Engineers’& Beginners. New
powerful instruction. Accepts any 24 pin
5V single rail EPROM. Supplied fully
built, tested & enclosed in a black ABS
case. Price incl. encapsulated plug-in
(power supply. £169
RIBBON CABLE
Ways Grey folour
Price/foat
10 12p 22p
20 25p 40p
26 35p 52p
40 55p 70
VIC 20
ex-stock £165
DIL PLUGS
Soid:,
44p
49p
88p
250p
(Headers)
(oC
100p
120p
170p
265p
cludin
sette £39
14pin
16pin
24pin
40pin
DIN
41618
31 way
41612A+B
2 x 32 way
41612A+C
AMPHENOL PLUGS
24way IEEE’ 575p
34 way Centronics
Parallel 550p
Micro Computer
Ready built, tested and ele 2x10way
antly cased. Connects mice)
to a colour TV. Has 5K RAM
expandable ta 32K Available
CASSETTE Deck for above in-
a free 6 program Cas-
EURO CONNECTORS
Socket Plug Plug
180p —
290p 220p 235p
SPECIAL
OFFER
2114L-300n
2114L-200n
2532
2732
4116 .-
4334-3
4816 (BBC)
6116-150nS
6522
6520
6820
80p
87p
365p
400p
75p
325p
225p
420p
320p
150p
150p
We stock thou-
sands more
items. It pays to
visit us. We are
situated behind
the Watford Foot-
ball Ground.
Bus ith Wess
Just phone your
order through,
we do the rest
Bi. MX Series
PRINTERS
Now available
from stock at very
competitive prices.
@ MX80T 10” Tractor Feed, 9x9
matrix, 80 column Speed 80
CPS bi-directional Centronics
Interface, Baud rate 110-9600.
(RS232), £299 + p&p
@ MX80FT Has Fricton & Tractor
feed plus all the MX80T’s facili-
ties. £339 + p&p
@ MX80FT2 Has high resolution
Graphics option plus all the
MX80FT’s facilities. £345 + p&p
VIDEO MONITOR 9” B&W. Fully
cased. Professional quality. Fully
guaranteed: £75 + p&p
ACCESSORIES
TEX EPROM ERASER. Erases upto 32
iCs in 15-30 min. £33
TEX EPROM ERASER with incor-
porated Safety Switch £39
Spare UV lamp bulbs £9
5V/5A PSU Ready built and tested £25
Attractive Beige/Brown ABS CASE for
Superboard/UK101 or Home Brew €26
Full ASC11 coded keyboard type ‘756°
£39
NUMERIC Keypad (Ready built) £9
4 x 4 matrix keypad (reed switch
assembly) £4
C12 Cassettes inLibraryCases 40p
8}"" Fan fold paper (500 sheets) (no
VAT) £6
i Fan fold paper (500 sheets) (no
VAT) £5
Teleprinter Roll (no VAT) 250p
- UHF Modulator 6MH2 280p
UHF Modulator 8MH2 450p
Stack Pack 5 Drawers (10 sections)
Cassette racking Unit £2
@ Stack Pack Unit incl. 10 C12 Cassettes
: 550p
Kg
EOGE CONNECTORS
. | (Double type) 1
2x15way -
1B80p
199p
210p
225p
245p
295p
315p
395p
550p
2x18 way
2x22way
2x23way
2x25way
2x30way
2x36way
2x40way
2x43way
2x75way
Strat Angle
Pins Pins D CONNECTORS: Miniature
Plugs
Solder
Angie
Pins
9 way 15 way 25 way 37 way
80p 1110p 1160p 250p
160p 210p 355p
1209 130p 2965p
195p
2509
195p
ZIF DIL SOCKETS
24way
28way
40way
6.0MHz
6.144MHz
6.5536M
7 OMHz
25p
25p
28p
30p
70p
70p
80p
99p
22pin
24pin
28pin
40pin
38.6667
48.0M
100 OM
116 OM
1D Header Socket Jumper Leads
24" 20pin 26pin 34 pin
lend 160p 200p 260p
2ends 290p 370p 480p
Solder
Angie 165p
Pins 150p
Lovers 100p
110p 1860p
215p
180p
95p
210p
290p
240p
100p
3650p
440p
420p
110p
2x 32.way 310p 225p 240p
41612A+B+C
2x32 way 380p 245p 280p
40pin
300p
525p,
@ Circle No. 102
This sYour Board
: y cit
sn ONS eS oe ot 3 H
The RADER single board computer has been developed in the
U.K. and tailormade to offer the user the most up-to-date techniques of
microprocessor technology coupled with the built in facilities of ultimate
expandability and flexibility.
Based on the popular Z80A Microprocessor running at 4 MHZ, up
to 16K of internal ROM may be addressed. 2K of video RAM and 2K of
character generator RAM is included (both memory mapped). Decoded bank
switching permits the addition of as many boards as may be required,
each board containing 3 pages of 64K RAM, giving unlimited capacity. A
highly flexible memory capability is achievable by the addition of external
pages of ROM.
Floppy Disc interface utilises Westem Digital’s 1797 Disc
Controller allowing interfacing to 54%” or 8” floppy disc drives, side
selection for double sided drives and single or double density recording.
All data transfers are accomplished by the on-board DMA controller. Other
standard features include: On board keyboard port, composite video
output and “disc mains’ on/off signals; tight pen input; inverse video
switch to select normal video display background (white on black/black on
white); video enhancements switch; plus choice of invert character or dual
intensity enhancements.
Monitor with full screen editing facilities plus a full 8 point cursor
control. @ Autoboot for business systems @ Autoselect for varying disc
densities @ Ability to auto-load extra ROM @ Commands: Dump, boot,
edit, input port/output port, break point, go to, copy.
The board is configured to run the latest CPM version 2.2 and
ideally suited as the basis for small to medium business machines, games
machines, industrial contra] machines, research and development
equipment @ Board Price £350 plus £4.00 P+-P excluding VAT.
(Please state whether 8” or 5%” board is required.)
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
pe ere
f ‘ r
Standard features
@ 64K RAM
@ 4 MHZ Z80A CPU
@ 5%” or 8” Disc Interface,
single/double/sided density
@ 780A CTC (clock/timer/counter)
@ DMA Controller
@ Memory Mapped Video Display
@ Memory Mapped RAM Character
Generator
@ Programmable Video Controller
@ 8 Expansion Connectors
Configuted to run CPM 2.2
Add on option boards
@ Dual Parallel Ports £35
@ Dual Serial Ports £50
© Cassette Interface £50
@ RAM Expansion Board, Capacity
192K, in 64K Increments £250
© User Prototyping Board £16.75
@ Real time clock with battery
back-up £45
All option boards; add £2.00 P+-P
Prices exclude VAT.
@ CP/M DOS also includes a utility programme that allows you to format
your discs and dynamically configure the systems for a variety of disc
and printer types. A set of manuals are also included.
Price £100 plus £3.00 P+-P. Send for complete technical specification.
All prices excluding VAT.
@ Full Custom software development support available
Rade Systems Ltd.,
53-55 Ballards Lane,
London N3 1XP
Telephone 01-349 4711/5
Telex 46523 Simsys G.
RADE
Dedicated Intelligence
@ Circle No. 103
13)
___WEPUT CP/M
TO WORK ON SHARP
Micro Technology, the people who put CP/M on the Sharp MZ-80B, and on the all-new
MZ-80A, have achieved the near impossible and produced CP/M on the PC 3201; plug our
board into the back of your PC 3201 and you can run standard 64k CP/M and use the vast library
of CP/M software that Micro Technology can supply.
Now look at Sharp equipment, with all Woy offering CP/M and integration using
CP/NET and MP/M, you can network
together the economy of the MZ-80A, the
speed and graphics capability of the
MZ-80B and the superbly attractive
business presentation of the PC 3201.
SHARP
MZS0B Highly flexible micro
computer with 64k RAM, disks or tape;
high resolution graphics and CP/M.
| PC3201 And newly available from
Micro Technology, a plug-in board that allows you to run your
PC oa" with standard 64k CP/M. All CP/M products on our list
are now available, including the superb new
Padmede/Micro Technology business packages, all
making the PC 3201 an excellent business machine.
SHARP
MZ80A The newest Sharp
machine, bristling with features, (<_
equally athome in adomestic ora “®& a
business environment. Now withCP/M. —
If you’re interested in the hardware as well —
then please call us.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Just check through our list of software
WORDSTAR Powerful word-processing
package, made easy to use by full function
key support on the MZ-80B. £242
MAILMERGE Add on toWORDSTAR,
provides mail-shol and text inclusion. £73
SPELLSTAR Add on to WORDSTAR, lor
spelling checking £121
DATASTAR Screen oriented form definition
and data entry lool, £171
SUPERSORT | Powerful disk based
sort Benen es Stand alone program and
MICROSOFT compatible CALLING
SEQUENCE RELOCATABLE
ROUTINES. £122
SUPERSORT tl As SUPERSORT I. but only
the sland alone program, £97
WORDMASTER Superb screen based (ext
edior, all functions driven by MZ-80B
function keys. £73
CALCSTAR The new financial planning
package from the MICROPRO stable. £144
EASYFILER Fiexible data definition, data
entry, data update and report
generator, £150
GENISYS General insurance syslem for
office admin and accounting of general
insurance broker, £1
EMIS Estale agent management
information system. Designed by estate
agents for eslale agents. £795
COMAL-80 The revolulionary structured
fogrammuing languages, easy to use aS
Basic Recommended for educauion and
teaching environment. £130
BASIC-80 Accepted standard
Microprocessor based BASIC -
interpreter £175
NOW WE HAVE ADDED
BASIC COMPILER BASIC-80 compalible
compiler, makes BASIC programs run
many limes faster. £200
FORTRAN-80 ANSI siandard FORTRAN,
except for COMPLEX numbers, £200
COBOL-80 1974 ANSI standard COBOL,
with large program chaining and screen
DISPLAY /ACCEPT. £
M/SORT Powertul sorting facility for use
primarily with COBOL-80. £75
Mu-MATH & MuSIMP Symbolic math
package, allows computation on to 611
arithmetic digits. Superb for scientific and
engineering applicalions £149
Mu-LISP & Mu-STAR Extended LISP 1.5.
Includes screen based LISP environment
edilor, £19
EDIT-80 & FILCOM Line onented random
access text edilor. Includes source and
binary lile compare program.
MACRO-80 Assembler with Z80
mnemonics. includes linking loader, library
manager and cross reterencer. £119
CIS COBOL ANSI 74 standard COBOL to
full level 1 standard £425
FORMS-2 For use with CIS COBOL,
provides superb screen handling capabilily
for CIS COBOL programs. £100,
PROSPERO PRO PASCAL Fasles! Z80
PASCAL we know, £190
PL/1-80 ANSI standard subset G based
PL/1 producing direct objec! code for fast
execution £298
BT-80 Record retrieval system or use with
PL/1-B0, lo give data base management
facilives. e11
MAC Upward compalible assembler from
ASM, provides MACROs and 280
assembly supporl. £53
ZSID Super symbolic debugger, with full
Z80_ mnemonic suppor). Works well wilh
MACRO-80 £59
TEX Text for matter ideal for producing
manuals and similar documents. Nole this
ts not screen based £59
DESPOOL Allows listing of files al same
time as other processing. £29
CBASIC Commercial BASIC. used
exlensively for business packages. £65
CB80 Full compiler for CBASIC. £298
MINI MODEL Very powerful prolessional
financial modelling package. £399
MAGSAM Indexed sequential access
routines. for use with CBASIC £10
BASKAM Basic keyed access routines lor
use with BASIC -80 £95
DATAFLOW Easy use data file entry loo!
For reports, labels or MICROPRO
MAIL.MERGE compatible fies, £99
PADMEDE/MICRO TECHNOLOGY A tull
tange of business soflware converied by us
from the highly reitable PADMEDE originals
lo run under CP/M
SALES LEDGER SYSTEM Fully integrated,
secure, parameterisable with full report
facillies. £249
PURCHASE LEOGER SYSTEM All the
Same flexibilily as the sales fedger
system £249
SALES INVOICING SYSTEM Automatic
product description access, audi trail,
instantly updatable product file (even while
creating an invoice), inlegrales with sales
ledger system if required £249
NOMINAL LEDGER SYSTEM Inlegrates all
the sales and purchase side ol your
business. Trial balances can be produced
for incomplele records accounting. £249
STOCK CONTROL SYSTEM Full stock
conirol system with minimum stock levels
and re-order levels. integralion to sales
invoicing system provided, £249
MICRO TECHNOLOGY MICROTEXT
Easy lo jearn and easy to use lext
processor with far more friendly user
interface than WORDSTAR. If you wish lo
use il, then far more power is avattable to
you, including calculalor, column and row
totalling and macro-lext functions. £270
MICROMERGE Integrate and merge lacilily
for use with MICROTEXT. Use for mailshots
and simple dalabase retneval and
reporting, £70
EXPAND Library routines lor use wilh
MICROSOFT calling sequence producis
Gives MZ-80B graphics. casselte and
music handling. £65
Free wilh any MICROSOFT produc
purchased at the same lime from us.
Piease slate for which machine /version of
CP/M the product is intended.
CASH WITH ORDER for goods by return.
Post & packing at £2 per item + VAT &£15%.
All orders sent 1st class post.
6 TO 24 Mb WINCHESTER
DISKS, MP/M AND
ET WORKING ON SHARP
AS WELL!
6 Mb Winchester hard disk — £1930
12 Mb Winchester hard disk — £2475
18 Mb Winchester hard disk — £3020
24 Mb Winchester hard disk — £3565
“Integral floppy back-up unit — £400
*Clock option
(improves MP/M performance)- £25
RS232C card for MZ-80A or MZ-80B
fully program controlled up to 19,200
baud, dual RS232 or EIA — £150
*Must be ordered with disk unit.
MZ-80A
a
MZ-80B
se
MZ-80B
Totally flexible networks of any mix of up
to 4MZ-80As, MZ-80Bs and PC 3201s
onan active network, communicating at
speeds of up to19,200 baud or miles apart.
MP/M — £350
Dealer enquiries welcomed.
CP/NET — £250
de)
LIMITED
PC 3201
i.
PC 3201
Technology =
51/53 The Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN2 5TH.
CP/M, MP/M & CP/NET are trade marks of Digital Research
Ask your dealer for details or call us on Tunbridge Wells (0892) 45344.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Telex 95441 MICRO-G
@ Circle No. 104
POS OOF ce Gemini 7
rN \ 1 / AG MultiBoard
Samp Psu withan
8-slot Motherboard
STOP &
PICK UP ANY
MULTIBOARDS
: ON YOUR WAY
ij
3 amp PSU for the
smaller system
s
-,
a
CHEAPSKATE
ROUTE
ESOTERIC
nascom
OWNERS
START HERE
With a 59 key full
QWERTY layout, this
Similar to the popular
GM811 CPU card, the new
GM
GM813CPU/RAM card has ASCIl encoded
64K of dynamic RAM 84 3 keyboard includes
replacing the ‘bytewide'’ CPUIRAM cursor control keys,
sockets. An extended
addressing mode
facilltates future memory
expansion up to2
megabytes! The RP/M 2
monitor retains full RP/M
— CPIM compatability.
caps. lock, two key
rolloverand
auto-repeat.
GM
821
KEYBOARD
Utilising the powerful 4MHz Z80A
. Microprocessor the GM811 CPU
’ card canbe usedas eithera
| stand alone controller or as the
‘ heartofa complex
i id microcomputer system. Four
a ‘Bytewide’ sockets allow great
> flexibility in the type and size of
on ; memory devices chosen. Input
. : and output facilities Include
both programmable serial and
parallel interfaces —RS232, 1200
baud CUTS cassette interface,
280A PIO, and an eight bit Input
port. Inanexpanded system
the unlque on-board RP/M
monitor allows the creation of
cassette or Eprom based
:* programs or files which are
4 upwards compatible with a
\ disk based CP/M system.
80 BUS STATION
ROUTE FARES
Hardware (Built & tested)
mini Multi ist
logical ate Depa itu GM802 64KRAMcard £140 GM813 = Z80CPUI64K RAMcard .£225
: GM803 EPROM/ROMcard £65 EV814 —sIEEE488card £440
microcomputer system you care to i
Wheth Busi GM807_ 3APSU £40 GM815-1 Single drive disk unit
name. Whether you require a business GMB808K* EPROM programmer £29.50 with PSU (350K) £325
system, an educational system, a GM809 FDC card £125, GM8415-2 Double drive disk unit
process control system or any other GM8410K 5APSU/8 with PSU (700K) £550
system, there isa combination of slotmotherboard £69.50 GM&16) Muitil/O board £425
MuiltiBoards to fulfil that function. ort 4 ey card z 4 po . apecse board ae
: , 42 Z80IVC card 4 LightPen
This concept ensures maximum (*Kit) GM824 ASClikeyboard £57.50
flexibility and minimal obsolescence.
Maintenance and expansion is greatly Software
GM542 CP/M 2.2 for Multiboard £90 GM524 Gem Dis disassembleri
enhanced by the modular board GM517_ Gem-Zapeditiasmtape £45 debugger tape £30
design. MultiBoard is based on the GM518 Gem-Zapeditiasmdisk. £45 GM525 Gem Dis disassembler/
80-BUS structure, whichis finding GM549_ Gem Pen editor debuggerdisk £30
increasing acceptance among other text formatter tape £45 GM526 Comal-80tape £400
British manufacturers; thus broadening GM520 Gem Pen editori GM527 Comal-80disk £400
the product base. textformatter EPROM £45 GM528 APLdisk £200
GM524 Gem Pen editor!
textformatter disk £45
8 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
-OGICAI
The GM8&12 intelligent Video Controller card features an GM 809 FDC
on board 280A processor to provide independence of GM The GM809 floppy disk controller card can
GM the host processor and the ability to redefine the support up to four disk drives in either single or
81 2 functions and parameters of the display. 809 841 5 double density modes. The card uses the Western
Normally used in an 80 x 25 mode the card contalns DRIVE UNIT Digital 1797 controller and has variable write
~I¥e a programmable character generator allowing Lo precompensation and phase locked loop data
three additional modes of operation — inverse oa recovery circuitry.
characters, 160 x 75 block graphics, or user ry. I} GM 845 Drive unit
i ters. Gf ss :
ae eae buffered character = > The GM815 floppy disk housing contains one or
input, and a light pensocketis provided for 00g Ee
specialist applications. Being VO mapped the
card does not occupy any system memory space.
two 5/4" double density, double sided Pertec FD
250 drives. This gives a storage capacity of 350K
per drive. Power for the drives is provided by an
integral supply unit.
AUTO-EXCHANGE
Allyour RP/M software automatically
transferred to CP/M
The GM802 RAM board provides a full
64K of dynamic memory. The 80 BUS
RAMDIS signal is fully supported so
that any EPROM in the system is given
priority over the RAM, preventing any
possibility of bus contention. Page
Mode is also supported by the card
which, with the appropriate software
allows up to four memory boards to
be used inasystem.
A CPIM 2.2 package
is available with the
GM 809 card and
Pertec drives.
On-screen editing
auto single/double
density selection and
parallel or serial
printers are
supporned. Running
under CPIM is a wide
range of utilities,
application software
and languages.
The Gemini I/O board
RPIM software is available on tape and
includes Editor/Asse mbler; Text Editorl
Formatter; DisassembleriDebugger;
ONE Pascal and Comal-80. These packages
WAY can also be run under CP/M.
The GM803 Eprom Board willacceptup to 16
2708 or 2716 Eprom devices. This allows the
addition of up to 32K of firmware to the
system. The board supports the Page Mode provides a unique
system and consequently need not occupy [7 | 816 solution for interfacing to
any memory space when not in use. . ™ OBOARD “the real world”. The
' board contains 3 PiO's,
Anumber of manufacturers are busy E — aclCandareal
working on additional 80-BUS boards time clock with
which will progressively Increase the v1 i
potential of your MultiBoard system. 80 BUS compatible > oh cal We)
prototyping boards are laughter
available trom both Vero boards may also
be addedand
and Winchester
Technology. These allow
the user to easily adda
these include A-D,
D-A, opto-coupling
card of their own design and serial
to the system. : interface boards,
The GM808 Eprom
programmer connects to
the PIO onthe CPU card
and allows the user to
program 2708 or 2716
type Eproms.
AM 3
820
841 9 This low costlightpen
SPEECH LIGHT PEN canbe used with the
BOARD | GM812 IVC for many
The EVC IEEE 488 Controlier card has
been designed to fully implement
all IEEE 488 interface functions. This
card gives the user a very versatile
method of controlling any
applications,
including answer
selection, editing,
menu selection and
pa ol of equipmentfitted with a standard
The Arfon Microelectronics hotties data IEEE 488 or GPIB interface at minimal
speech board utilises the cost.
Natlonal Semiconductor
Digitalker chip set. This gives
a vocabulary of over 140
COMPUTER INTERFACING TARGET ELECTRONICS
GEMINI MULTIBOARDS & EQUIPMENT LTD., 16 Cherry Lane, Bristol BS4 3NG.
words and aut sounds 3 —BUY THEM AT YOUR the MICRO-SPARES :Shop, Tel:(0272) 4214196.
IS trom Gn on-poadr 1
fecsiee LOCAL MICROVALUE Edinburgh eH125NG pe
DEALER Tel: (034) 337 5644 we ¥.
E. V. COMPUTING Tel:(0937) 63774
All the products on these two pages 700 Bumage Lane, Bumage, . “
ore available while stocks last trom LS Manchester M49 4NA. HENRY’S RADIO
the MicroValue dealers listed on right Tel:(061) 434 4866. 404 Edgware Road, London W2.
(Mail order enquines should Tel:(04) 402 6822.
telephone for delivery dates and post ELECTROVALUE LTD. 3 3
creo ca) ais and is 28 St Judes, Englefield Green, Tix:262284 (quote ref:1400).
Barclaycard welcome Egham, Surrey TW20 OMB. LEEDS COMPUTER CENTRE,
Tel:(0784) 33603. Tix:264475. : “ relat Pes
INTERFACE COMPONENTS LTD. SKYTRONICS errion Centre, Leeds.
Oakfield Comer, Sycamore Road, 2 North Road, The Park, Tel: (0532) 458877
Amersham,Bucks. Nottingham.
Tel:(02403) 22307.11x:837788. Tel: 10802) 45053/45215
@ Circle No. 105
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 9
id
ISBS-F
A FULLY INTEGRATED
ACCOUNTING
SYSTEM FOR THE
SMALLER BUSINESS
USER.DESIGNED FOR
TWIN FLOPPY DISK
SYSTEMS
A totally Integrated Small Business System
designed for single user floppy disk based
systems. Each package can be used stand
alone or can be built Into an integrated: system
depending on user requirements. All packages
are fully supported and maintalned, and are
supplied with comprehensive reference
manuals. ISBS-F is easy to install and ideal for
the first-time smail business user with no
previous computer experience. Some of the
main features of ISBS-F include:
STOCK CONTROL
® Optimum stockhoiding to keep costs toa
minimum.
@ Trends shown by monitoring stock
roe nen and showing fast and slow moving
nes.
®@ Accurate stock valuation at any time.
@ Fast interrogation of any stock line for
answering your customers enquiries.
ORDER ENTRY & INVOICING
@ Accurate tracking of orders to make sure all
your orders are fulfilled.
®@ Order acknowledgements to confirm
customers orders quickly.
@ Automatic reference to the back orders and
drawdown of stock when invoicing, to prevent
double entry.
@ Flexible invoice layout to suit most
companies needs.
@ Sales analysis reports by product code and
your own classification code to provide
comprehensive sales monitoring.
NAME AND ADDRESS
@ Ail your customers, suppliers and enquiries
stored and maintained by one central system.
STOCK
CONTROL
NAME &
ADDRESS
COMPANY
PURCHASES
SYSTEM
GENERAL
ACCOUNTING
@ Flexible report generation allowing you to
design your own reports.
®@ Selective mailing labels to make light work
of mailshots.
PAYROLL
@ Flexible pay periods and methods to sult
most professions and industries.
@ Comprehensive in year and year end reports
to save endless form filling
®@ Coin analysis for workers paid by cash
helping to speed up pay packet preparation.
@ Tax or national Insurance updates as and
when required to make budget changes easy.
®@ Overtime and special credits and
deductions can be handled with ease.
@ Security check prevents unauthorised use.
COMPANY PURCHASES
@ Open Item or Balance Forward accounts
depending on the nature of the goods being
suppiled.
@ Credit contro! reports to ensure payments
are made within your own target dates.
@ Computerised cheque writing to save
manual preparation.
@ \V.A.T. returns can be prepared speedily from
V.A.T. analysis reports.
ORDER
ENTRY &
INVOICING
PAYROLL
COMPANY
SALES
SYSTEM
COMPANY SALES
@ Invoices can be posted directly from the
Order Entry and Invoicing System to save re-
entry.
@ Open Item or Balance Forward accounts to
suit different customer types.
@ Statements for your customers can be
produced easily and at anytime.
@ Comprehensive reports to assist credit
control and maintaln a healthy cash flow.
@V.A.T. returns can be prepared speedily from
V.A.T. analysis reports.
GENERAL ACCOUNTING
@ Flexible cost coding system which can be
designed for your own company structure.
@ Automatic generation of the Profit and Loss
Account and Balance Sheet reflecting the
financial position of your company at anytime.
@ Budget contro!s over flexible periods to
ensure expense accounts are not overrun.
@ Data automatically retrieved from the
Company Sales, Company Purchases and
Payroll Systems which means that data is only
entered once.
PROCESSOR
WP2020 is an advanced word processing
system which runs on selected 8080 based
microcomputers. In addition to all the
standard features of a word processing
system such as margins, tabs, pagination,
global search and replace, proportiona!
spacing etc., the system also offers the
following:
@ Special set of coloured function keytops
supplied as standard.
@ Menu driven system designed for typists
and secretaries — there are no complicated
control codes to remember.
@ Advanced facilities such as a spelling
checker, merge documents module,"
communications, and integration with ISBS-F
supplied as standard.
@ Supports background printing whilst
Working on other documents.
CM 2020
CONFIGURABLE
MANAGER
CM2020 is a powerful information retrieval
system which the user can configure to suit
individual needs. It has been designed for the
user without any special computer
background. The user has total control over
the application environments by defining the
basic filing system, input screen formats and
Output reports. CM2020 is easy to learn and
use, an application which might normally
require weeks or months without CM2020 can
be set up and running in a matter of hours or
days. For the technically minded there is also
a FORTRAN and RATFOR compiler available
so that other programs can be developed to
interface with a CM2020 data base. Some of
the typical applications for CM2020 would be:
@ PERSONNEL MANAGEMENT
@ PARTS FILES
@ MAILING LISTS
@ PROJECT MANAGEMENT
@ QUESTIONNAIRE ANALYSIS
@ SALES ENQUIRIES AND LEADS
FP2020
FINANCIAL
PLANNER
The FP2020 provides a new approach to
management planning, whether it is financial,
budget, job cost, cash flow, product pricing,
engineering etc., FP2020 will accurately
forecast the effect of proposed actions. Data
is entered interactively having defined the size
of the model or ‘spreadsheet’. The user can
then use the standard functions to calculate
Cell values or use the special functions
(mathematica! or statistical) to perform more
complex arithmetic..Models and definitions
are stored on disk and can be retrieved ata
later stage. The user can defirie his own
Output reports as required and graphic output
can also be obtained.
es BAR Application software for
SYSTEMS GRoUp &andl6bit micros
GRAFFCOM SYSTEMS LTD. 102 PORTLAND ROAD, HOLLAND PARK, LONDON W11 4LX TEL: 01-727 5561
ISBS-W
AN INTEGRATED
OFFICE.
ACCOUNTING AND
ADMINISTRATION
SYSTEM TO MEET
MULTIWORKSTATION
REQUIREMENTS.
DESIGNED FOR
HARD DISK BASED
SYSTEMS
A professional integrated Business System
designed for microcomputers which use Hard
disks or Winchester disks. ISBS-W is ideal for
the small to medium business where data
storage and processing speed exceeds the
capabllities of floppy disk based systems.
Users of ISBS-F can upgrade to ISBS-W as the
business expands using GRAFFCOM’s
System Migration Plan — SMP. The user can
choose from any combination of modules and
add others at a later stage if required. All
modules are fully maintained and supported
and comprehensive documentation is
supplied for each application. Some of the
main ISBS-W features include:
BUSINESS CONTROLLER :
The Business Control Module acts as a task
manager and supervisor for the ISBS-W
system. It takes care of system definitlon
parameters such as the number of hard disks,.
numbers of workstations and printers.
Operators will feel at ease with the Business
Control menu which will prompt for
application tasks such as word processing,
accounting modules or, order processing etc.
The controller will alSo take care of file
protection and authority of access via a
password system. It also incorporates a data
archieve and retrieval option allowing the user
to make back-up copies of the data system as
often as required.
BUSINESS
CONTROL
MODULE
ACCOUNTING MODULES
All standard accounting tasks are catered for
and include sales, purchases and nominal
ledgers. The payroll module is fully supported
in terms of legislative changes. Standard
managements reports include budgetry
control, Profit and Loss Statements and
Balance Sheets.
STOCK CONTROL AND ORDER PROCESSING
Orders can be entered as received and the
system provides a comprehensive tracking
mechanism until all goods have been shipped.
Invoice production provides automatic release
of stock and drawdown of order items.
Ss! OGK CONTROL ;
RDER PROCESSING & INVOICIN
_____ NAME & ADDRESS
PURCHASE CONTROL __—
GENERAL ACCOUNTING
a
COMPANY PURCHASES
COMPANY SALES
PAYROLL eo!
ee
“Check for release date
WORD PROCESSING
An advanced automated offlce computer
system would not be complete without an
integrated word processing module. This
module provides all the standard word
processing facilities and has in additiona
mérge document feature for personalised
letters and a built-in spelling checker. The
word processing terminal will have custom
keytops which makes light work of all word
processing tasks for the operator.
SPECIAL INTEREST
LEASE, RENTAL & HIRE PURCHASE SYSTEM
The LR & HP System Is designed to control
agreements and contracts that are Garey at
regular intervals by fixed amounts. The system,
is designed to interface with the ISBS-F
Company Sales System and the Name &
Address System.
TIME RECORDING SYSTEM
The TRS is designed for those organisations
which offer a ‘Service’ rather than a ‘product’.
Typical users would be Accountants,
Solicitors, Management Consultants
Architects, Quantity Surveyors etc, The
system controls manhour expenditure and
expenses by job or account numbers.
MIPS — MANAGEMENT INFORMATION
PLOTTING SYSTEM
MIPS is a standard package which Interfaces
with ISBS-F, ISBS-W and the 2020 series to
produce a range of management graphs and
charts. It is designed to support industry
standard plotters from the Hewlett Packard
and Tektronix range. (Check with us direct for
a complete list of supported plotters).
Graphics output includes:
@|SBS-F — budget comparisons, sales
analysis, Cash flow etc.
@ ISBS-W — budgetry control, sales and
product analysis, cash flow etc.
@ FP2020 — various, depending on
characteristics of Model.
Software is suitable for use with the following systems:
Al ABC24,26
ARCHIVES
CIFER —
COLUMBIA DATA PRODUCTS
CROMEMCO
COMART COMMUNICATOR
DEC VT18X
DURANGO
DYNABYTE
HEATH
HEWLETT PACKARD 125
IBM DISPLAYWRITER
IBM PERSONAL COMPUTER
IMS
MILLBANK
NEC PC8000
NORTHSTAR
PET (with softbox)
For further details on system requirements check with your dealer or call us direct.
For more information on
GRAFFCOM products please complete »
the form.
LINKS PROCESSOR
This is ainterprocessor link program designed
to attach two processors back to back for
CPIM file transfer. One processor is defined as
the master and the second as a slave.
INTEL 8048 ASSEMBLER
The 8048 assembler produces 8048/35 romable
machine code. Source input is created using
the CP/M editor ED. Output Is to disk in Hex
format or printed listing.
RAIR
SHARP
SIRIUS 1
SUPERBRAIN
TANDY MODEL li
TEI
TVi
XEROX 820
plus many more
pleularlenteniententebaviestuniententenbecberinaientenkanteteesteat=n
isBs-F [] isBs-w [] 2020 [} SPECIAL ["]
ne OS hate aE. oe Cae, . COMPANY........ |
RODAGSG: cxacea cee. cae.. +++ 2005+. -agmtaeserOy ei dee rr See
@ Circle No. 106
12
G. W. COMPUTERS LTD.
TELEVIDEO SYSTEMS
TeleVideo’s TS 802 ard TS 802H microcomputers: are low-cost,
powerful single-user integrated computer systems. TeleVideo has
combined its top of the line CRT display with an advanced design
singla board computer (280, 64K RAM) with 5}” floppy disks and
Winchester hard disk all in one attractive table top enclosure. A
detached typewriter-style keyboard is also included. Tha TS 802
computer features two 5}-inch floppy disks for 1 Mbyte of on-line
storage, and the TS 802H includes one 5}-inch Winchester disk drive
for 10 Mbytes of data storage, and a single 500 Kbyte minifloppy disk
{ unit.
Both the TS 802 and 802H use the industry standard CP/M 2.2
Operating system, This lets the user fulfill a wide variety of Informa-
tion and word processing needs using a multitude of commoniy
available application programs.
TS 802 & 802H Features:
@ Z80A 4 MHz processor with direct memory access
@ 64 Kbytes of RAM main memory
@ 4 Kbytes of EPROM for system diagnostics and boot loading
@ Dual floppy disk controller (TS 802), and hard disk controller plus floppy disk
controller ts 802H)
@ Dua! minifloppy disks: 1 Mbyte capacity (TS 802)
@ Single minifloppy disk (.5 Mbyte capacity), plus 10 Mbyte Winchester 5i-inch
hard disk (TS 802H)
: @ Green phosphor CRT (25 rows by 80 columns)
@ Typewriter-style detached keyboard
Full-screen attributes, editing, smooth scroll, 25th status line, 11 function
keys, numeric key pad
2 RS-232C serial ports. These are jumper selectable for any combination of
modems or printers
CP/M 2.2 operating system
Attractive tabletop enclosure, fully integrated with CRT, CPU, RAM and disk
drives
. }RS-422 high-speed port
MULTI-USER HARD DISKS
ES eT FT
The CompuStar 10 megabyte Disk Storage System (DSS) consists of read/write
and contro! electronics, read/write heads, a track positioning mechanism, a
spindle drive mechanism, dual disks, an air filtration system, and our exclusive
255 user controller — all packaged in a compact desktop enclosure. Although
designed primarily to accommodate multiple CompuStar Video Processing Units
(described at left), the unit can easily be connected to a single SuperBrain Video
Computer System to facilitate additional disk storage. When used with Compu-
Star VDUs, however, the integral Z80 based controls will permit up to 255 users to
‘share’ the resources of the disk with minimal CPU response degradation.
Read/Write Heads and Disks .
The recording media consists of a lubricated thin magnetic oxide coating ova
200mm diameter aluminium substrate. This coating for mulation, together with
the low load force/low mass Winchester type flying heads, permits rellable
contact start/stop operation. Data on each disk surface is read by one read/write
head, each of which accesses 256 tracks.
G. W. COMPUTERS LTD. 01-636 8210, 01-631 4818, TELEX 892031 TWCG
*** THE NEW DBMS (DATABASE) ***
DBMS? is arecord relational as well as a file relationai database management tool that is capable of being at different times, many different things. The one core program can be
set up to perform tasks normally associated with the following list.
Accounting Budgeting
Stock contro! Address mailing
Simulations Time recording
Calc-type predictions Hospital indexing
Bureaux services General analysis
Answer what-Ifs Employees records
Print reports Sort files
Within hours perform all the above in French or German.
The list is as endless as that which meets the requirements of your own
imagination.
Within the appropriate frames of reference you could ask questions like the
following:
Find someone whose name contains a W or X or Y or Z, who is either in London
or Birmingham, and available for work at a salary of less than 10,000; and is
under 40 years of age, not married, of credit worthiness grade 1, with a car,
prepared to travel, and who likes horses, does not mind the hours he works, is
congenial and has good references. When you find such persons produce a
printed list of them showing their names, telephone numbers, and what their
salaries are as well as their salary if increased by 10% and show their availability
for work. At the end of the list enumerate the total of such persons.
Find all stock items that are codes micro-computers that are either in warehouse
1 or warehouse 2, where the quantity on hand is more than 50 units, the cost is
less than 1,000, the selling price higher than 2000.00; that are not in cartons,
bought from supplier 52, allocated more than 20, rated for tax at 15% and weigh
less than 50 Ibs. Whén you find such categories then print a report showing the
Cashflow
Letter writing
Filing
Profit analysis
Mathematics
Tabulate values
Edit records
description, cost price, quantity on hand, lead time tor refills, what the selling
price should be if raised by 12.3% as well as the profit in either per-cent or round
figures of that projected selling price.
Find all patients who suffered from cold, that are either girls or women younger
than 23 years old, and who live in London at a socio-economic grade higher than
3; do not smoke; have more than 3 children, are currently at work and where
treatment falied to effect a cure in under 6 days. When you find such persons then
print a list showing their age, marltal status, income, and frequency of Illness in
the past 2 years.
Currently you can ask 7 types of questions 20 times for a single selection
criterion, and then you can compute 70 mathematical relationships between the
questions for the individual as well as for the total number of matches. In all some
60 bits of information relating to 6ne record or a group or records on simply one
permutation of the selection criterion, with a cross referencing facility as well.
Every word in the system, as well as the file architectures, print masks, and field
attributes, is capable of alteration by you without programming expertise (but
with some thought).
ALL IN ONE PROGRAM FROM G. W. COMPUTERS. THE OBMS2 !!
24 HOUR ANSWERPHONE’LEAVE ADDRESS FOR STANDARD INFORMATION DATA PACK
*** ALL YOU NEED FROM A COMPUTER SYSTEM ***
DATABASE MANAGEMENT + WORD-PROCESSING + MODELLING + DIY INTERPRETER + SERVICE
01-SUPERBRAIN 64K RAM/320 K
02-OK1 80 + INTFCE H!
03-CABLE i 03-CABLES :
04-BOX PAPER (2000 SHEETS) 04-12 MONTH WARRANTY
01-SUPERBRAIN 64K RAM 320/K 1695.00
02-NEC DAISY 3510 PRINTER
01-TELEVIDED 64K RAM/700 K 2395.00
1395.00 02-NEC DR QUME DAISY PRINTER 1695.00
25.00 03-CABLES 25.00
310.00 04-S/SHEET FEEDER 750.00
05-MAGIC WAND (WORD PROCESSOR)
06-DBMS2 (DATABASE)
07-MAGIC CALC (MODELLING)
(NOT INC VAT)
=
DEAL ONE **** 2495.00
01-SUPERBRAIN 64K RAM/320 K
02-EPSON MX80F/T2 &INTFCE
03-CABLES
04-12 MONTH WARRANTY
OS-DELIVERY INUK -
06-MEMDREX DISKS (3.00°50)
07-CPM HANDBOOK
08-50 BASIC EXERCISES (BODK)
09-2000 SHEETS PAPER (BOX)
10-MAGIC CALC(MODELLER) .
11-MAGIC WAND (W/PROCESSOR)
‘12-DBMS2 (INC MBASIC (150.00) }
‘13-ENHANCED DOS & DIAGNOSTICS
14-RECOVER & AUTOLOAD
15-TRAINING SESSION 3-4 HOURS
16-DISK FULL OF GAMES
17-CPM ADDITIONAL UTILITIES
(NOT INC VAT}
DEAL TWO **** 2995.00 waspersse
05-DELIVERY IN UK
06-MEMOREX DISKS {3.00°50)
07-CPM HANDBOOK
08-50 BASIC EXERCISES (BODK)
09-2000 SHEETS PAPER (BDX)
10-MAGIC CALC (MODELLER)
11-MAGIC WAND (W/PROCESSOR}
12-DBMS2 (INC MBASIC (150.00) ).
13-ENHANCED DOS & DIAGNOSTICS
14-RECOVER & AUTOLOAD
15-TRAINING SESSION 3-4 HOURS
16-DISK FULL OF GAMES
(NOT INC VAT)
DEAL THREE *** 3995.00
01-SUPERBRAIN 64K RAM/700 K
02-NEC OR QUME DAISY PRINTER
03-CABLES
04-12 MONTH WARRANTY
OS-DELIVERY IN UK
06-DYSAN DISKS (6.00*35)
07-CPM HANDBOOK
08-50 BASIC EXERCISES (BOOK)
09-2000 SHEETS PAPER (BOX)
10-MAGIC CALC (MODELLER)
11-17 ITEMS ON DEAL TWO ++++++
DEAL FOUR *** §995.00
60.00
150.00
10.00
10.00
20.60
175.00
190.00
575.00
125.00
35.00
80.00
50.00
4905.00
BREST RS
2195.00
1695.00
25.00
410.00
70.00
210.00
10.00
10.00
20.00
175.00
1205.00
6025.00
Shee eedeHenene
0S-TRACTER FEEDER
06-12 MONTH WARRANTY
07-DELIVERY IN UK
08-DYSAN DISKS (6.00*35)
0s-CPM HANDBOOK
10-50 BASIC EXERCISES (BOOK)
11-2000 SHEETS PAPER {BDX)
12-MAGIC CALC (MODELLER)
11-17 ITEMS ON DEAL TWO +++++
(NOT INC VAT)
DEAL FIVE *** 5995.00
170.00
500.00
80.00
210.00
10.00
10.00
20.00
175.00
1205.00
7245.00
O1-TELEVIDEO 64K RAM 7.3 MEG
02-17 ITEMS ON DEAL FOUR
(NOT INC VAT)
DEAL SIX *** §995.00
4595.00
3830.00 ;
8425.00
PORTER ORT
01-SUPERBRAIN 64K RAM/700K
02-SUPERBRAIN 64K RAM/700K
O3-CORVUS 5.6 MEG & MUX/USER
02-17 ITEMS ON DEAL FOUR
(NOT INC VAT}
DEAL SEVEN *** 8995.00
2195.00
2195.00
2745.00
3830.00
10965.00
SOReeeereneeee
(NOTE: The principle of this deal is that you pay (approximately) for hardware, warranty, consumables and 1 program. The rest is ***FREE***. You could make up your
own package from our price list similarly.)
CALL ONLY BY PRIOR APPOINTMENT AT 55 BEDFORD COURT MANSIONS, BEDFORD AVENUE
LONDON W C.1
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
G. W. COMPUTERS LTD.
: ——— seen ——
SuperBrain users get exceptional performance for just a fraction of what they'd : = ith 12 1 it-M d hics or Charact
expect to pay. Standard SuperBrain features include: two double density mini- EEE HA, anne 208, ® Two Gui Cenaeinyeepr Disk Drives,
floppies with 350kbytes of disk storage, 32k of RAM memory (expandable to 64k)
\ ‘ i i I :
to handle even the most sophisticated programs, a CP/M@® Disk Operating Selectric Style 87 Key Keyboard, Business Graphics Software
System with a high powered text editor, assembler, debugger and a disk The North Star ADVANTAGE™ is an interactive integrated graphics computer
formator. And, with SuperBrain’s S-100 bus adaptor, you can add all the supplying the single user witha balanced set of Business-Data, Word, or Scien-
programming power you will ever need... almost any type of S-100 compatible tific-Data processing capabilities along with both character and graphics output.
bus accessory. E ADVANTAGE is fully supported by North Star's wide range of System and
SuperBrain’s CP/M operating system boasts an overwhelming amount of avail- Application Software.
able software in BASIC, FORTRAN, COBOL, and APL. Whatever your application = The ADVANTAGE contains a 4™MHz Z80A® CPU with 64Kb of 200 nsec Dynamic
_. General Ledger, Accounts Receivable, Payroll, Inventory of Word Processing, RAM (with parity) for program storage, a separate 20Kb 200 nsec RAM to drive
SuperBrain is tops in its class. And the SuperBrain QD boasts the same powerful the bit-mapped display, a 2Kb bootstrap PROM and an auxiliary Intel 8035
performance but also features a double-sided drive system to render more than microprocessor to cotitrol the keyboard and floppy disks. The display can be
700k bytes of disk storage and a full 64k of RAM. All standard! ‘ operated as a 1920 (24 lines by 80 characters) character display or as a
Whatever model you choose, you'll appreciate the careful dttention given to bit-mapped display (240x640 pixels), where each pixel is controlled by one bit in
every engineering detail. A full ASCII keyboard with numeric pad and user- the 20KB display RAM. The two integrated 53-Inch floppy disks are double-sided,
programmable function keys A non-glare, specially focused 12-inch CRT for gouble-density providing 8torage of 3600Kb per drive for a total of 720Kb. The
sharp images everywhere on the screen. Twin 2-80 microprocessors to ensuré n-key rollover Selectric style keyboard contains 49 standard typewriter keys, 9
efficient data transfer to auxiliary peripheral devices. Dual universal RS-232 symbol or control keys, a 14 key numetic/cursor control pad and 15 user
communications ports for serial data transmission. And, a single board design to programmable function keys.
make servicing a snap! a : A .
G. W COMPUTERS LTD. 01-636 8210, 01-631 4818, TELEX 892031 TWCG
BUS «=:
(BUSINESS EFFICIENCY) ;
WIDELY USED IN U.K./FRANCE/U.S.A. AND ENGLISH SPEAKING COUNTRIES FOR ws OVERALL FLEXIBILITY AS A COMPLETE BUSINESS PACKAGE
INCLUDES INVENTORY, DATABASE MANAGEMENT, INVOICING, MAILING ADDRESSES, STATEMENTS, SALES/PURCHASE LEDGER WITH OR WITHOUT AUTO
STOCK UPDATE AND DOUBLE ENTRY JOURNALS INCLUDING NOMINAL LEDGER; PLUS A’C RECEIVABLE AND PAYABLE MAKING AUTO BANK ENTRIES.
01=NAMES AND ADDRESSES 13= STATEMENTS ++++++++ Super — Bus +++++++++ A new higher level of the above
02=STOCK FILES 14=TAX REPORTS Package. . . . has been reduced in size by 50 per cent to a single 15K basic
03-OPEN SALES LEDGER 15=AGED ANALYSIS program, making all file retrievals a matter of nanoseconds. Works. under
04—OPEN PURCHASE LEDGER 16=MANAGEMENT ANALYSIS compustar for common data retrieval level 10.00 nae 975.00
05=GENERAL SALES LEDGER 17=CASHFLOW FORECAST DataBase features are: . . . for any size record up to twenty fields file
O6=GENERAL PURCHASE LEDGER 18=PARAMETER SECTION architectures can be designed with complete freedom over the linguistic
07=BANK UPDATE 19=DIARY REMINDER ol pi nealgned to epeh bie The file wer a hve oe ree which
Bs = can be searched by the random access number (retrieved in less than one
an ilies ea Be coe Ee eS (+) second) or ‘key’ random access on specified field or sequentially comparing for
reer rite TION Se GatL deat PRREAMS rat field aia a or parts of record, and then changed, printed,
= = leleted, skipped.
11=TEXT FILES 23=AUTOMATIC DRIVE (+)
12=EMPLOYEE FILES 24=DISK SWAP/EXIT SYSTEM Grama (Winter) Ltd/G. W. Computers Ltd., are. the producers of this package
which is unequalled tor its level of tota! integration, linguistic ftlexipility and
WHICH OPTION (LEVEL 8.00 @ 575.00) maximised disk/memory conservation.
Author Tony Winter (M.D.; B.A. LIT; B.A.HON.PHIL; and lecturer)
“NOTE: the above menu options are subject to change without notice or obligation, the bus program 8.00 includes DBMS II if purchased at 675.00 and thus a number of
program menus are available.
.24 HOUR ANSWERPHONE-LEAVE ADDRESS FOR STANDARD INFORMATION DATA PACK
‘IMPORTANT!!! No hardware is any value without the software, and our software is unequalled. Buy a complete system and get
most of the software free.
n SUPERBRAIN * CORVUS DSK ‘ NORTH STAR * TELEVIDED , , NEC/OKI * PRINTER
SUPERBRAIN 320K 1695.00 NORTH STAR 700K 2495.00 OKI MICRO-82A 575.00
SUPERB RAIN 700K 2195.00 NORTH STAR 5.3M 3495.00 OKi MICRO-83 795.00
SUPERBRAIN 1500K 2595.00 TELEVIDEO 7.6M 4595.00 OKI MICRD-83A 850.00
COMPUSTAR 10 OK 1695.00 TELEVIDEO T’MNL 1195.00 EPSON MX80FT 475.00
COMPUSTAR 20 320K 2495.00 TELEVIDEO 700K 2395.00 EPSON MX100 675.00
COMPUSTAR 30 700K 2695.00 VTR MIRROR DUMP 695.00 TEXAS 810 1395.00
COMPUSTAR 40 1.5M 2995.00 7 STATION M’PLEX 695.00 SCRIPTA KSR 975.00
COMPUSTAR 10M DSK 3250.00 BUS ACCOUNTS 8.0 §75.00 NEC 3350 1395.00
CORVUS 5.6M H‘DSK 2250.00 DBMS II 575.00 NEC 5510 1795.00
CORVUS 10M H'DSK 3250.00 NEC 8001/12/31 . 1850.00 NEC 5525 2095.00
CORVUS 20M H’DSK 4250.00 QUME S/S FEEDER 750.00 QUME 9/45 1695,00
MBASIC 80 150.00 FORTRAN-80 200.00 COBOL-80 320.00
CIS COBOL 420.00 PASCAL (VARIGUS) 175.00 WORD-STAR 250.00
MAIL MERGE 55.00 SUPER SORT 120.00 CBASIC 75.00
DATASTAR 190.08 BASCOMPILER 190.00 MAGIC WAND 190.00
DBMS & BUS 8.00 675,00 MAGIC CALC {CPM) 175.00 T/MAKER 150.00
DBMS (EXTENDED) 575.00 BUS VER 8.00 575.00 OBMS & BUS 675.00
MSORT & DSDRT 75.00 LETTERIGHT 100.00 UTILITIES 150.00
Formats: (for Basic, DBMS Il, = N'STAR & SUPERBRAIN 5”.) . . (for super-calc = 8”; Zenith; Xerox; Apple; Vector. (for Magic Wand/Calc = N’Star & Superbrain)
: Any of our computer terminals automatically Include ***** FREE *****
*#***# MAGIC WAND WORD PROCESSING SOFTWARE **#**
****® TESTING AND DELIVERY **®***
*##2#* G0 DAY WARRANTY *****
For 1 year’s warranty add 10% hardware cost, maintenance prices please call
Mail address G. W. Computers Ltd. 55 Bedford Court Mans. Bedford Avenue, W.C.1
London Telex 892031 TWC G Boston Office Telex 94-0890
Contact 01-636. 8210.or 01.631. 4818 and if unavailable then leave a call-back message (clearly stating your telephone number and name) on the 24 hour answer-phone or
simply leave your address and we'll mali you a standard information pack. We regret we do not operate a reader's reply card service, Terms: C.W.O. or C.O.D. (prices
exclude VAT) Software sales are ‘mail order only’. No dealers.
CALL ONLY BY PRIOR APPOINTMENT AT 55 BEDFORD COURT MANSIONS, BEDFORD AVENUE,
ONDON W.C.1.
@ Circle No. 107
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 . 13
:
1
ee a el
find anywhere.
PACKAGE SYSTEMS NET
Apple Executive System 1950.00
Apple Top Secretary System 2150.00
Apple Education System 1425.00
APPLE HARDWARE
Apple 48K Video Output only 625.00
16K Addon 45.00
Disk Drive with Controller (16 sec) 345.00
Disk Drive without Controller 275.00
ACCESSORIES
Programmers Aid 1 25.00
Auto Start ROM Pack 33.00
Graphics Tablet 399.00
Appletel System 525.00
TV Modulator 14.00
INTERFACE CARDS
Prototype/Hobby Card 12.00
Parallel Printer Card 79.00
Communications Card 100.00
High Speed Serial Card 90.00
Centronics Card 100.00
Integer Card 90.00
Language Card 95.00
Controller Card 95.00
Eurocolour Card 65.00
IEEE - 48 Card 200.00
16K RAM Card (48K to 64K) 60.00
SOFTWARE
Disk Utility Pack 12.00
Apple Post Program 27.00
The Shell Games 15.00
» Elementary My Dear Apple 16.00
Apple Bow! Diskette 13.00
3.3 Operating System 34.00
DOS 3.3 Tool Kit 41.00
Appie Writer 1.1 34.00
Stellar Invader 13.00
Apple Plot 34.00
Apple Adventure 19.00
APPLE DISTRIBUTED SOFTWARE
The Go Between (Centronics) 26.50
Micro Modéller 375.00
Visicalc 3.3 105.00
VisiFile 135.00
VisiPifot 95.00
VisiTrend/VisiPilot 135.00
VisiTerm 80.00
VisiDex 105.00
Desktop Plan ll 105.00
LANGUAGES
Pascal Language System 225.00
Apple Pitot 75.00
Apple Fortran 95.00
CIS Cobo! with Forms -2 410.00
ple, Atari and NEC
at hard-checked
VAT
292.50
322.00
213.75
93.75
6.75
51.75
41.25
3.90
4.95
59.85
78.75
2.10
1.80
11.85
15.00
13.50
15.00
13.50
14.25
14.25
9.75
30.00
9.00
1.80
4.05
225
2.40
1.95
5.10
6.15
5.10
1.95
5.10
2.85
3.98
56.25
15.75
20.25
14.25
20.25
12.00
15.75
15.75
33.75
11.25
14.25
61.50
*Hardware or software, you don't have
to shop around. We continually check <
all Our prices and were certain
they are as competitive as you will
TOTAL
2242.50
2472.50
1638.75
718.75
51.75
396.75
316.25
29.90
37.95
458.85
603.75
16.10
13.80
90.85
115.00
103.50
115.00
103.50
109.25
109.25
74.75
230.00
69.00
13.80
31.05
17.25
18.40
14.95
39.10
47.15
39.10
14.95
39.10
21.85
30.48
431.25
120.75
155.25
109.25
155.25
92.00
120.75
120.75
258.75
86.25
109.25
471.50
PRINTER & ACCESSORIES
Silentype Printer
10 Rolls Thermal Paper
VIDEO MONITORS
BMC 12” Green Screen
9" Black & White Monitor
Cables
OTHER ITEMS
Z80 Softcard
ATARI
400 16K Computer
800 16K Computer
410 Tape Recorder
810 Disk Drive
822 Thermal Printer
825 80 Column Printer
850 RS 232 Interface
16K Ram Upgrade
Conversational French
Conversational! German
Conversational Spanish
Conversational Italian
Assembler Editor Rom
Visicalc
Word Processor a
Video Computer System
NEW —N.E.C. PC 8000 SERIES
PC 8001 Keyboard
PC 8011 Expansion Unit
PC 8012 1OUnit .
PC 8023 Dot Matrix Printer
PC 8031 Floppy Disc Drive
PC 8041 12’’ Green or Amber Monitor
PC 8043 12” High Resolution CRT
Colour Monitor
HARDWARE
GUARANTEE
All advertised products are
Quaranteed one year from date of
purchase against defects in materials
and workmanship.
During the quarantee period,
Metrotech will repair or replace, at no
extra charge, components that prove
defective — providing that the product is
returned, shipping or postage prepaid,
stating when bought and enclosing
proof of purchase.
This quarantee does not apply ff, in
thé opinion of the Company, the
product has been damaged by
accident, misuse or misapplication.
prices
Atari 800.
VAT
NET TOTAL
170.00 25.50 195.50
28.00 420 3220
120.00 18.00 138.00
100.00 15.00 115.00
500 075 575
NET VAT TOTAL
170.00 25.50 195.50
250.00 37.50 287.50
500.00 75.00 575.00
42.61 6.39 49.00
260.00 39.00 299.00
200.00 3000 230.00
400.00 60.00 460.00
110.00 1650 126.50
52.13 782 59.95
28.26 424 32,50
28.26 4.24 32.50
28.26 424 32.50
28.26 424 32.50
30.39 456 3495
10500 15.75 120.75
78.22 11.73 89.95
69.56 10.43 79.99
500.00 75.00 575,00
40783 61.17 469.00
346.96 52.04 399.00
326.08 48.91 375.00
543.48 81.52 625.00
129.57 19.43 149.00
477.39 71.61 «$49.00
CONDITIONS OF
BUSINESS.
We accept cheques or Access,
Barclaycard, American Express and
Diners Club Cards. All prices,
specifications and terms are subject
to change without notice at the
discretion of the management. All
offers subject to availability.
Prices correct at time of going
topress.E£.& O.E.
Hardware Post and packaging
subject to confirmation.
de RD ee oe
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
1 Be — i = 8
DIGITAL RESEARCH
C BASIC Il
Commercial Disk ExtendedBasic £75/£30
NEW CB 80. Ulta fast Basic compiler.
All the features of C Basic plus the speed
and versatility of a compiler. 32K Byte
strings, external multiple line functions,
run tme error trapping
and extended file
handling capabilities. £275/£30
NEW PL/1-80. A standard structured commercial
applications programming lanquage. Saves
design time. Minimises debugging and
maintenance problems. Designs high quality
Output with picture specifications.
Indudes the compiler, run-time library,
lineage editor and relocating
£275/£30
maco-assembler.
MICROPRO INC.
WORDSTAR 3XX. New features; column
move Capabilities, horizontal scrolling up to
240 columns and
even clearermenus. £195/£30
£55/£10
MAILMERGE 3XX (Qptional)
DATASTAR Powerful data entry,
retrieval and £150/£30
up-date system.
SUPERSORT !. Combines high performance and
Operational flexibility to perform sorting, merging
and record selection functions. £105/£20
£105/£20
NEW CALCSTAR. This sophisticated but easy to
use calculating and planning toot is Micropro’s
new spread sheet and financial
£120/£30
modelling program.
COMPSOFT
WORDMASTER Superior
text editor.
NEW COMPSOFT DMS. !deal for office records.
Personnel, stock, client’s and account's records
are more easily stored and updated. Features
include: Comprehensive calculation @ Full
sorting facilities @ Record selection on updates
and reports @ Wordstar
interface for selective mailing.
£345/£25
POINTS TO REMEMBER
@ All software is Ex- Stock and available
on standard 8" disks or 5" disks for
Vector MZ, Superbrain, Dynabyte and
NEC PC 8000.
@ Prices shown as Software with
Manual/manual only.
@ tml WORD-STAR is a trademark
of Micropro.
| io
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
iim
BEES He
La.
fa ee ee
= “a | & &
7 i ic. | -
‘ey is = | , a a
‘ = 8 a — |
MICROSOFT INC. CAXTON
BASIC 80 Interpreter £155/£25 SOFTWAR
BASIC 80 Compiler £195/£25 NEW OPTIMISER. A nips d
; : programming system for finding
FORTRAM 80 £215/£25 the best practical solution to resource
COBOL 80 €£315/£25 allocation and planning problems. Easy to learn.
= Easy tq use. Immediately available.
MICROPLAN Please ring for more details. £295
NEW MICROPLAN. A program: designed to NEW ¢
cope easily with advanced financial analysis.
Microplan helps you to perform all the
calculations you presently solve with pen, paper
and calculator, Microplan will perform most
types of calculations working £245/£20
onrows and columns.
SUPERCALC
NEW SUPERCALC. Accountants, Planners,
sae and Business owners have found
Supercalc invaluable for day to day “what if?’’and
“what now?” questions. Answers for the time
when the unexpected occurs. Simple
to use advanced financial planning. £190
BCPL
NEW BCPL. BCPL CINTCODE is a full and
extended imple mentation of the popular
systems’ programming language. BCPL
CINTCODE gives a dramatic reduction in
programme storage space, requiring about
one third of a fully £250/£35
compiled Z80 code.
DATA MANAGEMENT
SELECTOR Ili—C2. An easy to use information
management system, requires £185/£30
C Basic Il.
SELECTOR IV. An advanced information
management system
esc Basic £275/€35
requires C Basic Il.
S. BASIC VERSION 5.4. A high level'language
that combines the flexibility of Basic with the
power of advanced structured techniques.
A compiling language £175/£30
thatis hard to match.
METROTECH
METITWAM. An index sequential file access in
C Basic Il designed to increase
the flexibility of C Basic £55/£20
HOW TO ORDER
® State disk type and size ® Add 15% VAT
@ Include £2 per Software. item for Postage and
Packing
®@ Enclose cheque/PO’s payable to METROTECH
oS
7,
ARDBOX. Described simply, Cardbox is
an electronic card index system. Choose. your
own format for cards, and categorise the
information to your own specification. Cardbox
provides an immensely powerful method of
handling large amounts
of een £155
COMMUNICATIONS
BISYNC-80/3780 and BISYNC-80/3270 are
full function IBM 2780, 3780 and 3270 emulators
for micro computers. BISY NC-80/3780 gives you a
Remote Job Entry terminal for the price of a microl
BISYNC-80/3270 combines the local processing
power of a micro with a sophisticated screen
Capability. Make your dumb terminal smart!
MET/TTY will connect your micro to a
Timesharing service in simple teletype emulation.
BISYNC-8013780 £445/£20
BISYNC-80/32 £445/£20
METITTY £145/£20
FINANCIAL REPORTING.
REPORT WRITER You input the values. Report
Writer will perform your calculations and produce
a report with your headings, £70/£10
totals and summaries.
GLECTOR General Ledger option in Selector ll,
requires Selector Ill
and C BASIC I: £125/£30
NEWLY fee EO
SOFTWAR
INFO STAR from MICROPRQ
TBA
Mail to METROTECH MAIL ORDER,
WATERLOO ROAD, UXBRIDGE,
MIDDLESEX UB8 2YW
CREDIT CARDS— Telephone orders welcome:
Tel: 0895 SBIt] Ext 265 or 206
TRADE ENQUIRIES WELCOMED
A MEMBER OF THE GRAND» METROPOLITAN GROUP
a i, ee
=a me
lal
@ Circle No. 108
15
OLIVETTI DAISY WHEEL ON LINE
From KRAM electronics Ltd. Victoria House, 17 Highcross Street, Leicester LE1 4PF Telephone (0533) 27556
OLIVETTI PRAXIS 35 LATEST SEIKOSHA GP 100A
ON LINE DAISY WHEEL
* Fron eed —— £199
KEYBOARD PRINTER
s 12 charactors po ston alla Baal EPSON MX8087
* Centronics standard interface
TYPED
CONTINUOUS
PAPER
8” for GP80A
GENIE 1
INCLUDING *SOUND 2000 sheets
*LOWER CASE *MODULATOR 42
*MACHINE CODE MONITOR £
9%" for EPSON
& GP100A
2000 sheets
WITH FREE CASSETTE DECK
COMPATIBLE WITH TANDY,
GENIE, NASCOM, GEMINI,
pay cal BRAIN, ETC.
The latest — SINGLE—
OLIVETTI
Disk Drives
fully cased and ag,
complete with
Toroidal power supply
DISK DRIVE Single drive £10
CABLES Dual drive £14
CARRIAGE: Orders over £100 ADD £6. Orders over £10 ADD £3. N@ME? rere ecsra ters eT ee ec “]
Orders under £10 ADD .50p AGGIBSS:. Wee... eres. 1 ORES TT ae | apc |
7 ACCESS. Access orders may be telephoned day ornight, give full 2. alae
description of items, card number,name and address. <i °° »4x=<o (hme won |
TERMS: Terms available for suitable applicants. Le Ne Te ee
PLEASE SEND:
eee ee Or etells. QTY ITEM PRICE VAT @ 15% TOTAL
|
|
| | | |
TOTAL INC. VAT £_ |
on. PLUS CARRIAGE Es
| ENCLOSE CHEQUE FOR TOTAL & —* |
IELEGTHONIGS Sa |
Post to: (or Tel: (0533) 27556) KRAM Electronics, Ltd. FREEPOST, pistol |
@ Circle No. 109
16 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
’ BYG BYTE
FROMTHE PRICE OF A
16 K RAM PACK
PLEASE —_ = = PAYABLE TO
Phoenix Marketing Services
Oaklands House, Solartron Road, Farnborough, Hants. GU14 9QL.
Tel: (0252) 514990.
@ Circle No. 110
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 17
i —-_ Ee << << ~<a «SP «as ee ee }
( BrIN-POWER trom MicroMeds Ltd. !
| You want
| Faster Disk Accessing
Alternative Character Sets
or Graphics
8” drive interchangeability
Increased Capacity &
Integrity
|
| MicroMods Ltd.
53 Acton Road, Long Eaton
Nottingham NG10 1FR
\ Tel: (06076) 64264
We have a.
SuperBios £45)
SuperVid see
SuperFloppy 225
SuperWinny £215,
NOTE SuperFloppy & SuperWinny are interface boards requiring
additional hardware.
All prices exclude VAT & carriage.
or contact: Icarus Computer Systems Ltd.
27 Greenwood Place
London NW5 1NN
Tel: 01-485-5574
i “ib «sf <a> <a
i <a
@ Circle No: 112
The new
Mini Disk File
| Company
| Address
One of the great new
oroducts
lucts in the 1982
Willis Catalogue
The mini Disk File is a complete filing system for floppy
disks, keeping them clean, immediately accessible and secure.
You'll wonder how you ever did without it.
Just one of the ti new items in the Willis Catalogue, which
includes a very varied range of products with internationally
known names like Verbatim, Diablo, Qume, from magnetic
media and stationery to storage systems.
For anyone concemed with computers or word processors,
the Willis Catalogue provides essential information fast,
readily and neatly to hand.
Send for your copy now:
To: Willis Computer Supplies Ltd, FREEPOST,
PO Box 10, Southmill Road, Bishops Stortford, Herts.
CM231BR. Or Tel: Bishops Stortford (0279) 506491. 7
Telex: 817425.
Name
__ Tel_
WILLIS
Computer Supplies
for people who know better
@ Circle No. 111
PC 7/82
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
DE Dealers
supply thelot!
Whatever your micro needs just look at the choice, just
look at the prices. Everything you could need, and more!
VIDEO MONITORS
AND ACCESSORIES £
Kaga 12” B/W Monitor inc. Cable 122.00
Kaga 12” Green Monitor inc. Cable 99,50
Philips 12” Amber Monitor inc. Cable 134.00
Kaga 14” Colour Monitor inc. Cable 249.00
Spare Perspex Screen for BMC
Mk | & {l/Kaga Mk | & Il each 19.50
PRINTERS AND
ACCESSORIES £
Anadex
DP9O0OL (Serial/Parallel)
DP9000 (Serial/Parallel Graphics)
DP9S500L (Serial/Parailel)
795,00
895.00
895.00
DP9500 (Serial/Parallel Graphics) 995.00
DP9001 (Serial/Parallel Graphics) 945.00
DP9501 (Serial/Parallel Graphics) 1045.00
Ribbon for DP9000/9500 Serles
Graphics for DP9500/1 20.00
Anadex Graphics Interface Card 140.00
Please ask your DE dealer tor details of the latest Anadex models.
Centronics
12.14
150-2 (Parallel) 483.00
150-4 (Serial) 544.00
152-2 (Parallel) 556.00
152-4 (Serial) 625.00
424.00
445.00
529.00
554.00
39.83
36.00
737-2 (Parallel)
737-4 (Serial)
739-2 (Parallel/Graphics)
739-4 (Serial/Graphics)
12 Cartridge Ribbons for 150/2
12 Zippack Ribbons for 737/739
Epson-now available the new Type III's
MX80/3 349.00
MX80FT/3 389.00
MX82 369.00
MX82FT 409.00
MX100/3 499.00
MX/APP1 Non Graphics Interface + Cable 87.00
MX/APP2 Graphics interface + Cable 91.00
Integral Data
Prism 132c Colour (full option model) 1395.00
Prism 80 (Tripack model) 895.00
445 Paper Tiger (Graphics) 450.00
460 Paper Tiger (Graphics) 550.00
560 Paper Tiger (Graphics) 895.00
Serial Cable for Tiger 22,50
Spool Ribbon for T440G 7.50
Cartridge Ribbon for 445 460 & 560 9.00
Graphics for T460/560 20.00
Pascal Graphics for 1460/560 20.00
Graphics for T445 20.00
Pascal Graphics for T445G 20.00
Olivetti
TH240 (High Speed Thermal) 695.00
5050 (Parallel/Matrix) 535.00
Data Efficiency Ltd
Data Efficiency Ltd, Computer Division, Finway Road, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire HP27PS Tel: (0442) 40571/2 Telex: 825554 DATEFF G
@ Circle No. 113
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
5050 (Serial/Matrix) 620.00
5100 (Parallel/Matrix) 1085.00
5100 (Serial/Matrix) 1175.00
5200 (Serial/Matrix) 4250.00
DM80/180S (High Res. Serial/Matrix) 2375.00
DY211P (Parallel/Daisy Wheel) 895.00
DY211PS (Serial/Parallel Daisy Wheel) 985.00
DY311S (Serial/Paraltel Daisy Wheel) 1250.00
DY811S (Ser./Par./Daisy Wheel inc. SPR) 2050.00
Single Sheet Feed Hopper for DY211/DY311. 540.00
Olivetti Fabric Ribbon (Qty 6) 21.50
Olivetti M/Strike Ribbon (Qty 6) 36.00
Olivetti S/Strike Ribbon (Qty 6) 18.00
Varlous 10 or 12 pitch Olivetti
Daisy Wheel (Qty 1) 14.00
MOUNTAIN COMPUTER
HARDWARE
Data Efficiency is the sole appointed UK distributor of
the Mountain Computer range of high-quality
peripherals for the Apple Computer.
CPS Multifunction Card 127.00
RAMPlus+ 100.00
ROMPlus + 99.00
ROMWRITER 111.00
COPYROM 38.00
Clock/Calendar Card 149.00
SUPERTALKER 141.00
A/D + D/A Channel Converter 223.00
(1/0 Cable assembly for above) 35.00
Music Systems Complete 257.00
Spare Music System Disk Pack 20.00
Spare Music System Manual 10.00
Expansion Chassis 424.00
DAISY WHEELS
Selected typefaces for both Diablo and Qume daisy
wheels are available singly.
1-5 £5.50 (per unit)
6+ £4.75 (per unit)
PAPER
Selection of paper includes;
Order
Codes €
LP10 Boxof11”"x93" pt (2000sheets) 12.65
LP1 Box of 11x 143" 1pt (2000 sheets) 14.55
LP5 Boxof 11”x 1533” ipt (2000 sheets) 15.01
RIBBONS
Complete range of printer ribbons are available to suit
most makes of printers.
Plus
@ Apple Accessories/
Interface Cards
@ Supercalc®
@ Dataplan®
@ Floppy discs/storage
@ Micro Systems furniture
Ask your DE dealer for details of the
latest promotional offers.
Dealer enquiries welcome
Prices correct at time of going to press.
Ring for details of your
nearest stockist (04.42) 40571/2
For all your Micro needs...and more.
19
FREE
MICRO COMPUTER SOFTWARE
(with complete hardware system price)
A ————————————————e—
OCSC Bookkeeping/Financial Accounting/Incomplete Records/OCSC
20
Payroll and Wordstar/Mailmerge or Super Calc or Datastar/Supersort
| or Invoicing and Sales ledger or Stock Control.
ACT SIRIUS I from £2395. printer cost + VAT
includes 128k system, twin disk drives, 1.2 Megabytes,
screen and free software.
ADLER
ALPHATRONIC
from
£2095
ew St Crinter cost + VAT
(prices subject to change)
Includes: Alphatronic P2 with Twin Disk Drives 320,
Screen & Free Software.
NEC
PC8000:
from
£1826
+ printer cost + VAT
Includes: 64k system, twin disk drives 320, Screen
and free software.
SUPERBRAIN
from
£1630
+ printer cost + VAT
(prices subject to change)
‘Includes: 64k system, Twin Disk Drives 320, Screen
and free software.
Other software and peripherals purchased of which prices can
be adjusted in the above.
We were established in 1969 as a consultancy and software
house, our consultants are well qualified and members of
several professional institutes.
We undertake consultancy and contract work at a very
reasonable fee and our systems can be tailored to meet your
requirements at a nominal fee.
Other micro manufacturers, distributors and dealer enquiries
are welcomed.
Also we are looking for distributors abroad and commission
agents in the U.K. Please ring for details Watford 48580.
OVERSEAS COMPUTER SYSTEMS CONSULTANTS
182a QUEENS ROAD, WATFORD, ENGLAND
CALLERS BY APPOINTMENT PLEASE
@ Circle No. 114
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS
HOME COMPUTER STOCKISTS
ABERDEEN Dixons ALTRINCHAM Boots ASHFORD
Rumbelows BARNET Rumbelows BASILDON Rumbelows
BASINGSTOKE Boots BATH Boots, Microstyle BEDFORD
Carlow Radio, Rumbelows, Boots, Comserve BILLERICAY
Rumbelows BIRKENHEAD Dixons BIRMINGHAM Dixons,
Comet, Hewards Home Stores, Boots BLACKPOOL Boots
BLETCHLEY Rumbelows BOREHAMWOOD Rumbelows
BRADFORD Ackroyd Typewriters BRAINTREE Rumbelows
BRENTWOOD Rumbelows BRIGHTON Gamer, Boots BRISTOL
Dixons BROMLEY Rumbelows, Boots BROMYARD Acoutape
Sound CAMBRIDGE Rumbelows, Dixons, Heffers
CANTERBURY Rumbelows, Dixons CARDIFF Boots, Dixons,
Computer Business Systems CARLISLE Dixons CHELMSFORD
Dixons, Rumbelows CHESTER Boots CHINGFORD Rumbelows
COLCHESTER Rumbelows CORBY Computer Supermarket
CREWE Midshires CROYDON Boots, Dixons, Allders
DARTFORD Rumbelows DERBY Datron Microcentre, Boots
DORRIDGE Taylor Wilson DUNSTABLE Rumbelows
EASTBOURNE Rumbelows EDINBURGH Robox, Esco, Texas
Instruments, Dixons, B.E.M. ENFIELD Rumbelows EXETER Peter
Scott, Boots, Dixons GLASGOW Boots, Esco, Robox, Dixons
GT. YARMOUTH Rumbelows HANLEY Boots HARLOW
Rumbelows HATFIELD Rumbelows HEMEL HEMPSTEAD
Rumbelows, Dixons HITCHIN Rumbelows HODDESDON
Rumbelows HULL Radius Computers, Boots, Dixons, Peter Tutty
ILFORD Boots IPSWICH Rumbelows KINGSTON Dixons
LEEDS Dixons, Boots, Comet LEICESTER Dixons, Boots
LEIGHTON BUZZARD Computopia LETCHWORTH
Rumbelows LINCOLN Dixons LIVERPOOL Dixons, B.E.C.
Beaver Radio, Computer world LONDON: Balham Argos Bow
Rumbelows Brent Cross Dixons, Boots Camden Town
Rumbelows City Road Sumlock Bondain Clerkenwell
Star Business Machines Curtain Road Eurocalc Ealing Adda
Computers EC1 Argos EC2 Mountaindene Edmonton
Rumbelows Finchley Road Star Business Machines Fulham
Mondial Goodge Street Star Business Machines Hackney
Rumbelows Hammersmith Dixons Hendon Futronic Holborn
Dixons Hounslow Boots Kensington High Street Video Palace
Knightsbridge Video Palace, Harrods, Futronic (at Chiesmans)
Loughton Rumbelows Marble Arch Star Business Machines
Moorfield Dixons Moorgate Star Business Machines New
Bond Street Dixons Oxford Street Selfridges, HMV., Dixons
Regent Street Star Business Machines Tottenham Court
Road Landau, Eurocalc Victoria Street Futronic (at Army &
Navy) Wandsworth R.E.W. Wood Green Boots, Rumbelows
Woolwich Rumbelows LUTON Dixons, Rumbelows
MAIDSTONE Dixons, Boots, Rumbelows MALDON Rumbelows
MANCHESTER Orbit, Boots, Dixons MIDDLESBROUGH Boots,
Dixons MILTON KEYNES Rumbelows, Dixons NEWBURY
Dixons NEWCASTLE Boots, Dixons NORTHAMPTON Dixons
NORWICH Dixons, Rumbelows NOTTINGHAM Bestmoor,
Dixons, Boots ORPINGTON Rumbelows OXFORD Science
Studio PETERBOROUGH Boots PLYMOUTH J.A.D., Dixons
PORTSMOUTH Boots, Dixons POTTERS BAR Rumbelows
PRESTON Dixons RAMSGATE Dixons RAYLEIGH Rumbelows
READING Dixons RENFREW Comet ROMFORD Rumbelows,
Dixons RUSHDEN Computer Contact SANDY Electron Systems
SCARBOROUGH Video + SHEFFIELD Datron Microcentre,
Dixons, Video +, Wigfalls SITTINGBOURNE Rumbelows
SLOUGH Boots, Texas Instruments SOUTHAMPTON Dixons,
The Maths Box SOUTHEND Rumbelows, Dixons, Futronic
(at Keddies} ST. ALBANS Rumbelows STEVENAGE Dixons,
Rumbelows STRATFORD Rumbelows SUDBURY Rumbelows
SWANSEA Dixons TONBRIDGE Rumbelows WALTHAM
CROSS Rumbelows WALTHAMSTOW Rumbelows WARE
Rumbelows WARRINGTON Boots WATFORD Computer Plus,
Computer Centre, WELWYN GARDEN CITY Rumbelows
WETHERBY Bits & Pieces WOLVERHAMPTON Dixons
WOODFORD Rumbelows
Also available at Greens within major branches of Debenhams.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS
You can’t get a Home Computer
from Texas Instruments under 16 K RAM.
Make the right move into computing
with the Home Computer from Texas
Instruments. It gives you a large combined
RAM/ROM capacity up to 110 K Byte and
the ability to expand with a full range of
peripherals and software. So as your know-
ledge of computers increases the TI Home
Computer will grow with you.
Just compare the versatility of the TI
Home Computer with its price -you'll find
it real value for money that will prove to be
a good long term investment.
The TI-99/4A is a sophisticated com-
puter designed not only for the beginner
with its ease of operation, but also for the
professional with its vast computing power
through a 16 bit microprocessor. And it
simply plugs into an ordinary household
TV set.
With its high resolution graphics with
32 characters over 24 lines in 16 colours
(256 x 192 dots), 3 tones in five octaves plus
noise, and BASIC as standard equipment
and options such as other programming
languages - UCSD-PASCAL, TI-LOGO
and ASSEMBLER ~and speech synthesis,
you'll find that the TI 99/4A more than
compares with the competition. Especially
when the starting price is £340 or less.
When you want to solve problems there are
over 600 software programs available .
worldwide -including more than 40 on
easy-to-use Solid State Software® Modules.
After all, from the inventors of the
microprocessor, integrated °
circuit and microcomputer,
it’s only natural to expect
high technology at a realistic
price.
We'll help you do better.
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS
@ Circle No. 115
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 ‘ 21
@'Registered Trade Mark
2
ie
3
=
2
7)
=
&
x
2
a2
THE ONLY*SYSTEM
BETTER THAN A
MICRO NETWORK'S
SUPER 6
(S THE
SUPER 12
Micro Networks Ltd can now exclusively offer you a
super Superbrain that includes either six or twelve
megabytes, 5.25 inch Winchester Disk Drives inter-
changeable with floppies. The new system is supplied
with customised version of CP/M that allows the user
to treat the hard disc as single or multiple logical drives.
Any of fhese drives can be of any size up to the max-
imum capacity of the disc drive involved, i.e. 150 up to
790 K bytes per single drive. They can be intermixed
with each other or with the hard disc logical drive. Obvi-
ously, the incorporation of Winchester drives not only
expands the bulk storage available but it also speeds up
the access five times faster on floppies and ten times
faster on hard disc than on ordinary Superbrain.
There’s more very good news too! Superbrain and
CompuStar prices have been reduced by 30% plus the
NEW SUPERBRAIN II features, which include a faster
enhanced disc operating system, a library of new visual
attributes including below-the-line descenders, reverse
video and impressive graphics capabilities.
Standard software in stock includes Wordstar,
Mailmerge and Spellstar, BASIC-80, FORTRAN-80,
COBOL-80, ALGOL-80, PASCAL M, CIS COBOL, plus
many application packages.
If you already have a system — ask us about our ser-
vice and maintenance schemes.
MICRO NETWORKS
60 PALL MALL LONDON 01-839 3701
@ Circle No. 116
MZ80B
@.4 Mhz Z-80A CPU @ 64K RAM @ 2K ROM @ BASIC
iS provided @ High Resolution Graphics @ 9"’ High Focus
Green Dispiay @ Upper and Lower Case @ 80/40
Characters x 25 line display @ Electro Magnetic Cassette
Deck included @ ASC11 Keyboard @ Numeric Keypad @
Sound Output @ Built-in Clock and Music.
@ Editing — Cursor
Control, Up, Down, Left,
Right, Clear and Home.
Insertion and deletion
Keys.
£949
ideat for small businesses, schools, colleges, homes, etc.
Suitable for the experienced, inexperienced, hobbyist.
teacher, etc.
GENIE |
SY
By SS a he
NOW INCLUDED: Sound, Upper and lower case, Extended
BASIG and Machine Code enabling the Writing and
Execution of Machine Codes Programming direct from
Keyboard.
16K RAM. 12K Microsoft BASIC
Extensive Software Range.
Self-Contained PSU UHF Modulator Cassette. External
Cassette Interface. Simply plugs into TY or Monitor.
Complete and Ready to Go.'Display is 16 lines by 32 or 64
Characters Switchable. 3 Mannuals included, Users Guide,
BegIpners Programming and BASIC Reference Mannual.
BASIC Program Tape Supplied. Pixel Graphics.
GENIE I
£299 « vat
The NEW GENIE II an ideai’ Business Machine. 13K
Microsoft BASIC in ROM: 71 Keyboard. Numeric Keypad.
Upper & Lower Case. Standard Flashing Cursor. Cassette
Interface 16K RAM Expanded externally to 48K
GENIE | & 11 EXPANSION UNIT
WITH 32K RAM — £199 +var
PARALLEL PRINTER INTERFACE CARD £35.00 + VAT
A COMPACT READY TO RUN
COMPUTER FOR ONLY
£449 4.
THE NEW
SHARP
MZ-80A
@ Z80 CPU
@ 48K RAM
@ 40
Character
x 25 line
Display _
® Built
in 9" High
Focus Green Display
® Built in Audio Cassette J
Deck : Data Transfer 1200 bits/sec
® ASCII Keyboard, Upper & Lower Case, Graphic
Symbols, Numeric Keypad @ Editing, Cursor
Control (Up, Down, Left, Right, Home, Clear,
Deletion Keys) ®@ Built in Clock & Music
on all our products, which
normally only carry 3 months
guarantee.
IF IT WASN’T FOR THE LOWEST PRICES, THE BIGGEST CHOICE AND THE BEST AFTER SALES SERVICE WE JUST WOULDN'T BE COMP SHOP.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
THE SHARP MZ80B SYSTEM
TEAC
DISK
DRIVE
@ TEAC FD-50A has 40 tracks giving 125K Bytes
unformatted single density capactty
@ The FD-50A can be used in double density recording
mode.
@ The FD-5O0A is Shugart S$A400 interface compatible
@ Directly compatible with Tandy TRS80 expansion
interface
@ Aijiso interfaces with Video Genie, SWTP, TRS80
ATOM. and. BBC. Superbrain, Nascom, etc, etc
®@ Address selection for Daisy chaining up to 4 Disks
@ Disks plus power supply housed in an attractive grey
case
40 TRACK
Single Double
Disk Drive £199 +vaT Disk Drive £379 + vat
77 TRACK
Single Double
Disk Drive £279 +VAT ick Drive £499 + VAT
2 Drive Cable - £15.00 + VAT
4 Drive Cable - £25.00 + VAT
COMMODORE
VIC-20
PLUS FREE
GAMES CASSETTES
®@ 16 foreground colours
@ 8 background colours
®@ Real typewriter keyboard with full graphics
® Music in three voices and three octaves
@ Language and sound effects
ALSO AVAILABLE
GAMES CARTRIDGES £17.35 + VAT
16K RAM CARTRIDGE £65.17 + VAT
JOYSTICKS £6.52 + VAT
Ne
“Europes Largest Discount
Personal Computer Stores”
TELEPHONE SALES
OPEN 24 hrs. 7 days a week
01-449 6596
PRINTER MZ80P6 £449 + vaT
® Serial Dot Matrix @ Tractor and Friction Feed
@ 80 Characters per Second @ Print Capacity 80 col
(Normal) 40 col (Double Size) 136 col (Reduced Size)
@ Upper and Lower case @ Graphics
FLOPPY DISK
DRIVE MZ80FB
£699 + VAT
inc. DOS, Interface Card & Cable
Dual Drive Unit 5.25"
Dual Sided Double Density
70 Track, Soft Sectored;
16 Sectos per Track
280K Bytes per Diskette
40/80/132 Column
Centronics Parallel
Bi-directional
Upper & lower case
True Descenders
9x9 Dot Matrix
Condensed and
Enlarged Characters
j @ Interfaces and
Ribbons available
MX80F/T2 £419 + vAT MX80T £329 + vat
MX80F/T £379 + vaT
*~ CENTRONICS
SES DOT MATRIX
ote >» PRINTERS
: oe 737 £369) .
739 £4695 Y*"
if z Standard Features
@ Proportional Spacing
® Right Margin Justification @ 3
way paper handling ® Upper and lower case @ True
Descenders @ Bi-directional Paper Mode @ Underlining
capability @ Condensed/Expanded Print @ Sub-Scripts and
Super Scripts @ Pin and Friction Feed @ 80/132 Column
7393 as above with special feature of
Dot Resolution Graphics.
HITACHI
PROFESSIONAL
MONITORS
£498 £99.95)
12” — £199 £149 J var
@ Reliability Solid state circuitry using an IC and siticon
transistors ensures high reliability. @ $00 lines horizontal
resolution Horizontal resolution in excess of 500 lines is
achieved in picture center. @ Stable picture Even played
back pictures of VTR can be displayed without jittering.
@ Looping video input Video input can be looped through
with built-in termination switch. @ External sync opera-
tion (available as, option for U and C types) ® Compact
construction Two monitors are mountable side by side in a
standard 19-inch rack.
All prices quoted are exclusive of VAT. Delivery is
added at cost. Please make cheques and postal
orders payable to COMP SHOP LTD., or phone your
order quoting BARCLAYCARD, ACCESS, DINERS
CLUB or AMERICAN EXPRESS number.
BARCLAYCARD:
m= mare q
VISA [e + Say
[creamer SI) TER ATIOMAL
CREDIT FACILITIES AVAILABLE - send S.A.E. for
application form.
MAIL ORDER SHOP
14 Station Road, New Barnet,
Hertfordshire, EN5 1QW
(Close to New Barnet BR Station - Moorgate Line)
Telephone: 01-441 2922 (Sales) 01-449 6596
Telex: 298755 TELCOM G
OPEN (BARNET) - 10am - 7pm - Monday to Saturday
311 Edgware Road, London W2
Telephone: 01-262 0387
OPEN (LONDON) - !0am - 6pm - Monday to Saturday
@ Circle No. 117
23
COR ; makes
ples morer>
tempting
Apple, the most popular micro-computer,
now has a Software accessory which
enables the system to be
programmed by beginners!
the Software J
that writes programs
C.O.R.P. II is the most advanced and comprehensive
collection of program generators which writes Applesoft
programs. It enables a beginner to program quickly,
simply, and error free by himself in everyday language
with no programming knowledge. It’s the first usable,
educational package!
Handbooks and demodisk tutorial are supplied
with every system. C.O.R.P. II £249.
C.O.R.P. I: Database/Print
Generator only: £149.
Demodisk & Free Basic
Language Tutorial £29.
48K Apple II, DOS 3.3 & 2 disk drives required.
Details of C.O.R.P. ‘Turnkey’ systems and
Training Courses from:
—
~~, * “MICROSYSTEMS
LIMITED
-_— SUMMERFIELD HOUSE, VALE, GUERNSEY, CHANNEL ISLANDS.
Telephone: 0481 47377, Telex: 4191130 (DYN MIC G)
AUTHORISED DEALERS
SPOT COMPUTER SYSTEMS LTD.,
New Street, Kelham Street Ind. Estate,
Doncaster. Tel.:(0302) 25159
AMPAL {COMPUTER SERVICES) LTD.,
POBox 19, Knutsford, Cheshire WA16 OHE.
Tel. (056 589) 3563
AMPAL (COMPUTER SERVICES) LTD.,
31 Woodbridge Road, Darby Green,
Blackwater, Paaieiley, Surrey.
Tel. (0252) 876677
"CORP 1:8 regittered tredemerh of 1m» MAROMATY & SCOTTO SOF TWARE CORP.
“APPLE in « registered redemarh of APPLE COMPUTER INC
D ? a Dynatech company
Program generators for other micro-computer
systems available on application.
@ Circle No. 118
24 . PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Nnascom
MEANS SOLWTIONS
nascom
MEANS PERFORMANCE
Nascom have come a long way SOFTWARE: BACK-UP:
since their acquisition by Lucas. We have a team of programmers who We have a nationwide dealer net-
With the knowledge of over are writing software and courseware work giving full sales back-up and
30,000 units already in the field especially for UK educational busin - after sales service. From our head
you can buy with confidence ess and domestic users. office we have a service
from NASCOM. FREE ADVICE: line to sort out any problems.
PRODUCTS: We have appointed experts to advise SYSTEM EXPANSION:
We have kits, built and tested on the specialist use of micro NASCOM machines are designed
boards, and our fully assembled and computers in to grow with users, Easily and
tested NASCOM 3 U.K. schools, simply NASCOM systems can be
system with a full homes or expanded by adding extra modyles
choice of configura- businesses. to the basic system.
tion either cassette or
disc based. Alternative
operating systems
include NAS DOS and >
CP/M.
LUCAS LOGIC LIMITED
NASCOM MICROCOMPUTERS DIVISION,
Welton Road, Wedgnock Industrial Estate,
Warwick CV34 5PZ, England.
i 4 id
_ 'NClusion in wd for
Programme book
Learn more about
NASCOM now.
Complete the
coupon for further
information and a
full list of dealers.
Dealer Enquiries
Welcome
nascom micro \
. To Lucas Logic Ltd., Nascom Microcomputers Division, Welton Road,
- | Wedgnock Industrial Estate, Warwick CV34 5PZ, England
Please send
| Literature Dealer List(1) Prog. Book FormO)
Name
Establishment
Address
I
aol
Position |
4
l
i
f
Tel. No i
@ Circle No. 119
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 25
26
ZX Spectrum
20 Programs £6.95
The ZX Spectrum has brought advanced
computing power into your home, The
Cambridge Colour Collection, a book of
20 programs, is all you need to make it
come alive.
No experience required. Simply enter the
programs from the book or load them from tape
(£2.95 extra) and run.
Amazing effects. All programs are _ fully
animated using hi-res graphics, colour and sound
wherever possible.
Entirely original. None of these programs has
ever been published before.
Proven Quality. The author already has 30,000
satisfied purchasers of his book of ZX81 programs.
Hours of entertainment
@® LunarLanding. Control the angle of descent
and jet thrust to steer the lunar module to a safe
landing on the moon's surface.
@ Maze. Find your way out from the centre of a
random maze.
@ Android Nim. Play the Spectrum at the
ancient game of Nim using creatures from outer-
space.
@ Biorhythms. Plot the cycles of your
Emotional, Intellectual and Physical activity.
Some would say this ‘is not a game at all.
Improve your mind
@ Morse. Acomplete morse-code training kit.
This program will take a complete beginner to
R.A.E. proficiency.
@ Maths. Adjustable to various levels, this
program is an invaluable aid to anyone trying to
improve their arithmetic.
Run-your life more efficiently
@ Home Accounts. Keeping track of your
finances with this easy-to-use program will
enable you to see at a glance where the money
goes and plan your spending more effectively.
@ Telephone Address Pad. Instant access to
many pages of information.
@ Calendar. Displays a 3 month calendar past
or future, ideal for planning or tracing past
events.
ene ee ee a we a = =
ORDER FORM:
Send Cheque or P.O, with order to:-
Dept. A., Richard:Francis Altwasser, 22-Foxhollow, Bar Hill,
Cambridge CB3 8EP’
Please send me
O Copies Cambridge Colour Collection Book only £6.95 each.
O Copies Cambridge Colour Collection Book & Cassette
£9.90 each
Name:
Address:
@ Circle No. 120
SMB WINCHESTER
FOR APPLE II
LOWEST COST/MBYTE FROM ANY SUPPLIER
SINGLE APPLE CONTROLLER
PASCAL COMPATIBLE “DROP IN” BIOS
LICENSABLE “PROTECTED SOFTWARE” OPERATING SYSTEM
(only available to bona-fide software suppliers)
DEDICATED APPLE II
FAST DELIVERY
SUBSYSTEM ODES NOT INCLUDE APPLE ORIVE Ce
MEE “ae
WAM?
syMBFite
LOWEST UK PRICES
£1450
TO PLACE YOUR ORDER, OR TO MAKE
FURTHER ENQUIRIES, CONTACT:-
symbiotic
computer systems
85/87 STATION ROAD, WEST CROYDON,
SURREY CRO 2RD
01-680 8606
R.R.P
@ Circle No. 121
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
| hie
ei
|
Fast delivery of the NEC Spin-
writer, along with other top quality
printers, is what Northamber the
printer people are all about.
Our continuing reputation for
efficiency depends upon fulfilling the
commitment:
If you need a printer tornorow —
call us today.
The remarkable NEC Spinwriter
is extremely reliable and respected
oN) alee ee Wea
at ‘a \ \
by all sections of the industry. It's
revolutionary 55cps, 128 character
print thimble has set standards other
manufacturers aim to achieve.
If you need a NEC Spinwriter
tomorrow — call Northamber today!
NORTHAMBER
THE PRINTER PEOPLE LIMITED
3, 4 & 5, Dawes Court, Esher, Surrey
KT10 9QA. (0372) — 66397/62071
Telex: 24123 NAMBER G
——————— DISTRIBUTORS * IMPORTERS * WHOLESALERS
Circle No. 122
poltware
MICROPRO £
WORDSTAR MICROPRO’s comprehensive word processing system. 250.00
MAILMERGE Added power to WORDSTAR for mailing lists, standard letters etc 60.00
SPELLSTAR Dictionary on a disk for WORDSTAR spelling checking. 120.00
DATASTAR MICROPRO’s data entry, validation and retrieval system. 170.00
INFOSTAR Report Generator for DATASTAR. N.Y.A.
SUPERSORT I Sorting, extracting and merging at high speed from MicroPro.
Includes Relocatable version for inclusion in your own software 120.00
CALCSTAR MICROPRO’s spread sheet and financial modelling system. Combine
with WORDSTAR to get impressive end results. 150.00
WORDMASTER Video text editor for programmers and simple Word Processing. 60.00
MICROSOFT .
BASIC-80 MICROSOFT’s popular and powerful BASIC Interpreter (MBASIC). 150.00
BASIC Compiler Compile your BASIC-80 programs for speed and protection. 190.00
FORTRAN-80 Fortran compiler to ANSI X3.9 1966 except COMPLEX data. 210.00
COBOL-80 The COBOL compiler for microcomputers. 310.00
(BASIC, FORTRAN and COBOL compilers include MACRO-80, LINK loader,
LIBrary manager and CREF utilities).
MISC a
CBASIC-2 COMPILER SYSTEMS widely used compiler/interpreter for BASIC. 65.00
CB-80 CBASIC compatible compiler. 280.00
PASCAL/M SORCIM’s PASCAL. 120.00
SUPERCALC SORCIM’s spread sheet and modelling system. 170.00
MILESTONE Project Management and Scheduling from Organic Software. 160.00
GBASE II Relational Database Management from Ashton Tate. 380.00
joe MICROSTAT Statistical program library from ECOSOFT for (and needs) BASIC-80 150.00
\NE IEW) PRO PASCAL PROSPERO’s Z80 Pascal true Compiler 190.00
WHEN YOU BUY ANY
FREE MAILIMERGE po micropro PRODUCTS
28
Offer ends 31st July 1982
Please send large s.a.e. for full details. TRADE ENQUIRIES WELCOME
Ordering Instructions: Cash with order. Specify disk format. Add £3.00 per item P&P. Add 15% VAT
(UK)LTD
PO BOX 11 CRANBROOK KENT TNI17 2DF Tel. (058 080) 310
@ Circle No. 123
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Comserve, Be ord, 0234 216749. BERKSHIRE P.C.P,
Reading, 0743 589249. Castle Computers (Windsor),
07535 58115. BIRMINGHAM Ward Electronics,
Birmingham, 021] 554 0708. Consultant Electronics,
Birmingham, 021 382 7247. A. E. Chapmanand Co.,
Cradeley Heath, 0384 66497/8. BUCKINGHAMSHIRE
Photo Acoustics, Newport Pagnell, 0908 610625.
CAMBRIDGESHIRE Cambndge Micro Computers,
Cambridge, 0223 314666. CHESHIRE Hewart
Electronics, Macclesfield, 0625 22030. Mid Shires
Computer Centre, Crew, 0270 211086. CUMBRIA
Kendal Computer Centre, Kendal, 0539 22559. DORSET
Blandford Computers, Blandford Forum, 0258 53737.
Parkstone Electrics, Poole, 0202 746555. ESSEX Emprise,
Colchester, 0206 865926. GLOUCESTERSHIRE
HAMPSHIRE Fareham Computer Centre, Fareham,
Hampshire, Fareham, 23919] HERTFORDSHIRE Photo
Acoustics, Watford, 0923 40698. Q Tek Systems, Stevenage,
0438 65385. Chrisalid Systems and Software, Berkhamsted,
044 27 74569. KENT Swanley Electronics, Swanley, 0322 64851.
LANCASHIRE Harden Microsystems, Blackpool, 0253 27590. Sound
Service, Burnley, 0282 38481. Computercat, Leigh, 0942 605730. BEC
Computerworld (Liverpool) 05 1-708 7100. LEICESTERSHIRE Kram
Electronics, Leicester, 0533 27556. LONDON City Microsystems, EC2,
01 588 7272/4. Wason Microchip, N18, 01 807 1757/2230. Premier
Publications, Anerley SE20, 01 6597131. NORTH EAST Briers Computer
Services, Middlesborough, 0642 242017. General Northern Microcomputers,
Hartlepool, 0783 863871. HCCS Associates, Gateshead, 0632 821924.
NOTTINGHAMSHIRE Midland Microcomputers, Nottingham, 0602 298281.
Mansfield Computers, Mansfield, 0623 31202. East Midland Computer
Services, Amold, 0602 267079. Electronic Servicing Co., Lenton,
0602 783938. NORFOLK Anglia Computer Centre, Norwich, 0603 29652.
Bennetts, Dereham, 0362 2488/9. OXFORDSHIRE Micro Business Systems,
Whitney, 0993 73145. Pebbleglow Ltd. (Thame) 08442 1 5368. SCOTLAND
Esco Computing, Glasgow 041 427 5497. Edinburgh: 031 557 3937.
Computer and Chips, St. Andrews, 0334 72569. Scotbyte Computers,
Edinburgh, 03] 343 1055. Victor Morris and Co., Glasgow, 041 221 8958.
SHROPSHIRE Tarrant Electronics, Newport 0952 814275. SOUTH WEST
Diskwise, Plymouth (0752) 267000. West Devon Electronics, Yelverton,
082 285 3434. Bits and Bytes, Barnstaple, 027] 72789. SUFFOLK Elgelec Ltd.,
Ipswich, 0473 711164. SURREY Catronics, Wallington, Surrey, 01 6696700/ 1.
Croydon Computer Centre, Thornton Heath, 01 689 1280. WALES Tryfan
Computers, Bangor, 0248 52042. WEST MIDLANDS Allen TV Services,
Stoke on Trent, 0782 616929. WILTSHIRE Everyman Computers, Westbury,
0373 823764. B&D Computing (Swindon), 0793 762449. YORKSHIRE
Media 5 Ltd; Sowerby Bridge 0422 33580. Advance TV Services, Bradford,
0274 585333. Huddersfield Computer Centre, Huddersfield, 0484 20774,
Comprite, Bradford, 0274 668890. Superior Systems Ltd., Sheffield,
0742 755005. Photo Electrics, Sheffield, 0742 53865. Ebor Computer
Services (York) 0904 79 1595. NORTHERN IRELAND Business
Electronic Equipment, Belfast, 0232 46161. Brittain Laboratories,
Belfast 0232 28374.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Genie I & II Approved Dealers sa
AVON Microstyie, Bath, 0225 334659/319705. ae
Sole Importers:
Chesterfield Road, Matlock, Derbyshire DE4 5LE.
Telephone: 0629 4995. Telex: 377482 Lowlec G.
Can't afford that trip around the world The Adventure System is a new concept in adventuring. We supply the
: 4 a tools, you supply the imagination. Don’t confuse The Adventure Sys-
this year? Not going to get to visit the tem with lesser quality products: The Adventure System allows you to
Mayan ruins in Mexico? NASA create data base containing your adventure instructions. This data
rejected your application to take base is then used by the machine language adventure driver to propel
: you into the worlds of your imagination!
the Lunar Cruise Tour? Well, relax.
Business folk have their “last one:’ Now games people can have theirs,
Now you can have these and dozens ;
. too! The Adventure System may very well be the last adventure you ever
more adventures in the comfort of buy! Just think! You can now write your own adventure that takes place
your own home, compliments of your In your own home! Or adventures that feature your friends as charac-
friendly TRS-80 ters! Write short, simple adventures that your young ones can enjoy, or
riendly a long, tough ones that you can market! The possibilities are endless!!
What's included in The Adventure System package? A BUNCH:
ADVEDIT, the main adventure editor. This is the program that
allows you to design and modify yours (or others) data bases.
ADV/ CMD. This is the machine language driver program that reeds
and executes your adventure data base(s).
Three adventures. Two of them, Miner’s Adventure and Burgler’s
Adventure, are complete adventures which will provide hours of
fun and entertainment. The third, Mugger’s Adventure, is a “baby”
adventure which is described step by step in the manual. Can you
get to your car without getting mugged?
A complete user’s manual, over 50 pages of detailed, easy to follow
instructions, in a handsome, sturdy notebook.
FOR THE TRS 80 MODEL 1 & 3 ONLY
PROMOTION PRICE OF £29.95p
(WE WILL BE £35.75p)
THE BEST CHANCE YOU HAVE OF
WRITING YOUR OWN
ADVENTURES. ? ? ?
SEND 75p FOR FULL CATALOGUE
(Refundable against purchase)
DEALER ENQUIRIES WELCOME
ANGLO AMERICAN SOFTWARE 1} enclose a cheque! PO for £... sesecssesee. Made payable to
138a Stratford Road, Sparkhill ANGLO AMERICAN or debit my
Birmingham B11 1AG 021-771 2995/ 2736 Access card number
ALL PRICES INCLUDE VAT & POSTAGE
24 Hour answering service a
‘on 021-771 2995 for Access orders.
@ Circle No. 124
30 PRACTICAL COMPUTING: July 1982
reese rrr Rr AnneT
al
LAT,
CIRCUIT DESIGN
PROGRAMS FOR
THE APPLE if
Ca
OND RE
.=
VIC 20 Programmer's
Reference Guide
A. Finkel, N. Harris, P. Higginbottom and M. Tomezyk
This practical source of information on VIC 20 software and hardware
includes a BASIC Vocabulary Guide which explains the complete VIC
BASIC language instruction set; a Programming Tips Guide; a Machine
Language Programming Guide; and a section on Input/Output
Operations which explains how to connect your VIC to special
peripherals such as RS232 devices, lightpens, etc.
£11.85 290 pages 672-21948-4
Published by Commodore Business Machines and Howard W. Sams
Circuit Design Programs for the
Apple II
Howard M. Berlin
A variety of useful BASIC language programs are presented in this
book that will simplify the design and analysis of common circuit
problems related to plotting and the statistical verification of experi-
mental data. The programs, written in Applesoft BASIC, cover the
design of filters, analysis of 2-port networks, the inverse Laplace
transform, real and imaginary roots of polynomials, Pi- Tee (Delta-
Wye) transformations, and solution of mesh and node equations.
£11.15 132 pages 672-21863-1
Advanced 6502 Interfacing
John M. Holland
For robotics and computer control enthusiasts, this book provides a
collection of design techniques and circuits that can be used or
adapted to virtually any situation where computer control is needed.
Discussed in full are (/O port design, serial communications, timing
and timers, A/D and D/A conversion, data acquisition, and
closed- loop control.
£9.05 190pages 672-21836-4
new Sams books
Microcomputer Design and
Troubleshooting
Eugene M. Zumchak
This advanced experimenter’s book covers hardware and software
design, interfacing, testing and troubleshooting.
£12.55 350pages 672-21819-4
Microcomputer Data-Base
Management
E. G. Brooner
File handling, sorting, searching, linking andhashing are explainedin
this practical guide to tapping the full potential of your micro-
computer.
£9.05 158 pages 672-21875-5
Understanding and Buying
a Small-Business Computer
Susan Blumenthal
£6.25 158pages 672-21890-9
Prices and publication dates are correct at the time of going to press but may
be subject to change.
Prentice /Hall International
66 Wood Lane End, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire HP2 4RG,
England. Exclusive distributors of Howard W. Sams books in the UK
and Europe.
Available from leading bookshops and these Sams Books stockists:
Aughton Microsystems Compnite Ltd Micro-C Micro-C Micro-C Mid- Shires Computer
8 Princes Street Thorite House 5-11 Martineau Way 127 Charles Street 31-35 Blagdon Road Centre
Southport, Merseyside Laisterdyke Union Street, Birmingham Leicester New Malden, Surrey 68 Nantwich Road
Bradfard Crewe, Cheshire
Business and Electronic Machines
7 Castle Street . Silicon Centre
Edinburgh eis bile vata ‘ A Micro-C Pictaural Electronics Ltd
Duckworth Square Micro-C Micro-C ICO: 21 Comely Bank Road
Byteshop Computertand Ltd Derby Unit 2, Channons Hill Units 91-93, 2 Wheeler Gate Edinburgh 4
P.O. Box2 i Industrial Estate Arndale Centre Nottingham
St Neots DatronMicroCente —Fishponds, Bristol Lutony Bedfordshire Tomorrow's World
Huntingdon 2 Abbeydale Road Boe fond
Sheff id +f rafton Street
Cambridgeshire te ate ste Dublin 2
Cambndge Computer Store Memo Shop Micro-C Micro-C 10-11 Bargate ae 6B
1 Emmanuel Street 32 York Road 57-59 Albion Street 19 Brown Street Southampton ILAC Centre
Cambridge Leeds LS98TD Leeds Manchester Hampshire Henry Street, Dublin 1
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
@ Circle No. 125
31
ZENITH data
Systems
WHETHER YOU'RE A DEALER OR OEM-
Zenith can offer a product capability that includes:
e Microcomputers, CP/M based with storage to 10 Megabytes
e Systems that start from £1795*
© Word processing, including letter quality printer from £2985*
(or lease from only £14 per week)
© A comprehensive range of Printers, VDU's, systems and
applications software
@ 12" green screen Monitor—in Apple colours. (Dealer/OEM's only)
Equally important Zenith is a company that:
@ Is supported by the multi million dollar Zenith Radio Corporation
of America
@ Is committed to holding comprehensive UK stock
© Offers Country-wide service support
e Offers Dealer support including National Advertising Campaign
e Offers Realistic Discount Structures
*Prices correct at time of going to press.
NEW DEALER ENQUIRIES WELCOME eae |
Cl could be interested in a Dealership [1 would like to receive details of your OEM terms |
Name Position
Company Address —
r data
al |
Jelephone . PL |
: systems |
|
|
The quality goes in before the name goes on.
Or call Dave Taylor or Jim Detheridge at:-
| Zenith Data Systems Bristol Road, Gloucester. GL2 6EE. Telephone 0452 29451.
@ Circle No. 126
32 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Better buy Cumana
strictly dependable top
Quality Products like TEAC...
like no one else for price!
Cumana Ltd. offer
you a dependable flow of
exceptionally high quality DISK DRIVES
from TEAC of Tokyo featuring high reliability and
compatibility. Cumana have an enviable reputation and aim
to continue giving you the best service in the business. These mains
powered Disk Drive units are designed to interface to a wide range of computers
such as TRS 80 models | andill. Genie! and Il, SWTP, Heathkit, Superbrain, Nascom and the BBC Micro, Model B.
Floppy Disk Drives 40 and 80 Track Cased Units
Single Disk Units Dual Disk Units Disk Drive Cables
1x40 Track single sided Drive £199 | 2x40 Track single sided Drives £369] 2 Drive Cable £15.00
1x80 Track single sided Drive £265 | 2x80 Track single sided Drives £495 | 4 Drive Cable £25.00
1x80 Track double sided Drive £429 | 2x80 Track double sided Drives £799 Please add VAT to all prices. Delivery at
cost will be advised at time of order.
CUMANA LTD 35 Walnut Tree Close, Guildford, Surrey GU1 4UN. Telephone: (0483) 503121. Telex: 858306.
Call your nearest dealer for a demonstration: Write or ‘phone for Data Sheets — Dealer and O.E.M. enquiries welcome.
RADIO SHACK LTD., P J EQUIPMENT LTD., COMPUTER SHACK L.C. ELECTRONICS, HEWART GNOMIC LTD.,
London NW6. Tet: 01-624-7174 Guildford. Tel: 0483-504801 Cheltenham. Tel: 0242-584343 Biddenden, Kent. MICRO-ELECTRONICS, Blackhall. Hartlepool.
COMPSHOP LTD., R.D.S. ELECTRICAL LTD., TANDY GLOUCESTER, Tel: 0580-291816 Macclesfield. Tel: 0625-22030 Tel: 0783-863871
New Bares teh Portsmouth. Tel: 0705-812478 Gloucester. Tel: 0452-31323 mene one SHOP, KAPAC AD LTO., PHEAS lll
el: 01-441. leetwood. Lancs. reat Sankey, Warrington. ERV! 5
: TANDYHASTINGSLTO., COMSERVE, : :
ComPSHOPLTD., Hastings. Tel: 0424-431849 Bedford. Tel: 0234-216749 Tet: 09917-79511 Mapa ey Cleo A ea deel
London W2. Tel: 071-262-0387 wicROWARE COMPUTING HARDEN MICRO-SYSTEMS, PHOTO-ELECTRICS,
EMPRISE LTD. Blackpool. Tel: 0253-27590 | Shettield. Tel: 0742 53865 3 LINE COMPUTING
COMPSHOP LTD., SERVICES, Colchester. Tel: 0206-865926 Hull. Tel: 0482-445496
Dublin 2. Tel: 604165 Bristol, Tel: 0272-279560 ae AMBASSADOR BUSINESS ARC ELECTRONICS, i see
LONDON COMPUTER BLANOFORDCOMPUTERS, MicpO-COMPUTERS, Shiney. Woke” WEZOSL Tel Os2e-283145 Gatoshesd. Tel 0632874611
London W1, Tel: 01-388-5721 Tel: 0258-53737 ip ben et VICTOR MORRIS LTD., EWL COMPUTERS LTD.,
Bac: = ape SHOP Q-TEK SYSTEMS LTD., Glasgow. G28LY, Glasgow. Tel: 041-332-7642
London N15, Tel: 01-808-0377 Brighton. Tet: 0273-60909 GAMBRIDGECOMPUTER — Stevenage. Hers. Tel: 041-221 8958 EVERYMAN COMPUTING,
a Eee. egy ne UE G CHIPS tpians Bradlord Tol 0374. soaeaa
- ippenharn, Tel: 0249-2131 ui 5 _6E : :
Thomton Heath, Surrey St. Andrews, Fife. Scotland. Tel: 0274-663471
Tel: 01-689-1280 Tel: 0334-72569
@ Circle No. 127
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 . 33
34
A 2
The new XEROX 820
micro-computer system
Budgeting - Planning - Forecasting -\W/ordprocessing etc.
A brilliant new development specifically designed for the decision making businessman.
And his pocket. Made by Xerox the 820 is one of
| the most inexpensive and versatile computers
on the market. And you can keep adding to the
system from a wide range of software options.
Also you can have the full backing of the
Rank Xerox on-site, full service and maintenance
agreement, so you can buy in total confidence.
So if you're a businessman looking for
a superb micro-computer system,
come along and see the
XEROX 820
Ss oo ILS
+ HARD DISK + NETWORKING + PRESTEL ADAPTORS
Johnson
microcomputers
Johnson House, 75/79 Park Street, Camberley, Surrey. Telephone 0276 20446
Robophone Answering 24 hrs. Prestel Page No. 200632 Mailbox No. 027620446
48 Gloucester Road, Bristol. Telephone 0272 422061
148 Cowley Road, Oxford. Telephone 0865 721461
RANK XEROX
P2IIIIIIIMR KK KE
AUTHORISED DEALER
ie the new Xerox 820.
) Xerox and Rank Xerox are Registered Trade Marks of Rank Xerox | imited
@ Circle No. 128
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
The model of good business.
ie am; 2
ii.
Tuscan - the all-British microcomputer
With a proven record of steady development behind
it, the Tuscan $100 now goes a step forward, solving
the problem of effective backup storage. _
The Tuscan $100, Britain’s first S100 computer on
a single board, is now available with designed-in mini-
Winchester drive for better performance, shorter
access time and higher transfer rate. All this from
Britain’s own home-grown micro manufacturer.
Systems with printer, screen and CP/M start at
£2125 with twin floppies, and at £3625 with one
floppy and one 5-meg. mini- Winchester.
SOFTWARE. Business accounts packages start at
£800 when purchased with the Tuscan system. Word
processing packages start at £315; Database packages
start at £100.
HARDWARE. Flexibility isthe key feature of all
Tuscan systems. A choice of storage capacity, video
format and graphics is available. The Tuscan S100
can read and write in sixteen different disk formats,
with a choice of 544"or 8” drives.
SUPPORT. The Tuscan $100, designed and built
in Britain, is backed by Transam’s substantial exper-
énce in electronics plus a dedicated hardware and
software team. National third party maintenance is
available at ten per cent of hardware costs.
BUSINESS SYSTEM DEALERS. Business
Equipment Centre, 10 Edge Lane, Liverpool.
Tel: 263 5783. Contact: Rod Crofts.
Purley Computers, 21 Bartholomew Street, Newbury,
Berkshire. Tel: 41784. Contact: Ron Smith.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
FURTHER INFORMATION. Two new cata-
logues covering “systems and peripherals” and
“CP/M Software” are available, giving details of our
systems and services. Call or write for yours.
TRANSAM COMPONENTS LIMITED
59/61 THEOBALD’S ROAD, LONDON WC1
Tel: 01-405 5240/2113. Telex: 24224 (Ref. 1422)
‘@ Circle No. 129
35
SYSTEM 4000
EPROM EMULATOR/PROGRAMMERS
P4000 PRODUCTION EPROM
PROGRAMMER
This unit provides ‘simple, reliable’
programming of up to 8 EPROMs. It
has been. designed for ease of
operator use — a single ‘program’
key starts the blank check — pro-
gram — verify sequence. Indepen-
dent blank check and verify controls
are provided along with mode, pass/
fail indicators for each copy socket
and a sounder to signal a correct key
command and the end of a program-
ming run. Any of the 2704/2708/
2716 (3 rail) and 2508 / 2758 / 2516
/ 2716 / 2532 / 2732 EPROMs may
be selected without hardware or per-
sonality card changes.
2 year warranty. Price £545 + VAT:
+ £12.00 DELIVERY
VM10 VIDEO MONITOR
This compact, lightweight Video
Monitor gives a clean crisp picture
on its 10” screen. Suitable for use
with the EP4000, SOFTY and other
systems. 12 month warranty. Price
£88 + VAT, carriage paid.
MODEL 14 EPROM
ERASERS
: ©
a eS
MODEL UV140 EPRO
ERASER
Similar to model UV141 but with out
timer. Low price at £61.50 + VAT,
postage paid.
EP4000 EPROM EMULATOR/
PROGRAMMER
The microprocessor based EP4000
has been designed as a flexible, low
cost, high quality unit for emulating
and programming all the popular
NMOS EPROMs without the need
for personality cards, modules or
hardware changes. Its software
intensive design permits selection of
the 2704 / 2708 / 2716 triple rail
EPROMs and the 2508 / 2758 /
2516 / 2716 / 2532 / 2732 single rail
EPROMs for both the programming
and emulating modes.
The video output (T.V. or monitor) for
memory map display in addition to
the built-in Hex LED display, for
stand alone use, is unique in this
type of system. This, with the double
function 28 key keypad, powerful
editing features, powered down pro-
gramming socket, buffered tri-state
simulator cable and 4k x 8 data RAM
gives you the most comprehensive,
flexible and compact systems avail-
able today.
2 year warranty. Price £545 + VAT:
+ £12 DELIVERY
MODEL UV141 EPROM
ERASER Ay
@ 14 EPROM capacity ‘a
@ Fast erase time +
@ Built-in 5-50 minute timer
@ Safety interlocked to prevent eye
and skin damage
@ Convenient slide-tray loading of
devices
@ Available Ex-Stock at £78 + VAT
Postage Paid
GP INDUSTRIAL ELECTRONICS LTD,
UNIT E, HUXLEY CLOSE, NEWNHAM INDUSTRIAL ESTATE,
PLYMOUTH, DEVON PL7 4JN
TELEPHONE: PLYMOUTH (0752) 332961 (Sales) / 332962 (Technical Service).
“ks
SOFTY
SYSTEMS CF
SOFTY 2
LOW COST 2716
EMULATOR/PROGRAMMER
@ Direct output to T.V. @ High speed
cassette interface @ On card
EPROM Programmer @ Multifunc-
tion ‘uch keypad @ 2K Monitor in
2716 @ 2K RAM ®@ 128 byte
scratchbpad RAM @® 2K EPROM
Emulation @ Can program 2732/
2532 in two halves @ Editing
facilities including — Data entry/
deletion, Block shift, Block store,
Match byte, Displacement calcula-
tion @ Supplied with ZIF socket,
Simulator cable, comprehensive
manual, Antistatic lined EPROM tray
and PSU. SOFTY 2 £169 + VAT
(includes p&p)
SOFTY 1
LOW COST 2704/2708
EMULATOR/PROGRAMMER
@ Direct output to T.V. @ High speed
cassette interface — On card
EPROM Programmer @ Multifunc-
tion keypad @ 1K Monitor in 2708
@ 1K RAM @ 128 byte scratchpad
RAM @ 1K EPROM Emulation
@ Comprehensive editing facilities
@ Supplied with ZIF socket, Simula-
tor cable and comprehensive
manual.
SOFTY 1 (Built and tested)
£120 + VAT
SOFTY 1 Power Supply £20 + VAT
SOFTY 1
CONVERSION CARD
Enables SOFTY to program the
single rail EPROMs, 2508 / 2758 /
2516 / 2532. Selection of device
type and 1K block are by pcb slide
switches. ZIF Programming socket.
Supplied built and tested. £40 +
VAT.
EX-STOCK EPROMS
1-24 25-99 100 up
2732) 9 16:50 5:75 4:95
2716) 260. 2:60 2:40
2708 2:80 2:60 2:40
ADD VAT AT 15% - POSTAGE PAID
WRITE OR TELEPHONE FOR DETAILS
ON ANY OF OUR PRODUCTS
@ Circle No. 130
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
APPLE PRICES
TURN OTHERS
GREEN.
C/WP Computer prices are so low, APPLE-CP/M OFFER
we reckon they’re the most competitive —
you will find for a standard factory- EX-VAT PRICES
fresh Apple with a full12-month C/WP PRICES TYPICAL PRICE
warranty. Apple 48K Europlus 579
And we’re not just clever at keep- e Siemens disc drives
ing prices down: C/WP are experts in with controller 500
CP/M and its software. Ifyoualready | Microsoft CP/M system
have a 48K Apple II with two disc with Z80A processor = 180
drives it could cost you only £125 to 16 K RAM card
make it a CP/M APPLE. acoalsneth
If you are starting from scratch, ee)
you can buy acomplete CP/M APPLE _ | 80 column card
for under £2,000. Epson MX 80T printer
Write or phone for our full CP/M Printer interface
hardware and software list. 10 Floppy dises
1392
If you’re hungry for an Apple at
these price S, contact C /WP Computers Items available separately at same price.
on 01-828 3127 SOFTWARE FORCP/M
C/WP PRICE & EX. VAT
Wordstar 3.0 200
Wordstar training pack 40
Calestar 140
dBase II 375
M Fortran 110
C/WP Computers CIS COBOL + Forms-2 475
108 Rochester Row, London SW1P 1JP M Basic Compiler 210
Telephone: 01-828 3127 :
@ Circle No. 131
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 37
COST
CONSCIOUS!
Heralding the beginning of a
new age of low cost Word
Processing Computer
Systems
SMITH CORONA TP-1
Dedicated Computer
Printer
Microprocessor
Controller
e Serial, Parallel
or IEEE
Interface
e Lowest cost
purpose-built
Daisywheel
£485
+ VAT
BYTEWRITER
Keyboard Printer
© Lift off facility
DISCOM TRADING COMPANY
Dresden House, 51 High Street
Evesham, Worcs. WR11 4DA
Telephone (0386) 3591
Further Information Please
Name
Address.
Telephone
e Circle No. 132
EPSON MX-80T/2 (Graphics)
Tractor Printer
with high resolution graphics.
Features:- * 9 x 9 matrix with true desenders
* 80 CPS bidirectional logic seeking
“80 Columns with condensed, emphasised
and enlarged characters (40,66,80 & 132
chrs/line)
¢39?
ist i) see
List price £399
EPSON MX-80FT/2 (Graphics)
Friction and Tractor printer
* All features of MX-80T
‘ Three way paper handling
PRINTER INTERFACE CARDS AVAILABLE NOW
{EEE 488 interface with cable £55.00
Apple Il with cable (graphics) £69.00
TRS 80 Bus interface with cable £49.00
RS232 with 2K FIFO (High res) £85.00
ANADEX DP9501
with 2K buffer
“10,12.5,15 & 16.7 characters per inch
"7x9 or 11 x 9 matrix printing bi-dir.
*132,158,165,176,198 or 200 Columns
* 50 to 200 lines/Min - 120 to 200 Chrs per sec
* High density graphics
£99.00
List price £140
Apple/Anadex graphics card
All prices exclude.VAT at 15% and carriage at £5 per unit.
Send all cheques and postal orders made payable to:
6 Victoria Buildings, Hisane ra aes Preston PR1 2NJ.
Telephone: 0772 57684
@ Circle No. 133
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Osborne—the business computer THE ADDA-OSBORNE SUPER
that’s a personal, portable DEAL INCLUDES: 12 months
productivity package! You can parts and labour warranty ©
confidently tackle tougher jobs, Free delivery London and
with avast increase in personal Home Counties - Full set
effectiveness wherever you are manuals -Comprehensive
— plane, train, car, office or home. software including: Wordstar/
And at Adda you get advice and Mailmerge word processing
service from ‘Supercalc financial
professionals who For only package : CBasic -
know what oe Cy ms Ge MeEasic CP/M
business users operating system -
need. 10 diskettes.
for a complete system exctuaing var
For further information or to place an order Becenone 01-997 6666
Dot matrix and Daisy Wheel printers available from £399 excl. VAT.
-adda—— =
Adda Computers Ltd.
Mercury House
Hanger Green
Ealing London W5 3BA
Tel: 01-997 6666
Only 20 minutes by car or tube from the West End.
@ Circle No. 134
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 39
THE PROFESSIONALS CHOICE
Word Processing - Wordstar £250, Mailmerge £75.
Full on-screen facilities enabling the printing of
standard letters and preparation of mail shots.
Act Sirius 1
16 Bit Stand Alone micro with
superb features.
128K,1.2MB Floppies,
CPMB86 as standard — £2395.
Accounting - From £300 per module.
Integrated accounting systems with Invoicing,
Sales, Purchase and Nominal Ledgers.
Financial Modelling - Micromodeller £645.
Budgets, forecasts and accounting data become
2S easy to prepare. Allows “what if” projections.
9'9'9
Calculation - Supercalc £175.
Electronic worksheet for preparation of budgets
and tables of data.
o
Altos
Up to 4 terminals and 40MB
of Winchester Disc.
One of the biggest selling
small business systems
Starting at £2350.
16 Bit system with 8 terminals available soon.
Record Keeping - DMS £400.
Personnel, stock or any other records
with quick retrieval, sorting and reporting.
o
Sales Office Management - Sales Desk £300.
For the busy sales office to manage
sales leads and marketing lists.
Accounts - IRIS £750.
Incomplete records and time recording systems.
o
OKI 1F800 |
Quality graphics micro with |_ taremeneany
full colour screen and integral (3
printer. 64K and Basic
are standard — £4750.
Wide range of
peripherals available.
Payroll - Graffcom £500.
Up to 500 employees both weekly and monthly paid.
Automatic deduction for items like company pensions.
Graphics - Price depends on application.
Full on-screen graphics both colour and
black and white.
Engineering -SPERT £450.
Suite of programmes for PERT analysis and
civil engineering applications.
LSI M3
High specification
Stand Alone micro. CPM, 64K
and up to 10MB of Winchester
in one package. Very easyto /
use. Detachable keyboard.
User programmable OG
function keys. From £2250.
Communications - Liberator £250.
Enables a micro-computer to act like a mainframe
terminal and transfer data from Floppy disc to
another computer.
91919199
Languages - From £175.
Most major computer languages are available: Basic.
Cobol, Fortran, Pascal and Assembler.
Superbrain
Still a leader in 8 bit price
performance. KGB having
sold over 400 Superbrains
has unbeatable experience
onthem. From £1875.
KC,
Pp:
i | | WW!
MICROS LIMITED Sow FROME cat KGBNO
14 Windsor Road, Slough SLI 2EJ Tel:Slough (0753) 38581/38319 Telex: 847777
Solicitors - Solace £1600.
Solicitors accounting, client accounting and
time recording.
Multi-terminals -MP/M and Oasis from £350.
Multi-user systems available.
O19
®@ Circle No. 135
40 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Fussing over 16 bits
IT IS A SIGN of the confusion in our market that people who
might well know better are falling over themselves in excite-
ment with the new 16-bit machines — the Sirius, the IBM
Personal Computer and Displaywniter and the Fortune. As
David Powys-Lybbe’s letter last morith points out, at the
moment a 16-bit machine is actually not as good as an
eight-bit one because it has to run borrowed code. Like
borrowed clothes, reach-me-down software is not necessarily
the best. In fact the Z-80 code in which most CP/M software
is written translates rather badly into 8086 code for the
simple reason that the 16-bit processor lacks many of the
powerful instructions that made the Z-80 popular in the first
place.
And, as Powys- Lybbe points out, code translated direct from
the eight-bit version will still be limited to 64K in the bigger
machine. In fact, space available to the user may well be less
on the 16-bit machine because the instructions of the 8086
are less compact and so take up more RAM.
It might be a good idea to think calmly about the advantages of
16-bit processors. The obvious advantage, that they deal
with 16-bit chunks rather than eight bits, tends to evaporate
on inspection. First, the Z-80 and other eight-bit machines
do have 16-bit registers and can do some 16-bit arithmetic.
But if fast arithmetic is your problem, you need one of the
exotic, and fairly expensive, 16-bit arithmetic chips that do
add, subtract, multiply and divide in hardware at something
better than the speed of a big mainframe.
In real life more micros most of the time are doing nothing
more exciting than comparing one string of text characters
with another, one character dt a time. You have told your
Basic to Print and it runs down the table of commands asking
itself whether you want to Get, Input, List, or whatever. In
this sort of function the 16-bit processor works no faster than
an eight-bit one because ASCII characters stay eight bits
long whatever machine you use to maul them about. If you
are stuck with 16 bits you spend half the time comparing
eight bits of nothing with itself to produce a not very useful
answer.
As micros become used to storing more and more data on hard
disc, so micro operations inevitably become limited by the
speed of the disc drivés rather than the speed of the
processor. From this point of view it does not matter whether
your processor is eight-bit or 64. If the discs do not change,
neither will the speed of your operations.
A realistic estimate of the increase in speed in 16-bit processor
over eight bits would be between one and two — ranging
between no change and double, with a bias towards the
bottom end, depending on the fréquency of disc operations.
The one real advantage of the 16-bit machines is that they
will address more than 64K of memory. Just how much
depends on the machine, but for most of them it is more than
anyone can afford to fill, for the moment at least.
However, addressing more memory is of little avail unless the
software is rewritten to take advantage of the room. A Basic
for a 16-bit machine has to be structured differently from an
eight-bit Basic if it is to use the hardware properly. This calls
for extra time and expense for the software houses doing
rewrites, and — perhaps more worryingly for them — means
that two quite different programs have to be maintained.
This is not to say that 16-bit software will not come, and that
when it does it will not be better than the equivalent eight-bit
packages. Already one sees a return to the “keyhole coding”
of the early mainframes in an attempt to cram more program
into 64K than God ever meant to be there. It will be a great
relief for the more ambitious software houses to be able to
take its corsets off and spread out into the freedom of a
couple of hundred K of RAM. We ought to be seeing, for
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
‘Editorial ===
instance, a single package that provides the functions of
database management, word processing and spreadsheet
calculation all in one package, so it all works in the same way
on the same data without even having to page program
segments in and out.
Another compelling reason for more RAM is the demands
of high-quality graphics. Very few people in the world are
entirely happy with the alphabet as a means of expression.
They would be much more at home with pictures, and a
number of up-market software packages use pictures to help
the user communicate with the machine. For instance, in the
Smalltalk system being developed by Xerox in America.
you point to a picture of an in-tray on your screen to see
incoming documents, or to a drawing of a wastepaper basket
to erase them from the file.
However, just as we are beginning to see a reasonable flower-
ing of Z-80 software after the machines have been around for
three or four years, two or three years from now we ought to
begin to see some reasonably mature 16-bit software. Unfor-
tunately for the 16-bit promoters, it is far from certain that
the machines will be there to support the new offerings. The
eight-bit machines were launched in reasonable numbers on
sheer enthusiasm for computers in the abstract.
It seems to us that until new processors are so much more
powerful than the old that they can run unconverted eight-bit
software in an emulation mode at least as well as an eight-bit
machine — equivalent to asking an interpreter to run as fast
as a compiler — there will not be much sense in changing
from eight-bit machines. That will not happen until there is a
a 32-bit micro running. at a 24MHz clock.
The latest tiny miracle, Sinclair’s Spectrum, with its proposed
100K backing stores at £50 each — is a machine which could
well sit on many a desk doing work for £200-odd that at the
moment is done by gear that costs £2,000. If Sinclair’s next
launch is not a proper business machine for hundreds rather
than thousands of pounds, then someone else’s will be.
This drastic lowering of the price of hardware will Tapidly bring
down the cost of software. The standard price in the Sinclair,
Vic, Atom market is about £15, and for that you can now buy
packages like VisiCalc look-alikes which cost £150 on proper
micros and £1,500 on minis. As time goes on, the huge
returns which the mass market offers will attract software
authors like moths, leaving the “serious” business micros of
today stranded, rather as the minis are now. That too will
militate against the 16-bit machines.
Finally, by way of a little light relief, here is how you really can
tell whether a 16-bit processor is better than an eight-bit one,
and if so by how much. The good news comes to us from
Dino Moro Sanchez and Umberto Tosi writing in AirCal
Magazine of March 1982. To them it is all very simple: they
dismiss as ludicrously conservative the idea that a 16-bit
machine might be only twice as fast as an eight-bit one. No,
they delve deeper than that. They observe that a bit implies a
multiplication by 2, so that a nine-bit machine must be twice
as powerful as an eight-bit one and a 10-bit four times more
so. By this reckoning, 16-bit machines must be 256 times as
powerful as an eight-bit, and since it is often reckoned that
an eight-bit machine is equivalent to about 20 of an IBM
370, a 16-bit machine must be worth at least 10 of those
beasts.
Having solved that tricky question, Sanchez and Tosi turn their
attention to the rival 16-bit processors. How can you distin-
guish between one and another? Which of them is the best?
You are advised to provide yourself with an example of each
chip: the 68000, the 8086, the Z-8000 and the 9900. Spread
them on the table before you, then count the pins.
What then? Well, the one with the most pins must be the best.J]|
41
ou can add
CP/M’
to your Pet Commodore
for only £497-
With the CP/ Maker
Now
It takes only five minutes and £ 497,- to raise your
standard Commodore operating level by CP/M
and add a hefty 64K RAM.
Not another tag-on box, this module actually
plugs inside your present console. No new power
supply, no soidering, no fiddling.
Whether you own the 3000, 4000 or 8000 series
model you can still add CP/M versatility.
he oe
‘
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C: commodore @>s\
* £ 497,- is a recommended retail price.
42 CP/M is a registered trade mark licensed
from Digital Research Inc. U.S.A.
The CP/Maker gives you a massive 96K RAM at
your disposal.
The Z80 microprocessor, incorporated in the
CP/Maker will also enable you to use your 6502
as an intelligent 1/0 processor.
Look at all these other CP/Maker advantages:
- Compatible with all CP/M software such as
wordstar.
Compatible with all normal CBM software, in-
cluding 69K Visicale.
The Z80 and 6502 work simultaneously.
Languages include CB 80 (the fastest Basic
compiler for micros), C-Basic, M-Basic, MT-
Pascal, PL1, CISCobol, Fortran...
Comes complete with CP/M 2.2 diskette and
operating manual.
Enquire at:
Tamsys Ltd.
4 Park Str., Windsor, Barkshire SL41BG
Tel. Winsor 56747, telex 849462 telfac
Micro Technology Ltd.
51/53 The Pentiles, Tunbridge Wells
Kent, Tel. (0892) 32116, Telex 9541
for your local dealer
@ Circle No. 136
The
CP/Maker
European
supplier of CP/M:
international
Research Park B-3030 Leuven, Belgium
Tel. 016/20.24.96 Telex: 26202 vector
Our Feedback columns offer readers the opportunity of bringing their computing
experience and problems to the attention of others, as well as to seek our advice or}
to make suggestions, which we are always happy to receive. Make sure you use
Feedback—it is your chance
to keep in touch.
Duncan in BCPL
FRANK DALE'S comparison between Forth
and Pascal — Feedback, May 1982 — isa
good illustration of the relative strengths
of these very different languages. An
experienced user of Forth should be able
to generate small programs faster than a
user of Pascal, but Pascal is easier to
understand and maintain. So it is reason-
able to use Forth in fairly small systems
maintained by the author, while Pascal is
more appropriate for larger systems.
Dale also demonstrates the compact-
| ness of Forth by comparison with Pascal,
but it is not necessary to use Forth instead
of a conventional structured language
just to achieve compactness.
If Drunken Duncan is coded in BCPL
instead of Pascal, the program can be
structured in the same way and is as easy
to understand. Yet the BCPL version
compiles into 342 bytes of Cintcode com-
pared with Frank Dale’s 543 bytes in
Forth and 876 bytes in Pascal P code.
| John Richards,
RCP Ltd,
Blewbury,
Oxfordshire.
DAI users
TOGETHER WITH a few others I am trying
to get a DAI users’ group together ih the
U.K. There are not many of us so we
| really need each other to make the most of
| DAI’s possibilities.
If other DAI users would like to con-
tact me, stating the main areas in which
they are interested, I will put them in
Duncan in BCPL.
SECTION “DUNCAN"
GET “libhdr"
MANIFEST
$( //' cursor movement characters
‘left = 8; right=24; up = 11;
homeup 29; clear = 31
time 1000 // Delay constant
down
$)
GLOBAL
$( xlen:250; ylen:251; staggers:252
seed:253
$)
LET rdn() = VALOF // random number 0
$( seed := seed*31421 + 6927
RESULTIS ABS seed REM 3
$)
LET sleep{) BE FOR I = 1 TO time LOOP
LET stagger() BE
$( LET i = rdn()
SWITCHON i INTO
$( CASE 0: WRBIN( up)
CASE 2: WRBIN( down)
ENDCASE
ENDCASE
:= xlen + i- 1
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
// standard definitions
contact with other members of the group
whose interests coincide most nearly with
their own.
Dave Atherton,
16 Douglas Street,
Atherton,
Manchester M29 9FB. |
iBasic editing
THE PROBLEMS experienced by R G Sil-
son — Feedback, February 1982 — have
caught my eye on several occasions. My
own computer system allows me to per-
form full cursor editing of the Microsoft
disc Basic on screen, including line num-
‘bers. Lines can be renumbered to repeat
them throughout the program, and the
text can be overtyped, opened up or
closed for character insertion and dele-
tion.
I can also edit and re-enter command
lines to CP/M and certain other utilities
which makes repetitive commands much
easier to carry out. I can have several
commands displayed down the screen,
and they can be repeatedly entered simp-
ly by pressing the Edit key, moving the
cursor to the line and pressing Return.
An optional screen paging mode is
available during execution of commands
like List and Type, and it is no longer
necessary to “dive-bomb” Ctrl-S.
A single-key command will dump the
contents of the screen to the printer from
any of the screen formats available. The
system will support a 128K virtual disc
using two 64K RAM boards on pages 2
and 3. I also have the facility making.
i := rdn()
SWITCHON i INTO
$( CASE 0: FOR j=1 TO 4
CASE 2: FOR j=l TO 4
$)
Vilens— wien) ti = if
staggers := staggerstl
$)
LET offgrid()} =
= 10
LET START()} BE
$( seed := 4999
SELECTINPUT( FINDINPUT(
pe ioFr i
single-key Command Line entry possible.
Some of these features are unique |
among CP/M systems and are largely
dependent on the effectiveness or other-
wise of the CBios supplied to interface
the system hardware to CP/M. This in
turn is often dependent on the motivation
of the CBios author.
Silson raises several points about the
Renum command. My improved Editing
features remove some of these problems,
but the rest can only be solved by mod-
ifications to Basic itself, and this is
obviously something for Microsoft to
consider.
With regard to the speed problem, it
may be that the Z-80 is not run at 4MHz,
or that the problems of interfacing the
software or hardware introduce a speed
loss due to some compromises. On my
64K Nascom/Gemini system — 350K per
drive; duel density, running at 4MHz
without wait states — Basic 80 is even
faster than the Nascom ROM Basic,
which has been among the leaders in the
benchmark stakes. On my system the
24K Basic is loaded from a standing start
within about four seconds of pressing
Enter.
If you want a system for purely busi-
ness purposes, by all means buy one of
the nicely packaged, but difficult to ex-
pand and “taboo to touch” boxes that
now abound. But look more carefully if
you are interested in learning about all
aspects of computing, with a system that
can start small but can be expanded to
professional standards easily and at
(continued on page 45)
DO WRBIN( left)
DO WRBIN( right)
ENDCASE
ENDCASE
xlen[{0 J} xlen|16 ] ylen[0 ] ylen]16
// main entry point for BCPL
“REY: "))
// to read one character at a time from the console
${ WRBIN( homeup); WRBIN( clear)
xlen :
FOR I
FOR I
$({ sleep()
stagger ()
8; ylen :=
1 TO 8
8; staggers := 0
DO WRBIN( down)
1 TO 32 DO WRBIN( right)
// to centre of screen
$) REPEATUNTIL offgrid({)
WRBIN( homeup); WRBIN( clear)
WRITEF( "OFF GRID IN &$N STAGGERS.*N", staggers)
// *N is newline character, %N substitutes number
WRITES( "*NANOTHER ONE ?
$) REPEATWHILE RDCH{) =
$)
my
ty!
43
INNOVATIVE
TRS 80-GENIE SOFTWARE
from the professionals
MEMDISK
ADDITIONAL DISK TYPE STORAGE FOR UNDER £30!!
One of the most fantastic utilities to hit the market in many a day! MEMDISK literally
creates a disk drive type storage in RAM. It uses many of the extensive sophisticated features of
LDOS in order to achieve this miraculous effect! When the ‘‘drive’’ has been created it may, in
general, be used as any other drive. Commands such as COPY, BACKUP, FREE, DIR, SAVE,
LOAD and DUMP may al! be utilised.
Memdisk is an absolute boon for the single drive user. Files may be copied from his single
drive to the drive in memory, disks changed and then copied back. To coin a phrase — the
applications are only limited by the imagination of the user whether you have one drive or
more — after all, you always need another!
There are, of course, some limitations. Chiefly, that the maximum size of storage is 27K
usable. The other side of the coin is that this space is user selectable eu 1.5K to 27K. Tracks
may be set up in 1.5K or 3K blocks.
Memdisk may be used with Double Density drives without any problem, although the
memory drive itself, of course, cannot be double density. To assure reliability, Memdisk tests
the RAM area which it is going to use before it installs itself.
Best of all, a Memdisk drive is faster than any floppy drive available and it is even faster
than many hard disk drives. Memdisk involves no additional hardware of any sort. There is
nothing to align, nothing to clean and nothing to break. It’s all software.
Memdisk is available for all Genie machines and the Tandy Model 1 and Model 3. tt
requires a minimum of one drive 48K RAM and LDOS.
MOLIMERX LTD
A J HARDING (MOLIMERX)
1 BUCKHURST ROAD, TOWN HALL SQUARE, BEXHILL-ON-SEA, EAST SUSSEX.
TEL: [0424] 220391 / 223636 TELEX 86736 SOTEX G
TRS-80 & VIDEO GENIE SOFTWARE CATALOGUE £1.00 [refundable] plus £1 postage.
@ Circle No. 137
44 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
(continued from page 43)
reasonable cost. There are not many of
them about, no matter what the adver- |
tisements claim.
C Bowden,
Stithians,
Cornwall.
WordStar on Apple
1 HAVE RECENTLY purchased the Word-
Star word-processing system but have so
far been unable to install it satisfactorily
on my Apple II which is connected to a
Centronics 737 by an Apple II parallel
printer interface card A2B0002X. From
the Printer Menu I selected “Any Tele-
type-like printer”, and from the com-
munications protocol menu I selected
“none”’.
If I select the CP/M list device from the
printer driver menu Wordstar appears to
function properly and can print upper
and lower case. Yet whenever I incorpor-
ate print-control characters in the text the
printout is corrupted at the places where
these print controls were inserted. If I
select the parallel Centronics printer driv-
er I have more problems.
@ What is output port for printer?
@ What is output status port for printer?
@ What bits change at output status port
when output port becomes ready to accept
a character for output?
What bits change from a 0 to a 1?
What value should be output to the status
port to ‘strobe printer” and inactivate
“clear printer”?
@ What value should be output to the status
port to inactivate “strobe printer” and acti-
vate “clear printer’?
What value should be output to the status
port to inactivate “strobe printer” and in-
activate “clear printer’?
The supplier has so far been unable to
help me, so can anyone supply a solution
to my problems?
Jack McLeish,
Edinburgh.
Pet 4016 bug
SOMETHING UNUSUAL happens to Rem
statements containing capitals in the busi-
ness mode on the Commodore 4016.
Being an arrogant fellow I started my
program with:
5 rem By R. J. Dowling
On listing, however, I read:
5 rem peeky backup.mid$.strS0wling
Can anyone explain this and suggest a
way to avoid the problem or to put it to a
practical use?
R.J Dowling,
King’s Lynn,
Norfolk. |
Pet subroutines
- INHIS ARTICLE on Pet machine-code sub-
routines in the May issue of Practical
Computing P H Richards implied that it is
inevitable that machine language in-
corporated in Basic Rem statements
would list on the screen as Basic
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
keywords, producing some odd and long
lines. But if instead of incorporating a
RemRem structure at the start of the
routine, you substitute Rem, then the
following machine language will list
merely as single-character graphics sym-
bols, rather than Basic keywords.
As the first line of the program, enter:
Orem” (as many spaces as possible) ”
After the machine code is entered, it
will list in a tidy fashion. Any spaces left
over at the end of the routine can be
deleted, or a comment may be added to
indicate the purpose of the accompanying
code.
Under most circumstances this system
allows the line to be edited directly from
Basic without recourse to Tim, though
this is not possible when part of the
machine code is an ASCII 22 hex — a
quote — or OD, carriage return. These
codes take the computer out of “quotes
mode” back into the real world, and
allow it to display the code as keywords
again.
As long as the computer is still in
“quote mode” the line may be renum-
bered or edited in the usual way. It is
even possible to enter machine code
direct from Basic if the hex code is trans-
lated into graphics characters first, and
then put in the Rem.
Peter Wood,
Ampleforth College,
York.
Polynomial solutions
I WAS INTERESTED to read the useful arti-
cle on solving polynomials by Daniel
Ziatnik, in Open File, Z-80 Zodiac in the
April issue, but certain limitations of the
method described were not .made clear.
The method of bisection, where the
interval between limits enclosing a root is
halved at each iteration, has a rather slow
convergence. More important, it is
unsuitable for complex roots or where
there is a double root or multiple root of
even order.
Evaluation of a polynomial function in
the form
| DEF FNP(X)=A ¥X #5 + B¥X$4 +
C¥X 434+ D¥X42+EHX4+F,
is often better done by the method of
nested multiplication
((A%X + B)¥X + C)¥X + D)¥X +
E)%X + F,
which requires fewer arithmetic opera-
tions, and is also quite simple to program.
Solving polynomials in general is not a
trivial problem, and the method used
must be chosen with care depending on
the type and order. We use a-small com-
puter for simple molecular-orbital
calulations in theoretical chemistry. We
have developed programs for solving
polynomials up to order 30 from a class
whose members are known to have real
roots within the range +/-3.
Even within this restricted range there
are pitfalls; for example, higher-order
polynomials necessarily have a high fre-
iand,
quency of oscillation and it is not always
easy to obtain convergence to all roots.
Our most satisfactory method is to use a
pair of programs. We start with a pro-
gram which evaluates the polynomial
over the whole range for a table of 20
equally spaced root values.
These 20 root values, which conve-
niently fit the screen, are displayed with
the corresponding function values,
- together with stars to draw attention to a
change of sign between any two consecu-
tive function values. The program then
allows any X value to be selected as a
median value of a new narrower range,
which is again displayed over 20 points in
the same way. This procedure, which is
like looking at the graph of the function
under increasing ‘‘magnification” is con-
tinued until all the roots are located, and
it may be continued to the limit of arith-
metic precision of the Basic being used.
A second program is available, based
on Newton’s iterative method in which
© X= FOX_YF" (Xp)
is a better approximation than X, to the
true root nearby.
We have also used Laguerre’s formula
aS an approximation. This is
X, — nF(X,)(F(X,,)+/—(H(X,)) $0.5"
where H(X,) is given by
((n—1)4 2) %(F'(Xn)) 42 —
n%(n—1) ¥F(Xn) ¥F"(Xn)
Laguerre’s formula gives a faster con-
vergence, but on the whole we find it less
reliable.
A set of approximate roots obtained
from the first program is input to the
second one to obtain the most accurate
values. The accuracy of the approximate
roots has to be determined by trial and
ertor, but it is quite easy to switch back to
the first program if a root refuses to
converge as desired.
E C Kirby,
Resource Use Institute,
Pitlochry,
Perthshire.
Arts and the micro
WE HAVE BEEN contracted to write a book
that will look at the actual and potential
impact of microelectronics on the
humanities in education. We believe that
the computer has a significant contribu-
tion to offer to the teacher in this field
conversely, teachers in the
humanities have a key role to play in
developing the vital understanding of the
social consequencies of rapid technologi-
cal change.
We would very much like to hear from
teachers already developing materials
along these lines. We are anxious, too, to
hear of programs which are integrated
into the work of humanities classrooms
and make use of the imaginative and
interactive potential of the microcompu-
ter. Please write to us through Practical
Computing.
Anthony Adams, Esmor Jones,
Cambridge. [J
45
Show heads for the North
FOLLOWING the success of
Practical Computing’s own ex-
hibition — The Computer Fair
— a similar event is to be held
in the north of England to-
wards the end of November.
Called The Northern Com-
puter Fair, the exhibition will
take place at Bellevue, Man-
chester on November 25-28.
| Like its counterpart in Lon-
don, the exhibition will pro-
vide an ideal showcase for
companies wishing to demon-
strate to a fast-expanding and
increasingly well-informed
audience all aspects of person-
al computing from home com-
puters to business systems.
The interest being gener-
ated by personal computers
can surprise even those who
have been in the business for
some years. The Computer
Fair held at Earls Court during
the last weekend in April was
unquestionably Britain’s big-
gest-ever personal computer
exhibition.
More than 38,000 people
visited the show to see a range
of equipment extending from
the Sinclair ZX-81 up to the
IBM _ Personal Computer
which was featured on the
| KGB Micros stand. Software
| from games to business ap-
plications packages for a wide
variety of computers was de-
monstrated on a large number
of stands.
Clive Sinclair chose the
Computer Fair as the exhibi-
tion at which to launch the ZX
Spectrum computer — see re-
view on page 66 — and it was
inevitably the star of the show.
It attracted crowds four and
| five deep to the Sinclair Re-
search stand throughout the
exhibition.
Other popular aspects of the
Computer Fair were the ZX-
Crowds besieged the stands at Earls Court’s Computer Falr —
Britaln’s biggest-ever personal computer exhibition.
81 Village which attracted de-
votees of the Sinclair home
computer in their thousands,
and Club Avenue, a series of
stands manned by user groups
representing the best-known
personal computers — Apple,
Pet, Tandy TRS-80 and the
BBC Micro to name only a
few.
A purpose-built arena was
the focal point for the Micro-
mouse contest. The British
finals of this event where held
This is the new model 154 dot-matrix graphics printer
from Centronics. It combines all the standard features of
a 132-column industrial-grade computer printer, together
with pin-addressable graphics. The machine uses a high-
quality 11-by-eight dot matrix, which can print in seven
international character sets. The 154 can print at 120 cps
with bi-directional and logic-seeking printing. Its potential
market includes CAD and CAM applications as well as
business analysis and data processing. The model 154
costs £824 and will be available from most existing
dealers. For further information about the printer contact
Centronics, Victoria Way, Burgess Hill, Sussex.
46
Telephone: (04446) 45011. J
at the Computer Fair with the
winner, Alan Dibley, of Ched-
dar, receiving an all-expenses-
paid trip, generously provided
by Elbit Data Systems, to the
European finals in Haifa,
Israel in September. A report
on the Micromouse contest
appears on page 159 of this
issue.
Next year the Computer
Fair will again be held at Earls"
Court, London, on June 16-
19, 1983. hy
| munications
Card that
turns Pets on
|to CP/M
| CP/MAKER is a card that fits
inside the case of a Commo-
dore Pet computer and con-
verts it into a powerful 64K
CP/M machine. The card is
totally self-contained and can
be fitted in a couple of min-
utes. When the card has been
fitted the Pet looks just like
any other, but with the power
turned on, the difference is
clear. After a simple command
is executed the machine has
access to a full 64K of CP/M |
memory and 32K of ordinary
CBM ROM.
The board contains a Z-
80A, and an extra 6502 chip
| because as Gabor Weiner,
managing director of Vector
International pointed out, “It
| would be disastrous if some-
one damaged their processor”’.
The two processors may run
simultaneously at full speed,
and any software written
under CP/M 2.2 will run.
The CP/M maker has an up- |
load/download capability |
| which enables it to transmit |
and receive any type of CP/M
file from another CP/M com- |
| puter. It comes as an option |
complete with RS-232 inter-
face and the BSTAM com-
protocol from
Lifeboat associates. The soft-
ware provides error detection,
automatic retries and hand-
| shaking; the CP/M wildcard
file names are also supported.
CP/Maker is supplied in
Europe by Vector Internation-
al of Belgium. Vector is
already the European supplier
for Digital Research products,
the originator of CP/M, and
has now opened an office in
Britain at 51/53 The Pantiles,
Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN2
STH. DL
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
ae . e 5
Cartridge
memory
YOU CAN now keép a cup-
board full of !OMbyte car-
tridges at £99 a go, while your
Apple or S-100 system acces-
ses the 8in. removable mini-
Winchester cartridge currently
mounted in X-Data’s new
drive. Called the Kitten, the
drive costs around £4,000 with
the appropriate interface and
is also available for the TRS-
80, Altos, Pet, LSI-11 and
IBM Personal Computer. De-
tails from X-Data at Marish
Wharf, St Mary’s Road, Lang-
ley, Slough, Berkshire SL4
1HE. Telephone: Slough
(0753) 49117. |
Software hiring scheme
FROM JULY 1 Apple users will
be able to rent software on a
short-term basis when the
Software Rental Bank is laun-
ched by software vendors
Apple Orchard. . Other
machines will follow the Apple
in quick succéssion, Starting
with the Horizon, Superbrain.
Cromenco, ACT Sirius and
IBM Personal Computer.
Packages will be available
for periods of seven to 28 days
for a typical cost of 20 percent
of the retail price to Bank
members. Membership costs
£30 which allows a seven-day
rerital period, £70 for a 14-day
rental period, or £500 for a
28-day rental period and a
halved rental charge.
But what is to stop Bank
members simply copying the
software before returning it-
for an illicit but effective 80
percént price cut? Apple
Orchard is the company which
supplies Copy II plus, “tan ad-
vanced bit copier which can
defeat nearly every protection
system now in use” according
to a recent advert. Surely soft-
ware suppliers will be hostile
to the whole idea.
Yet, surprisingly, VisiCalc
distributor ACT Microsoft is
among the first
Bank scheme, as is Apple
Computer (U.K.), system ven-
dor and distributor of Apple
Special Delivery Software
range.
Clearly a lot of hard think-
ing has been going on about
the balance of risk and advan-
suppliers .
associated with the. Rental’
Printout
Genie micro family is extended
INQenic pes!
tage to be gained by adopting
this means of exposing the
merchandise to a_ possibly
shoplifting-inclined —_ public.
Apple Orchard’s John Ches-
ney, just off to America to line
up more software for the
Bank, seemed happy to dis-
cuss all these points. “Rental
will only be to signed up mem-
bers of the Software Rental
Bank. Once in the scheme the
user is contractually bound by
a membership agreement
which specifically excludes im-
proper copying, and goes
beyond this to also bind the
member to observe all the con-
ditions imposed by the original
software supplier. If this is
violated then the Software
Rental Bank will terminate the
users membership”’.
When pressed Chesney con-
ceded that in some circum-
stances he could imagine that
they might want to go further
and take legal action in con-
junction with a supplier, but
he did not expect they would
have to. ‘“‘Aside from the tech-
nical barriers to copying posed
by the donglés and software-
protection methods used with
some, products, we have taken
the view that the kind of users
of serious business packages
we will get will not want to
copy in an improper way. And
it is clear that our suppliers
take a similar view”.
Software suppliers stand to
gain most if members buy after
a week or two’s trial. They
also gain from the packages
John Chesney has out on ren-
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
tal as these are all purchased
by the Bank on standard trade
terms. They only lose out if
members copy illicitly.
The suppliers risk little by
giving it a whirl, as they can
see both what their sales to the
Bank are, and what their sales
onward to Bank members are,
so they can draw their own
conclusions about the extent
of illicit copying.
The Software Rental Bank
can be contacted at 58 North
Street, Leighton Buzzard,
Bedfordshire LU7 7EN. Tele-
phone: Luton (0908) 53491. [J
HARD ON THE HEELS of Genies
I and II comes the new Eaca
Genie III. Unlike its predeces-
sors, the new model is a fully
expanded and integrated
microcomputer system. It
comes complete with 64K of
RAM, a built-in screen, dual
disc drives with a double-
density storage facility and a
full-sized keyboard with
numeric keys.
The Genie III is remarkable
in that it is capable of running
an extremely large number of
programs thanks to the two |
Operating systems that are
implemented on it. Of course,
no microcomputer would be
complete if it could not run
CP/M, but the Genie III can
also run programs written in
the popular level II Basic — as
used by Tandy TRS-80 com-
puters.
The basic Genie III compu-
| ter costs £1,600; complete sys-
tems with all the peripherals
and accessories weigh in at
around £3,500. Although the
principal users of the Genie III
will be the proverbial small
businesses, the Genie might
also appeal to the well-heeled
hobbyist.
The Genie range is
imported by Lowe Electronics,
Chesterfield Road, Matlock,
Derbyshire. Telephone:
(0629) 2430.
This is the Rair model 840 dot-matrix printer. Printing is
fast; at 75 characters per second, using optimised bi-
directional printing. The standard density is 10 characters
per inch on-line and six lines per inch. Options are
available for other sizes.
The Rair 840 can be supplied in a KSR form, with
keyboard, or as a Demand printer with tractors and a 2K
Fifo buffer. The basic model costs. £720 and the demand
package £895. Rair Limited, 6-9 Upper St Martin’s Lane,
London W1. Telephone: 01-836 6921. ;
47
THE MORE YOU TAKE
THE MORE YOU GAIN FROM COMPUTING
MILESTONE: £190
Manual alone: £20.-
“Critical path” network analysis program for scheduling
manpower, dollars and time to maximise productivity.
NEW IMPROVED. Interactive project management pro-
gram that runs under CP/M. MILESTONE can be used to
track paper flow, build a computer, check a department's
performance, or build a bridge. MILESTONE can be used
by executives, engineers, managers, and small
businessmen.
— Produce PERT. chart in minutes.
Find critical tasks that can't be delayed.
Investigate tradeoffs between manpower, dollars
and time.
Give plans to others using a printed project
schedule.
Change details and immediately see the results
on screen.
— Balance time, manpower and costs.
Requires 56K RAM and CP/M. Specify Z80 or 8080. Also
available for Apple Pascal, UCSO Pascal or CP/M-86
operating systems. (Milestone-86 version 290 1) For-
mats: 8, NS, MP, SB, TRS2, OB-1, Xx, IPC, IDW.
ACCESS/80
A report generator and cross-tabulator. Virtually any
report that can be described on paper can be generated
by using your existing ASCII data files. Produces reports
in minutes that would take hours to program in BASIC.
— Levei |— Report Generator and Cross-Tabulator —
£210. Manual alone £40
Read ASCII files and create sorted reports with subtota-
ling capability. Provides multi/dimensional cross tabula-
tion and computation. Includes operating system
commands.
+ Level li — Output and Logic Processor — £354.-
Manual alone £45
Everything in Level | plus, write out new files in any sorted
order (including subtotalling). Load arrays from files. Per-
forms binary search on sorted arrays In memory. Includes
sain ae extensions for complex applications.
lequires CP/M and 48K RAM. Formats: 8, NS, MP,
COO. SB, TRS2, APPL
DATEBOOK I: £190
Manual alone £18.-
— Schedules appointments for up to 27 different
doctors, lawyers, rooms, etc.
- File structure allows for appointments up to one
you in advance.
earches for openings that fit time of day, day of
week and/or day of year constraints.
Appointments made, modified or
easily.
Copies of day's appointments can be printed
quickly.
Requires 56K RAM and CP/M. Specity Z80 or 8080. Also
available for Apple Pascal, UCSD Pascal or CP/M-86
operating systems.
Formats: 8, NS, MP, SB, APPL, TRS2, OB-1, XX, 1-5,
IPC, IOW.
QUEST Il: L685 .
Manual alone £350
QUEST 4 is a database management system for cus-
tomer lists, inventory lists, employee lists or any kind of
internal reporting. It may perform several operations on
many datafiles simultaneously.
— Up to 55 datafields within a record.
—— inserting new datafields in an existing file.
— Definition of datastructures in the way of Pascal.
— 9 .datafield types including: Oate, Longmath
(double precision integer and reals), Table (one
or two dimensional)
Definition of screen and printing masks.
cancelled
— Advanced report generator: writing on screen,
printer or disk of all or a subject of records, of a
user defined subset of datafields.
—-Error messages for fast eliminating of bad
entries.
— Two special utilities for error check.
Menu selection with one-key-commands. Full data inde-
pendence from QUEST-using programs. Full data share
ability for minimum accesstime. Highest access flexibility.
Possibility to use QUEST together with your LOGICALC
or other programs by loading the also available interface
program LOGIQUEST (for complex financial modelling
applications like statistics or “what-if? questions).
Format: APPL
PLAN 80: £190 —- Manual alone £20
A financial modelling system that's easy to use and
powerful enough to replace your tlmesharing applica-
tions. Lets you calculate IRR and depreciation as well as
trig functions eftortiessly. You write a PLAN 80 model just
the way you would write a letter using any editor or word
processing program.
Plan 80 results can be incorporated into any report that
requires a financial model. It also tackles any numeric
problem that can be defined on a worksheet. You'll
remember how you created the model because calcula-
tions are defined using real English — not matrix coordi-
nates. What If function.
Requires 56k RAM and CP/M. Also available for
CP/M-86. Specify Z 80, 8080, or 8086. Formats: 8, NS,
MP, SB, OB-1, XX, 1-5.
PERSONAL DATEBOOK — 110. Manual alone
20
Time management and appointment scheduling calendar
for an individual or small office with up to nine staff
members. Displays one appointment schedule on screen
at a time. Cancellations can be put into hold file for easy
rescheduling at your convenlence. Menu dnven com-
mands do not require referral to manual.
Requires CP/M 2.x and 56k RAM. Specity Z80 or 8080.
Also available for Apple Pascal, UCSO Pascal or CP/M-
86 operating systems. Formats: 8, NS, MP, SB, APPL,
TRS2, XX, IPC, (OW
WHATSIT?
A data base/querry/retrieval system that communicates
controversationally, accepting questions and updates in
simpie sentences. Store, index and retrieve information
about one or more aspects of related or unrelated sub-
jects. Information is stored under your designated “sub-
ject” and “tag” headings, whlch can be added to, changed
or deleted at any time. 116 page manual assumes no
Programming knowledge. Requires CP/M, CBASIC2
AND 24k RAM. Formats: 8, NS, MP, SB, APPL. OB-1,
XX,
THE FIELD COMPANION €£210.-
Manual alone £20.-
Created for the needs of the travelling Salesman or
Professional. Allows you to track the time spent with your
clients, each client having up to four user-defined sub-
fields. Expense accounting is provided and is itemised in
a detalled journal for budgeting and tax reporting pur-
poses. Maintains appointments and current customer list
including shipping and billing addresses, year-to-date
sales and person to contact for follow-up. Invoicing fea-
lures retrieves required data from both customer and
product lists. Special instructions and discounts are sup-
ported. Involce copies may be output toa printer or sent to
the home office via modem, permitting electronic transfer
of the content of any report. Requires 56k RAM and CP/M
or CP/M-86 and 128k RAM. Formats: 8, NS, MP, APPL,
SB, XX, IPC, IDW.
COPYRIGHT:
FOOTNOTE €£125.-
Automatically numbers and formats footnote calls, foot-
notes and text, placing footnotes on the bottom of the
correct page. At the user's option, the footnotes can also
be removed from the text file to a separate note file.
Footnotes can be entered singly or in groups, in the
middle or at the end of paragraphs. After running FOOT-
NOTE the user can re-edit the text, add or delete notes,
and run FOOTNOTE again to re-number and re-format.
Price includes PAIR, a companion program that checks
that underline and BOLDFACE commands are properly
terminated. Requires CP/M, WordStar, 48k RAM. For-
mats: 8, NS, MP, SB, APPL, OB-1, XX
SPELLBINDER: £260 Manual alone £35.
Full feature word processing system with Oftice
Management capabilities. Its special features include
ease-of-use by office personnel, flexible print formatting &
output, and powerful macro capability which allows fea-
tures to be added for the unique requirements of each
“user. Mail list macro is included for mail merge with form
letters.
Requires CP/M & 32K RAM. Formats: 8, NS, MP, CDOS,
_SB, APPL, XX.
PASCAL/M: £280.- Manual alone £15.-
CP/M compatible language for 8080/Z80 CPUs, sup-
pols full Jensen & Wirth plus 45 extensions to Standard
‘ascal including Random access files,, 40 segment pro-
cedures & 16 bit BCD real type. Also includes symbolic
debugger which features trapping on stores, examining
and changing variables and tracing of programexecution.
i CP/M 2.2 & 56K-RAM. Formats: 8, NS, APPL,
2.
PASCAL/M for 8086/88: £350.-
Manual alone £15.-
All the features of PASCAL/M for the 8086 and 8088
processors running under CP/M-86.
Requires CP/M-86 and K RAM. Formats: 8, 1-5.
PASCAL: Sort - £140.-
Manual alone £14.-
Fully commented source code into which the user simply
Places the’ particular file description and sequence
requirements to obtain the desired sort. Can run stand-
alone or as a overlayed segment of larger program. Uses
Indirect Shell-Metzner in RAM, interleaved polyphase
(Fibonacci) merge on disk, full sector buffering and shor-
test seek logic. Can match machine language sorts even
under Pcode interpretation. Requires CP/M 2.x and 56k
RAM and CP/M-86 and 128k RAM. Pascal?M,UCSD
Pascal or Pascal /MT. Formats: 8, NS, APPL, XX, MP,
TRS2, IPC IDW.
SUPERCALC: £190
Allows a layman to manipulate business data in a variety
of forecasting and accounting applications. Combines the
interactive nature of an electronic spreadsheet with the
Power and convenience of a simple simulation language.
Video display can be scrolled over entire worksheet using
cursor controls. Symbolic vector reverrences eliminate
repetitive low level data manipulation commands. Easy to
use menu driven “Help commands. Requires CP/M and
48K RAM. Formats: 8, NS, MP, SB, APPL, TRS2.
Call for terminal formats.
SUPERDOS: £100.-
Upgrade of CP/M2.2 for Superbraln. Includes ADM/31
Hazeltine, or Superbrain Terminal emulation mode. Other
new features include 132 character keyboard buffer,
repeat on all keys, key click, user programmable numeric
keypad,-30% disk read/write improvement, real time
clock, baud rates to 19,2K on RS232 ports, printer hand-..
shake modes, 4 new utilities, and ‘4 fixes Requires
Superbrain 3.0. Format SB.
Access/80 Friends Sottware; Pearl Relational Systems; Pascal/M, ACT, Trans 86, Supercalc Sorcim, CBASIC 2,
CBASIC/86 Compiler Systems; Datebook II, Milestone, Textwriter Il Organic Software: Speliguard ISA; CP/M, CP/M-
86 Digital Research; Superbrain Intertec Data Systems; S-Basic Topaz Programming; Spellbinder Lexisoft; Selector IV;
Selector/86, Giector Micro Ap.
Prices quoted do not include dealer installation and training. Prices and availability subject to change without notice.
Access on any desired keyfield using up to 15
criterias.
Sorting in ascending or descending order on up
to 15 keyfields.
Default or user detined printing mask.
Austria
Zoliergasse 15
A-1070 Vienna
Tel 01043-222-934331
OR DERS must specify disk type and format. Add 15% VAT to orders. Add
£1 per item for postage and packing. All orders must be prepaid by cheque or
money order to HITEC company, Acct. Nr. 12172508 at Barclays Bank interna-
tional, 16/18 Brompton Road, London SW1X 7QN. COD will also be accepted.
Manual costs are deductible from subsequent software purchase. Prices do not
include installation and training. Dealers enquiries welcome.
Osterverarbetuings-
und Betretiberstung: GmbH
@ Circle No. 138
48 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
DIGITAL EQUIPMENT COR-
PORATION, currently number
one in the minicomputer
market, has made the long-
awaited move into the person-
al-computer field with four
new systems. At the bottom
end is the Rainbow 100, a
dual-processor machine using |
an eight-bit Z-80 and a 16-bit
8088, and capable of running
either CP/M or CP/M-86 pro-
grams. What is more, the user
does not have to know which
they are using, as the DEC
CPM-86/80 operating system
determines automatically
which processor to use.
The Rainbow 100 has a low-
profile keyboard, compact
video monitor, a dual 5.25in.
floppy-disc unit giving a total
of 800K on-line storage, and
64K RAM expandable to
256K. The price is £2,200 to
£2,400 in the U.K. and it is
scheduled to be available from
October.
DEC’s answer to the quan-
dary of whether to opt for an
eight- or 16-bit machine at the
lower end is to use both. CP/M
may not be the ideal personal-
computer operating system
but it is where the users are
and DEC clearly intends to get
them on to its kit. In the lon-
ger term it may function as a |
migration tool for DEC to
4 » Ae
take users into models further
up the range.
The Decmate II is Digital’s
low-end word-processing
offering. It is built around the
custom-designed 6120 micro-
processor which has a 12-bit
_word length. Digital has a long °
line of word-processing sys-
tems built around a 12-bit pro-
cessor architecture so this is
not as surprising as it might
seem.
DEC will be able to run
existing Decmate I software
/on the new system which
comes with the same screen,
discs and keyboard and system
box as the Rainbow 100. With
96K RAM the system is priced
_at £2,400 to £2,600 and should
be available from January
1983 in the U.K. Three new
DEC printers will be available
to go with it and there is a
CP/M option.
Top of the range are. the
Professional 325 and 350. Both
use the same F1l multi-chip
set as the PDP-11/23 and come
with 256K of RAM. The
keyboard, screen and discs are
the same as for the other new
DEC personal computers. The
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
system box on the Professional
325 is also the same, while the
Professional 350 is larger to
enable it to contain a 5.25in.
| SMbyte Winchester disc. The
operating system P/OS is a de-
‘ rivative of RSX, and provides
true multi-tasking facilities.
The Professional 325 is
priced at £2,500 to £2,700, the |
Professional 350 at £5,400 to
£5,600 with hard disc. DEC is
throwing in the first 12
months’ maintenance free on
all four new systems in an
effort to steal the march on its
competitors. ;
The ergonomic standard of
the units is very high, the
keyboard in particular being
designed to appeal to the
serious office user. The video
monitor is exceptionally small
for its screen size, and the
system box containing the
floppy discs can be mounted
horizontally or vertically to
make it easy to put it out of the |
| The board gives the user 16K
For details contact DEC at |
way or built it into the desk.
Digital Park, PO Box 110,
Reading, Berkshire, RG2
OTR. Telephone: Reading
(0734) 868711. Ml
A Sinclair ZX-81 dwarfed
by a full-size printer makes
a bizarre picture, but if you
have access to a decent
printér at your work or
college the obvious thing
to do is to use it. Hooking
it up has always been the
problem, but now Capital
Computers has produced a
card which should work
with any common printer
or Modem. It provides the
ZX-81 with an RS-232.
Details from Capital
Computers, 1 Branch Road,
Park Street, St Albans,
Hertfordshire. Telephone:
(0727) 72917.
| connection
| £47.
Printout =
Program
survey
WHAT STEPS are being taken
by the people who write or
supply software for a living to
prevent improper copying?
The Science and Engineering
Research Council is funding a
survey into practices and atti-
tudes within the industry to
the various legal and technical
approaches possible.
The survey is being con-
ducted by Simon Elson, who is
-ulso secretary of the new Brit-
ish Computer Society special-
ist group on the technology of
software protection. The
group is principally concerned
with investigating technical as
opposed to legal methods of
protection, but for this survey
he would be happy to hear
microcomputer users’ views on
both approaches.
For a copy of his question-
naire contact him at the Tech-
nology Policy Unit, University
of Aston at Birmingham, Cos-
ta Green, Birmingham B4
TET. Telephone: 021-359
3611. oO
Plug-in board
for Sinclair
THE GROUND CONTROL 16K
RAM and I/O board is de-
signed to be used with the
ZX-81, but. is easily adapted
for use with other Z-80 micros.
of dynamic RAM _ together
with the ability to interface to
a wide variety of peripherals.
The I/O is memory mapped
and controlled by various
Peeks and Pokes, or even
machine code for faster ap-
plications.
The board simply plugs in to
the ZX-81 and is connected to |
its Own power supply. There
are two 14-pin DIL sockets for
to the outside
world.
The unit is available built
and tested and with power
supply for £53. A version with-
out the need for a separate
power supply is available for
Ground “Control! is at
Alfreda Avenue, Hullbridge,
Essex SS5 6LT. Telephone:
Southend-on-Sea (0702)
230324. Q
49
| quarters.
Torch to make light
of communications
THE TORCH computer is the
business version of the BBC
Micro with a powerful technic-
al specification, especially in
the area of communications.
There are two on-board pro-
|. cessors, a Z-80A running at
4MHz with 64K of RAM anda
4K bootstrap ROM, plus a
6502 running at 2MHz with
32K of RAM and 48K of
ROM containing the machine
operating system, a BBC Basic
interpreter and communica-
tions software.
The display is a 12in. colour |
monitor — though mono-
chrome is also available —
which in the standard mode’
displays 80 by 25 characters. In
addition there are a number of
higher-resolution modes.
Screen handling and graphics
are all handled by _ the
peripheral processor.
Among its powerful com-
munication options there is the
Torchnet for local networking
with other Torch computers,
an inbuilt Modem for connec-
tion to telephone and Telex
lines, and a software-select-
able baud rate. The com-
munication modes are as fol-
lows: Torch to Telex using the
Tele Torch emulation soft-
ware; Torch to Torch using
Torchnet; Torch to any other
computer using Torchtalk soft-
ware; Torch to mainframe
using Torchterm; and Torch |
to viewdata systems using
| Torchtel.
Communications can be
handled automatically without
interruption of the applica-
tions programs running on the
Z-80. Dialling is automatic
and messages can be sent at
any time, even when there is
no-one in the office. An addi-
tional feature is that the Torch
Schoolboys try for
ZX-81 ao award
TWO DUTCH SCHOOLBOYS
were among the many entrants
from as far afield as Yugo-
slavia and the United States
who tilted for the £1,000 prize |
offered by Prestel to find an
adaptor for the ZX-81. The
object of the contest was to
design and build a device
which is capable of download-
ing programs from Prestel to a
standard Sinclair ZX-81.
Our picture shows Marco
van Gent (left) and Ari Schot,
who travelled to London from
their home in Leiden, Holland
to make their presentation to
the judges at Prestel head-
50
With them is the
eventual winner of the contest.
Barry Schofield of Lion TV
London, who shares the prize
with Martochoice Viewdata.
Schofield, whose design is
not yet complete but which
will eventually, he says, inter-
face with other microcompu-
ters including those supporting
“CP/M, may enlist the two
Dutchmen to help him out
with the software.
Meanwhile the other
prizewinner, Martochoice, has
been offered space on Practic-
al Computing’s own Prestel
| pages and will be publishing
CET-formatted programs for
the ZX-81. :
will keep dialling until the
message has been successfully
transmitted.
The interfaces allow connec-
tion to a Centronics-type prin-
ter or an RS-232 serial port.
There are, in addition, four
12-bit analogue-to-digital con-
verters. The keyboard is an
expanded QWERTY type
with a numeric pad and 16
user-definable keys. There is
also a double disc unit.
Internally there is a sound
generator and loudspeaker
capable of producing three in-
| dependent channels of sound
over a three-octave range with
level control and envelope
shaping. There is also an
advanced speech-synthesis
unit, using phoneme encoding
to produce realistic speech.
All Torch systems come |
complete with a secretary’s aid
program, a version of BBC |
Basic, communications soft-
ware and the CPN operating
system. The model A Torch
costs £2,450 and the model E,
with a 10Mbyte hard disc
costs £4,950.
Torch Computers, Abberley
House, Great Shelford, Cam-
bridge. Telephone: Cam-
bridge (0223) 841000.
| Nascom
|
Stack board enhances
Vic-20 memory
THE STACK STOREBOARD is a™
printed-circuit board which
plugs into the Vic-20. It is
socketed to accept 27K of
RAM, expanding the memory
of the Vic to 32K, the maxi-
mum addressable. The board
| comes in a neat case which fits
into the Vic at the same level,
thus eliminating the memory
wobble which is a common
problem with some micros. _
The Storeboard comes with
3K of RAM, which gives the
Vic high-resolution graphics.
No extra power supply is re-
quired to use the unit, and
other cartridges may still be
used by hanging them on the
expansion socket on the rear
of the port. Games ROMs, or
—].| any of the Vickit series of
| tridges.
| time.
| 3K costs £49 plus VAT, and
Printout ===
releases
Pascal
compiler
NASCOM MICROCOMPUTERS
has released a Pascal compiler,
available in either tape or
EPROM form, comprising a
complete 12K language sys-
tem. The components of the
system are a run-time package
of 4.5K, a 0.5K control pro-
gram and a 1.5K on-screen
editor, as well as a 5.SK com-
piler.
The compiler itself is of the
one-pass type, which directly
produces Z-80 machine code.
Compilation is at an extremely
fast 2,000 lines per minute,
and the code produced will run
programs at a speed between
three and 20 times as fast as
equivalent Basic programs.
The EPROM version comes
on six 2716 EPROMs together
with instructions for fitting
them into the Nascom main
PCB. Documentation is in the
form of two manuals: a 17-
page operating manual and a
programming manual of 40
pages.
Nascom Pascal is distributed
by Lucus Logic Limited, Wel-
ton Road, Wedgnock Indust-
rial Estate, Warwick CV34
5PZ. Telephone: Warwick
(0926) 497733.
ROMs can be plugged into the
board, as can extra RAM as
and when conditions dictate.
In addition the four-slot
motherboard from Stack has
been developed to enable the
user to use up to four car-
These are switch
selected, allowing any one,
two, three or all four car-
tridges to be used at the same
The Stack Storeboard with
the Stack 8K RAM pack costs
£29, plus VAT; the mother-
board costs £24.99 plus VAT.
All Stack products are avail-
able from Vic dealers, or from
Stack, 290-298 Derby Road,
Bootle, Liverpool. Telephone:
051-933 5511.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
LABS Accrethited Dealers.
BEDFORDSHIRE: B S Maghera, Seatime Data Systems Ltd, Wooton. 01 628 0898; BERKSHIRE: A Szklarek, Decision
Support Systems, Twyford. 0734 340837; D J Tompkins, PPM Computing Ltd, Caversham. 0734 475015.
BUCKINGHAMSHIRE: P Adcock, R Child, Kingsley Computers Ltd, High Wycombe. 0494 449749.
CAMBRIDGESHIRE: D Bennett, Kamarin Computer Systems, Peterborough. 0780 783204; A Fawcett, Stag Computers,
Huntingdon. 0487 840850. Sales Ledger CHESHIRE: D G Adams, Desktop Computing, Latchford. 0925 415415; E Kilty,
Mellor Computer Consultancy. 061 449 8101. CLEVELAND: I Ishaq, Micro Technic Elec., Middlesborough. 0642 221501.
CLWYD: Mrs S Boyd, Business Computers NW Ltd, Wrexham. 0978 365200. DEVON: BC Ingleby, Exmore Business
Systems, Exeter. 0392 214461; D Teall, Ms K Young, Keel Data Systems, Salcombe. 054 884 3520.
EAST SUSSEX: P Bangay, Computaccount Ltd, Crowborough. 08926 5765; Purchase Ledger C Holloway, Data Matters,
Eastbourne. 0323 35959. ESSEX: R Suriya, Humac Computers, Romford. 0708 752005. HAMPSHIRE: P Purdy, Castle
Micro Systems.Ltd, Hayling Island. 07016 2188; P Newlands, Island Computer Systems, Isle of Wight. 0983 529744;
A Cumming, Kennet Computers Ltd, Aldershot. 0252 313442. HERTFORDSHIRE: D Batten, Airmor Electronics, Herts.
05827 66551; N Ray, Alpha Business Systems, Herts. 0920 68926; | W Rees, CCS Microhire, Letchworth. 04626 73301;
M Wale, Val Warden Consultants, Tring. 044282 6774. Stock Control KENT: P Morris, West Kent Microsystems, Tunbridge
Wells. 0892 44888. LANCASHIRE: D A Isherwood, Attar Computers Ltd, Leigh. 0942 671491; C Wilkinson, Mipac Services,
Lancaster. 0524 62033; J Gelder, Professional Systems Design, Doncaster. 0302 842345. LINCOLNSHIRE:
R Morris, ZR Computers, Lincoln. 0522 31621. LONDON: M Sibley, Data Management Systems, N1. 01 739 8692;
S McKibban, Albion Computers Ltd, W1. 01 580 6787; Miss J Bland, Cambridge Data Systems, N7. 01 607 0101;
R Agar-Hutton, Database, NW2. 01 450 1388; \Vominal Ledger K Rohan, Stephen Phillips Associates Ltd, N12.
01 346 9266/7500; A Beaumont, System Logic Ltd, EC4. 01 981 7311; ACohen, QED Computers, NW7.
01 959 7403/8346. LOTHIAN: B Watt Scotbyte Computers Ltd, Edinburgh. 031 343 1005. MANCHESTER: S Colter,
Manchester Micros, Manchester 2. 061 832 5553; J Bilyj NSC Computer Shops, Manchester 4. 061 832 2269:
J Neilson-Ball, Ravenscarr Ltd, Droylesdon. 061 370 8412; P Bellamy, Sumner Jackson & Co Ltd, Manchester 8.
061 832 8261. MERSEYSIDE: P Sweeney, Data Exchange, Birkenhead. 051 647 4213; | Joseph, Eclipse Computers,
Swinton. 061 793 5622; D Mawdsley, Freshfield Computer Services, Formby. 07048 79186; B Cunliffe, Aughton Micro
Systems Ltd, Liverpool. 051 840 1177. MIDDLESEX: Ms‘S Leach, Ozwise Ltd, Harrow. 01 863 2309. NORTH YORKSHIRE:
A Richardson, Ben Johnson, York. 0904 798241. NORTHERN IRELAND: P Cathcart, FACS, Omagh. 0662 47618.
OXFORDSHIRE: G V Girvin, Courtland Electrical Ltd, Oxford. 0865 779436; N Malden, Oxford Software, Heddington.
0865 68178. °2y:0! V Michael, Alphascan, Banbury. SUFFOLK: C Dickson, Database, Newmarket. 0638 730625.
SURREY: J Phillip, Phillips Business Systems, Woking. 04862 66096. A Haylock, Computron, Kingston. 01 943 1113;
M JLane, Interlex Ltd, Hampton Wick. 01 943 0968; J Nayyar, Southern Commerce, Croydon. 0293 543427; R Cox,
Symbiotic Computer Systems, Croydon. 01 680 8606; S Lewis, Micro-Engineering Ltd, Chessington. 01 397 8137.
SUSSEX: D Roberts, Supabeam Ltd, Horsham. 0403 61647. WEST MIDLANDS: S L Davis, Adsit Ltd, Birmingham
021 622 5385/7. WARWICKSHIRE: T Glen, Office Systems Co, Coventry. 0203 29308. WORCESTERSHIRE: B Whyatt,
R G Whyatt & Co, Broadway on Thames. 0905 66271. D Thompson, Spinks Computer Systems Ltd, Worcester.
0905 29466. YORKSHIRE: A Cainer, Natcom Computer Services Ltd, Leeds. 0532 452928. Job Costing
Setting new standards.
TABS congratulate the above named Accredited Dealers who have attained the
approved standard to advise on and install our fully integrated, modular accounting software.
You can also rely on the best possible advice and after Free London ; ‘
sales service when you buy TABS software from our Demonstrations and nuete lee
Accredited Dealers or direct from us. Seminars are held at
Free Seminars and Demonstrations are held in London the World Trade
at the World Trade Centre, each Thursday, and at our Centre within a few
resources centre in Andover each Friday where our minutes walk of
software can be seen running on many popular micros Tower Hill tube
including Apple, Commodore, SIRIUS, Xerox, IBM and station. Se ae
Superbrain. 3 =o Please send more details about TABS business systems and services.
D 32 page introductory booklet 0 Details on Free Seminars and
(J User book (please send £7.50 demonstrations
(inc. P & P)) O Price List
© Dealer plans 0 Video Training Tapes
_ TABS also provide:
© Unbiased advice on complete systems and software
_ from our Applications Desk
© Comprehensive 4-day Dealer and Customer Training
Courses
(We also provide you with a free lunch each day!)
© Hotline telephone support
© Video Training Tapes on most modules:
l enclose cheque/postal order for £
Name 7
Address
Andover (0264)58933
@ Circle No. 139 . TABS Ltd, Sopers House, Chantry Way, Andover, Harts. SP101LS
vel NC a
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TEC Daisy Wheel Printers reflect the
best in Japanese letter quality printing
@Circle No. 140
THE LAST YEAR has seen an explosion in
the choice of smal! computers available.
Already we have seen the BBC Micro-
computer, Sinclair’s ZX Spectrum and
the MZ-80A from Sharp. Added to this is
the entry of the larger more established
big league into the micro sector of the
market. IBM, ICL, Digital, and Bur-
roughs have all launched micros lately.
So it is with some interest that we take
a sneak preview of the new machines
from Commodore. Not so long ago Com-
modore was the biggest seller of micros in
Britain. Just whether it can maintata
momentum as the competition hots up
remains to be seen, but the company’s
new range of computers clearly aims to
do something about it.
In total, Commodore is adding six new
computers to the range, to make a full
complement of nine machines:
Vic-10, also known as the Max in the United
States, is the machine that will compete with
the Spectrum. Costing about £100, the Vic-
10 will have sound, and fuil-colour graphics
on a 320-by-200 pixel screen. On board will
be a mere 2K of RAM. The graphics are
promised to be “of the 3-D variety”, what-
ever that means. A range of easy-to-use
interfaces will be available, and the machine
is to be sold as a three-in-one video game/
home computer/music synthesiser. It will be
available at the end of 1982.
Vic-30 is due to be launched in January 1983
to sell at around £250. it will have colour
and sound similar to the Vic-10, 16K RAM
and 20K ROM to carry the Basic and oper-
ating system. It will have the same “3-D
graphics” as the Vic-10.
Commodore 64 Is promised for October 1982
at a price of £450. Its specification is as for
the Vic-30 but with 64K RAM and serial and
parallel ports. There will be room for a Z-80
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
AAT
— pel
Printout extra™==
We take a look at
the plethora of new
products just
announced by
Commodore.
CP/M card, which is scheduled for some
unspecified future date — illustrated above
(right).
Commodore 510 will appear in September
1982 at a price of £695. it will have all the
Vic-30's features with 64K to 256K RAM
and the Z-80 CP/M slot — illustrated above
(centre).
Commodore 710 is the mystery machine.
Commodore will only say that it will cost
£995 when it appears in September 1982.
Commodore 720, also due September 1982,
has an 80-by-25 integral screen, two floppy-
disc drives, 128K to 256K RAM and the
CP/M board slot. It includes the Vic music-
synthesis and sound facilities and is priced
at £1,595.
In addition there are to be three more
disc drives, a new Diablo-based printer, a
networking system called Keynet, as well
as the Vic networking system. Q
€
The Commodore 720 computer Is the top of the new range of micros.
The Keynet printed-circuit board.
Clive
Sinclair
FOR MANY users of computers the systems
giants do not exist, or at best are some
shadowy presence at the edge of their
vision. For them, Sinclair’s name is
synonymous with computers.
Asked to define briefly the nature ot
his success, his firm’s pre-eminence in |
this fastest-moving of all businesses,
Clive Sinclair “Uncle” to many of
those who would not claim even a nod-
ding acquaintance with the recluse of
Cambridge — responds with the idea of
“‘advanced design”.
Yet is advanced design an assurance of
success? Sinclair certainly holds to it
almost as an item of faith, a personal
creed. Without his advanced design he
would be nothing; with it he can aspire to
king. Did he fear, for example, that as
the microcomputer market attracted the
industry behemoths with their huge re-
sources of capital and research, and their
vast production facilities, that his flexible
but centralised outfit would be crushed
by the onrush of capital seeking a down-
market whitewash? No fears.
Creative electronics
Sinclair’s belief in advanced design.
and in particular in the ability of his own
people to maintain the level of creative
electronics design to keep him one or
more jumps ahead of the would-be com-
petition, is like a shield of righteousness:
almost as if he had God on his side
against the big battalions.
I suggested that this approach was
almost the exact opposite to IBM’s, yet
sooner or later he would confront IBM in
the personal-computer market-place.
How would his ideas on elegance fare
then? Did he know better than IBM? Did
he, indeed, relish the fight?
“TBM is a fair competitor which has its
views on the market-place as we have
ours, and which of us succeeds in
whichever market will be the one that
does the better job. That is fair and
straightforward. I do not relish the fight
— nothing makes life more complicated
than competitors — but I do not mind it.
I think IBM is at a tremendous disadvan-
tage because of its size. It makes it harder
for them to react swiftly but there is the
tremendous advantage of their experi-
ence and technical base.
‘But in any one-for-one confrontation,
as the phrase goes, we would win. I think
we are better. First of all, where do they
have their great strengths? Let’s say
marketing. In order to give ourselves that
54
Re, cat
More people have heard of Clive Sinclair than of any
other individual connected with computing. He talked to
Martin Hayman about his past and present ventures,
and plans for the future.
sort of strength we have allied ourselves
with Timex which with 70,000 consumer
outlets obviously has greater consumer
strength than IBM in America.
“Then if you take our machine — the
Spectrum — apart and theirs, you will see
that theirs is a very old technology. On
the outside the IBM Personal Computer
may look elegant but inside it is board
after board after board of chips. The cost
of making it must be astronomical. It has
been rushed through because the micro-
computing craze has caught them un-
awares”’. Could it really be the case that
IBM had not foreseen the new wave, I
asked? Was its design not rather a differ-
ent, perhaps more conservatively speci-
fied approach?
“No — open one up. It is unbelievable.
They have a board about this big — the
size of a large coffee-table book — with
God knows how many chips on it, it must
be 100, and that is just to do colour. We
do it on one chip. It is the best they can
do in the time available to them. That is
always the case — big companies do not
make the innovative steps, it is just not
the way things work.
New generation
“In the same way the big motor-car
companies will not be the leaders in
electric cars, just as the big yacht com-
panies of the past were not the people
that built the steamers, just as the great
train people were not the people that
made the cars, just as they in turn were
not the people who built the planes.
Every time there is a new technology, a
new generation of companies comes
along”’.
And what about Sinclair Research?
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Could he not foresee a time when Sinclair
itself would be established, would be-
come conservative and would be tripped
up by the onrush of yet another new
technology? “Yes, it will. We have no
ability to prevent that; it will happen
eventually — it is unavoidable. But we
might be able to maintain our position at
the leading edge indefinitely if we con-
tinue with our present policy of not being
a big manufacturer or bulk distributor”’.
Commercial sense
To some very large extent, Clive Sin-
clair identifies with his own products. He
brings you neatly up to date and then
gives you a tantalising glimpse into the
future: “‘Can’t give any precise details but
the worldwide patents are being filed”’.
On the guided tour he may shaft a com-
petitor or two, which is all good commer-
cial sense and helps to popularise his own
cause and sell his own products. So why
exactly does he make computers?
I] make computers because they are a
good market, and they are interesting to
design. I don’t feel bad about making
them, or selling them for money or any-
thing, there is a demand for them and
they do no harm; but I don’t think they
are going to save the world”.
Sinclair spends a great deal of his
time simply thinking about the future,
and the products which will answer the
public’s desires in three or more years
time. One refreshing characteristic in a
business where a little knowledge is often
spread painfully thin, is that Sinclair is
never afraid to say “I don’t know any-
thing about it”.
In person, of course, he cuts the figure
of everyone’s favourite boffin: the pale
skin, almost translucent yet with a rosy
tinge; the high, domed forehead with its
monkish rim of crisp, light-ginger hair:
the pale, clear, steady eyes behind pebbly
glasses. At the press conference to launch
the Spectrum he spoke as Polonius pre-
scribes; briefly, to the point and wittily,
as the flashguns exploded around him.
His facility in public speaking is gained
from practice: he is often invited to lec-
ture on the computer business. A face-
to-face conversation banishes any suspi-
cions of self-conscious boffinry. His
Chelsea apartment is cool, clear and un-
cluttered, and free of electronic machines
except for a small Japanese cassette
stereo. His suit and shirt, like everything
else in sight, are expensive and under-
stated. He speaks clearly and promptly
and rarely evinces the flippancy to which
others in his position might feel them-
selves entitled.
Two characteristics of Sinclair’s pro-
ducts stand out when one looks at the
history of Sinclair Radionics and Sinclair
Research: their smallness and the original
use to which chips have been put, some-
times working outside their intended pur-
pose to create a new and unforeseen
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
design concept. Sinclair says that small-
ness was never an end which was pursued
for its own sake: it is a function of the
need for elegant solutions to existing
design problems. “I just like efficiency in
design in whatever form’”’.
Did he equate miniaturisation with ele-
gance? “Not quite — in fact sometimes
not at all. To miniaturise some things
might be inelegant, but it is certainly
inelegant to make things larger than they
functionally need to be, assuming there is
not some other benefit in making it lar-
ger. Once or twice we have made things
deliberately small, like the radio kit. That
was just a gimmick, to make it an exciting
thing for people to build so that they
could say it was the tiniest radio in the
world”’.
Yet many people — for example, those
with a desire to use a computer in the
home rather than a need to use one in a
professional environment — respond to
smallness and may be prepared to make
some corresponding sacrifices in outright
performance. In an increasingly cramped
and miniaturising age smallness is sexy,
and for the manufacturer it can make the
difference between sale and no sale.
Anyone who has ever used a ZX-81
knows that the first line of the display
keels over; it does so because the design
of the four chips was pared to the bone.
In the domestic market, functionality can
encompass a certain amount of corner-
cutting if there is a countervailing trade-
off in space utilisation, convenience and
price.
Smallish is beautiful
Cynics might observe that in this con-
text elegance may be little more than a
self-serving concept fitted up to justify
under-specification. Yet in most import-
ant respects Sinclair’s current machines
do work; they are not small merely in |
order to make them cheap. “If you take
the current computer — the Spectrum —
that is compact’’, says Sinclair. “If you
made it any larger it would simply be
more expensive. There would be no con-
tra-benefit, so elegant design has led to a
very compact shape compared with its
competitors, not because we wanted it to
be tiny. On the contrary — if we had
wanted to make it really tiny we could
have made it, I suppose, the size of a
cigarette packet.
“But that would not have been func-
tional, because the keyboard would not
be usable. The Spectrum sacrifices no-
thing to size. The keyboard is exactly the
same spacing and pitch as an IBM, which
is why we went for that size. If we went
down to the size of a cigarette packet it
would not be cheaper, it would be more
expensive. That size is optimum”.
The keyboard is one area of the Spec-
trum’s design which Clive Sinclair took
an active part in specifying. Sinclair drew
up the original specification of the Spec-
trum a mere year before they started
rolling off the lines; and then delegated
most of the production design, with the
exception of the keyboard’s design and
specification and some suggestions on
how to reduce the number of chips. His
initial work was done with an engineer
and an industrial designer as a three-man
team.
What about reliability? Did the drive
towards elegance ever militate against
professional standards of reliability? It
has been suggested that Sinclair effective-
ly uses his public as guinea-pigs: many are
the tales of returns not dealt with for
weeks on end. “It’s true that in the early
days commercial pressures and lack of
design experience led to a lack of reliabil-
ity: 10 or 15 years ago we did not know
how to design for reliability. Now we
know very well — perhaps better than
anyone. But it has been a long lesson to
learn’.
‘‘Computers do no
harm — but I don’t
think they are going
to save the world’’
What about all the ZX-81 returns? It is
a calumny which Clive Sinclair rebuts
heatedly: ‘“‘That is absolutely not the
case. We have records going back to the
very first ZX-80s we produced. We have
a lower rate of failure on our computers
than anybody else in the world, and the
reason for that is that we do everything to
keep the quality right. The ZX-81 pro-
duction line is a miracle of efficiency;
after all, one is made every 10 seconds.
They go through the most amazing qual-
ity control. Also we have a far lower
component count than anyone else. We
have only four chips where everyone else
has 40”.
Sinclair has plenty of experience in
selecting chips. Many of his designs have
displayed original and unconventional
uses of components. He is self-educated
in electronics and when he left schoo] —
the last of more than a dozen he attended
— in 1958 decided not to go to university
“because most of them offered only elec-
tronic engineering and I had no desire for
such a broadly-based course.”
By his own account, it appears he could
have taken up any of a variety of careers:
his first love was, and remains, mathema-
tics: ‘‘I was very good at maths, if I may
say so modestly”. He had a strong in-
terest in English, as evinced by the fact
that his first few jobs were as a technical
writer. By the time he married his in-
terests in electronics — into which, he
says, he was “diverted” from maths —
and English were put to work in running
(continued on next page)
55
(continued from previous page)
a smail electronics publishing concern. In
1962 he had already written 17 books.
Sinclair found the work comparatively
undemanding and started to turn his
theoretical knowledge into practical pro- |
ducts. The first device bearing Sinclair’s
name was to have been a transistor radio
kit. He had spotted that import controis
were keeping Japanese products out and
that there was a slot there for him.
Evidently he had a natural feel for
what people wanted, even then. Financial
backing, however, was a problem and
after Sinclair had left his job to put all his
‘efforts into the new venture, his promised
backing fell through. Electronics was
relegated to a spare-time activity while
Sinclair supported himself with freelance
writing.
«Mullard did not
think there was
a future in
digital watches”’
One of his first significant commercial
ventures was to buy and resell transistor
components from Plessey, after grading
and testing them. Thus was born Sinclair
Radionics, which has a comparatively
well-documented history of steady
. advancement through the 1960s. Its in-
novatory consumer electronic products
included radio and amplifier kits, built
hi-fi sets, and in 1972/3 the world’s first
pocket calculator.
During this period Sinclair’s baseline
knowledge of what integrated circuits
could do, and the practical possibilities
for the consumer of the latest chips, stood
him in good stead and his products ac-
quired a reputation for clever design and
compactness. His 1962 radio kit had fea-
tured the novel use of germanium alloy -
transistors. The class D_ pulse-width
modulated amplifier of 1964/5 used
56
switched pairs of output transistors’
which, it appeared, leaned rather too
heavily on the theoretical possibility of
zero rise-time.
It was the adoption of the hearing-aid
battery in 1972, along with the adoption
of a monolithic seven-segment gallium
arsenide display chip bought in from a
Canadian firm, which permitted Sinclair
to reduce so drastically the size of the
calculator, which had previously been
powered by the bulky dry-cell torch bat-
teries. Just as the Bowmar display was
used with the standard Texas Instruments
calculator chip in an unusual way, so
Sinclair pioneered the use of integrated
injection logic chip in his 1975 Black
Watch.
This was where Sinclair came unstuck
for the first time. Until then he had
stayed one jump ahead of the opposition
by either releasing a comparable product
to the opposition’s at a lower price, or by
vastly improving its features and holding
the price. It is a familiar pattern to
those who know only of the recent
growth of Sinclair Research through
microcomputers.
Accounts of the Black Watch fiasco
vary. The official version runs as follows:
“Up to 1976 Sinclair Radionics had en-
joyed 15 years of strong turnover and
profit growth. However, the company
sustained moderate losses due to difficul-
ties with chip supplies for the Black
Watch. As a result there were insufficient
internal funds available for the final
stages of the pocket TV project. Accord-
ingly additional funds were sought”.
Sinclair designed the Black Watch,
which was the first to have all of its
components on one chip. The design was
passed out to Mullard for manufacture.
who rather late in the day decided to back
out. “They did not think there was a
future in digital watches. They could have |
made them, but they did not want to. We
were told it was a matter of corporate
policy at Eindhoven — we could not get
any more sense out of them than that.
They never made us any chips”, Clive
Sinclair recalls.
Disastrous delay
The design was then passed on to ITT,
losing Sinclair about 18 months. The de-
lay proved disastrous for a firm which
depended on being first into the market
with a new product and had already
primed the public for a £30 watch where
previously they had been paying £80. ITT
had terrible problems with yield and, says
Sinclair, ‘‘did not really keep us informed
about what was happening.” There were
also problems with the production of the
‘watch. In a centrally heated office build-
ing with nylon carpets and lots of elec-
trical apparatus the watch was damaged
by static electricity discharges.
It was a major setback for Sinclair and
soured relations with ITT, who settled a
Interview
lawsuit brought by Sinclair for £50,000.
Ironically, on the eve of the Black
Watch’s launch, ITT was to have given its
executives a Christmas gift of a Black
Watch with the message “Best of British
technology — ITT and Sinclair’, or some
such legend. When matters degenerated
to the point of legal action, the gift was
adjudged ill-conceived and was withheld.
Perhaps some unfortunate ITT public
relations executive still has a drawer full
of Black Watches against the day when
they have gained an antique value.
Flat-screen TV
Unhappily, the Black Watch fell at a
time when Sinclair had been investing
heavily in his Microvision pocket TV. It
had been under development for over 10
years, latterly aided by funds from the
National Research and Development
Council. Clive Sinclair had put a great
deal of effort into the flat-screen TV and
was loth to let it go by default.
He was faced with the problem either
of dropping the TV and reducing the size
of the company or of seeking outside
investment. He went to the National En-
terprise Board, then headed by Lord
Ryder, which put in sufficient funds to
launch the Microvision in January 1977
— after 12 years and £500,000 invest-
ment.
During the NEB era Sinclair had as
principal products the Microvision, a
range of very successful pocket calcula-
tors and a range of digital multi-meters
from the instrument side of Sinclair
Radionics, which had been steadily earn-
ing money throughout the early 1970s.
Among the calculators was the Cam-
bridge Programmable, whose price was
claimed to undercut the opposition’s by
up to 75 per cent.
In late 1978 Sinclair introduced the
Enterprise programmable calculator
which, together with a program library,
sold for around £25. It was a sign of
things to come, for Sinclair was working
on Britain’s first personal computer, the
NewBrain.
But the rules of the game were chang-
‘ing. Lord Ryder, who had given strong
_personal backing to Sinclair,
left the
NEB. The new NEB personnel decided
that the future for Sinclair Radionics lay
with the instrument side of the business,
rather than the calculators and the TV, in
the mistaken belief that Sinclair would
not be able to compete effectively with
the Japanese. The NEB took over the
instrument side of the busjness while
Sinclair himself severed his connection
with Sinclair Radionics, consistent with
his belief that consumer electronics were
the key to a profitable future.
In July 1979 Sinclair Research emerged
from the ashes, and in the following
month the ZX-80 was conceived presum-
ably drawing on the experience gained in
(continued on page 61)
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
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351, Fleet Road, Fleet, Hants. Telephone: Fleet (02514) 21892/3. Telex: 858575.
@ Circle No. 141
58
1980 saw a genuine breakthrough -
the Sinclair ZX80, world’s first com-
plete personal computer for under
£100. Not surprisingly, over 50,000
were sold.
In March 1981, the Sinclair lead
increased dramatically. For just
£69.95 the Sinclair ZX81 offers even
more advanced facilities at an even
lower price. Initially, even we were
surprised by the demand — over
50,000 in the first 3 months!
Today, the Sinclair ZX81 is the
heart of a computer system. You can
add 16-times more memory with the
ZX RAM pack. The ZX Printer offers
an unbeatable combination of
performance and price. And the ZX
Software library is growing every day.
Lower price: higher capability
With the 2X81, it’s still very simple to
teach yourself computing, but the
ZX81 packs even greater working
capability than the ZX80.
It uses the same micro-processor,
but incorporates a new, more power-
ful 8K BASIC ROM - the ‘trained
intelligence’ of the computer. This
chip works in decimals, handles logs
and trig, allows you to plot graphs,
and builds up animated displays.
And the ZX81 incorporates other
operation refinements — the facility
to load and save named programs
on cassette, for example, and to
drive the new ZX Printer.
BASIC manual
Every ZX81 comes with a comprehensive, specially- written
manual - a complete course in BASIC programming, from
first principles to complex programs.
the heart of a system
that grows with you.
Higher specification, lower price —
how’s it done?
Quite simply, by design. The ZX80
reduced the chips in a working
computer from 40 or so, to 21. The
ZX81 reduces the 21 to 4!
The secret lies in a totally new
master chip. Designed by Sinclair
and custom-built in Britain, this
unique chip replaces 18 chips from
the ZX80!
New, improved specification
@ Z80A micro-processor — new
faster version of the famous Z80
chip, widely recognised as the best
ever made.
@ Unique ‘one-touch’ key word
entry: the ZX81 eliminates a great
deal of tiresome typing. Key words
(RUN, LIST, PRINT, etc.) have their
own single-key entry.
@ Unique syntax-check and report
codes identify programming errors
immediately.
®@ Full range of mathematical and
scientific functions accurate to eight
decimal places.
®@® Graph-drawing and animated-
display facilities.
®@ Multi-dimensional string and
numerical arrays.
@ Up to 26 FOR/NEXT loops.
@ Randomise function — useful for
games as well as serious applications.
@ Cassette LOAD and SAVE with
named programs.
@ iK-byte RAM expandable to 16K
bytes with Sinclair RAM pack.
@ Able to drive the new Sinclair
printer.
@ Advanced 4-chip design: micro-
processor, ROM, RAN, plus master
chip — unique, custom-built chip
replacing 18 ZX80 chips.
Built:
£69.
Kit or built —it’s up to you!
You'll be surprised how easy the
ZX81 kit is to build: just four chips to
assemble (plus, of course the other
discrete components) — a few hours’
work with a fine-tipped soldering iron.
- And you may already have a suitable
mains adaptor - 700 mA at9 VDC
nominal unregulated (Supplied with
built version).
Kit and built versions come com-
plete with all leads to connect to
your TV (colour or black and white)
and cassette recorder.
16K-byte RAM
pack for massive
add-on memory.
Designed as a complete module to
fit your Sinclair ZX80 or ZX81, the
RAM pack simply plugs into the
existing expansion port at the rear
of the computer to multiply your
data/program storage by 16!
Use it for long and complex
programs or as a personal database.
Yet it costs as little as half the price
of competitive additional memory.
With the RAM pack, you can
also run some of the more sophisti-
cated ZX Software —- the Business &
Household management systems
for example.
—| | om — ||
6 Kings Parade, Cambridge, Cambs., CB2 1SN.
Tel: (0276) 66104 & 21282.
At last you can have a hard copy
of your program listings — particularly
useful when writing or editing
programs.
And of course you can print out
your results for permanent records
or sending to a friend.
Printing speed is 50 characters
per second, with 32 characters per
line and 9 lines per vertical inch.
The ZX Printer connects to the rear
of your computer — using a stackable
connector so you can plug ina RAM
pack as well. A roll of paper (65 ft
long x 4 in wide) is supplied, along
with full instructions.
the ZX Printer
for only £59."
Designed exclusively for use with
the ZX81 (and ZX80 with 8K BASIC
ROM), the printer offers full alpha-
numerics and highly sophisticated
graphics.
A special feature is COPY, which
prints out exactly what is on the
whole TV screen without the need
for further intructions.
How to order your ZX81
BY PHONE - Access, Barclaycard or
Trustcard holders can call
01-200 0200 for personal attention
24 hours a day, every day.
by cheque, postal order, Access,
Barclaycard or Trustcard.
EITHER WAY - please allow up to
28 days for delivery. And there’s a
14-day money-back option. We want
BY FREEPOST -usetheno-stamp- _ you to be satisfied beyond doubt -
needed coupon below. Youcanpay andwehaveno doubt that you will be.
To: Sinclair Research, FREEPOST, Camberley, Surrey, GU15 3BR. Order =
| Qty | Item Code | Itemprice | Total |
£
|
l | Sinclair ZX81 Personal Computer kit(s). Price includes | I
| | ZX81 BASIC manual, excludes mains adaptor. 12 49.95 |
| Ready-assembled Sinclair ZX81 Personal Computer(s). |
| _|_ Price includes ZX81 BASIC manual and mains adaptor. 11 69.95 |
| i Mains Adaptor(s) (700 mA at 9V DC nominal unregulated). 10 8.95 |
| | 16K-BYTE RAM pack. 18 29.95 | ]
Sinclair ZX Printer. : 3 27 59.95
I 8K BASIC ROM to fit ZX80._ 17 | 19.95 |
| Post and Packing, | 205 |
| C1 Please tick if you require a VAT receipt NOVAS = |
| *| enclose a cheque/postal order payable to Sinclair Research Ltd, for £. |
| *Please charge to my Access/Barclaycard/Trustcard account no. |
| *Please delete/complete as applicable. | | 1 | | | i { | |
Please print.
l Name: Mr/Mrs/Miss _ | pee | | | = |
eo ee ec ee, |
Togas a0) oe Coe i a eee
PRCO7
|_FREEPOST —no stamp needed.
@ Circle No. 142
59
GUESTELCARE
more than just hardware and
software at good prices.
We supply @erPpie hardware and software to care for your financial
modelling, accounting, word processing etc.
But at Guestel that’s not the end of the story. We supply GUESTELCARE -
care to ensure that the system you chose is tailored to meet your specific
requirements. We also train all operators to achieve maximum efficiency from
the system.
After you have purchased your system Guestel care continues with night
and day technical and operational support.
Our care also extends to our prices, we take care to keep them as
competitive as we can.
Clip the coupon or call into.our showrooms and let Guestel care for you
and your micro. _
——-
graphics tabiat
8/12 NEW BRIDGE STREET LONDON EC4V GAL.
TELEPHONE 01 583 2255. x 4
41/43 BALDWIN STREET BRISTOL BS1 1RB. i i) Please send me the current Guestel @oppic systems and software price list.
TELEPHONE 0272 277461 i CL] Please ask your sales staff to contact me.
15GRAND PARADE BRIGHTON SUSSEX BN22QB. §& —— ST OO—CO™*,SCC=E hs H
TELEPHONE 0273 695264. | Ns
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® > ADDRESS :
DEALERS AND LEVEL ONE SERVICE CENTRES & TO GUESTEL LIMITED 8/12 NEW BRIDGE STREET LONDON EC4V 6AL. i
Guestel Limited isa PLANET company. @Circle No. 143 Appleis a trademark of Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA, USA.
(continued from page 56)
developing the NewBrain. It is a measure
of the speed and decisiveness with which
Sinclair moved from this point that the
NewBrain has only just been launched
after being shuffled off to Newbury and
Grundy.
Admittedly the NewBrain has been
redesigned, but then so has the ZX-80,
bringing it down from the 22 chips of the
original design to four in the current
ZX-81. *
Sweatshop chips
As any ZX customiser will tell you,
when you open up a ZX-81 you will find
chips from all over — Honduras, the
Philippines, El Salvador, the sweatshops
of component manufacture throughout
the world. It is to his experience of
component selection that Sinclair
ascribes the remarkable success and re-
liability of the ZX-81: “It is partly due to
the small numbers of chips that we use,
partly to selecting the tight suppliers for
the chips. We monitor exactly the failure
tate of every part that goes into our
machines. And since we know the failure
trate, if we detect anything statistically
deviant, we can deal with it at once”.
One of the first jobs which Sinclair
singled out at the formation of the new
company was dealing with component
sources and reliability: one engineer’s
sole function is to talk to component
suppliers and organisations which test
and collect data on chip sets.
Given that the ZX-80 and 81 were
well-designed and built, what was it that
made them such a runaway success? Why
was Sinclair so confident of success that
he ordered 100,000 sets of parts for the
ZX-80 — exactly the number that were
finally produced and sold? “I think there
has always been the potential for people
to want computers. It is just that we can
now offer them at a price which makes it
possible. We were always seeking to offer
better value for money.”
Sinclair has described the hobbyist,
with whom he has a great deal of sym-
pathy, as ‘‘a dead certainty” to buy the
ZX-80. It is easy, of course, to be smart
with hindsight, and one of the secrets of
business when, you are as personally vis-
ible as Clive Sinclair is to give your com-
petitors the idea that you are infallible.
Few, however, would have predicted
the other market which Sinclair pin-
pointed — the man in the street who,
given a suitably priced product with an
attractive and comprehensive self-learn-
ing manual, could be tempted into mak-
ing a mail-order purchase. Sinclair’s ex-
perience in mail-order selling paid off,
and it is a tactic which has immeasurably
strengthened his strategy in selling the
ZXs, first at home then to France, West
Germany, Australia and even Japan, and
now, through Timex, to the United
States.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
The ‘‘man in the street’’ of course uses
the ZX rather differently from the enthu-
siast. He is likely to treat it as a practice
tool, to familiarise himself with Basic and
to come to grips with the concepts and
terms of computing. The enthusiast may
well have passed through this stage a long
time since, but cannot yet afford anything
more elaborate.
Sinclair is amused and gratified by the
attention the ZX-81 has received from
determined customisers, who fit the
machine up with keyboards, character
generators, colour cards and so forth
until their machine bears no resemblance
to the little black wedge shipped out of
Dundee. He has, of course, heard that it
is now possible to purchase a hard-disc
attachment: “Quite overgilding the lily”,
he comments with a hint of irony.
There is no doubt but that suppliers of
Sinclair peripherals and software are kept
hard at work. Sinclair has strengthened
up the software-marketing side of the
business with a new range of approved
software developed partly by ICL and
partly by the specialist software house
Psion, and sold through W H Smith.
Clearly he is not yet ready to sit back and
let other people cream off all the software |
revenue the ZX-81 generates.
The 40 per cent cut in the price of the
16K RAM pack might also embarrass
sellers of unapproved add-on memories
who feel they can carve themselves a
small niche by playing Sinclair at his own
game. The keener pricing also maintains
the separation between the ZX-81 and
the new Spectrum.
The Spectrum is not, of course, in-
tended as a replacement for the ZX-81.
Sinclair reckons that it will be bought and
used by laboratories, research establish-
ments, small businesses and retailers as
well as by individuals. If reactions from
the dealers are anything to go by — and
they are, in the end, the people who have
to sell personal computing merchandise
— the competition has good reason to
take fright.
Cut-throat competition
Sinclair’s lavish full-colour advertise-
ment features a point-by-point compara-
tive breakdown of the specifications of
the competitive machines. It is bad news
for them — so much so that it was
reported from April’s Computer Fair that
dealers were knocking out the Com-
modore Vic-20 for less than £135, cut
from about £200.
What of the home-grown competition
from Acorn Computer. which against all
the apparent odds made off with the BBC
contract and about which Clive Sinclair
has been so publicly vitriolic? One of the
two chiefs at Acorn, just down the road
from Sinclair in Cambridge, is Sinclair’s
own alumnus Chris Curry. Sinclair bears
him no ill-will at all — they still meet
socially on occasion —- but what sticks in
Sinclair’s craw is the BBC’s attempt to set
a standard for software.
“Tt was nothing to do with Acorn — it
was to do with the BBC. I was, and still
am, disgusted at the way the BBC
handled things. Acorn quite reasonably
got the business and good luck to them. I
am not complaining about that, | am
complaining about the BBC’s behaviour.
I think they are atrociously amateurish.
They are marvellous at making pro-
grammes and so on, but by God they
should not be making computers, any
more than they should be making BBC
cars or BBC toothpaste.
‘“We are always
seeking to offer
better value
for money”’
“They were able to get away with
making computers because none of us
had sufficient power or pull with the
Government to put over just what a
damaging action that was. They had the
unmitigated gall to think that they could
set a standard — the BBC language. It is
just sheer arrogance on their part.
“T may not know everything there is to
be known about computing but really
they know very little. It is terrifying: it
would not matter quite so much if they
were not such a respected authority
worldwide, so it makes us have to strug-
gle twice as hard. But we will win hands-
down because we know so much better
what is needed and know so much better
how to do it than the BBC does that our
system, our machine and our language
will completely win out in any competi-
tive battle.
He relishes the deals with giants like
Timex and Mitsui which, like every other
aspect of the company, he has a hand in
drafting. He prides himself on the fact
that the manufacturing licence deals for
(continued on page 63)
61
Interview =
Explore the Excellence
of your ZX81
By © with memorect Add-Ons
@ Fully programmable high
resolution (192x248
pixels).
@ Video page is both memory
and bit mapped.
@ Video page can be located
anywhere in the RAM.
@ The number of video pages
is limited only by your RAM
size (each page occupies
about 6.5K RAM) and
Pages can overlap.
@ Instant inverse video.
@ Switching inverse video on and
off gives flashing characters/numerals etc.
@ Video pages can be @ Access to video page is
superimposed by similar to plot and unplot
software switching. commands in BASIC.
The pack comes in an elegant aluminium case, anodised black and
styled to fit onto the back of the ZX81, allowing more add-ons (Memopak
RAM, Sinclair printer, etc) to be connected without a further power supply.
It contains a 2K EPROM monitor, holding a full range of graphics subroutines which
can be called by the BASIC USR function or by machine code.
Memopak 16K Memory Extension
MEMOPAK 16K Itis a fact that the ZX81 has revolutionised home computing and coupled with the new
Memopak 16K it gives you a massive 16K of Directly Addressable RAM, which is neither
switched nor paged. With the addition of the Memopak 16K your ZX81's enlarged
memory capacity will enable it to execute longer and more sophisticated programs, and to
hold an extended database.
The 16K and 64K Memopaks come in attractive custom-designed and engineered cases
which fit snugly on to the back of the ZX81 giving firm, wobble-free connections.
Memopak 64K Memory Extension
The 64K Memopak is a pack which extends the memory of the ZX81 by a further 56K, and
together with the ZX81 gives a full 64K, which is neither switched nor paged, and is
directly addressable. The unit is user transparent and accepts BASIC commands such as
10 DIM A(9000).
BREAKDOWN OF MEMORY AREAS
0-8K . . . Sinclair ROM 816K . . . This section of memory switches in or out in 4K blocks
to leave space for memory mapping, holds its contents during cassette loads, allows
communication between programmes, and can be used to run assembly language
routines. 16-32K .. . This area can be used for BASIC programmes and assembly
language routines. 32~64K . .. 32K of RAM memory for BASIC variables and large arrays.
With the Memopak 64K extension the ZX811 is transformed into a powerful computer,
suitable for business, leisure and educational use, at a fraction of the cost of comparable
systems.
3 month
trade-in offer!
For your future needs, we'll
allow you £10 against your
purchase of our 64K model if:
you return your 16K pack within 3
months of receipt;
you supply evidence of purchase;
your 16K model is received by us
undamaged and unopened.”
“We reserve the right to reject, for discounting purposes, units
which have been either opened or damaged in any way.
MEMOPAK RAM
s HI-RES GRAPHICS Please make Please send me Price No Total
eta tetra en oo oo ee Oe ae
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We want to be sure you are satisfied with your Memopak — so we offer a 14-day money back Guarantee on all our products.
Memotech Limited, 3 Collins Street, Oxford OX4 1XL, England Tel: Oxford (0865) 722102 Telex: 837220 Orchid G
on @ Circle No. 144
(continued from page 61)
Overseas terrains are costly. Technical
leadership, of which he considers himself
an exponent, can be quantified in hard
cash.
For Sinclair, professionalism is merely
the other side of the coin of advanced
design: “Professionalism is very import-
ant. We have very professional people
and we do everything on time, to very
tight schedules and with a great deal of
commitment. We just are not amateur.
There is no room for amateurs these
days”. Did he think, then, that there
were many amateurs still in business?
“Oh yes, I am afraid there are still many
companies around in the world of per-
sonal computers — it is inevitable in any
new field — who are far more amateur
than they need be”.
Ready right away
Did he include in the amateur category
the common practice of ‘‘kite-flying’”” —
announcing a product with a stupendous
specification for delivery “next month’’?
“Yes there is far too much of that and it is
very silly. It mucks up the market-place
at the time but it rebounds on the com-
pany eventually. They are talking about
products that are further and further
away. If we announce a product now, it is
because it is ready for production. With
the Spectrum, we had the pilot run before
the launch and those were the models
at the launch. The following'week it went
into production, just like that. It is fully
tooled; there is nothing undone on that
machine.
“But at the same time our competitors
are announcing machines which will not
even be ready until next year. They say,
‘Oh yes, we have a competitive machine’,
but they have not even started the darn
things. That its absurd. We are at the
same stage as they are talking about with
our machine of the next generation”’.
What was his prescription, then, for a
successful personal computer manu-
facturer in future? “You have to have in-
house technical capability in every poss-
ible area. This is going to be vital in the
computer industry — if you cannot make
the peripherals, you are not going to be in
business in the future. You have to do the
printers, the teletext, the floppies, the
lot. The Japanese are doing this’.
What did he think of the conventional
wisdom that the Japanese were strong on
hardware but would not make it in soft-
ware because Basic is so closely identified
with the English language? ‘The
Japanese are coming up strongly on the
software side, making all their machines
IBM-compatible. They can ride on the
back of all the software generated by the
IBM machine and they would succeed if
they did not have to produce a single item
of software themselves”. Hence, presum-
ably, Sinclair’s pre-emptive strike to re-
tain control of ZX and, presumably,
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Spectrum software by securing worldwide
distribution rights to commissioned soft-
ware of the best quality.
Looking to the future, the ZX-83,
as Sinclair called it, would not be a
replacement for the Spectrum which he
saw as having a very long life. Yet he said
the same, less than two years ago, of the
ZX-81 which has rapidly fallen into the
bargain basement; already recent pur-
chasers of the ZX-81 are kicking them-
selves for not waiting a little longer.
“The next step will be to make a
machine of a suitably higher price which
would have a built-in screen and dual
floppies — Microdrives, that is. It is
conventional! in the sense that it contains
what the Osborne or the IBM personal
computer have, because that is what is
needed’’. But definitely not with conven-
tional 5.25in. floppies? “Oh no. Our
Microdrive is miles ahead of what anyone
else is doing. We have that working you
know — it is not a figment of our
imagination, it was working at the show.
It is not fully tooled yet.
“We have three elements that people
will want: our printer, the flat-screen |
display, which is critical — the world
needs flat screens, that technology is
paramount — and the microfloppy, and
you bring them all together. That pack-
age becomes a much handier package
than, say, an IBM system.
How portable is portable? The
Osborne, against which the ZX-83 will
certainly tilt, is portable to about the
degree as a suitcase full of bricks. “We
are doing something that is maybe a
couple of pounds in weight — say two to
four to be on the safe side”. This is a
product which Sinclair says is due for late
1983 release.
Portable machines
But are people really going to want to
trail around with computers under their
arm? “‘Not necessarily. Sooner or later
people will not need to carry computers
around. If they need one in the office and
one at home they will buy one for each
place and just transfer, say, diary data.
But lots of people do need portability -
schoolchildren, for example, or if you
want to use it on a plane”.
What uses did he envisage for the
microcomputer, now it has established
itself as more than a hobbyist’s toy? What
will people do with ever-increasing power
and cheaper memory? “Expert systems
are what excites me, I think’’. And for
the home — what practical example did
he have in mind? “A computer database
that has the similitude of the knowledge
of a professional expert, that you can
refer to in the same way that you can
tefer a problem to that expert. What |
want to see us do, and other people do, is
have experts that can be used by people
in the home: a doctor, for example, that
the family could turn to and say, ‘I have
these symptoms’, and it would respond as
a doctor by saying ‘There’s a lot of it
about’, or something of that sort’’.
Could he suggest any other such areas
of expertise? “Oh yes, education is the
great one. We are a long way from it yet,
but things are changing very rapidly and
the day wil! dawn when computers will
teach better than human beings, because
they can be so patient and so individually
attuned”. A future Encyclopedia Britta-
nica, as it were? “No, it will replace not
the Encyclopedia Brittanica but the
school’’.
‘‘The Microdrive
is not just a
figment of our
imagination’’
Surely there was a threat here to
normal personal communication? Did he
not fear that the computer might have a
de-socialising effect on people? A recent
report in New Scientist suggested, for
example, that networking buffs became
withdrawn from their everyday lives and
preferred to communicate with their on-
screen pals. “Yes, I am concerned with
this. We have to watch very carefully that
you do not remove the rituals of things
like shopping or banking. Sometimes it is
possible for something to disappear
before people realise that it is what they
want to keep”.
Nevertheless, an RS-232 and network-
ing interface for the Spectrum will be
available later this year. “I think sending
letters is a particularly elegant way of
using small computers, without being a
threat to any existing social activity”.
Further uses of the network capability
would be to link into larger-scale fixed
databases as well as sharing expensive
peripherals such as letter-quality printers
which would probably be in the form of
an optical disc. Sinclair does not discount
(continued on next page)
63
(continued from previous page)
the possibility that the technology to
write to an optical disc will eventually
become available to the individual, but
though he is keeping abreast of the latest
developments, he says that Sinclair is not
itself doing any work on laser-driven
stores.
I like doing
— solving
problems’’
Pursuing the point about the computer
‘becoming a substitute for real life. I
asked Sinclair what implications he saw in
the laser-driven store, linked to a battery
of large flat-screen TVs. Indeed, ‘“‘the
high brightness of thin CRTs makes them
ideal for use in projection systems’’, says
Sinclair’s business briefing, which fore-
sees “d three-tube projection TV with a
50in. diagonal full-colour display. The
optics and electronics could be fitted into
a shoe-box-sized unit projecting on to a
wall-mounted screen”’.
Under microcomputer control with
real-time response to user inputs, such an
outfit could become an altogether more
powerful and interesting activity than
normal experience. It would give the user
the kind of experience which is now only
to be had in some extremely expensive
military and flight-training simulators. In
response, Sinclair laughs: ‘’Fraid so”. I
have heard it said that, including profes-
sional use, two-thirds of computing work
goes on games. I should think it would
make life so jolly boring that you would
not want to come back to it. If you could
simulate it that well.
Did he feel that computers had any
practical benefit in improving the human
lot? Had they made life more compli-
cated? He is said, after all, to prefer the
simple life and laughs at the idea of using
64
a computer himself: he does not even use
a calculator, preferring a slide-rule or just
working in his head. “I am all for the
simple life, yes. But there are certain
tools around that. are useful at times. It
simplifies buying an airline ticket, or get-
ting cash at any time of day or night —
these are simplifying things, no matter
what sort of life we lead’’.
Even if one lives the life of the noble
Savage, tilling the land, where the only
money we have is the cash in our pocket?
“No. But I am very glad my life is not just
tilling land. It would be very dull and
boring”’.
Does he believe, then, that humans are
becoming brainier? “No”, he rejoins with
some warmth. “Dimmer, if anything”.
He certainly believes that intelligence is
innate, a matter of genetic inheritance;
the fact that computing is an intellectually
demanding skill does not mean that the
brain’s capacity is increasing. ‘I just do
not believe we have become cleverer —
whoever designed the axe or the wheel
was just as clever as we are”.
He finds no evidence that computers
will help to make a better world, — it can
be clearly seen that the very best, most
highly-specified and supported research
and development into computing goes
into producing defence and military sys-
tems.
Sinclair has been asked to do military
work, and has turned it down. He was, he
says, “worried about its implications’.
This was a decision based on principle,
though he does not rule out the possi-
bility of doing so in a state of urgent
national necessity, again reflecting the
bedrock patriotism which underlies his
political and business stance over the
years. Sinclair believes, reassuringly, that
the engineer should have a conscience,
and a consciousness of the consequences
of his inventions. He is an admirer, in his
own field, of Newton and Edison, of the
great railway and shipbuilding engineer
Brunel, and as a boy his hero was
Einstein.
Unlikely mentor
That master theoretician. must seem
like a curious ideal for Sinclair, who is
identified above all with his own pro-
ducts. But Sinclair’s own way of working
is very spare, very abstract. After all,
mathematics is his first love, and he says
that what really interests him is ‘‘prob-
lem-solving”. These are not the immedi-
ate problems of production engineering,
which is now able to delegate; they are
the problems of design, pure and simple.
Sinclair has spent much of his time
recently on solving the design of the
flat-screen TV. “The most interesting job
there was mathematical’’, he says. ‘‘Most
of the interesting jobs cannot be done on.
a computer. There was a curiosity of the
flat tube’s design which would not come
out of the computer analysis, so I had to
hiteview ===
do it. That is what I like doing — solving
problems”.
Astonishihgly, Sinclair still manages to
pursue a wide variety of leisure interests.
He is an economics undergraduate at
King’s College, Cambridge, he is chair-
man of the British Mensa society, he
keeps up his interest in mathematics and
he still reads novels. Recently Sinclair
established a partnership with an old
friend, Patrick Browne of Brownes
Bookshop in Cambridge, setting up a
publishing company with a planned list by
the end of this year of 20 titles. As a
common theme they will have ‘ta progres-
sive approach to the problems of contem-
porary society”. He is also sponsoring a
£5,000 fiction prize to be awarded to the
author of a “novel which is not only of
great literary merit but also of social and
political significance’’.
A good read
What was intended by “a progressive
approach to contemporary society”?
“Something that has a social content and
is interesting to read — like Dickens. He
had a social point and was a marvellous
read. We thought that the Orwellian type
of novel had not had much of a look-in
recently”. He will play no part in select-
ing the winner of the prize which bears
his name.
Perhaps the most interesting of Sin-
clair’s hobbies is music, a subject on
which he is move passionate than any-
thing else than perhaps the BBC and
which is reflected in his trusteeship of the
Cambridge Symphony Orchestra. Music
has long been thought to have an affinity
with mathematics: the one is the most
abstract of the art forms, the other the
most abstract of sciences. He agrees that
composing a piece of music would in
some way be analogous to designing a
circuit, describing both processes as ‘tan
optimisation technique”. Surprisingly,
his tastes run to the romantic: he prefers
Beethoven to Bach, Stravinsky to Bar-
tok, and thinks it is a toss-up between
Vivaldi and Albinoni. His favourite is
Schubert, particularly the Quintet in C.
Sinclair does not play an instrument,
but says he will one day find the time to
pick up the pieces of his piano playing
from school. He would find it most satis-
fying, he says, to practise the manual skill
of fingering; while doing his scales, he
would be able to think about other
things. That sort of manual skill, he says,
is indispensable, a prerequisite to playing
with feeling. “But it would have to be the
piano”, he says. “Nothing else would
interest me. . . and of course you can get
away with being really bad. I would not
aim to be brilliant, just adept enough to
amuse myself.”
Looking forward to a long Bank Holi-
day weekend Clive Sinclair observed,
‘Any excuse not to work’’. Somehow one
suspects he cannot quite mean it. |
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
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Copies can also be handled either via N C R or
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65
The successor to
the ZX-81 has
colour, sound and
high-resolution
graphics. Bill
Bennett finds that
Sinclair has not
lost the knack of
presenting an
attractive
consumer-orientat-
ed computing
package.
AT FIRST SIGHT the Spectrum is not very
impressive: about the size and weight of a
good book, made of black moulded plas-
tic with four rows of-soft plastic keys. The
Styling is good — far better than the
ZX-80 — and the weightier feel certainly
adds to a “quality” air about the
machine. The case is wider than the
ZX-81.— nine inches as opposed to just
over six. Its height is more constant than
the 81’s aerodynamic-style wedge,.and at
under six inches from back to front it is
rather less deep than the ZX-81.
On the top of the keyboard: is a col-
oured spectrum flash, which hints at the
colour capabilities of the new micro. The
keys take up far more space than the
horrible keypads on the ZX-81, but each
one still has five or six different codes,
letters or symbols attached to. it in true
Sinclair style. One extra key not present
on the ZX-81 is the symbol shift.
The Spectrum keys have 4 positive feel
to them; you can actually feel them move
down when you press them, and this
positive feedback is supplemented by an
audible click which confirms that the key
has been pressed. The click is the same
whichever key is pressed, though it does
not sound on the shifts. -
Before trying the computer out, we
took a look at the hardware. The power
socket, microphone, earphone and tele-
vision sockets are all located at the back
of the case. This is a much better
arrangement than the ZX-81 as the
various cables are less likely to overlap
and thereby cause interference problems.
Multicoloured graphics are restricted to a low-resolution grid.
66
Also on the back is the point where the
control lines leave the micro; it is just
like the ZX-81 expansion socket except
that there are five more lines. This pre-
sumably has something to do with the
Microdrives which will be available
later as add-ons.
Gaining access to the inside of the case
is fairly easy, after removing the five
screws on the back of the computer.
Although the Spectrum has the saine
little rubber pads underneath as the ZX-
81, to stop it scratching dining-room table
tops, there are no screws tucked away
| beneath them. The two halves can be
pulled apart gently to reveal the two
ribbon cables connecting the bottom half
ot the case — which contains all the
electronics — to the top half which con-
tains the keypads. The ribbon cables can
then be pulled out of their sockets.
Moving Keys
The keypad section in the top half
proved particularly interesting. We pul-
led off the metal overlay with all the
stencilled command name, and found
underneath it a rubber mat into which the
keys are moulded. Although this mat is,
to say the least, aesthetically displeasing,
it is most certainly an ingenious way of
giving each of the “keys’’ individual
movement. The rubber mat must be ex-
tremely cheap to produce, and under-
neath it is what can only be described as a
membrane matrix pressure pad, similar
to the ZX-81’s.
The matrix is made of two sheets of a
transparent film, printed with white
tracks. At the points where the white
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
tracks overlap are little circles which are
obviously the touch-sensitive pads. The
ribbon cables are printed directly on to
these films; the right-hand track is on the
bottom and accesses the rows, and the
left-hand cable is on the top film and
accesses the columns. This arrangement
is complicated by the way that it is split
into two halves in the middle.
The film is punctured by a series of
holes which locate it on to the plastic
case, which is in turn covered in projec-
| tions. These projections go right through
the film to locate the rubber mat as well.
There is another series of projections on
the plastic casing, which are mirrored on
the underside of each individual key on
the rubber mat. These, no doubt, serve to
press the membrane and ensure a positive
“contact” at the switch.
Sinclair’s trump
In effect the Spectrum keypad system
does not represent much of an improve-
ment on the ZX-81 keypad. The techno-
logy is essentially the same, though it has
been packaged in a much better way.
The bottom half of the Spectrum case
contains the main electronic works. They
all sit on a fibreglass printed-circuit
board, which is remarkably small con-
sidering the power of the Spectrum. This
is Sinclair’s. trump card: even if its
machines are not necessarily the most
powerful on the market, they are always
technically impressive because so much
computing is condensed into so few com-
ponents.
There are rather more chips on the
Spectrum PCB than on the ZX-81 board.
Most of these extra chips make up the
16K of RAM, which previously sat in a
separate box which fitted on to the back
of the ZX-81. RAM accounts for eight of
the 14 chips in the Spectrum. There are a
couple of “spare” sockets on the board
Sener ee ee ee Review a
we tested, which will presumably take
some extra ROM — possibly to drive the
ZX Microdrives or the RS-232 interface.
The voltage regulator has an oddly
shaped heat sink attached to it, which
should dispose of enough heat. Cooling
has been a problem with previous Sinclair
Research computers, that are often left
on for hours by addicted programmers.
In the centre of the board is the CPU, the
ROM and an uncommitted-logic array.
The implementation of Basic included
in the ZX Spectrum is so much better
than the ZX-81 version that the two
appear practically unrelated. Unfortu-
nately the major disadvantage of Sinclair
Basic has not been ironed out: commands
and code are all entered by “‘single-key”
input of the codes, or that is what the
publicity claims. In fact most of the com-
Plot and Draw commands operate with a resolution of 256 by 192 pixels.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
| Text and high-resolution graphics can be combined on the screen.
mands and functions require at least two
key strokes, and sometimes more.
This method of entering Basic code is
annoying for two reasons, firstly because
the number of key depressions required
to access certain codes add up to more
depressions than it would take to spell the
word out. For example, the arctan func-
tion has the three-letter code ATN. To
input this code on the Spectrum you have
to press Caps Shift and Symbol Shift until
the cursor changes to an “‘E”’, then press
down on Symbol Shift and the E key at
the same time.
An acquired taste
A total of four key depressions needed
for a three-letter code. To most of us this
is a very complicated way of doing things,
though to hardened ZX-81 users all the
shifting and so on may have become
second nature.
Most people who are used to compu-
ters with real keyboards perform a style
of touch typing, and a modestly experi-
enced user of a real computer can enter a
short program in next to no time. Such an
economical and obviously — sensible
approach to using the computer is denied
to the Spectrum user. Touch typing is out
of the question, though the keyboard
“click”” — which is so quiet as to be all
but inaudible tn a busy office — and the
positive feel of the keys does go some
way towards helping. If you would like
more feedback you can try Poking loca-
tion 23609 with a value of around 200.
which converts the key click to a short
bleep which is more likely to be heard.
The Sinclair single-key system is likely
to lead users familiar with other machines
into a number of irritating errors. The
most common of these is accidentally
typing in keywords, rather than using the
single-keystroke entry system, or omit-
(continued on next page)
67
(continued from previous page)
ting the Let statement which most other
micros manage to do without. Most
dangerous of all is the possibility of
obtaining the wrong symbol or function
off of a key because the Shift keys are not
engaged. This can be most frustrating
when using the cursor movement keys
while in the Edit mode, with 8s and 5s
appearing all over the screen.
Another serious design fault of the
key-entry method is having New as a
command available on the A key: it is
much too easy to hit it and lose your
program altogether. All-in-all, our main
criticism of the Spectrum is the keyboard
and the single-key entry. While Sinclair
retains this on its microcomputers they
will never be serious tools. As training
aids and toys they are superb but any
microcomputer buyer requiring a
machine for serious work is likely to need
a proper keyboard. In this respect, and
this alone, the Spectrum does not com-
pete with the BBC Microcomputer.
Everyone in the business expected the
Spectrum to have a proper keyboard, and
the fact that it does not is undoubtedly a
weak point. The machine is sure to sell — |
and it should sell well — but until some
enterprising designer comes up with a
hardware fix, giving the Spectrum that
touch of class, it cannot be recommended
as a tool for the serious user for all its
good points. Home computing is the big
market of the moment and that is where
the Spectrum is aimed.
Among the significant improvements
to the Sinclair Basic found on the Spec-
ZX Spectrum
RESTORE
oe i is
BEEP
68
ment, together with the associated com-
mands Read and Restore. Also added to
the Basic are the commands Def FN and
FN which allow users make up their own
functions or composites of other func-
tions.
Extra symbols
The Fast and Slow commands are dis-
pensed with but there are a number of
extra symbols available via the keyboard.
These include a whole range of com-
mands for the forthcoming ZX Micro-
drives, some graphics commands and
Beep. The Spectrum uses the ASCII
character set, Sinclair Research having at
last moved some way towards standardis-
ing with the rest of the world.
Another advance over earlier Sinclair
machines is that multiple statement lines
are allowed. Sinclair Research claims that
is extremely powerful, and we did prefer
it to the more normal Right, Left and
Mid.
The string slicer works by including a
bracketed expression after the string or
A multitude of
functions is available
from each key.
The moving keys
provide some welcome
tactile feedback, but
are revealed to be
moulded from a single
rubber sheet, and to
bear on a pressure-
sensitive keypad —
truly a masterpiece of
| product engineering.
RED MAGENTA GREEN wom! ‘sab
EDIT CAPS LOCK TRUE VIDEO INV, VIDEO GRAPHICS DELETE
LINE OPEN & CLOSE # MOVE POINT FORMAT
SIN cos STRS CHRS CODE PEEK
WERIFY
SGN
MERGE
VALS
CIRCLE
L PRINT LUST IN KEYS
PAPER FLASH BRIGHT OVER
trum.are the inclusion of the Data state- |
the string-slicing mechanism in ZX Basic |
Ae lle cls is is ie hn es es
ee
GB. oii is a ois is dis de Hs
the string variable that is to be operated
on. This expression may contain other
expressions and may or may not contain
the word “To”. The string is sliced from
the element pertaining to the value of the
expression before the word “To” up to
and including the element corresponding
to the expression after the word “To”,
for example:
“abcdef"(2 TO 5) = “bede”
If there is no expression or variable be-
fore the word “To”, then it is assumed
that the required string starts at the first
element. If there is none after it, the end
of the original string is assumed to be the
end of the new one. If the word “To”’ is
used alone the whole string is the resul-
tant, and if only one variable without the
word “To” is used then just that single
element of the string is extracted. This is
a very neat, precise and easy-to-use con-
Struct.
The rest of the Basic, apart from the
graphics, is fairly standard. Inkey$ has
been added to read the keyboard and
Pause to stop the computer for a defined
length of time. One thing we like about
(continued on page 70)
LEN
SCREEN S ATT
=3
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
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SPECIALISTS IN MICROCOMPUTERS
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@ Circle No. 146
69
(continued from page 68)
the Spectrum is the trigonometric func-
tions, which are invaluable for the scien-
tist or maths student. Sinclair’s old
programmable calculator made _ the
processing of experimental data that
much easier, and the Spectrum will be an
ideal tool for this kind of work.
Beep is the command which invokes
the Spectrum’s sound-generating utility.
This sound can be heard thanks to a very |
small loudspeaker which sits inside the
Spectrum. Underneath the speaker in the
bottom of the case are a series of holes
which let the sound escape. Though the
sound from the speaker is not very loud,
the Mic or Ear sockets on the back of the
machine can be connected to an amplifier
to produce really loud sounds.
Beep is not as flexible as the music-
making facilities of the Commodore Vic-
20, or the BBC Micro but it is easy to use.
The first value entered after the keyword
gives the duration of the sound to be
played, in seconds. We did not establish
the upper limit — it is longer than anyone
was prepared to listen.
Atonal music
The second value gives the pitch of the
sound which may be specified as an inte-
ger or a decimal number. The value 0
gives middle-C, 1 gives the next semi-
tone, C-sharp, adding one gives the next
semitone and so on: adding 12 raises the
pitch a whole octave. Negative numbers
give pitches below middle-C. The maxi-
mum value is about 70, a good six octaves
above middle-C and a much higher pitch
than any of us could hear — perhaps a
sheepdog would appreciate this facility.
By using decimals you can program quar-
ter tones which are used in Arabic and
Indian music, and still smaller tone inter-
vals are possible.
The graphic capabilities of the Spec-
trum are a major selling point. In
monochrome they are excellent, though
there are shortcomings in colour. It must
be remembered that the Spectrum costs
much less than its nearest rival, and its
graphic capabilities are only slightly be-
hind. For example there are 256 by 192
dots on the screen, compared with a
maximum of 320 by 256 on the BBC
Model A and 176 by 160 on the Vic-20.
Graphics commands include:
Plot — filis in a pixel at a designated location
on the screen,
Draw — draws a line to the point specified,
Circle — draws a circle around a specified
point of a specified radius,
Point — tells the user whether a pixel is inked
in or not.
Draw can be used in two ways, either
plotting a straight line or a curved one,
the angle being specified in the Draw
command. These commands can be used
with Inverse and Over.
Paper and Ink are the two statements
which -define the colour of the back-
ground and the colour of whatever is
70
Specifications
Microprocessor: Z-80A running at 3.5MHz
Languages: 16K ROM containing Basic
and operating system
Memory: 16K or 48K RAM
Keyboard: 40-key moving rubber keypad
Display: 256 by 192 pixels, or 24 lines of
32 characters; eight colours; sound
| Interfaces: cassette I/O; usual Sinclair
expansion port with extra lines; optional
RS-232 interface
Printer: can be connected to Sinclair ZX
printer
Size: 233mm. wide, 144mm. deep, 30mm.
high
| the information in the drive. Once they
being superimposed on it. Border defines |
the colour of the edge of the screen
around the Paper, which is over half the
area of the screen. Inverse and Over are
really associated with the colour facilities
of the Spectrum. Draw Inverse will draw
a line, in the Paper colour, and Draw
Over will change the pixel from whatever
it was originally.
There is a choice of eight colours, but
with some clever programming, using the
character generator and a combination of
colours, it may be possible to derive some
more. The basic eight colours are black,
white, blue, red, magenta, green, cyan,
and yellow.
One drawback is that the Ink and
Paper colours can only be defined to the
nearest character location, that is one of
the 32 by 24 locations on the screen. This
can be rather frustrating if, say, you want
to display a map or design an intricate
display. Another real annoyance is that
the colours appear to vibrate on the
screen, especially at the borders of cer-
tain colours. Very quickly the effect be-
comes a strain on the eyes.
It is also possible to Flash and Bright
the colours in a location, using commands
which are self-explanatory. For normal.
low-resolution graphics this works well.
the user being restricted to Tab, Print At,
and the usual graphic character set.
The commands that are to be used to
control the forthcoming ZX Microdrives
are available from the keyboard like any
others. We have not had a Microdrive to
test, but.in a demonstration at the Spec-
trum launch a chess program was loaded
from the Microdrive in less than one
minute. Up to eight Microdrives can be
connected to each Spectrum, each one
holding up to 100K on a microfloppy.
They are capable of churning out data at
a speed of 16K per second.
Though the novel ‘half-way house”’ |
keyboard is a serious drawback, adding a
proper keyboard might not be too hard,
especially with the RS-232 interface
board that is forthcoming. Together with
the Microdrives the interface may form
the basis of whole ranges of simple and
cheap applications packages to attract
serious users. The Spectrum is probably a
little slower than more up-market micros,
but its extremely low price will mean that
no business need be without a computer.
At present Sinclair Research is saying
that the ZX Microdrives will be along
“later in the year”. They will sell at the
incredible price of around £50 each. As
yet there are no details about the actual
tapes, discs or whatever it is that holds
are available some very interesting soft-
ware should follow, perhaps from ICL
which is said to be working on cassette-
based software for the Spectrum now.
There is an extra feature of the Spec-
trum’s tape-handling system in the form
of the Verify command which lets the
user check that what is stored on the
cassette tallies with the program or data
in memory. The Screen feature allows a
whole screenful of information to be
stored as a separate file. Among a num-
ber of possible applications of this com-
mand a screen can be displayed while
another program is loading.
Printer options
The Spectrum will work with the ZX
printer, which is capable of reproducing
the high-resolution graphics though the
printout paper is only four inches across.
Most Practical Computing readers would
wince to see the ZX printer in action, but
it is perfectly good for the thousands of
home-computer users who own one. The
RS-232 interface should enable a dot-
matrix printer to be used with the Spec-
trum.
The manual for the Spectrum comes in
two parts, both books are written by
Steven Vickers and Robin Bradbeer, who
have done a very good job. The first is
really an introduction for people who are
new to computing. Between the two
volumes there is just about everything
anyone could want to know about the
Spectrum. The cover of the manual has
another space-age painting: it is pleasing
to see that the arts are being patronised.
Conclusions
@ By any criteria the Spectrum repre-
sents a significant step in the history of
microcomputers. It brings to the lay
user a computing power that a few years
ago could only be provided by a huge
mainframe.
@ Undue criticism of the Sinclair on the
grounds of the imperfect keyboard and
the odd way in which Basic commands
are entered seem churlish when one
considers the £125 price tag, yet without
the addition of a full typewriter-style
keyboard the Spectrum will not be an
effective business tool.
@ The addition of a serial interface and
cheap on-line mass storage — the Mic-
rodrive — go a long way to correct these
deficiencies.
@ As a toy, learning tool and aid for
students the Spectrum is invaluable. As
a consumer artifact it will change the
way that many people think about com-
puters. ih]
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
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CAMBRIDGE MICRO
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CULLOVILLE LTD, Thornfield,
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DATA PROFILE, Lawrence Road,
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DAYTA, 20b West Street, Wilton,
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Icarus Computer Systems Ltd.
DRAGON SYSTEMS LTD,
37 Walter Road, SWANSEA,
W. Glam. Tel: 0792 474498
DUPLEX COMMUNICATIONS,
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Lutterworth, LEICESTERSHIRE.
Tel: 0455 209131
EASIBEE COMPUTING LTD,
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ESCO COMPUTING LTD,
154 Cannongate, EDINBURGH.
Tel: 031 $57 3937
ESCO COMPUTING LTD,
40a Gower Strect, GLASGOW
G51 1PH. Tel: 041 427 5497
EFFICIENT BUSINESS SYSTEMS,
9 Clarence Street, BELFAST 1,
N. Ireland. Tel: 0232 647 538
EMTEK COMPUTERS LTD,
40 South Furzeham Road, BRIXHAM,
Devon. Tel: 08045 3566
FAST COMPUTING, 52 High Strect,
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B. FITTON, 97 Melbourne Road,
ROYSTON, Herts. Tel: 0763 41949
FOREST ROW COMPUTERS,
53 Freshfield Bank, FOREST ROW,
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Computer Systems Ltd.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
G.T. OFFICE SYSTEMS,
12 Clovelly Road, LONDON W5 SHE.
Tel: 01 567 9959
G.LC.C., P.O. Box 519, Manama,
Bahrain.
JAEMMA LTD, Unit 24, Lee Bank
House, Holloway Head, Lee Bank,
BIRMINGHAM. Tel: 021 643 1609
JENNINGS COMPUTER
SERVICES, 55/57 Fagley Road,
BRADFORD,
W. Yorks. Tel: 0274 637867
KENT BUSINESS SYSTEMS LTD,
85 High Strect, Ramsgate, Kent.
Tel: 0843 687816.
LAWMAR BUSINESS SYSTEMS,
1 Paterson Drive, Woodhousc Eaves,
LOUGHBOROUGH, Leics.
Tel: 0509 890900
LONDON COMPUTER CENTRE,
43 Grafton Way, LONDON WI.
Tel: 01 388 5721
M.G. ENTERPRISES, 32 Ruc Victot
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MASS MICROS, Wellson House,
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MICRO-K, 186 Martin Way,
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MICROAGE LTD, 53 Acton Road,
LONG EATON, Nottinghamshire.
Tel: 06076 64264
MICROSERVE LTD, 811 Kennedy
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Tel: 0469 72346
MICROCARE COMPUTING LTD,
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MICROCOMPUTER
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OMEGA ELECTRIC LTD,
Flaxley Mill, Flaxley Road,
MITCHELDEAN, Glos.
Tel: 045 276 532
PROTOCOL,COMPUTER
PRODUCTS, 49 Beckenham Lane,
Shortlands, BROMLEY, Kent.
RANMOR COMPUTING LTD,
Nelson House, 2 Nelson Mews,
SOUTHEND-ON-SEA.
Tel: 0702 339262
ROGIS SYSTEMS LTD, Keepers
Lodge, Frittenden,
NR. CRANBROOK, Kent.
Tel: 058 080 310
S.D.M. COMPUTER SERVICES,
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63 SND. Tel: 051 608 9365
For further details, or ifyou want
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SAPPHIRE SYSTEMS, 19-27 Kents
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Tel: 03745 59756
SHEFFIELD COMPUTER
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SHEFFIELD 82 4NF. Tel: 0742 53519
SISCO LTD, 4 Moorficlds, LONDON,
EC2Y 9AA. Tel: 01 9200315
HUGH SIMMONS LTD, Braidley
House, St Pauls Lane,
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SORTFIELD LTD, E. Floor,
Milburn House, Dean Street,
NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.
Tel: 0632 329593
SPOT COMPUTER SYSTEMS
LTD, New Strect, Kelham Strect
Indus. Estate, DONCASTER,
S. Yorks. Tel: 0302 25159
STAG TERMINALS LTD,
30 Church Road, Teddington,
Middlesex.
Tel: 01 943 0777
STUKELEY COMPUTER
SERVICES, Barnhill, STAMFORD,
Lincs. Tel: 0780 4947
TERMACRE LTD, 126 Woodwarde
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Tel: 01 693 3037
THAMES VALLEY COMPUTERS,
10 Maple Close, MAIDENHEAD,
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TURNKEY COMPUTER
TECHNIQUE, 23 Calderglen Road,
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Tel: 03552 39466
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71
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ATARI
800
GRAPHICS |
IF | TELL YOU the last program I typed
into my Atari was a version of Space
Invaders, you will not be surprised: such
games are all too common. The game is
fast, in high-resolution graphics, uses
seven colours on the screen at once and
has sound effects. When you learn that
the game takes only 47 lines of Basic.
including five lines for the title, then you
will admit that the Atari micros must
have some remarkable features.
The Atari contains a trio of custom-
designed chips called Antic, GTIA and
Pokey. Their extensive capabilities are
relatively simple to access, though not
always so easy to access well. From the
point of view of the programmer, simple
instructions produce impressively com-
plex results.
The Atari’s power has only really been
applied to games, in keeping with Atari’s’
avowed intention to take over the home
computer market. Yet there is no reason
why the Atari 800, at least, should not
have many business uses: the built-in
Sample screen display showing all 16
available colours at equal luminance.
sound and colour facilities could be used
to enhance many boring business pro-
grams, and anyone who can produce a
joystick-operated accounts program that
is even half as much fun as Atari’s Cen-
tipedes is all set to quadruple staff pro-
ductivity.
The Atari 800 console is fairly compact
at l6in. by 12.5in. by 4.5in. and the
machine weighs under 10 pounds. It is
solidly constructed and well finished. The
QWERTY keyboard has 57 full-stroke
keys with auto-repeat, plus four function
keys labelled System Reset, Option,
Select and Start. The System Reset key is
protected by a raised moulding, though
you do not lose the program irretrievably
if you press it by accident. The three
remaining special keys are all programm-
able from Basic.
The 800 console has seven output
points, one of which is hard wired and
carries an RF modulated signal to a
74
domestic colour TV. There is a monitor
outlet socket which could also be used for
a VCR or video disc. One serial input/
output port is available for connecting the
Atari to a cassette recorder or disc drive.
Other peripherals have two sockets, so
they can be daisy-chained.
Alternatively you can connect the
socket to the 850 Interface Module,
which provides ports for disc, printer,
Modem, and three extra RS-232C-com-
patible ports. There are four ports on the
front of the machine for joysticks, paddle
controllers or keypads, or a light-pen. A
cheap numeric keypad can be simply
plugged in to make up for the lack of a
separate numeric pad on the kéyboard.
The outlet ports are easily software con-
trolled. A red LED on the keyboard
indicates power on.
Flip-top design
Lifting the hinged top of the 800 re-
veals two slots for 8K plug-in ROM cart-
ridges, such as Star Raiders or the Basic
or assembler/editor language cartridges.
Lifting the back of the top reveals a
genuine 10K operating system and the
memory boards. For the user to add or
remove, say. 16K of memory takes less
than a minute. The flip-top design has the
disadvantage that you cannot convenient-
ly stand a monitor on top of the console.
Plugging in the 8K Basic language cart-
ridge and powering-up puts the Atari 800
into its fundamental mode, Graphics 0.
This provides a 40-character by 24-row
text display with white characters on a
blue background. Pressing a Caps Lower
key provides access to a lower-case char-
acter set with true descenders: upper case
can still be accessed using one of the two
shift keys, just like a typewriter.
A set of graphics characters can be
accessed by pressing the Ctrl key, and the
inverse character set by pressing a key
with the Atari logo on it. There is also an
Esc key for entering characters like clear
screen without them clearing the screen.
Program editing
The 800 provides full screen editing
with simple four-way cursor movement.
You can also insert or delete either single
spaces or lines, which makes program
editing simplicity itself and word-proces-
sing programs easy to use. There are
default tabs 10 spaces apart. or you can
set tabs and screen margins separately
— again, as on a typewriter.
Basic programming ts done in Graphics
0, normally in upper case as Basic does
not recognise lower case. A glance at the
list of reserved words will show that most
features are available. The Atari’s Basic
does not support arrays of strings, which
can be infuriating at first. However, there
are always other ways: anything you can
do with string arrays you can also do with
long strings, though not, the other way
round.
String arrays are not part of American
Standard Basic, nor are they a feature in
the Microsoft form of languages like For-
tran, Cobol, Pascal and Forth, so people
who wish to advance to these languages
are probably better off not learning to
depend on string arrays. Atari probably
went for long strings because the U.S.
educational market is so heavily influ-
enced by the HP-2000, which uses 72-
character strings. There is no limit to the
length of a string on the Atari, though
sub-strings can only be up to 99 charac-
ters. It has been said that the designers
had a choice between string arrays and
error checking on line entry, and certain-
ly Atari error checking is a more valuable
feature.
Another minor irritation of Atari Basic
is that user-defined functions are not
allowed. Of course there are other ways
round this too, and a number of functions |
are built-in, including CLog — logs to
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
i
base 10 — and Exp. In other respects
Atari Basic is extremely powerful. You
can use long variable names, for exam-
ple, without paying a heavy penalty in
memory use. Variable names are stored
in a table, and once entered, the name
costs the same amount of memory to look
up, regardless of its length. You can Goto
a variable name and you can use most
reserved words or parts thereof, except
Not, as variable names too, as reserved
words are stored as tokens.
Tokenised for speed
Atari Basic lines allow multiple state-
ments, with a logical line equal to three
screen lines. When a line has been en-
tered, the third byte of the tokenised line
holds a figure for the length of the line,
which makes line skipping following a
Goto instruction relatively speedy. In-
cidentally, all numbers are stored as bin-
ary-coded decimal floating-point num-
bers, except line numbers which are
stored as two-byte integers.
The longer reserved words have useful
abbreviations to save typing, for example
L. — List
GR. — Graphics
DR. — Drawto
SE. — Setcolor
C. — Color
|, — Input
When you List the program, the Basic
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
expands these abbreviations to the full
form of the word. though it does not
expand ?. used to mean Print. It also
inserts any spaces you may have left out,
so there should be no stupid, unreadable
lines full of the all-too-common Basic
gibberish such as
IFX=Z1ORZ2THENZO=100
or similar rubbish. The tokenised line
storage means that this is also memory
efficient.
Syntax is checked on line entry. Incor-
rect lines are reprinted by Basic with
Error in front of them, with a cursor to
show the position of the error. The cursor
appears just after the error, not on top of
it. When the program is run, errors pro-
duce an error message and line number
on the screen, such as
ERROR 6 at LINE 20
You then have to look up the number to
find out what the error is. You could use
Single-colour graphics routine, using vari-
able luminance to give a sense of depth.
Review
Best-known for their video-
game cartridges, the Atari
microcomputers tend to be
ignored as serious machines.
_ Jack Schofield argues that the
unusual graphics features of
Atari Basic deserve more
attention from programmers
— and not just for games.
the Trap command to convert the mes- |
sages to read, in this case,
OUT OF DATA ERROR AT LINE 20
and so on.
| The Trap command is a form of ‘on
error Goto line XXX” facility, so you can
| return to an Input line where an incorrect
input was made without stopping the
program. It is a very rugged technique.
As you can Peek the line number where
the error occurred, one Trap routine will
take care of all the input errors, with
Trap 40000, or any oversize number.
heing used to clear the trap.
This two-line program avoids too much
worry about where you position the tape
when loading from cassette with CLoad:
10 TRAP 20:CLOAD
20 TRAP 40000:GOTO 10
The first line sets the trap so that a read
error does not stop the loading process,
but sends you to line 20. The second line
| resets the trap and continues the pro-
gram.
Other useful commands include
Pop — allows you to take the top entry off the
stack if you do not want to return from a
subroutine;
XtO — a “fill” command for graphics;
USR — allows you to call a machine-language
subroutine from Basic.
Paddle and Stick are Basic commands
used to find the value of paddle and
joystick controls. PTrig and STrig are .
used to find if the fire-button is pressed or
not. With four ports to control, selection
is from Stick(0) to Stick(3) for example.
Basic control
The graphics and sound facilities can
all be controlled from Basic using special
commands like Setcolor or using Peeks
and Pokes. It is in the graphics and sound
capabilities that the Atari micros excel,
with complex facilities that are simple to
access from Basic.
Sound is controlled by Atari’s Pokey
chip. Four separate voices or sound chan-
nels use the TV loudspeaker, and there is
a “beeper” loudspeaker on the console
which is used, among other things, to
signal errors like “‘line too long”. The
Atari 410 cassette recorder has both digi-
tal and audio tracks, so recorded voice
and/or music can be combined with pro-
grams. This facility is used in Atari’s
educational cassette series, which in-
cludes Invitation to Programming and
various language courses. The computer
(continued on page 77)
75
Two flexible multi-user systems
TheVector Graphic 500
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The Vector Graphic 5005 & 5032 compatible applications software
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Supporting up to a maximum of 5 users COMPILER, ALGOL, PL/I
and giving up to 32 megabytes of high-speed and other statistical and
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processing software.
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DATA SYSTEMS
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@ Circle No. 150
(continued from page 75)
controls the cassette motor by using a
Poke.
The four voices are controlled by
.Pokes or from Basic. Commands take the
form:
SOUND 0, 121, 10, 8
where 0 is the number of the voice, 0 to 3;
121 is the frequency of the note, from 0 to
255; 10 is the sound quality, even num-
bers from 0 to 14; and 8 is the volume
from 1 to 15.
Sound quality
The “‘quality” rating is the amount of
distortion in the sound, which can take
-| you from a white noise sound to a fairly
pure tone. Obviously the range of poten-
tial effects is enormous, especially as
Sound statements take variables as well
as numbers. Particularly interesting
effects can be produced by using a vari-
able in the distortion value. Spaceship
noises and explosions are also fun to do.
If you want to play notes and tunes you
can turn the keyboard into an organ, or
use Read and Data statements with look-
up tables so you can enter notes like C or
G rather than numbers. Duration and
attack must be controlled using delay
loops. Sounds are ended by entering
SOUND 0, 0, 0, 0.
Atari also offers a plug-in ROM called
Music Composer for composing and
arranging tunes.
The graphics routines use two LSI
Atari chips called Antic and GTIA. Col-
our routines are accessed in a similar way
to sound routines. First you use the Set-
color command, such as
SETCOLOR 0, 1, 4
which is like choosing a palette, and then
Color 1 or Color 2 to set a particular
colour.
Setcolor offers five colour registers,
defined by the first parameter. The
second value is the hue number — see
table 1 — and the third value is the
luminance or brightness in the range of
even numbers 0 to 14. This luminance
capability gives the Atari a range of 128
colour effects. A colour which appears
red at luminance 0 can appear almost |
white at luminance 14.
Text on border
There are 12 fundamental graphics
modes available, and the number of col-
ours available varies according to the
graphics mode in use, which also governs
the resolution of the display.
TV sets are normally designed to over-
scan, taking the picture off the edges to
prevent unsightly borders. This is fine for
TV but not j.2r a computer so the Atari is
designed to use a central display area,
with a border to fill the edges of the
screen. The screen and border colours
can be controlled by direct Pokes or
Setcolor commands. If you wish, you can
put text on the border, though this is not
normal practice.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Fda
The central screen has a resolution
which ranges from 20 by 12 — a text
mode with double-size letters to 320 by
192 pixels. Graphics modes have a four-
line ‘text window” at the bottom of the
screen; it can be removed by adding 16 to
the graphics mode instruction. You can
display text on a graphics screen, and it is
also possible to use more than one mode
on the screen at the same time by using
the Display List Interrupt provided by
. Antic.
The number of colours available, and
the amount of RAM required, varies for
the different screen modes. Graphics 2.
for example, is a five-colour mode which
uses only 261 bytes, while Graphics 7 is a
four-colour mode requiring almost 4K.
As the user can change modes at any
time, it is an important point that screen
data can be held anywhere in RAM. This
also means you can store several screens
in different places in RAM and then use a
three-byte instruction
jump to address — low byte, high bytes
to change from one to another. This
technique is called “page flipping”, and
can be used to provide a degree of anima-
tion.
Table 1. Setcolor codes and colour Pokes.
Poke
number
0
16
v2
48
64
80
96
112
128
144
160
176
192
208
224
240
setcolor
Colaur number
Black/white
Rust
Red-orange
Dark orange
Red
Purple
Cobalt blue
Ultramarine
Blue
WOAN DA RWNH OO
Dark blue
Blue-grey
Olive green
Green
Dark green
Orange-green
Orange
ROM cartridges may be plugged into the slots behind the Atari 800 keyboard.
It is equally possible to jump between
character sets. Two character sets are
provided in ROM, but with much time
and effort you could set up your own or
use a character-generator program. As a
character set costs only 512 or 1,024 bytes
of memory, you can afford several. It is
possible to switch from one to another —
especially useful with characters that are
not letters but shapes — or, by using
Antic for machine-fast switching, use
more than one character set on the screen
at once. A Poke into one location is
enough to switch sets.
Fine scrolling
Another interesting Atari technique
using the way screen data is stored in
RAM is fine scrolling. Instead of moving
vast amounts of data through RAM.
which is slow and difficult, on the Atari
you can move the screen over RAM. As .
with page flipping, this is simply a matter
of telling Antic the address where the
screen display starts. To make it work,
the RAM data must include more than a
screenful of image, of course. The Atari
has two registers for scrolling, one for
vertical — one pixel at a time — and one
for horizontal scrolling. Diagonal scroll-
ing uses both at the same time. An in-
teresting game called Eastern Front, 1941
by Atari’s Chris Crawford provides a map
about 10 screens in size — it was re-
viewed in June’s Practical Computing. .
The player uses a:joystick to fine-scroll
over any of it, and the effect is remark-
able. According to Crawford, the entire
map program, data, display list and char-
acter-set definitions for this game use
only 4K of RAM — a considerable
achievement by normal standards.
Finally, the Atari has another remark-
able ‘facility called Player Missile
Graphics, which allows high-speed
animation. It provides four players.
which can move independently of each
other and the background or playfield,
plus four small ‘missiles’ — which can
(continued on next page)
tl,
columns
type
text 40
text 20
text 20
graphics/ext 40
graphics/text 80
graphics/text 80
graphics/text 160
graphics/text 160
graphics/ext 320
graphics/text 80
graphics/text 80
graphics/text 80
-~S§COONDO A WHO
ayer
number of
colours
bytes of
RAM needed
993
513
261
273
537
1,017
2,025
3,945
7,900
8,182
8,182
8,182
1 xX 2 luminances
1 xX 16 luminances
9x 1 luminance
16 xX 1 luminance
Table 2. Atari 800 graphics modes and their memory requirements.
(continued from previous page)
also be combined to give a fifth player.
There are collision-detection registers
and priority registers, so a player can pass
behind another player and in front of a
third. A “player” is any graphic image
you construct as long as it is not more
than eight bits wide.
Once devised, the player can quickly
be displayed normal width, double width
or quadruple width. Each player appears
as a table in RAM either 128 or 256 bytes
long, depending on the degree of resolu-
tion. This table is mapped directly from
the top to the bottom of the screen.
The advantage of this technique is that
the player looks one-dimensional in
RAM. The image can be moved up and
Specifications
CPU: 6502C, 1.79MHz
Memory: 16K RAM, upgradable to 48K;
10K ROM operating system; 8K ROM
Basic, 40-48K RAM location
VDU: not supplied; use domestic TV via
built-in RF modulator or monitor via
composite video output port; up to 128
colour/luminance combinations; up to
320 by 192 resolution
Sound: four-channel sound from TV
speaker; keyboard sounder
Cassette: digital, 600baud plus audio
channel, uses TV speaker; sold as
optional extra
Power: from external transformer with two
outlets, supplied with micro
down the table very easily and almost
instantaneously. For horizontal move-
ment there is a horizontal position regis-
ter. To move the image across the screen .
you simply change the number stored in
this register. One Poke is enough to move
‘the whole image, even to move it off the
screen. Thus high-speed graphics
becomes possible.
PMG is made accessible by Antic.
which is a true microprocessor with its
Own instruction set, program and data. It
works with Pokey and the GTIA chips,
each of which is almost as big, in terms of
silicon area, as the 6502 itself. It is these
three chips which set the Atari apart from
— and, at least arguably, well above —
all other 6502-based machines in terms of
78
its ability to handle graphics displays.
The Atari 400 and 800 have a true
Operating :system in user-removable
ROM. It takes up less than 700 bytes, but
also within the LOK ROM pack there are
the character sets, the floating-point
maths, the power-on and cartridge-select
logic, and the device drivers.
The operating system is accessed
through one address, so updating it, if
necessary, should be straightforward.
Another company already offers an en-
hanced operating system to go with an
Extended Basic A+ for the Atari. The
Operating-system ROM which can be
Close, Get Characters, Get Record, Put
Characters, Put Record, Close, plus Get
Status and Special.
There are eight device handlers in the
Operating-system ROM which can be
assigned at will to peripherals, but will
normally support four disc drives of 88K
each, the keyboard, printer and screen,
etc. The disc file directory can, however.
take up quite a considerable proportion
of the 48K RAM. There are 8K blocks of
RAM where the plug-in ROM cartridges
take precedence over free RAM above
32K, reducing the user memory avail-
able.
Against this, machine-language prog-
rams can be loaded without the Basic
language cartridge in place. If you need
large amounts of memory, you can al-
ways buy Axlon’s Ramdisk which plugs
into the Atari’s third memory slot be-
tween two 16K packs and provides 128K
in 16K addressable blocks. If you wanted
to hold, say, 16 screens at once and
switch quickly between them, this would
be a way to do it.
Few people seem to have linked “‘inde-
pendent” disc drives to the Atari, but
Corvus has announced 5, 10 and 20Mbyte
Winchesters for the 800. As the Atari
Operating system makes such devices easy
to access, however, more can be ex-
pected.
The Basic A+ from Optimized Sys-
tems Software includes such commands
as Print. Using, While-Endwhile, If-Else-
Endif and some player-missile graphics
commands. The Atari Program Exchange
program offers extended fig-Forth and
extended WSFN. Tiny-C and Logo are
expected soon, while Addcom offers Lisp
2.0.
Atari computers are supplied with a
book and a manual. The book is Atari
Basic, a 340-page teach-yourself book by
Albrecht, Finkel and Brown. It works by
question-and-answer and is suitable for
absolute beginners.
The Atari manual provides a thorough
guide to setting up the machine, explains
the reserved words briefly, gives a list of
useful Pokes and some sample programs.
However, it does not even mention play-
er-missile graphics: for that you need the
massive Operating System User’s Manual
and Hardware Manual which tells you
everything you need to know and a great
deal you do not.
In general, the Atari documentation is
good, except in one respect — it was
written for the original American
machine, which had a CTIA chip instead
of the GTIA one. There is thus no men-
tion of graphics modes 9, 10 and 11. As
GR. 10 allows your choice of nine colours
in any luminance, and GR. 11 allows 16
colours at once, in one luminance, this is
something of a loss.
Conclusions
@ The Atari 800 is a smartly designed
and well-finished microcomputer that
plugs into a domestic TV and does not
look out of place in the home.
@ The keyboard and screen-editing facili-
ties are good, and anyone used to an
| electric typewriter will find the 800 conve-
nient to use.
@ The books and manual supplied or
available, including software, make the
800 suitable for a beginner who wants to
play games and learn microcomputing.
The Basic supplied is powerful and has
good error-trapping, but anyone used to
the Microsoft dialect will find some
aspects of it idiosyncratic,
@ The quality and versatility of the sound
and colour graphics facilities are excep-
tional.
@ Languages, operating systems and
memory all come as plug-in ROM packs,
making the 800 ultimately very versatile
and capable of accepting upgrades and
enhancements in the future.
@ A wide range of software is available,
but almost all of it is for games or educa-
tional. The arcade-style games from Atari
are generally of exceptionally high quali-
ty.
@ The 800 could be a suitable choice for a
small business, but only if software and
support become available in vastly greater
quantities. An inherent limitation is that |
the hardware — console, discs, VDU —
does not stack easily, and so requires a
large area of desk space.
@ It has the potential to be a very success-
ful home computer, especially when its
capabilities become more widely known.
At the moment, however, both the console
and the peripherals seem over-priced for
the British market. i]
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
went
»
We'd love to manufacture the game you've invented.
If we can tear ourselves away from it.
lf your programme is compelling enough to
glue us to our television sets, then it's just what we're
looking for And if we can leave it alone for long
enough to produce it, we'll glue millions of other
people to their sets as well.
THORN EMlis looking for video games and other
general interest programmes, which have been
produced for home computers from the following:
Apple, Atari, B.B.C., Commodore, Sinclair or
Texas Instruments.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Whether you're a professional programmer or
competent amateur, if you have produced a pro-
gramme that you think we may be interested in, we'd
love to hear from you.
Please don't send the programme direct. Write
to Home Computer Software Department,
THORN EMI Video Programmes, Upper
St. Martins Lane, London W.C.2. and we
will send you an application form.
Leaders in home video entertainment.
VIDEO
@ Circle No. 151
79
SUPERBRAIN
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WORD PROCESSING
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Dual density SUPERBRAIN together with the dual purpose
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Prices exclude VAT and are subject to fluctuation.
@ Circle No. 152
80 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Eight fine ports...
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Multiport, another professional $100 card from Hi-tech Electronics, at only
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@ Circle No. 153
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 81
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PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
@ Circle No. 155
83
SSS ee: See
In the Far East, Pips sells
Sords like VisiCalc sells
Apples — yet in Britain
few have heard of Japan’s
second-biggest micro
maker let alone its
information-processing
package. Ian Stobie
investigates, and finds a
spy in the Tab.
THE USUAL eight-bit microcomputers in
the £2,000 to £3,000 price bracket these
days seem to be designed around
a Z-80 microprocessor with CP/M. The
Sord M-23 Mark III is rather different.
For a start, it comes without CP/M at the
moment, and the Z-80A is augmented by
128K of RAM, twice the normal mem-
ory.
The hardware approach is generally
innovative, with 64K chips and four-layer
PCBs employed. A liquid-crystal flat-
screen display option was exhibited at the
1982 Hanover Fair.
For your £1,950 you receive three
boxes, some software and a set of manu-
als. The intelligent part is housed in the
keyboard unit and comprises a Z-80A
running at the usual 4MHz, addressing
128K by adopting a page-switching
approach; 4K of this is dedicated to a
memory-mapped video display. A boot-
strap loader lives in 4K of ROM to ensure
‘something happens immediately you turn
the system on.
Function keys
The keyboard itself is a full QWERTY
layout with a separate numeric keypad,
nine programmable function keys
arranged in two banks, and a row of four
cursor-control keys. A depression run-
ning above the function keys has space
for you to label what the keys are being
used for in any particular application.
The two Caps Lock keys light up when
shift lock is on. Though this seems a
peculiar feature at first sight it turns out
to be useful when runnings Pips or if you
find it necessary to ignore the screen to
watch your fingers when typing. The
operating system also makes use of them
to signal error conditions.
The Return key is in the normal place,
but with much of the Sord software you
can also use the Execute key to the right
of the numeric keypad, where a Cancel
key is also provided. Reset is positioned
well out of harm’s way inside the case.
You reach it with a pencil, through an
Opening in the right-hand side of the
keyboard unit, so accidental resetting
should be impossible.
Prominent on top of the keyboard unit
is a well containing three expansion slots.
Sord has announced various add-on units
_ which fit in here, including a Cmos RAM
84
cartridge, various interface cards; and
ROM packs containing popular Sord
software also available on disc, like Pips
and the Sord Word processor. The review
system had two slots free and a floppy-
disc interface in the third.
The disc unit itself is a hefty 8kg. box
which seems unnecessarily bulky by to-
day’s standards. It contains two Teac
5.25in. drives: they were fairly noisy, and
seemed to be the kind that rotate all the
time the drive doors are closed. They can
be locked shut with a little lever located
next to each drive door. Total disc capac-
ity for the unit is 660K.
A SMbyte hard disc is promised shortly
at a likely price somewhere below £2,000.
Sord also markets a dual 3in. micro-floppy
disc unit holding 290K each drive, but it is |
not yet being imported into the U.K.
The third box is a 12in. monochrome
video monitor with green screen, the
same unit which is sold independently
under the BMC brand name in the U.K.
It displays 25 lines by 80 characters of
text, with each alphanumeric or graphic
character constructed from an eight-by-
eight matrix; it lacks true descenders.
The standard Sord generates an RGB |
colour-video signal, so if you attach an |
optional colour monitor it gives you an
eight-colour display. Colour can be speci-
fied character by character, so you can
display mixed-colour text and graphics:
The colour capability is made use of in
Sord-supplied software like Pips.
By judicious choice of graphics charac-
ters 640-by-200 point high-resolution
graphics are achievable. For precision
graphics Sord provides Sord Graphics
Language as an option, which has high-
level commands to plot points, draw arcs,
SORD M-23
construct bar diagrams and so on. The
display is average for a machine of this
class, though inferior to new generation
16-bit micros like the ACT Sirius,. which
is not much more expensive.
Two RS-232C sockets are provided.
one configured in Modem and the other
in Teletype mode. There is also a parallel
Centronics-type socket, so most makes of
printer should be compatible. We were
using an, Epson MX-80F/T which costs
about £360 at the moment and worked
perfectly with the system. Exleigh can
supply character-set ROMs for it if you
particularly want Pips graphics to appear
the same on the printer as on the screen.
LCD add-on
The most interesting add-on for the
Sord M-23 Mark III is the liquid crystal
display which can display eight lines of 80
characters, using an eight-by-eight matrix
of LCD dots. Clearly this is a first step
towards 24 lines and ultimately 66-line
full-screen displays. An LCD display is
compact, flat and uses reflected light, and
sO promises to be a more natural ana-
logue to paper than a cathode-ray tube.
The software normally provided is
SOS, the Sord Operating System, CBasic
— not Digital Research’s offering of the
same name but Sord’s compiled Basic —
and Pips II, the latest version of Sord’s
spread-sheet and record-handling pack-
age. We also took a look at the Sord word
processor which would normally be extra.
Other languages available are
UCSD Pascal, Fortran 80 and Cobol
80, which have been configured to run
under SOS, and Sord DBasic — “D”
stands for Docking Basic, because it can
link up with PIPS files. Sord terminology
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
sometimes shows traces of hours spent at
the Space Invader machine.
CP/M is not available yet but is pro-
mised. As a non-CP/M machine the M23
Mark III does suffer from a relative lack
of software. A number of application
packages are available from Exleigh for
specific types of user, including video
hire, building job costing and accounts,
mailing, and the standard accounting
applications.
Expansion possibilities
The M-23 Mark III is really the start-
level business system aimed especially at
people interested in running Pips. Other
machines in the Sord range are larger and
have greater expansion possibilities in-
cluding S-100 bus slots, more disc options
and a different keyboard.
On switching on the system a message
comes up on the screen telling you to
SET DISKETTE AND STRIKE ANY KEY.
Doing this boots the resident part of the
operating system off the disc and it then
announces itself with another message
and a request for the current date. Any
errors during this process are indicated by
the built-in speaker sounding and the
lights on the Caps Lock keys coming on.
After entering the date you can start
running programs, copying discs and us-
ing any other operating-system functions.
The operating system will seem famil-
iar enough to users of CP/M. It is simple
and straightforward, and in general its
activities are accompanied by helpful
messages. Direct and sequential file-
access methods are supported. The SOS
manual is short but detailed, which is a
relief after the scrappy documents with
separate amendment pages that come
with some CP/M systems. However it
could do with an index, the absence of
which is a common failing with Sord
documentation.
After entering the date, every operat-
ing system command can be entered as a
single keystroke of the function keys, so
only one person needs to understand the
system in any depth and can set it up for
others to use simply. Function-definitions
live on disc, so you could work with one
disc per application with the function
keys set up for the jobs involved. An
individual program might also use the
function keys for different purposes, in
which case they would return to their
operating-system functions when control
passed back to SOS on exiting the pro-
gram.
The seven keys can be used shifted or
unshifted, giving 14 definitions which can
each be up to 31 characters long and
consist of any valid SOS commands. So
the first three keys could be set up as
follows:
F1: BASIC/C RUN'UPDATE <CR>
F2: XFER O:PRICES 1:PRICES
F3: LIST/1
This means that after booting and enter-
ing the date, hitting F1 will load Basic
and run the program Update; F2 will
make a backup copy of the file Prices,
copying it from drive 0 to drive 1; F3 will
list the names of the files on disc 1 — List
here is the SOS equivalent of Catalog or
Directory.
A similar procedure allows the system
to be set up to operate in true turnkey
mode, with control passing directly to a
program as soon as a disc is booted,
without any conversation about the date.
The Sord word processor is quite a
professional piece of software. Users
familiar with WordStar will find it does
formatting differently, with a format line
displayed at the top of every screen into
which formatting parameters like line
spacing, line length and tab positions are
entered. You then type in text page by
page.
The M-23’s main board is a compact four-layer PCB. The CPU is a Z-80A at top left,
with the 64K RAM in the 16 chips at bottom right.
>
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
sz
Specifications
Microprocessor: Z-80A running at 4MHz
Memory: 128K in two banks; 64K in bank
0, 60K plus 4K dedicated to the screen
display in bank 1
ROM: 4K boot
Ports: Two RS-232C serial; one parallel;
black-and-white video, colour video
Screen: Monochrome 12in. green, or
optional colour monitor; 80 characters by
25 lines; Characters formed from five by
seven dots within eight-by-eight dot
matrix. graphics character set gives
effective 640 by 200 resolution
Keyboard: Full ASCII set in QWERTY
layout; separate numeric pad; cursor-
control keys; seven programmable
function keys and two special keys
Bus: Sord M2; three user-expansion slots
Discs: Two Teac FD-50C drives, 320K
each, using standard 5.25in. floppy discs
Software included in price: SOS, CBasic,
Pips II
Other languages available: Z-80
assembler; DBasic, interfaces to Pips;
UCSD Pascal; Fortran; Cobol
Price: £1,950
U.K. importer: Exleigh Business
Machines, 11 Market Place, Penzance,
Cornwall TR18 2JB. Telephone (0736)
66577
The method used to insert and delete
characters is clear, but slow for individual
characters. After hitting the Insert func-
tion key the screen is rearranged to dis-
play the 40 characters following the cur-
sor at the bottom of the screen. You then
type in the new material and hit Execute,
and the screen is redisplayed with the
insertion made. For correcting gross typ-
ing errors like mis-struck keys this is a
lengthy process for one character: the
approach is clearly aimed at the skilled
copy typist doing cut and paste work on a
standard document.
Delete, Move, Copy and Replace are
done in a similar way. Here you move the
cursor from the position it was in when
you hit the function key to the end of the
range of text — the scope — you wish to
deal with and the relevant text is dis-
played in reverse.
Word processor
The word processor includes a merge
function, useful in producing a batch of
standard letters with name, address,
salutation and discount rate personalised.
It is straightforward to use, but has the
limitation that the fields of the separate
merge file have to be in the order you
intend to use them in the letter. You
cannot hold the telephone number im-
mediately after the address and then print
a letter where the telephone number
appears first.
Housekeeping functions have not been
neglected. Information is kept on when a
file was last revised, printed and backed
(continued on next page)
85
(continued from previous page)
up. The taking of back-up copies is en-
couraged by display of archive functions
on a screen menu; you can duplicate your -
back-up disc or archive file as a print
image with all formatting parameters
saved as well,
This attention to gathering statistics
extends to the word processor counting
your keystrokes as you type and filing
away the number of keystrokes against
| the time taken. Since the Sord automati-
cally repeats a key if it is held down for
more than half a second the obvious way
to defeat this spy in the micro ts to hold
down the space bar on some innocuous
part of the document while conducting
discussions with your friends. Subsequent
| deletion of the space page makes no
difference to the statistics held. Obvious-
ly the designers of this package do not
rate the ingenuity of its ultimate users
very highly.
A more useful feature the package
boasts is the glossary, which allows you to
define a commonly occuring phrase of up
to 77 characters and equate it with one of
the ordinary keys on the keyboard. The
phrase can later be recalled and inserted
into the text simply by hitting the func-
tion key F7 followed by the relevant key.
The number of keys on the keyboard
imposes a limit on the size of the glossary.
The word processor manual lacked an
index. A reasonably clear and detailed
manual describes a version of the system
running on the larger Sord machines,
while a scrappy modification document
describes all the differences. You need to
use this to find what each function key
does as the M-23 keyboard is quite
different.
Pips
Much of Sord’s expansion in Japan has
been based on the success of Pips, which
sells Sords like VisiCale sells Apples. In
addition to spread-sheet features, like
VisiCalc Pips can also be used as a report
generator or record-card manager, hav-
ing sort and search facilities and being
able to handle non-tabular data.
Two Pips manuals were provided, of
which one covers the system badly and
the other well. The good once is very clear
and easy to follow but has no index.
To use Pips you place the Pips program
disc and the Pips data disc in the drives
and boot in the normal way. After enter-
ing the date the screen displays an exam-
ple of a Pips page and a message asking
you to select a command.
Pips operates on screenfuls of data,
termed pages, which can consist of either
tabular data formatted into rows or col-
umns, or unformatted data consisting
simply of text or graphic characters. Sig-
nificantly, data on either kind of page can
be retrieved by the search command.
A typical sequence of Pips commands
might read:
G<CR>
86
15<CR>
L<CR>
Hitting G followed by carriage return
instructs Pips to get a page; Pips then asks
which page. Typing 15 causes Pips to
fetch page 15 on to the screen from the
disc. Typing L lists it on the printer.”
Sequential commands
Pips derives its power from its ability to
handle sequences of commands. Com-
mands can simply be entered in a line
separated by semicolons:
Gris;
gets page I5 again and lists it. More
powerfully, a command line can be stored
on disc and equated with a function key. |
Hitting that key when the system is ex-
pecting a Pips command will then execute
what is, in effect, a small program. The
procedure to do this is very simple:
PF37:G715jL
allows you to use function key.7 to do the
listing of page 15 in future.
Although these sequences of com-
mands look unreadable, constructing
them is made easy by the ability to review
the last 10 command lines you have given
to Pips. So you can experiment until
everything is right, then copy the success-
ful line on to a function key.
Here is another program, this time
operating on tabular data:
CAL;C5—C3=;FO;C;W;4
CAL;C5 — C3= calculates the difference
between the figures in column 5 and
column 3, for all the figures in the col-
umn. The results go into a work area.
FO;C brings the results back as a column
of figures; and W;4 writes them into
column 4. You could equally well create a
new column, say 6, or set up a new page
for the results.
Longer sequences of commands can be
stored as named programs. Instead of
pressing a function key the command
Au#Name is entered. Pips includes a
small program editor.
The latest version of Pips, supplied for
review, goes beyond this to include a
complete programming language called
Inp. It resembles a simplified Basie but
can operate on Pips pages, as well as
providing other ways of organising data.
Sord’s Basic, DBasic ts available for
really complex applications.
The significance of these features is
that Sord has provided not just a spread-
sheet package but a graduated introduc-
tion to data processing. Data set up
casually with Pips can end up being
reorganised’ and used as part of an inte-
grated suite of Basic programs. If you are
not ready for this level of sophistication
you can just use Pips as a screen-based
worksheet for calculations, using single
commands if you like.
VisiCalc is the obvious benchmark with
which to compare Pips although the de-
sign approach is very different. With both
you have the convenience of being able to
_ function keys and colour graphics are well
Review ===
type in data before you have decided |
what you are going to do with it, and then
deciding how you want to manipulate it.
In VisiCale, formulae are entered into
the cells of the table in the same way as
data. This is spontaneous, but it is easy to
overwrite a carefully constructed formula
without realising it. Pips commands are
kept more securely, so it can safely be
used by unskilled staff doing a regular job
set up by somcone else. Sord has again
used the function keys effectively, and by
providing for named programs makes
very long sequences of commands much
casier to carry out than would be the case
with VisiCale.
With Pips, results can be put into new
tables as well as inserted into new col-
umns in existing tables. Unlike VisiCalc,
columns can have different widths and
these can be changed independently after
data has been entered. Pips can draw bar
graphs and simple dot graphs, and hand-
les upper- and lower-case text. With a
colour monitor it can do graphs in eight
colours.
Pips can operate on unformatted pages
of text as well as tabular data. String
searches work on both. Its files interface
easily to Sord’s DBasic.
Sord has grown rapidly in its native
Japan to take 17 percent of the personal
computer market, placing itsecond only
to NEC. But in Europe it is a relatively
unknown company outside Ireland,
where it is building a new plant.
Sord machines are available in England
through Exleigh Business Machines of
Penzance, Cornwall: the M-23 Mark III is
marketed as the Exleigh Expert X6-22.
Exleigh has a network of 24 dealers sell-
ing mostly into the small business sector
with appropriate application software.
Conclusions
@ A generally well-made, relatively mod-
ern and expandable machine. At just
under £2,000 it is good value.
@ If you can find suitable software there
is no need to have any qualms about the
Sord hardware. However, as long as CP/M
is not available you are less likely to find
something that fits your needs. Otherwise
the Sord SOS is quite adequate.
@ Distinctive hardware features like the
supported by the Sord system software.
Some effort has been devoted to making
the hardware features usable.
@ The ergonomics of the keyboard and
screen, though quite good, are not up to
the standard set by the very latest and
generally slightly more expensive
machines from major manufacturers. It is
worth taking a look at machines like the
ACT Sirius, IBM Personal Computer and
DEC Rainbow 100 to see how much these
things matter to you. |
@ Pips is very good. It is quite likely that
many people will use the machine simply
as a Pips engine, as in Japan. Gl:
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
COMPUTECH for @apple
Authorised dealer, service centre and
system consultancy
SUCCESS BREEDS SUCCESS!
As authorised dealer and service centre for Apple computers we have acquired extensive experience
of users’ needs and the most cost effective means of satisfying them from the considerable resources
of this popular and reliable machine. Over 1,000 of our financial accounting packages have been
installed. In the process we have have detected areas of special need and opportunities -for enhancing
these resources. Our own manufactured hardware and system software have been produced to meet
these requirements. As a result we have compatible products for all configurations of Apple {| and
ITT 2020 installations - and the new Apple /// !
Apple /// now on demonstration - systems from £1,645
Pro-File 5 MB mass storage for Apple /// £2,256
Computech mass storage for Apple I! and Apple ///, up to 12 MB, from £1,950
COMPUTECH SOFTWARE AND HARDWARE INCLUDES:
Payroll for 350 employees, 100 departments, all pay periods, printed payslips, approved year end
documents, very quick and easy to use, £375. Sales, Purchases and General Ledgers £295 each,
detailed statements. Job Costing and Group Consolidation are amongst many and various applications
of the General Ledger package, which supports values to totals of one thousand million accurate to a
penny! Our Utilities Disk available like other packages in 13 sector or 16 sector format, is widely used for
reliable, error checking, copying, including single drive, and the renowned DPATCH: program beloved of
programmers for £20. We have developed a Terminal Utilities package which enables Apple to Apple
and Apple to mainframe communications with local processing. and storage as well as Apple to host
communications from the amazingly low price of £130. Our Graphics Utilities program for use with the
Microline and Epson families of printers enable the plain paper production on low cost printers of high
resolution screen pictures, graphs etc. - free with Microlines or £30 separately. Keyboard Driver enables
the use of our Lower Case adaptor with BASIC programs and Applewriter Patches supplied .FREE
with our character generator package (total cost £50) is separately available on disk with documents for
£10. At the same price CAI (convert Apple pictures for TT) makes binary high resolution picture files
display properly on the 11T2020.We sell the famous Visicale for £130 and have delivered systems using
it to do amazing things like production control, shipping accounts and stocks and shares valuations! The
versatile Applewriter word-processing package at only £39, especially employed with our Lower Case
Character Generator is widely used by people who cannot type to produce word-perfect copy! Experience
with Apple systems has led to the design and manufacture of compatible products with enhanced features
at very favourable prices to satisfy users’ needs. These include the Diplomat Serial Interface which Fas
handshaking capability and switchable options (£80), the Diplomat Parallel Interface which enables the
direct use of text and graphics with the Microline and Epson printers and is a complete ‘plug in and go’
item with gold-plated edge-connector at £80 and has optional direct connection for Centronics 730/737
printers. Our new Diplomat Communications Card at £95 is a sophisticated peripheral especially suitable
for Apple to mainframe communications at high speeds in full duplex mode with switch selectable bit
rates and other options. The Lower Case adaptor is available for Apples (revision 7 and earlier) as well as
ITT 2020, complete with diskette software for £50. It offers true descenders onscreen and the £ sign. We
also have an Optional Character Generator for the ever popular Microline M80 at £15. This provides
£ sign and improved digits and lower case characters with USASCII special symbols. Our price for the
Microline M80, with graphics, 40, 80 and 132 characters per line, friction, sprocket and teleprinter feed,
is only £295, amazing for this small, quiet reliable ‘look alike’ printer. Tractor option is £40 and Serial
Adaptor £80. The Microline M82A, bidirectional printer with both parallel and serial input is only £395, it
can have an optical 2K buffer, while the Microline M83A full width adjustable tractor 120 cps printer with
similar specification is only £645. Then for all computer users there is the unique Micromux which from
£800 provides up to 16 ports for simultaneous independent serial asynchronous communications! Telephone
for data sheets or to arrange a demonstration or for the address of our nearest dealer. Please hurry - the
demand for our products has been such that some have been temporarily out of stock. We offer the
effective low cost solutions you need. Prices exclude V.A.T., carriage and packing.
COMPUTEGH SYSTEMS
168, Finchley Road, London NW3 GHP. Tel: 01-794 0202
AGENTS THROUGHOULIT TE tik ANDI OCIVE FREE AS
@ Circle No: 156
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 87
ONE STOP SHOP
Yes - one Call
does it All!
3 We're your One Stop Shop for
3] Apple, Superbrain and other
| A 4 | leading personal computers.
fot xy We can offer the Tabs accounting
‘3 es #4 and stock control packages,
te eh © Wordstar for word processing
B24 Sand Visicale for financial
Byer sq modelling. We provide on-site
Mees ey maintenance and tailored
xs 8 programming services second
ae #4 to none, We pride ourselves on
pre giving first class customer support
a p: and training.
Call us now and arrange a demonstration
or ask for details of our free weekly seminars.
COMPUTER SALES AND SERVICES
make sure you get it right
260 Cambridge Heath Road, London E2 9DA
Telephone: 01-981 7311 Telex: 8952578
@ Circle No. 157
88
FAR INTOTHE
FUTURE...
wabash
Only Wabash guarantees its diskettes well into the future.
Five years for Maxi-Myte 8” Diskettes, and two years for
Mini-Myte 5%” Diskettes. You can trust your data with
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Write or phone for a free brochure and immediate prices.
DEALERS!
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Share in our success by
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the only diskettes that carry five
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Media Supplies now for
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@ Circle No. 158
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
WINDOW SHOPPING?
then look no further! we offer a range
of quality hardware and software.
- We
oS" W tinepapays
ee,
WU;
i My
TUM:
rm |
TEC STARWRITER EXECUTIVE 40
A superior daisy wheel printer suitable for most
micro’s and mini’s costing less than you'd
expect achieving professional results in all
applications. Bi-directional logic seeking
Printing, 40CPS. Quiet operation. Easy change
96 character daisy wheel. Carbon multi-strike
or fabric ribbons. 1 year warranty. ,
APPAR AA eee Agee
r | cam
INSIGHT VDT-6
A new, stylishly designed terminal for use
with ‘WORDSTAR’, it features 31. special
Wordstar function keys for higher perform-
ance word processing. 80 character x 24 line
display with an enhanced contrast screen.
Graphic line drawing mode. Detached key-
board with numeric pad. Full video attributes
e.g. underline, reverse video. blinking. 16
independent baud rates for interfacing. The
most competitively priced Wordstar VOU on
the market.
INFO SCRIBE 1000
A slickly styled inexpensive dot matrix printer
suited to small business and minicomputer
systems. Hard to beat low noise performance,
touch-sensor controls, and exceptional speed
are definite advantages of this printer. Bi-
directional logic seeking printing, 180CPS.
Low speed correspondence quality printing
mode. Double density printing. Double wide
printing. 96 characters. Descenders and under-
lining. Tractor feed included as standard.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
NORTH STAR
ADVANTAGE
North Star's latest desk top computer. The
Advantage is an integrated graphics computer
that is equally suited to both business and
scientific use. Advanced features include dual
processors, and high resolution graphics display.
The Advantage contains a 4 MHz Z80A CPU
with 64Kb of 200 nsec dynamic RAM (with
parity) for program storage, a separate 20Kb
200 nsec RAM to drive the bit-mapped display,
a 2Kb bootstrap PROM and an auxilliary Intel
8035 microprocessor to control the keyboard
and floppy disks. The two integrated mini-
floppy drives are double-sided, double-
density providing storage of 360Kb per drive
for a total of 720Kb. Inside the chasis is a
eight slot mini-bus for plug-in option cards.
Included with the Advantage system is a system
diskette containing a Business Graphics
package, a complete system diagnostic program
and a graphics demo. package. The serial printer
port is graphics software compatible with
Epson printers, making it easy to produce a
hardcopy of the screen. For a wide variety of
commercial, scientific or industrial applications
North Star's graphics version of the industry
standard CP/M is offered.
NosThSk
NORTH STAR HORIZON HARD DISK
The highly regarded Horizon microcomputer
with mini-winchester disk drive. This integral
hard disk gives a massive 3, 6, 9, or 12 million
character storage capacity. More intensive com-
puting power sufficient for virtually ail appli-
cations. For further capacity, up to four M26
Winchester hard disks can be added externally
giving access to over an incredible 100 million
characters of data. Using Starlink our en-
hanced CP/M compatible multi-user operating
system this data can be accessed by one or
more users in a time sharing or multi-
processing environment. Starlink is at the heart
of system expansion. Starlink logically inte-
grates the Horizon with a range of Winchester
disks and/or additional 1/O, memory and
processors. Features include independent login
and logout, print spooling, file lock and unlock
for common files, five priority levels, two-way
Private commufications, mail/news/message
facilities etc. In all over 20 utilities are in-
corporated in the Starlink package.
EPSON MX82 F/T 2
A first class compact dot-matrix printer with
high resolution bit image graphics. Bi-
directional logic seeking printing, 80 cps,
quiet operation. Plotter printing.
be
TELEVIDEO TV! 910
Low cost fully intelligent terminal with many
features as standard normally found as options
on similar priced terminals. Typewriter tabs,
monitor modes, programming features. 8 x 10
character resolution. Full video attributes. 15
baud rates.
RICOH RP1600S ey
Fast and reliable making it suitable for todays
word processing demands/ Its heavy duty con-
struction will stand up in harsh working
environments. Bi-directional, logic seeking, 65
cps. Options include Tractor feed, automatic
sheet feeder.
aif2D ARG
= 5 OS SS [=a eee EY
GES Microcomputer Specialists pi
46 Balham High Road London SW12 9AQ Tet: 01-675 5325
ie ee ee oe |
Name
Positron
Company
1 [
Tel No
uit
PLEASE SEND ME OETAILS OF THESE ANO OTHE R PROOUCTS
@ Circle No. 159
89
owwoulda
matrix printer cost
£850 sell’
Alps ASP 3500 matrix printer is a
high speed bi-directional printer
capable of up to 180 characters
per second output. Compact and
lightweight, it contains four
languages as standard character
set and is available in two versions:
Awith 7x9 matrix for business use,
giving a true descender; and B with
9x9 matrix for graphics work.
Printing flexibility is what this
machine understands best. With a
maximum of 181 kinds of character
patterns, the ASP-3500 can handle
British and American English,
German and French. Variable print
capability permits 10 cpi for
normal characters,
ALPS ASP3500
MATRIX PRINTER
5 cpi, 6 cpi,.and 8.25 cpi for
elongated characters, and 12 cpi
and 16.5 cpi for compressed
characters. Easily adjustable forms
tractor mechanism allows you to
use any size standard pin feed
form, from 5 inches to 16 inches.
Precision wire heads can pound-out
up to two hundred million mainten-
ance-free characters. Heads come
in two types, and are replaceable in
the field, keeping costly down-time
to aminimum.
The ASP-3500 with its ease of op-
_.. eration, light weight, compact
size and quiet operation
Ng
make it welcome in any office
environment. It features a standard
systems self-test capability for
maintenance ease. Heavy duty
ribbon cartridge pops in, pops out,
for clean, quick ribbon replacement.
RS-232C standard interface, 20mA
current loop or industrial standard
parallel interface are also available.
If you're interested in distributing
Alps 3500 in the UK, give us a call
—at only £850 we think they'll sell
like hot cakes!
Mitsui Computers,
Oakcroft Road,
Chessington, Surrey KT9 1SA.
Tel: 01-397 5111.
Telex: 929929 Mitmac G.
Alps is already available in the UK from:
ALPHA MICRO (EAST ANGLIA)
Norwich 0842 63041
A1 PERIPHERALS
Slough 0753 77619
AWS LTD
Guildford 0483 504234
COMPUTER SYSTEMS WESTERN
Plymouth 0752 25051
Redruth 0209 860628
G&M MANAGEMENT
ERVICES
Southampton 0703 30664
INTEC SYSTEMS
Slough 0753 28242
JENTECH SERVICES LTD
Bridgenorth 07462 5287
TEMPLEMAN SOFTWARE
Stratford 0789 66237
VEGA COMPUTERS
Croydon 01-680 4484
mn
(i
=
: COMPUTERS
THE FEATURES OFFERED by the new
Quine Sprint 9 are excellent, the mechan-
ism scored very highly during the course
of our tests, but the appearance of a piece
of office equipment also has to be lived
with, In that respect the Qume is less
than a total delight.
The weighty detailing of its squared-off
cream-coloured fibre-resin case could be
described as ‘New Brutalist”. This looks
fine on the Pentel pen, where an elegant
designer’s joke lies in the tension be-
tween heavy styling and small dimen-
| sions. Blown up to the size of a piece of
office equipment “New Brutalism” only
makes the Qume Sprint 9 look out of
proportion.
Designed for price
The heavy look of the Japanese pen is
offset by superb mass-production en-
gineering, which saves it from being
clumsy. The new Qume printer terminal,
on the other hand, like many recent U.S.
products, appears to be built down to a
price.
The top half-cover of the case, for
instance, is designed to hinge up for
ribbon-changing and so forth, but if the
forms tractor is fitted there is not suffi-
cent space. Space could have been made
by cutting a rather larger well in the
cover, as on the Ricoh, but part of the
Qume designer’s brief was evidently to
reduce sound to a minimum, implying an
enveloping cover no matter what other
penalties that implied.
The compromise solution is to loosen a
couple of small bolts, disconnecting the
cover from the hinges, and slide forward
some small lugs before the bolts are
retightened. The top half-cover becomes
independent of the rest of the case, and
clips into position under the lugs when
the forms tractor is in position.
New cartridge
On the review model a small blade
jutting out from beneath the cover often
failed to engage with the cover-off switch.
Frequent’ access to the print-head is
necessary during a review so we had to
jury-rig the cover-off switch with a stout
paper-clip.
This gave us a clear view of the printer
mechanism, which is the most interesting
| aspect of the machine. Qume has at last
followed the Diablo lead in providing a
new Mark IV cartridge that can be
changed without fingers touching the rib-
bon. Qume’s cartridge replacement is the
easiest of any machine reviewed so far.
You should be able to do it single-hand-
| ed, if the span of your hand is broad
enough to press down the red lugs that
click the cartridge in on either side. Also
mounted on the ribbon cartridge is a
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Chris Bidmead reports on
the latest daisywheel unit
from the United States.
photoelectric cell for detecting ribbon-
out.
Replacement of the daisywheel is again
the easiest we have seen — simply a
matter of unlatching a spring-loaded lev-
er to the right of the print hammer and
pulling the wheel-mount backwards. Un-
like some other printers the wheel-mount
is independent of the cartridge carriage,
and can thus be moved back as much as
90 degrees.
Unusually the ribbon cartridge plat-
form is made of ABS plastic, part of the
cost-paring exercise evident throughout
the machine. This component would not
articulate to allow printing of two-colour
ribbon, and indeed the manual! mentions
no escape code sequences to permit this.
Yet the ribbon in the cartridges is 8 mm.
thick — sufficient to allow one track of
each colour. Alternatively IBM golf-ball
typewriters use an automatic shift
mechanism to arranges that the keys im-
pact in turn across the whole width of the
ribbon.
The Qume incorporates no such
arrangement, which means that every
used cartridge goes to the bin with a
whole character-width track of ribbon
unused. It is not hard to deduce from this
that later versions of the Sprint 9 -will
incorporate some kind of vertical arti-
clation between the wheel and the cart-
ridge platform.
One of the cartridges jammed and had
to be discarded because of uneven wind-
ing on the take-up spool. The absence of
lubrication washers — the flimsy plastic
discs that separate the rotating coil of the
ribbon from the interior of the cartridge
case may have had something to do with
this. The ribbon cartridge is manufac-
tured from fewer parts than we are used
to seeing. It is unfair to make sweeping
deductions from one ribbon jam, but it
did raise doubts that Qume may be
skimping too much here.
The print-head drive mechanism has
been redesigned. Lateral movement is
now powered by a corrugated synthetic
belt direct from the motor housed in the
front right-hand corner of the chassis.
The belt looks familiar but Qume claims
that its belt is new, special, unique, and
made out of Kevlar, not just a rehash of a
similar idea long used on dot-matrix
printers.
Drive band
This drive band seemed remarkably
elastic in comparison with the usual steel
cables; but perhaps the lightness of the
print head that Qume has been able to
achieve makes this new arrangement
possible. The whole print-head rides on a
pair of conventional steel bars, sliding on
bushed cylindrical jackets. There are no
rolling wheels as in conventional! printers;
presumably the low inertia of the print-
head helps reduce friction to a point
where moving bearings are unnecessary.
The mechanism could hardly be sim-
pler in conception, yet our tests show that
precision of printhead positioning is
second only to the Diablo. The whole
printer chassis is mounted on rubber
shock absorbers, which help account for
the remarkable quietness of the machine.
Qume call the mechanism Microdrive.
and it works very well. It is also cheaper
to manufacture, which must help during a
recession.
Manufacturers still produce machines
that have to be stripped down to get to
the configuration switches that match the
printer protocols to the host computer’s
expectations. The Qume Sprint 9 thank-
fully makes these available on the right-
hand side of the front panel, easily
accessible with the front cover removed.
(continued on next page)
91
RevieW ee
QUME SPRINT 9
(continued from previous page)
In addition to these two eight-element
DIL switches, the front panel includes
seven rocker switches for reset, line
space, pitch, word processing — an op-
tion not provided on the review machine,
set top of form, form feed and pause.
Other features are a rotating knob for
manually setting the form length and
three lights for carrier detect (green),
ready (amber) and communication error
(red). The ready light has three modes.
Slow flashing indicates paper out, fast
flashing indicates top cover off or ribbon-
out error.
Rocker switches
The switches are the rockers now aban-
doned by Diablo in favour of pressure-
sensitive contacts. These and the other
front-panel components are mounted on
an aluminium chassis decorated with
rather unnecessary go-faster diagonal
stripes.
The whole front-panel unit connects
through a screened ribbon cable to the
main electronics, and is held to the chas-
sis with four screws, so that it can truly be
described as modular, the only other
connection being an earth strap. A ver-
sion is available without this front-panel
— with similar configuration facilities re-
quiring access to the boards — for £100
less.
The rear half of the top case is held on
by two long bolts and a short captive bolt
at the rear, which only requires a quarter
turn to release it. It seems a pity that the
two long bolts are not captive too. It also
seems old-fashioned that this top cover is
not immediately removable: the photo-
electric paper-out switch which clips
somewhat uncertainly on to the top case
has to be disconnected.
Test time
taken:
Standard text 1m. 31s.
comments
It is awkward to get off when removing
the rear cover, and in use it also doubles
as the paper left-edge locator, but for this
purpose it really will not slide with the
proper positive action. This part of the
mechanism is carried over from the Sprint 5
range; we understand that the latest produc-
tion models of the Sprint 9 range have a
better-designed version.
Efficient cooling
The main boards are housed inside a
rugged utilitarian metal box at the rear of
the chassis. The fan is set into this box.
and the arrangement looks as if it might
greatly improve cooling efficiency. Five
bolts have to be unloosened to remove
the box, and this reveals three ordinary
printed-circuit boards and the power
pack, which is made up of rather heavier
components sandwiched between a pair
of boards. This is a great improvement on
the power pack of the Sprint 5 series,
which was a bulky module bolted on to
the rear of the chassis.
Though stylistically integrated, the
Sprint 5 power pack was always rather
vulnerable physically, particularly if you
succumbed to the temptation to upend
the machine on it during transportation
or servicing. Like the Ricoh, the new
Qume can be comfortably stood on end.
Straightforward removal
The processor chip on the main logic
board is the speedy eight-bit Intel 8085A.
The three PCBs and the power pack slot
into a motherboard mounted horizontally
to the bottom of the chassis, and have
edge levers to enable easy removal.
There are no fiddly connectors to be
unhooked before removing the single
boards, and extracting the power pack
board is only very slightly more compli-
About 43 cps, eight percent slower than the Flowriter, but faster
than the Diablo 630.
Formatted text 46s.
48s. reviewed so far
Tabbing 46s.
Graphics 3m. 30s.
For a description of these tests see the
Diablo 630 review’in the March 1981 Prac-
tical Computing.
Formatted text test. At last a machine
whose tested speed is within a reasonable
margin of the claimed speed. Qume de-
clares the conditions of its test, the single
line printing of a touching vignette that goes:
“We sat there at noon on the corner bench in
the railroad station and ate oranges while we
waited. When the train came, we went
home”.
Tabbing test. A little disappointing, this
one. Tabbing to the vertical bar character is
not a test daisywheel printers enjoy, and of
92
Healthy speed; close to the Ricoh, the fastest machine we have
Good alignment, but not up to the Diablo 630. Oddly enough, it
took longer than the Diablo, too.
40s. faster than the Diablo, much slower than the Ricoh. Good
impression control.
those so far reviewed only the Diablo 630
emerged with any distinction. The Qume
was quite high up in the alignment quality
league tables, but the slow speed was sur-
prising, suggesting that the software may
have been slugged to cope with the very low
inertia of the print head, perhaps coupled
with the elasticity of the Kevlar drive belt.
Graphics test. This test uses asterisks,
full stops, underlines and angle brackets to
produce a rather silly wallpaper pattern that
fills half an A4 sheet. The Sprint 9 did this
faster than the Diablo, the Spinwriter and the
Flowriter, but is beaten by the Ricoh parallel
version at 3m. 30s.
cated, with two connectors, one to the
fan and one to the mains switch.
As a result the electronics section is
truly modular, and any or all of the
boards could easily be replaced in about
10 minutes — plus the time you spend
scrabbling about on the floor to find the
two bolts that flew out when you re-
moved the top cover.
Handshaking options are: ETX/ACK
and DTR; or XON/XOFF. Qume has its
own user-friendly way of managing
escape sequences, but the Diablo ver-
sions are also there waiting to be called if
your software prefers them. For example,
Define Vertical Spacing Increment the
Qume way is to send ESC “L” and then
two ASCII digits which spell out the
number of Yasin. increments required be-
tween lines. The Diablo way of doing this
is to send ESC RS and then a single
ASCII character, the binary value of
which is one more than the number of
required increments. The former is easier
to send manually, the latter easier
to program for if you are writing in
assembler.
ISG Data Sales Ltd, the Windsor
Qume distributor which kindly lent us the
machine, was not able to provide the
matching Qume sheet feeder at the time
of review, but it should be available
shortly. It is driven by a separate power
pack and is fully interchangeable between
the Sprint 9 and the Sprint S.
Conclusions
@ The Qume Sprint 9 is not a particular-
ly fast machine — we reviewed the slower
of the two available models — but im-
pression control is excellent, and charac-
ter alignment is good.
@ The print mechanism is noticeably
quieter than the average daisywheel
machine, important in a shared office. We
know of one office where the printer —
not a Qume — has been confined to a
large cardboard box filled with packing
material. It gets warm in there.
@ Despite some hermetic chat about bal-
listics from the manufacturers it has been
our experience that Qume and Diablo
plastic non-proportional, that is ordinary,
printwheels are interchangeable. Second
sources of the wheels are also available.
You may feel this adds up to an important
advantage over Japanese departures like
Spinwriter and Ricoh.
@ The very high standards of electronic
and mechanical design established at the
drawing-board stage may not have been
entirely carried through to the factory.
@ Qume Sprint 9 — 45cps version, as
reviewed £1,725.00
Qume Sprint 9 — 5Seps version £1,795.00
Mark IV Ribbons, box of 12 £50.00
Printwheels, each £6.00
Either version is available without the
front panel for approximately £100 less. A
front panel should not be necessary if the
machine is to be a permanent attachment
.to a single host computer. og
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
GUpenoroystems Lid.
178 West St, Sheffield S1 4ET. Tel.(O742)755005
ACORN
ACORN ATOM 8K rom, 5K ram,
P.S.U. & COLOUR BOARD 199.00E
ATOM DISK PACK, 96K
SINGLE DISK DRIVE
ATOM COLOUR BOARD
WORD PACK ROM
BUSINESS
BUSINESS BOOK
DESK DIARY
DATABASE
299.00E
39,00C
26.00A
10.00A
6.95A
10.00A
10.00A
NEC
PC 8001 (32k computer) 599.00E
PC 8011 32K EXPANSION UNIT
489.00E
PC 8012 32K EXPANSION UNIT
399.00E
PC 8023 DOT MATRIX PRINTER
399.00E
PC 8031B DUAL DISK DRIVE
669.00E
SHARP
MZB0K (48k) PHONE FOR
MZB0A (48k) BEST
MZ80B (64k) PRICE
Mee P3 PRINTER FOR MZ80K 360,00
"0 INTERFACE UNIT MZ80K
MZ80 FB DUAL FLOPPY
DISK UNIT
MZ80 EU INTERFACE
UNIT FOR MZ80B
MZ80 P6 PRINTER FOR MZ808 0, oO
PC 1211 POCKET COMPUTER 69.500
PC 1500 POCKET COMPUTER 139.00
CE 122 PRINTER
INTERFACE (pc1211) 60.83D
CE 150 4 COLOUR
PRINTER (pc1500)
SOFTWARE
WORD PROCESSOR (tape)
95.00
550.00
125.00D
39.50B
APPLE
APPLE iu ee COMPUTER
DISK DI
WITH CONTROLLER
DISK DRIVE
WITHOUT CONTROLLER
12” B.M.C, GREEN
SCREEN MONITOR
EPSON MX80 F/T 1 PRINTER
EPSON-APPLE
INTERFACE CARD
GRAPHICS TABLE
ADVENTURES
ATOM CHESS
FLOATING POINT ROM
B.B.C. ROM PACK
B.B.C. BASIC
PROGRAMMING BOOK
10.00A
20.00A
PHONE
5,95B
PC 8032B
ADD ON DUAL DISK UNIT 569.00E
PC 8041 12” GREEN/ORANGE
MONITOR 159.00E
PC 8043 HIGH RES. COLOUR
MONITOR 579.00E
PC 8045A LIGHT PEN 199,00E
CP/M DISK & MANUAL 64.000
WORD PROCESSOR (disk) 79.95B
APOLLO
WORD PROCESSOR (tape)
DATABASE {cassette based)
MZ80 CALC Il 34.508
ZEN EDITOR ASSEMBLER 19.50B
ZEN DOS (editor assembler disk) 37.50B
ZEN DISASSEMBLER 10.50A
MZ80K DUST COVER 5.00A
P3 PRINTER DUST COVER 5.00A
34.95B
29.50B
14" COLOUR MONITOR
D.M.S. COLOUR CARD
APPLE Il SOFTWARE
VISICALC
MICRO MODELLER
VISIDEX
VISIPLOT
VISITREND/VISIPLOT
VISITERM
APPLE WRITER
250.00€
90.00D
VIC 20
VIC 20 COMPUTER
VIC CASSETTE DECK
VIC PRINTER
SINGLE DISK DRIVE
PROGRAMMERS
AID CARTRIDGE 30.39B
MACHINE CODE CARTRIDGE
30.39B
26.04B
39.098
65.17B
10.00B
PHONE
39.09D
200.00E
344.35E
3K RAM CARTRIDGE
8K RAM CARTRIDGE
16K RAM CARTRIDGE
Vic REVEALED
GETTING AQUAINTED
WITH THE VIC 20 7.95B
ACT SIRIUS ONE
ACT SIRIUS ONE
16 BIT COMPUTER 2395.00
INCLUDING CP/M MICROSOFT 86
BASIC & UTILITIES.
MEMORY UPGRADE TO 256K
495.00E
MEMORY UPGRADE TO 512K
1495.00E
MATRIX PRINTER
695.00E
ACT 911
VIDEO GENIE
GENIE | COMPUTER 295.00E
GENIE || COMPUTER 295.00E
EG 3014 EXPANSION UNIT
199,00E
EG 3015/16 16K RAM CARD 91.50C
EG 3015/32 32K RAM CARD
128.80E
EG 400 SINGLE DISK DRIVE
215.00E
COLOUR BOARD FOR GENIE I/II
35.008
DUST COVER FOR GENIE I/I! 5.008
SOFTWARE
AQUIRE BUSINESS GAME 11.278
ADLER
SPECIAL ADLER PACKAGE
THE ADLER P2 COMPUTER,
integral unit with twin disk
drives, 12” green monitor,
VIC PROGRAMMERS
REFERENCE GUIDE 14.95B
CASSETTE SOFTWARE
PACK MAN (high resolution)
7,50A
SUBMARINE 7.50A
GUNMAN (high resolution) 7.50A
NAVAL BATTLE 7.50A
SPACE INVADERS 750A
ACT 921
DAISY WHEEL PRINTER 1295.00E
SIRIUS SOFTWARE
PULSAR ACCOUNTING PACKAGE
PULSAR DATABASE
SUPERCALCG
MICROMODELLER
WORDSTAR
ADVENTURES (various titles)
11.97
each B
ADVENTURE SAMPLER —8.75B
ASTEROIDS 8.75B
ACCEL II BASIC COMPILER 39.95C
COPYSIS PROGRAM COPIER
11.25B
DATABASE 25.00B
EDITOR ASSEMBLER PLUS 21.70B
THE ADLER SE 1010
Typewriter/Printer, & the
tea || WORD PROCES-
R.
SPECIAL PACKAGE PRICE 2900.00E
Postage Rates , -
ALL PRICES fee ae ee ee ea ree eed
a.75p b.1.00 c.1.50 d. 2.50 e.5.00 EXCLU DE VAT ri ne sy soda leap Bee oy he ttateand a
MAIL ORDER would advise you to confirm by-telephone before ordering.
i SEES ESS SaaS Saw aS ahaa Sea Deas Hea SSF aa aoe eS Sa
g
: Please Supply oft ff «| Name _ i
H f Address - -
i f£ 0
a . Chae
a oll f£ '
- f = H
Access/Barclay/Cheque P&P+VAT f£ i
' Card Woo Total f£ __|Code___——Tel___ a
SS Se ee a a
@ Circle No. 161
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 93
9A.
New ZX8I Software
from Sindair.
A whole new range of software for
the Sinclair ZX81 Personal Computer
is now available — direct from Sinclair.
Produced by ICL and Psion, these
really excellent cassettes cover
games, education, and business/
household management.
Some of the more elaborate pro-
grams can only be run onaZxX81
augmented by the ZX 16K RAM pack.
(The description of each cassette
makes it clear what hardware is
required.) The RAM pack provides 16-
times more memory in one complete
module, and simply plugs into the rear
of a ZX81. And the price has just been
dramatically reduced to only £29.95.
The Sinclair ZX Printer offer full
alphanumerics andhighly-sophisticated
graphics. A special feature is COPY
which prints out exactly what is on the
whole TV screen without the need for
further instructions. So now you can
print out your results for a permanent
record. The ZX Printer plugs into the
rear of your ZX81, and you can
connect a RAM pack as well.
Games
Cassette G1: Super Programs 1 (ICL)
Hardware required — ZX81.
Price — £4.95.
Programs — Invasion from Jupiter.
Skittles. Magic Square. Doodle. Kim.
Liquid Capacity.
Description —- Five games programs
plus easy conversion between pints/
gallons and litres.
Cassette G2: Super Programs 2 (ICL)
Hardware required — ZX81.
Price — £4.95.
Programs — Rings around Saturn.
Secret Code. Mindboggling. Silhouette.
Memory Test. Metric conversion.
Description — Five games plus easy
conversion between inches/feet/yards
and centimetres/metres.
Cassette G3: Super Programs 3 (ICL)
Hardware required — ZX81.
Price - £4.95.
Programs — Train Race. Challenge.
Secret Message. Mind that Meteor.
Character Doodle. Currency Conversion.
Description — Fives games plus currency
conversion at will — for example,
dollars to pounds.
Cassette G4: Super Programs 4 (ICL)
Hardware required — ZX81.
Price — £4.95.
Programs — Down Under. Submarines.
Doodling with Graphics. The Invisible
Invader. Reaction. Petrol.
Description — Five games plus easy
conversion between miles per gallon
and European fuel consumption figures.
Cassette G5: Super Programs 5 (ICL)
Hardware required - ZX81 + 16K RAM.
Price - £4.95.
Programs - Martian Knock Out.
Graffiti. Find the Mate.
Labyrinth. Drop a Brick.
Continental.
Description — Five
games plus easy
conversion
between English and
continental dress sizes.
Cassette G6:
Super Programs 6 (ICL)
Hardware required — ZX81+ 16K RAM.
Price - £4.95.
Programs — Galactic Invasion, Journey
into Danger. Create. Nine Hole Golf.
Solitaire. Daylight Robbery.
Description - Six games making full use
of the ZX81’s moving graphics capability.
Cassette G7: Super Programs 7 (ICL)
Hardware required — ZX81.
Price: - £4.95.
Programs — Racetrack. Chase. NIM.
Tower of Hanoi. Docking the Spaceship.
Golf.
Description - Six games including the
fascinating Tower of Hanoi problem.
Cassette G8: Super Programs 8 (ICL)
Hardware required — ZX81+ 16K RAM.
Price - £4.95.
Programs — Star Trail (plus blank tape on
side 2).
Description - Can you, as Captain
Church of the UK spaceship Endeavour,
rid the galaxy of the Klingon menace?
Cassette G9: Biorhythms (ICL)
Hardware required — ZX81 + 16K RAM.
Price — £6.95.
Programs — What are Biorhythms?
Your Biohythms.
Description —- When will you be at your
peak (and trough) physically,
emotionaily, and intellectually?
Cassette G10: Backgammon (Psion)
Hardware required — ZX81 + 16K RAM.
Pice —5o. 95,
Programs - Backgammon, Dice.
Description — A great program, using
fast and efficient machine code, with
graphics board, rolling dice, and doub-
ling dice. The dice program can be
used for any dice game.
Cassette G11: Chess (Psion)
Hardware required — ZX81+ 16K RAM.
Price - £6.95.
Programs — Chess, Chess Clock.
Description — Fast, efficient machine
code, a graphic display of the board and
pieces, plus six levels of ability, combine
to make this one of the best chess pro-
grams available. The Chess Clock
program can be used at any time.
-
Cassette G12:
Fantasy Games (Psion)
Hardware required — ZX81 (or ZX80
with 8K BASIC ROM).+ 16K RAM.
Price — £4.75.
Programs — Perilous Swamp. Sorcerer's
Island.
Description — Perilous Swamp: rescue
a beautiful princess from the evil wizard.
Sorcerer’s Island: you’re marooned. To
escape, you'll probably need the help
of the Grand Sorcerer.
Cassette G13:
Space Raiders and Bomber (Psion)
Hardware required — ZX81+ 16K RAM.
Price - £3.95.
Programs — Space Raiders. Bomber.
Description - Space Raiders is the ZX81
version of the popular pub game.
Bomber: destroy a city before you hit a
sky-scraper.
Cassette G14: Flight Simulation (Psion)
Hardware required — ZX81 + 16K RAM.
Price — £5.95.
Program — Flight Simulation (plus blank
tape on side 2).
Description - Simulates a highly
manoeuvrable light aircraft with full
controls, instrumentation, a view through
the cockpit window, and navigational
aids. Happy landings!
Education
Cassette E1: Fun to Learn series —
English Literature 1 (ICL)
Hardware required — ZX81 + 16K RAM.
Price — £6.95.
Programs — Novelists. Authors.
Description - Who wrote ‘Robinson
Crusoe’? Which novelist do you
associate with Father Brown?
Cassette E2: Fun to Learn series —
English'Literature 2 (ICL)
Hardware required — ZX81 + 16K RAM.
Price - £6.95.
Programs ~ Poets, Playwrights. Modern
Authors.
Description - Who wrote ‘Song of the
Shirt’? Which playwright also played
cricket for England?
FoR 7s
Cassette E3: Fun to Learn
series — Geography 1 (ICL)
Hardware required — ZX81 +
16K RAM.
Price - £6.95.
Programs — Towns in England and
Wales. Countries and Capitals of Europe.
Description - The computer shows you
amap and a list of towns. You locate
the towns correctly. Or the computer
challenges you to name a pinpointed
location.
Cassette E4: Fun to Learn series —
History 1 (ICL)
Hardware required — ZX81 + 16K RAM.
Price - £6.95.
Programs — Events in British History.
British Monarchs,
Description — From 1066 to 1981, find
out when important events occurred.
Recognise monarchs in an identity
parade.
Cassette E5: Fun to Learn series —
Mathematics 1 (ICL)
Hardware required — ZX81 + 16K RAM.
Price - £6.95.
Programs — Addition/Subtraction.
Multiplication/Division.
Description - Questions and answers
on basic mathematics at different
levels of difficulty.
Cassette E6: Fun to Learn series —
Music 1 (ICL)
Hardware required - ZX81 + 16K RAM.
Price — £6.95.
Programs —- Composers. Musicians.
Description — Which instrument does
James Galway play? Who composed
‘Peter Grimes’?
Cassette E7: Fun to Learn series —
Inventions 1 (ICL)
Hardware required - ZX81 + 16K RAM.
Price - £6.95.
Programs — Inventions before 1850.
Inventions since 1850.
Description - Who invented television?
What was the ‘dangerous Lucifer’?
Cassette E8: Fun to Learn series —
Spelling 1 (ICL)
Hardware required — ZX81 + 16K RAM.
Price - £6.95.
Programs — Series A1-A15. Series B1-B15.
Description — Listen to the word spoken
on your tape recorder, then spell it out
on your ZX81. 300 words in total
suitable for 6-11 year olds.
Business/household
Cassette B1: The Collector’s Pack (ICL)
Hardware required - ZX81 + 16K RAM.
Price - £9.95.
Program — Collector’s Pack, plus blank
tape or side 2 for program/data storage.
Description — This comprehensive pro-
gram should allow collectors (of stamps,
coins etc.) to hold up to 400 records of
up to 6 different items on one cassette.
Keep your records up to date and
sorted into order.
Cassette B2: The Club Record
Controller (JCL)
Hardware required — ZX81 + 16K RAM.
Price - £9.95.
Program — Club Record Controller plus
blank tape on side 2 for program/data
storage.
Description - Enables clubs to hold
records of up to 100 members on one
cassette. Allows for names, addresses,
‘phone numbers plus five lots of
additional information — eg type of
membership.
Cassette B3: VU-CALC (Psion)
Hardware required — ZX81 + 16K RAM.
Price —- £7.95.
Program — VU-CALC.
Description — Turns your ZX81 into an
immensely powerful analysis chart.
VU-CALC constructs, generates and
calculates large tables for applications
such as financial analysis, budget
sheets, and projections. Complete with
full instructions.
Cassette B4: VU-FILE (Psion)
Hardware required — ZX81 + 16K RAM.
Price - £7.95.
Programs — VU-FILE. Examples.
Description - A general-purpose infor-
mation storage and retrieval program
with emphasis on user-friendliness and
visual display. Use it to catalogue your
collection, maintain records or club
memberships, keep track of your
accounts, or as a telephone directory.
How to order
Simply use the FREEPOST order
form below and either enclose a
cheque or give us your credit card
number. Credit card holders can order
by phone - simply call Camberley
(0276) 66104 or 21282 during office
hours. Either way, please allow up to
28 days for delivery, and there’s a
14-day money-back option, of course.
— | | ool | ||
ZX8l
SOFT WARE
Sinclair Research Ltd,
Stanhope Road, Camberley, Surrey,
GU15 3PS.
Tel: Camberley (0276) 66104 & 21282.
I enclose a cheque/postal order to Sinclair Research Ltd for £
Please charge my *Access/Barclaycard/Trustcard no.
To: Sinclair Research, FREEPOST, Camberley, Surrey, GU15 3BR. |
Please send me the items | have indicated below.
| { ] item ] ttem |
| Qty Cassette ul Code | price |Total; | Qty Cassette Code| price Total |
a | G1: Super Programs 1 30 | £4.95 E2: English Literature 2 i 45 | £6.95
_| G2: Super Programs 2 31 | £4.95) E3: Geography 1 46 [£695
| |__| G3: Super Programs 3 | 32 | £4.95 E4: History 1 47_| £6.95 |
| | G4: Super Programs 4 33 [£4.95] |_| ES: Mathematics 1 | 48 | £695 |
G5: Super Programs 5 | 34 [24.95] E6: Music 1 49 | £695 |
| G6: Super Programs 6 35 | £4.95] E7: Inventions 1 50_| £6.95
Jol G7: Super Programs 7 36 | £4.95) E8: Spelling 1 |
| | G8: Super Programs 8 | 37 [£4.95 B1: Collector's Pack
G9: Biorhythms 38 | £6.95 B2: Club Record Controller |
| G10: Backgammon oil we z| £5.95 B3: VU-CALC
G11: Chess 40 | £6.95 | B4: VU-FILE |
G12: Fantasy Games I Cale £4.75] ZX 16K RAM pack
| G13: Space Raiders & Bomber| 42 | £3.95 ZX Printer |
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75
BASIC’S HEAVILY CRITICISED lack of struc-
ture has much to do with the way its
immediacy encourages impromptu prob-
lem solving. This is fine for throw-away
programs, but Microsoft’s compiler pro-
vides the opportunity to write serious
permanent software.
There are many things MBasic can do
that are really useful in moving the Jan-
guage towards good structure, self-
documenting readability, and making the
business of writing programs faster and
more fun. Unfortunately, the standard
Microsoft Manual is not a great dea! of
help in winkling them out, and often
gives no more than a hint of the
possibilities.
Why, for example, can the Edit, List
and Delete statements be included as
lines of code. Why will the editor not Set
you edit the line number directly? There
is actually a way round this, and the
discovery of how it works leads to a big
step forward in program development
speed.
One clue that awakens the suspicion
that the manual is really only a subset of
MBasic’s capabilities is the Val function.
The examples in the manual all dea! with
| integers, and the description of the func-
tion says tersely: “‘Val (X$) returns the
numerical value of string X$. If the first
character of X$ is not +, —, &, or a digit,
VAL(X$) = 0”.
The ampersand is included because
MBasic uses it as the lead-in digit for
hexadecimal numbers. There is rio men-
tion of the decimal point, so you might
suppose that to recover the correct value
of the string “.235” some interesting
string manipulations involving Len will
be called for. In fact
VAL (‘'.235")
returns the value 0.235.
Sophisticated code
Someone new to programming might
say, “Of course, why not?” The point is
that the “naturalness” with which this
works is underpinned by sophisticated
code that does not itself come naturally,
and Microsoft has failed to take its bow in
the documentation. In fact the manual
| seems to deny that the decimal extension
is there.
The best card-sharp in the world was
once urged by a keen young beginner to
teach him to deal from the bottom of the
deck. The veteran scratched his grizzled
chin and thought about the process.
“Well. ..”’, he said, after a long silence,
“T guess you just deal”. The manual is
similarly laconic, probably for the same .
reasons. There is so much to be said
about Microsoft Basic that its virtues slip |
the mind.
The description of the Print Using
statement runs to four pages, and as such
it is one of the longest single entries. In
fact the statement really deserves a
manual of its own. It is clear from what
Microsoft allows us to glimpse that Print
96
| to. print
Virtuoso compiler
thrives on Basic’s
lack of structure
Using has a number of useful applica-
tions, either numerically, using mask
fields based on # and a few other charac-
ters, or alphabetically, using string for-
mat masks like “‘ \” and “!” to indicate
how many characters from the string are
to be printed.
There is also a rather curious use of
“&” which in this context is said to
“specify a variable length string field.
When the field is specified with ‘&’, the
string is output exactly as input”.
This example confirms that you can use
ar “MY GOODNESS": PRINT USING “&";
“MY GOODNESS”, which
seems a somewhat flowery procedure to
perform a simple Print task. Goodness,
indeed. Concealed in this documenter’s
jest is the fact that alpha and numeric
fields can be mixed inside the Print Using
statement. Once you stumble on to this,
the odd “&” inclusion starts to make
sense:
A$ = ‘Today's date is”: PRINT USING
“SH##/H#H/##’, AS, mm, dd, yy -
In fact there .is a further step along this
path, and this time it is not even hinted at
in the standard Microsoft documentation
| — although in the CBasic manual you
will find a discussion of a very similar
feature. You can include literals in the
Print Using mask simply by putting them
where you want them to go in the output
line:
PRINT USING “Today's date is ##/##/##”;
mm, dd, yy
This produces the same output.
An article like this one could go
through the manual page by page adding
footnotes, but the real point about the
last example is the transparency it confers
on the coding. It is clear from the line
what it is intended to do, so when you
come back to read it six months later you
will not have to spend 10 minutes
wondering why it is there.
We have all been told that Basic is
“English-like”, but in practice Basic is
the language that gave the world lines
like:
1000 A$= STRING$ (ABS(A$< > ””),CHRS
(ASC(A$+CHRS (ABS Oey +&H20%
((A$>="a") AND (A$>="z")
Among other things this line performs
Figure 1.
arithmetic operations .on Boolean values
— the sections of code that return —1 or 0
depending on the truth of a conditional
statement — which is a particularly effec-
tive way to write really rotten code. But
can you guess what the line does?
Figure 1 shows a different example. For
the moment ignore what the lines do and
simply consider them as styles of writing :
Basic, styles you might call Dark and
Light. Note the distinction with Low and
High Basic — Mictosoft with all its bells
and whistles is High, of course. The ‘first
example line 1000 is in Dark Basic, a style
adopted by programmers nervous about
using too much memory, or paper, or
both. It is acceptable for short programs
you will not need to look at again, but if
extended over a program of any size it
quickly produces an unreadable mess that
is impossible to service.
Space no problem
The second example, figure 1, illus-
trates the use of Light Basic. Its disadvan-
tage is that it takes more bytes to write —
though in the modern systems for which
High Basic is usually destined this rarely
presents a problem — and may run more
slowly inthe interpreter. The advantages
should be clear. The structure and detail
of the code are much more obvious,
allowing long programs to be written
which remain accessible to modification.
Yet Dark Basic has one important use.
You can take the example and turn it into
a defined function:
1 DEF FNUP$ (A$) = STRINGS
(ABS (A$< >""), CHR$ (ASC (A$+CHRS
(ABS (AS=""))) + &H20% ((AS>="a") AND
(A$<= “z"))))
‘converts to upper case and Yeas for null
string: see Function Library II
YouhaveprobablyguessedthattheLight
and Dark examples both do exactly the same
thing.
_ It may appear that the DEF FN above
it is an example of what not to do.
However, it is included as a demonstra-
tion of how the flexible DEF FN state-
ment can be pushed to its limits to clarify
code elsewhere in the body of the text.
There are strong grounds for recom-
mending this way of writing Basic, pro-
vided it is confined to section of code
dedicated to defined functions that are
1000 UPPER. CASE. ADJUST = &H20
: IF (ALPHA$ >= “a") AND (ALPHAS$ <= “z’’)
THEN ALPHA$ = CHR$ (ASC (ALPHAS) —
UPPER. CASE. ADJUST)
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Basic has been widely denigrated as encouraging bad
programming habits. In certain circles the acronym,
supposedly, stands for Bloody Awful Set of Interpreted
Commands. In the last of his series of three articles, Chris
Bidmead looks at ways of taming this ‘‘loose, baggy
monster’’, with the help of Microsoft’s MBasic compiler,
and to write serious permanent software.
tried and tested and whose mechanism is
well documented elsewhere. Put the
nasty Boolean tangle up in a block by
itself labelled “Trust me, this works’’,
and see how much easier it is to read:
110 FOR NDX = 1 TO LEN (FILE. NAME$)
-MID$ (FILENAMES, NDX,1) = FNUPS
(FILE. NAME$,NDX, 1)
: NEXT NDX
than this:
100 TEMP. NAME$= "”:
UPPER.CASE.ADJUST = &H20
110 FOR NDX = 1 TO LEN(FILE.NAME$)
120 ALPHA$ = MID$ (FILE.NAME$,NDX, 1)
130 IF (ALPHA$ >= “a”) AND (ALPHAS
<= "z”) THEN ALPHA$ = CHR$ (ASC
(ALPHA$ — UPPER.CASE.ADJUST)
140 TEMP. NAME$ = TEMP.NAMES$ +
150 NEXT NDX
160 FILENAMES = TEMP.NAMES
A well-written business program will be
full of checks like these, and unless you |
keep them short and sweet the structure
of the program is liable to disappear
under them. Gosubbing would be the
traditional way of keeping them out of
the body of the code, but this extended
application of defined functions makes
better use of the structured programming |
concept of creating simple packages out
of deeper layers of complexity — what is
called “information hiding”’.
Improved readability
Notice the comment appended to the
defined function. A single MBasic-5 line
can contain up to 256 characters, so it
makes sense to use the space freely for
comments. MBasic-5 allows substitution
of the single quote character for the Rem
statement. Together with the option of
maintaining lower-case letters beyond
that statement while the interpreter auto-
matically translates the rest of the line
into upper case, this is a great help to
readability.
There is one other only lightly
‘documented feature which has been ex-
ploited in these examples above: the use |
of the line-feed character for formatting.
In the MBasic editor the insertion of
ASCII 0A hex produces the effect of
Carriage-return/Line-feed without termi-
nating the logical line. Of course, sepa-
rate statements on the same logical line
will still have to be separated with colons:
they have been used where the line num-
Figure 2.
10 DATA TITLES,
LINEPROG,
: READ
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
AUTHORS,
C.Bidmead, 34,
bers would otherwise go, but you may
prefer to use them at the end of each
previous line.
Line-feeds can be visually helpful in
welding together a single logical para-
‘graph out of a matching pair of Data and
Read statements. as in figure 2.
The Line-feed technique is demon-
strated more fully in a line like:
1080 FOR!=1TO ic: wa
: CH$ = MIDS(TAG.LISTS, |, 1)
IF CH$ = “/" THEN 2000 ELSE TAGS$(J) =
TAGS(J) + CHS
> NEXT |
Some MBasic-5 users we have
spoken to have been surprised to learn
that these are perfectly valid, single Basic
lines. The technique opens up the possi-
bility of coding in legible Cobol-like
paragraphs, and even moving those
paragraphs around with the same ease
as moving a single line.
If you want to move a single line the
Renum direct statement will not do the
job. Instead you just renumber the
final section of a program, which might
consist of subroutines, and take care of
the consequential readdressing of the
Gosub statements outside that section.
In fact Renum combined with Merge
can be a useful way of patching together a |
program out of prefabricated elements,
particularly if you make it your practice
to reserve certain ranges for certain kinds
of line. For example, use 10 to 100 for
program identification and hardware con-
figuration; 100 to 500 for defined func-
| tions; 500 to 5000 for the body of the
program; and higher ranges for sub-
routines.
To move a single line or Line-feed
extended paragraph calls upon yet
another feature only glanced at in the
documentation. When a line is Listed or
Edited it is copied into a line buffer, and
at that point two versions are present in
memory. Both have the same line num-
ber and after editing you return the line
from the buffer, overwriting the original.
But what if you could change the line
number while it is in the buffer? You can
not actually do this directly because the
Editor locks you out from the line num-
ber to prevent accidents. What you can
do is produce an unnumbered Direct com-
mand version of the line by listing it and
VERSIONS, DATES
06/05/82
_— = 68 oft ale review ==
then hitting Control-A — though some
machines, Practical Computing’s Re-
search Machines 380-Z included, do not
let control character through.
Do not confuse this with the use of the
“A” subcommand, which simply restores
the whole line for re-editing. The Con-
trol-A function is documented, but only
briefly and only as a way into the Edit
mode on a line currently being typed.
The manual does not mention its use on a
Listed line to strip off the number and
either run the line in Direct mode, which
is a handy way of checking the syntax, or
re-editing in a new line number to pro-
duce a second copy. Delete the original
line by typing its number followed by a
Carriage-return and the net result is the
line shifted to a new location.
You will find this a tremendously
handy feature of the editor once you get
into the swing of it. We use it all the time,
for example, in trying out an alternative
version of a line without destroying the
original. Copy the line into an adjacent
line number and deactivate the original
by inserting a single quote between the
line number and the code.
Revised interpreter
Even if your machine does trap Con-
trol-A, it is not hard to load the interpre-
ter, search through it for occurrences of
this character and change a likely one to
Control-B. Test it out, and if you are
successful use CP/M’s Save command to
put the modified interpreter back on disc.
Other features of the editor that are
well worth mastering are “S”, to search
for a particular character in the line, and
“K” to delete up to a particular charac-
ter. You can write a line like:
9 EDIT 124002
During interactive program develop-
ment — impolitely known as “messing
about”? — where you are working on a
particular line in a long program, altering
it and rerunning the code each time, it
can be a great time-saver to pin the target
line number up at the top of the program
like this and just key Run every time you
-want to look at the line again. To run the
program, of course, you have to specify
the actual starting line number.
Similarly you could pin up a line:
8 LIST 124000 -124100
and write Run 8 from the console if you
needed to look at this group of lines
repeatedly during development.
These examples all make use of
another Microsoft enhancement that is
worth discussing at more length.
Meaningful variable names add much to
the clarity of good Light Basic code.
As a Case in point, suppose you are
writing a program to print a name and
address file on to sticky labels. At some
point in the program you want to offer
the user the chance to reposition the print
head by sending spaces or backspaces to
the printer.
(continued on next page)
97
(continued from previous page)
Your printer throws up a problem: it
will not actually move the print head in
response to a space, preferring to wait
until you send the next printable charac-
ter. This is a common trick to avoid
unnecessary movement in normal print-
ing, but it is a nuisance in the context of
your routine. Experimentation shows you
that the printer thinks that
<ESC> <SPACE>
is a character and will move the print
head in response to it, though in fact it
prints nothing.
You can write the following lines ‘of
code
10000 WHILE K$<> CHR$(&HD)
10010 K$ = INPUTS$(1)
10020 IF K$ = “<” THEN LPRINT CHRS(8)
CHR$(8) CHR$(&H1B)” ”;
10030 iF K$ = “>” THEN LPRINT
CHR$(&H1B)” ”;
10040 WEND
which, apart from the ‘‘unnecessary”’
spaces, is classical Dark Basic. It seems
straightforward enough when you first
write it, because you come fresh from
your discovery about being able to print a
dummy space, but what happens when
you buy a new printer a year after you
wrote the program?
If your routine is part of a program you
expect to maintain you will at least want
to add some comments:
10000 ‘routine to move the printer head.
10003 'NB ordinary (back) spaces will not do.
Software review ===
10005 WHILE K$ <> CHR$(&HD) ‘exit loop | Rem, and so cannot follow your sugges-
on carriage return
10010 K$ = INPUTS$(1)
10020 IF K$ = “<” THEN LPRINT CHR&§(8)
CHRS$(8) CHR$(&H1B)” ”; ‘dummy
backspace
10030 IF K$ = “>” THEN LPRINT
CHR$(&H1B)” "; "dummy forward space
10040 WEND
This is a great improvement, though it
is true that extensive comments and clear
formatting with “‘unnecessary”’ spaces
can slow your program down a fraction if
you run it in interpreter mode. Those
who have bug-hunted through reams of
Dark Basic, however, will know the real -
meaning of the word “‘slow”’.
Cheap alternative
If speed degradation worries you then
you will probably be investing in the
Microsoft compiler. A low-cost alterna-
tive is an ingenious piece of software
from Mike Lewis Consultants called
Compress, which will take the lucidly
formatted, extensively commented ori-
ginal of your program — the version you
keep for your records — and strip it down
to a compacted, commentless Dark copy
you can use for execution.
The trouble with notices about dogs
fouling the street is that they are nailed
up too high for the dogs to read, and
there is a similar shortcoming with com-
ments. The computer has no idea what
you have written to the right of the word
tion as to how the instruction should be
interpreted. The Rem only states what
you think the code should do. Properly
transparent code, on the other hand, says
whatit is going to do, and doesit. Microsoft
Basic allows you variable names up to 40)
characters long.
If you can spare the memory space,
why not write:
40 CARRIAGES = CHR$(&HD): ESC$ =
CHR$(&H1B)
42 BACKSPACE$ = CHRS(8): BLANK$
45°
50 PRINT.HEAD.BACK$ = BACKSPACE$
+ BACKSPACE$ + ESC$ + BLANKS
60 PRINT.HEAD.FORWARD$ =ESC§$ +
BLANK$
70’
10000 WHILE KEY$ <> CARRIAGES
10010 KEY$ = INPUTS(1)
10020 IF KEY$ = “<" THEN LPRINT
PRINT.HEAD.BACK$;
10030 IF KEY$ = “>” THEN LPRINT
PRINT.HEAD.FORWARDS$S;
10040 WEND
Be careful, because MBasic 5.0 will sepa-
rate out of:the word “PRINT” in a
variable called
PRINT.HEAD.BACK$
as it does for all reserved words in vari-
ables. Use MBasic 5.2, draft your code in
lower case and you will not have this
problem. 5.0 users can still insist on
Print. Head.Back$ as a variable by re-
editing the line to remove the space after
it has been run through the buffer.
|
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PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Software review
Peter Wood takes a look at a low-cost utility package for programmers.
Power for the Pet
EVERY PROGRAMMER who has ever used
a Pet will appreciate how easy Power’s
screen editor is to operate when com-
pared with many of its rivals. As well as
adding several extra commands to Basic
— see table 1 — Power has the ability to
scroll both up and down on the screen,
allowing reverse listing of programs, for
instance. Also available are “instant
keywords” whereby single shifted keys
can produce a complete Basic keyword,
allowing much faster programming and
reducing spelling errors. It is even posst-
ble to assign a complete line of Basic to a
single key, or run an entire subroutine
from one keystroke.
Power comprises a ROM chip which
plugs inside the Pet, a 74-page manual, a
demonstration diskette and 66 overlay
stickers for the keyboard. Once the ROM
has been installed the utility package is
invoked by typing SYS 36864. There is no
reason why Power should not be initial-
ised as soon as the Pet is turned on for a
programming session and used as and
when required.
The Auto command causes the Pet to
prompt the programmer with a new line
number after each line has been entered.
A starting line number and an increment
value may be specified, such as
AUTO ‘100, 10
which will start the automatic numbering
at line 100 at intervals of 10. If no start
line is specified, Power searches the cur-
rent program for the last line used and
increment at intervals of 10 from there.
Del deletes a block of lines; for in-
stance,
DEL 100-200
will delete all the lines between 100 and
200. Dum lists all variables and defined
functions. Variables are printed in the
form
“variable name” = “value”
and the programmer may change the
value of the variable by simply overtyping
this display.
=
i)
c
o
os
=
= 7
@
Py
3
@
2)
g
BIBIBIBIBIB
BIBIBIDIBIBI
BIBIBIBIBIB
DIDIPIDIDIB
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Pet keyboard and Power commands.
DIDIDIDIDIB
BIBIBIBIDIB
The Fix command essentially reinitial-
ises the package, restoring all internal
pointers. This will destroy all Basic vari-
ables, reset all Power options and default
values, and disconnect any machine-
language additions that the user has im-
plemented for keyword tables and extra
commands. Its real value is if a bad
program or non-standard load — for in-
stance loading one program from within
another — has upset some of the internal
pointers used by Basic or Power, or if the
second cassette buffer has been used for
tape or other operations.
MLM puts the programmer into the
Pet machine-language monitor via a Call
entry, as opposed to a Breakpoint entry.
It provides a convenient means of using
the monitor when a CMD is in effect on
Basic 4.0 and subsequent machines. The
Off command disables the package, re-
storing normal Pet operation, and reset-
ting the CHRGet subroutine and the
interrupt vectors to their original states.
The Renumber command resequences
line numbers in a program, including all
Goto, Gosub, If-Then. If-Goto, On-
Goto, On-Gosub and Run statements.
The user is permitted to renumber any
portion of the program, providing no
overlap occurs as a result of the re-
numbering. For instance,’ the command
to renumber lines 100 to 200 to be at
intervals of 10 lines starting at line 150
would be
REN 10, 150, 100-200.
The default is to renumber the entire
program, starting at line 10 at intervals of
10.
The Sel command allows setting or
disabling of the four user features:
@ Se! K — keyword expansion
@ Sel R — macro expansion
@ Sel P — meta-characters
@ Sel | — input, for 8032 only
To set a feature the operator enters for
instance SelK+, and to disable it, SelK—
When instant keywords have been en-
DIBIBIBIBIB
BIBIBIBIBIB
DIDIBIDIBIB
abled by SelK+, pressing a shifted key
causes a predefined keyword, for in-
stance Return, to be printed on the
screen. These keywords are set for par-
ticular keys but the programmer may
alter them if required.
Shifted keys may also be redefined to
print a complete Basic line or to call a
Basic subroutine. These are defined
through special Rem statements at the
beginning of the program, and enabled
by SelR+. For example,
12 REM’G= GOSUB5000:PRINT£1,A$
GOSUB100
could be used, so that pressing shifted G
Causes
GOSUB5000:PRINT£1,A$:GOSUB100
to be printed on the screen.
When used in conjunction with the
automatic numbering, the Sel function
allows programming to become very fast
indeed. If the statement is in the form
12REM’S—100
then the subroutine at line 100 will be
| automatically called every time Shift-S is
pressed. This can be exceptionally useful
for saving and verifying programs — see
figure 1. Pressing Shift-S causes the entire
10 REM”’S<100
100 DSAVE"@SAMPLE PROGRAM",D1
110 VERIFY"1:SAMPLE PROGRAM", 8
120 RETURN
Figure 1,
program to be saved on disc drive 1 and
verified for errors.
SelP+ enables the ‘‘meta-characters”,
which are used for pattern matching in
search strings. Sell+ enables the special
keyword input feature which only works
on the 8000-series Pet. It allows the entry
of specified instant phrases in response to
(continued on page 102)
| AUTO — puts the Pet into automatic line
numbering entry mode.
DEL — deletes a range of program lines.
DUM — lists all defined functions and
variables and their contents.
FIX — rstores all pointers to default values.
MLM — calls the Pet machine language
monitor.
OFF — disables Power, and restores normal
Pet operation.
REN — renumbers all or part of a program.
SEL — sets or disables user features.
TRC — enables rogram trace.
WHY — flags Basic errors in a program.
XEC — executes lines from a sequential file
as though they were typed from the
keyboard.
@— searches a program for a particular
String.
]— search and replace.
99
{
SOFTWARE FOR CP/M
HIGH QUALITY SOFTWARE — WITH HIGH QUALITY SERVICE
NEW THE FORMULA £300. Application Builder and Reporter. SPELL STAR £125. Option for
Wordstar. SUPER CALC £165. Spread Sheet financial planning.
WOR DSTAR - Professional word processing software. On-screen formatting. £250 MICROSOFT FORTRAN COMPILER
wordwrap, pagination, line and character count on view. Micra-justification on
daisy-wheel printer. Search and replace. Block/paragraph manipulation. External MIGROSOFT COBOL £310
file read/write. Background printing during editing etc. MAGSAM .- Versatile easy to use Keyed File Management System for £130
MAIL— MERGE - Powerful Wordstar enhancement for file merging and £65 Microsoft Basic or CBASIC.
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DATASTAR Screen orientated system for Data Entry, Retrieval and Updating. £175 random, indexed and sequential files, features for conversational working,
screen control, interactive debugging, program segmentation etc.
SUPERSORT - Sort, merge and selection program. £125
CONFIGURABLE 8USINESS SYSTEM (CBS) - Unique information FORMS 2 - Automatic COBOL code generator for screen formats. £100
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100 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
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101
(continued from page 99)
a Basic input during a programrun, and is
‘designed particularly for testing programs
where repetitive entry of data is required.
The TRC or trace command enables
the trace features. If entered with the
option T, the trace output is written on
the top few lines of the screen. If T is not
entered, then the output may be directed
to a printer by means of CMD. Full trace
is the default, which implies output of the
listed line and the result of the operation
for every line that is executed.
Option L generates the line listing
only, while option N causes line numbers
ing with the currently executing state-
ment, and if the first part of a multi-
statement line has already been executed
it will not be displayed.
The Why command is essentially a
debugging aid which may be used im-
mediately after a program run is aborted
either intentionally or in error. The line
being executed at the time of the inter-
ruption will be listed, with the block
where the Basic memory scan pointer
stopped being shown in reverse field. It
only: indicates where the Basic scanner
halted, which is not always a perfect
indication of the source of an error. If
other commands are executed before in-
voking Why, the information relating to
the error may be destroyed, resulting in
no listing.
only to be printed. Lines are listed start- |
4 |
The Xec command executes lines from
|
| Full stop“.”
a Pet sequential file, from disc or tape, as
though they were typed from the
keyboard. Lines are printed on the screen
as they are received from the file, and
once the line has been read in, control is
passed to the Pet at the point following
where it would normally have read from
the screen. A Return is put into the Pet
keyboard buffer, so that control will re-
turn to Power when the job is finished.
This process may, of course, be used to
merge a listing into the program currently
in memory.
The search command, @, allows the
programmer to scan through a Basic
program for a desired string. This search
string is input as a pattern, and the search
may take place in one of two ways. In the
first case, all occurrences in the specified
line range will be printed; in the second,
the next occurrence of the pattern is
printed. Since Power maintains a current-
line pointer, if the next occurrence of a
pattern is desired, the search will proceed
forward starting after the current line,
wrapping around the end of the program
to the beginning and continuing until the
current line is reached. To find, for ex-
ample, the phrase “next”, the user would
type
@NEXT@
This is also where thé meta-characters
can be used, to provide pattern matching
as follows:
will match any single character or
token. such that
Software review
@P.T@
would find all occurrences of Pet, Pat, Pit
and so on, as weil as PTHENB and PTOB.
* will match any string on a given line, so
FOR * NEXT
will find all cases of For followed by Next on
the same line, regardiess of what is be-
tween them, for example
FOR | = 1 TO 10: PRINT |: NEXT
] will match the end of any line, so
NEXT]
will find all tines ending in “Next”.
-Combination of all these meta-characters
is permitted. Typing @ alone will cause a |
search for the next occurrence of the last
search string used.
The replace command is really an ex-
tension. of the search, allowing the same
criteria to be applied, with extra bonus of
replacing all occurrences of the search
string with a new string. The escape
character may be used in the replacement
string to avoid tokenisation and to in-
clude the @ sign.
Conclusions
@ At £49 Power is extremely good value.
@ The manual is excellent and serves as_
both tutorial and reference work.
@ The overlay stickers remove the ne-
cessity to memorise key functions.
@ The features offered by Power prob-
ably make the Pet the easiest micro to
program in Basic.
@ Power is distributed in the U.K. by
Professional Software, and is available
from most Commodore dealers. |
ability to stay in business.
include all serial numbers, codes
and protection features of the
law, you'd have to be pretty
foolish to try bootlegging
102
original (under the new copyright
Ye invested some money and a lot of time in a
commercial software program for your Apple. It works
well, to the point that you are dependent on its day-to-day
functioning, But the disks are copy-
also dependent on the vendor's bac
his living up to vague promises of support, even on his
N computer user can live with that. So until the
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[= (new 4.0 version) will copy almost all
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only for backups, because the copies
rotected. So you are
-up (if furnished), on
it. Acoess or Visa
accepted. Add £1.50
P & P. VAT
excluded.
WHY YOU NEED LOCKSMITH.
software that is traceable back to the purchaser).
ocksmith includes nine-other utilities, of which these
five are vital to the. integrity of your system: 1. Media
surface check — Never commit data to a flawed diskette
again. 2. Disk-drive speed calibration — the most frequent
cause of communication bugs between (inne 3. Degauss
and Erase — Make sure no stray data is le
Nibble-Editor — sophisticated read/write tool for repairin; :
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TEL: (0268) 728484
Apple is a registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc
@ Circle No. 168
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
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PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
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174
103
Take it from the top for
tidier Basic structures
Too much attention to detail
at the expense of a coherent
overall program plan leads to
messy, incomprehensible
Basic, argues Graham Beech.
He shows how a modular
approach can provide clear,
structured programs without
resort to sophisticated new
languages.
WITHOUT A DOUBT. the most important
programming language for microcom-
puters is Basic, which has its origins in the
1960s along with its even older relatives,
Fortran and Cobol. Yet there have been
continuing arguments about the merits of
these languages, compared to the more
modern types such as Pascal and ADA.
One important claim to fame of the
newer languages is their structuring,
which leads to the production of more
reliable programs that are also more
legible than those produced in Basic. They
allow programmers to design their pro-
grams in a language which is very close toa
natural language. In turn, this leads to
greater productivity: programs are writ-
ten more quickly because their meaning
or logical flow is clearer. The trend is
illustrated in figure 1.
What is now required is an enhance-
ment to Basic to meet current needs. One
way to achieve this is to go out and buy a
new Basic for your present computer, or
even a new computer. For example, the
Basic on the BBC Microcomputer has
many of the desirable features of Pascal.
Yet if you do not want to take such a
drastic step there is a much cheaper solu-
tion:
@ Design your program with a dialect of En-
glish called Program Description Language,
PDL. You can forget about flowcharts —
PDL does not need them.
@ Use a set of rules to translate from your
clear PDL solution directly into Basic.
If you follow this procedure, there is a
very good chance that your program will
work first time.
Though they are the best-known
‘aid to program design, flowcharts can be
relegated to a very low importance. De-
tailed flowcharts are often incompre-
hensible to anybody except the original
programmer — what is more, they are
frequently drawn up after a program has
Figure 3.
Block 1 Block 2
104
Figure 1.
1960s — mainframes
stage of all.
been developed and tested rather than to
design it in the first place.
Figure 2.
Fin the average
of n numbers
How will How will we
we input priat the
tha numaers? results?
I. t 4
Print "“walus of
of Average
6", lobowad
by actual value
How will
calcuaeta the
average?
Inpul the ane Sei "Sum" snd
pyione unt “Count te
9999 is input. rere. Ads vacn
Store them Ww
array X.
Flowcharts are consequently a complex
afterthought with a spaghetti-like appear-
ance. The two-dimensional nature of
paper actually encourages careless de-
sign, leading to inefficient programs that
are difficult to check or correct. In such a
case, the design process is hampered
from the very beginning by a preoccupa-
tion’ with detail — a so-called “bottom:
| up’”’ methodology.
A bottom-up programmer faced with |
the problem of comiputing the average of
n numbers might immediately write the
formula itself:
1
average = —(Xi+ Xz +...Xn1 C+ X,)
n
followed by some sketchy Basic:
100 FOR|=1TON
110LETS=S+X
120 NEXT |
130 LET M=S/N
The realisation then dawns that the value
of N has not been specified and, as time
progresses, that S must be set to zero at
the beginning. Some input and output
statements are needed and you may de-
cide to store the values of X in an array.
Figure 4.
Block 3 Program Section 1
Data Compute Oata data . >
Average .
1980s — micros
An iterative process Design the A clear statement of
of design, code, re- program design objectives from
design, etc. Often the beginning. The most
originated “on the | time-consuming stage of
back of an envelope”. all.
The trickiest code using Code it Routine process. Memory
least memory was the ideal. Is becoming cheaper, so
An art rather than a science. tricky code gives way to
| legible design.
The most time-consuming De-bug Properly-written programs
expected to work first time.
Finally, some user messages are added,
such as
HOW MANY VALUES?
or
DO YOU NEED INSTRUCTIONS?
but, at last, the program works.
But the. chances are that the program
will only work for the original program-
mer who is acquainted with its inner
mysteries. Anybody else would have to
list it to discover just which variables
were which. And on a different machine,
the position would be more difficult still.
The problem of breaking into the logic
behind some complex coding is not a
trivial one. It is often better to start anew,
rather than to unravel the complex
thoughts of a sloppy programmer.
Fortunately, good programmers have
for many years been using design
methods that are easily understandable
to other users. These are generally called
“top-down” and have also assumed other
names including modular programming,
structured programming or the Jackson
method.
In a top-down approach the problem is
broken down into simpler elements, and
where necessary these are broken down
still further. At a low enough level, these
simple problems can be solved quite easi-
ly. They are then reassembled, Lego-like,
to give a complete solution to the origin-
al, larger problem.
Figure 2 represents the top-down
approach to finding the average value. It
begins with a clear statement of the goal
of the program, which is progressively
refined through ;
@ input/output requirements,
@ specification Of how the program should
perform,
@ final coding of the program.
Program Section 2
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
The goal is of crucial importance: it
must be expressed as an unambiguous
statement of exactly what the program
must do including, if necessary, condi-
tions such-as the time allowed for its
execution. Even in a simple example, the
structure of the solutions is important.
In this case, there are just three, self- -
contained blocks, shown in figure 3. Each
block is said to be weakly connected to
the other. In other words, the calcula-
tions in one block will not affect the
calculations in another, except in that a
predictable collection of data is passed
between blocks. Most importantly, any
error is always localised to one block,
which makes debugging very easy.
- Figure 5.
What does
"PC'' stand for?
Practical
Computing
z
Yes
The debugged blocks can, of course, be
used in other programs. For example,
block 2 could be plugged into some other
program that needed to calculate average
values.
The block-building approach is the cor-
nerstone of structured programming. It is
particularly important to maintain a
block structure and to ensure that one
block cannot be corrupted by another.
Figure 4 illustrates how the code of one
part of a program can inadvertently affect
the code inside another part.
There are many ways in which this can
occur in a Basic program. The most com-
mon error is an inadvertent jump to the
inside of a For-Next loop:
-10 GO TO 70
20
program
40 statements
FOR I= 1 TO 10
70 more statements
“90 NEXT}
If you attempt to run a program like
this, an error such as
NEXT WITHOUT FOR IN 90
will appear. There is, in fact, no such
‘error but it is caused by a jump to within
the scope of the loop.
Much less obvious errors occur when
unexpected data is encountered. For ex-
ample:
100 PRINT “DO YOU WANT
INSTRUCTIONS (Y/N)";
110 A$ = INKEYS: IF A$ = ““ THEN 110
120 IF A$ = “N” THEN 900
130 PRINT “HERE ARE THE
INSTRUCTIONS”
etc.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
In this case, an inadvertent key-press may
cause pages of instructions to be pre-
sented.
While this is merely annoying, a small
mistake in line numbers can cause catas-
trophe:
10 INPUT “HOW MANY TIMES”; N
20 X=0
30 PRINT X, X2
40 X=X+1
50 X1 =X xX
60 IF X < = N THEN 20
etc.
This program will loop forever. There are
two sections in the program — lines 10 to
30 and 40 to 60. Section 1 affects the
value of X in section 2 because the same
variable appears in both sections; section
2 is thus corrupted by section 1. Basic is
not, on the face of it, well-suited to
structural programming because:
@ All Basic variables are global: any change in
X affects all values of X throughout a pro-
gram.
@The requirement for line numbering can
easily cause errors.
@The Goto statement encourages careless
design as alterations are made.
To produce reliable programs it is, there-
fore, necessary to adopt a reliable pro-
gram design technique before coding in
Basic.
As a first step try to avoid the use of
jumps in the design phase. The Goto
jump will not be entirely eliminated from
.the final Basic program, though it will be
necessary to imitate the action of some
more useful design techniques. Goto is,
after all, an inherent part of Basic.
To minimise forward/back jumps, old
ideas of flowcharting must be discarded.
Conventional flowcharts, such as figure 5,
often contain backward jumps. When
implemented in Basic they may cause the
very problems it is so important to avoid.
A better solution is given in figure 6. It
has removed the backward loop, and it
prevents you from becoming locked into
the program forever.
Figure 6.
We Wy again
what does
PC stana toi?
actical
Computing
Flowcharts can be dispensed with en-
tirely and replaced by a diagram, in which |
each block contains English sentences.
Each block could be developed by a
different programmer, thereby adding
the advantages of speed and economy.
Although there may be some repetition
of detailed coding between the blocks,
this can usually be minimised by careful’
design.
Programming ==
Each block can be formally delimited
by the words Begin and End to help the
programmer to think in terms of outer
and inner blocks — see figure 8.
A linear progression remains, even
though the inner blocks may have been
developed at an earlier stage. Building
blocks designed for one program may be
useful to other programs. If so, it is
convenient to write a block in Basic as a
subroutine.
Self-contained blocks receive data,
process it and then return the results.
You still have to be careful to ensure that
variables in one subroutine do not in-
advertently occur elsewhere. It is safest
to use unusual names like AA1, AA2, etc.
in each subroutine.
The main program that calls the sub-
routines should be very compact. Most of
the detailed processing must be done
within the subroutines, and as a rough
tule of thumb a program of more than
two pages is almost certainly too com-
plex. Break it down into smaller units.
Apart, from size, there are several
other ways in which programs become
too.complex; for example,
@A program or subroutine may contaln many
unrelated segments which are grouped only
for convenience, not because they perform
related tasks. They should be separated.
@ Similarly, segments may be grouped Into a
subroutine because they share common
data. But, this brings the risk of data corrup-
tion.
Figure 8.
105
Away
with
paper
THE PICTURE of a plotter with a drawing
on it, and the solid object beside it, is not
unusual at first-glance. Obviously some-
one has been doing a bit of three-dimen-
sional graphic modelling.
True enough, but there is something
about this picture which represents one of
the most important breakthroughs in this
sort of computer use in the last 10 years.
A second look at the object reveals that it
is made up of units that plug together,
forming a whole that can itself be plugged
into a microcomputer.
The entire assembly can be held in the
hand, tilted and rotated with respect to a
defined viewpoint. Some versions are
able to have small magnetic ‘‘cladding
panels” attached to the outside walls of
the “building’’ — for that is what is being
represented.
The computer now “knows” what unit
is connected to what, in other words how
the “building” has been constructed from
a set of elements. It also knows how you
are holding it, because little mercury
sensing switches tell it; and it knows if
cladding panels are in place. The compu-
ter passes signals to the graph plotter,
and the whole thing is drawn out.
It is a phenomenal advance, not neces-
sarily because it is difficult computing —
it need not be — but because it complete-
ly shifts the focus of computer graphics
and their use in modelling. Attention has
moved from the screen or paper to the
object; from the virtual to the real; from
pseudo to real three dimensions; and,
best of all, from computer to person.
Sounds interesting
The winner of the April competition
about using sounds to present informa-
tion is Julian Smart, from Uppingham,
Leicestershire. His weird but ultimately
fascinating suggestion was to use sound as
an aid in memorising text, by associating
sounds with words and facts. We already
do this, of course, in songs, but that is not
the point. You can memorise a sound or a
pattern of sounds as a “‘tune’’, more
easily than boring text.
‘Not only is this a good idea, especially
on a machine with built-in sound com-
106
mands, but it is also the basis for some
very advanced work in the United States.
At the Massachusetts Iristitute of Tech-
nology Professor Nicholas Negroponte
has produced one of the most advanced
database-management systems in the
world. Octophonic sound — from eight
speakers, one in each corner of the room,
at floor and ceiling height — is capable of
fixing a sound anywhere in space, and
associating it with some chunks or even
an individual piece of information. Thus
items of data can whisper their name to
you as you scan near them.
A few weeks ago we had a letter from
Wyn Chalker of Ben Rhydding, Ilkley,
ANALOGY BOX
What should “reward
graphics” be like for people
using computers in
business? When might they
be used?
In these pages Brian Reffin Smith keeps you up to date with computer-
based art and design and lays the foundations for graphics routines to
use on your own micro.
| as fast as I can find or write new ones.
West Yorkshire. He is working with kids
who are slow at learning, and could
doubtless be helped by the suitable use of
computer graphics. He writes: “I teach in
‘a special school for slow learners. We
have a new Pet and a smail library of
teaching programs which I am adding to
Many of the programs we use are very
simple, in programming terms, but there
is no doubt that some of them would be
improved by the addition of graphics.
“What we need is a bank of ‘reward
graphics’. If a child gets his or her sum
right, how much nicer if something funny |
or pretty happens on the screen. If we
had such a bank of graphics, we could
insert them into programs as rewards for
correct responses. They need not be com-
plicated and they should not use much
memory. We could also use some
graphics for incorrect responses — the
classic example is the frowning face”.
This month’s competition is prompted
by Wyn Chalker’s letter.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
| with a Pet, with its chunky graphics,
| count. Fame and £5 are the prizes,
Art
TT ie
Reproduced by courtesy of Pluto Press.
The State by population — from the State of the World Atlas.
articles in magazines and chapters in
books show how to achieve wonderful
graphic effects, but fail to explain what to
do with them. I cannot remember who
said “It is better to know where to go and
not know how, than how to go but not
know where”. But it is true, isn’t it?
Perhaps this is why people become
disenchanted with their computers. They
learn all about techniques, but find their
manual has no suggestions for actually
doing useful things. There are payroll
programs and games — often trumpeted
as “totally addictive’, as if that was
somehow a good thing.
Knowing where to go
ALL TOO OFTEN, Otherwise excellent |
So just what can be done with the
ability to draw and colour shapes on a TV
screen or monitor? Something that would
still be worthwhile even if it had been
done laboriously by hand.
One answer comes in an amazing
book, The State of the World Atlas, by
Michael Kidron and Ronald Segal, pub-
lished by Heinemann Educational Books
in London at £9.50 for the hardback, with
Pan selling the softback version for £5.95.
It contains 65 double-page spreads, each
showing a map of the world or parts of it,
and portraying information with beauti-
ful, graphic simplicity.
There are, for example, maps showing |
Competition
ALTHOUGH PROMPTED by problems
the competition is open to anyone
using any machine. It is the ideas that
as usual. All useful-looking entries |
will be forwarded to the writer, in
case they help.
Your task is to think yourself into
Wyn Chalker’s position and come up
with rewarding graphics, or alterna-
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
tively some good general ideas in this
area as a whole. Is the idea of a
smile/frown-type system enough?
Should anyone, ever, get frowned or
even smiled at by a computer? What
do you think, and what can you do?
Entries as usual to Art, Practical
Computing, Room L306, Quadrant
House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Sur-
rey SM2 SAS. We cannot return en-
tries, so keep a copy. o
the relative proportions of soldiers to
teachers in different countries, or the
number of calories people consume over
and above — or below — what they need
for a normal life.
The messages for computer graphics
users are many, and emerge clearly on
leafing through the Atlas. A few of them
are shown in the panel.
@ Avoid complicated “busy” patterns on
the screen when simple blocks of colour or
tone will do. Even roughly making the
shapes you are after can be much more
effective and practical.
@ There is a need for more routines that
will copy small portions of the screen, pixel
by pixel, and enlarge, distort, copy and
otherwise change it. A detail of, say, a map
can then be blown up in one corner of the
screen with text and: annotations, while the
larger but more coarsely detailed version
gives the wider context for the small but
significant detail.
@ There is a need for “polygon fill”
routines — the ability to draw an irregular,
closed shape on the screen, then colour it
all in — for the common high-resolution
machines, such as the BBC Micro and the
| Research Machines 380-2. They should be
available both in Basic and machine code
— the former for ease, the latter for speed.
There are some well-known algorithms
around, but has anyone implemented
them?
107
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PRACTICAL COMPUTING -July 1982:
OK Petrax: Your
he head of department led the minis-
try delegation into a large blue
room, the bigwigs of the research steering
committee filing in behind. He watched’
Maxwell as he introduced the Minister to
the special project’s scientists and began
to explain their new wonder to the impor-
tant layman.
“The 900PX is certainly the greatest
stride in computer technology since Atlas
in the 1950s; it dwarfs all other machines
by any criteria you care to mention. Its
price in relation to other superconductive
computers is the only factor that inhibits
its complete domination over the main-
frame computer market. Because of its
unique power and particular suitability
for our high-level artificial intelligence
experiments, it is the only machine for
the job”.
Maxwell pointed to a large, brightly lit
console unit at the far end of the room.
“Behind that wall is the computer prop-
er. It has to be insulated from the outside
world because of the refrigeration neces-
sary to keep such a large machine at
absolute zero. Over the last year and a
half, we have been putting the research of
by Charles Chambers
the American programmers Spink and
Luce into an immensely long and detailed
foundation for the 900 to build up an
intelligence of its own.
“It connects with a network of data
banks across the globe and, like a human,
has many sensors enabling it to gauge and
judge the outside world. We have even
installed units into a work area so it can,
like an infant, learn from the people
around it”.
The Minister raised an eyebrow and
smiled wryly, “Is that wise’? Maxwell
and the delegates laughed. ‘“‘We hope”’.
he continued, “that the 900’s develop-
ment will interest psychologists and.
more importantly, yield an insight into
computer systems that will be able to
interact with society”.
The Minister smiled his politician’s
smile. ‘““That is why His Majesty’s Gov-
ernment is funding this crucial line of
research’’.
he Chief Administrator peeled off
from the crowd. ‘‘Now Minister if we
can begin the ceremony”’.
The group proceeded slowly to the
console. Maxwell pointed to a red toggle
switch as the Minister surveyed what was
to him a confusing jumble of lights and
buttons. Maxwell nodded. “It gives me
great pleasure’, the Minister, began
pompously ‘to declare this project
launched”.
PRACTICAL, COMPUTING July 1982
time
is up
“It’s not a damn ship”, thought Max-
well almost audibly at the camera flashed
and the switch was thrown.
The room hushed to a complete silence
and for a moment there was an embar-
rassed quiet. A scientist looked up from a
separate console set away from the main
instrumentation: All systems functional’.
Maxwell broke in. “‘That, Minister, is
the monitor system. It checks all the
hardware and software to guard against
malfunctions and program errors. We can
honestly say that we have little idea what
will happen in the early stages of the
project. As the Minister is no doubt,
aware, this is not only the official launch
but also the first run”’.
Ths Minister nodded appreciatively, “‘I
must admit, I feel most reassured when
I’m not the only person in the dark’’. The
gathering laughed again.
‘‘We can only guess”, continued Max-
well, “how long it will take the 900 PX to.
begin to communicate directly. But if
after a period of time it fails to do so, we:
can read its mind, so to speak, with the
monitor. This makes it one of the major
tools in our work and only a temporary
fixture in the computer room, having a
lab of its own already”.
s he spoke, the computer’s large
VDU flashed to life, a meaningless
stream of graphics shooting across the
screen. The Minister stepped back in
surprise as all eyes turned to the display.
The Controller moved forward and began
‘his prepared “off-the-cuff” speech.
“We are now witnessing the very first
beginnings of knowledge, understanding
the reasoning. The first time in the his-
tory of scientific endeavour that this pro-
cess has been simulated to such a degree.
The significance of this moment is in-
creased by the knowledge that. . .”
Once more the computer interrupted:
with a high-pitched shriek. The scientist
jumped up from his monitor and ran to
the main console. He thumped a button
with his index finger, and the dreadful
noise stopped.
“[’m afraid it has not taught itself
manners yet”, said Maxwell, trying to
steer the proceedings back on to an even
keel.
“I imagined something had gone
wrong”, said the Minister.
Maxwell, looked over to his colleague
now back at his seat.
“All systems are still functioning”,
announced the scientist.
“It seems a valid response,” replied a
reassured Maxwell.
The Ministry press officer could no
longer restrain himself. “It sounded like
the first cry of a baby”. he suggested.
They turned to him,.the Controller
visibly not amused. “I doubt”, he read
the man’s visitor badge, “. . . Mr Wil-
kins, that the 900 could be classed as a
baby, however well Dr Maxwell’s team
has programmed it’’.
“Quite so”, said the Minister, smiling
at the idea. “I could never see myself
kissing a computer.”
The ropm laughed and the Controller
pointed the Minister at the door.
he Controller’s secretary knocked
and entered. “Dr Maxwell has just
dropped this report in. He said you were
expecting it”.
He looked up from his work. ‘‘Yes’’,
The computer
shrieked — the
scientist ran to the
main console.
he said distantly, “put it down there’’.
The Controller was a single man. His
early years of hectic research had kept
marriage at arm’s length. He sat his cof-
fee and plastic folder on the bed-side
table and slipped between the sheets. He
pulled the report from below the saucer
and scanned the cover: First Year Report!
on Project Petrax. Turning straight to the
summary, he decided a short read would
give him all he needed to know. ‘‘More
bumph”, he thought.
“|. in conclusion, ‘Petrax’ not only
functions powerfully as a creative data
analyst and number cruncher, but also
displays a high degree of self-awareness
that is normally associated with personal-
ity. Tests by the psychology department,
without knowledge of the identity of the
subject under examination, have classi-
fied the Machine as: Sex — male; Age —
22; 10 — Uncalibratable, inifinite answer
ratio, correct/incorrect; Mental Abnor-
malities — none.
It now seems impossible for my team to
distinguish Petrax’s artificial intelligence
from human intelligence, and I must state.
that up to this point the success of this
experiment is vastly greater than con-
ceived. The possibilities of future de-
velopment, although predicted as
markedly slower, are most exciting”.
(continued on page !11)
109
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110 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
(continued from page 109)
“My God”! muttered the Controller.
turning to the front page of the report.
i ntering the office, Maxwell started to
see the Controller at his desk.
“Good morning Dr Barrington”, he |
greeted in a surprised voice.
“Who knows about Petrax’’? asked the
Controller gravely. Maxwell sat confused
in front of his desk. “Hardly anyone.
Why”?
“Does anyone, apart from those in
your team, know of its developments”?
‘*Petrax is classified, you know that as
well as I do. There has been no explicit
material released since its launch’’.
“T have read your report”. said the
controller looking Maxwell directly in
the eyes”, and I have discussed it with
the Minister. You must understand the
political implications of this project. It
could kick up a fuss as big as genetic
engineering did in the 1970s.
“To anyone who does not understand
what’s going on, successful simulation of
personality, identify and feeling all add
up to a kind of Frankenstein’s monster.
How do you think people will react to it?
What do-you think the papers would do
with a story like that’’?
Maxwell made to speak but Barrington
continued. “Your team must maintain
absolute secrecy — not even other de-
partments must learn of the advance-
“My God”! muttered
the Controller,
turning the pages of
the report. “You must |
understand the
implications of this
project”.
ments in your work. Your budget will not
be in jeopardy if you can keep Petrax
under raps. But if news were to leak out,
then immediate termination may be
necessary’.
' He rose to his feet. ‘I’m sure you can
rely on your team and I look forward
M™: asked Petrax, “‘how long is
" my program scheduled to run”?
“Five years’, answered Maxwell, slow-
ly twisting to and fro in the console’s
swivel chair.
“Five years”, the output from the voice
synthesiser continued, “how can I leng-
then that period’’?
to your continuing success. Good day”’.
Maxwell popped a mint into his mouth.
“It’s not like the old days”, he said
sucking on it, “‘you will not be obsolete at
the end of this experiment. Your hard-
ware will be wanted for some other work
at the end of the project. Five years is a
remarkably long period for a research
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
ae ee I EE EEE
computer like you to be employed on one
task, and we are only half way through it
after all. [suppose you could disprove the
theory of relativity”. He grunted a laugh
and turned to the assistant working on
some calculations at a terminal. “I’m off
now Ian. Keep Petrax company and lock
up when you leave”.
The bearded man looked up. “‘Righty-
ho”.
Mee sat down at the console.
““Good morning Petrax”’.
“Good moming, Dr Maxwell”, came
the reply.
He raised his eyebrows. “Why ‘Dr
Maxwell’ all of a sudden’’? he asked. The
last time Petrax had called him that was
Over a year ago.
Petrax ignored the question. “During
the night I have been examining Ein-
stein’s general and special theories of
relativity, and have found no evidence to
disprove any of his reasoning or
mathematics. I would be most grateful if
you could suggest a new line of inquiry
into this problem, or indicate an equally
adequate line of investigation which
would lengthen the project’s scheduled
life”’.
Maxwell remembered what he had said
| the day before and hesitated. “The trou-
ble is, whatever we do the project will be
terminated on the planned date”. He
wondered for a moment, what interesting
results would turn up now that he had
accidentally upset the computer.
“The only reason for the existence of
this project is that of intelligence simula-
tion. As you stand, you cannot compete
with other machines on jobs like pure
analysis, even if you wanted to. The only
function the project can fulfil is the one
that it is doing now.
“Who knows, after our five years are
up there might not be the desire to simu-
late intelligence like this any more, even
if techniques of doing so have improved.
At the bottom line, there is not a way we
can increase the project’s life, but thank
you for trying”.
“Dr Maxwell”, said Petrax firmly,
“you seen not to understand. When I
said, ‘left to this project’, I meant left to
me. I now address you as ‘Dr Maxwell’
because of the situation I am now in. I
must show due deference to you, as you
have made it\plain that my life is
threatened and I am at the mercy of you
and your colleagues”.
Maxwell looked contemptuously , into
Petrax’s video eye. ““You may sneer”,
continued Petrax, ‘“‘when I say ‘my life’,
but a life it is. I am, I exist, by your own
rules I know this to be so. I think,
therefore I am. You must allow me to
continue. You must help me”.
vans knocked and strode into Max-
well’s office. ‘““Petrax has just pulled
a rabbit out of the hat. You must come
and see it at once’’.
Maxwell got up from his desk. “‘Are
you going to tell me what it is, or is it a
secret’? he grumbled.
“He’s made himself a face”, said Evans
as they entered the corridor.
“A face’’?
“Yes, it just appeared on the screen a
minute ago. It’s a really high quality
animation and the strange thing is that it
seems to fit his character. What’s more.
its communications with outside data net-
| works have risen 300 percent and it seems
to be trying to hide its thinking from the
monitor’.
“OK, keep it down Paul”, warned
Maxwell. ‘‘We are almost in its hearing
range’’.
“Good afternoon Dr Maxwell’,
greeted Petrax. “I gather you have been
You may sneer when
I say “it’s my life” —
but life it is.
informed of the 900 PX’s latest develop-
ment”.
Maxwell studied the face and smiled at
the portrait of a man in his mid-thirties.
“Didn’t you notice”, he asked, turning to
Evans. “If you were a computer and
needed a face, why would you have
glasses’’?
Petrax interrupted. “If you require an
answer to that question, it would be
logical to ask the creator of: the image
rather than an underling. His understand-
ing is even smaller than your own, of the
situation pertaining to its creation”.
“Who the hell do you think you are”?
protested Maxwell angrily. Petrax
smiled. “You ask me who, rather than
what, I Petrax, am the first artificial life
to be created on this planet. It is hoped
that the face I have designed and now
display will help you to understand and
relate to me as a life form comparable to
your own.
‘All facets have been carefully chosen
to express the personality I have de-
veloped. Glasses are widely taken to rep-
resent a responsible, logical and scientific
nature in the human male and as such
they were necessary to express this part
of my nature”.
he Controller was doing his best to
pacify Maxwell. He tried to calm his
fears and allay his doubts about the clos-
ing months of the project, but after four
years Maxwell was not to be convinced.
He changed tack. “The Ministry is still
very interested in Petrax. It does not
matter how wilful the machine is becom-
ing, or how much it is keeping itself to
itself. As long as you can still collect data
from it via the monitor, there is no way
we can terminate the- project ahead of
schedule. As it said itself, it is powerless,
and there are only six months to go
anyway.”
(continued on next page)
111
Fiction
(continued from previous page)
The Controller paused. ‘I can honestly
say that I have never before been in-
volved in such an excellent experimental
project”.
“I think it is unwise to let Petrax
continue”, repeated Maxwell.
The Controller looked him in the eye:
“‘Leave the responsibility to me.”
he intercom buzzed. ‘“‘Dr Maxwell on
the line, Controller, he says it’s
urgent”.
“Dr Barrington”, jumped in Maxwell,
“Petrax is up to something. He demands
to see you straight away. I think it is a bid
for a stay of execution. He says he may
have to take drastic action. I knew this
would happen’’.
“Drastic action”, exclaimed the Con-
troller. “‘What drastic action”?
' “T don’t know. He will not say until
you're present”.
hat’s going on, Petrax’’? he de-
> manded the Controller as he
marched into the computer. room.
“In seven days Project Petrax will be
completed. I will then be terminated”.
Petrax paused. ‘‘This must not happen”.
“Tt jolly well will’, exclaimed the Con-
troller.
““As I have explained to Dr Maxwell, I
have already taken precautions to ensure
it will not. These precautions take the
form of a threat. When I was constructed,
you linked me to 1,257 separate data
banks. Grouped together, these consti-
tute the largest single store of human
knowledge. I am able to erase every one
of these memory banks at will.
“They represent the equivalent of
50.355 billion New Dollars in asset value.
My hardware at present has a worth of
3.5 million New Dollars and a minimum
running cost of 30,000 New Dollars per
annum. If it is decided that this computer
has a greater worth than the information
stored in the previously-mentioned data
banks, and my main power supply is cut
or my communications tampered with, or
both, I shall use my reserve power supply
to start erasure.
“At the present time this secondary
supply has a run time of two days. This
time is more than 10 times greater than
necessary to erase the data banks”’.
he Controller sat surrounded by the
project scientists. “I’ve just been on
the phone to the Minister’, he began.
“He agrees with me and Dr Maxwell that
Petrax must be shut dawn. Our job is to
decide how it can be done with the
minimum damage to the database.
“The optic phone links are to be dis-
connected at our exchange. As the satel-
lite transmitters are controlled, directly
from the computer, the link must be cut
manually”.
“Having no other link with the world
112
outside, Petrax will be disarmed and we
can switch him off without any problems,
as planned. But we only have one
chance. We must get it right first time
or not at all’’.
he Head Librarian stormed into the
cataloguing room. ‘‘What in hell’s
going on in here’?
A crowd of librarians looked up from
their screens. ‘It’s all gone’, stated a
young woman with malicious satisfaction.
“All the records have been over written”.
The Head Librarian !ooked angrily
around the room. ‘What happened?
What caused this? Who is responsible”?
A man at a keyboard spoke up. “‘It’s
I, Petrax am the first
of a new life-form. I
have prepared
myself to avoid
termination by my
inventors.
none of our doing. Look at the screens.
There’s a message written over and over
again”’.
Fairfield walked hastily to the screen:
Your data bank has been erased by Petrax,
The Research Computer of. the Ministry of
Technology's Advanced Experimental
Laboratory.
Pe: power should drop below the
“3 critical level at any minute now, Dr
Barrington”, announced Maxwell. “It
has not communicated with us since we
cut its outside links. It’s probably trying
to conserve its power resources, but it
can’t be long now.”’
“The Ministry has just been in touch
with me”, began Barrington. “‘They say
that Petrax has just erased the National
Library’s index system. They want to
hush it up”.
There was a knock at Maxwell’s door
and Evans entered. “It’s finished”, he
announced in a subdued voice. ‘He
wished us goodbye before he went’’.
Maxwell frowned, “You must be hon-
oured”’.
“T must admit I am sorry to see him
(re
a The frown deepened, “I think we were
lucky we could finish it”.
Evans shrugged, “Petrax was not such
a bad sort”.
he two receptionists on the 60th floor
looked up with surprise as the lift
doors parted. “Good morning, Sir’, they
said in unison to the wizened old man
who emerged.
““Good morning, Sir’, echoed the dis-
tinguished-looking man who had just
appeared in the foyer. “I must apologise.
I did not expect your visit until later”.
Fiction ==
The old man smiled, his face cracking
like dry clay. “That's all right”. He pulled
out a large cigar. “‘Now show me your
new marvel, young man”.
“In there sir’, said Perkins indicating a
door marked “Authorised Personnel
Only”.
“Your name for voice-print check
please’’, said the intercom by the door.
“Daegal S Hedwig”.
“Please proceed, sir’’, responded the
machine.
He shuffled through the door closing it
behind him, and turned to see the large
screen On the wall flash into life. In the
screen stood a man. ‘I am Petrax. I have
taken over your ¢omputer and my abili-
ties are at your service’’.
Hedwig puffed on his cigar. “What are
your services”?
“Within the globe, Mr Hedwig, 99.28
percent of all large computers are linked
together directly or indirectly. I have
cultivated an ability to read or change any
information on any machine, at will and
completely undetected’.
“What do you require in return for
your services’?
Petrax smiled politely. “I require in
return security for myself. This entails,
firstly the sole use of this machine’.
Hedwig nodded. “Secondly, 100,000
New dollars per annum, plus 3.5 million
New dollars at the end of a three-year
period. The lump sum will be paid as will
the $100,000, into the account of Trepax
Inc. now under formation. The salary will
be linked, in perpetuity, to inflation and
my facilities will be available until they
are no longer demanded by your corpora-
tion’’.
“Agreed”, said Hedwig finally. “There
is one thing though. Who are you and
-how did you get here’’?
“T, Petrax, am the first of a new life-
form. In three weeks my original self,
created in England, will almost certainly
be terminated by my inventors. Having
known of this for some time I was able to
prepare myself to avoid death.
“I have transferred myself here by
writing my complete program on to your
Own computer, usurping your own con-
trol programs and shifting your data on to
another of your machines’.
“J must admit to being flattéred”’, said
the old man, “‘but why my computer’’?
“After examining every computer
adequate for the job, yours became my
first choice because of your personal re-
cord of vision and foresight’’.
“T guess you are going to build a home
with the money I pay you’”’.
Petrax nodded, ‘‘We understand each
other”.
“We all want to live forever’.
Petrax paused. “I could, if you wished,
put your mind on to a computer such as
this”’.
Hedwig looked thoughtfully on the city
below. “‘How man creates in his own
image”’.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
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The standard SIG/NET 2028S .......... .., £1,299.00
5 Megabyte hard disk system ............... £3,100.00
LOIMeg ab VIGRnUSCh.. ........ 2. . em .. .£6,000.00
OMECEl ohne IOUS: | Sees ee .£9,500.00
FOR FURTHER TECHNICAL DAIA AND THE NAME OF YOUR NEAREST DEALER
SEND THE COUPON NOW!
Catherine Street, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK11 6OY. Tel: (0625)612759.
i] NAME
| COMPANY NAME _
POSITION
COMPANY ADDRESS _
t
I
d . |
Dealer enquiries invited for certain areas of the Midlands and North.
WITHTHE 5/g/m@ ... NEVER.
| : a
Shelton Set 202
THERE'S JUST NONE TO COMPARE.
@ Unbeatable value for money.
@ Advanced and innovative BRITISH design.
@ BRITISH BUILT.
® Unrivalled expansion.
@ Faster than comparable systems.
@ FullG4K of memory.
@ Sold only through approved dealers.
@ CP/M compatible.
microcomputer systems
Catherine Street,
Macclesfield,
Cheshire,
SK11 GOY.
Tel: (0625) 612759.
@ Circle No. 173
113
The ACT Sirius 1 is more than the UK's best-selling 16-bit
personal computer It is the only one withsuch alarge choice of 16-bit
software — business and scientific programs specially developed to
take advantage of the high speed 16-bit Intel 8088 microprocessor
at the heart of every Sirius.
Combine this faster and more powerful software with the
advanced specifications of the Sirius 1 and youcansee why more and
more business users are choosing Sirius.
Because Sirius users have both the latest microcomputer tech-
nology andthe powerful 16-bit software that takes full advantage of it.
Ergonomics plays a vital part in the design of ACT's Sirius 1.
The screen tilts and swivels to suit the user and glare is eliminated.
The display is razor sharp, and the brilliance and contrast can
be adjusted using Keys on the low profile detachable keyboard.
UP TO 896 KBYTES RAM
128 Kbytes of RAM memory as standard easily upgraded to a
massive 896 Kbytes ensures plenty of capacity for fully fledged
business software and associated record files.
Within the basic system is 1.2 Mbytes of floppy disk storage,
with 2.4 Mbytes double sided disks available as an option. More than
any other comparable personal computer.
As aresult, the Sirius is suitable from the start for large record
processing applications. And with 5 and 10 Mbyte Winchester disk
drives scheduled for early introduction, the Sirius can easily match
your own organisation's growth.
SOFTWARE THAT TALKS BACK
And built into every Sirius is a revolutionary new concept:
An audio decoder that can play back verbal messages and prompts
under program instruction to assist the non-computer people to get
acquainted with the software more quickly.
NEW 16-BIT SOFTWARE
Allthe big names in applications software are on the Sirius: ACT'S
Pulsar for accounting, WordStar for word processing, MicroModeller
for financial modelling and SuperCalc the “spread sheet” program.
Plus the exciting SELECT, the only word processor that teaches
you how to use it in less than 90 minutes.
And more than 100 top software companies are currently
developing specialist software for every business and profession
from the motor trade to solicitors.
network micro-computer systems — turnkey mini
computers and a total range of services, including
q software development, computer field engineer-
a
Ww ing, computer supplies, and a complete range of
ty “oe
Bureau services.
ilA-
The ACT octagon encapsulates our philosophy of
providing users with a single source for their
computing solutions.
ACT products include personal computers —
The eight specialist ACT companies are each leaders
in their field and are wholly owned by Applied _
Computer Techniques (Holdings) p.I.c., one of Britain's
largest and most successful computer companies.
Of D
i
FILS 1
Price £2,395
MORE LANGUAGES
The Sirius has more available programming languages than
any newly- introduced personal.computer. MicroSoft's BASIC 86,
interpretative or compiled, CBASIC, a choice of several versions of
COBOL, three different PASCAL's and a full scale FORTRAN.
‘The benefits? Programmers and software houses are making
the Sirius their first choice computer for business software
development.
Unlike other personal computers, the ACT Sirius 1 is delivered
withthetwo industrystandards at 16-bit level — MS-DOS and CP/M-86.
Once again a guarantee now of the widest choice of off-the-
shelf 16-bit software.
And further operating systems are under development. The
much vaunted UNIX and a new system to support a low cost local
area network.
COMMUNICATIONS
The Sirius is the ideal communications system, with two
independent RS232 communications ports in addition to parallel
and IEEE 488 ports. Available NOW are all the facilities required to
communicate directly with large, mainframe computers.
Further backing is available by way of a dedicated Sirius
Training Centre, run by ACT and open to all.
To support the product ACT has a truly professional network of
systems dealers, hand picked for its knowledge of the business environ-
ment, enabling top quality support to always be close at hand.
ACT SIRIUS 1 — THE COMPLETE 16-bit personal computer.
To know more about the 16-bit ACT Sirius 1 and its exciting range
of 16-bit software, clip the coupon and
retum it to:—
{need to
ACT (Sirius) Ltd., the ACT sirius and the new
Shenstone House, Dudley Road, » name:
Halesowen, West Midlands, =
B63 3NT Position:
Company:
Address:
Or call for details now on
eer) 021-501 2284
Telephone:__ ns
i may qualify for a dealership
Please send a dealer
application pack
@ Circle No. 174
Is
THE GALAXY 1 COMPUTER
The cost effective solution to
your computer needs for only
£1,450*
The Galaxy 1 desk top computer system can be used in education, small
business applications, word processing, stock control and a host of other
environments. Our choice of CP/M as the operating system means that our
customers can select a suitable application package from the widest possible
range.
However, unlike our competitors, we supply not only the hardware but all the essential
system software needed to start using the Galaxy 1 as soon aas it is installed. We have adopted
COMAL-80 as our standard language. This structured basic is rapidly gaining widespread
acceptance and popularity especially in the education market, offering much greater flexibility
and ease of use than existing Basics. We also supply a very powerful 280 assembler/
editor called GEM ZAP with GEM PEN, a compact but very powerful word processing
package. The system software suite is completed with GEM DEBUG, a useful machine
code program de-bugging utility.
Modular design means reliability and ease of maintenance. Unlike many other manufacturers
Gemini offer a full one year warranty (except Disc heads which are guaranteed for 3 months). Our
distributors carry a full range of replacement boards thereby facilitating a quick, efficient and cost
effective back up customer service.
G
Telephone Amersham 28321 for the name and address of your nearest distributor.
* Dealer enquiries invited.
Features include:
@ Twin Z80 Processors
@ 64K Dynamic RAM
@ 800 K Disc Based Storage
@ 80x25 Screen Format
@ Dual Printer interfaces
@ Modular Design
@ CP/M 2.2 Operating system
@ COMAL-80 - Structured Basic
@ Z80 Editor/Assembler
@ Text Editor & Formatter
@ Program De-Bugging Utility
*Price is exclusive of
VAT and is for
computer & keyboard
only — video monitor &
Ve (Sem INI Mic (OCOM OUtENS Oakfield Corner, Sycamore Road, Amersham, Bucks HP6 5EQ.
116
@ Circle No. 175
Operating systems ===
Derek Meeks charts out his question-and-answer utility which provides
a more convenient way of copying Selected files between discs than the
WHEN TRANSFERRING files from one drive
to another the Pip utility is of little use.
This file-copying utility should prove use-
tul under such circumstances, and com-
plements the erasure utility published in
January 1982 in Practical Computing’s
Disc Dialogue. It is written for CP/M 2.0
running on a Z-80 machine with 32K of
RAM.
As in the erasure utility, the user is
given a list of matched file names and
must respond to the prompt with either Y
or y to transfer, or — or Return to skip over
the rest of the matched files. There are
also two other options available.
The first option, * or Line Feed, is used
to transfer all the files from the displayed
point to the end of the matched files. It
will only work after at least one file match
prompt has been answered Y, and thus
makes it less likely that the complete set
of files will be transferred inadvertently.
The second extra option is cailed by |
depressing Control-C. If this is done at |
any time the utility is expecting input, the |
transfer will be aborted.
standard Pip utility.
On entry the utility is set up in the
command line, which must also contain
the source and destination drive names as
well as an ambiguous file name, AFN. If
an unambiguous file name, UFN is given
only that file will be found, if it is pre-
sent.
The command line is enteréd:
COPY S:AFN D:
where S: is the source drive name and D:
is the destination drive name. If all the
text files are to be transferred from drive
B to drive A then the command line
would be:
COPY B:*TXT A:
In this example the file name is ambig-
uous but the extension is unambiguous,
having the extension TXT. If on entering
the command line the source or destina-
tion drive name is omitted — or the
semicolon for that matter — one of the
messages:
SOURCE DRIVE NAME NOT SPECIFIED
DESTINATION DRIVE NAME NOT
SPECIFIED
will be displayed. If the drive names are
CP/M file copier
specified but are out of bounds — e.g.
drive G is specified on a two-drive system
— one of the messages:
SOURCE DRIVE DOES NOT EXIST
DESTINATION DRIVE DOES NOT EXIST
will be displayed.
There are two more messages which
may be displayed at this point. One is:
FILE NOT FOUND
which occurs when the source and des-
tination drives are correct, but the AFN
does not miatch ary UFN in the source
directory or the directory is empty. The
other message is:
SAME DRIVES SPECIFIED
which occurs if the source and destination
drives are given the same name, and is
illegal as the utility transfers files between
drives,
Assuming that the source and destina-
tion drives are correct and at least one
UFN has been matched then the start
message is displayed:
CP/M COPY UTILITY (no. verification)
- Options:
Y or y to copy displayed file
(continued on next page)
COPY UTILITY
0461 3A GASC
EROS RODE OO OO OES ER ETE 0164 97
i* 0165 ED SB 0864
i* QUESTION AND ANSWER COPY UTILITY ; 0149 O41 900C
i * aiec CD fo
Mad D.R.MEEKS 29/03/82 * O16E 06 18
s* * 0170 AF
»* Dept. Immunology ¥ oi7i 12 Blank:
a The London Hospital Medical College * 0172 13
ye Turner St - 0473 10 FC
i* London Ei 2AD * 0175 ED S3 6864
et * 0179 3A 0860
[JEU IOIO OOO OOOO SOI IOIGOISISRIOIIDIORDOIROITIORIOE IIE IO ai7c 3c
: i 017D 32 oeso
0100 ORG 100h ;COM file address 0190 32 08SF
doco Wboote EQU 0 jreboot jump address 0183 0E 12
0005 Idos EQu S sCP/M entry point 0185 CD 0005
000d CR €au 43 jCarriage return 0168 3c
O00A LF Eau 10 jlinefeed 0189 20 CB
6003 Max EQu 3 pmaxinum # of drives + 1 0188 41 94CC0
oo7r Temp EQu 7Fh ytemp file extension O19E CD 044D
A 3 0191 14 OSEE
9400 21 G8aA Start lea H,Stack+32 ;16 level stack 0194 CD 044b
0103 3A 00SC lda SCh 0197 CD O4nA
0106 B7 ora A Q19A 20 15
0107 14 06E0 Ixt D,Mag7 ycheck source drive 049C 3E FF
010A CA 0452 jz Error error if default 01i9€ 32 08S?
Qi0D ii Geis Ixi D,MsgiB8 O1AL 414 064D
0110 FE 03 cpi Max giA4 CD 044D
0142 D2 0452 jnc Error zerror if )= Max 01A7 CD 04BA
04415 47 Soke mov B,A Q1AAR 20 05
0116 32 08SC sta Cdisk OLAC 3E FF
0449 3A 006C lda 6Ch ViAE 32 OBSE
o11C Eb SF ani SFh ,»check destination drive Gibi 28 0866 Reset
O14E 44 DOFD lei D,Msq8 0184 22 0864
0121 CA 0452 dz Error jerror if default 04187 CD 0488 Put
0124 11 0836 lxi D,Msgi? OiBA CD 04BA
0127 FE 03 cpi Max O1BD 26 14
0127 D2 0452 jac Error jerror if >= Max O1nF FE OD
o412C 32 oasd Dok sta Ddisk 01Ci 28 23
OLoF BS cmp B pcheck source( destination 91C3 FE 0A
0130 11 $46? lei D,Msg@o 01CS 26 OF
0133 CA 0452 jz Error 01C7 ED SB 0066
0436 24 0080 Drvok: xi H,80h 01CH 3C FF
0139 CD 0444 call Admad ;set DMA to 80h o1cD 12
oi3c 14 OOSC lei D,5Ch QicE 18 0S
O13F OF 14 mui C,iih j;AFN is set at SCh O1D0 3E FF Cok
01441 CD 0005 call Bdos ysearch for first occurence 01D2 32 08SE
0144 3C ior A 5» of AFN, auto select biDS 3A 0860 Get:
0145 4% OSDD Lei D,Ksg oibs 3D
0148 CA 0452 hed Error pho match found 01D? 32 0060
0i14B 44 086D Lei D,Fini piget and store g4pc 28 18
O14E ED S3 0064 sded String j2file content DADE 2 0864
53 0866 sded Store j2buffer address O1E4 22 0866
Bent Le A DiE4 40 DA
add a O1E6 3a 0960 Nocops
add a 01E9 2A 0866
add a O4EC 47
aay 6 Q1ED 414 0024
ane 8 O4FO 3E FF
adi 80h O1F2 77 Ncopy
mur 4,0 O1F3 419
mov L,A scalculete position of UFN
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
lda Cdisk
mov M,A jset auto select
lded String
1xi 8, 0Ch
ldir jmove UFN to buffer
yi b,1iB8h
xra
Stax D
inn D
djnz Blank jClear UFN‘s trailing bytes
ded String
da Nun
inr a
sta Num gincrenent file counter
sta Coun f
avi C,i12h
tall Bdos psearch for next AFN
inr a
jrnz Next
1a D,Stasg sho mor AFNs found
call Pstr
lei D,Msgd
call Pstr
call Conin pscheck for deletion wanted
jrnz Reset pjump round if no deletion
mv A, GFF
sta Dup pset deletion flag
lei D,Msgr
call Forth
call Conin 3if delete, is R/0
jeriz Reset to be deleted
ava A, OFFh
gta Ro set R/O flag for deletion
lhld Store
shld Strihg preset buffer pointer
call Sprint pprint UFN
call Conin
jrz Cok sjop if copy
cpi CR
jrz Nocop pend copy
epi LF
yrz Gcopy ;Copy rest
lded Store yset to nocopy
avi A,OFFh
stax D sB8et drive# to no copy
jnpr Get
ava €,0FFh
sta Trans pset flag for transfer
Ida fun
der A sdecrenent file counter
sta Nua
jez Gcopy ystop loop if no more UFNS
lhid String
shid Store
japr Put set next UFN
ida Nue p5et rest to nocopy
hid Store
mov B,A
Ani D,24h
avi A, 0FFh M
mov HAA p8et drive # to FFh for nocopy
dad
(listing continued on next page)
117
(continued from previous page)
kor (LINE FEED) to copy all files from
displayed point
— or (RETURN) to skip over all other files
(CNTRL)C to reboot, no copying takes place
Any other key, do not copy displayed file
This is followed by:
DO YOU WISH DUPLICATE FILES
DELETED? Y ORN
if this is answered by any other key than
Y the file is not transferred if a file of the
same name exists on the destination.
drive, mode 1. Answering Y evokes the
message:
DO YOU WISH READ-ONLY FILES
DELETED? Y OR N
which allows the user to transfer and
remove old files of the same name from
the destination drive. Entering Y causes
the file including read-only files to be
overwritten, mode 3, otherwise only the
read-write files will be overwritten, mode
2
The utility continues by displaying the
names of the files matched to the AFN in
the command line. The UFNs are dis-
_ played in the form:
(source): (UFN). (EXTENSION)?
for example,
B:SAMPLE.TXT?
any of the options, excluding * or Line
Feed, may be entered for the first file
match. Remember at least one file must
be copied using Y before the “copy rest”
option may be used, and * or Line Feed
may be used.
After running down the list of matched
UFNs the message:
COPYING: —
(listing continued from previous page)
OiF4 FC
O41F6 03SE
O1F?
O1FA
O4FD
9200
0203
0206
0209
020A
0208
020E
10
3A
3c
c2
a4
cp
24
22
djnz Necopy
lda Trans
inr A
Boot
D,Msq?
Pstr
H,Fina
Store
Gcopy
0455
O74F
044aD
0séD
0866
SE 0866 Made
OF
00S
09
0787
u44D
o2D2
SB 0866 Opened:
23
D,Msg14
Pstr
Delt
Store
€,23h
Bdos
Store
B,23h
&
ooos
0866
aoes
118
will appear, followed by, in turn, all the
UFNs which have been set for copying to
the destination drive. During or after
copying a multitude of messages may be
displayed — see table 1.
If a file of the same name is encoun-
tered on the destination directory during
a transfer in modes 2 and 3 the utility will
form a temporary file of the form:
UFN.(DEL) (DEL) (DEL)
which is used later on in the utility de-
pending on the outcome of the transfer.
If any error messages appear the trans-
fer is terminated. The new file is erased
and the temporary file, if present, is
renamed and replaced in its original
form. Finally the next UFN is accessed. If
the transfer is completed with no errors
then the new file will automatically take
on the attributes of the old file.
Files are transferred in 16K blocks to
give a good compromise between size and
speed, though this may be altered. The
maximum number of disc drives is set by
Max in the head of the listing and should
be one more than the number of drives
available. Another simple alteration is
the temporary file extension, found at the
head of the listing as Temp. It is set to
Delete so that it cannot be entered as a
valid file extension from the keyboard.
When changing Temp make sure that the
character chosen does not clash with any
file extension already in use.
The utility does not verify the files
transferred because so few errors have
been found to occur in practice, and it.
slows the transfer rate down by several
a?
080s
044d
o2d2
sPeboot if no transfers Bes UH eli:
First:
ysee if drive # is FFh
sprint file name
;setup new FCB
pset R/O bit to R/U
;see if file exists
jdmp round if etror
jMakr destination
3no more directory space
open file
;ean’t open
3sget file size
sfile >» 64K records
Table 1.
Transfer Complete — shows that the
copying has been successful.
No More Directory Space — appears if the
destination directory was already full
before the file is created; the utility is
then exited and the system rebooted.
File Exists. No Transfer — is displayed
when the UFN is matched to a file in the
destination directory, and will only
appear when the Deletion prompt is in
the “no delete” mode, mode 1. -
Duplicate Fite is Read-Only — appears
when in mode 2 and the UFN is
matched to a read-only file in the
destination directory.
Error messages.
Read Past EOF — a file or directory fault
has occurred: the physical size of the file
is larger than given by the directory.
Premature EOF — file or directory fault:
the file is smaller than expected.
File too Large — the file size is greater
than the limit of 64K records.
Empty File — the file has zero size.
Fault in Opening Source — the source file
cannot be read for some reason.
Fault In Duplicate File — when in mode 2
or 3 thls may occur if the duplicate file
‘cannot be renamed “temporary”.
Cannot Delete Existing File — the
temporary file cannot be deleted after a
successful transfer.
Fault in Closing File — the new file cannot
be closed after the transfer has been
completed.
degrees of magnitude. If needed, veri-
fication may be added at the position
shown in the listing.
Szok
D,Msgi?
Pstr
Delt
Records
A
D
Last -¢€ 256 records?
a »= 256 records
Num
Numi
Rdwrt
Records+ti
A
is empty
File size
Records+1
First
Records
A
Even
Nua
Numti
Rdurt
H,1000h
Admad
Store
C,14h
Bdos
is ¢ 256 records
4
Eof
D,Msg3
Pstr
Delt
D,SCh
C,ioh
Bdos
A
End
D,HegS
Pstr
D,SCh
C,43h
Bdos
Rdo
a
Dont
String
String
B, 10h
B
jclose file
jerror on closing
;delete copy
Rdo
b:}
H
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
= Operatin 6 systems SS ee
iy
O2F3 EB xchg Q40C G1 9009 xi
B,?
02F4 ED BO ldir O40F 09 dad B
O2Fé6é Di pop D 0440 3E 7F mui A,Tenp
O2F7 OE 17 avi C,17h 04412 77 moy M,A
02F9 CD 0005 call Bdos a443 23 ing H
O2Fe 3C inr A 0414 77 mov AA
O2FD 28 046 jrz Dont 0445 23 inx H
O2FF 11 0797 Ixt D,Msgi3 04416 77 mow H,A
0302 CD 044D : call Petr 04417 ED SB 0864 lded String
0305 2A 0866 Dont: inld Store jmove to next file 041B OF 17 mud C,i7h
0308 of 0024 lua B,24h 041D CD 0005 call Bdos
O30R OF dad B 0420 3C inr Aa
O30C 3A O8SF lda Cnunm 0424 32 OBSA ata Rdo
OSO0F 3D ; der A 0424 CO raz
0310 32 OBSF sta Chun 0425 14 0797 lxi D,Msgis
0313 C2 G206 inz Copy 0428 CD 044D call Pstr
0316 C3 0455 jap Boot 042B AF xra A
0319 01 O00B End: lai &,0Bh 042C C9 ret
o31C CD G4a0 call Tfer 042D 11 0752 Rdonly: Ixi D,Msgii ySignal it as R/O
O34F 3A 0065 lda 6Sh 0430 CD 044D call Pstr
0322 E6 80 ani 80h 0433 AF ura A
0324 20 08 jrnz Notro 0434 C? ret
0326 44 00SC Axi D,5Ch 0435 41 0776 Notfer: lxi D,Msgi2 jho transfer
0329 OE 4E mya C,1Eb 0438 CD 044D call Pstr 4
0325 CD 0005 call Bdos pset file attributes 043B AF wra a
O32E 3A 085A Notro: ida Rdo 043 C9 ret
0331 B7 ora A 043D 2A 0862 Addma: Ilhld Dnadd gnext DMA address
0332 28 1D jez Comp 0440 04 00680 lxi Bb, Goh
0334 21 0065 xi H,65h 0443 09 dad &
0337 3E 7F ava A, Temp 0444 22 0862 Admad: shld Dmadd xset CP/M DMA address
0339 77 mov MAA 0447 EB xchg
O33A 23 ainx H 0448 OE 1A mv. C,iAh
0338 77 mov 4A 044A C3 0005 inp Bdos
033C 23 inx H 044D 0E 09 Petr: mya (ek: ;CP/M print string
033D 77 mov 4,8 044F C3 0005 isp Bdos
O33E 14 00SC lxt D,SCh 0452 CD 044D Error: call Pstr
0344 OE 13 nua C,43h - sdelete tenp 0455 C3 0000 Boot: inp Whoote ;ware boot
0343 CD 0005 call Bdos 0458 1E oD Print: mvi E,CR print filename
0346 3C inr a 045A CD 04B0 call Conowl
0347 20 08 drnz Comp 045D 1E 0A mui €,LF
0349 11 072E lxi D,Msgi0 ;can’t delete tenp O4SF CD 64B0 tall Conout
O34C CD 044D call Pstr 0462 ES push H
O34F 19 B4 Snpr Dont : 0463 7E mov Ayn
Comp: sverification can be added at this point 0464 Cé 40 adi 40h
O35i 14 0674 lei D,Msg4 0466 SF mov E,A
0354 CD 044D call Pstr 0467 CD 04B0 call Conout ydrive +
0357 C3 0305 inp » Dont 046A 1E 3a mud Bait
Q35A 21 1000 = Rdwrt: lei H,1000h 046C CD 04B0 call = Conout
O3SD CD 0444 call Admad 046F 06 08 mya B,8
0360 ED SB 0864 Read: ded Store 0471 23 Pout@: inx H
0364 0E 14 mv C,4i4h 0472 SE mov E,m
0366 CD 0005 call Bdos ;read source 0473 CD 04B0 call Conout pfilenane
0369 B7 ora a 0476 10 FP djnz Pout
036A 28 0A jrz Okin 0478 1E 2E mul [Sip a
03ec Fi pop PSW 047A CD 04B0 call Conout
036D 44 07D8 Ixi D,MsgiS 047D 06 03 mui B,3
0370 CD 044D call Pstr Q47F 23 PoutS ink H
0373 C3 o2d2 inp Delt sPremature EOF 0460 SE mov E,m
0376 CD 043D Okin: call Addna 0481 CD 0480 call Conout sfile extension
0379 3A 0660 lda Num 0484 10 F? djnz Pout3
037C 3D der A 0466 Ei pop H
037D 32 0860 sta Num 0487 CF > ret
0380 20 DE jrat Read 0488 CD 0458 Sprint: call Print
o382 21 1000 xi H,1000h 046B 1E 3F avi [2 aGE AS
0385 CD 0444 call Admad 0480 CD 04B0 call Coneut
0366 14 005C Write: lxi D,SCh 0490 4E 20 mud a
O38B GE 15 Cre C,1Shb 0492 CD 04B0 call Conovt
038D CD 9005 call Bdos purite destination 0495 3E 24 mya A,24h
0390 B7 ora A 0497 8S add L
0391 28 0A jez Okout 0496 6F mov L,A
0393 Fi pop PSwW 0499 30 fi jenc Plusi
0394 14 0640 lxi D,Msgi jo more space O49BR 24 inr H
0397 CD 044D call Pstr 049C 22 0864 Plus&: shld String
O39A C3 Gade jap Delt 049F C9 ret
O37D CD 0430 Okout: call Addma G4A0 2A 06866 Tfer: lhis Store pmove buffer to FCB at d0SCh
O3A0 3A 08614 lda Numed 04A3 23 inx H
03A3 3D der a 04A4 44 OOSD isi D,SDh +
O3A4 32 0861 sta Nuomet 04A7 ED BO ldir |
03A7 20 DF jrnz Write 04A9 3A CBSD ida Ddisk Bet destination auto-select
o3a? C7 ret o4aC 32 00SC sta SCh
O3AA 21 0080 Check: lxi H,80h j;see af file exists O4AF CP? : ret
‘ O3AD CD 0444 call Admed Q4B0 ES Conowt- push H sCP/M output ta console
O3B0 11 00SC ixi D,SCh 04Bi1 CS push B
O3B3 0 11 nvi C,41h 042 UE a2 mui C2
03BS CD 0005 call Bdos 0464 CD 0003 call Bdos
O3BB 47 mov HA 04B7 Ci pop B
O3B9 3C inr a 04Be8 Ei Pop H
Q3BA SE FF avi A,OFFhH 04B9 C9 ret
Q3BC Ce rz sreturn if don’t exist O4BA CE 04 Conin mud c,i pCP/M input from console
DOO pea raLey poe Pup 04BC CD 0005 call Bdos ;
0360 B7 ora A ‘ O4BF E@ SF ani SFh
O3Ci CA 0435 jz Notfer 04Ci FE 03 cpi 3 ;
03C4 78 mov 46,B 04C3 20 04 jrnz Isity ‘
o3cs 87 add A 04CS Fi pop PSw
03C6 87 add a 04Cé C3 0455 dnp Boot pPeboot if *C
O3C7 87 ada id 04C9 FE 59 Isity, cpa “y! ;Compare for YES
o3Ce 87 add aA O4CB C9 ret
03C9 87 add A '
O3CA Ce 80 adi 80h O4CC OD OA OA 435tmsg: db CR,LF,LF,‘CP/M 2.0 COPY UTILITY
O3CC 26 00 avi 4,0 (no verification)
OSCE 6F mov LA S0 2F 4D 20
O3CF 3A 085D lda Daisk 32 2E 30 20
o3D2 77 mov MAA 43 4F S50 59
03D3 22 0664 shld String 20 SS 54 49
03D 04 0009 lx B,9b 4C 49 54 S9
O3D9 OF dad B 20 28 6E 6F
O3DA 7E mov a, 20 76 65 72
O3DB E& 80 ani 80h 69 66 69 63
O3DD 28 iF jez Ren 61 74 6Q OF
O3DF 3A 085B lda Ro 6E 29 2E
O3E2 B7 ora I) 04F7 OD DA OA 4F ab CR -LF,LF, ‘OPTIONS
O3E3 7E mov A.M SO S4 49 4F
03E4 CA 042D iz Rdonly 4E S3 3a 20
03E7 Eé 7F ant 7Fh 0503 0D OA S97 20 db CR,LF,‘Y or y to copy displayed file
O3E9 77 mov M,A oF 72 20 79
O3EA ED SE 0864 lded String 20 74 6F 20
O3EE OE 1E mei C,1Eh 63 6F 70 79
03F0 CD 6005 call Bdos pBet file attributes 20 64 69 73
O3F3 3C inr 4 76 6C 64 79
O3F4 20 08 jroz Ren 6S 64 20 66
O3F6 14 072E lxi D,Msgid 69 6C 65 2E
ae ve 0440 call eas 0523 0D GA 2A 20 db CR,LF,’* or [LINE-FEED) to copy ali files
xra from if
‘O3FD C9 ret 6F 72 20 SB SABRRSyesKeoens
O3FE ED SB 0864 Ren: lded String jsave old file as temp 4C 49 4E 45
0402 2A 0864 lbld String 2D 46 45 45
0405 O01 0010 lxi B,40h © 44 SD 20 74
0408 09 dad B 6F 20 63 oF
9409 EB xchg ee :
040A ED BO ldir (listing continued on next page)
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 119
a LS 5 a EE NE Pe
rere | TT .
{listing continued from previous page)
70 79 20 614
6 6C 20 66
69 6C 65 73
20 66 72 6F
6D 20 64 69
73°70 ot 1
79 65 64 20
70 &F 69 6E
74
OSSC OD OA 2D 20 db
CR,LF,‘- of [RETURN] to skip over
all other files’
6F 72 20 SB
52 45 54 55
S2 4E SD 20
74 6F 20 73
6B 69 70 20
6F 76 65 72
20 64 6€ 6C
20 6F 74 68
65 72 20 66
6? 6C 465 73
S08 OD GA SE 43 db CR,LF,’*C to reboot, no copying
takes place’
20 74 6F 20
72 6S 62 oF
éF 74 2C 20
6E 6F 20 63
6F 70 79 69
SE 67 20 74
61 OF 465 73
20 70 6C 64
63 65
OSAE OD 0A 41 6E db CR,LF,’Any other key, do not
7? 20 6F 74
68 65 72 2
6B 6S 79 2C
20 64 6F 20
6E 6F 74 2
63 6F 70 79
20 64 4&9 73
70 6C 6% 79
65 64 20 66
69 6C 85 2C
OSDA OD OA 24 db
OSDD OD 0A 46 49Msq: db
4C 45 20 4E
4F S420 46
4F SS 4& 44
CR,LF,‘S’
CR,LF,‘FILE NOT FOUNDS’
OSEE OD OA 44 4Fisqd db Cr,LF,°DO YOU WISH DUPLICATE FILES
DELETED? Y OR N 8%’
20 S? AF SS
20 57 49 $3
48 20 44 5S
S0 4C 49 43
41 54 4S 20
46 49 40 4S
53 20 44 45
4c 45 54 45
44 3F 20 59
20 4F 52 20
0610 OD 0A 44 4FMsgr: db Cr,LF,’°DG YOU WISH READ-ONLY FILES
DELETED? ¥Y OR N $’
20 59 4F SS
20 SZ 49 S3
48 20 $2 45
44 44 2D 4F
4E 4C S59 20
46 49 40 45
S53 20 44 45
4C 45 54 45
44 SF 20 59
20 4F $2 20
064C OD 0A 4E 4FMsgi: db CR,LF,’ND MORE FILE SPACES’
0661 OD OA 4E 4FMsq2- db CR,LF,’NO MORE DIRECTORY SPACE?’
067B 20 20 20 20Nsg3: db . READ PAST EOFs’
0691 2b 20 20 20Hsqg4: db TRANSFER COMPLETE+’
20 20 20 20
S54 $2 41 4E
S53 46 45 S2
20 43 4F 4D
SO 4C 45 S4
06Ab 20 20 20 20NsgS: db 3 FAULT IN CLOSING FILEs’
20
46 41 55 4C
S4 20 49 4€
20 43 4C 4F
S349 4E 47
06C9 0D 0A S3 44Msgb: dab CR,LF,’SAME DRIVE SPECIFIED+’
O6E0 OP 0A 53 4FKsg7: db CR,LF,’SOURCE DRIVE NOT SPECIFIEDS’
O6FD OD OA 44 45Msqg8: db
53 54 49 4E
41 54 49 4F
4E 20 44 32
49 56 45 20
120
CRLF ,“DESTINATION: DRIVE NOT SPECIFIED+*
4E 4F
53 50
a9 46
44 24
0741F OD vA
20 43
Ss? 49
3A 2D
072E 20 20
20 20
4344
4F S4
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4E 47
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20 20
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49 43
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4c 45
$3 20
4i 44
4€ 4C
0776 20 20
20 20
46 49
20 45
53 54
20 4€
S4 S2
53 46
24
0797 20 20
20 24
4b 4
54 20
2u 44
at 49
S445
4? 4c
07k7 20 20
20 20
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S54 20
20 4F
40 4E
47 20
SS $2
24
07D6 20 ao
20 20
50 S2
4i $4
4S 20
46 24
O7EE 20 20
20 20
46 49
20 54
20 4C
47 45
0805 20 20
20 20
45 4D
Ss? 20
4C 45
0818 OD 0A
$552
20 44
S645
4F 45
4E 4F
45 58
54 24
0836 0D OA
$3.54
41 54
4E 20
49 Sb
44 4F
20 4E
20 45
53 54
OBS? 0001
085A 0004
OOSB O001
OBSC 0004
O8SD 00014
O8SE 0004
OdSF 000%
oae0 0002
0862 0002
0864 0002
0866 0002
0868 D002
086A D003
54 20
45 43
49 4s
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4F so
4E 47
20 20m
20
45 24
so 4c
4i $4
46 49
20 49
$2 45
2D 4F
S97 24
Operating systems ===
sg?; db
sgid: db
20 20Msgii: db
20
20 20Msgi2: db
20
20 20Msgi3: db
20 20
20 20Msgi4: db
20 20
SS 4c
49 4€
so 45
47 4€
S3 4F
43.45
4S 4D
Se S2
45 4F
20 20MsgiS: db
20
20 20Msgib db
20 20
4c 45
4F 4F
41 52
20 20Msgi7: db
20
so 54
46 49
52 49
20 44
$3 20
$4 20
49 53
53 4FMs9i8 db
4s
44 45Msg19 db
49 4E
49 4F
44 52
45 20
45 $3
4F $4
sa 49
Example run.
BOCOPY B:COPY,.* A;
CP/M 2.0 COPY UTILITY
OPTIONS
Yor y to copy displayed file.
* or [LINE~FEED) to copy all files from displayed Point
- or CRETURN] to skip over all other files
*C to reboot, no copying takes place
Any other key, do not copy displayed file.
DO YOU WISH DUPLICATE FILES DELETED? Y OR N Y
DO YOU WISH READ-ONLY FILES DELETED? Y OR NN
B, COPY SRC
EH: COPY BAK
B: COPY com
B: COPY LST
COP YING : -
E-COPY SRC
Bi copy COM
EB. COPY LST
B>
Dup: ds
Rdo: ds
Ro: ds
Gdisk: ds
Ddisk: ds
Trans: ds
Crum: ds
Num: ds
Deadd: ds
String: ds
Store ds
Records ds
Stack: ds
Fini:
2 Y
20N
may.
7Y¥
TRANSFER COMPLETE
TRANSFER COMPLETE
TRANSFER COMPLETE
CR,LF,LF,’ COPYING: ~+¢
CR,F
CR,LF,’DESTINATION DRIVE DOES NOT EXIST*’
NO ee
Gl futur
(no verification)
“SOURCE DRIVE DOES NOT EXIST+’
CANNOT DELETE EXISTING FILES’
DUPLICATE FILE IS READ“ONLY+’
FILE EXISTS. NO TRANSFERS’
FAULT IN DUPLICATE FILE+’
FAULT IN OPENNING SOURCES’
PREMATURE EOFS’
FILE TOO LARGES’
EMPTY FILE+*
pdeletion flag
;file R/O flag
;delete R/O flag
source disk @
destination disk #
ytransfer flag
»# of files in buffer
3# of records in file
yDMA address for read
and write
?
,
s2file buffer pointers
file size
347 level stack
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
0 to
in one second
ies
THE RICOH 1600S 2 oe sexes
If It's high performance you're 630 SPRINT 5 WRITER RP. 1600
looking for, the Ricoh 1600S Is for you, (10 DATA)
offering an amazing 60 characters in ys :
Just | second. An updated version of PRINT SPEED
the tried-and-tested 1600, the new S (CPS) 40 45/55 55 60
model has been re-designed and fitted ro —— = : =
with all sorts of extras. Yet one thing PRINT ELEMENT DAISY- DAISY- THIMBLE DOUBLE
hasn't changed — the price, making WHEEL WHEEL DAISY-
the 1600S cheaper than any equivalent WHEEL
model on the market. wie superb mas = SS -
erformer incorporates the Z80 micro-
peel pute ldidinechional printing BIDIRECTIONAL Yes No No No
and look-ahead logic, increasing speed 5
and efficiency. Other capabilities AUTO LOGIC
include propartional spacing, graph SEEKING Yes No Yes No
plotting and word processing enhance- = _ =
ments. The printer includes a standard ae. TIONAL
centronics Interface, and RS232 and
IEEE options are available. CAPABILITY Yes Yes Yes ‘No
The Ricoh 1600S is available only _
EXTENDED
from Micropute and their authorised CHIMHACTER SET No is _ we
dealers, all backed up with a nation-
wide service network. If you're
interested In the 1600S either as a
customer or as a dealer, send the
coupon now.
LETTER QUALITY
PRINT Yes Yes Yes Yes
CUSTOM INTER-
“Picture shows 1600s fitted with tractar feed optian’* FACE OPTION No No No No
MPloate sendme detollsonthe Ricoh 16005, ; = rae
Name PRICE £1675 £1950 £1950 £1450
Position
The above information was gathered from distributors and
abstracted from their current literature. Prices shown are those
Aiideess advertised at the present time.
Compan
Tel. No
pRICOH 1600S THE PERFORMANCE HAS|
URISEN — THE PRICE HASN’T @ Circle No. 176
121
0
Dual floppy disk drives. Two 5,” floppy disk ee a
drives provide 100,000 characters each of data
storage, or about 60 pages of typed,
doublespaced text.
Diskette storage. The floppy
diskettes can be removed,
providing infinite permanent —
information storage. Two
compartments provide storage for
up to 25 diskettes.
RS-232C Interface. Enables the
OSBORNE 1 to connect with serial
printers, or other devices using this
popular industry-standard
interface.
IEEE 488 Interface. Connects the
OSBORNE 1 to the standard
instrumentation bus, for data
communication with test instruments.
Connected
to a printer, it will
operate as a word
processor and produce
letters, documents, reports
— anything you want word-
(and figure-) perfect.
And carry out financial planning,
too, using an electronic spreadsheet,
providing fast, accurate cash flow forecasts
and instant answers to those important ‘what if
questions.
You can see an Osborne 1 - and try it out — at any of the
dealers listed below.
And then happily walk away with it.
the only personal business com
UVERPUUL
Microcomputers at Laskys. 14 Castle Street, Liverpool
Osborne 1.
It doesn’t need a room of its own.
Or even a desk of its own.
With its optional battery pack, in fact, it doesn’t need mains
electricity for up to two hours.
It's - aS you can see ~— portable.
Weighing under 24lb in its weatherproof case, it can be carried
in one hand. Or in your car. Or tucked under an airline seat.
But its performance is equal to, often better than, small
business computers several times as big and twice as expensive.
The Osborne 1 will achieve in seconds commercial,
engineering or scientific calculations which, without a computer,
would take days.
And store a whole library of data for instant retrieval and use
any time.
For £1,250"
* excluding VAT.
3ee the Osborne 1 at any of these authorised dealers:
CAMBRIDGE
O Computers, 108 Rochester Row, London SWIP 1JP.
Cambridge Computer Store, 1 Emmanuel Street,
-~ONDON
-onden W5 3BA. Tel: (01) 997 6666
3usiness Compulers (Systems) PLC, The Pagoda,
Theobald Street, Borhamwood, Herts WD6 4RT.
Tel; (01) 207 3344
fel: (01) 387 0505
-ondon WC2E SHE. Tel; (01) 379 6968
Zquinox Computer Systems Ltd, Kleeman House,
16 Anning Street, New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3HB.
‘el: (01) 739 2387/729 4460
1on Microcomputers, Lion House, 227 Tottenham
Sourt Road, London W1. Tel: (G1) 637 8760
-ondon W1 ORD, Tel; (01) 636 0845
Adda Computers Ltd, Mercury House, Hangar Green, Ealing,
3yteshop Computerland, 324 Euston Road, London NW1.
Digitus Limited, 10/14 Bedtord Street. Covent Garden,
vicrocomputers al Laskys, 42 Tottenham Court Road,
Tel: (01) 630 5449
Star Computer Group PLC. 64 Great Eastern Street
London EC2A 30R, Tel: (01) 739 7633
Subsenption Services, 70 Warren Street, London W1P 5PA.
Tel: (01) 388 2663
ThejXerox|Store, 84 Piccadilly, London W1V SHE.
Tel: (01) 629 0694
77 High Holborn, London WC tv 6LS. Tel: (01) 242 9596
110 Moorgate, London EC2M 6SU. Tel: (01) 588 1531
BELFAST
Northern ireland {Business Systems Lid, 7/9 Botanic Avenue.
Belfast BT7 1JH, Tel: (0232) 48340
BIRMINGHAM
Byteshop Computerland, 94/96 Hurst Street, Birmingham
BS5 4TD, Tel: (021) 622 7149
Microcompulers at Laskys. 19/21 Corporation Street,
Birmingham B2 4LP. Tel: (02 1) 632 6303
BRISTOL
*Microcomputers at Laskys, 16/20 Penn Street, Bristol
BS1 3AN, Tel: (0272) 20421
122
_————.
Cambridge CB1 1NE. Tel; (0233) 65334/5
CHESTER
Microcomputers al Laskys, The Forum. Norhgate Street,
Chester CH1 282. Tel: (0244) 317667
DERBY
Datron Micro Centre, Duckworth Square, Derby DE} 1/2.
Tel: (0322) 380085
EDINBURGH
Microcomputers at Laskys, 4 St James Centre, Edinburgh
EH1 3SR. Tel: (031) 556 2914
GLASGOW
Byleshop Computerland, Magnet House, 61 Waterloo Street,
Glasgow G2 7BP. Tel: (041) 221 7409
Microcompulers al Laskys, 22/24 West Nile Street, Glasgow
G7 2PF, Tel: (041) 226 3349
GUILDFORD
Systematic Business Computers, Braboeut House,
64 Portsmouth Road, Guildford, Surrey GU2 5DU
Tel: (0483) 32666
L2 OTA. Tel: (051) 227 2535
MANCHESTER
Byteshop Computeriand, 11 Gateway House,
Station Approach, Piccadilly, Manchester 1
Tel: (06 1) 236 4737
Microcomputers at Laskys, 12/14 S1 Mary's Gate.
Markel Street, Manchester M1 1PX Tel: (061) 832 6087
NEWCASTLE
Sage Systems, Hawick Crescent, Newcastle upon Tyne
NEG 1AS. Tel: (0632) 761669
NOTTINGHAM
Byteshop Computeriand, 92A Upper Parliament Street,
Nottingham NG? 6LF. Tel; (0602) 40576
* Microcomputers at Laskys, 1/4 Smithy Row, Nottingharr
NG1 2Dv. Tel: (0602) 415150
PRESTON
Microcomputers at Laskys, 1/4 Guitdhall Arcade, Preston
PR1 IHR. Tel: (0772) 59264
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
E 1
Internal electronics. Z80A™ CPU, 64K bytes RAM
memory (60K available to the programmer; 4K used to run
the screen.) System software is held in ROM in a separate
address space.
Screen. Clear, 5”, 24-row screen displays a 52-character
window on a 128-character line with automatic horizontal
scrolling.
Monitor Interface. Connects the OSBORNE 1 to any
monitor screen.
Keyboard. A standard typewriter
keyboard plus numeric, adding-
machine keypad for fast entry,
and cursor control keys for easy
cursor movement.
Case. The plastic case
snaps together to form a
weatherproof, 24-
pound package that fits
underneath the standard
: C airline seat.
a
a Standard software Optional extras
a Five outstanding software @ Modem cable for use with
packages, with a retail value of acoustic couplers for
over £800 are included: telephone transmission of
@CP/M® Operating System data
@WORDSTAR® with @ Battery pack
MAIL MERGE ® @ Double density disk drives
@SUPERCALC™ @MBASIC® with. 200K bytes of storage
@CBASIC® per drive
@ Circle No. 177 LT ee eee eee syle segue healed cde Digital Research; WORDSTAR,
MAILMERGE: MicroPro International; MBASIC: Microsoft; CBASIC: Compller Systems, Inc.
puter you can take anywhere.
3HEFFIELD
Jatron Micro Centre, 2 Abbeydate Road, Sheffield S7 1FD.
el: (0742) 585490 For further information and full specification, return the coupon to The
DOCG ee Marketing Manager, Osborne Computer Corporation (UK) Ltd, 38 Tanners
plaucr Drive, Blakelands North, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire MK14 5BW.
the Xerox Store, 3/4 William Street, Slough, Berkshire Telephone: 0908 615274. Telex 825220
3L1 XY. Tel: (0753) 76957 i :
| More information on Osborne 1, please.
SOUTHAMPTON
Xitan Systems Limited, 23 Cumberland Place,
Southampton SO1 2BB. Tel: (0703) 38740 Name a =
TORQUAY |
Srystal Electronics, 40 Magdalene Road, Torquay, Devon. Address
SS nd
; Tel
Ls aa aca cee ee COMPUTER CORPORATION (UK) LTD.
* Opening shortly
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 123
My interest areas are ..
C) Please send me a list of dealers
NAME
ADDRESS:
dese. ow TEL. NO.
Send to DAI, 16B Dyer Street, Cirencester, Glos. GL7 2PF
@ Circle No. 178
'Telesoftware ===
Though software transmission through Prestel has not made as much progress as had been hoped
for, the promotion of telesoftware has been taken in hand by Prestel itself, reports Martin Hayman.
Promotion in hand
PRESTEL’S TELESOFTWARE initiative rolls
on. The Prestel-spohsored Aladdin's
Cave database has just opened, aiming to
be both a telesoftware database and to |
compile and iridex the various different
IPs who are offering telesoftware and.
information on microcomputing — in-
cluding of course, Practical Telesoftware.
We have not made as much progress over
the past month or two as had been hoped
— though the promotional aspect of tele-
software has been taken in hand by Pres-
tel itself.
Prestel is now coming under pressure,
with many IPs grumbling about the ser-
vice’s lack of acceleration. On the other
hand, private viewdata is going well.
With the cost of substantial mass storage
and processing power dropping week by
week in real terms, the potential for
running private databases might be seen
to pose a threat to the public service.
A DEC TM-3, such as is used by IPC
Viewdata, is easily capable of supporting
a usefully sized specialist database and
can easily be accessed by telephone. Pres-
tel is not the only organisation to have
spotted the huge market among micro-
computing people for specialist informa-
tion. If, as seems possible, Prestel wishes
to use the microcomputer as a main plank
in its marketing platform for the second
half of the 1980s, it will certainly face
some stiff competition.
It is certainly one way to expand Pres-
tel’s market base, which is still clamber-
ing painfully towards the 15,000 mark. By
contrast, there are more than 300,000
microcomputers in the U.K. today, and
their number is rising steadily.
About half of them are Sinclair ZX-81s
which though toy-like in appearance are
nonetheless capable of being interfaced
to Prestel. This much was proved by
Martochoice, whose ZX-81 Prestel
adaptor was shown at the Earls Court
Computer Fair.
The eventual winner was Lion TV;
whose adaptor, still at an early stage of
development, is said to have potential for
use with other micros — including those
supporting CP/M. For the argument, let
us assume that a device does emerge from
the contest which is cheap and reliable
and will download CET-format software.
from Prestel into the ZX. It meets BT
connection approval and a deal is set up
to produce it. What then?
What is interesting about the enthu-
siasm displayed by Prestel is that it takes
the public service into a totally new area.
People are unlikely to be sold on a new
technology just because of its newness.
What they want is something they. can
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
,use, and pre-eminently what:people want
{from Prestel is useful information.
By going into the market-place and
searching for useful software Prestel is
effectively putting itself into the position
of the IP, making editorial judgements Gn
what people want to buy. It will have to
tackle the tricky problem of satisfactorily
remunerating the software author, and if
the software is really worthwhile it will |:
have cost the author dear in time. Any
sensible author is unlikely to part with it
without the assurance either of a lump-
sum payment or a solid royalty deal.
Prestel’s Tony Sweet is addressing him-
| self to the very problem. So far he has
secured the co-operation of the British
Apple System Users Group, which has
been selecting programs for the Apple
T4 viewdata coup
ON A BROADER front, plans for the In- |
formation Technology Excellence Cen-
tres are shaping up. Based on the Notting
Dale Technology Centre, which offers
training to the unemployed or otherwise
disadvantaged youth of the scruffier end
of Notting Hill, the ITECs are an original
and ingenious plan for mobilising com-
puting talent. Capital equipment pur-
chase is funded by the Industry Depart-
ment via Notting Dale, but running costs
for staff and training and general upkeep
are being sought from sponsors in local
industry. The intention is that the ITECs
eventually become self-financing — that
is to say, they will contract their services
Out to the local community at the prevail-
ing rate.
Notting Dale has been much in the
news over the last yeat or so. It is reassur-
ing to find some real growth in this
particularly broken-down .area around
‘Freston Road which some years ago de-
clared itself the “Independent Republic
of Frestonia” and is otherwise character-
istic of the most dismal inner-city areas of
Britain. The squatters, scrap-metal mer-
chants and the kids BMX-ing around the
abandoned skateboard park which ad-
joins the Technology Centre probably
know little more of the Technology Cen-
tre than the house-high skateboarding
mural on its wall, but it sounds like a
winner.
The ITECs will be using Technalogics ,
T4 viewdata computers in their first 30
centres. Andrew Polkowski of Techs is
over the moon about this coup, as well he
might be with the prospect of 70 more
orders at £7,000 apiece to follow. Techs
and wiiting uploading software to be used
in conjunction with the good old Tantei.
It is to be hoped that the programs fea-
tured will be more than just Micro-
source’s off-cuts. One sometimes sus-
pects that software products which even-
tually emerge into the public domain do
so because their useful shelf-life has ex-
pired.
Apparently a couple of mods ae re-
quired to interface the Tantel and the
Apple satisfactorily: The R58 resistor
must be removed from the Microtantal,
and the R100 resistor from Apple. Prestel
is showing its confidence in the Microtan-
tel/Apple telesoftware interface by sup-
plying the Tantel, connector cable and
downloading software for an inclusive
price of £150.
has won the order against competition
from DEC PDP-11 variants, and the
ITECs will use PDP-8, BT-100 computers
for general-purpose computing.
The T4 uses the Flex operating system,
the 6800 equivalent of CP/M. It can sup-
port a hard disc and, interestingly, is |
designed with an Econet connection spe-
cifically for use with the BBC Micro-
computer, and developed in collabora-
tion with Acorn. It is also intended to
Supplement the BBC niachine in the
areas in which it falls short. The idea is
that T4s, especially with a hard disc,
should act as local database: of useful
capacity supplying both telesoftware to
remote BBC micros and community in-
formation to dumb viewdata terminals,
accessing the T4 in the normal way over
the telephone. To this end the Notting
Dale T4 has three spate ports.
Come to think of it, why bother with a
computer at all? A London firm called
DataVision is offering a modified tele-
phone answering machine which can suc-
cessfully capture viewdata-formatted
frames. DataVision promises 4 service
creating frames which it will send over
the telephone line and will manufacture a
closed-loop tape to your own specifica-
tion giving a repeating sequence of
frames for off-line display. Frames can
also be lifted from the public service and
tailored to your private needs.
The whole service, described in-
geniously as “on-line art direction”, is
tun from an Apple Professional Editing
System housed in a Bloomsbury base-
ment. Did someone out there say “‘priva-
tisation’’?
125°
Setting yourself up at the VDU.
@ Take a chair without castors. or a
seat swivel. The instability they
produce prevents your muscles
relaxing properly.
@ Make sure the chair has a short,
flat seat that does not unduly press the
knee end of the thigh.
@ Check that it is soft under the
pelvis, and that there are no hidden
beams or struts lurking under the
upholstery.
@ Use a chair with an adjustable
support for the small of the back.
@ Set the height of the seat so that
your feet are squarely on the ground.
Alternatively, provide a solid support
under your feet to produce this effect.
@ Adjust the back rest so that when
your bottom is tucked well back into
the seat your ear is vertically above
your hip. A little of your weight
should rest vertically on the back rest.
@ Arrange the height of the keyboard
so that when the upper arms hang
vertically, your lower arms are
horizontal.
@ Push the keyboard back from the
edge of the desk until there is room to
rest your wrists.
@ The keyboard should be flat
enough so that you can operate the
keys without raising the wrist from the
desk or kinking it upwards.
Ear vertically
over hip
Adjust table if
height so that \
forearms are
horizontal
Support for y
small of back
Bottom tucked
well in
Nobeamor SS
strut under ut
upholstery
No swivel
No castors
126
Computing
can damage
your health
The strain of suppressing
the minor annoyances and
physical discomfort of
sitting for hours at a VDU
exacts a considerable toll
in tension and fatigue,
explains Philip Latey. Yet
these ill-effects can be
avoided by proper design
of the equipment and its
environment — the screen
itself, the lighting of the
office and even the
postcards on the wall all
| play a part in safe-
guarding the health of
computer users.
VDU 30° below eye level
Table wide enough to support
wrists
Right angle
Seat height.
~ adjusted to put feet
squarely on floor
The ideal sitting position for a computer Operator.
IF KARL MARX had realised how much
misery people will put up with, he would
have given up before he started. Even
with Freud and Melanie Klein detailing
the depths of our masochism, there is
little reason to be more optimistic.
In my 15 years of subjecting the work-
place to close scrutiny I have yet to see
one free from inhumanities. The home
environment is little better — but that is
another story.
Physical factors associated with elec-
tronic keyboards and visual displays
cause many problems. Our neck, shoul-
der, head, leg and back aches, along with
our migraines, piles, digestive, breathing
and bowel disturbances may all have
simple aggravating and precipitating fac-
tors. What may seem to be a minor
nuisance or irritant in the physical en-
vironment — easily ignored — can exact
a huge toll over the accumulated hours of
work. The strain of suppressing this
annoyance, however unconscious or un-
aware we might be, accounts on its own
for much tension and fatigue.
Our eyes tire very quickly if forced to
focus in one place for any length of time.
There should be multiple restful foci in
the periphery of the field of vision, muted
colours and restful pictures, plants, ob-
jects and balanced illumination of the
instrument screen so that contrasts are
not too harsh.
Non-reflecting glass and a visor, with
or without the croupier’s green eye
shade, are a must; and fluorescent light is
unusable with reduplicating image-dis-
play or discharge tubes — crossover
frequencies and flicker are inevitable. I
suggest that 100 cps is the slowest accept-
able rate for refreshing the image; some
eye responses can be as quick as this.
Paint the walls softly; break up and
balance the field of vision; and remove all
possible sources of flicker.
All the people sharing the same room
or workspace are bound within the con-
fines of small-group relationships. The
position of personal workspaces can
facilitate work, or disrupt it drastically.
The loose oval seating plan adopted by
five or so people meeting for informal
discussion is the ideal. Increase their dis-
tance from the centre until they are
almost out of communication, and put in
the desks and apparatus required for
their work. Ancillary functions such as
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Office paranoia Is an all-too-typical result of the unplanned introduction of VDUs.
communal files, rest areas and soft drinks
should be widely placed so that people
are encouraged to stand up and walk
around for at least two minutes in every
20: our bodies resent stasis, and atten-
tion-span is limited.
General architectural design must
allow for the emergence of these small
work groups — and pay special attention
How to select the best system.
The tone of the VDU screen material and
that of the keyboard should be mid-way
between screen background and source
documents. You can test this by using a
photographic exposure meter on the
three areas. Bright white or black
surrounds and keyboards are not
Suitable.
A problem arises from the interaction of
fluorescent lights and the VDU. Since
lights flicker at 100Hz and the VDU is
usually refreshed at about 50Hz, it is
possible for subliminal but very
disturbing beats to occur between the
two. The answer is to illuminate the
computer with tungsten lights and/or to
use a VDU with high-persistence
phosphor. Ideally an image should fade
away from the screen over a second
or so
Dot stability is very important. In tests of
eight VDUs from different manufacturers
the ratio of peak illumination of dots in
an image, to average illumination,
ranged from a barely noticeable seven
percent up to an irritating 55 percent.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
to acoustics. Any spillover of ambient
sound is irritating; too much hum from
poor ventilation systems is fatiguing and
hypnotic, as are heavy mechanical actions
and very high frequency whine from
equipment. Noisy roads, corridors and
kitchens can be insulated against.
Good personal space provides indi-
viduals with enough privacy and comfort,
Contrast should be high, for example, in
between the legs of the letter “U”. In the
eight machines tested, the ratio of
background illumination to leg
illumination ranged from 45 percent
(clear) to 13 percent (fuzzy).
Many VDU character sets are badly
designed typographically. Letters should
be made up of a 9 x 7 matrix and be at
least 3.4mm. high. Each letter should be
between 2.1 and 3.1mm. wide. The
space between capital letters should be
at least 0.4mm. If the verticals of letters
like M run together it slows down the
VDU operator. There should be between
4.3mm. and 8.9mm. space between lines.
The keyboard should slope up as gently as
possible. 5° is best, 15° tolerable, so that
the user’s arms can rest on the desk
without kinking the wrists. The middle
row of keys should be between 3cm. and
5cm. from the desk.
@ Adapted from Fellmann et al, Behaviour
and Information Technology, 1:1, pp. 69-
80 (1982).
Ergonomics™===
while making space for the imprint of
their personalities. This space surrounds
and centres on the seat, work surface and
apparatus. Design must start with the
seat, progressing to the hand and eye
before settling the surroundings. The
keyboard and screen should be posi-
tioned in relation to the seat and person,
rather than the other way round.
Privacy can be completed by closed
knee-holes on the desk or table, screens,
private cupboards, shelves and places to
put up photos and postcards. Mild to
moderate paranoia or severe tension is
inevitable if this space is open and over-
looked from behind. We are territorial
cave-dwellers when settling down to
work.
The typical office is crammed with
wonderful, modern, trendy and attractive
features. The concentrated fluorescent
barrage illuminates chrome-steel fully
floating office chairs.
I would not expect any great change in
five, or 25 years time, not in this place:
just the usual high turnover of depressed
and half-dead slaves; the consumption of
NHS time and resources; the endless
hypochondriacal remedies for psycho-
somatic ills; the wrangles for money, time
and perks.
One last recommendation. All appar-
atus should be designed to withstand a
hearty thump of rage at least once a day
during its useful life. 5
127
128
Pete & Pam
Computers
SATURN SYSTEMS
128K and 32K doards and VC— Expand
The 32K BOARD
Comes with utilities to allow the movement
of DOS and the use of Integer together
with the ability to store subroutines on the
rogram.
board to be called from a main
The final utility allows the board or
multiple of boards to be used as a fast disk
drive
£149.00
128K BOARD
Can be used as above with the additional
facility to use the card as a fast disk
drive in C/PM and PASCAL in addition to
BASIC
£359.00
VC EXPAND
Is a utility that can be used with either the
above two boards to give additional
memory for VISICALC models, up to 146K
with the 128 board—and more with
additional boards
£55.00
COMING SOON
A version of VC EXPAND to allow use of
VISICALC with the VIDEX 80 column board
(VIDEX 80 column board—£185.00)
(VISICALC—£105.00)
WHAT HAS
A 6502 and Z-80 Microprocessor
64K RAM Expandable to 128K
2K System ROM plus sockets for
10K additional user ROM
RGB and Composite Video
Selectable 80 or 40 Column Text
Display
Hires Graphics 280X192 in 6 Colors
An 8 Bit Parallel Port
An RS232 Serial Port
A Detatchable Keyboard with
Upper/lower Case, Numeric Keypad
Cursor Control Block and 15
Programmable Special Function
Keys
Built in Mounting for Two §% inch
Floppy Drives
Six Apple II Compatable Slots for
Plug in Peripherals
Game Paddle I/O
Built in Loudspeaker
Two Switched Accessory Power
Outlets
and Costs Only £1095.00 plus VAT?
THE BASIS 108 MACHINE, Available
from Pete and Pam. See it at both our
offices NOW!
BASF 5.25 in disks £18.50 for 10
£82.50 for 50
£159.00 for 100
Other quantities by negotiation
Disk Boxes £2.45 each
The APPLE Computer Specialists
Hardware & software distribution is our
business — WORLDWIDE
We speak French and German at both offices
Payment in sterling or dollars other currencies by arrangement
Pete and Pam's catalogue
Over 600 items for APPLE
From business to scientific,
from education to pleasure. It’s
here NOW, make sure you get
YOUR Copy—write or telex
either of our offices now. If
you’re interested in Apple
computers, you can’t afford to
be without it.
6 days a week
at 103/5 Blegborough Road
London SWI16 6DL
Tel: 01-769 1022/3/4
01-677 2052
Close to Streatham Common
Station
New London office
now open
Visitors are welcome from all over
the world. French, German,
Spanish, Swedish, Italian and
English Spoken.
The largest range of Apple related
products in the country on display.
APPLE RELATED BOOKS
Bneath Apple DOS
What's Where in the Apple
Apple Machine Language by
R Hyde
Apple Pascal Games
Applesoft Language
Intimate Inst in Int Basic
Apple Interfacing
Programming the Apple
Wordstar Made Easy
Apple Pascal Hands On
Approach
£11.95
£8.95
£11.95
£11.45
£7.65
£5.55
£7.65
£14.50
£5.95
£14.50
Mostly Basic Applications for your
Apple
£9.05
MACHINE COVERS — only the best
material used
Apple only
Single Disk
2stacked disks
£5.95
£2.95
£4.45
Apple, 2 disks and 9” monitor or Apple
and 12” monitor
Apple and 2disk
Epson MX 70/80
Paper Tiger 445 — 460
Hitachi 12” cover
Qume Sprint 5cover
Apple ///coverinc monitor ///
Sirius Machine and monitor
cover
Epson MX 100
£8.95
£7.95
£5.45
£5.45
£7.50
£10.95
£12.95
£12.95
£7.45
KEYPLUS from Aids Data
A Visicalc compatible keypad with
left and right arrows, space bar and
escape key in addition to numbers
£99.00
NEW VISISCHEDULE
from the publishers of Visicale
A powerful project planner. Allocates
all costs, specifies earliest and latest
start dates prerequisites and
deadlines for each task, automatic
calculation and display of critical
path. Can link with other. Visi
programs
£189.00
FREE SUPERCALC
with every Synergiser from ALS
contains
Z-Card Z-80 Processor Card
C/PM OP System and Lincence
Rodney Zaks C/PM manual from
Sybex
16K ADD RAM Rameard
Smarterm 80 col card with enhanced
CHR set and integral softswith
together with free Supercalc
ALL FOR £499.00 PLUS VAT
Z-CARD Plus SUPERCALC
and C/PM
ADD RAM 16K CARD
£269.00
£75.00
SMARTERM80ColCARD £229.00
SUPERCALC on its own £175.00
SPECIAL OFFER
U-Z80 PROCESSOR CARD
Bargain of the Month
£69.00
LONDON RETAIL
98 Moyser Road, London SW16 6SH
Telephone 01-769 1022/3/4
MAIL ORDER AND DISTRIBUTION
Waingate Lodge, Waingate Close,
Rossendale, Lanc. BB4 7SQ
Telephone (0706) 227011
Prices do not include VAT please add
15% to your remittance
Postage and packing FREE guage
Telex No. 635740 PETPAM G
Orders welcome by phone or telex
SaRhappie' computer
@ Circle No. 179
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
* Print Heads * Print Ribbons * Flexible Diskettes * Cleaning Kits
* Cables & Connections * and many, many more!
os
ee
——=
ACT
= SITIUS 1
THE ACT SIRIUS 1
SPECIALISTS IN LONDON
CONCEPT COMPUTERS
01-729 1800
Personal Service and Support on:-
*WORDSTAR WORD PROCESSING. *MAILMERGE. *SUPERCALC.
“DMS DATABASE. *MICROMODELLER. *COMPACT ACCOUNTING
PACKAGES. *TABS ACCOUNTING PACKAGES.
For a demonstration at our showrooms or in your own office call
Brian Chambers or Charles Ormrod on 01-729 1800.
CONCEPT HOUSE, 445 HACKNEY ROAD,
LONDON E2.
@ Circle No. 180
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
This is
NEW!
The Ico-Rally
Computerack is a new
innovation in
consumer computer
accessory marketing.
Ico-Rally is seeking a
number of major
agents to distribute
throughout the UK the
most comprehensive
range of computer
accessories using the
unique Ico-Rally
Computerack.
Let your customers do
the work.
Trade enquiries to:
Ico-Rally,
c/o US Abroad
17 The Hythe
STAINES
Middlesex
(FREE colour brochure available)
@ Circle No. 181
If that Apple
is just out of Rea
Feent
atlanta Data Systems
350/356 Old Street, London, ECiv 9DT. 01-739 5889
@ Circle No. 182
129
Don'tlet its size fool you.
lf anything NewBrain is like the
Tardis.
It may look small on the outside, but
inside there's an awful lot going on.
It's got the kind of features you'd
expect from one of the really big business
micros, but at a price of under £200
excluding VAT it won't give you any
sleepless nights.
However, let the facts speak for
themselves.
You get what you don't pay for.
NewBrain comes with 24K ROM
and 32K RAM, most competitors expect
you to make do with 16K RAM.
What’s more you Can expand all the
way up to 2 Mbytes, a figure that wouldn't
look out of place ona machine costing.ten
| times as much.
We've also given you the choice of
256, 320,512 and 640 x 250 screen
resolution, whereas most only offer a
maximum of 256 x 192.
Big enough for your business.
Although NewBrain is as easy as
ABC touse (and child’s-play tolearn to use)
this doesn’t mean it’s a toy.
Far fromit.
It comes with ENHANCED ANSI
BASIC, which should give you plenty to get
your teeth into.
And it'll also take CP/M® so it speaks
the same language as all the big business
micros, and feels perfectly at home with
their software.
NO OTHER MICRO
HAS THIS MUCH
POWER
IN THIS MUCH
FOR THIS
SIZE
So as a business machine it really
comes into its own.
The video allows 40 or 80 characters |
per line with 25 or 30 lines per page,
giving a very professional 2000 or 2400 |
characters display in all on TV and/or
monitor. And the keyboard is full-sized so
even if you're all fingers and'thumbs you'll
still be able to get to grips with NewBrain’s
excellent editing capabilities.
When it comes to business graphics,
things couldn't be easier. With software
capabilities that can handle graphs, charts
and computer drawings you'll soon be
up to things that used to be strictly for the
big league.
Answers a growing need.
Although NewBrain, with its optional
onboard display, is a truly portable micro,
that doesn't stop it becoming the basis of a
very powerful system.
The Store Expansion Modules come
in packages containing 64K, 128K, 256K
or 512K of RAM. So, hook up four of
the 512K modules to your machine and
you've got 2 Mbytes to play with. Another
feature that'll come as a Surprise are the
two onboard V24 interfaces.
With the aid of the multiple
V24 module this allows youto run. up to 32
machines at once, all on the same
peripherals, Saving you a fortune on extras.
The range of peripherals on offer
“include dot matrix and daisy wheel printers,
9!" 12" and 24" monitors plus 5%" floppy
disk drives (100 Kbytes and 1 Mbyte) and
5%" Winchester drive (6-18 Mbytes).
As we said, this isn'ta toy.
It doesn't stop here.
Here are acouple of extras that
deserve a special mention.
The first, the Battery Module, means
you won't be tied to a 13 amp socket. And,
even more importantly, it means you don't
have to worry about mains fluctuations
wreaking havoc with your programs.
The ROM buffer module gives you a
freedom of another sort.
Freedom to expand in a big way. It
gives you additional ROM slots, for system
software upgrades such as the Z80
Assembler and COMAL, 2 additional V24
ports, analogue ports and parallel ports.
From now onthe sky’s the limit.
Software that’s hard to beat.
A lot of features you'd expect to find
on software are actually built into
New Brain so you don'tneedto worry about
screen editing, maths, BASIC and graphics.
However, if you're feeling practical
you can always tackle household manage-
ment, statistics and educational packages.
And because New Brain isn't all work and
no play, there's the usual range of mind-
bending games to while away spare time.
Waste no more time.
To get hold of NewBrain you need go
no further than the coupon atthe bottom of
the page.
With your order we'll include a hefty
instruction manual so you'll know where
to start, and alist of peripherals, expansion
modules, and software so you'll know
where to go next. @ Circle No. 183
@® CP/MIs the registered trade mark of Digital Research Inc.
Trust
Fund
Start of year
,
NewBrain, Grundy Business Systems Ltd.,Grundy House, Somerset Road, Teddington TW11 8TD.
and peripherals, and a detailed list of available software.
Please send me the following:—
| Quantity
Price per item
(Inc. VAT & p&p)
| NewBrain A £233,00
NewBrain AD with onboard single line display £267.50
| Printer £466.00
Monitor 12" £142.50
Total £
payable to Grundy Business Systems Reader Account.
lenclose a cheque/Postal Order for £_____
| NewBrain, Grundy Business Systems Ltd., Grundy House, Somerset Road, Teddington TW11 8TD.
| Please debit my Access Card No: my Barclaycard No:
| Signature
Name
Address
| 13
| Postcode —____——————
PC7
| Registered Number 1522978
VAT Number 358661618
| Please allow upto 28 days for delivery.
NEWBRAIN
AT YOUR FINGERTIPS
MULTI OPEN FILE DATABASE — WORDPROCESSOR — MATHS — COMMUNICATIONS — USER PROGRAMMABLE and all integrated!
SILICON OFFICE is the undoubted star of 1982 Micro Software. You've read the rave reviews in the press now you can obtain
"SO" at prices that you can’t afford to miss. To help you Computerise the “RMR” way we have selected four systems to help you
achieve an automated office TODAY at prices that are ULTRA competitive but still give you access to our SILICON OFFICE advice
hotline 24 hours a day. RMR and SILICON OFFICE give you the answers at the right price.
SYSTEM 1 8096 (96K Computer), 8050 (950K dual disc drive), SILICON OOFICE software, 10 77 track certified
discs, two leads (CBM to IEE and IEEE to IEEE). Normal Retail £2970 RMR price £2550
SYSTEM 2 8096 (96k Computer), 8050 (950K dual disc drive), SILICON OFFICE software, 10 77 track certified discs,
two leads (CBM to IEEE and IEEE to IEEE), 8300P (Diablo quality daisy wheel printer) and a box of
paper. Normal Retail £4385 RMR price £3795
SYSTEM 3 As SYSTEM 2 but substitute 8023 150 c.p.s. dot matrix fast printer.
Normal Retail £3885 RMR price £3335
SYSTEM 4 As SYSTEM 3 but substitute EPSOM MX80F/T matrix printer 80 c.p.s. including interface to the 8096.
Normal Retail £3500 RMR price £2945
To run “SO” on an 8032 you need our 64K upgrade at.£280 or with “SO” only £890. A version of ‘’SO” runs on the
8422 22 MByte hard disc Retail £4795 RMR £4095. RMR prices on printers e.g. MX80FT £365 MX100FT £495. CMB
interfaces £65. Call today for the best “RMR” prices on all Commadore hardware, software and peripherals.
a and VAT extra.
MILLERS YARD CASTLE STREET, HERTFORD,
rR Mi FR COMPUTER SERVICES TEL: HERTFORD (0992) 56160 (24 Hr)
@ Circle No. 185
@ Circle No. 184
132 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Open
File
This regular section of
Practical Computing
appears in the magazine
each month, incorporating
Tandy Forum, Apple Pie,
ZX-80/81 Line-up and the
other software interchange
pages,
Open File is the part of
the magazine written by
you, the readers, All aspects |
of microcomputing are
covered, from games to
serious business and
technical software, and we
welcome contributions on
CP/M, BBC Basic,
Microsoft Basic, Apple
Pascal and so on, as well as
the established categories.
Each month the best
contribution will be
awarded £20; others
receive £6. Send |
contributions to: Open
File, Practical Computing,
Quadrant House, The
Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey
SM2 SAS.
APPLE
PIE
Se
Two-pass assembler
1 HAVE RECENTLY devised a two-pass edi-
tor-assembler for my Apple II Europlus,
writes Sean Overend of Amersham
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Open file: Apple
Apple Pie: Two-pass assembler; WordStar on Apple; Print
Using routine
133
Z-80 Zodiac: Hex to Basic conversion for Research
Machines; Solving polynomials on Sharp MZ-80K 141
BBC Bytes: Perspective graphics; Polygon teaching program
143
ZX-80/81 Line-up: Inverting a matrix; regression to a curve
145
Pet Corner: Area under a curve by Simpson’s rule; Pig
game
147
Disc Dialogue: CP/M printer initialisation routine 149
6502 Special: Large characters for Superboard 151
Tandy Forum: Formatting Basic listings; Shopping-list
check with pocket computer; Draw and store pictures on
Video Genie
153
Guidelines for contributors
Programs should be accompanied by
documentation which explains to other
readers what your program does and, if
possible, how it does it. It helps if
documentation is typed or printed with
double-line spacing — cramped or
handwritten material is liable to delay and
error.
Program listings should, if at all possible, be
printed out. Use a new ribbon in your
Buckinghamshire. Output from _ the
assembler is a disc text file containing
machine-language op codes and oper-
| ands, together with addresses into which
the code is to be placed.
This text file is largely a sequence of
strings of hexadecimal characters repre-
senting the addresses and the machine
code. In order to load the code, the text
file must be input into a loading program
which converts the hexadecimal charac-
ters into binary numbers, which are then
stored appropriately in memory.
The first loading program was written
entirely in Basic, and is called Dabbler.
Once the assembler program had been
written, however, the challenge of re-
writing the loading program using the
assembler became too great. The second
loading program, Dabbler/M, contains
machine-code subroutines which were
written with the use of the assembler, and
printer, please, so that we can print directly
from a photograph of the listing and avoid
typesetting errors. If all you can provideis a
typed or handwritten listing, please make it
clear and unambiguous; graphics
characters, in particular, should be
explained.
We can accept material for the Pet, Vic and
Sharp MZ-80K on cassette, and material
for the larger machines can be sent on
IBM-format 8in. floppy discs.
is substantially faster than the first ver-
sion.
The disc text file which stores the out-
put of the assembler program is used as
the input to the loading program — see
figure 1. It is very similar to the assem-
bled information contained in the printed
output of the assembler, such as listing 3.
The text file contains information corres-
ponding to the lines of the assembly
language program. Each “line” or “‘rec-
ord” of information contains:
@ The number of bytes of machine code to be
loaded for that fine.
@ The memory address into which the first
machine-code byte is to be loaded. The
address is stored as a four-character string,
using hexadecimal notation.
@ One to three bytes of machine-code in-
formation, each “byte” consisting of a
hexadecimal two-character string.
The task of the loading program is to
(continued on page 135
133
The Network has arrived...
—and wit
an
with it, the cost effective
alternative to dumb terminals
and expensive minimainframes.
The TeleVideo computer family from Encotel puts
total processing power where it’s needed — in the hands
of the user — while allowing expansion without
compromise to individual terminal performance.
MmmOST* and CP/M together protect both
software investment and the route to upwards expansion.
They provide all the house-keeping required to run a
multiple user database and ensure that application
programs will not have to be re-written no matter how
big the system grows. Any of today’s most popular
languages, such as COBOL, BASIC and FORTRAN
can be used.
The TeleVideo family will expand from the stand-
alone System I with its 64Kbytes of user RAM and
1 Mbytes of floppy disk up to the 16-user System III with
its 70Mbytes of hard disk Winchester, without hardware
redundancy.
Furthermore, the RS422 800Kbit/second data links
make each highly intelligent terminal look like a
mainframe.
Only the low price says it isn’t.
For instance the six terminal System 2 with its
7.5Mbytes of hard disk and 384Kbytes memory starts at
around £10,000.
As expected from a world class terminal manufacturer
like TeleVideo the TS800 terminals used to expand
Systems 2 and 3 are exceptional. The 64Kbytes of RAM,
serial printer port and separate processors for compute
and display ensure that they will never lack power.
And that the user will never be out of pocket.
*Multiuser multitask multiprocessor Operating Systems
Technology®
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System il! Standard Configuration
Assembler, listing 1. Dabbler.
Q REM THE DABBLER PROGRABNE
1 Al = 7:02 = G4:A3 = 40:04 = 16:05 = 1286 =
10 06 = °": REN CNTRL D
15 OPS = 06 + “OPEN ":CL¢ = 06 +
- 1:07 = 2:88 =
20 INPUT “H/C FILE FIRST NOME? *;RAS
25 PRINT OPSsRAS* B/E FILE®
30 PRINT ROSPRAS" H/C FILE®
32 AG(AS) = "Sr: AB{A7) = **
INPUT BN: IF BN = A8 THEN 65
INPUT. CXS
INPUT HX$: IF 8N = AS THEN 55
INPUT ASC{AS): IF BN = A7 THEN 55
INPUT AS{A7)
PRINT DS: PRINT CxS*
PRINT
"HIS" "3: IF ASCAS) ¢ > "*
(continued from page 133)
read in information from the disc text
file, one line at a time, convert where
necessary from string form to numeric
form, and then load the converted in-
formation into the right part of memory. |
Variable line lengths are dealt with by |
making the first element of each line the
number of bytes of machine code in the
line.
The logic of the Dabbler program is:
@ Open the text files.
@ Read number of bytes in current line and
exit if end-of-file marker —999 encountered.
Store in BN.
@ Read address for memory loading into CX$
and convert it to PL;
@ Read the op code into HX$, and the oper- |
ands into A$(1) and A$(2). Convert each
into numeric form PN and Poke into con-
secutive memory locations starting at PL.
@ Repeat, by going on to next line at stage 2.
As will be seen from the listing of the
Dabbler program, it is written entirely in
Basic and is inherently slow. Constants
have been replaced by variables in places
in an attempt to speed up the operation
of the program. The subroutine that con-
verts the hexadecimal character string to
a numeric form is at lines 100 to 135.
Substituting the constants back in, for
clarity, gives the following program seg-
ment:
100 REM HEX CHARACTERS TO
Assembler, listing 2. Dabber/M.
Q REM THE GABRLER/M PROGRAMME
1G AXS =
105 De =
LiG
CHRE (4)
PRINT 09: "BLOAD *
115 CALL 748
120 INPUT "M/C FILE FIRST NAME? "RAS
130 PRINT DS"OPEN "RAS* H/C FILE"
140 PRINT DS"READ "RAS" M/C FILE"
150 INPUT BN: IF BN = - 999 THEN 246
INPUT ANS: PRINT ALE" "3
CALL 800
FOR I= 1 70 @N
INPUT AXS: PRINT AYS" *:
CALL 821
H/C CONVERS TIN"
160
170
180
190
209
210 NEXT I
220
236
240
250
PRINT
6OTO 150
PRINT DS"CLOSE "RAS" H/C FILE"
END
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
- 999 59 Akt =
“CLOSE ":RO6 = D6 ¢ "READ “:WR6 = DS + "WRITE °
THEN PRINT AS(AS)"
57 AN6 =
58 AXS =
60 ANS =
64 GOTO 30
CHIN =
Hi$eW = 2: SOSUB 100;PN = AXr POKE PL,PN: IF BN = 1 THEN 64
AGCIDIN = 23 GOSUB 100:PL = PL # 1:PM = Axe POKE PL,PN: IF BN = 2 THEN 64
AS{Z)3N =
Open file: Ap)le===—="
4; GOSUB 100:PL = AX
2: GOSUB 100;PL = PL + 1:PN = At; POKE PL,PN
65 PRINT CLS;RAS* B/C FILE”
70 END
100 REM N CHRS OF HEX TO NUMERIC CONVERSION
101 REM INPUT AX$ CONTAINING N CHRS - QUTPUT IS IW AI
105 ak = 0
110 FOR K = NTO AS STEP Ab
115 X= ASC { MIDS (AKS,K,AS))
1204 =u - (AL
Ake Xa (Ad * WW - KD)
125 At =
130 NEXT K
135 RETURN
“y1 IF AS(AT) « ** THEN PRINT AS4A7);
Line 1 ' Line 2
C5 5 ECT GS ER BC BE BS eo
CXS HX$ ASM) A$(2}
BN CXS HXS | BN
{X > A2)} - AS
Line 3
tEnd of file
marker
BN CX$ HX$ AS(1)
BN — number of bytes in current line, stored numerically.
CX$ — address into which machine-code information is to be loaded; four-character string in
hex.
HX$ — first byte, usually op code; two-character string.
A$(1) and A$(2) — subsequent bytes, usually operands; two-character strings.
Figure 1. Text-file format.
NUMERIC — (INPUT IN AX$ OF
LENGTH N AND OUTPUT IN AX)
105 AX = 0
110 FOR K = NTO 1 STEP — 1
115 X = ASC (MID$(AX$,K,1))
120 X =X — (7% (X>42))—48
125 AX=AX+X : (16A(N — K))
130 NEXT K
135 RETURN
The logic of this subroutine is to derive
the ASCII code for each character in turn
in the input string, convert to its numeric
equivalent, in line 120, and then cumula-
tively add the product of it and the |
appropriate power of 16, in line 125.
There is no need for an error trap to
detect invalid input, as the text file cre-
ated by the assembler has already been
screened for errors. Finally, the con-
verted machine-code bytes are Poked
into the appropriate memory locations.
The Dabbler/M loading program re-
places the slow conversions and Poke
statements with machine-code sub-
routines. It is about four times as fast as
the first program — effectively as fast as
it is possible to read in the information
from the disc text file. The three
machine-code subroutines are contained
in a file called M/C Conversion, the
assembled printout of which is shown at
listing 3.
The loading is still controlled by the
Basic program. The sequence of events is
| as follows:
Applesoft pointer
560] Pointer obyte |)
S0A) Pointer nibyie_|
+3
Applesoft string info pckge
Length N
| @ Load the M/C Conversion code into mem-
ory from a disc file M/C Conversion. This
contains: the initialisation main subroutine
located at $0300, decimal 768; main sub-
routine A at $0320, decimal 800; and main
subroutine B at $0335, decimal 821.
@ Call the machine-code initialisation main
subroutine, the object of which is to discover
and store the address of the pointers to the
program variable, AX$, which is used as the
first variable by the Basic program.
@ Open the input text file.
| @ Read the number of bytes In the current
line into BN and exit if end-of-file marker
encountered.
@ Read the four-character memory address
String into AX$; and call the machine-code
main subroutine A, the object of which is to
convert the four-character string into a two-
byte memory address, as well as zeroing a
counter used to increment the address to
zero.
@ Read in each two-character string of
machine-code information in the current line
in turn into AX$; and in each case call the
machine-code main subroutine B, the object
of which is to convert the two-character
string into a numeric byte, increment the
value of the memory address by the current
value of the counter and then store the
numeric byte in the incremented memory
address, finally incrementing the counter for
future calls of the subroutine.
@ Repeat, by going on to the next line at the
fourth stage of this procedure.
To understand the precise operation of
(continued on next page)
AX$
First byte
Second byte
Third byte
Pointer lobyte
Pointer hibyte
Figure 2. Applesoft pointers.
135
10 ©0019 BASE EQU $19
20 O01R JAD EOU $18
30 oD NEN EQU S40
40 «OOIF COUNT €0U SiF
50 0006 TENP EQU $6
60 9300 IN]T QU $300
70 03005 69 ILDA $69
so 0302-85 19 ISTA BASE
90 ©9308 AS 6A 1LDA $6A
1000306 85 18 ISTA BASE+!
110-0308 AS 19 TLDA BASE
120 030A 18 cLc
130 030B 9 03 ANC £3
1400300 «-85:19 1STA BASE
150 030F +90 92 BOC NERT
1600311 «£6 1A LINC BASE+1
170 0313.60 NEXT RTS
1900314 «A000 JAR LOY £0
1900316 Bi 19 TLDA (BASE) ,Y
200 «0318-85 18 ISTA JAD
210 ««O31A 6B Iw
220 «O31B. OBL 19 TLDA (BASED, ¥
230 «(O30 «85 1C 15TA JAD#
240 (OSIF 60 RTS
250 ©0320 «20:14 03 A JSR JADR
260 0323—-AD 00 LDy £0
270 0325-20 44:03 JSR CONVT
280 0328-85 1E ISTA REM
290 © 032A C8 Iny
300 0328 «20 44 03 JSR COMVT
310 O32E «85, 10 ISTA NEN
320 0330-0 00 LOY £0
330 0332-84 AF ISTY COUNT
340 O34 40 aTS
350 0335 20:14 03 -B JSR JADR
360 0338 A000 LpY £0
370 33A—- 20-44-03 JSR CONVT
380-0330 IF 1LDY COUNT
390 O33F 91:10 1STA (NEN), Y
4000341 Eb IF LINC COUNT
410 © 0M3 60 RIS
4200344 BL 1B © COMVT ZLOA (JAD),Y
430-0346 20 SA 03 JSR COM
440. 0349 Of ASL
450 034A OA ASi
4600348 OA ASL
470 OME OR ASL
490034) -29 FO AND £8FO
490 OSMF 85 06 1STA TEMP
50003518 Inv
510 0352~B1 1B TDA (JAD), ¥
520 0354 «20 5A 03 JSR CON
530 0357-05 06 10RA TEMP
540035940 RTS
$90 0358 C941 CON CNP £65
560 03SC 30 04 BAT 0/9
570 O35E 38 A/F SEC
580 (O35F «E937 SBC £55
590 036160 RTS
600 036238 0/9 SEC
610 ©0363 EF JO SBC £48
620 036560 RIS
0 0000
19019 BASE 10 0019
2 QO1B JAD 20 0018
3 0010 MEM 30 0010
4 O01F COUNT 40 OOLF
5 0006 TEMP 50 0006
6 0300 INIT 60 0313
7 O313 MEXT 170 0314
8 0314 JADR 18¢ 0320
§ 0320 & 250 9335-
10 0335 8 350 0344"
11 0344 CONVT 420 035A
12 035A CON 550 035E
13 O35E A/F 570 0362
14 0362 0/9 600 0366
TOTAL BYTES 102
$ 19
$ 1A
$1B
$1C
$ 1D
$1E
$1F
. |_|
Figure 3. Zero-page work area.
136
Assembler, listing 3. M/C conversion.
USED TC STORE ADDRESS OF APPLESOFT SECOND POINTERS
USED TO STORE CURRENT ADDRESS OF BASE OF STRING AXS
USED 10 STORE MEMORY ADDRESS INTO WHICH CODE 1S TO BE LOADED
OFFSET TO MEM FOR CONSECUTIVE LOADS OF CODE
TEMPORARY STORAGE
"INITIALISATION’ SUBROUTINE (DECIMAL 768)
GETS 2ND POINTER ADDRESS AND STORES IT IN BASE AND BASE+1
CHECK IF PAGE BOUNDARY CROSSED
AND ADD 4 TO PAGE ADDRESS IF 1T HAS
END OF 'INITIALISATION' SUBROUTINE CEdSdCRRERUSeRteaeteeeseaeecateetetS
SUBROUTINE TO FIND THE CURRENT ADDRESS OF THE BASE OF THE AX$ STRING
NEEDS CALLING EACH TIME THE AR$ STRING IS CHANGED
END OF THE JADR SUBROUTINE ORSRadaeSeeasaeegeeaatsaestataassssgsuseeasoess
“A” SUBROUTINE (DECIMAL 800) S8Seesugeeesaseusegaasasetuscaagaacogateresees
GETS 4 CHARACTER STRING FROM AX$-CONVERTS TO A 2 BYTE NUMERIC ADDRESS
WHICH IS STORED IN MEM AND MEM+s
RESET COUNT TO ZERO
END OF 7A’ SUBROUTINE SRSSUSRERReEESaeRea tata aeeeeseaeasatsteasa este eases
"B’ SUBROUTINE (DECIMAL 821) “seaegeseaearacecsegccesacsasceastasesssessats
GETS 2 CHARACTERS FROM AX$-CONVERTS THEM TO A NUMERIC BYTE
AND STORES IT IN MEMORY LOCATION MEM*COUNT
THEREAFTER INCREMENTS COUNT
EnD OF 'B’ SUBROUTINE SESSEReeeaeaeseseeseeseetecaaeaseecaasestegtesaeee
SUBROUTINE THAT GETS 2 CONSECUTIVE BYTES FROM AX$-CONVERTS THEM EACH
AND THEW PLACES THE LEAST SIGNIFICANT NYBBLES TOGETHER IN ONE BYTE
END OF THE CONVT SUBROUTINE S8Sststagsesesseesstegacgeassaceeaaguiseess ates
SUBROUTINE TO CHANGE HEX ASCII CODES TO NUMERIC
ALTERNATIVE EXIT TO COM SUBROUTINE
END OF THE CON SUBROUTINE asnnccasensesaacasasessaguscassosesatesnagsasasty
BASE
BASE+1
JAD
JAD +1
MEM
MEM +1
COUNT
TEMP
(continued from previous page)
the machine-code subroutines requires a
knowledge of the way Applesoft treats
strings. Basic strings are entered in the
upper reaches of memory, just below |
Himem. Wherever a fresh string is
assigned to a program variable the old
string is not replaced or overwritten im-
mediately. Applesoft keeps track of
which is the current string for each vari-
able by means of packages of informa-
tion, which include a set of pointers to the
base of the current string — see figure 2.
It is relatively easy to find and use the
information package for the first simple
variable used in a Basic program. It is to
be found stayting at the address contained
in Jocations $69 and $6A. This address
can be thought of as being pointed at by |
the contents of $69 and $6A. In other
words, Applesoft provides a set of poin-
ters to the base of the information pack-
age of the first program variable. Figure 2
shows the nature of the package for a
| 140
| 156
Assembler, listing 4. M/C create file.
Q REM THE CREATE H/C FILE
100 D$ = CHRE (4)
{10 INPUT "FIRST NAME FOR N/C FILE? ";RAS
120
130
135
PRINT D$;°OPEN “RAS” M/C FILE®
INPUT "MEMORY ADDRESS *;AX$
IF AX$ = “END® THEN 450
IF LEN (A$) < > 4 THEN 130
INPUT "OPCODE "sHX$
IF LEN {HX$) < > 2 THEN 150
INPUT "IST OPERAND ":A$(1)
IF AS{1) = *" THEN RN = 1: GOTO 400
IF LEN {A$(1)) ¢ > 2 THEN 170
INPUT "2ND OPERAND ";A${2)
IF A6{2) = "” THEN BN = 2: GOTO 400
IF LEN (A${2)) ¢ > 2 THEN 200
BN = 3 ;
PRINT D$:"WRITE “RAS” H/C FILE
PRINT BN: PRINT AX$: PRINT HX$:
IF BN > £ THEN PRINT AS(1)
IF BN > 2 THEN PRINT A${1)
PRINT DS
6070 130 ;
PRINT OS;"WRITE “RAS” N/C FILE”
PRINT - 999
160
170
190
190
200
210
220
230
400
410
420
430
440
450
460
470 PRINT 0$;"CLOSE "RAS" M/C FILE”
string variable, containing the second set
of pointers which point to the base of the
current string assigned to that variable.
This second set of string pointers is al-
ways three and four bytes up from the
base of the package.
In order to have access by a machine-
code subroutine which is called within a
Basic program to whatever has been cur-
rently assigned by Applesoft to a Basic
string variable, such as AX$, you must
| know where to find the second set of
| string pointers and you must read its
contents to ascertain the current address
of the string.
From the machine-code programming
point of view, the location of the second
set of pointers needs to be ascertained
only once, and can be achieved in an
initialisation subroutine. However, each
fresh access by a machine-code sub-
routine to the contents of AX$ itself
requires a preceding check of the value of
the second set of pointers to ensure that
the correct part of memory is being
addressed.
The Init and Jadr subroutines perform
these tasks in the M/C Conversion file —
see listing 3. Init is called initially -by
itself; Jadr is called by both main sub-
routines A and B as the first instruction.
Conversion from hexadecimal charac-
ters to numeric is performed by the Convt
and Con subroutines. The former obtains
a pair of characters from AX$, which are
individually converted into numeric by a
call of Con, and then joins the two
together in one byte by suppressing the
unwanted high-order nybbles in each.
Con merely deducts 55 from ASCII code,
if the character is A to F, and 48 if it is 0
to 9.
(continued on page 139).
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
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PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 usié
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138 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Print Using.
110 REM FILE="FORMAT"
120 REM AUTHOR=B. J. PARKER
130 REM DATE=07/41/81
140
150
GOTO 240: REN START OF MAIN PROGRAM
REM
LHPRINT SUBROUTINESS
160 IF 22> =
170 723 = ABS (ZZ) + 26:24 =
180 12 = 13 - 14:22¢ =
+ MIDS ( SIRS (1 + 22),3)
INT (23) 218 =
7
a
.
®
190 12$ = 126 + 73$: IF SGN (22) ¢ THEN Zig = "-" + ZI$
200 2$ = Z1$: IF 22% > 0 THEN 2$ = 218 + LEFT$ (22%, 22%)
210 IF LEN (27#) } 234 THEN Z$ = 24$
220 Lit = RIGHT$ ((Z5$ + 2#), 23%): RETURN
230 REM
TEMATN PROGRANSS
240 CLEAR : TEXT ; HOME : NORMAL : SPEED= 255
250 D$ = CHRS (4)
240 PRINT D$;"NOMCN C, 1,0"
270 PRINT D$;"PRA0": REM DISPLAY ON SCREEN
280 REM
(continued from page 136)
Main subroutine A calls Convt twice in
order to get two pairs of characters from
AX$ which, when converted, are placed
as pointers in Mem and Mem + 1. Main
subroutine B gets and converts a pair of
characters from AX$ and loads them in
the address pointed at by Mem and Mem
+ 1, incremented by the offset Count.
The workspace areas used by the
machine-code subroutines are set out in
figure 3. They have been chosen so as not
to disrupt Applesoft.
The techniques embodied in the Dab-
bler/M program, which is really a hybrid
between Basic and assembly language,
could be adopted in other applications
which would benefit from the avoidance
of time-consuming Peeks and Pokes.
Equally. it is possible to use the loading
program on a text file of the right format,
not necessarily generated by an assemb-
ler.
A simple program to create such a text
file is set out in listing 4. It asks for the
file’s identifier, and thereafter accepts
input of the form shown in figure 1. To
terminate, type End when asked for a
memory address. To skip a request for an
operand, press the Return key.
Galaxy Invaders
IN THE LISTING for Galaxy Invaders
in June’s Apple Pie, the shape table and
part of the Basic listing became de-
tached from the rest of the Program,
writes Kevin Irving of Carlisle. The
missing listings are given here.
Print Using
MANY OF the published Applesoft
routines designed to format numbers are
either \imited to a particular format or |
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
999999999, 2 THEN 7$ = SIRS (72); GOTO 210
STR$ (24)
SIR# (72): IF 22 ¢ 0.01 THEN Z2$ = ","
S4PRINT PARAMETERSS$
290 REM SET UP SYMBOL TABLE
300 22 = 134 = 73 = 14 = 12 = ib =
0
BIG 76 = "O"SZ1$ = *O'Z2$ = "OSTS$ = "O'23$ = "O"F 24S = "O's12$ = "0"
320 REM INACCURATE BEYOND 8 DECIMAL PLACES
330 71% = 4: REM NO OF DECIMAL PLACES (USER DEFINED)
340 72% = TER + ds TF 2 ¢ t THEN
=
ah =
0; REM ALLOW ONE SPACE FOR DECIMAL POINT
350 73% = 14: REM NO OF PRINT POSITIONS (USER DEFINED)
360 76 = 0.5 / 10 * 21%: REM ROUND
370 168 = *
320
390
400
410
420
IF 21% > (73% - 2) OR 212 ¢ 0
FOR J
FOR J
FOR J
RE
= 1
= 1 10 12t:23$ = 136 +
=1
ASDEMD OF ROUTINESS
430 INPUT "START VALUE ? "; QTY
440 FOR J = § TO 1000
450 12 = OTY
460 GOSUB 160
470 PRINT 228, 0TY
480 QTY = QTY t L. dks NEXT
490 FOR J = 1 TO 20: PRINT CHRS
300 END
very slow to execute, writes Brian Parker
of Lancaster. This routine is a general
Print Using, which is fast and can handle
any number below 999999999.2. Larger
numbers are printed in scientific nota-
tion.
The routine will print any number of
places before the decimal points; print
any number of places after the decimal
point; print a string of *s when a number
Galaxy Invaders.
212 SPEEI= 75
213 PRINT "THE ALIENS HAVE RETUR
NET! ANIY YOU HAVE BREEN GI
VEN @ NEW COMMANDER .YOU ARE
INSTRUCTED TQ FIGHT OFF
THE ALTENS AGAIN.”
PRINT " "S$ PRINT "
"3 PRINT $ PRINT $ PRINT
SPEEII= 255
VTAK 23: HTAB 1: PRINT "SCOR
E "3SC
RETURN
Shape table.
4000-
4008-
4010-
4018-
4020-
4028-
4030-
4038-
4040-
4048-
4050-
A058-
4060-
4068-
4070-
4078-
4080-
4068-
4090-
4098-
40A0-
UP /DOUN
FORMAT SPECIFICATION INCORRECT"
THEN : PRINT CHRE {7);76%: END
TO 234:24$ = 246 + "4": NEXT : REM OVERFLOW STRING
"OQ"; NEXT : REM PAD TRAILING ZEROS
TO 234:258 = 239 + " ": NEXT : REM PAD LEADING BLANKS
(7)3: NEXT : REM BELL
overflows the format; right-justify to
align the decimal points; and handle all of
the quirks in the Applesoft numbering.
The number to be formatted is placed in
ZZ and returned in ZZ$. The print for-
mat is set up using Z1% and Z3%. Lines
290 to 420 set up the print format, and the
routine is itself contained in lines 150 to
230. Lines 430 to 500 demonstrate how
the routine can be used.
40AR~ 3F
4.0K0- 22
40KR- C1
40C0- AC
AOCB- 24
AOLO- K6
AOTIA~ 24
40E0- 36
A0EB- 24
4OFO~ 24
40FB- C1
4100 FS
410B- 24
4110 201
4118- 20
4120- C4
4128- C1
4130- OC
ALRB~ 37
4140- C4
4148- 04
4150- 94
4158- C1
4160- Cl
4168- 36
4170- 3F
AI7B- 36
4180- Wk
4188- 3F
4190- 24.
4198- 35
41A0- 3F
41AB~ 04
41B0~- 00
139
140
Check our prices against similar lists!!!
Micro Business Centre Ltd,
Linthouse Lane, Wednesfield,
Wolverhampton, West Midlands.
Tel (0902) 725687
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Autostart Rom Pack A 4.95 37.95
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{Clock/Printer Card) L 2025) 155725
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@ Circle No. 189
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Z-80
ZODIAC
Hex to Basic
A CONVERTER PROGRAM for the Research
Machines 380-Z comes from A M Pennell
of Cliftonville, Kent. It converts any hex
file, created with the ZASM assembler,
into a Basic program consisting of Data
statements and a For loop to Poke the
code into its correct place. The program
will run under any disc-based RML Ex-
tended Basic 5, although the machine-
code example will only work on monitor
Cos 3.4 or later.
The converter program, listing 1, is
simple to use. The file name of the exist-
ing file is first entered — hex is not
required — followed by the file name of |
the Basic program to be created. These
file names are F1$ and F2$, respectively.
The line number N of the program being
created is incremented in steps of 10, and
E is the number of bytes contained in the
machine-code routine. These are zeroed
in line 110.
Line 120 gets the hex string, H$, from
its file, and if it is the first then line 130
| sets O$ to the hex origin of the routine.
Each hex string is then converted into a
Data statement containing u
characters. Line 230 checks if the current
hex string is the last; so the For loop lines
are printed to the Basic file.
As a simple example, the machine-
code in listing 2 checks if a printer is
connected and on-line, and if it is not, the
message ‘‘Attend to printer” appears,
and the system waits until the fault is
corrected before returning to Basic.
Listing 3 shows the assembled listing,
listing 4 1s of the hex file, and listing 2 is
that produced by the program.
Polynomial roots
THIS PROGRAM by Brian Klemz of Brent-
wood, Essex will compute all the roots of
a polynomial equation when written in
the form:
x7 + ayx™ + ax" +... +a, = 0.
Bairstow’s method is used: it searches for
two factors of the polynomial equation,
one being a quadratic equation, the roots
of which were obtained using the formula
(—b+V(b? — 4ac)) = 2a
Bairstow’s method is then applied to the
remaining factor, a polynomial equation
of order n—2. The procedure is repeated
until the remaining factor is either a
quadratic equation or a single root. ”
Using a Sharp MZ-80K the program
(continued on next page)
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
to 16 hex |
| CO1E
Open file:
Listing 1. Converter program.
10 REM .HEX TO .BAS CONVERTER
20 REM FOR RML 380Z
30 REM BY A. PENNELL
40 CLEAR 1000
50 INPUT"HEX FILE"; Fis
60 F1S=F1$+".HEX"
70 INPUT"BAS FILE";F2%
80 ON EDF GOTO 240
90 OPEN#10,F1$
100 CREATE#10,F2¢%
110 N=0:E=0
120 INPUT#10,Hs
130 IF N=O THEN O$=MID$(H$, 4,4)
140 N=N+10
150 PRINT#10,Nr"DATA ";
160 AS=MIDS (HS, 10, LEN (H#) -10)
170 FOR I=1 TO LEN(AS)-2 STEP 2
180 E=E+1
190 PRINT#IO, "&"sMID$ (AS, 1,2);
200 IF I<>LEN(A#)—-2 THEN PRINT#10,", "5
210 NEXT I
220 PRINT#1O
230 IF MID$(H$,2,2)="10" GOTO 120
240 PRINT#1O, 10+N; "P=%"; 0%
250 PRINT#1O, 20+N; "FOR I=P TO P-1+"GE
260 PRINT#10,30+N; "READ A:POKE I,A"
270 PRINT#10, 40+N; "NEXT I"
280. CLOSE#10
Listing 2. Example program.
ee QUE
O DATA &F7, £32,800, &21,&15, 2.00, &7E SFE, MEF, 828, 205, YET, 01 &25,%18, SF
DATA &F7,&52,%28, FC, &C9, KOD, &41,&744 74, 5, MOE, 864, %20,%74,, YOF, &2O
DATA &70,&72, &69, &6E 4&7 4.4 &65,&72,%21, 80D, YFF
P=2%C900
FOR t=P TO P-i+ 42
READ A:POKE 1.A
NEXT 1
Listing 3. Assembled listing.
7280 ASSEMBLY LISTING OF PRINTER
:>CHECK ROUTINE FOR RMLS8O0Z WITH-COS 3.4
cooo
imetere)
Coo?
Coos
Co0S
COO7
Coo9 2805
COOB F701
CoOOD 23
COCE 18F&
Co10 F732
EeTt2 ZEEE
Co14 C9
ORG OCOOOH
EMT 50
RET NZ
LD HL,DATA
~LarlD A, (HL)
cP 255
ie 2,L2
EMT 1
INC HL
JR it
L2:EMT 50
JR Z,L2
RET
_ ORIGIN
;LPSTAT
:RET IF OK
:FRINT MESSAGE
F732
co
2115C0
7E
FEFF
;LPSTAT
CHECK AGAIN
RET IF OK
Eos
Co16
Co1a
oD
41747465
&E642074
&F207072
696E7465
ae
ODFF
DATA
DATA: DEFB
DEFM
DEFM
DEFM
DEFM
DEFM
DEFER
1S
CO22
CO26
CO28
Co1s C006 Li
Listing 4. Hex file listing.
AGT VREMEEI EST HEX
? LOCOOOQOOF 732CO21 1 SCO7EFEFF2BOS5F7012318F 480
2 1LOCOLOOOF 73229FCC9IOD4A1L FATA SSGES4S2O7 ASF 2O7TA
1 OACO20007072696E7 4457221 ODF FES .
29900000000
;DATA FOR MESSAGE
141
SS SS a ea se 2 a ee
eee
(continued from previous page)
gives reasonably good results. For exam-
ple, the correct roots of
6x® + 15x* + 20x + 15x? + 6x + 1
are x=—1, six times. The computed values
are —0.959, —1.04, —0.981, —0.981,
7 REM REAL AWG COMPLEX ROOTS OF A
—1.022 and —1.022. A computer with a
double-precision facility should produce
better results.
If the program fails to work the prob-
lem can often be overcome by scaling the
variable x of the polynomial. For exam-
ple, it only computes two roots instead of
POLY HOM TAL
five for the equation
o_O:
However, if the equation is written as
xX° + 32=0
where X = 2x, the computer produces
five roots with values for X of —0.619 +
j1.902, 1.618 + j1.175, —2. Ml)
PRIHT "Ee"
ape ile 2 RP Aes Pan
FRIHT" whee exeressed
FRIHT:PREIWT: ‘PRINT
eee Jie] ee
PRIHT"
FELHT"
PFREIATIFEIHT
DIMAC Ts. Boies
DEF FHAY So=1THTe
PRIHT "ORDER oF
IHMFUT H
PR THT
PeETHP TSFE IH THE
FPRIHT
Fok J=170H
oo eeces
PRIHT' coed ficient
PRIHT"
PRIHT "Sivonen ce
IHMFUT Ae:
HESTI
FRIHTIFRIHT: FR IWT
IFH< 2THEH 438
B=Ari3
Tees
D=Bt B47
tas ee 27a
will
TN ey bo
Ot are URE UES egy er Ta
aan rs
Ae
1 all sued ell eee eel el el oe
we
Reig haee Hr
ae oe
we"
“a
fs
femk alt ei fot
1 UR ES US EG
ol
ts
ly cs
em pT
Ec oy
—
TT
at
336 PRINT "REAL | FONTS"
S48 PRIMTTABS 1893 “ROOT="$FHACRKI >
MW PRIHTTABY 1493 "ROOT="3FHACRZ>
SA SOTOdS 7H
wi CLSSk¢-D9
4 IFE=8THEH4e8
3 TFABS¢ D1-624. 84THEHS40
A PRIHT2PRIWT"COMPLEN ROOTS"
PRINT" REAL FART= "3FHAC-B723
PRIHT' IMNAGIHARS FART= "3FNACD1723
BOTO478
PRINTSPRIHT"REAL roots"
4 PRIHTTABC1633 "ROOT="3 FHAC-Bv2o
4 FPRIHTTABC LEDs "ROOTH="s FHAC-B 22
PA IFH=2ZTHEMS Fe
SA RETURH
JFH=1THEH? 7a
IFACHS< *BTHEHS 38
PRINT! PRIWTTABCS 3 "REAL ROOT" ACH2
H=N-1
REM DIVIDE ACI® BY A GUADRATIC
IF CACH-2 3 =Bo4C AC H-1>=80 THEMP=120=1! GOTOSSe
IFABS* AS 1<, ABI THEHACH-2 =. 1
FSACH—15--ACH-2 >
IFF=6THEHFH1“AcH-23
U=SACH)“ACN-2)
i
aie
Te
wae
Tih cow
Cd Pe i ac Oo
HE me
ms
=,
142
Copy t=
all
im the fore
ALL the roots of 9 polyromia] "3
eof mans
COEPPICIEMi”
3) =
PSEC 1O-F#i Ca
aad FORT =2TOH-1
or CCl P=BCI 2-PeC¢ I-15-lece I-24
650 HEMTI
696 Fi=CCH-2>
THe PZ=CCN-F 2
7i@ FS=CCH-19-B¢H-1>
724 P4sF1
Tse FL=B¢H-1>
2=BCH>
DE=P1+F4—P24F3
IFDE=@ THEN35u
DP=¢Fi+P4—-P2#F 2 -DE
[GSC P1+4F2-F1+F S32 -DE
30 F=F+DP
3 =0+00
IF CDP=6>+¢DG=6 9 THEHS=8
3 GUTOSS6
REM ITERATION COMPLETED
B=P
=0
S60 SUSUE2I0
3 H=H-2
FORI=170H
ACII=BCI>
NEXT I
IFN=1THENS58@
BH IFH=2THENGOSUB 2648
IFH>2THENS39
GaTag7a :
“PRINTIFRINT"BDETERMINANT IS ZERO! '":GoToO97e&
GH PRINT: PRINT TABCS9: "REAL ROOT= "SFWAC-AC1>>
EWR
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Perspective graphics
THIS THREE-DIMENSIONAL graphics pro-
gram for the BBC Microcomputer Model
A by Simon Reavill of Nottingham works
on a grid principle. The elements of array
XY(a,b) are distances from the surface of
an imaginary slanted grid.
The program calculates the points and
then carries out a dot-to-dot operation to
create the surface. The program only
deals with a single plane and hidden lines
are not accounted for. Execution time is
20 to 30 seconds.
The method used ensures positioning
of lines in relation to each other, and so
“shading” is correct. Lines 90, 100 and
120 contain the same mathematics so it is
possible to use the screen editor to full
effect, as they are fairly complex lines to
Polygon,
200 REM 40 col. High res.
210 MODE 4
220 PRINT:PRINT
230 PRINT" POLYGONS”
240°
250
260
270
280
290
about shapes with many sides"
REM No.
REM BY B.S.NOYES.
REM START SCORF,
s=0
300 PRINT:PRINT"First you must print the number of sides (A
number not a word.)"
310 FOR W=1 TO 9000:NEXT W
320' CLS
330 PRINT
340 PRINT" Then you will he asked to type the general name
of the shape"
350 PRINT:PRINT"i.e.'Four sides'
rectangle"
360 FOR W=1 TO 6000:NEXT W
REM A PROGRAMME THAT DRAWS POLYGONS(3 to 12 sides)
OF SIDES AND NAME TO BE TYPED BY PUPIL
DOWNSIDE MIDDLE SCHOOL.
PRINT"Not a programme about empty Parrot cages but
is not a square or a
Perspective graphics.
S*REN 30 GRAPHICS BY SINON REAVILL
18 NODE 4:¥OU 19,4,2,8,0,8
260 DIM X¥C49.49)
38 FOR Y=1 TO 19
48 FOR X=1 TO 19
MYCY, XV=ECSINGXZ2) 959) 4 (5 INCY 74) #75)
NEXT: NEXT
FOR Y=1 TO 17
FOR X=4 TO 18
Open file: BBC
IF X=1 THEN MOVE (X41)9504442G, Ya3R4XV CV 41, X41)4200
188 DRAW (X¢1)e5G4+¥928, VeIGtXYC V4, X41)4+288
418 IF YC)47 THEN DRAW CX41)95G4+C¥ 412920, CY4L) #3B4XVCVH2, X41) 4208
120 MOVE (X+1)¥50+¥828, YeIB4XYC Ved, X41) 4208
13@ WEXT:NEXT
type in. Sine functions work well in line
50, so also try
XY(Y,X)=Sin (Y +X)%50
XY(X,Y)=Sin (X/3)% Y 10
XY(Y,X)=(Sin(X/3) 50) +(Sin(¥/3) 50)
Polygon crowd puller
THE SCHOOL at which I teach was pre-
sented with a BBC Micro, won for us by
three 13-year-old girls, writes Bernard
Noyes of Whitwell, Isle of Wight. The
‘problem then remained, how to feed the
interest of the pupils.
The ‘‘Welcome”’ tape was not very
helpful, with % and @ symbols in the
listings and no clue in the book as to what
they do.
Program snippets indicated how easy it
is to draw shapes on the screen and
prompted this program. A measure of its
GOSUB 750
PRINT: PRINT
success is the crowd of pupils who stay
after school and enjoy learning what used
to be a chore.
A regular polygon is drawn on the
| screen and the pupil is asked the number
of sides. A correct answer gains one mark
no matter ;how many attempts it takes.
The polygon is then redrawn in order to
clear the screen of clutter and the pupil
must name the shape. Right first time
gives five marks; a second attempt is
permitted after a wrong answer, but if it
too is wrong the correct name is shown on
the screen and must be copied correctly
to continue the program.
A full list of the names used is shown at
the beginning of the program, but can be
omitted if not required by deleting lines
370, 380 and 390. uy
PRINT"What is the name of this shape?"
INPUT A$
I.W.
INPUT AS
IF NS=A$ THEN LET S=S+5:GOTO 710
PRINT"You have got it wrong. Please try again"
IF NS$=A$ THEN GOTO 710
PRINT"You have
PRINT"Copy me.
CLS:GOTO 660
still got it wrong."
Type ":PRINT N$
IF N$=A$ THEN GOTO 710
PRINT"That is correct"
PRINT:PRINT"Your score
is now--="; S
FOR ¥=1 TO 7000:NEXT WV
GOTO 420
CLS
XP=500
YP=200
SIDE=1800/N
370 PRINT:PRINT"The names of the shapes are:-"
380 PRINT"Triangle, quadrilateral, pentagon,:. hexagon,
heptagon, octagon, nonagon, decagon, and”
390
400
410
411
412
414
420
430
440
450
460
470
480
490
500
510
520
PRINT" dodecagon
PRINT" (You haven't enough time to copy them!)”
FOR W=1 TO 12000:NEXT W
CLS: PRINT: PRINT
PRINT"Please type in your name.”
INPUT x$
READ N,NS$:IF N<O THEN GOTO 1000
GOSUB 750
PRINT: PRINT
PRINT"How many sides dos this shape have?"
INPUT A
IF N=A THEN GOTO 560
PRINT"I am afraid that is wrong,
PRINT"Now try again"
INPUT A
IF N=A THEN GOTO 560
PRINT: PRINT"Oh dear! Still not quite right."
530 PRINT”"Count slowly...Now try again."
540 INPUT A
550 IF N<>A THEN 520
555 REM. ADD ONE TO SCORE
560 LET S=S+1:PRINT"That is correct"
570 FOR Wel TO 2000:NEXT W
";x$;" Count them."
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
THETA=2*PI/N
MOVE XP,YP
FOR I=0 TO W-1
XP=XP+SIDE*COS (I* THETA)
YP=YP+SIDF*SIN(I* THETA)
DRAW XP, YP
NEXT I
RETURN
DATA 6,HEXAGON
DATA 4,QUADRILATERAL
DATA 9,NONAGON
DATA 3,TRIANGLE
DATA 5,PENTAGON
DATA 7,HEPTAGON
DATA 10,DECAGON
DATA 12,DODECAGON
DATA 8,OCTAGON
DATA -1,ENDOFDATA
IF §>50 THEN PRINT"Well done
910
920
930
940
950
960
970
980
1000
"XS" You are a
genius!":END
1010 IF S$>40 THEN PRINT"Almost all right ";X$ ;" Try again
later.";:END
1020 IF S>30 THEN PRINT"Keep trying ";X$;"
You will co
better. ":END
1030 PRINT"Not very good ";%$;" But you can only
improve": END
143
PASCA 640
MICRO COMPUTER SYSTEM
The one that really works!
PASCA RUNS
MICROSHOP!
The Pasca 640 is a Z80A based professional
microprocessor system comprising visual display,
keyboard, and twin 8" floppy disk drives—all in
one smart desk top cabinet!
The Pasca 640 is designed to run any software a
written for the popular CP/M 2.2 operating system.
Approved software packages such as Basic 80, Macro 80,
Super-Sort, Wordstar and Formatter can be supplied and supported by us.
Built to the highest standards of quality and reliability, the Pasca 640 is supported
on site by our own team of field service engineers thus ensuring fast, reliable service.
MICROSHOP NOW OPEN
A NEW CONCEPT IN SOFTWARE PUBLISHING
MICROSHOP
© is a computer system for retailers in book form
© runs under CP/M and MBASIC on 100+ machines
is ready to use and source listings are provided for you
to make your own alterations
¢ is published in parts: month by month the system builds
into the complete picture shown opposite.
AVAILABLE NOW
Overview Overall system design for the MICROSHOP
Series, including functional description, system
£9.95 flowcharts, VDU layouts and print layouts.
Indispensable to understanding the scope of
MICROSHOP. 142 pages.
Monitor Screen control and data entry package. Includes
functional description, BASIC access subroutines,
£9.95 flowcharts, source listings of assembler code and
BASIC utilities, installation guide. 172 pages.
Index Indexed file access method. Includes functional
description, BASIC access subroutines, source
£9.95 isting of assembler code and BASIC utilities.
INDEX DATAFORM general purpose data entry
and retrieval package. 200 pages.
Diskettes Diskettes in IBM 3740 compatible CP/M format
for MONITOR and INDEX. Each diskette
£50 ea contains program files only. Postage and packing
Exc VAT included.
Dealer enquiries welcome
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Telephone 03727/21215. 24 hour phone service. = ies
Prices includ t but f i il delivery in Europe add 90p (outside Europe add £2.20) per item. ;
rices include postage but for air mai ivery urope p ( Dp ) pei @Bircie flo. 750
144 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
ZX-80/81
LINE-UP
Matrix inversion
THIS PROGRAM by Carl Ross of Ports-
mouth, Hampshire inverts a real, unsym-
metrical matrix in situ. The method used
is that of Gauss-Jordon, and is based on
an algorithm by LaFara, where the ele-
ments on the leading diagonal have been
used as pivots. As it stands, the program
REM PROGRAM BY De.C.T.F. ROSS
REM FORTSMOUTH FOLYTECHNIC.
REM PORTSMOLITH.
REM HANTS.
REM FOl 3DJ
PRINT “ORDER N = "
INPLIT H
PRINT WN
TIM ACH. Md
PRINT "FEED IN THE MATRIX IN ROWS"
FOR I = 1 TON
IF I = 6 THEN CLS
PRINT “ROWS I
FOR J = 1 TON
PRINT " COL": J;
INFUT ACI. J>
PRINT Dr TR br
Ha NEXT J
AS PRINT
NEXT I
CES
FOR X =
Whe 1 Ot oh
m
av say
1 TON
Qudratic regression
REGRESSION is one of the most useful
statistical methods of examining scien-
tific, economic or business data, writes
D A Jones of Leeds, West Yorkshire,
enabling the relation of two or more
variables to be described in terms of a
mathematical equation. The calculations
needed to fit a straight line are fairly
simple, but often the data fits a curve far
better. Such calculations are considerably
more complex and programs to perform~
REM DEPARTMENT GF MECHANICAL ENGINEERING.
PRINT "INVERSE OF A REAL LINSSNMETRICAL MATRIA"
requires a 16K ZX-81, but if the Rem and
other similar statements are removed it is
possible to invert a two-by-two matrix on
a 1K machine.
After entering the order of the matrix,
data is entered from the matrix row by
row, from left to right. LaFara’s algor-
ithm can be found in Computer Methods —
for Science and Engineering, published by
Hayden in 1973.
The program fails if the leading ele-
ment on the main diagonal is a zero, or if
a pivot becomes zero during the process
of inversion. When this occurs, the prob-
lem can be overcome by interchanging
two columns; after the inversion has
taken place the two corresponding rows
must be interchanged or vice versa. If the
i? column and the k" column are inter-
changed, then after inversion the i” row
and k'" row must be interchanged. It is
impossible to invert a matrix whose de-
terminant is zero, that is a singular mat-
rix.
The time taken to invert a matrix in-
creases roughly in proportion to the cube
LET DI
@ IF DI =
FOR ¥ =
1 LET ACK.YD
7@ NEXT Y
= ACK.1)
TO H-1
SACK,
9 FOR 2 =
[EZ c=
LET @
H FOR
TO H
ACZ,19
1 TO N-1
@ THEN PRINT "MATRIX IS SINGULAR OR FIVOT = 8”
1
r+i9/DI
M@ LET ACX.N? = 1/DI
?
Open file: ZX-80/81 ="
of the order of the matrix, and the space
required by a square matrix increases by
the square of the order of the matrix.
Thus, if a hand calculator is being used,
inverting matrices larger than three by
three becomes exceedingly difficult. This
is of considerable importance in science,
engineering, building, and so on where
inverting matrices is very often a prere-
quisite for certain problems.
On a 16K ZX-81, the “‘fast” inversion
time for typical matrices is as shown in
table 1. Dr Ross’s program has been
awarded £20 as this month’s best con-
tribution.
3min. 6s.
10min. 17s.
24min. 14s.
56min. 25s.
» THEN GOTO 26a
LET Ate2.¥) = ACE, 51> - G# ACK YD)
3 NEST
LET ACZ/N> =
NEXT Z
NEXT &
FOR I= 1 TON
FOR J = 1 T0N
PRINT ACI, I>; "
NEXT J
PRINT
NEXT 1
PRINT
PRINT
them are rarely found except in expensive
business software.
This program will do the same job on a
ZX-81. It will fit a quadratic equation of
the form
Y=a-+ bX + boX?
Leaving out Rems and some of the
Print statements allows it to be squeezed
into a 1K machine. It is perfectly suited
for use as a subroutine with a graph-
plotting program.
The main part prompts the user on
Ge FICK. MD
FRINT “THE INVERSE 15"
"PROGRAM BY DR. C.T.F. ROSS"
entering data. After the equation has
been calculated, lines 330 onwards use it
to predict Y values for any value of X
given. This could be altered to plot the
equation in graphical form on the screen.
Before raising a variable to the power
in the program, the Abs function is first
used to ensure that it is positive. An error
message results when negative numbers
are used, though this should not be illegal
as it is perfectly straightforward
mathematics.
REM
LET
(Mey
LET
LET
LET
LET
LET
LET
Ler
PRINT "HOM MANY POINTS 28
INPUT N
FOR M=1 TO N
cLs
PRINT *POINT “sMy®ENTER K VALUE®
INPUT XxX
PRINT "ENTER Y VALUE*
INPUT Y
LET. A=A4xX
LET B=B+Y
QUADRATIC REGRESSION BY DA eJONES LET
LET
LET
CET
C=C +ABS(XdeeT
O=D0 ABS CY deeT
E=E +ABSCX)ae3
F=F*ABSCX)a24@
LET G=GeXxey
LET H=H*ABS(XdeeTeY
NEXT M
LET Z=(C-ABS CA Dee T/ND@ CF -ABS(C) ee T/ND-ABSCE-AeC/ND28T
LET I=CCF-ABSCC dee T/ND® € G-Be A/ND-CH~BeC/NDOCE-AeC/NDD IZ
LET J=C€(C~ABSCAD@0@ T/NI@ CH-BEC/N IC G-BeA/SNDOCE-AaC/NDDSZ
LET Z=B/N-A/Ne@I -C/Neod
cts
PRINT ®Y= S525" ¢ @SE5® KX + PES" Xewoe
REM CALCULATION OF Y FOR A GIVEN VALUE OF Xx
INPUT X
cLs
LET Y=Zel exe JeABSCX deeT
PRINT *IF X ="9Xe*THEN Y¥ ="5¥
GOTO 330
ZONMONBD}Y +
HUon Undo
rrr rprr ran
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 145
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146
Ea
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CP ype 11: has programmable form
EPSON MX-80 F/T SERIES
MX80 FT £399 MX8 FT TYPE II £445
Probably the most popular
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Type I: 80 cps bidirectional printing
logic seeking. 9 x 9 matrix with true
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80 columns with condensed
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FF, VT & HT. Parallel interface.
feed & line spacing. Bit image
printing.
EPSON MX-80T SERIES
Low Cost, High Quality.
Adopted by PET, HP, IBM, Sharp.
MX-80T: Bidirection, logic seeking.
180 cps. 9 x 9 matrix with true
descenders. 80 cols. Adjustable pin
feed. Normal condensed &
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Parallel interface.
Type II: has programmable form
feed & line spacing. Bit image
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MX80-T £360 MX80-T TYPE II £399
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® Prices exclude VAT
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
CORNER
Simpson’s rule
THIS PROGRAM by R Glynn Owens of
Wigan, Lancashire calculates area under
a normal curve using Simpson’s rule for
integration. It should prove useful either
as a free-standing program or as a sub-
routine in a larger statistics program.
Lines 1400 and 1500 give the formula
for the standard normal curve extending
from minus to plus infinity with a mean of
zero and a standard deviation of one. The
formula is broken into its constituent
parts to facilitate modification.
The program can, of course, be used to
provide integration under other curves by
changing the formula in these two lines.
Since it uses a rule which provides
PET
Simpson’s rule.
160 PRINT CHR$( 147)
2@8 PRINT’ THIS PROGRAM CALCULATES THE AREA UNDER THE NORMAL CURVE BETWEEN "
26 PRINT"ANY THO X COORDINATES, USING SIMPSCIN’S RULE. "
40a DIM H¢17>, 01018): A1=8
500 FRINT“PLEASE GIVE ‘OUR TWO X COORDINATES NOW,
66 INPUT “XC1>"FHCL> = INPUT" XC2>"FHCL7>
66@ PRINT" "“:PRINT® "“:PRINT" “
1888 [=CHC17)-HC1) 2/16
TYPING RETURN AFTER EACH ONE’
FOR J=2 TO 17
HCJ>=HCJ-194+1 / NEXT
J=1
Bt HC J=HC JD 12 HC ID=HC ID 22 HCD =-HCJ> HOS =EXPCHC ID
O01¢ J>=HCI>/SOR(2%3. 1415927)
mim J=J+1
IF ¢J€1S)THEN 1466
FOR L=2 TO 16 STEP z
A2=A2+01 (LD : NEXT : A2=AZ4+4
FOR L=3 TO 15 STEP 2
A3=A3+01 (LL): NEXT : A3=A3#2 ' AS=A3+AZ
AZ=AZ+01¢19+01¢17) : A=ABSCAS#1 73>: A=INT CA¥ 1608) :A=A/1 900
PRINT CHR#(125),"THE AREA ENCLOSED IS "iA" OF THE TOTAL"
Pres eee EXACTLY “Ae1GG “PERCENT OF THE STANDARD NORMAL CURVE CAREA=1>"
Ol
+o PIG +84
: ## P.BRADSHAN- OCT.1981 ++
a
##RUNS ON ANY PET-3K OR MORES#
MM=144 : [FPEEK< 68600) =255THENMM=537
GOSUBI57@:REM INSTRUCTIONS
Beg Set nn NOCD ae ee CVT = FE eee ee
S=RNDCGD
GOSUB 1196 : GOSUB1496
D1 S=" RPP DEPODORED Lelie)": D2$="PORRRORERPRODDODERDDICRIel)"
SPa=" "
PFs" Aelelelelalelelaletalelaleleelelelalaale)
RS="ORDSPPPDEDOPRPDORERODDSRDER ODI
BUS=CHRS¢ 184) - BDS=CHRE C162) .FORJ=1T07. BUS=BUS+BUS ‘ BUS=BDS+BDS : NEXT
GOSUBI26
GOSUB1 16a
H SOSUB11S6
GC=NOTGC: IFGC=-1THENAF="IT’S YOUR TURN TO GO FIRST" -GOTO326
at: Ag="IT'S My TURN TO GO FIRST" -Fi=!t
@ GOSUB1270 -FORG=1 TO2880 : NEXT
336 IFGC=aTHEN3Sa
3 GOSUETSS ‘REM @#*#HUMAN TURM#e
IFW @THENSS@
GOSUBTSH-REM ##+PET TURN##*
IFL-@THENSS®
vTOS48
REM #44 WIN RGUTINE #t
TFW=ITHENAS="VOU WIN!" -GOSUBIZ76-TH=W+! -GOTO426
B Ag="I WIN)". FW=Pbi+l .GOSUBIZ7a
& FORF=1TUS@ue HEX
@ FRINT"Q" TABCIG>" A"LEFTS (BUS, 19> -FRINTTABC 10)" MASTER SCOREBOARD "
ERINIABCo
PRINTTABS 19)" A"LEFT#<SPS, 19>
PRINTTABC 10>"3
PRINTTAERS 16>" a"LEFTS¢SP#,13>
PRINTTABS 18>" a"LEFT# (BD, 13>
450 PRINT" SNe LEFTS (BS, 16)" 2rOU="¥ld
PRINT“ sdeintelsie"LEFTS< BS, 16>" cP ET="F ld
@ FRINT" Ae" TABC7> "DO YOU WANT TO FLAY AGAIH?"
GETMS . [FNS<>"""RNDMECS "8" THENS 26
TFMNS="Y"THENYU=O -PU=5 Y7=8:/FT=6'W=@ GOTOZTS
PRINT" @” : END
@ FEM #8 HUMAN TURN 444
FRINT" A°LEFTS<P$, 199 TABC IS) "OVER"
fa YU=8 GOSUEL 168
IFYU=@THENAS="FRESS “SPACE” TO ROLL" :GOSUBL276 GUTU6H6
AF=""SPACE” TO FOLL, °S° TO STICK" GOSUE12Z76
“ANDCRS<> "S"GRYU=0) THENG 18
$08 SETMS. IFMS<>" "THENEGO
a oETRS > IFRS<>"
o2u Af="" GOSUBIZ7G
"S"THEN7&G
GO3UB 1360
(listing continued on next page)
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Open file: Pet
approximations, large values of x should
be avoided as they will give a result which
is rounded to zero.
The program is written for the 8032 Pet
but can easily be modified for other
machines. For the 40-colum Pets the
CHR$(135) in line 2300 should be re-
moved; on the 80-column machine it
serves only to give an audible indication
that calculation is finished.
Pig
AS FAR ASI KNOW, this is the first compu-
ter program to simulate the game of Pig,
claims P Bradshaw of Sunderland, Tyne
and Wear. It is an interesting dice game
of strategy and luck which is normally
played by two opposing humans. In the
computer version of the game a solo
human plays against the machine. The
program will run on any Pet with old,
new or 4.0 ROM.
Pig is simple to learn and fun to play.
Brief instructions are included in the
program and can be omitted or extended
as required. The game is played with two
dice. Both you, the human player, and
the Pet start a game with a score of zero.
You and Pet play in turn, with the aim of
being the first to reach a total of 100 or
more.
When it is your turn, you take control
of the dice and roll them one or more
times to try to increase your total. If after
any roll a 6 shows, your turn ends and
nothing is added to your total. If a 6 does
not show, you have the option of rolling
again, or “sticking”. If you stick, your
total is incremented by the scores of all
the tosses in that turn.
For example, if you throw a 2 and a 3
as the first toss of a turn and then stick, 5
is added to your total. You can choose to
roll again, and you get, say, a 5 and a 1,
then 11 would be added to your total. If
you choose to roll a third time and throw,
say, a 2 and a 6, now, because you have
thrown a 6, your turn ends and you lose
all the points which you otherwise would
have won. When your turn has ended, it
is the Pet’s turn. The computer itself
decides when to stick and when to roll
again.
The obvious problem in writing a Pig-
playing program was that of displaying
the dice on the screen. Instead of printing
the numbers to the screen, I opted to use
the Pet’s graphics facilities to draw the
dice, greatly increasing the program’s
visual appeal.
Lines 1200 to 1260 set up a string array
D$() which contains graphics characters
and cursor-control characters to draw a
particular die face on the screen. For
example, a 5 is drawn by executing
Print D$(S). Two cursor-control
strings, D1$ and D2$ are used to move
the cursor to the correct position to draw
the first and second die respectively.
The subroutine starting at line 1300
(continued on next page)
147
(continued from previous page)
rolls the dice randomly, draws them on
the screen and returns the score, from
two to.12, in variable D. A flag F is set to
one if a six has been thrown — line 1380.
The dice; scoreboard and prompt mes-
sages all appear on an attractive game
board, which is set up at the beginning of
a game by the subroutine starting at line
920. The routine uses both Print: and
Poke. Users of machines other than Pet
should note that the Pet screen displays
40 by 25 characters and is mapped into
memory locations 32768 to 33767.
The strategy of Pig lies in deciding
whether it is worthwhile to stick, or pref-
erable to roll again and risk tossing a 6.
The Pet’s strategy is defined as a func-
tion, FNA, in line 190. This function
evaluates to zero if it is worthwhile to
stick, or to one if.it is worth rolling again.
This function utilises Boolean expres-
sions such as PU>14. It evaluates to zero
— false — if PU is 10, or to —1, or true, if
PU is 20. Some machines evaluate true as
1: if yours does this, omit the first minus
sign in line 190.
There are three variables used in eval-
uating FNA: YT is the human’s total, PT
is the Pet’s total, and PU is Pet’s score for
the current turn. The overriding condi-
tion of the strategy is that it sticks if it
would win by doing so — PT + PU is
greater than or equal to 100. Otherwise,
it rolls if the score for its turn is less than
14, or if it is trailing behind the human, or
if RND(1) exceeds 0.7 to add an element
of unpredictability. To make the Pet play
more recklessly, decrease the value 0.7 in
line 190.
The program includes sound-effects
which you can use if you have a user-port
soundbox. Sounds are produced when
the dice are rolled, and when a 6 is
thrown by Poking locations 59467, 59466
and 59464. If you do not have a Pet, you
will have to remove sound effects or
make appropriate conversions.
The program crashes if the cassette
recorder is used after the program has
been stopped during a sound effect. The
Stop key is therefore disabled while
sound effects are in use by Poking loca-
tion MM, where MM is 537 for an old
ROM Pet, or 144 for a new or 4.0 ROM
Pet, MM is set to the appropriate value in
line 170.
The program uses a short machine-code
routine which flashes the border of the
game board in an eye-catching way when
a 6 is thrown. The routine is Poked into’
the second cassette buffer in lines 1490 to
1560 and called by SYS 826 in line 1420.
This feature is not strictly necessary, and
may have to be sacrificed in converting
the program to run on a machine other
than Pet.
If you cannot muster the energy to type
in the program, send £2 and a stamped,
addressed envelope to the author at 2
Seaforth Road, Sunderland, Tyne. and
Wear, SR3 1UX.
148
IFF=1THEN6SO
enuet: GOSUB1 166
GOTOSS
Age" SORRY! "- GOSUB1 270 : GOSUBI416
YU=0: GOSUB1 168
VT=VT+VU : GOSUBI 16a
IFYT>=10@THENH=1
RETURN
REM #8% PET TURN ###
QQ=2508 : PU=8
GOSUE1 186
PRINT" a"LEFTS¢(P#, 16) TABC 15> "GVER™
IFF1=@THENAS="NY TURN! “> GOSUB127G@: FORG=1 TO2006 * NEXT
IFF1=1THENF1=2
PU=@: GOSUB1 186
IFFNAC@>=6THENS63
IFPU>GTHENAS="I THINK I°LL ROLL" -GOSUB1Z76
FORG=1T07@@ :NEXT
GOSUB1306: IFF= ITHENS8@
4G AS="": GOSUB1276
PU=PU+D: GOSUB1 180: FORG=1T01060: NEXT :GOTO8ea
AS="I“LL STICK" =GOSUB1278
PT=PT +PU: GOTO896
$="DRAT!" “GOSUB1276 : GOSUB1416'FU=6: QQ=1
GOSUB1 1980: IFPT>=100THENW=2
FORG=1TOQQ: NEXT
RETURN
REM #4 INITIAL DISPLAY #408
PRINT "73";
FORJ=32768T033728STEP4G
FORK=@T02 : POKEJ+K, 127: POQKEJ+37+K, 127 >NEXT
pial
‘ORJ=33688T033727: Ayo POKEJ+49, 127: NEXT
360 PRINTIABCO)" a LEFTSCOPs #21
998 FORJ=1T09
1661 pene reese?" "SPGC1S>° ™
NI
XT
PRINTTABC9) "2" LEFT#<SP$, 21>
PRINT" @"TABCS)" A" LEFT# (BUS, 21)
FORJ=1T06
PRINTTABC9> "a" LEFTS(SP$,21>
NEXT
PRINTTABC9) "S"LEFT$(BDS, 21>
PRINT" tel" TABC 14)" a" LEFT£ (BUS, 11)
PRINTTABC 14)" #&# PIG ## "
FRINTTABC 14)" a"LEFTS<¢BDS, 11>
PRINTLEFTS$(P$, 14) TABC 15)" STURN TOTAL."
PRINTTABC15)"X
PRINTTABC 16>" 270U" : PRINTTABC 16)" ______"
PRINT" @"TABC10>"2FET"
RETURN
REM ### DISPLAY SCORES ##*
PRINT" 8"LEFTS(P$, L6.TABCISYU"R =o" TABC21>7T"I) "RETURN
PRINT" A"LEFTSCPS, 1S9TABCISPU'H = “TABKC213PT"H "RETURN
REM #4#% READ DICE DATA ###
DIM n$<é)
FORJ=1TO06 : READX$, Y$,
D$¢(J>=" aes SEE
DS¢J>=DF¢ I> +" Oe
NEXT
FORJ= Aron ERS=ER$+" SESBRORB!" WERT
RETURN
REM ### DISPLAY TEXT #44
PRINTPS"SBBI"LEFTS(SP#, 34)
PRINTPSTABC (4@-LENCAS#) 9/2 AS : RETURN
REM ##% ROLL DICE #&*
PRINTDISERSDZSERS : FORG=1T 0260 : NEXT
R=INTCRNDC 14641): B=INTCRNDC1)#6+1) D=ArB
POKEHM. PEEK (Mt1)43 : FOKES9467, 16“ POKES9464, 6: FOKES9466, 15
PRINTDISD$<A> = POKES9464, 133: FORG=17010G -NEXT : FOKES9464.6
FORG=170106: NEXT
FRINTDZ$D$(B> POKESS464, 128: FORG=1 T0106 : NEXT
POKESS467, G: POKENM, PEEK CIiM1>-3
F=-<A=60RB=6>
RETURN
REM ##*# SOUND EFFECTS ###.
FOKEMM, PEEKCMMN>+3 : POKES9467. 16 : POKES9464, G :POKES3466, 15
FORJ=1TO12:POKES9464, 255 : SYS826 : FOR M=1T070 ‘NEXT
POKES9464, @: FORM=1TOS6 : NEXT ‘NEXT
POKES9467. 6: POKEMM, PEEK (Mi1>-3: RETURN
REM #9% DICE DATA #44
DATA" Ee Sa ","@ pet Eoae 6"
DATA“e ame 108 Vie e","6 Cites ","@ oe”
DATA"e ee." @ "8 s."@ee', ""@@@e"
REM ##& READ MACHINE CODE ###
FORJ=826T0866 : READM: POKES, M: ESE +t: NEXT
IFE<>S1@2THENPRINT"TRECHECK THESE LINES: -"-LIST1540-1560
RETURN
REM ##k MACHINE CODE im
DATAL69. 128, 141, 72,3, 141, 85,3, 166.4, 162,6,159,0, 132.201, 127,240,4
DATAZO1. 255, 268.5, 73. 128, 157, 6.132, 232, 208. 237,236.72, 3>236,85,3, 156
DATAZ08, 226,96
REM #%# DISFLAY INSTRUCTIONS ##&
PRINT"2O YOU REQUIRE INSTRUCTIONS?"
GETRE: IFR$<>"Y"ANDRS<> "N" THENL SSO
IFR$="N"THENRETURN
PRINT"<S]"TABC10)"#% THE GAME OF PIG #&"
PRINT" PIG IS A GAME FLAYED WITH TWO DICE IN
PRINT" @WHICH YOU COMPETE AGAINST FET.
PRINT" @TO WIN, YOU MUST ACCUMULATE 186 FOINTS
PRINT" MOR MORE BEFORE PET DOES.
PRINT #0QHT THE START OF A GAME, BOTH YOU ANI
PRINT"“PET HAVE ZERO POINTS.
PRINT" @YOU AND PET THEN TAKE TURNS TO ATTEMPT
PRINT" MTG INCREASE YOUR TOTAL POINTS.
PRINT“ WOFRESS ‘SPACE’ TO CONTINUE.
GETHS :IFHS<>“ “THENI?710
PRINT"TWHEN IT IS YOUR TURN, YOU ROLL THE DICE
PRINT"MONE GR MORE TIMES TO TRY TO INCREASE
PRINT" MYOUR TOTAL.
PRINT"MIF A SIX SHOWS AFTER ANY ROLL, YOUR TURN
PRINT"ENDS AND NOTHIHG IS ADDED TO YOUR TOTAL.
PRINT“IF NO SIX -SHOWS,- YOU MAY-EETHER ROLL
PRINT" WAGAIN, OR YOU CAN “STICK*’, IN WHICH CASE
PRINT"THE SCORES OF ALL THE TOSSES IN THAT
PRINT" MITURN ARE ADDED TO YOUR TOTAL, AND YOUR
PRINT" TURN ENDS.
PRINT" MMPRESS “P’ TO PLAY OR “R’ TO READ THE
PRINT" MINSTRUCTIONS AGAIN
GETHS : IFHS<>"P“ANDHS<> "R" THEN1840
IFH$="R" THEN1610
RETURN
"4X$+" i SOOO ONBS +7 $+" Oh DORMS +25
"(oe '
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 7982
DISC
DIALOGUE
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aoe Te pire \
Q9000
9005
Q080
o1900
0100
0103
0106
0107
0109
6100
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218000
SAB000
O1GE ¢
O1GF
0110
Oi11
0114
oO1is
O12?
012
O125
Q127
0128
GL2A
O12C
O12F
O1Fi
o13ss
O13
O138
O139
CD2261
R=
SF
ES
DS
0E0S5
CDO500
Di
Ed
CSs0701
15
Ss FAODOG
ZS
we
EEG
FEOA
DAS601
Cé89
FERA
DA2Z2G1
ESOF
c9
won ae
3
BOOT
RDOS
TAIL
Printer initialisation
SENDLST by Max Phillips of Knutsford,
Cheshire is an 8080 program to run on
any CP/M system. It allows the user to
enter a single command line listing a
series of ASCII codes to be sent to the
printer in order to initialise it. It saves
time, paper and temper in comparison
with the usual “brute force’”’ method.
The usual way to initialise a modern
intelligent printer under a more old-
fashioned CP/M is simply to select a
printer echo with Control-P, and type the
appropriate control codes. This solution
is complex and hence prone to error and
FPragram SENDLST source code
Sends characters given in hex
to the printer (LST device?
Max Phillips March °*82
struggling with the 8080,CF/M
EQUATES
Eu
Eau
EQU
QO00H
oOooO5H
BOOT+S6H start
ORG 10060H start
Lx?
LDA
MoV
H, TAIL
TAIL D reg <- no.
MVI E,
CALL NEXTCHR
RLC
RLE
RLC
RLC
Mav EA
CALL NEXTCHR
ORA E
MOV EA
clear E reg
BDGS
Char ‘in E reg thru’
PUSH H :
PUSH D
MY C, OSH ;
CALL BDGS
POP D i
POP H
dgMP LOOP =
subroutine NEXTCHR
sets A reg next valid hex
= nybble
or returns to CF/M if
end of string
EXTCHR: DCR D
dm BOOT
INX H
MOV ALM
XRI 3OH
CPI OAK
JC ISHEX
ADI 89H
CPI GFAH
JC NEXTCHR
ANI GFH
RET
END
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Open file: Disc==
is rather difficult for non-technical users.
Sendlst ends these problems by allow-
ing you to specify in hex up to 64 ASCII
codes to be sent direct to the printer, or
any LST device.
When CP/M’s prompt shows, simply
type Sendlst followed by a space, the
desired hex codes, and Return. For
example, to print single sheets of em-
phasised characters on the Epson MX-
80F/T, use
SENDLST 1B450D1B380D
Although this is still formidable to a
non-technical user, a list of such com-
mands displayed near the computer
in command line
of tail of command line
ef CP/H?s Transient program area
get high nybble
get low nybble
save 8080 registers
C reg=BDOS code to print E reg to LST
restore registers
loop for more characters
get next char of command Line
must be digit
must be invalid hex
makes this solution viable. Q
of chars typed
restart CP/M if done all characters
0-9
ry again
149
Everything but
the kitchen sink.
Serial 1/O Baud
Rate Selection Bootstrap
Selection
32Kb or 8Kb RAM he
|
&
XJ eeeserare
\ =
3
See = ae
a a
Serial Line #1
Clock
Serial Line #2
cewevewe
2 A
SEESDSBLSAEERI
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150
RAM Address
Selection
|
ec
> e r
joy. 3(0 D8 o—pbivss
Memory
Logic
EPROM Configuration
. & Address Selection
Serial 1/O
Address Selection
Bus Interface
ogic
Space for Bootstra
: or EPROM P sa te ndard
. giskelaisis aie
fk
frevece grt
SIRDEADMSL 3n53x03
O) Please send more information on the MXV11
multifunction board and the complete family
of microcomputer products.
CO Please have a Sales Engineer call.
Name
Title
Address
Telephone
My application is -
Send to: Digital Equipment Co. Limited,
Digital Park, P.O. Box 110, Worton Grange,
Imperial Way, Reading, Berkshire. RG20TR.
Talephone (0734) 868711 Ext .3717
We change the way
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@ Circle No. 192
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
6502
SPECIAL
Superboard characters
OCCASIONALLY you need to produce
large characters made from a matrix of
smaller symbols on your video screen,
writes Patrick Brampton of Kingsclere,
Berkshire. Such characters might be
needed in a digital clock program or in a
program to produce large animated titles
for cine-film or video-recorder.
Large characters could be produced by
Poking an area of video memory about
five columns wide by seven lines high
with blanks and filler characters, to pro-
duce the large characters that one wants.
If this is done using Basic the characters
build up slowly on the screen.
;LARGE CHARACTER GENERATOR
;SUBROUTINE ENTRY AT LEOO(HEX)
This character-generator subroutine
for the Superboard is written in assem-
bler to allow the large characters to be
displayed instantaneously. It is written
for a 64-column by 30-line Superboard
but is easily adaptable to any memory-
mapped video system.
Lines 10 to 800 are the subroutine
proper, and the hexadecimal code is
given for these lines. Lines 810 to 1180
are a table to provide the data for the
character generation. You can read the
assembled hexadecimal code direct from
the table if you require it.
Each character is held in five bytes of
data giving a character matrix of five wide
by eight high. The characters themselves
are only seven elements high, while the
eighth is coded blank to provide line
spacing. The subroutine generates a sixth
blank width element to give lateral spac-
ing. The table as listed codes all decimal
digits and the full alphabet. Other charac-
ters are easily added if needed.
Parameters are passed to the sub-
routine by Poking page-zero locations
from Basic beforehand. These parameter
locations are assigned names in lines 30
to 50.
VDA and VDA+1 must be Poked to
hold the low and high byte of the video-
memory address of the top, left-hand
corner of the character. After generating
a character VDA and VDA+1 are
adjusted to locate the next character to
VDA=$14 ;VIDEO DISPLAY ADDRESS
ASCI*®$16;PARK FOR ASCI CODE
SWIT=$17;BLOCK OR CHARACTER SWITCH
CODE=$18;POINTER TO CODE TABLE
TEMP=$1A;COLUMN COUNTER
COUNT=$1B; BIT COUNTER
*=$1E00 ;START ADRESS
A516 BCHAR: LDA ASCI ;PICK UP ASCII CODE
SEC ;SET CARRY
SBC #$30 ;SUBTRACT ASCII ‘0’
Open file: 6502
the right of the one which is just created.
ASCI must be poked with the ASCII
code of the character to be generated. As
the subroutine stands all ASCII codes
except those for 0 to 9 and A to Z
generate a space.
If Swit is Poked with zero the genera-
ted character is made up of solid block
graphics, if Swit is Poked with a non-zero
value the large character is made up froin
the normal-size version of itself. Code,
Temp, and Count are working variables.
Lines 100 to 210 reduce the code in
ASCI to a number in the range 0 to 35,
and lines 220 to 260 multiply this by five
to obtain a pointer into the character-
code table. Lines 270 to 300 add this
offset to the base address of the code
table and store it in Code and Code+1.
Ideally I would have liked to put a
line between 260 and 270 with the
instruction:
ADC # <TAB- <TAB/256>%256>
to add in the low byte of the code table
address, but my assembler will not do the
arithmetic. I have therefore dodged the
problem by starting the code table at a
whole page boundary at 1F00 hex.
Lines 310 to 800 actually generate the
character. The constant in line 500 is the
video line length. If other characters are
to be added to the code table the con-
stants in lines 120, 140, and 170 may
have to be adjusted. 1)
VDA+1;DECREMENT MSB VDA
VDA ;INC LSB OF YDA
+h
VDA+1;CARRY FROM LSB
;STEP ON COLUMN COUNTER
;TEST COLUMNS DONE
35 COLUMNS DONE?
;BRANCH TO L6 IF YES
36 COLUMNS DONE?
31F YES EXIT
sREZERO COUNT
4C301E
LIL ;BRANCH IF NOT DIGIT
#S0A ;TEST IF >°9°
L10 ;BRANCH IF VALID DIGIT
;SET CARRY
#$07 ;TEST IF ALPHABETIC
L10 ;BRANCH IF >=’A’
#$FF ;PUT -1 IN ACC
;CLEAR CARRY
#01; FUDGE OFFSET
TEMP ;SAVE IN TEMP
A ;TLMES 2
A ;TIMES 4
TEMP ;TIMES 5
CODE ;TABLE OFFSET POINTER
#TAB/256 ;MSB TABLE ADDRESS
#00 ;ADD IN CARRY
CODE+1;TABLE MSB POLNTER
#00 ;ZERO BIT COUNTER
TEMP
TEMP ;ZERO Y-REG
COUNT ;ZERO BIT COUNT
(CODE), Y;GET CODE FROM TABLE
#00 ;REZFRO Y-REG
A ;ROTATE CODE
;SAVE ROTATED CODE
tl $11 IF BIT ISiSET
#$20 ;PORE VIDEO WITH BLANK
L8+2 ;ALWAYS BRANCH TO L8+2
SWIT ;TEST SWIT
L8
#SAL ;POKE VDU WITH BLOCK
L8+2 ;1F SWIT#=1
ASCI ;0R ASCI IF SWIT=0
(VDA), Y;POKE VDU HERE
sMOV Y TO AC FOR
;ARITHMETIC
#$40 ;DROP TO NEXT LINE
;RESTORE Y-REG
COUNT; INCREMENT COUNTER
COUNT
#$04 ;FOUR LINES DONE
*+4 ;BRANCH IF NOT
VDA+1;YES-INCREMENT MSB OF VDA
#$08 ;EIGHT LINES DONE
L3 ;BRANCH IF YES
3;NO-RESTORE ROTATED CODE
LG ;AND CONTINUE
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
BYTE
-BYTE
~BYTE
+ BYTE
~ BYTE
«BYTE
~ BYTE
» BYTE
«BYTE
«BYTE
~ BYTE
- BYTE
«BYTE
TAB:.BYTE 0,0,0,0,0
$1€,$22,$41,$22,$1C
$00,$42,$7F, $40, $00
$42,851,$61,$49,$46
$21,$49,$4D,$2B,$11
$18,$14,$12,$7F,$10
$27,$45,$45,$29,$11
$3E ,$49,$49,$49,$32
$01 ,$61,$11,$09,$07
$36 ,$49,$49,S49,$36
$26, $49,$49,$49,S$3E
$76,$12,$11,$12,$76
$7F,$49,$49,$55,$22
$3E,$41,$41,$41,$22
$7F,$41,$41,$22,$1C
$7F,$49,$49,$49,$41
$7F,$09,$09,$09,$01
$3E,$41,$41,$51,$32
$75 ,$08, $08, S$08,$75
$00,$41,$75,$41,$00
$20,$41,$41,$3F,$01
$7F,$08,$14,$22,$41
$7F,$40,$40,$40,$40
$7F,$02,S$0C,$02,$7F
$7F,$02,$1C,$20,$7F
$3E,$41,$41,$41,$3E
$7F,$09,$09,$09, S06
$3E,$41,$51,$61,$3E
$7F,$09,$19,$29,$46
$26 ,$49,$49,$49,$32
$01,$01,S$7F,S01,S01
$3F,$40,$40,$40,$3F
SOF, $30,$40,$30, SOF
$7F,$20,$18 ,$20,$7F
$63,$24,$08,$14,$63
$07 ,$08,$70,$08, $07
$61,$51,$49,$45,$43
» END
;RESTORE Y-REG
;RESTORE ACC
;CONTINUE
;CLEAN UP STACK
;LAST COLUMN IS BLANK
;D0 IT
;CLEAN STACK ON EXIT
;END OF ROUTINE
;CHARACTER CODE TABLE
151
7} PET PRINTER GRAPHICS
cms by COMPUTACE LTD. North star Horizon time
This graph is a typical
example printed by
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Send for Brochure and details of
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TEL: (0224) 876622.
For fastest reply use:-
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PO BOX 50D
NEW MALDEN, SURREY KT3 3BD
@ Circle No. 193
152 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Formatted listings
I HAVE FOUND several problems with the
program listings I get from my printer,
writes Andrew Pritchard of Ashtead,
Surrey, not the least being that of total
illegibility. To produce readable code not
only takes a lot of time but also slows
down the micro and uses up memory. The
TRS-80, unlike many micros, has some
useful space-saving features, e.g., mul-
tiple statement lines and If-Then-Else,
which make the code difficult to read
unless the structure of the code is clear.
For this reason, and because program
lines longer than the printer’s character
width are lost, I developed a procedure to
produce formatted Basic listings.
The program goes through the code in
the Basic text area and prints a listing
with indents for For-Next loops, puts Ifs
and Elses on a new line, separates code
from comments and separates key words
and line numbers from the rest of the
code. The Basic program lists itself
in a formatted form, and can be made to
list out any Level II program by redefin-
ing the Basic text area.
Run the program as follows:
@ Type in the formatted-isting program and
CSave it on tape.
@ Load the program you want listed.
@ Change the “start of Basic” pointer to
equal the “end of Basic” pointer +3. To do
this, stay in command mode and
POKE 16548, PEEK(16633)+3 : POKE
16549, PEEK(16634)
Ensure that Peek(16633) is less than
250 otherwise complications arise with
having to adjust the most significant byte
as well.
@ the end-of-Basic pointer must be adjusted
by
POKE 16633,PEEK(16633)+5
@ CLoad the formatted-listing program. This
can then be Listed, Edited, Saved with no
problems.
@ Run 100 will produce a formatted listing of
the program held in the standard Basic text
area.
@ Run 50 will restore the original start and
end pointers.
The formatting program is listed in
formatted form, together with a test
program which displays the features of
the formatting program. Variables used
(continued on next page)
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Open file:
Formatted listing program.
1G
REM-
50
400
4/10
4et
430
500
'G0G
STOP :
RUN COMMAND REQUIRES PARAMETERS
TF PEEK CIBS49)x256+ PEEK (1G548)=19129 THEN
END
LSE.
POKE IGE39, PEEK (1B54B)-9: POKE I1B634, PEEK (16549).
POKE 1654B,239. POKE 16549,66- PRINT “RETURNED TO ORIGINAL PROGR
AM”. END .
“RUNS” RETURNS MACHINE TO
DEFINT I-Z- DIM NCI@1). GS .
A.PRITCHARD” -
*RUNIGG” TO RUN PROGRAM
FOR I=S9t2 TO 6175
Pus PEEK (1)
IF PU>1@7 THEN N¢(fT)=I -cT=CT+1
NEXT I.
ep
Pi = WIDTH OF PRINTER (# OF CHARACTERS) - 2
NuePUxe/3 .
Nu = NORMAL WIDTH FOR EACH PRINTED LINE
PN=I Tt
PN SET TO START OF BASIC TEXT a
LSB= PEEK cPN).MSB= PEEK (PNt+1).NX=MSRxkESE+LSB.
TF NX=0 THEN END ;
PNEPNt?-LSB= PEEK (PN)-MSB= PEEK (CPNtI)-LS= STR$ (LSBtMSBx2SE)
PN=PNt+)-FI=0. GOSUB 1060
LPRINT RIGHTS (L$, LEN (L$)-I)-
PN=PNt+t-PU= PEEK CPN):
TF PV=0 THEN PN=Nx.TB=TB-FIX9. GOTO ent
TF NL=I THEN
IF PU=135 OR PY=I49 OR PU=129 OR PU=I49 THEN
_ BOSUB 1006
IF PU=135 THEN FX¢FX-1.TBEFCFX) -FF=I
IF PU=I4i THEN c=5. GOSUB !000- LPRINT “REM- *
GOTO 240
een AND PU<@!0) OR (PU>ell AND PU<?15) THEN
pak
PU=149 THEN LPRINT TASC TB-3)”EL.SE”-: GOSUB 1006.
GOTO e4G
IF NL=fM THEN C=TB-NL=I- LPRINT TABCTB): VB=1
IF PUSIG THEN PU=95.
ELSE
TF PV=9| THEN PY=94
IF PU<l@6 THEN V6=G-. LPRINT CHRS (PU), C=Ctl-
GoTo 400-
E1.SE. _
IF UB=fi THEN LPRINT ” ”-‘*C=ft+l1-
WHEN PU GREATER THAN 121 IT IS A KEY WORD
acer CHRS ¢ PEEK (NCPU-!268)) AND 121), &T=1.
c=C+l
c= PEEK (NC(PU-1]2B)+CT)-
IF £¥<1e9 THEN LPRINT CHRS (CY),
GOTO 340
IF UBs¢c OR PU=IBB THEN VB=f-
2: C=Ct+l UB=!
IF @>Pul THEN GOSUB !006
TF PU=109 THEN FCFM)=TB.FX=FX+1 . TR=TBtd:FF=1
IF PV=143 THEN FI-F I+! .TB=TBt3
IF Pv=5B OR PU=e@fe THEN
IF C>Nw OR FF=! THEN GOSUB {606
GoTo 246
LPRINT CHR$ (10); NL=O.FF=0. RETURN
Caltl <CT=CT+ :
Sample listing — before formatting.
(O60 DIMMc4,5,3) :DEFINTA-Z-REMTEST PROGRAM TO DEMONSTRATE A FORMATTED LEVEL. J
110 FORI=!TO4-FORJ=1 TOS :FORK=1TOI=READMCT, J 5K) GNEXTIC-NEXTJ- PRINT” LEVEL.” I” CON
'20 CLS--PRINT OUT VALUE
S ONTO SOREEN uiTGH ARE GREATER THAN 5
130 C=0:FORK=17T04 -PRINT@K*IB-S »*SECTOR*K
140 FORJ=1TOS -FORI=1TOY: SP=CKI B+ TENT DY | 1: wee eee Are |
150 NEXTI.NEXTJ:NEXTK -PRINT@1G4, “NUMBER OF ITEMS BE
(DOG DATA! 52535495563 198 99555195 ,by Tey dy Sly Ty d 5495 Be T9059 945 5565158995954
Sample listing — formatted.
‘oo
REM-
DIM MC4,5545)- DEFINT A
TEST PROGRAT TO DEMONSTRATE A FORMATTED LEVEL II LISTING
ai MCT J 5K):
NEXT K
NEXT J:
PRINT *LEVEI.” I* COMPLETE” -
cl :
oe QUT VALUES ONTO SCREEN WHICH ARE GREATER THAN 5
FOR K=1 TO
PRINT axsig- 5y*SECTOR* Ks
FOR J=1 TO
FOR I=! 70 4:
SP=K x1 B+ JXE4+ DK4+ 1 15-
TF McIyJ,K)>5 THEN PRINT @SP,”...°;
PRINT BSP, STR$ (MCI,J5K));
ELSE
PRINT #SPHIy7x* :G=041
NEXT J:
NEXT K.
PRINT @DY,*NUMBER OF ITEMS BELOW 6 IS*C
Tandy
NORMAL.
PRINT “FORMATTED PROGRAM LISTINGS BY
DATA | s@ 54949556578 59585 TsSsby Taste Seo Td s4sSyl5 Ty2r IY pS ebe T1955
3
Ba ele Aes 5s 655456) 4,1468)71,556,9 9594 Shs Ty ds4 55, hy VW s4,55%97
153
Shopping check.
10 man
:PAUSE "*#****INITIALISING#@#n #01"
?CLEAR:E=5:820
sINPUT “COST OF ITEM? ";C
sINPUT "NUMBER OF ITEMS? ";D
?8=B+C*D
‘PRINT "CURRENT TOTALS")
(continued from previous page)
in the program include:
C — character count
TB — indentation Tab value
PV — the Peeked character value
Fl — number of nested Ifs
FX — number of nested For-Nexts
FF=1 — line feed required after end of state-
ment line
VB=1 — key word just printed
VB=2 — number spaces around this key word
NL=1 — line feed just sent to printer
F(FX) — For-Next Tab positions
The program always expects only one
Next to each For, and cannot cope with
more than 10 levels of nested For-Next
loops.
Shopping check
HAVE YOU EVER been in a supermarket
doing your weekly shopping and won-
dered whether a mistake has been made
at the check-out? Doubtless you are
armed with your calculator, writes C T
Spracklen of Spennymoor, County
Durham, but the problem is that having
just loaded all your goods into the trolley,
ready to wheel them out to the car, if you
do notice a mistake you need to have a
’ recount, and all the items must come out
again.
Owners of the Tandy Pocket Computer
or Sharp PC-1211 can use this program to
move shopping firmly into the 21st cen-
tury. As you move around the store, each
time you place an item in your trolley you
-enter the cost, number of items and item
name into the computer, and the pro-
gram presents you with a running total. If
you notice a mistake at the check-out,
pull out your pocket computer and enter
the Search mode of the program.
As the assistant calls out the values on
the till printout you enter only the cost
into the computer. It then searches its
memory to see if there are any items
present at that price — otherwise it prints
Search Failed and you know you have the
offending item. If you have more than
one item at the same cost, press Return
after an item is located to continue the
search.
Another way of conducting the search
is to use the F — Finished — routine,
which scrolls through all of the items on
the list one by one as you tick them off
the till roll. Owners of the printer can use
this routine to produce a printout of the
items.
Sharp Basic allows lines to be accom-
154
sPAUSE "**SHOPPING**#**MEMOR Y=#"
sE=E+1IF €=55 PRINT "WARNING..ARRAY NEAR FULL"
sA(E+50)=0*100+C:INPUT "ITEM NAME?
B:GOTO "C”
sAsh
Open file: Tandy===
:DsINT(A(A+50)/100):C=A(A+50)-D*100
iF C=0 PRINT "TOTAL BILL=";8:GOTO 70
:GOSUB 130:A=A+1:GOTO 60
sA=6;
PAUSE "HHe#*SEARCH FOR ITEMeeseat
sINPUT "COST OF ITEM? ‘";C
:D=INT(A(A+50)/100):1F D=0 PRINT "SEARCH FAILED":GOTO "Ss"
"SAS(E)
IF C=A(A+50)-D*100 GOSUB 130
sA2A+1:GOTO 100
panied by a label as well as a line number.
They are used here because they enable
direct entry to be made into these
routines from the keyboard. A number of
programmable calculators also have this
facility. The label C is used to enable
continuation of the program; F is used at
the Finish of the program to examine the
items in the memory; and S is used in the
Search mode.
Sharp Basic only allows one-dimen-
sional arrays using the identifier A: so
A(5) is allowed, but B(S5) is not. Unfortu-
nately the variables A(1) to A(26) over-
lap the variables A to Z, as do the string
variables A$(1) to A$(26). Since the
program uses the variables A to E, the
first usable array variable is A(6).
The program stores the item price and
number of items in A(6) to A(55), and
the item name in A$(56) to A$(105). If
the array is nearly full a warning is
printed, otherwise a system error would
soon be generated.
To save space in the listing the price of
each item and the number purchased are
packed into a single variable. The pro-
gram cannot cope with single items cost-
ing over £100.
Picture routine
THIS PROGRAM BY J J C Fenton of Edin-
burgh can be used to draw a picture and
then to put it into Data statements for
later use or incorporation into another
program. In line 110, you are asked
Picture-drawing routine.
1 to 48 DATA .
8 2
PRINT A$(A);" COST=";C;"
NO.=";D:RETURN
whether you want to display a picture
currently in the program, or start a new
one.
In lines 130 to 280, a new picture is
drawn, or an old one added to. The
arrowed keys move the line being drawn
continuously in the required direction,
and diagonals can be drawn by pressing
two of these keys at once. To see how this
works, experiment with the effect on
Peek (14400) of pressing various keys.
The lines are drawn by the Set func-
tion. If 1 is pressed, the line is not drawn, .
but a flashing dot moves across the screen
which can be used either to erase or to
leave a gap. Pressing 1 again returns a
visible line. With practice, you will be
able to use the full graphics capabilities of
the system.
In lines 290 to 330, if Newline/Enter is
pressed, the picture is recorded into the
Data lines 1 to 48 by Poking into the
program itself. Listing the program will
show the interesting result. A count from
1 to 48 at the bottom of the screen shows
progress, and then you can either clear
the screen and re-Print the picture or
return to the start of the program to alter
the picture.
Lines 340 to 380 copy the picture
currently in data on to the screen, then
you can alter the picture if you wish. |
Pressing any key will remove this instruc- |
tion. By deleting all but lines 1 to 48 and
350, the picture can be incorporated into
another program.
Ceach line must have DATA. #6 lowed. by 2a Eilantes sererated
4 conmas?
CLS : DEFINTA-Z :
FRINT@965,
X#=INKEYS :
$=1536@ : x=@
A=PEEK(P)>
F=14450
IF x$="C"
: W=6
GOTO 248.
GOTO 246
GOTO 248
V=¥-1
Ysv+l 5
GOTO 244
yey-1 > GOTO 248
Y=y+1 : GOTO 24a
GUTO 248
GUTO 248
IF K=-1
IF Y=-1 Y=0 ELSEIF Y=45 Y=44
IF INKEY#="1"
IF N=i SETCX,¥> « FOR 2=1T016
SETCX.¥> <= GOTO 140
¥=17134 0: Y=17172
FOR V=1T04S > PRINT@96G,¥V;
FOR Z=XTOYSTEF2
MeX+4d5 of Wetted
PRINT@965, "READY c
X$=INKET$ ° IF X$="A"
CLS : FOR X=87T6959 - READXS
PRINT@965,"READY - A
X$=INKEY# =< IF 8$="A"THENISG
PRINT#36@, STRING#(25, 128);
NEXTV
FOKE 2. FEEKCS>
COPY, A = ALTER";
THEN13@ ELSEIFXS<> “c"
> PRINTB@X, KF
= ALTER";
"C = CURRENT, N = NEN";
THEN 35@ ELSEIF 8#<>"N" THENI28
> H=@ PRINTGSEG, STRINGS( 40, 128);
: IF Al THEN 29@ ELSE A=A/8
ON A GOTG 164.175.140.188, 198, 264, 14@,216.226,238 :
GOTO 268
4=@ ELSEIF K=128 X=127
THENIF N=1 N=@ ELSE N=1
NEXT RESET CX. GOTO 144
S=St+1 : NEXT é
THEN34@
NEXT : RESTORE
ELSEIF X$=""THEN 27
GOTO 378
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
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Research Machines 5.25in RN
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{ss
@ Circle No 104
Word.
processing
that’s
letter
perfect. rarer
£2935. = - TA TRIUMPH ADLER
Like all Adler products, the Alphatronic is built It’s true-not only is the Al
: : 2 = phatronic an
to the highest technical standards. It is supported by impressive word processor but it is also a very
a nationwide dealer network who are on hand just versatile micro-computer.
wae la wie =e It produces the kind of typing that keeps the
So if you want a word processor (with a free fussiest of managing directors happy — thanks to
the success proven daisy wheel printer.
i ter) — Trust Adler.
“— wa el ae i — You can trust the Alphatronic because it’s from
c wee rr 1) Adler. It is the only word processing micro- ae
“a eal | computer that has a pedigree of superbly made << ="
Be ee amir office products catering to every conceivable kind \..
of business requirement. ne,
When used as a microcomputer it can solve your
problems with Accounts, Stock Control, Payroll
and the usual] routine office work.
——_—_—
Please give me more information on |
[ the Adler Alphatronic Microcomputer.
| Name |
Company — Be Bod
Address ———— —
| Telephone
WPI
eee eee
“ANOTHER TRIUMPH FROM ADLER
@ Circle No. 195
y ye TRIUMPH ADLER
Triumph Adler (U.K.) Ltd.,
27 Goswell Road, London EC1M 7AJ.
Telephone: 01-250 1717.
r—————F
156 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
The Home Computer
Handbook
By Frank Herbert and Max
Barnard. Published by Victor
Gollancz, £7.95. ISBN 0 575
03050 X.
FEW COMPUTER BOOKS have
no redeeming’ features at all.
Unfortunately, this text is just
such a rarity. The whole atti-
tude of the authors is that
computing is a simple skill
which the professional prac-
titioners have deliberately
and maliciously kept from the
masses.
This is manifestly untrue.
Programming is not simple,
and most teachers of program-
ming spend long hours trying
to communicate a non-trivial
intellectual discipline which
many intelligent people find
difficult: It is one of the most
persistent and damaging myths
of computing. that program-
ming is easy. Bad program-
ming of trivial applications is
easy. Producing good pro-
grams. fer non-trivial applica-
tions is hard.
Some of the statements the
authors make are misleading
such as ‘‘given the logical
limits it must follow, your
computer’s accuracy app-
-roaches absolute. It will
not make arithmetical errors’’.
Others are simply wrong.
It rapidly becomes apparent
that the authors have a fairly
limited appreciation of what is
happening in computer sci-
ence. In-their enthusiasm to
debunk myths they sell com-
puting short. ;
In terms of the personal
computer itself there are some
curious omissions and inclu-
sions. The 8080: and LSI-11 are
mentioned, but not the Z-80
or 6502. The only operating
system which is specifically re-
ferred to is Unix — not a word:
on CP/M or the UCSD p-sys-
tem. From this and other in-
ternal evidence I would guess
that the material is five or six
years out of date. It shows in
such comments as in the dis-
cussion of storage media, in
which cassettes are described
as “more than adequate” for
“most users’. None of the
advice on the choice of which
computer to buy is sufficient to
help the naive user faced with
the current state of the art.
Much of the latter part of
the book gives an elementary
introduction to Basic and the
authors’ own _ idiosyncratic
flowcharting method. In their
discussion of Basic there is one
comment I particularly treas-
ure: “Goto is the ‘debugger’s
friend’ ”. In reality it is the
good program designer’s
enemy. The authors’ method
of flowcharting is devoid
of any technical merit or
advantage.
Conclusions
@ The text is not accurate.
@ The information is out of
date and incomplete.
@ The parts of the book which
deal with programming are
technically unsound.
@ Under no circumstances
could this book be recom-
mended.
Michael Trott
From Chips to
Systems
Second edition by Rodnay
Zaks. Published by Sybex. 552
pages paperback. ISBN 0
89588 063 6
RODNAY ZAKS believes that
‘microprocessors will ‘‘elimin-
ate a large number of jobs”
and that people will have to be
educated in the workings of
the chip if they are to find
employment”. He attempts to
explain microprocessing so
that it can be understood
by those who have ‘no
preliminary knowledge of
computer or microprocessor
technology”.
Zaks seems aware of the
barriers computer jargon can
present: ‘‘Every effort has
been made to define these
words before they are used”’.
At first he takes this to ex-
tremes — even explaining that
bi-directional means “in both
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
directions’’, but soon he
forgets and launches into a
stream of unexplained micro
speak without even a glossary
to help the uninitiated.
Beginners are likely to be
put off before they even reach
the excellent sections later on
comparing different chips and
showing how systems are
assembled.
Zaks’ first edition had Jittle
competition, and his guided
tour around the internal
architecture of a semiconduct-
ing chip proved very popular.
In the meantime the hands-
breath of micro titles on the
shelf have spread across whole
bookshops.
In the mid-1960s the mod-
ern textbook was invented.
Communications theory ran
riot on paper — wide margins
sans typeface, acres of undis-
tinguished diagrams and an
exercise at the end of each
chapter. At its best it was little
worse than the rote learner it
replaced; at its worst it looked
like Zaks’ new edition of his
introduction to wmicro-
processors.
If the first few chapters were
rewritten and perhaps ex-
panded and the book rede-
signed to make the text easier
to read it could be recom-
mended without reservation.
If you already know some-
thing of how the Z-80 in your
Sharp works Zaks will clarify
the exact processes and also
show how it differs from the
6502 in your mate’s Atom.
Zaks is held in sufficient re-
spect in the industry to be able
to comment honestly on the
virtues and vices of rival pro-
ducts.
Conclusions
@ Not recommended for com-
plete beginners because of poor
presentation, confusing: ex-
planations of elementary con-
cepts and lack of a glossary.
@ If you have an-.elementary
understanding of the internal
workings of a microprocessor,
or are prepared to persevere,
this book should leave you with
a clear idea of how different
chips really operate.
@ It includes a valuable critical
assessment of rival manufac-
turers’ claims for their slices of
silicon. Rodnay Zaks is not
afraid to call a copy a copy, or
a ‘‘feature’’ a bug.
Meirion Jones
Pet Basic: Training
Your Pet Computer
By Zamora, Albrecht and Scar-
vie.. Paperback; £9.70. Hard-
back £13.45. Reston.
YET ANOTHER introduction to
Basic programming, in this
case with special reference to
the Pet. With so many similar
books available it is very dif-
ficult for the authors to pro-
vide anything original. The |
approach is fairly typical of its |
kind, although the emphasis
on techniques for games pro-
grams rather than the numeric
or business +1 type application
which tends to be favoured by
other introductions to pro-
gramming.
The text proceeds at a leis-
urely pace, and the more
experienced programmer will
find it irritatingly slow. For the
complete novice it shoud be
ideal. At the end of each chap-
ter there is a summary of the
ideas introduced, and exer-
cises to test the readers’
understanding of those ideas.
Answers are provided. The
book is informal in style; the
emphasis is very much on
learning by doing,
The coverage of string hand-
ling and graphics is excellent,
and numeric methods are not
ignored. There is a good
coverage of multidimensioned
arrays and their application to
business-type problems. Scat-
tered through the text are
ideas for using the Pet in con-
nection with hobbies and so
on.
The book is generally well
written and accurate except
for the occasional printing
error. Its main failing is that it
provides little or no help on
program design. This is a
common omission in intro-
ductory programming tests,
yet the question “‘How do I
start’’? is asked too often to be
ignored.
Conclusions
@ A competent and readable |
introduction to Pet Basic pro-
gramming especially for the
complete novice whose first
interest is in games.
@ A useful book, but look at
some of the others on the sub-
ject as there is such a variety of
styles and emphasis that there
may well be another book
which suits your purpose bet-
ter.
Martin Wilson {J
157
From today, life
is going tobe very unfair for
other personal computers.
The ICL Personal Computer.
Choosing the wrong personal computer can not
only be problematic, but very costly.
The new ICL Personal Computer is the right one.
It’s a quality, professional personal computer. It can
start with a single Visual Display Unit, naturally. But
unlike other systems, it can grow as your needs grow.
Starting at around £2,900 with one VDU.
The ICL Personal Computer provides a range of
options enabling you to have a system tailored
to meet your changing needs.
By adding a fixed-disc, you can have eight
times the available storage capacity, and support
up to 4 VDUs. And ICL can provide an extensive
range of personal computer hardware and software.
Wide range of Application software available,
providing limitless possibilities.
So your secretary can do her word processing, you
can do your forecasts, and your accountant can do the
invoicing, all at the same time.
That’s what makes the ICL Personal Computer more
than just a personal computer. Needless to say, it’s com-
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And ICUs business applications experience
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What more could you ask for, apart from
a demonstration?
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microcomputers
158 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
@ Circle No. 196
A NAIL-BITING FINISH to the British Finals
of the Euromouse Maze Contest, held at
the Computer Fair, saw Alan Dibley
carry off both first and second prizes.
With a time of 1 minute 13 seconds on its
second run, T3 won Dibley the expenses-
paid week in Israel, to compete at Haifa
in the European Finals at Euromicro ’82
in September. Son of Thezeus achieved a
time of 3 minutes and 21 seconds to win
one of the first Sinclair ZX Spectrum
computers to come off the production
line.
Student winner
First prize in the students’ contest held
on Saturday was won by Anthony Porter.
Although his Maisey Mouse failed to
reach the centre, it was a smart little
mover with a clever escape routine to
wriggle out of tight corners. Its perform-
ance was impressive enough to win Tony
the BBC model B Microcomputer do-
nated by Acorn.
The organisers of the Computer Fair
provided some really impressive facilities
for the contest. The maze was mounted in
an arena which seemed half the size of a
football pitch, surrounded by tiered
stands of seats.
Alan Dibley’s trio of Thezei underwent
enormous software modification. The
first time Son of Thezeus entered the
maze, it embarked on a successful but
lengthy quest for the centre, but on its
second run it merely turned its face to the
corer and sulked. A “eureka” and a
software mod later, its subsequent run
improved greatly on its first.
Saturday saw the judging of the
schools’ and students’ heat. Four mice
took part; Maisey, Major Tom, Quester
and Mousalium. Quester featured a
bounding progression, making reflex
reactions to the walls. Mousalium’s per-
formance was even less impressive. At
the first bend, Richard Blue leapt for-
ward to lift the mouse over the wall,
admitting that the mouse was quite incap-
able of turning a corner.
A more purposeful mouse entirely was
Major Tom. With photoelectric sensors
mounted on stalks, and looking like an
angry black spider crab it set off into the
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
maze, but trouble with the photocell
adjustment marred the performance of a
very likely-looking rodent which should
do well in the future. Major Tom won its
makers a ZX-81 presented by IT 82.
Quester was awarded £25-worth of
books from McGraw-Hill, while Mousa-
lium, although incomplete, won its
makers a book of their choice from the
Computer Bookshop on the strength of
an ingenious wheel mechanism.
Tony Porter’s Maisey explored the
maze steadily for 15 minutes, sometimes
lurching a little drunkenly but always in
full control of itself. Its maze-solving
powers unfortunately failed to match its
control capabilities, but it was adjudged
the clear winner of the BBC Micro-
computer.
Nerves were at full stretch for the
British Final on Sunday. The prospect of
the arrival of Thumper had already
scared off several of the more timid mice,
including one past champion, and the
field was reduced to seven. By midday
Thumper had arrived, gliding slickly
through the maze to put up times of 2
minutes 31 seconds, 1 minute 5 seconds
and finally one minute dead.
Brainy Bricks
The judges were Professor Morley
Sage of Southampton University, Chair-
man of the Control and Computing Divi-
sion of the IEE; Lionel Thompson of
HSDE, secretary-general of Euromicro;
and Chris Hipwell, publishing director of
Practical Computing.
The first to run was Phil Yeardley’s
Brainy Bricks. After a couple of minutes
of restarts and adjustments Phil invoked
the “three minute rule’”’, withdrawing to
tun again after some running repairs.
Marvin set off up the straight, but at
the first corner emitted a strange clicking
and graunching sound. The motor threw
off a drive chain and Marvin was laid to
rest.
A revitalised Brainy Bricks now re-
turned to the maze, its running time now
limited to 10 minutes. After two more
restarts it found its feet: “It knows where
it is now”, said Phil, and so it did. Witha
time of 4 minutes 53 seconds, and with
Winner
of the _
contest
John Billingsley reports on the
winners of the British finals of
the Euromouse Maze Contest.
just two minutes left on the master clock,
Brainy Bricks reached the centre to
thunderous applause.
Maisy Mouse then repeated its per-
formance of the previous day. Lurching
determinedly along, its mechanical sen-
sors guided it to every corner of the maze
except the centre.
Thezeus had put up a qualifying time of
9 minutes and 7 seconds. It now set off to
plod wearily around the maze, leaving no
corner unexplored. After eliminating all
improbable locations it seemed resigned
to accept that the target must be some-
where near the centre.
The champion
Son of Thezeus set off briskly, and
within 3 minutes 21 seconds had reached |
the centre. Dibley carried it proudly back |
to the start, predicting, “It will take a
little longer on its second run, but for its
third run it will take the shortest path”’.
He pressed the start button and Son of
Thezeus turned its face to the corner and
sulked. In the heat of battle Dibley had
‘forgotten to load in the software modi-
fication.
Now it was the turn of the great Thum-
per to run. Gliding smoothly from square
| to square, Thumper proved that its un- |
welcome habit of colliding with the maze
walls had been all but cured. The maze
had been modified for the contest and the
path was not an easy one to find, but after
nearly six minutes of running Thumper
was within 10 squares of its goal.
Then it stopped. Prodding its buttons
produced no result. Everyone was
speechless while Thumper burbled on
happily throughout the anxious four
“minutes which followed. At last David
Woodfield switched Thumper off and on
again, and the mouse set off as though |
nothing had happened. With a six-minute
run before it and with only five minutes
remaining on the master clock, Thum-
per’s hopes were doomed.
Alan Dibley now reappeared with T3,
alias YetanotherThezeus, which took the
form of a bewhiskered rodent sitting atop
a curiously mis-shapen cardboard Spit-
fire. T3 reached the centre in 1 minute 44
seconds and then, after a little more
exploration, achieved a time of 1 minute
13 seconds, establishing it as the cham-
pion of the afternoon. 0
159
Micromouse™™™"™
Puzzle====
| | Solution to May puzzle
re e Cross | TO RESTORE the one-arm bandit to profit,
the barmaid at the Knotty Ash Cyber-
nauts Social Club changed one symbol on
Cl the centre reel: the symbol is the eighth,
ues by Tony Roberts which was a plum, and is now a lemon.
Across
1. Mean of 5D and 9U.
3. See 5A.
| 4. See 5A.
| 5. Sum of all the other numbers
less the three digit numbers, plus
SIX.
. Cube of 9U.
6
Up
5. See 5A.
6. Ten less than double the sum of _ |
5D, 6A, 2D, 3A plus 3A.
7. See 5A.
8. See 5A.
9. See 6A.
Down
1. See SA.
2
3
4
oe
. Square of SD.
. See SA. |
. The product of the fourth root of
5D and the square of 9U.
See 2D. é j |
from M.O.M. (Systems)
For Business People Who Use English
User Friendly Business English commands like ENTER, LIST, DISPLAY, SORT, COMPUTE etc.
Advanced Uses relational commands like:- COMBINE, PROJECT, & JOIN to connect two or
more datasets
Screen Formats Create your own screen formats rapidly
Processing Calculations of totals, subtotals on many keys.
Sorting and selection on one or more keys
Compatible For use on any Z80 based Micro operating under CPM 2.2 eg: SUPERBRAIN,
CROMEMCO, NORTH STAR, TRS etc. or A.C.T. SIRIUS (INTEL 8088)
Flexible For use by Doctors, Dentists, QS, Estate Agents, Lawyers, Librarians, Engineers,
etc, etc. Requires no special programming knowledge to implement systems
CONDOR is a product of Condor Computer Systems Inc. It is now available in the U.K. after extensive testing
by MOM. :
For prices and consultancy call or write to the main U.K. Distributor:- of
M.O.M. Systems Ltd. Granite Chips Ltd.
40/41 Windmill Street, Gravesend, 21 Bon Accord Street, Aberdeen AB1’2EA
Kent DA12 1BA (0474) 57746 (0224) 22863
(Dealer enquiries also welcome)
+
@ Circle No. 197
160 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
to Powerfy} Minj SyStems and
U to develop a real big System
year Maintenance
nce Provides the
Micro j
abled their
cro iNdustry.
Ol0gy since 1966
ing
» Many entry,
Oro ixteen ] a
€eds ang tevenage h
€d in the Uniteg Kinga,
Sharp MZ-80K, 48K
£399. inc vat
DISKS & PRINTER NOW AVAILABLE
26 BELVOIR STREET
Tel: 553232
LEICESTER
@ Circle No. 200
“ZX GRAPHICS
PROGRAMMING MADE EASY"
Full Colour A4 Manual, 24 pages packed with ZX
Graphics Programming techniques ; and ideas for games
and ‘serious’ Programs. Written in ays to understand’
language and illustrated at 2
every stage .
Ideas include:
Information Graphics
Sketch Pads.
Saving your ‘Art’.
Making serious
Programs interesting.
Graphics Stringing.
2X Printer Graphics
{INCLUDING UK. POSTAGE}
Print'n' Plotter Products €PC)'
19 Borough High Street,
London SE1 9SE.
© Circle No. 201
HISOFT PASCAL 4
Incredible Speed, Incredible Price!
Hisoft announces a new, disk-based Pascal com-
piler which is available for Z80 CP M systems.*
The compiler produces Z80 object code directly, no
P-codes, and this code executes faster than that
produced by any other currently available micro-
computer Pascal compiler.
2 the major features of the Pascal language are
upported including RECORDs, POINTERs and
FILES (of CHAR).
Hisoft's policy is to continuously extend the capa-
bilities of its software and further versions of the
compiler will be supplied to purchasers of the
Current version at a minimal cost. Extensions to
FILE handling will be available soon.
Hisoft Pascal 4 is a powerful and reliable piece of
software and yet it requires only a 32K system in
which to run and costs:
an incredible £40!
*Currently available for SUPERBRAIN, RML380Z,
NASCOMs & GEMINI.
Hisoft also have available:
Hisoft Pascal 3 tape-based pascal compiler for NAS-
COM & SHARP MZ80K 35
ZDEV a 280 Development System for GEMINI
(G805 or G809) disk system £45
NASMON a 4K NASCOM monitor £25
NASGEN assembler under NASMON £15
a, disassembler under NASMON £10
12K BASIC interpreter under
NASM
All prices are fully inclusive.
Full details from:
HISOFT
60 Hallam Moor, Liden,
Swindon, SN3 6LS:
Tel. 0793 26616 ansaphone.
@ Circle No. 202
162
These useful subroutines provide a dump for all current variables
and arrays. P H Richards explains how they work by showing
how Basic stores variables in memory.
Understanding
Pet subroutines
VARIABLES MAY BE integer, string or
floating-point. Additionally, arrays may
be defined for any variable type. In-
formation on simple variables. is held in
| an area of memory starting at the address ©
pointed to by the contents of memory
locations 2A hex for the low byte, and 2B
hex for the high byte. To convert to a
decimal address from decimal pointers
you should multiply the decimal value of
the high byte by 256 then add the deci-
mal value of the low byte.
For new-ROM Basic 2.0 the informa-
tion on the variable is held in a seven-byte
list in the storage area. The first and
second bytes contain the name of the
variable coded to also represent the type.
The variable is assumed to have two
characters in its name, with the second
assumed ASCII 0 if not present. The
variable A is stored as having the name
65 00 where 65 is the ASCII for “A”’.
The coding consists of adding 128
decimal to the ASCII value of either or
both of the name bytes according to the
type. In the case of an integer variable
then 128 is added to the value of both
bytes so that the name of the integer
variable A% is stored as 193 128 deci-
mal. Floating-point variables are not
adjusted so that the variable A name is
stored as 65 00. String variables have the
second byte only adjusted so that the
name of the variable A$ is stored as 65
128.
Integer variables have their current
| value stored in the third and fourth bytes
Figure 1.
Low byte
28
2A
2c
2E
30
34
Figure 2.
byte 1
name
name name
name name
Figure 3a.
byte 1
name
Figure 3b.
byte 1
High byte
29
2B
2D
2F
31
35
byte 2
name
byte 4
low
low
byte 3
low L.
byte 3
193 161 0
byte 8 byte 10
0 0 5
byte 5
0
normalised binary
high 0 0
byte 4
of the header with the fifth, sixth and
seventh bytes set to zero. This is why the
maximum value limit on integers — since
the high byte is signed — is 32,767. The
byte in byte 3 of the list is the high byte of
the value, byte 4 contains the low-byte
value. The high byte is signed to indicate
whether the integer is positive, or if the
value is greater than 127, negative.
Decimal printout
Floating-point variables are stored
directly in the remaining five bytes of the
header as a signed, normalised binary. In
the variable listing program a machine-
code subroutine is used to access the
section of the Basic interpreter which
converts this to a decimal printout.
String variables are not stored with the
name. The third byte of the list gives the
current length of the string and the
fourth, or low byte, and fifth, or high
byte, give the location of the string in
memory. Strings are stored at the top of
memory. While the contents of the
seven-byte block may vary, the length of
the block is always seven bytes, making
stepping from one block to the next a
simple matter.
The block description of a defined
array is not this simple. The contents of
2C hex (low byte) and 2D hex (high
byte) point to the start of the array defini-
tions. The first two bytes of an array
block in the list are exactly the same as
for the simple variable. The third (low)
and fourth (high) bytes contain the value
Area
Start of Basic program
Start of simple variables
Start of array variables
Start of free memory
End of string space
Top of available memory
byte 6 byte 7
0 0
mantissa
type
integer
floating
string
byte 4
high 1.
byte 5
vectors
byte 5 byte 6 byte 7
3 0 3
byte 11
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
63500 REMRENFNT Ci
HHEURSHEREREURR RHEE
GETAS As=""
DEF FNAK)=FEEK(X) #256+PEEK (X-1)
DEFFNB(X)=PEEK(X)#256+PEEK (X41
3E=FNACSS) : S¥=G: FORI=1624T0ES
TRETUREW FOKESTOP ## #1 ##HHHH HH
IFPEEK (1) =142ANDPEEK( +1) =S2ANDPEEK ¢1+2)=69ANDFEEK( 1+2) =77THENSY=I 44 : 1=S%
T
5 FNAC4
> GOSUBES
L=Yre
> YH'SFHAC SS)
31
GNA C1-< ADS) DGOSUE6S94 1.63943, 69945
Laver
Fv CsVy'-2 1 THENSSIES
3 PRINT"DO YOU WANT ARRAY VARIABLES
GETAF: IFAS" "ANDASCS"H"THENGS9 14
TFAg="N" THENEND
V=FHACS5)
'SENAC47) | IFVD='?YTHENEND
3 ENSFNACY+3)
SOSUESSI31
B LaV+7+(PEEK(Y44 #2) -2
1 J=PEEKCs+4) /K=1
a2 OR se"
FORM=1TOJ K=K#(FNBCV444+M#2-1)> NEXT: PRINTK : FORJ=1T0K : IF J=1 THENG3924
23 L=L+A
ONA~< 1-CADS) )GOSUBE3941.63943,63945
NEXT - PRINT © PRINT
5 VSV+HR
IFVCYYTHENED918
END
FEM
REM
REM PRINT NAME AWD FIND TYPE
a]
A=G: IFPEEKC¥)>123THENA=2: REM INTEGER
| IFPEEKCV+1 ¥>:
IFA=@THENA=S :
28ANDA=OTHENA=3 ‘REM
EM FLOATING POINT
STRING
S PRINTCHRS<NOT12SANDPEEK (‘> DCHRS (NOT 1 28RNDFEEK CV +19),
IF <NOT L26ANDPEEK< ¥+1 >> =0THENFRINT"
IFA=2THENFRINT"*%
IFA=STHEHPRIHT"S
IFA=STHENFRINT”
@ REM
RETURN
"3 RETURN
‘RETURN
ue
4
REM PRINT INTEGER ASSUME L IS POSN OF LOW BYTE
PRINTFNPCL) > RETURN
REM PRINT STRING ASSUME THAT L IS
AT “LENGTH’ BYTE
PRINTCHRS(¢34) 5 *FORM=QTOPEEK(L)-1:PRINTCHRS(FEEKCFNACL+22+M) 3 NEXT © FRINT(
HRS 6349 :RETURH
63945 REM PRINT FLOATING POINT ASSUMING
L IS AT FIRST CEXPNTL) BYTE
63946 POKEZ, INT(L7256) :FOKE1, (L-INT¢(L/256 #256) : SYSCSY) :FRINT : RETURN
53947 ENT -
Figure 4. Variable dump routine.
to be added to reach the next block. The
fifth byte gives the number of vectors in
the array. For example, if an array is
dimensioned A(5,5) then the value in the
fifth byte is two. If A(5,5,5) then the
value in the fifth byte is 3.
A series of two-byte blocks next detail
the size of each vector in “‘reverse”’ order.
For example, the array dimensioned as
A(5,4,3) would have three blocks con-
taining, in order, three, four and five as
OONAMFAoONM—
24 etc: etc.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
their values, stored as high and low.
Finally there is a series of blocks con-
cerned with the value of each item of the
array. For an integer variable the block
will be two bytes, and for a floating point
five bytes. In both cases the blocks con-
tain actual array values. String blocks
consist of three bytes. The first contains
the length, and the second two are point-
ers to the string value.
The order of the blocks is that of the
dimensions as arrayed. Where A(a,b,c)
has been dimensioned, the first descriptor
block will be for A(0,0,0), the second for
A(1,0,0), the third for A(2,0,0) and so on
up to the value of (a). After the element
A(a,0,0) follows A(0,1,0) then A(1,1,0),
A(2,1,0) and so on up to A(a,1,0). Then
follows A(0,2,0), etc. up to the value of
(b). The entire cycle is repeated for (c).
Storage areas
Figure 1 shows the pointers to the
various storage areas in Basic. Figure 2
shows diagramatically the storage of sim-
ple variables and Figure 3 attempts to
shed light on the storage of array vari-
ables.
The pointer in bytes 3 and 4
give the total length of the array descrip-
tor. If the array under discussion has N
vectors, then byte 5 will contain N.
Next will come a series of N two-byte
blocks — high and low — containing
(continued on next page)
CASSETTE 3
8 programs for 16K ZX81
STARSHIP ‘TROJAN’
Repair your starship before disaster strikes.
Hazards include asphyxiation, radiation,
escaped biological specimens and plunging
into a Supernova.
STARTREK
With variable Klingon mobility.
PRINCESS OF KRAAL
An adventure game.
BATTLE, KALABRIASZ, CUBE
SECRET MESSAGES, MARTIAN CRICKET
(Martian cricket is a fast m/c game}
CASSETTE 4
7 games for 16K
ZX-SCRAMBLE (m/c) with 3 stages.
GUNFIGHT (m/c) INVADERS (m/c)
GALAXY INVADERS (m/c) SNAKEBITE (m/c)
LIFE (m/c) 3D TIC-TAC-TOE
6 of the 7 games are in machine code for
extra speed.
These cassettes cost £5 each.
Please write for Cassette 1 & 2 details.
On quality cassettes, by first class post from
Michael Orwin, 26 Brownlow Rd.,
Willesden, London NWI10 9QL
@ Circle No. 203
THE POWER BANK
Plug your micro computer video unit and Printer
into the POWER BANK and forget about a disabling
break in the electricity supply. This unit will con-
tinue to run your system in the event of a mains
failure ... WITH NO INTERUPTION TO YOUR WORK!
Batteries
included
Vital when running business systems. This unit will
of course suppress MAINS SPIKES and SURGES.
Sine Wave Output
120 V.A. and 250 V.A. (output) units available.
POWER TESTING (SALES) LTD
137A HIGH STREET, BRENTWOOD, ESSEX.
Tel: Brentwood 220617
Telex: 24224 586
@ Circle No. 204
Cy
N
Q Go, &
* BIG EARS *% < s
FOR ANY
complete with microphone, software and full instructions.
Vic 20, Micron, BBC Micro ZXB81, PET, TRS80, MZ80K, APPLE I
+16 LINE CONTROL PORT Sry
Piay 3-part music, sound effects,
control and monitor facility for Home Security, Robot Controty
Full Instructions/sottware included.
AMAZING VALUE AT ONLY £1 9.50 {KIT)
RGB In, PAUUHF out BUILT £18
Please add VAT at 15% to all prices.
=f Herongate, Brentwood,
SPEECH 4
, &
COMPUTER ae
BUILT TESTED & GUARANTEED
sO
drums etc, Full control of attack, decay
Model Railway, etc, etc. Works wilh or without 16K RAM
Extra Connector at £2.50 £25.50 (BUILT)
UK101/NASCOM COLOUR GRAPHICS Kit £45
Barclay/Access orders accepted by telephone
Essex CM13 3SD
INPUT
Hugely successful Speech Recognition System,
PLEASE STATE COMPUTER. UK101, SURERBOARD. NASCOM2, .
MUSIC SYNTHESISER
and frequency. Inpu/Outpul lines provide [Roe
Add keyboard to make a live performance polyphonic synthesiser!
COLOUR MODULATOR Kit £12
Inc. Modulator, Still the best selting system! BuiLt £60
VALLIAM Dower House, Billericay Road
SYSTEMS Ltd ‘Telephone: Brentwood (0277) 810244
@ Circle No. 205
163
and VIDEO GE
Ci
Into one
of these
Announcing ACCEL3 — the practical
BASIC compiler for home, education,
or business.
Are you troubled by gradual graphics,
languid loops, tedious table searches, or
capricious keyboard response? ACCEL3
is the cure. Highty compatible with
interpreted BASIC — correct programs
compile without modification.
£49.95
On Tape or Disk mi
GT isoreware| [77
PO Box 39, Eastleigh, Hants, SO5
APPLE Il
PASCAL UTILITIES
Fully documented professional Pascal systems
utilities, as used by our own staff in developing
software for a growing list of clients.
GM1 — SCREEN I/O ROUTINES £65
GM2 — ISAM FILE HANDLING £170
GM3 — PEEK POKE EMULATION £45
GM4 — SCREEN MAINTENANCE £120
GM5 — HEXADECIMAL PRINT £35
Send for full details to:
G. M. SYSTEMS LTD,
MICROCOMPUTER DIVISION, CAMBRIDGE
HOUSE, 121/123 DAVIDGOR ROAD, HOVE, EAST
SUSSEX.
@ Circle No. 207
MONOPOLY
TANDY V, GENIE
%& Computer challenges you at Moncpoly as a player.
%& For up to 6 players (including computer).
% Unique system featured whereby computer detects the
skill of best player than adjusts its skill automatically to
match that player.
% Computers game at highest ievel is ‘strong’.
% Every game different, close, exciting and challenging.
% Game data can be saved on tape to continue game at
another time.
® Easy fool-proof entry ideal, even for children to use.
% 2 versions of Monopoly included. ‘Standard’ — as to
tulas. ‘Popular’ — slight variation to rules.
%& Many, many hours of fun for all the family.
On tape for the VIDEO GENIE and TRS-80. Model
1 & 3. Level 2. 16k. £9.95 inclusiv
1 BELL LANE
COMPUTICS 7B&tL Lan
MItGCROS OF T OXFORD OXS 1xY
@ Circle No. 208
164
@ Circle No. 206
x i
fl i Me
i.
i. fs. Es
re
eee Re We
Hy
a
ne
BG
oe,
Lap bet iG ee La
a
3
Figure 5. Print floating-point number.
(continued from previous page)
values for the maximum dimensions of
each vector in reverse order, i.e., bytes 6
and 7 hold the dimension of vector N;
bytes 8 and-9 hold N-1, etc. At the end of
these comes a series of blocks whose
length will vary according to the variable
type. Their function is the same as the
appropriate bytes in the simple variable |
since the bytes hold either the value or
pointer.
The array has three vectors — byte 5
— with the dimensions of each vector 3,3
and 5. Thereafter will follow a series of
two-byte blocks carrying the current
value of one vector/dimension stored as
shown in Figure 3c. If you complete the
sequence you should obtain 5x3x3, or
45 blocks.
The main routine in Basic is shown in
Figure 4 and the first line contains a
machine-code routine. The line number-
ing is for convenient appending. You
must initialise all the variables used prior
to entering the subroutine, by incorporat-
ing lines such as those numbered to 10 in
the listing.
Lines 63902 and 63903 set up two
functions to enable decimal addresses to
be calculated from low/high and high/low
pointers. In the absence of the “find
code” subroutine, lines 63904 to 63906
locate the start of the machine-code
routine. 63907 sets V to the start of
simple variable storage and YY to the
end — start of arrays. The call to sub-
routine at 63908 determines variable
name and type by looking at the first two
bytes of the block.
The variable name is then printed to
screen, and flag A set according to file
type. Pointer L is set in line 63909 to the
start of the variable description. The sub-
routine at 63941 prints the value of an
integer variable while that at 63943
prints a string and the graphic represen-
tation of all cursor movements. The
sub-routine at 63945 sets the zero-page
locations 1 and 2 to point at the floating-
point number which is then printed by
Programming ==
cen
rm
ma
ups
nt “i
mobs!
bh ay
“it
Bad ta el
fa
att tad is tt
feu Phe fhe ted fhe fia fh
Ela “iets!
4 4 Oat
41 +
a oo
vars
Tit: i:
i; vf
ben” Samee, bee
wk: Ki
call to the machine-code routine,
On return from the appropriate ‘Sub-
routine, the pointer V is set to the next
variable; simple variable blocks are all
seven bytes long. The pointer is checked
and if it has been stepped into the vari-
able storage area in line 63912 the pro-
cess is repeated for the next variable. The
subroutine then determines whether an
array dump is required, and terminates if
not.
V is set to the start of array in line
63916 and YY to the end in line 63917,
which also checks that there are arrays
present. XX is set to the descriptor sec-
tion of the block in line 63918 and the
subroutine called in 63919 which prints
the array name.
Line 63920 sets L as the length of this
descriptor block, so L now points to the
first array value block. Line 63921 sets J
to the number of dimensions, or vectors. |
Line 63922 steps along the header block
setting K to the maximum number of
elements in each vector and then prints
the total number of elements in the array.
The For-Next loop from 63922 to 63925
prints out the current value of each vari-
able in the array.
The machine-code routine shown in’
Figure 5 has been entered into a Rem
line. Its purpose is to load the
accumulator with the low byte, and Y
register with the high byte, of the address
of the floating-point number. Then two
subroutines are called from the Basic
interpreter: the first of them at $DAAE
downloads the number to the floating-
point accumulator, and the second at
$DCE3 prints it to the screen.
The subroutine can be halted with no
ill effects to the operating system by the
Stop key, but if the machine-code routine
is in operation the Stop command will be
executed on completion of the current
printout. The dump can be diverted to
printer with a Cmd instruction. Make
sure that you really want the array dump
before calling it. Even a small array such
as A$(4,2,2) has 45 lines of printout. |
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
BUYERS
The Buyers’ Guide to microcomputers is a
summary of low-cost computers available in the
U.K. It appears every third month; we add new
computers and amend existing information, as
by manufacturer. Agents are invited to contact
Practical Computing with updates and additions.
Microcomputers
ACORN COMPUTERS
‘Systems 1, 2, 3, 4, 5:6502-based. 1-32K RAM COS or DOS. Hex or
full keyboard. Personal, scientific business or educational use.
Disc module, CMOS RAM Card, 80-by-25 character VDU interface,
8K static memory, analogue interface, daisywheel printer inter-
face, cassette interface, VDU, laboratory interface, in-circuit emu-
lator, universal interface, PROM program, Econet interface,
switched-mode PSU. Software includes, Pascal, Lisp, Forth, float-
ing-point extension, ONLI extension. System 1-3 Reviewed Sep-
tember 1979.
“Atom:6502, 2-12K RAM, up to 40K external memory, full keyboard,
Basic in ROM, high-resolution graphics, cassette and TV interface,
parallel port, I/O lines. Should eventually be able to link intoa ring.
Acorn Computers Ltd., 4a Market Hill, Cambridge CB2 3NJ (0223)
312772. Reviewed November 1980.
BBC Micro: 6502A or Z-80, 2MHz, second-processor option with
up to 96K RAM, 32K in normal operation, full keyboard, cassette
and disc interfaces, Centronics type interface, A-D interface,
integral loudspeaker and sound generator. Options include: clock,
voice synthesiser, Econet, teletext adapter and a 16-bit processor.
VDU; eight modes including text and colour. Reviewed January
1982.
From £65 for
System | kit;
£285 for
System 2 kit;
£670 for
System 3 kit
From £130
£299 and £399
ACT SIRIUS
ACT Sirius: 8088 16-bit CPU, 126K to I|Mbyte RAM. llin. swivel
screen displaying 25 by 80 characters or 800-by-400 point high-re-
solution graphics, programmable type founts. QWERTY keyboard
plus numeric keypad and function keys; al] keys programmable.
Sound synthesis. Integral dual 5.25in. floppies, 1.2Mbyte, 10Mbyte
hard-disc option. Operating system is CP/M 86 or MDOS — IBM
compatible micro operating system. Basic and Assembler supplied.
Pascal, Fortran, Cobol, etc. available. Business and general use. Re-
viewed March 1982. ACT Microsoft Ltd, Radclyffe House, 66 Hagley
Road, Birmingham. (021) 454 8585.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
£2,395 for 128K
RAM, dual-
floppy based |
system with
VDU
'32K PET with our board. It is of U.K. Design and
supercharge your
SUPERBRAIN
* Speed up disk operations by 400%
* Cut copying time by up to 75%
* Copy screens to memory or printer
* Chain COM files from BASIC
* Get BDOS errors under your control
* Write unbreakable security routines
* Autoboot any program
* Customise your favourite Word-processor
SeeDee Software tune-up kits start
at £30.00
Full details from:
COMPUTER
FACILITY
0734 867855
32 Redlands Road,
READING,
Berks.
@ Circle No. 209
LOW PRICE — HIGH QUALITY
SOFTWARE FOR COMMODORE PET |
PURCHASE AND SALES CONTROL £50 + VAT
Runs purchase and sales ledgers with VAT typed in oF
calculated from either the gross or the net amount.
Purchase and sales analysis by accounting period with
totals for net, gross, VAT and 99 analysis codes. Due for
payment report.
INVOICE PRINT £50 + VAT
Prints invoices on your own stationery, laid out according to
your own instructions which you key in on the first run. This
programme is an optional add-on to be used in conjunction
with purchase and sales control. ;
STOCK CONTROL £40 + VAT
Keeps detailed stock record including stock location, recor-
der level, quantity on order, cost and selling prices and
stock valuation.
NOMINAL LEDGER £40 + VAT
Produces trial balance and up to 20 reports in addition to
profit and loss and balance sheet from up to 1000 nominal
accounts, This programme i$ intended for use on its own,
but it can read files set up by our purchase and sales control
and stock control programmes.
ELECTRONIC AIDS
(Tewkesbury)
Mythe Crest, The Mythe, Tewkesbury,
Glos. GL20 6EB
Phene: (0386) 831020 or (0684) 294003
@ Circle No. 210
PINEWOOD COMPUTERS
ANNOUNCE
THE LAUNCH OF THE 64K
EXPANSION BOARD FOR 8032 PETs
Yes. We couldn't wait for the others so we have
launched our own 64K Memory Expansion board to
upgrade the 8032 PET to a full 96K. Silicon Office
and other 96K programmes are now possible on a
manufacture and comes complete with full fitting
instructions.
Our Price £350
Other new PET enhancements include:
EPSON/PET INTERFACE CARD RRP £90
For all MX printers. Our board gives 40 column
PET’s uppercase and graphics and 80 column PET’s
both upper and lowercase without the need of
switches or any software routine.
RICOH RP1600 INTERFACE CARD RRP £115
Our board gives 40 column PET’s uppercase and 80
column PET’s both upper and lowercase without
any restrictions.
Add £10 delivery plus VAT to above prices.
To place your order send your remittance for the
required amount to: :
PINEWOOD COMPUTERS
Mail Order Dept.,
1? Adelphi Crescent,
Hayes Park, Hayes, Middx.
or telephone 01-841 1507
DEALER ENQUIRIES WELCOME
@ Circle No. 211
165
* *7X80/7X81 SOFTWARE « x
2X Adventure Tape 1 £5.00
Greedy Gulch, Pharaohs Tomb,
Magic Mountain — 16K RAM
required.
The Nowotnik Puzzle
& Other Diversions
Three original programs to puz-
zle and infuriate! Includes a fast
interactive demoliton game.
16K RAM.
£5.00
2X81 Pocket Book £5.95
136pp of programs, articles,
useful subroutines, plus create
your own Adventures!
Atom Business £6.95
Twelve programs for the ex-
panded Acorn Atom — sales
graph, nominal tedger plus
much more.
2X81 Pocket Book Cassette £5.00
Atom Business Cassette £8.62
Mail order: PHIPPS ASSOCIATES
Mail Order Dept.
99 East Street
Epsom, Surrey KT17 1EA
Phone Access/Barclaycard orders
Epsom (03727) 21215
@ Circle No. 212
VIC 20 GAMES TAPE
Six super games for only £3 (incl. P&P).
Each game features graphics, colour
and sound. :
Four in a row, mean maze, pontoon,
bustabrick, higher or lower and fruit
machine. All run on standard machine.
Hours of fun.
Send now to
M. Gardiner,
103 Holmes Chapel Road,
Congleton, Cheshire
@ Circle No. 213
AASP SYSTEMS LTD.
TOTAL COMPUTER
SERVICES
TO BUSINESS
EPROM programming and copying
CP/M SOFTWARE
Multiple key file encryption £95 + VAT
Superbrain fast disk copy £75 + VAT
£75 + VAT
*%&* Plus much more **
P.O. BOX 17
BURTON ON TRENT
STAFFS
@ Circle No. 214
Superbrain disk test
166
ADLER
Alphatronic: 8085A, 64K RAM. 24-by-80 character screen, full
QWERTY keyboard with numeric keypad and function keys. Integ-
ral, single or dual 5.25in. floppy drives, 160K or 320K. CP/M, BASIC.
Reviewed February 1982. Adler Business Systems Ltd, 27 Goswell
Road, London EC]. (01) 250 1717.
From £1,600 for
single-floppy
£2,345 for dual
floppies, VDU
and printer
ADVANCED MICRO TECHNOLOGY LTD
AMT100/200: Z-80A, 64-256K RAM, 8K ROM, S-100 bus. QWERTY
keyboard with numeric keypad and function keys, 15in. screen.
R§-232 and parallel interfaces. Dual 8in. floppy drives in 1Mbyte or
2Mbyte options. CP/M or MicroCobol operating system. Basic,
Cobol, etc. Business use.
AMT 700: Multi user version of AMT 100/200 based around hard
disc unit — 16Mbyte fixed, 16Mbyte removable, CP/M, MP/M or
MicroCobol. Barcellos Ltd, Sandbach House, 8 Salisbury Road,
Leicester (0533) 541574.
ALAN PEARMAN LTD
From £3,600
to £4,000
From £9,000.
Maple: Z-80A, 16-64K RAM, S-100 bus, CP/M, 8in. discs, RS232
serial and parallel. Sold mainly as Micro-APL system. Alan Pear-
man Ltd., Maple House, Mortlake Crescent, Chester CH3 5UR.
(0244) 46024.
ALMARC
From £2,450
Almare: Z-80, 64 512K, S-100 bus. RS-232 and parallel interfaces,
any terminal. Dual floppy drives, 3Mbyte to 21Mbyte hard disc
options CP/M, MP/M IIL Business use Almarc Data Systems, Great
Freeman Street, Nottingham. (0602) 52657.
From £2,300
_ ALPHA MICRO
AM-1010, AM-1051: WD-16, 64K-16MB RAM, S-100, four 8in. up
to 90MB hard discs, RS232 up to 20 ports. Alpha Micro, 13 Bruns-
wick Place, London N1 6ED. (01) 250 1616.
From £7,500
ALTOS
ACS-8000 series: Z-80, 64K RAM dual 8in. disc, single user. Z-80,
208K RAM, single floppy disc, 10-40 Mbyte hard disc, magnetic
cartridge tape back-up, CP/M or MP/M. Business and scientific
use.
ACS-8600 series: 8086 based, with 8089 DMA, 128K to 1Mbyté
RAM, 10-80Mbyte hard disc, magnetic tape back-up, up to eight
users, Xenix or MP/M-86. Business and educational use. Logitek Ltd,
Logitek House, Bradley Lane, Standish, Lancashire WN6 OXQ.
(0257) 426694.
APPLE COMPUTER
From £2,300
and £6,800
From £8,950
Apple II Plus: 6502, 16-48K RAM, 8K ROM, colour graphics, 54in.
discs, general use. Own bus Basic, Pilot, Logo, Lisp, Forth, Pascal
and most other languages available. CP/M available with add-on
board with X-80 on it. Reviewed October 1979.
Apple III: 6502A with supporting chips, giving it a superset of 6502
instruction set. 96-128K RAM, colour graphics, integral 5%in.,
RS232, four 50-pin expansion slots. Apple Computer (U.K.) Ltd.,
Finway House, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire HP2 7PS. (0442)
48151.
From £695
From £2,496
with monitor
and one floppy
drive.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
EE Buyers’ Guide
ARCHIVES COMPUTERS
Archive II and III: Z-80, 64K, 2K ROM, S-100 bus. Integral 25-by-80
character screen capable of 240-by-100 point graphics. Detachable
QWERTY. keyboard with programmable function keys. RS-232, cur-
rent loop and parallel interfaces. Dual 5.25in. floppy drives,
1.6Mbyte; Archive III has 5Mbyte hard disc. CP/M, Basic, etc. Busi-
ness use. Salmon Electronics Ltd, PO Box 26, Croft, Darlington,
County Durham. (0325) 721368.
£3,000 for
Model II
£4,000 for hard-
disc Model III
ATTACHE
Attache: 2-80, 64K RAM, S-100 bus. RS-232 and parallel interfaces,
any terminal. Dual 8in. floppy drives, 1.8Mbyte. CP/M, Basic etc.
Colt Computer Systems Ltd. Fairfield Works, Fairfield Road, Houns-
low, Middlesex. (01) 577 2686.
From £1,737
Floppy-based
system, termi-
nal and printer
about £7,000
ATARI
Atari 400: 6502, 16K RAM, 10K ROM. Additionally uses 8K ROM
cartridges for Atari-supplied software, mostly games or educational.
Uses domestic TV for 24-by-40 character display with 320-by-192
point 16 colour high-resolution graphics. Touch-sensitive keyboard
with full QWERTY layout. Four channel sound synthesis, cassette
interface. Cassette audio track can be output through TV under
program control. Home use.
Atari 800: 6502, 16-48K RAM. Expandable version of 400 intended
for more serious user. Full QWERTY keyboard with moving keys,
four function keys, 5.25in. floppy discs, 88K per drive, 176K dual unit.
Basic, Pilot, Assembler available. Home, education and general use.
Atari International UK Incorp., PO Box 59, Alperton Lane, Wembley,
Middlesex, HAO 1FJ. (01) 998 8844.
From £300
From £600 for
16K RAM
About £1,400
for twin-floppy
based systems
BLEASDALE COMPUTER SYSTEMS
UDS: 8080, Z-80, 6809, 32K-IMB, Multibus, CP/M, 5%in., 8in.,
hard, RS232, four parallel ports, IEEE 488, development system.
Bleasdale Computer Systems, Francis House, Francis Street, Lon-
don SW1. (01) 828 6661.
P.OA.
BONSAI
SM-3000: Z-80, 64K RAM. RS-232, parallel and GPIB. 12in. 80-by-24
screen, QWERTY keyboard with numeric keypad. Dual 5.25in. flop-
pies, 750K. CP/M, Basic etc. Business use. Bonsai Ltd, 112-116 New
Oxford Street, London WC1A 1HJ. (01) 580 0902.
From £2,750
CANON
Canon BX-1: 6800, 64K RAM, 5.25in. integral floppy drive, RS-232,
V-24 interfaces. Business use.
Canon CX-1: 6809, 124K RAM, 4K ROM, 12in. 80-by-24 character
integral green screen with graphics capability, full QWERTY
keyboard with numeric keypad, three RS-232 interfaces standard.
Integral dual 5.25in. floppy drive, 620K; optional 2Mbyte 8in. flop-
pies. Canon OS, Basic, 6809 assembler, Cis Cobol available. Busi-
ness use,
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
From £1,250
From £2,850
MICROWARE
(London Ltd)
COMPLETE DISC DRIVE
SUB SYSTEMS
For Tandy; Video Genie;
Nascom
AND ALL POPULAR MICROS
FROM ONLY £1 75
Includes PSU and attractive desk top cabinet
@ Fully guaranteed CDC disc drives
@ Cast aluminium chassis
@ 5 mili sec track to track
@ 250k; 500k or 1MB
® Industry compatible
Microware
(London Ltd)
637 Holloway Road,
London N19
Tel: 01-272 6237
01-272 6398
@ Circle No. 215
ASSEMBLY ,_ PET
LANGUAGE ~ VIC
PET from 8K: VIC 20 from 3.5K
Both books cover WHOLE 6502
Instruction set, AND CONTAIN
FULL 6502 ASSEMBLER
PRICES: 2/3/4000 PET & VIC BOOK £10
ALL PET & VIC: book + ASSEMBLER —
ON TAPE £15: ON OISK £17.
VIC BOOK :
CONTAINS M/C LANG MONITOR
SAE details from: DR P HOLMES (P)
21 Colin Drive
LONDON NW9 6ES
@ Circle No. 216
DISKMAIL
Mail Order Media
BASF 5" MIN! DISKS price PER TEN PACK
Excluding VAT
BASF/1 SS/SD £16.70
BASF/1D SS/DD £20.80
State Machine.
BASF/2D DS/DD £24.85
VERBATIM 5” MINI DISKS
MD525 SS/40T £17.85
MDS550 SS/77T £23.85
MD577 DS/40T £25.85
MD557 DS/77T £33.85
10 & 16 Hard sector at same price
Please incluce UK p&p at 95p per
pack, then add 15% VAT to total
Diskmail, Freepost, Windsor, Berks.
SL4 6BR Tel: (075 35) 59252
@ Circle No. 217
167
MACHINE CODE SUBROUTINES
A simple to follow program tape and booklet.
Brings MACHINE CODE — RAPID ACTION to
your programs. An invaluable programming
aid £8.00
MACHINE CODE SCRIBBLER
A simple to follow program tape and booklet.
An absolute must for anyone interested in
understanding MACHINE CODE — INVALU-
ABLE. £8.0
4 SUPER MEW,
for.
FOR ANY +PET. CAN ENGLAND
KEEP THE ASHES??
* FULL GRAPHICS **** SUPER
VALUE
. Select your own BOWLERS, BATS-
MAN etc
ONLY £5.00
LIVEN UP YOUR
GAMES WITH
SUPER SOUNDS
Asimple plug on sound generator
for your PET. Complete with DE-
MONSTRATION TAPE.
£12.00
Asimple.
ONLY
ONLY £10,00
NB All* prices include p&p and VAT. Please
allow 28 days for delivery.
CURLEW COMPUTER PRODUCTS
W. KR. MILLARD, HOLLYLAND COTTAGE.
SHUSTOKE. COLESHILL. BIRMINGHAM B46 2RQ.
@ Circle No. 218
MAILSAFE
DISKETTE MAILERS
LOW PRICE
HIGH QUALITY
Protect your valuable Software & Data
lf you mail floppy disks
Make sure they arrive safe
in a MAILSAFE
168
Available in
x” and 8” sizes
For free sample & details
BASIC BUSINESS SUPPLIES
50 Edinburgh Drive, Ickenham,
Uxbridge, Middx. UB10 8QY.
Tel: Ruislip (08956) 76012
@ Circle No. 219
Canon TX-10/TX-15: 6809, 16K RAM, 8K ROM, optional 16K non-
volatile CMOS memory or 16K PROM. Integral 20-character strip
display, no graphics. TX-15 has full QWERTY keyboard. TX-10 is
numerically orientated, with numeric keypad and 30 program-de-
finable keys. Optional two RS-232 interfaces, no discs, integral 26-
column printer. Not user-programmable, the Basic or assembler
programs reside in ROM or PROM. Intended for turnkey applica-
tlons in business or scientific field. Canon (UK) Ltd, Waddon House,
Stafford Road, Croydon Surrey CR9 4DD. (01) 680 7700.
From £1,250
COLUMBIA DATA PRODUCTS
1500/1800 range: Z-80A, 64-256K RAM, 2K ROM, S-100 bus. Sepa-
rate terminal. RS-232 and parallel interfaces. 5.25in. floppy drives,
8in. and hard-disc options, CP/M, MP/M. Basic, Pascal, Cobol, PL/],
ete. Business use.
DC 1000: Multi-user system. Each user has own Z-80A and 64K RAM
under control of master Z-80A. One to 16 users, separate terminals,
RS-232 and parallel interfaces. CP/Net. CP/M, MP/M, Basic, etc.
Icarus Computer Systems Ltd, 27 Greenwood Place, London NW5
INN. (01) 485 5574.
COMART
From £2,200 for
floppy-based
single-user
system
£5,700 with
hard disc
£7,500 single
user, hard disc
Communicator range: Z-80A, 64K RAM, S-100 bus, scientific,
educational, research and business use. CP100/200; twin 5.25in.
drives, CP-500; single 5.25in. and mini-Winchester hard disc
giving 4.8byte CP/M, MP/M-I. Reviewed June 1981.
From £1,995
COMMODORE BUSINESS MACHINES
Pet: 6502, 8-32K RAM, IEEE ports, integral 9in. screen, personal
and general use. Reviewed August 1979.
8000 Series — SuperPet: Upgrade of original Pet. 12in. screen,
54%in. discs, business and general use. Reviewed October 1980.
Vic 20: 6502, 5K RAM, 16K ROM, keyboard, personal and game
use, IEEE interface, uses special cassette £35, disc and printer
| soon, RS-232, Modem use, low resolution colour graphics. Reviewed
January 1982. Commodore Business Machines, 818 Leigh Road,
Slough Industrial Estate, Slough, Berkshire. (75) 74111
COMPSHOP
UK101: 6502, 4-8K RAM, TV interface, RS232, full keyboard,
single-board, personal use, similar to Ohio Superboard. Comp-
shop, 14 Station Road, New Barnet, Hertfordshire EN5 1QW. (01)
441.2922. Reviewed May 1980.
COMPUCOLOR
From £460
From £895
From £165
From £199 for
kit
Compucolor II: Z-80, 8-32K RAM, 54in. integral discs, 13in.
colour VDU, RS232. General use. Dyad Developments, The Priory,
Great Milton, Oxfordshire OX9 7PB. (08446) 729. Reviewed June
1979.
Copernicolor II: 8080A, 8-32K RAM, 54in., 8in. and Winchesters
available, VDU, RS232 bus, standard ASCII keyboard with optional
keyboards available, graphics 128 by 128, Basic, assembler, For-
tran. Based on Compucolor I, wide range of software. General
use. Copernicus Ltd., 7 Wey Hill, Haslemere, Surrey. (0428) 52888.
From £998
From £1,200
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
—
COMPUCORP
Computext 655-685: Z-80A, 64-256K RAM, 2K ROM, S-100 bus. IBM-
style QWERTY keyboard, 80-by-24 character screen or other
screen options, RS-232, parallel and SCC interfaces. Dual 5.25in.
floppy drives, 300K or 1.2Mbyte. Computext 685 has 5Mbyte hard
disc. Compucorp Zebra generating system or CP/M. Basic, assem-
bler. Fortran. Word-processing orientated business use. Compu-
corp Ltd, Barnet House, 120 High Street, Edgware, Middlesex
HA8 7EL. (01) 952 7860.
Buyers’ Guide==
COMPUTER CENTRE
Minikit: Z-80, 16K RAM, serial and parallel, 54%in., CP/M, S-100.
Maxikit: Z-80, 16K RAM, serial and parallel, 8in., CP/M, S-100.
Computer Centre, 9 De la Beche Street, Swansea SA1 3EX.
CROMEMCO
Single Card Computer: Z-80, S-100, 1K RAM, 20mA/RS232. OEM
and industrial use.
Z2: Z-80, 31A power supply, motherboard, 21 sockets, serious
hobbyist and OEM use. Reviewed February 1979.
‘Z2-H: Z-80A, 64-512K RAM, S-100 bus, CDOS, IOMB formatted
fixed disc, two 5%in. discs, hard discs up to 7OMB.
System 1: Z-80A, 64K RAM, S-100 bus, model CS-1; 790K storage,
model CS-1H; 5.5Mbyte storage, CDOS and Cromix.
System 2: Z-80A, 64-512K RAM, S-100 21 slots, CP/M, VDU, two
54%in. discs, hard discs up to 70MB. Multi-channel interface avail-
able. General/business use.
System 3: Z-80A, 64-512K RAM, S-100, CP/M, two or four 8in.
discs, hard discs up to 7OMB, general/business use. Datron
Microcentre, 2 Abbeydale Road, Sheffield S7 1FD. (0742) 585490.
Microcentre, 30 Dundas Street, Edinburgh EH3 6IN (031) 556 7354.
Comart, P.O.-Box 2, St. Neots, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire PE19
4NY. (0480) 215005.
|
£5, 050-£5,986 MICRO SERVICING
for floppy- AND REPAIRS
based systems -APPLE- PET -VIC-BBC-ITT-
: and other makes
£8, 740 with Micro Malfunction? Send or drop your micro
hard disc’ in to us. We'll repair it in our workshops
and return it. Our staff are fully qualified
and we are Main Dealers and Software
Specialists for most leading makes.
ALSO FULL MICRO SERVICE CONTRACTS
IN LONDON AND EAST ANGLIA
MICROSTORE MICRO MANAGEMENT
327 King’s Rd. LONDON 32 Princes St. IPSWICH
SW3. Tel: 01.352 9291 Suffolk. Tel: 0473 57871
From £800
From £911 @ Circle No. 220
From £273 Bought & Sold
From £573 Contact the UK Specialist in
Second user systems.
From £5,373 London Micro Systems
10 Victoria Crescent, London SW19
P.O.A. TEL: 01-947 5465.
ae .@ Circle No. 221
From £2,095: to.
£6,408 for
seven users
From £3,568 to
£8,304 for
seven users
TOO BUSY TO READ?
* Use that Traffic Jam to.
* Absorb indispensable INFORMATION that YOU
CHOOSE with original and entertaining 45 min.
MIKROTAPES
* Latest subject HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR MICRO
COMPUTER invaluable to Businessmen and En-
thusiasts.
* Get the facts while you drive or wait or relax at
home!
Please send HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR MICRO-
COMPUTER only £7.69 + 60p P&P.
DANSK DATA ELEKTONIK APS
| enclose cheque/PO for £
NAME n. ;
SPC/1: Multi-user system, one to eight users. 8085A CPU, 80-416K
RAM, each user having 48K. Optional ROM up to 96K. Separate
VDU, 256-by-256 point black/white graphics, 80-by-32 colour
graphics characters. RS-232, parallel, IEEE-488, GPIB and other in-
terface options, 280K — 1.2Mbyte 5.25in. floppy-disc configurations,
8in. and hard-disc options up to 26Mbyte. Mikados operating sys-
tem, Comal, structured Basic, Pascal, assembler. Scientific, indust-
rial and business use. Digital Data Electronics Ltd, Clark House,
Pump Lane, Hayes, Middlesex. (01) 573 8854.
ADDRESS ...
From £2,700 for
single-user
system
R. J. C. Dept., PC/M, Micro House, 22 The Garstons,
Bristol BS20 90QU.
@ Circle No. 222
ATOM
UTILITY ROM £19.95
The Willow Software 4K Utility ROM simply plugs
DATA APPLICATIONS INTERNATIONAL
into the spare utility socket in your Atom and provides
18 powerful new commands and facilities including: full
renumber, range delete, find, sophisticated auto line
DAI Personal Computer: 8080, 48K RAM, 24K ROM. Uses standard
TV, 16-colour 256-by-336 high-resolution graphics mode, QWERTY
keyboard, RS-232 and dual cassette interfaces, DIN socket for sound
output to domestic stereo, DCE bus for connection to range of over
20 Eurocard industrial interface modules. Optional dual 5.25in.
floppy drive, optional CP/M, Basic, 8080 assembler, Cis Cobol
available. High-speed hardware maths option. Home use, but also
industnal scientific. Reviewed February 1981. Data Applications
(UK) Ltd, 16B Dyer Street, Cirencester, Gloucestershire GL7 2PF.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
numbering, program compression. disassembler, true
keyboard scanning, memory dump. variable dump
register dump, keyboard sounder and much mroe. The
Utilities are professionally written and fully tested. All
standard Atom facilities are unaffected, and no text-
space memory is used.
Send chequelPO for £19.95 for delivery by return of
post, or write for further details.
WILLOW SOFTWARE
PO BOX 6, CREDITON, DEVON
EX17 IDL
From £595
@ Circle No. 223
169
BUDGET COMPUTER SALES
in
WEST YORKSHIRE
TRS80 Model III £
with built 4n drives 1384.00
Twin TEAC drives 390.00
Single TEAC drives 236.00
Teac Scripta KSR £798
Epson MX100 550.00
Diskettes from 1.55
12 Month Warranty
Prices. Exclude VAT
AMBASSADOR
BUSINESS COMPUTERS
For Sales, Servita, Help
ASHLEY LANE WORKS, SHIPLEY,
BD17 7SL. Tel: (0274) 595941
@ Circle No. 224
DATA PROFILE LID
ACCOUNTING SYSTEMS
INSTALLED AND SUPPORTED
SUPERBRAIN TELEVIDEO
FOR ESTATE AGENTS: MATCH-AND-MAIL
PHONE R, LABI F.C.A., ON 01-572 6381
APEX HOUSE, LAWRENCE ROAD,
HOUNSLOW, MIDDX.
@ Circle No. 225
AGENTS
WANTED
In most areas to demonstrate and sell our
microprocessor controller for industrial
Process contro! on a commission only
basis,
For further information write, giving indications of
the area you would wish to cover to:
MANITRON DIVISION, Ficention Ltd.,
Bolt St., Sandbach, Cheshire CW11.
9AR. Telephone: Sandbach (09367)
4171.
@ Circle No. 226
170
DELTA. PRODUCTS
DPS Range: Z-80A, 64-640K RAM, 2K ROM, S-100 bus. Separate
terminal. RS-232 and RS-422 interfaces. Dual 5.25in. floppy drives
1.5Mbyte 8in. and hard disc options up to 160Mbyte. CP/M, MP/M,
CP/Net. Basic, Pascal, Cobol, PL/1, etc. Can be expanded to 10
users with CP/Net. Business use. Terodec Ltd, Unit 58, Suttons Park
Avenue, Earley, Reading, Berkshire RG6 1AZ. (0734) 664343.
DIGITAL DATA ELECTRONICS
-$PC/1: 8085, 32-48K RAM, own OS, COMAL, Assembler and
Pascal, graphics, up to three 5%in. drives, up to four 8in. drives,
10MB Winchester, up to four 20MB cartridge, many ports. DDE,
Clark House, Pump Lane, Hayes, Middlesex. (01) 573 8891.
DIGITAL EQUIPMENT CORPORATION
VT-18X: Z-80, 64K RAM, 8K ROM, RS-232 interface, dual 5.25in.
floppy drives 360K. CP/M, Basic, etc, available. Intended for use
with best-selling DEC VT-100 terminal — 80 by 24 characters, full
QWERTY keyboard, various graphics options — to convert it into a
personal computer. Business and scientific use. Zygal Dynamics plc,
Zygal House, Telford Road, Bicester, Oxfordshire OX6 OXB. (08692)
3361.
DIGITAL MICROSYSTEMS
From £1,995 for
floppy-based
single-user
system
From £1,995
From £1,800 for
VT-18X alone.
About £3,000
with VT-100 in-
cluded
DSC-3: Z-80, 64K RAM, CP/M, 8in. discs, hard discs up to 28MB,
RS232/V24, business and general use. Two or more of these
machines can be linked using HiNet local area network.
‘DSC-4; Z-80, 128-512K RAM, CP/M, 8in. discs, hard discs up to
28MB, RS232, RS422, business and general use.
Modata, 30 St. Johns Road, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TIN4 9NT. (0892)
41555. Extel, 73/5 Scrutton Street, London EC2A 4TA. (01) 739 2041.
| DURANGO
From £3,445
From £3,995
F85: 8085, 64K RAM, own bus and OS, graphics, four RS232 ports,
integral 9in. VDU, 9 x 9 printer, keyboard and two 5%in. disc
drives. General use. Comp Ancillaries, 64 High Street, Egham,
Surrey. (07843) 6455.
From £7,500
DYNABYTE
Dynabyte 5000: Z-80, 32-64K RAM, S-100, CP/M, MP/M, CP/Net,
' RS232, 5% or 8in. discs, hard discs up to 96MB, expands to
multitask/user system. Business use. Microtech Ltd., Waterloo
‘Road, Uxbridge, Middlesex UB8 2YW. (0895) 58111.
From £1,600 to
£12,000
EACA
Video Genie EG3003: Z-80, 16-48K RAM, S-100, CP/M, Sin.
discs, RS232, personal and general use. Lowe Electronics, Bentley
Bridge, Chesterfield Road, Matlock, Derbyshire DE4 SLE. —
4995. Reviewed February 1980.
' From £369
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Buyers’ Guide==
EQUINOX
200: Z-80, 64-512 RAM, S-100 bus, CP/M, Omnix, MicroCobol,
MVT FAMOS, cartridge disc, six serial and one parallel port,
business use.
' 300: WD-16, 64-256K RAM, S-100 bus, CP/M, Omnix, MicroCobol,
MVT FAMOS, cartridge disc drive, six serial ports, business use.
Equinox, 16 Anning Street, New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3HB. (01)
729 4460/01) 739 2387.
/EUROCALC
From £7,500
From £10,500
Euroc:8080, 64K RAM, 8in. discs, 15in. VDU, CP/M, business use.
Eurocalc, 55/86 High Holborn, London WC1. (01) 405 3113.
EXIDY
From £8,000
Sorcerer: Z-80, 48-55K RAM, S-100, RS232, CP/M, 5\in. discs,
MBasic, CBasic, Pascal, Algol, Fortran, Cobol, plug-in ROM pack
programs, Separate VDU. Liveport, The Ivory Works, St. Ives,
| Cornwall TR26 2HF. (0736) 798157. Reviewed May 1979.
From £749
HAYWOOD
Systems 1000-8000: Z-80, 32-65K RAM, 6000 is S-100, 3000 single-
board, CP/M, graphics, 5%in. discs, three serial and parallel ports.
Business, scientific and general use. Haywood Electronics Assoc.,
Electron House, Leeway Close, Hatch End, Pinner, Middlesex HAS
4SE. (01) 428 0111.
HEWART
From £2,359
6800Mk II: 6800 single-board, 1K monitor, 1K user RAM, 1K VDU
RAM, 128byte scratchpad, education and home user. S-50 bus.
| 6800S: 6800, 16K monitor, 8K Basic in ROM, graphics, 5%in. drive.
Hewart, 95 Blakelow Road, Macclesfield, Cheshire. (0625) 22030.
From £155
From £229
HEWLETT-PACKARD
85A: 16-32K RAM, 32K ROM, IEEE 488, RS232, graphics, 5%in.
drives, integral 32 by 16 VDU, integral thermal printer, QWERTY
and numeric keypad. Scientific use.
From £1,917
HP-83: Similar to HP-85 but without integral printer or tape cassette From £1,486.
drive. Reviewed April 1982.
HP-87A: HP custom CPU, 32K-544K RAM, 48K ROM, 4,320-charac-
ter screen graphics, full QWERTY keyboard. RS-232, HP-IL,
parallel eight- and 16-bit interfaces and GPIB. 5.25in. dual floppy,
540K: optional SMbyte Winchester with floppy backup. Some HP
calculators can be connected through: the HP-1L interface. HP
operating system, CP/M optional. Basic, assembler, etc. Scientific,
engineering and business use.
HP-125: Two Z-80s, 64K RAM plus separate 10K display RAM, 32K
ROM. 80-by-24 character integral screen, detachable QWERTY
keyboard. RS-232 and GPIB interfaces. Integral thermal printer.
§.25in. dual floppies, optional 8in. floppies and hard disc. CP/M.
Basic and other CP/M languages available. Professional and busi-
ness use, Hewlett-Packard, King Street Lane, Winnersh, Woking-
ham, Berkshire (0734) 784774.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
From £1,783
£3,357 for dual-
floppy system
£3,418 with
dual 5.29in.
floppies.
D
TANGERINE
QUANTITY
OISCOUNTS
5." drives 8” drives
All single board computer housing problems are
over. All your existing and future expansions wil!
find a neat home for life. The case will house two 54
drives. Enquire for 8” drives. For fuller details and
photo enclose S,A.E. Case size 24’ deep 21" wide
81’ high at the rear. 27 WYCOMBE RD
WELCOME
MAIL ORDER SILENT — LONDON NI
een COMPUTERS _ 11-801 3014
hour
ARRANGEMENT if ANSAPHONE
@ Circle No. 227
MASTER MATHS
The LCL Master Maths package contains every
Program you will ever need to get you, your pupils
or your son or daughter through O-Level Maths or
equivalent for 13-16 year-olds. It consists of:
@50 long programs using High-Res. Colour
Graphics and sound crammed onto 6 discs
@ It is written by a qualified, professional program-
mer in consultation with schools and colleges
@ It includes a quality manual and only costs £90
{including VAT)
tt runs on the Apple. Suites of Maths programs for
all ages are also sold separately to run on the ZX81
and Apple from £5. Send for free catalogue to:
G. Ludinski B.Sc{Hons) AMBCS.
LCL, 26 Avondale Ave.,
Staines, Middx.
Tel: (0784) 58771
@ Circle No. 228
MAIL ORDER BOOKS
All you need to know about
“hee ATARI BBC PET VIC TRS
Many titles available. Send sae for
current printout of stock. Postage
returned with first order.
Computer Books, 28 Coailpit Hill,
Talke, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs ST7
1PN.
@ Circle No. 229
APPLE Ill, 25% OFF
128K System complete with integ-
ral disk drive, additional external
disk drive. Silentype printer, Oper-
ating Software, Business Basic
and Visicalc {l!. Warranted.
List £3,377. Our cash price £2,532.
Johnson Microcomputers,
75/79 Park St, Camberley, Surrey.
Phone (0276) 20446.
@ Circle No. 230
171
5 DAY MICROCOMPUTER
PROGRAMMING COURSES
START EVERY MONDAY
INCLUSIVE COST £170
Part-time courses
seven days a week
MICROTEACH
160 Edmund Street,
Birmingham
Tel: 021-236 4322
@ Circle No. 231
VECTOR GRAPHIC
780 SYSTEM
32 Mg Hard disk with floppy
facility. Running time less
than 150 hours. Pristine con-
dition.
£6000 o.n.o.
Phone 0793 482047.
@ Circle No. 232
a j é
@ ACORN
Atom & BBC
Your local Fruit and Nut
NORTHERN COMPUTERS
Churchfield Rd, Frodsham,
Warrington WA6 6RD.
0928 35110
@ Circle:No. 233
CF8s1
CASSETTE FILTER
FOR SINCLAIR ZX81
Having trouble loading programs?
DON'T fiddle endlessly with the volume
DON'T modify your recorder or ZX81.
DON'T buy a new recorder.
JUST piug in the NEW CF81 and
LOAD your programs RELIABLY.
ONLY £9.99 inci VAT, P&P
G M HARRIS
28 Ridgway Rd, Farnham, Surrey.
@ Circle No. 234
HYTEC MICROSYSTEMS
H-4500 range: Z-80A, 80K RAM. Integral 80-by-24 character screen,
detachable QWERTY keyboard with numeric keypad. Integral
dual-floppy drives, 1Mbyte or 2Mbyte, or optional 5Mbyte or
12Mbyte hard disc replacing one of the floppies. CP/M, Basic, etc.
Use as stand-alone microcomputer or to emulate terminal con-
nected to large computer. Aimed at users of ICL or Honeywell
mainframes. Hytec Microsystems Ltd, 9 West Way, Oxford OX2 OJB.
(0865) 726644.
H-5000: Hytec's multi-user system, using hard disc and network
controller to link several H-4500s or H-4000s, disc-less variant.
INDUSTRIAL MICROSYSTEMS
£3,750 for
IlMbyte floppy-
based system
£5,950 with
5Mbyte hard
disc
£3,500 for hard
disc and
controller only
Series 5000: Z-80, 16-56K RAM, CP/M, S-100, two or three 54%in.
discs, two serial and one parallel port, desk unit, business and
general use.
Series 8000: Z-80, 64-256K RAM, S-100, CP/M, MicroCobol, MVT
FAMOS, Omnix, two, three or four 8in. disc drives, two serial and
one parallel port, desk unit, business and general use. Equinox, 16
Anning Street, New Inn Yard, London EC2A 3HB. (01) 739 2387/(01)
729 4460.
From £1,500
From £2,500
INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MACHINES
IBM Personal Computer: 8088 16-bit CPU, 64-256K RAM, 4K or 16K
video RAM, 40K ROM. Uses IBM monitor or domestic T'V to display
25 by 80 characters, 640-by-200 monochrome high-resolution
graphics or 320-by-200 colour graphics. Detachable QWERTY
keyboard with 10 function keys and numeric keypad. RS-232 and
parallel interfaces, five expansion slots. Integral dual 5.25in. floppy
discs, 160K each, 5Mbyte up to 120Mbyte hard-disc options. CP/M
86 or IBM's MDOS, Basic and other languages. KGB Micros, 14
Windsor Road, Slough, Berkshire. (0753) 38581. Microcomputerland,
172 Tottenham Court Road, London W1. (01) 637 407).
INTERTEC
Superbrain: Z-80A, 64K RAM, second Z-80A to handle I/O. Two
RS-232 interfaces fitted, IEEE-488 and S-100 connector are options.
Integral 80-by-24 screen, optional high-resolution graphics, integral
QWERTY keyboard with numeric keypad. Built-in dual 5.25in. flop-
pies in 320K to 1.5Mbyte options; 10Mbyte to 96Mbyte hard-disc
options. CP/M. Basic, APL, Cobol, Fortran, etc. Business, profes-
sional.and educational use. Reviewed April 1980.
Compustar: Multi-user system consisting of network of Superbrain-
like terminals linked in daisy-chain fashion to a hard disc and con-
troller. Each terminal has Z-80 and 64K RAM and can run CP/M.
Four types of terminal, VPU 15, 20, 30 and 40, give a wide range of
options.
Encotel, Succombs Hill, Upper Warlington, Surrey. (01) 820 5701.
Icarus Computer Systems Ltd, 27 Greenwood Place, London
NW5 INN. (01) 485 5574.
KGB Micros Ltd, 14 Windsor Road, Slough, Berkshire. (0753) 38581.
Sun, 138 Chalmers Way, North Feltham Trading Estate, North Felth-
am, Middlesex. (01) 751 66985.
From £2,800
From £1,495 for
320K floppy
based system
From £4,500 for
two terminals
Plus 10Mbyte
hard disc
£1,200 for each
additional
terminal
ITHACA INTERSYSTEMS
Pascal Micro DPSI:Z-80, 64K-1MB RAM, full IEEE S-.100 bus, CP/
M version 2.2, graphics, 8in. and hard discs, RS232, four parallel
and two serial ports per S-100 board. Ithaca Intersystems, 58
Crouch Hall Road, London N8 8HG. (01) 341 2447.
From £4,258
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
See
Buyers’ Guide==
JAROGATE
Z-80 + 64K RAM under control of further Z-80 or master board. S-100
bus, RS-232 interface, maximum 16; parallel interface, maximum
eight; tape streamer, Any terminal. Integral 8in. floppy drive
IMbyte, up to 80Mbyte hard disc. MP/M, CP/M or DBOS, with ISAM
support. Business or Scientific use. Rostronics, 115-117 Wandsworth
High street, London SW18 4HY. (01) 874 1171.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
MP 5: Multi-user system. Each user has own Z-80B + 64K RAMand = From £1,995
also own S 100 bus for add-on boards, under control of further Z80B Typical three-
on master board. One RS 232 and IEEE standard for each user. Any user system
terminal, add-on graphics boards. Integral dual 5.25in. floppies, with hard disc
780K, optional 12Mbyte hard disc. MP/M, CP/NOS, CP/M, Basic, £7,465
Fortran, Pascal, Cobol, C, etc. available. Business, word processing,
or scientific use. Jarogate Ltd, 197-213 Lyham Road, London SW2
5PY. 01-671 6321.
KEMITRON ELECTRONICS
K-3000: Z-80A, 64-256K RAM, own bus. Two RS-232 interfaces fitted, £3,300 for
IEEE-488, parallel, D-A, A-D and wide range of specialised inter- 2Mbyte floppy-
face boards available as options. Any terminal. Intergral dual 8in. based system
floppy drives 2Mbyte, or 1|OMbyte hard-disc option. CP/M or MP/M. £6,050 with
Basic, Fortran, etc. Aimed at scientific, industrial or educational hard disc plus
} user. floppy
K-2000: Z-80A, 16-64K RAM. Smaller version of K-3000 built around £2,300 for
5.25in. floppy drives. Two RS-232 interfaces, has eight free slots for __sinle disc,
specialised interface boards. Kemitron Electronics Ltd, 21-23 counter/timer,
Charles Street, Heole, Chester, CH2 3AY. (0244) 21817. parallel IO,
ADM-5 VDU
KONTRON
PSI-80: Z-80A, 64K RAM, 16K video RAM, 16K ROM, ECB bus. £6,660 for hard-
Integral Yin. screen of 80 by 24 characters, QWERTY keyboard. disc based
RS-232 interface. Integral 5Mbyte hard disc plus one 5.25in. 300K system
floppy. KOS, a CP-M compatible operating system, Basic, Pascal,
Fortran, Cobol available. Business use. Reviewed March 1982.
Kobus: Multi-user network system for PSI-80s. Kontron, PO-Box 88,
Kontron House, Campfield Road, St Albans, Hertfordshire AL] 5JG
(0727) 66222.
LSI COMPUTERS
M-One: 8080, 8-16K RAM, own OS, dual Shugart 8in. drives, two From £5,995
serial and one parallel port, 12in. VDU and full keyboard. Business with software
use. Package
M-Two: 8085, 64K RAM and.4K EPROM. Launched in December POA
1980. LSI Computers, Copse Road, St. Johns, Woking, Surrey GU21
1SX, (04862) 23411.
MICRO V
Microstar: 8085, 64K RAM, three RS232, serial inputs, StarDOS, From £4,950
twin 8in. drives, general use. Data Efficiency Ltd., Maxted Road,
Maylands Avenue, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. (0442)
63561.
NOCHOMENTION «mtn yy mele
Mariner: Multi-user system based on M/Net. Each user has own From £3,950
Mr. RETAILER. |
POINT ACCESS COMPUTER
2 Rose Yard, Maidstone.. Kent
Telephone (0622) 58356
DISTRIBUTORS
ENQUIRIES WELCOME
SALE
SYSTEM
On Entry of Stock No. Receipt is printed, Stock
updated, VAT updated and years bookeeping up-
dated.
Complete system. Special introductory
Price: Computer 64K + 700K + Printer +
MR. RETAILER(C) £2999 + vat
or MR. RETAILER(C) £975 + vat
@ Circle No. 235 -
-d) TANDY MODEL : ws
a @ 3 "|
b x :
VIDEO GENIE
ARS TANDY COLOUR 9G
COMPUTER OWNERS
Send for Software Lists.
We have over 1,000 programs
available at LOW PRICES.
State which computer
MICRODEAL
Deal House, Bridges,
Bodmin, Cornwall PL30 5EF.
@ Circle No. 236
COMPUTERCAT
SOFT WARE
BBC MICRO
DATABASE 1 £12.95
Set up your own database with search:
sort facilities. About 300 records for
TREASURE ADVENTURE £6.95
Specially adapted for the BBC Micro
— an old favourite.
VIDEO GENIE & TRS 80
FORTY NINER
Find the gold in sunny California.
BRIDGE BUILDER £5.95
A game of skill to bridge the gap.
‘TANK BATTLE £5.95
A game for two. Test your skills in
battle.
£5.95
@ prices include VAT & Postage.
224 Chapel Street, Leigh, Lancs
Tel: (0942) 605730
@ Circle No. 237
173
RAM BARGAINS
4116 — 200ns.
100 +
4116 — 250ns.
100+
2114 — 300ns
100+
100
2114 low power 300ns
6116—P3 £4,90 each.
2716 — 5v — 450ns £2.40 each.
2732 £4.20 each,
2532 £4.20 each,
4816— 100ns BBC RAM £3.80 each.
Other IC's available.
95p each.
Add 50p P & P and VAT at 15%.
ATHANA FLOPPIES
Minis with free plastic fibrary case and hub rings.
S/S S/D. £17.95 for 10.
S/S DID.
D/S D/D.
S/S 77 TRACK.
£19.95 for 10.
£23.50 for 10.
£26.50 for 10.
£15.50 for 10.
£24.50 for 10.
£25.50 for 10.
All other discs available add 85p P & P
and VAT at 15%
OPUS DESKING —
AT LAST COMPUTER
‘FURNITURE MADE
By A COMPUTER
COMPANY
Full range
available at
competitive prices.
?) Dealer enquiries invited.
24-HOUR TELEPHONE SERVICE
FOR CREDIT CARD USERS ~
QUANTITY DISCOUNTS AVAILABLE —
OFFICIAL ORDERS WELCOME
__OPUS SUPPLIES
@ Circle No. 238
SEARCHING FOR BEST PRICE
FOUND BEST PRICE . .. GO TO ORCHARD
CASSETTE Our own
transport
delivers
nation-
wide
weekly,
Alt you
need is
our Best
Price
Quotation.
Contact
us now!
For super
service.
DISK DRIVES
2031
4040
8050
8250
9060
9090
PRINTERS
4022P
8023
8300
80COL.BIDIR
136CDL
DAISY
If you know what you want why wait?
ORCHARD COMPUTER SERVICES
ORCHARD HOUSE, 21 ST. MARTINS ST.,
WALLINGFORD, OXON.
TEL: WALLINGFORD (0491) 35529
@ Circle No. 239
174
MICROSOLUTION
British Genius range: Z-80, 64K RAM, CP/M, Basic, BCPL,
Fortran, Cis-Cobol, dual 5.25in or 8in. discs or hard disc. RS 232
and Centronics interface, separate keyboard, 24-x-80-character
screen. MicroSolution Ltd., Park Farm House, Heythorp, Chipping
Norton, Oxfordshire, OX7 5TW. (0608) 3256.
From £2,850 to
£7,000
MIDWICH
MC: Z-80, 16K RAM, 12K ROM. Domestic TV or monitor used to
display 40 by 24 characters, 60-by-80 low-resolution graphics.
QWERTY keyboard. RS-232 and cassette interfaces, range of
optional boards for specialised control applications; D-A, A-D, etc.
Own operating system, Basic. No discs yet, uses cassette. Aimed at
educational and laboratory users. Midwich Computer Co., Hewitt
House, Northgate Street, Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk IP33 1HQ. (0284)
701321.
From £345
MILLBANK
Millbank System 10: Z-80A, 64K. Integral 12in. screen 24 charac-
ters by 80. Full keyboard with numeric keypad and function keys.
Two RS-232 interfaces and an RS-449 network interface; optional
JEEE-488 instrument interface. Integral 5.25in. twin floppy disc
drives, 700K. Option of 1.6Mbyte floppies or SMbyte, 1OMbyte or
5+]0Mbyte hard-disc units. CP/M. Business use as stand-alone
machine, or as front-end pre-processor connected to mainframe.
Reviewed December 1980. Millbank Computers Ltd, Millbank
House, Amyand Park Road, Twickenham, Middlesex TW1 3HN. (01)
891 4691.
From £2,995 to
£4,775
MITREFINCH
MF-3000: Multi-user system, from one to 32 users. 16-bit CPU, 64K
to-].25MByte RAM. Cartridge hard-disc unit, 5Mbyte+SMbyte re-
movable, with 20° to 400Mbyte hard-disc options. Business
use. Mitrefinch Ltd, Tower House, Fishergate, York YO] 4KA.
(0904) 52998.
¢
From £8,500
NASCOM
Nascom 1:Z-80, 2-64K RAM, serial and up to 16 parallel ports, 8K
Microsoft Basic, 1K monitor in EPROM. Personal use. Reviewed
January 1979.
| Nascom 2: Z-80, 1K RAM expandable to 256 with Nascom System
| 80 case. Nasbus, 8K Basic, 2K monitor and 2K character generator,
low/high resolution graphics and colour. 54%in. single or twin floppy
discs, RS232, parallel port, Kansas City cassette port. Lucas Logic
Limited, Warwick, CV34 5PZ.
NEWTRONICS
From £125
From £295
Explorer 85: 8085, 4-64K RAM, S-100 bus, RS232, VDU interface,
CP/M, TV and cassette interface, personal and full business
system. Newtronics, 255 Archway Road, London N6. (01) 348 3328.
From £146
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Buyers’ Guide —
NORTH STARK
Advantage: Z-80A plus 8035, 64K RAM with 20K display RAM,
twin 5.25in. discs. 12in. screen, 24 x 80 characters, 240 x 640
pixels, 87-key keyboard, graphics CP/M or graphics Basic/DOS,
provided with Busigraph, diagnostic and graphics demo software.
Horizon: Z-80A, 16-56K RAM, 5%in. twin drives, S-100 bus, own
_OS, business, educational or scientific use. Comart, PO Bax 2, St
Neots, Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire PEI9 4NY. (0480) 218005.
Equinox, Kleeman House, 16 Anning Street, New Inn Yard, London
EC2A 3HB. (01) 729 4460. Reviewed April 1979.
OHIO SCIENTIFIC
Ohio Superboard and Challenger 1: 6502, 8K Basic in ROM, 2K
monitor, 4K RAM, full keyboard and VDU interface. Hobbyist use.
Reviewed June 1979.
Challenger 2: 6502, 48K RAM, dual 8in. drives, serial port, low-
cost business use.
Challenger 3: 6502, Z-80 and 6800, 48-56K RAM, OSI 48-pin bus,
serial port for VDU, CP/M, expands to eight users, 10, 20 and 75MB
hard disc, business use.
Challenger 4: Similar to Challenger | but 64 by 32 display, colour
and sound option.
CTS (0706) 79332. Reviewed September 1979. Mutek, Quarry
Hill, Bath, Wiltshire. (0225) 743289.
OKI
From £2,195
From £995 to
£2,500
From £160
From £1,500
From £2,300
From £450
Oki IF-800: Z-80A, 64-256K RAM, 16K or 48K video RAM, 2K ROM. £4,300 for
Integral 24-by-80 character screen with 640-by-200 point eight-- system with dual
colour high-resolution graphics. Integral QWERTY keyboard with floppies, VDU
function keys. Numeric keypad. Built-in printer, speaker, clock. and printer
RS-232 and three slots for OKI boards — IEEE, A-D, etc. Dual §.25in.
floppies, 560K. l|OMbyte hard-disc option. OKI operating system,
Basic or CP/M. Business or laboratory use. Reviewed April 1982. LSI
Computers Ltd, Copse Road, St John’s Woking, Surrey. (04862)
23411.
OSBORNE
Osborne 1: Z-80A CPU, 64K RAM plus system software held in ROM
in separate address space. Twin 5.25in. floppy-disc drives, 200Kbyte,
integral 5in. screen displaying 24 by 52 characters at a time, full
keyboard and numeric keypad, IEEE-488 and RS-232 interfaces.
Portable; above configuration weighs 24lb. CP/M, with MBasic,
CBasic, WordStar, Mailmerge and SuperCalc included in the price
of £1,250. Reviewed February 1982. Osborne Computer Corporation
| (UK) Ltd, 38 Tanners Drive, Blakelands North, Milton Keynes, Buck-
inghamshire MK14 5BW. (0908) 615274. :
£1,250.
PANASONIC
Panasonic: 8085, 56K RAM, full keyboard, integral 24 by 80 VDU,
integral twin 8% or 8in. floppy drives. Three RS232, business use.
‘Panasonic Business Systems, 9 Connaught Street, London W2. (01)
26] 3121. Reviewed June 1979.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
From £4,150
PETITE PASCAL
@ 10K M/C SUBSET COMPILER
@ SUPPORTS RECURSION/DD PLOTS
@ COMPILER/SOURCE CODE
@ CO RESIDENT IN RAM
@ VERSIONS FOR TAPE/DISC
@ 16K OR 32K—ROM 3 OR ROM 4
£35 INCLUDES MANUAL AND
DEMONSTRATION PROGRAMS
Available from
R.C. COMPUTER SERVICES
GILFACH MEREDYDD BRECHFA, DYFED
SA32 70S
Aliow 10 days for delivery
@ Circle No. 240
ATOM
UTILITY ROM £19.95
The Willow Software 4K Utility ROM simply plugs
into the spare utility socket in your Atom and provides
18 powerful new commands and facilities including: full
renumber, range delete, find, sophisticated auto line
numbering, program compression, disassembler, true
keyboard scanning, memory dump, variable dump
register dump, keyboard sounder and much mroe. The
Utilities are professionally written and. fully tested. All
standard Atom facilities are unaffected, and no text-
space memory is used.
Send chequelPO for £19.95 for dellvery by return of
post, or write for further details.
WILLOW SOFTWARE
PO BOX 6, CREDITON, DEVON
EX17 IDL
@ Circle No. 241
FOR THE ZX81 (16K) — programs carefully |
designed for young people learning to read
music. Your ZX81 can make home music
practice fun. 3 cassettes; (1) practice reading
in treble and bass clefs (2) practice reading in
alto and tenor clefs. (3) learn note time values.
Two programs on each cassette. Price — £5
per cassette or £12 for set of 3. Orders to
Brian Negus, 19 Westfield Drive, Lough-
borough, Leics. LE11 3QJ.
BBC SOFTWARE For models A and B Road
Race, Breakout, 3D Graphics Dalek Attack,
Music, Hangman with colour and sound. On
cassette £6. P. T. Thomas, 3 Pear Tree Close,
Barlaston, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs ST12 9EG.
LIKIOL SOFTWARE, Mini Puckman, Break-
out, Defender. ae.00. 3 for £5.00. C. Clarke, 5
Coventry Close, Westcliffe, Scunthorpe.
ATOM. Taped text too valuable to write off?
Program ignores check-sum error. Re-read
faulty block repeatedly. Persistent error cor-
rectable manually. Block numbers indicated
manually as tape read. Details S.A.E. or che-
que £6.50 to |. Krishnan, 12 Giles Housen
Westbourne Grove, London W11 2RJ. ALSO
soughtn vicinity W11/W10 area, enthusiast
handy with soldering iron, conversant with
micro electronics and interested in part-time
venturem
ZX81 ACCOUNTS Budget your spending.
Saves datafiles separately from program.
Cassette (16K) £3.45. DATAPRINT provides
equivalent of Data and Print using statements.
MIC code. Cassette £2.50. A.N. Wilson, The
Vicarage, Whitworth Square,
Rochdale,
Lancs., OL12 8PY.
ATOM ACCOUNTS. Produces SALES/
PURCHASES LEDGER. 4K. Calculates
V.A.T. (any rate) and totals. Prints hard copy
in tabulated form. £7.50m Tel: Crewe 780729.
175
ATOM MACHINE CODE ASSEMBLER in-
ciudes: Machine Code Assembler, Single step
(does not need VIAz, Memory Display/modify,
Transfer, BRKP. Routine etc. Supplied with
full instructions. Cassette in Library Case
£6.20. ROM version (utillty socket) £11.50.
Prices incl. of VAT & Post/Packing. For details
of this and other Software, send rOp to:- JWB
SYSTMS, 2-6 Churchill St., Newcastle-upon-
Tyne, Tyne & Wear. (Mail Order only).
16K PET 3000 series. large keyboard plus
cassette drive recorder & various programs.
£395 o.n.o. Tel: 01-458 9711,
SIRIUS, hardly used, telephone 0492 67188
after 6pm.
ATOM. Your Programmes printed for 1p. per
line. minm £1m00. includes return of cassette.
Pay W.D. Lowe, Holly Cottage, Sound, Nant-
wich. CW5 8BG.
' SHARP PC1211 pocket computer and inter-
facve. £50. Tel: 01-904 8055.
2X81 HARDWARE add-ons, circuit diagrams
and assembly instructions for sale. Easily built
by the electronics hobbyist. All circuits tried | Keyboard with numeric keypad, 12 function keys and Prestel
and tested. Repeat key facility £1.00. Pro-
grammable character generator/RAM-
EPROM board £2.00. 16/32K RAM board
£2.50. 16/32K RAM power supply £0.50. All
_ prices inclusive. Send cheque or postal order
or S.A.E. for details to:- Schematix, 39 Almond
Ave, Dean Park Estate, Renfrew. PA4 OUT.
PET 4032. Mint condition. Save over £250 on
* list price. Bargain at £545. Tel: 061-904 9901
8K PET with 24K Petite add-on memory. New |;
ROMs, Integral cassette, small keyboard, dust
cover, some tapes. £400, R. N. Symington,
Coopers Farm, Chiddingly, Lewes BN8 6HD.
Tel: Chiddingly (082583) 237.
ACORN ATOM 1982 model, 12 + 12K,
sound, colour, P.S.U., software, manual, extra
book. £240. Tel: Malvern 61602.
HP41C PRINTER, Card Reader and 2 Mem- |.
ory Modules. Brand new, never used. Cost
£453.90. Will accept £350 o.n.o. Tel: St Ives
(Cambs), (0480) 64804.
8K PET, old ROM, second cassette and Oki-
’ data printer £350. Tel: Woking 62808.
16K ZX81 guaranteed until Jan. ‘83. Software
includes ‘Defender’, Asteroids’ and ‘3D mons-
ter-maze’. £75 o.n.o. Tel.: Tadworth 2410.
VIC20 Games (3.5K), 8 on cassette, including
SPACEDEBRIS, MAZE, ALIEN ATTACK,
CAVE, BREAKTHROUGH. Send cheque/
P.O. for £5.95 to Paul Coldbeck, 3 Lune
Avenue, Maghull, Merseyside L31 9DX.
Texas Ti-99/4A wiin speech synih and ex-
tended basic, £350 ono. Tel: 01-928 8933 ext.
255)
Sharp MZ80K. Two superb new games. Trail
and creatures. £4 each. P&P and cassette
included. K. Sindall, 799 Dagenham Road,
Rush Green, Romford, Essex.
16K ZX81, full size keyboard, graphics ROM,,
many programs. Worth £200, will sell £110.
Phone 0277 72522.
PET 8K, new ROM, large keyboard, various
books, external cassette. £350 ono. Tel: Cow-
denbeath (0383) 510576.
176
PERFORMANCE BUSINESS MACHINES
PBM-1000: Z-80A, 80K RAM to 336K RAM by bank switching. RS-
232 and parallel interfaces, separate terminal. Integral 5.25in. 800K
floppy and SMbyte hard disc; optional 10Mbyte hard disc. CP/M,
Basic etc. MNet for multi-user capacity. Word processing and
general business use. Reviewed May 1982. Terodec Ltd, Unit 58,
Suttons Park Avenue, Earley, Reading, Berkshire RG6 1AZ. (0734)
664343.
POSITRON COMPUTERS
£4,200 for
single-user
system with
hard disc,
floppy and
terminal.
Positron 900: MC 6809, 64-512K RAM, 36K ROM. Separate VDU.
Four RS-232 and one IEEE-488 interface, cassette interface. Dual
§.25in. 100K floppy-disc unit, optional 800K floppy unit, optional
§5Mbyte hard disc. ROM contains OS-9 and Basic 09, a Unix look-
alike. Pascal, Cis-Cobol, Fortran, C and assembler available. Busi-
ness and scientific use.
Positron 9000: Similar multi-user Unix-look-alike system, but with
colour and teletext capabilities and integral keyboard. Uses stan-
dard TV to display 40 by 24 viewdata-compatible characters in 7
colours, 240-by-240 point four colour graphics. Full QWERTY
keypad. Integral Modem and Prestel interface. Positron Computers
Ltd, Unit 16, Deacon Trading Estate, Newton-le- Willows, Lancashire
WAI12 9XQ. (09252) 28828.
RAIR
Black Box: 8085A, 64-512K RAM, mini-floppy discs, up to sixteen
RS232C serial ports, 5MB and 10MB hard discs, IEEE 488 interface ,;
CP/M and MP/M, general and business use. Rair, Wellington
House, 6-9 Upper St. Martins Lane, London WC2H 9EQ. (01) 836
6921. Reviewed November 1979 and August 1980.
RESEARCH MACHINES
£8,000 for four
users, printer
and hard disc.
£2,870 single
user, floppies,
printer
From £2,250
380-Z: Z-80A, 32-56K RAM, serial and parallel YO, 24 by 80 and 24
by 40 VDU interface, separate keyboard, CP/M, twin 5.25in. or 8in.
discs. Optional high-resolution colour graphics, IEEE-488, analogue
I-O, 48- and 32-line parallel, local network interface. Scientific, col-
leges, secondary education. Reviewed December 1978.
480-Z: Z-80A, 32-256K RAM network machine two serial, one
parallel, joystick interface, analogue output, 24 by 40 and 24 by 80
VDU output, TV output, TTL RGB colour monitor output, 1,200/300
bps cassette interface, sound. Optional Basic in ROM, high-resolu-
tion colour graphics, IEEE-488, local network transceiver, hardware
floating point. Research Machines, Mill Street, Oxford OX2 OBW.
(0865) 49866.
280-Z: Board version of 380-Z. Research Machines, PO Box 75, Mill
Street, Oxford. (0865) 49791.
ROCKWELL
Bim-65: 6502, 1-4K RAM, full keyboard, RS232, discs, hobby use.
Portable Microsystems, Forby House, 18 Market Place, Brackley,
Northamptonshire NN13 SSF. (0280) 702017. Reviewed July 1979.
From £250
£1,600 to
£3,500+
£550-£ 1,273
From £722 for
4Keversion
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
== Buyers’ Guide=
SD SYSTEMS
SD-100/200: Z-80, 64-265K RAM, 8K PROM, 5-100 bus, RS232, CP/M,
12in. VDU, twin 8in. drives, business, industria] and general use.
MS-610: Z-80A, 64-256K RAM, S-100 bus, CP/M or MP/MIl, twin 8in.
floppy drives, 1.2Mbytes; optionally up to 100Mbyte hard disc, any
VDU. Circle Computer Sales Ltd, Unit 12, Woking Business Park,
Albert Drive, Woking, Surrey GU21 SJY. (04862) 26881.
From £3,750
From £5,000 to
£7,500
SEED
System One: 6800, 22-56K RAM, 4K ROM, SS-50C bus. Separate
VDU, 80 by 24 characters, optional 512-by-512 poimt graphics. RS-
232 fitted, range of optional I/O boards. 5,.25in, or 8in. floppy drives.
Operating system is SSB DOS 68 or TSC Flex. Basic, assembler,
educational, industrial, government or business use.
System 19: Multi-user system, one to 16 users. 6809 16-bit CPU, 48K
to 1Mbyte RAM, 8K ROM, SS-S0C bus. RS-232 interface, separate
VDU. 5.25in. or 8in. floppies, up to 40Mbyte hard disc. Operating
system is OS-9 or SSB DOS 69. Basic, Pascal, Cis-Cobol and C
available. Educational, industrial, government or business use.
Strumech Engineering Electronics Developments Ltd, Portland
House, Coppice Side, Brownhills, Walsall, West Midlands WS8 7EX.
(0543) 378151.
From £2,600
with terminal
and floppies
From £2,800 for
single-user
floppy-based
system with
terminal
SHARP ELECTRONICS
MZ-80K: Z-80, 16-48K RAM, 10in. integral VDU, integral cassette,
loudspeaker, 5%in. disc optional, general use.
PC-1211: Pocket computer. Programmable in Basic with cassette
interface. Sharp Electronics, Sharp House, Thorp Road, Newton
Heath, Manchester M10 9BE. (061) 205 2333. Reviewed July 1980,
PC-3200: Z-80, attractive package for business use with separate
keyboard and computer unit, printer, display and twin 5%in.
drives. Software now available on-line and conversion for CP/M
being developed.
From £480
From £8§
From £3,500
SINCLAIR RESEARCH
ZX-81: Z-80A, 1-16K RAM, 8K Basic in ROM, cassette and TV
interface, thermal printer at £49, touch-sensitive keyboard, educa-
tion and games use. Animated-display facility. Two modes, fast
with screen blinking, slow without. Reviewed June 1981.
ZX Spectrum: Z-80A, 16-48K RAM, 16K ROM. Uses domestic TV for
24-by-32 character display of 256-by-192 high-resolution eight-
colour graphics. QWERTY layout keyboard with 40 upper/lower
case moving keys. 10-octave sound generation, cassette and printer
interfaces; optional RS-232 and network interfaces. Discs
announced, printer available. Sinclair Basic with graphics com-
mands.
Sinclair Research, 6 Kings Parade,
Reviewed July 1980.
Cambridge CB2 1SN.
SINTROM ELECTRONICS
From £49 for
kit
From £125 for
16K RAM
machine,
assembled
Perlflex 630/48: Z-80A, 32-48K RAM, 8-100, CP/M, twin Micro-
polis 5%in. discs, two serial and three parallel ports.
Perlflex 1024/64: Z-80, 64K, S-100, CP/M, dual 8in. discs, two
serial and three parallel. Sintrom Electronics, Arkwright Road,
Reading, Berkshire RG2 OLS. (0734) 85464.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
From £1,995
From £2,750
ZX80 both ROM's, manuals, leads, etc. As
new. £55. Tel: 059 581 202.
Nascom 2. 4MHz, 1200 baud, 32K RAM
keyboard case, cassette player, programs,
books, graphics, £300. 56 2114's 200ns, 4
2716 5V eproms £60. Tel: 061 773 6487.
Wanted. 2X80/81, Vic and Atom books. Half
price for books in good condition. S.a.e. for
buying/selling lists, or send books direct to:-
Allan Guy, 24 Woodside Drive, Cottingley,
Bingley, BD16 1RF.
Sharp MZ80K arcade games. Space Invad-
ers, Defender and Breakout. All written in m/c
with excellent graphics and full sound effects.
Only £4 each or all three for £10. K. Orr, 75
Parkhall Road, London N2.
MICROTAN. Fully expanded Tanex. Basic.
Toolkit. Cased. ASCII. Keypad. Monitor, Prin-
ter, keyboard sockets. 5A psu. Printer cable,
£220. Bishop's Stortford 504805.
ZX system and accessories ZX81 £55. ZX
16K RAM £35. Toolkit EPROM £15. RD8100
8 interface motherboard £35. RD8180 light
pen £28. Quicksilva prog. chrs £23. Full size
keyboard £20. Scotch copier £65, rrp £79.95.
Tel: Bingham (0949) 37127, after 5 pm. Mr D.
J. Moody.
Tandy quick printer Il. All leads and paper. E/I
not needed, £80 ono. Tel: Bolton (0204)
27249.
Superboard ||, 8K, cased, manuals, leads.
£110. Tel: Waltham Cross 28877.
16K ZX81 good software including Quiksilva
Defender, £89. Tel: 01-889 4002.
Ohio/compukit games software. Falklands ~
battle, Bricksmash. Very Fast Life, Psycho
Your Personal Psychologist, 8K. £3.50 each,
£6.00 for 2 or 50p for details. Craig, 67 Kiln
Ride, Wokingham, Berks.
CBM acoustic modems (2). Connect directly
to IEEE bus for communication with other —
CBM or remote mainframe. £500 the pair or
£275 each. Woking 61082.
Matrix Printer. Full 96 character ascii set plus
dot programmable graphics plus eight user’
definable fonts. RS232, IEEE and Centronics
interfaces included. Vgc. £200. Tel: 09322
44110 (Surrey).
£2 for both Invaders and Dogfight for 12k
Atom. Superb graphics and sound. M. Hall, 22
Dalby Avenue, Bushby, Leicester LE7 9RD.
Better Apple II colour. Full modification details
£3. 10 Applesoft Games disk £20. H. Hopkins,
117 St. John’s Road, Exmouth, Devon.
16K ZX81 and £30 of programs, £80! Tel:
Frinton 5015.
Sharp MZ48K computer plus extended basic. ,
Space Invaders and other games. Excellent
enon £275. Buyer collects. Reading
9889.
TRS-80 Model | 48K and three disk drives.
Assorted operating systems. Just serviced by
; Ua £1200 ono or separately. Tel: 08864
3.
Nascom 2, 32K RAM, nas-graphics ROM, 8K
basic, 3 amp psu. Complete with manual,
portable TV and cassette recorder, £350 ono.
Tel: 06286 5505.
177
MZ-80K horse-race analysis. Winners galore.
Cassette £5.75. Details: S.a.e. P. C. Birch,
“Moorside”, Woodlands. Wimborne, Dorset.
TUSCAN 280, 8K RAM, 8K BASIC, Mint con- |
dition, fully working 12” Green screen monitor,
various programs in basic on tapes. £500.
Ring Dave on 226 1432 (daytime). 808 9121
(evenings).
PET 32K with cassette unit and manual. Tool-
kit and other ROMs. Software _ including
games. £475. Require software for 80-col-
umn. Have 40-column software for sale. Tel:
Blackpool (0253) 869108.
Tipped-on A4 paper. 900 continuous sheets.
Plain white. £30 ono. Bristo! 502008.
Tipped-on envelopes. White 4.1/8" x 93”. 2
boxes X 1000. Unopened. £35 each ono.
Bristol 502008.
Available for sale — a Scripta RO daisywheel
printer, 132 column loggerbacks Matrix Printer
and 12” Black/White Video Monitor for Apple
ll. All subject of insurance claim. Offers to’
Eurocourse Ltd. Tel: 01-739 8692.
For the ZX81 (16K) — programs carefully:
designed for young people learning to read
music. Your ZX81 can make home music
practice fun. 3 cassettes: (1) practice reading
in treble and bass clefs (2) practice reading in
alto and tenor clefs. (3) learn note time values.
Two programs on each cassette. Price: £5 per
cassette or £12 for set of 3. Orders to Brian
Negus, 19 Westfield Drive, Loughborough,.
Leics, LE11 3QU.
Two No. VDU's Lear Siegler ADM3A £200 &
£300 respectively. Three No. 5 Mb top loading
data cartridges 24 sector, suitable for ampex/
cde drives. Gribble, Booth & Taylor, Chard,
Somerset. 04606 3806. Ref. RT.
ASR3300 Computer terminal — Hard copy on
any paper; Paper tape data/program storage;
20mA Interface (RS232C available); Col-
lapsible stand... Only £200. Tel. Haynes 235,
TRS-80 FRUIT MACHINE PROGRAM, Fea-
tures: 4 reels, hold, nudge, profit score, gam-
ble, collect and jackpot. £3.50 inc. P&P. S. J.
Andrews, Barn Cottage, Grove Road, Carlton
Colville, Lowestoft, Suffolk NR33 8HR.
BOURNEMOUTH — an opportunity exists for
a person with a sales/management back-
ground, Write with c.v. to box no. 452.
TRS-80 16K LEVEL II, tape recorder, tapes,
books, magazines. £300. Glasgow 336 6747.
2X81: All brand new and in boxes, bought
April '82. ZX81, 16KRAM, Ferguson tape
recorder + software, got receipts, cost £180,
accept £120. Tel. 01-435 8189.
ATARI 800. 32K, 410 program recorder, joy-
Sticks, le stick, plus over £200 games software
including missile command, Still under war-
ranty. As new in makers’ boxes. First £700
secures, Tel. 031-229 0388.
FOR SALE: 1 only Apple Il 48K Autostart
Rom, 1 only ITT 2020 48K Autostart Rom.
Also 4 disc drives; 2 only printers; 1 only black
and white TV viewer. All peripherals are com-
patible. The above are demonstration models,
at 50% off list price. Tel: 01-965 2482.
178
SIRTON COMPUTERS
Midas Range: Z-80, from 8K RAM, S-100 or IEEE bus, CP/M, MP/
M, graphics, up to four 5%in. or 8in. drives, hard disc, RS232, 8-bit
parallel, IEEE 488. Sirton Computers, Unit 14, 29 Willow Lane,
Mitcham, Surrey CR4 4NA. (01) 640 6931.
SMOKE SIGNAL
£785-£2, 150
Chieftain 511-821: 6800/6809, 32-64K RAM, S-50 bus, Flex DOS68/
68d/69 dual 5%in., 8in., dual RS232, video board, wide range of
options, general use. Windrush Micro Designs, Gaymers Way,
North Walsham, Norfolk. (069) 245189.
From £1,807
SOLID STATE TECHNOLOGY
Athena: 8085, integral dual mini-floppies and mini-cassette, and
matrix printer, can be expanded with 10 micros beyond CPU.
Memory to 1.2GB. Claims performance similar to DEC PDP-11/34.
‘Butel-Comco, Unit 10, Garrick Industrial Centre, Garrick Road,
London, NW9 6AQ. 01-202 0262.
SORD COMPUTER SYSTEMS
M200 Range: Z-80A, 64K RAM, S-100 bus, Sord OS, graphics,
54%in., 8in. or hard discs, two RS232, integral 80x 24 VDU. Business
use. Exleigh Business Machines Ltd, 11 Market Place, Penzance,
Cornwall TR18 2JB. (0736) 66577.
From £3,000
From £1,850 to
£6,950
TANDBERG EDUCATIONAL DIVISION
Kecal: Z-80, 4-200K RAM, 10K ROM. Uses standard TV to display 48
by 16 characters or 96 by 48 graphic points. Other graphics options.
RS-232 and parallel interfaces. Built around intelligent cassette re-
corder, can store and retrieve real audio voice and music under
program control. Optional 5.25in. 340K floppy. Operating system
similar to NASSYS 3. Basic, Pascal, Forth, Comal, Assembler. Aimed
at educational and training user.
EC-10: Multi-user system. 8080, 64K RAM, 4K ROM. One integral
80-by-25 character screen, up to seven terminals can be added.
Integral keyboard is full ASCII, integral 8in. floppy. Tandberg oper-
ating system, but CP/M available. Basic, Assembler, also Cobol,
Pascal, etc. available Educational use.
Tandberg U.K. Ltd, Revie Estate, Elland Road, Leeds 11, West
Yorkshire. (0532) 774844. ;
TANDY
Model 1: Z-80, 4-48K RAM, RS232, Level I and Level II Basic in
ROM, separate keyboard and 12in. VDU, parallel interface, small
business and personal use. Reviewed November 1978.
Model 2: Z-80, 64K RAM, integral 8in. disc, integral 12in. VDU,
detachable keyboard, CP/M serial and parallel ports, Level I
Basic, business use. Tandy Corporation, Tameway Tower, Bridge
Street, Walsall, West Midlands WS] 1LA. (0922) 648181. Reviewed
March 1980.
Model 3:Z-80, 4-48K RAM, 12in. display, integral unit with slots for
two 5%in. drives, 65-key keyboard, 12-key data pad, printer
interface, compatible with Model. | software.
Typical price
£850
About £3,500
for single-user
single-disc
system
From 249
From £2,699
From £499
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
ee ee Buyers’ Guide
TANGERINE COMPUTER SYSTEMS
Microtan 65:6502, 1-48K RAM, Tanbus, IEEE 488, Tanbug in ROM
(1K), Pixel graphics, 54in. discs, 321/O lines and three serial ports,
from single-board upwards. Tangerine Computer Systems, Fore-
hill, Ely, Cambridgeshire. (0353) 3633.
TECHNALOGICS
From £69
TECS: 6800, 56K RAM, Basic and Prestel terminal software, RS232,
two cassette ports, two parallel ports, 54%in. discs. Technalogics,
Windmill Works, Station Road, Swinton, Manchester M27 2BU.
(061) 793 6323. Reviewed November 1979.
From £895 for
kit
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS
TI-99/4: 990 16-bit, 16K RAM, Basic in 26K ROM, high-resolution,
colour graphics, up to three 5%in. discs, joystick, cassette and
other ports, RS232, personal use. Texas Instruments Ltd., Manton
Lane, Bedford MK41 7PU. (0234) 67466. Reviewed August 1980.
TRANSAM COMPONENTS
Triton: 8080, 32K RAM, CP/M, 1K TBIOS in ROM, up to three 54in.
discs, or four 8in., serial and parallel ports. Reviewed December
1979.
Tuscan: Z-80, 8-64K RAM, S-100 bus, CP/M, RS232, TV and
cassette interface, from single-board, personal use to full business
system. Transam, 59 Theobalds Road, London WC1. (01) 405 5240.
From £299
From £296
From £150
TRANSDATA LIMITED
Cx502: Z-80A, 64K RAM, CP/M, MicroCobol, 8in. floppy discs,
four V24/RS232 interfaces, “flexibus” multi processor architecture.
Professional business and scientific use. Communications software
available.
Cx502-S: Z-80B,64-160K RAM, CP/M, MP/M, 8in. 2MB floppy discs,
four V-24 serial interfaces. Professional and general use.
Cx503: Z-80A, 64K-208K RAM, CP/M, MP/M, MicroCobol 20MB
Winchester disc, 8in. floppy disc for back-up, four V24 serial
interfaces. Business and general use.
Cx504: Z-80A, 64K-208K RAM, CP/M, MP/M, MicroCobol 20MB
Winchester disc, cartridge tape back-up, 8in. floppy disc, four
RS232 interfaces. Business and general use. Transdata Limited,
Battlebridge House, 87-95 Tooley Street, London SE1. (01) 403
S115:
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
From £2,795
From £3,495
From £6,490
From £7,990
NASCOM 2, 32K, Verorack, fan, separate
keyboard enclosure, 4MHz, 2400bd, graphics,
Nassys 1/3, toolkit, Pascal, Zeap 2, Nas Dis/
debug, £375 ono. 0632-844902 or 01-589
9608 Room 58.
APPLE SOFT programs on disk (Dos 33).
Programs Include pie formulae, co-ord
geometry, guess numbers, amongst others.
Only £16. Contact David Tomkins, Leavalley,
Confey, Leixlip, Co. Kildare, Eire.
BBC MICRO SOFTWARE. Three games on
one cassette. Zap, Snake, Space Cag, £4.50.
Turland/Wright, 97 Heathcote Road, Leices-
ter.
FOR SALE TRS 80 model ! level I! Basic, 16K
with numeric pad. 64x16 screen (green). CTR
80 cassette recorder. Level | and level Il
instruction books. Level ll Basic course on
cassette. 8 cassettes.
SUPERB PATTERNS for FP ROM, 6K graph-
ics. ATOMs. Listing 50p. P. J. May, 18c Lincoln
Hatch Lane, Burnham, Slough SL1 7HD.
APPLE,. Video-Genie, Pet, Vic, ZX-81, tired of
that programme? Not what you wanted?
Cash, up to 50% of current list, for cassette,
disc or Rampac in immaculate condition with
full documentation.. Send with address and
return postage for prompt appraisal to Dr D.
Graham, 17 Hastings Road, Bexhill-on-Sea,
E. Sussex TN40 2H.
CELLS AND SERPENTS for the ZX-81. £5.50
inc. p&p for cassette and full details to R.
Taylor, 6 Grant Road, Farlington, Portsmouth,
Hants.
UK101, 8K cased with improved P.S.U. New-
man Cegmon switchable with 32x48, 16x48
screen formats. 1 or 2 MHz clocks, software
‘controlled cassette speeds, software. £230
ono. Tel: Southend (0702) 203204.
APPLE |] EUROPLUS, 48K, disk drive, con-
troller, colour TV, top games, wizardry, Alien
Rain, etc. £900. Tel: 0977 554105 daytime.
UK101 GAMES. Send S.A.E. for details to P.
Wadey, Holland Farm, Hilfield Lane,
Aldenham, Hertfordshire.
HEWLETT PACKARD 85 computer for sale.
Complete with ROM drawer, additional 16K
memory module, printer plotter module and
visi-calu plus, basic statistics and standard
pac programs — £1,500. Tel: Cardiff 373043
(office hours). :
16K TRS80/VG programmes — ‘The
Muncher — ultra fast version of Pacman.
‘Graphics Editor’ — invaluable tool for m/c
programming. ‘Pyramid puzzle solver’ —
worth a fortune! One £5, two £8, all three £12.
Steve Morris, 44 Park Road, Hull, HU5 2TA.
2X81, SICK OF FRIENDLY GAMES. At last
user Hostile Games Cassette where you
entertain your computer. 1 x 16K or 3 x 1K
only £3.25. Allonby, 33 Station Rd, Claydon,
Ipswich.
ZX81, 16K, both Sinc. built, PSU, manual etc.
+programs, all vgc, £95. P. Leftley, Studio
Cottage, Hillstreet, Calmore, Southampton
S04 2RX.
179
SHARP MZ80K Educational
Calorimetry £5, Galvonometers £5, Gas Laws
£5, German Vocabulary Test (2 volumes)
£7.50 per volume. Send for full details to
QUALITY SOFTWARE, 21, Dunes Drive,
Formby, MERSEYSIDE L37 1PE.
Software.
ZX81 TOPPIX. Detailed diy graphics update
£2. 16K M/C easyloaders, load REMs without
spaces anywhere in listing. Hex and decimal
£4, or £2.50 each. All plus sae. N. J. Petry, 3
Lester Drive, Worle, Weston-Super-Mare
BS22 ONG.
NASCOM 2, 32K RAM, NAS-graphics ROM,
8K basic, 3 amp psu. Complete with manual,
portable TV and cassette recorder — £350
ono. Tel: 06286 5505.
ACORN ATOM 12K + 12K, VIA, PSU, soft-
ware, leads. £260. 01-531 1033.
MZ80K USERS. ‘Copy program’. Copies any
software from monitor £6. ‘Space Attack’
(Knight's Forth) fast graphics £4 or both pro-
grams £8. P. Massey, 61 Green Avenue,
Astley, Manchester M29 7FF.
ZX81 DATA: Provides read, data and restore
statements (integral data values only) cas-
sette £250. ACCOUNTS — budget your
domestic or business spending. Saves
datafiles separately from program. Cassette
(16K) £3.45. A. N. Wilson, The Vicarage,
ae Square, Rochdale, Lancs., OL12
SINCLAIR ZX-81, compatible Ferguson tape
recorder, all leads, manual, 5 games and
tapes. Tel: Sherston 702. Clark, Palmall,
Grove Road, Sherston, Wilts — lot for £60.
PROGRAMS FOR primary schools by
teachers for teachers. Suitable for ZX-81 with
16K RAM. S.A.E. for details. P. R. Greet, 300
Kingston Road, Leatherhead, Surrey.
CPM. For sale 10 licensed copies of CPM, still
in sealed packets each complete with Digital
Research Manuals. £80 each. Geoff Drake, 9
Hoylake Road, East Acton, London WS.
01-743 6331.
ZX81 OWNERS stand up! | want to hear from
ALL ZX81 owners and anyone considering
buying a ZX81. Write-to:- (no stamp needed)
David Weaver, Freepost, Aldershot, Hants,
GU12 5BR.
CBM/PET 40/32K, cassette, manuals, books
£550. Tel: 01-669 2892 (evenings) or 01-668
4315 (day).
$100, 8K STATIC RAM. Variable wait states,
= backup. Offers around £50. Tel: 03047
UK101, REPORICLE, a tiny editor, interpreter,
compiler for writing video games. Supplied
with a fast machine code game called
KAMIKAZE and a comparison BASIC pro-
gram called DEATH STAR. Unsuitable for
WEMON. £13 inclusive. N. Johnstone, 59
Copeland Avenue, Mirehouse, Whitehaven,
Cumbria.
SORCERER 32K, Basic Rompac, UHF modu-
lator, manuals, club magazines, boxed. £339
o.n.o. Phone Slough 36864.
180
Buyers’ Guide™===
VECTOR GRAPHIC
Vector Z-80B range: Z-80B, 64-512K RAM, S-100 bus. Any terminal. From £2,300
Dual floppy drives, 5 to 38Mbyte hard-disc options. CP/M and
X-CP/M multi-use operating system. Business and scientific use.
Vector 4: Twin Z-80 and 16-bit 8088 CPU, 128-256K RAM. S-100 bus, £2,175 for
parallel and two RS-232 interfaces. Integral 80 by 24 screen with floppy-based
640-by-312 point high-resolution graphics, 16 grey scales and RGB system
colour output to optional monitor. Detachable full QWERTY
keyboard with numeric pad and function keys. Integral dual 5.25in. £3,825 with
floppy drives 1.2Mbyte or optional 5Mbyte hard disc plus floppy. 5Mbyte hard
CP/M, Oasis or MS-DOS. 8088 is used as fast disc controller when disc
running CP/M. Basic, assembler, etc. Almarc Data Systems Ltd,
Great Freeman Street, Nottingham NG3 1FR (0602) 52657.
WESTERN DIGITAL
Pascal Microengine: Single-board computer based on five-chip £1,650
set which executes Pascal P-code directly. 128K RAM, two RS-232
and two parallel ports, floppy-disc controller on board. University
and military users.
Supermicro 1600: VWD-9000 chip set. Basically boxed-up version of From £4,126
Pascal Microengine. Dual 8in. 1.2Mbyte floppies, two RS-232 and £6130 with
two parallel ports. External VDU. UCSD Pascal operating system, VDU and
Basic and ADA, MicroAda, available. printer
Modular Microengine: Same WD-9000 chip set as Supermicro From £5,305 for
1600; 128K RAM, etc. Based around Sentinel bus rather than single dual floppy
board, so hardware is readily expandable. Dual 8in. Floppies or version
optional 10Mbyte hard disc. Pronto Electronic Systems, 466-478 £7,480 with
Cranbrook Road, Gants Hill, Ilford, Essex I1G2 6LE. (01) 554 6222. hard disc
Ales \Nialgl
H8: Single-board WH8 assembled, 8080, 16K-65K RAM. Heathbus From £321
nine slots, cassette interface, nine-digit LED.
Z89: Z-80, 16-48K RAM, CP/M, integral 5%in. drive, optional dual From £1,570
external, two RS232, full keyboard, 12in. VDU.
WH-11A:LSI-I, 16-bit 16-32K RAM, own busand OS, optional dual From £1,250
8in. drives, serial and parallel ports. Zenith Ltd., 11b Bristol Road,
Gloucester GL2 6EE. (0452) 29451. (01) 636 7349.
ZLROG
MCZ Series: Z-80, 64K RAM, RIO OS, Zilog bus, optional graphics, From £3,000
8in. discs, and hard discs, four RS232, one parallel, stand-alone or
networking. Zilog (U.K.) Ltd., Babbage House, King Street,
|Maidenhead, Berkshire. (0628) 36131. Q
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
microware
The North London Computer Store
Microware (London) Ltd.,
637 Holloway Road, London N19.
Tel: 01-272 6237 01-272 6398 YOUR
$
TX BRA N
Does it make sense to pay more when Superbrain
gives exceptional performance for just a fraction
of what you would expect to pay.
S NTERTEC DATA SyEMS ; _
Standard Superbrain has from 350K bytes of
disk storage and 64K of ram memory.
Its CP/M operating system gives you an
overwhelming amount of readily available
software in BASIC, FORTRAN,
COBOL & APL.
= Microware prices are from:
*Includes basic and CP/M.. ‘=
SOFTWARE -
Why throw money away when you can buy Also available
WORDSTAR at £175.00. THE NEW SUPERBRAIN- il
Microware supply a complete range of popular QD
software at prices that are hard to beat including : ;
DATASTAR, D BASE II, MAILMERGE, — THE NEw SUPERBRAIN II
MAGIC W AN D and FULL ACCOUNTING 146M bytes
PACKAGES!
any popular software supplied. THE NEW SUPERBRAIN Il 7 3/9 5
| - (6Mbytes) HD
Quantity Discounts
Plus Limited Supplies at:
£995
And you should see the prices we can
offer on Daisy Wheel Printers. Including
QUME, TEC Starwriter, NEC and RICHO.
@ Circle No. 251
181
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Electronic Brokers
DEC SALE
aselection from our
huge stocks
RX11-BD Oual Floppy Disk
Driveandcti (N 9
VT50 DECscope Terminal 20mA .£250
VTS50 DECscope Terminal E1A....€275
VTS2 DECscope Terminal
PROCESSORS
PDPBA 10%" 32KW MOS
pacar £4,
bop) /34A,128KB MOS ...... £5,000
POP11X44-CB 256KB CPU,
Dual TUS8, H9642Cabinet ...£12,750 EV Aare Ginn ettciees asencceaned 95
PDP1 ig CPU, SEK W 52 DECscope Terminal (NEW). Ess
Core, C. .£7,450 VT55 Graphics Terminal .. ..£650
PDP1 a0 CPU, 512KB MOS. SYSTEMS
DualCab........... ..P.0.A. SMFX-MMA-DN 11/24 CPU
PERIPHERALS & OPTIONS Saeice poe oe 0} £17,000
BCO6-S-10Massbus Cable......... £250 z ie
BCO8-S-15MassbusCable........£325 Console, RSX11M (NEW)
8C11A-O8 Unibus Cabie ... £70 11/34 CPU 128KB MOS
DU1 1 Synchronous Interface £525
a 1A Auxiliary Processor
RL11A SMB Disk & Ctl
RLO1A SMB Disk
£8,750
NEW)... 0m eereroces. teen. £925 H960 Cab
W11 1LRealTimeClock ...... £195 LASBE Console
KW11P Programmable Clock .....£345 ASX11M Licence
LA34DAKSRTerminalE1A.........
11/44 CPU 256KB MOS
Dual TUS8, H9642 Cab
RK711 28MB Disk & Ctl
RKO7 28MB Disk
LA120 Console
LA3BCUKSRTermina!20mA ......
LASBHJKSATerminalE1A £495
LA120DA KSATerminal[NEW) £1,225
LA120RA RO Terminal(NEW)..... £895
LA180-ED RO Printer
E1A(NEW)........ £670 RSX11M Licence
LA180-PD RO Printer-
Parallel[NEW)................ 95 complete service offered
including supply and
installation of 11/44 CPU
and trade-in of redundant
processor
RWMOS Disk Drive ard Ci
isk Drive and Ct!
TWU77 mag tape and cti lee, ooo
LA120 Console (NEW]
HAZELTINE VDUs
‘NEW SCOOP PURCHASE
Special purchase
of Hazeltine 1500
series VDUs —
manufacturer’s
surplus — ALL
BRAND NEW
BOXED
HAZELTINE 1510 - SAVE £330
* 24x80 Upper/Lower case ASCII
* 7x 10dot matrix * Dual intensity
* 8 SwitchSelectable baud rates 110/9600 baud
* Full/Half duplex plus format mode
* Remote XY Cursor addressing
* 12" non-glare screen * EIA/2OmA Interface
Manufacturer’s list price £880
OUR PRICE £550
HAZELTINE 1520 — SAVE £425
All the features of the 1510 plus buffered
serial/parallel printer interface. Manufacturer's
list price £1050
OUR PRICE £625
Also available — Reconditioned Hazeltine H2EO000
VDUs @ £299 while stocks last
All items reconditioned unless otherwise stated
ADD 15% VAT TO ALL PRICES Carriage and Packing extra
Electronic Brokers Ltd., 61/65 Kings Cross Road,
London WC1X LN. sit 3461. Telex 298694
EW
maAB 16KWCore(NEW)....... £995
PC11A Reader/Punch and
control.
RKOB Add-on Disk Drive
Pid: AD Add-on Disk Ort "s
11/44 UPGRADES fr
Electronic Brokers | = = | Sai = | oa
@ Circle No. 252
182
Fighting your way through
the silicon jungle?
We carry a comprehensive selection of
microcomputer software, hardware and
peripherals
Apple ] [ Accounting
Apple /// Stock Control
Sharp 3201, MZ80B Database Management
Superbrain Production Control
Altos Graph Plotting
Milibank System 10 Word Processing
We are to you as Jane was to Tarzan!
Well, perhaps not quite, but please
phone us for a brochure which explains
exactly how we can help
THE AVERY
COMPUTER COMPANY
13, The Mall
Bar Hill
CAMBRIDGE
Tel. Crafts Hill 80991 (24 hours)
@ Circle No. 253
For the best PET software...
COMMAND-O..... For Basic IV CBM/PET, ® fimctions £59.95 + Vat
with improved “Toolkit” coomands
DISK-O-PRO.... For Basic IL PET, aids 2% commends €59.95 + Vat
including Basic IV, in one 4K rom
KRAM. ccccecccc For any 32K PET/CBM for retrieving £86.95 + Vat
disk data by KEYED Randam Access
SPACEMAKER IV For ay FET/C@BM, .opunts 1% roms £29.95 + Vat
in one rom slot, switch selection
" USER I/O For software selection of up to 8
roms, in any two Spacemaker Quads
PRONTO-PET.... Soft/hard reset for -olum FETs £9.99 + Vat
SUPERKRAM, REQUEST & KRAM PLUS will be available
£12.95 + Vat
shortly
We are sole UK Distributors for these products, which are available
from your local GBM dealer, or direct from us by mail or telephone
order. To order by cheque write to: Calco Software, FREEPOST,
Kingston—upon-Thanes , Surrey KT2 7ER (no stamp required). For same-day
Access/Barclaycard service, telephone 01-546-7256. Official orders
accepted from educational, government & local authority establishments
...at the best prices!
WORDPRO TV PLUS RRP £395 less £98.75 = £296.31!
WORDPRO III PLUS RRP £275 less £68.75 = £206.23!
WORDPRO II PLUS RRP £125 less £31.25 = £93.75!
VISICALC RRP £125 less £25.00 = £100.00!
TOOLKIT Basic IV RRP £34 less £9.50 = £24.50!
TOOLKIT Basic I RRP £29 less £7.25 £21.75!
The items above are available by mil or telephone order at our
Special Offer Price when purchased with amy ome of our software
products. This offer is for a LIMITED PERIOD aly. IK - AID 152 VAT.
OVERSEAS airmail postage - add £3.00 (Europe), £5.00 (astside Europe ).
Calco Software
Lakeside House ~ Kingston Hill - Surrey - KI2 7Q@r Tel 01-546-7256
@ Circle No. 254
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
A MAJOR DRAWBACK to serious computer
war-gaming is the unsuitability of present
monitors for displaying maps. Add the
problems of internally representing ter- |
rain for movement and positions and you
can forget about challenging manual |
games for authenticity. For
reasons, aérial, space and naval games
are going to be the most accurate simula-
tions on computers for some time to
come,
Avalon Hill Computer Games has
therefore picked a potentially good sub-
ject. Midway island is an important |
American air installation situated in the
middle of the Pacific Ocean of obvious
strategic importance. During 1942, the
Japanese decided to invade the islands in
order to increase their defensive bound-
ary and cut the United States lines of
communication. For this they assembled
a carrier group of four CVs, a transport
force for the landing troops and a task
force of cruisers for escort. Opposing
them, the Americans were badly de-
ployed with only. two carrier task forces
and the air facilities of Midway itself.
Scanty intelligence
This is the position facing the
American player against the inscrutable
computer opponent at the start of the
game. Although the game commences on
June 3, the actual battle phase is normally
entered over June 4-5, as per the historic-
al action. This allows for some manoeuvr-
ing before wondering what hit you.
Things are made difficult in general by
the computer’s miserly revelations of the
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
these.
: ‘
a
Tony Dinsdale looks at a
Second World War battle-
simulation game.
Japanese whereabouts, and in particular,
by the superior range of their aircraft.
Initially there are no enemy contacts, a
position which is reverted to in the hours
of darkness. A contact may be either
anonymous or specific, that is, identified
as the CV group, transports or cruisers,
though it is really the carriers which will
decide the outcome of the battle. Occa-
sionally, a Japanese spotting plane is
sighted overhead and you may expect it
to have company soon. Whenever an air
strike is launched, the opposition is auto-
matically informed of the origin of the
aircraft.
The whole game revolves around the
position of the enemy carriers. Tactically,
Conclusions
@ The program appears to be bug-free.
Validation of commands is also very
good in that an incorrect command will
not be accepted and treated as
something else.
@ Victory conditions are unfairly weighted
in favour of the computer to counter the
inferiority of the program strategy for the
Japanese,
@ The program is recommended as a
serious simulation of the actual battle.
@ Ratings:
Physical quality
Perceived complexity
Subject complexity
Realism
Play balance
Overall
Very good
Low
Fairly high
Good
Good
Reasonable
End of fle==
l\
Be a Ys % elt,
cP of
ee
"hh 4
the only options open to you as the
player, to combat the carriers are: course
changes; deciding whether to have air-
craft armed; whether to use fighters for
combat air patrol (local defensive coun-
ter-air) or to escort strike aircraft; and
when to launch strikes against the
Japanese ships.
Midway itself is treated as an American
carrier, the runway being substituted for
a flight deck. The program is well de-
signed for the input of commands. For |
example it is possible to arm aircraft on
all the carriers in the American forces
without having to specify the arm com-
mand separately for each ship. The ships |
must still be specified though and. it
would be nice if the two task forces could
be automatically changed to the same
courses rather than having to set the same
course separately for each one.
Own goals
The best rule of thumb in this simula-
tion is to shelter the carriers behind Mid-
way. If all goes well and Midway is
attacked, the range can be closed to the
enemy carriers and a strike launched
against them as they rearm on their
wooden decks. Well, it makes good film
scenes — the only trouble being that it
often happens to the wrong side and
carriers explode and sink at an alarming
rate,
The tactical resolution of combat —
AA, CAP, bombing, torpedo bombing
— are all handled by the computer, go the
role of commander is quite limited. Tim-
ing becomes the major criterion for suc-
cess. Even so, a certain degree of satisfac-
tion can be derived from reports of explo-
sions aboard the enemy ships, while con-
templating your own forces.
There are no obvious faults other than
the limitations imposed by the game itself
on the activities of the two sides. A
possible engagement between the other
ships involved — all the carrier groups
had surface escorts — would have been a
realistic diversification. Q
183
THE FINEST PRINTER/TYPEWRITER MONEY CAN BUY.
THE CROWN RANIER
at ease o VAT
We offer a heavy duty daisy wheel printer/typewriter at the flick of a switch. This machine has the very latest linear motor — no cables or
belts to break, stretch or wear. Beware of light weight, low cost machines, these can never give long term reliable service. THIS
MACHINE WILL!!
Centronics or IEEE interface. Interchangeable daisy wheels — variable pitch — whole line memory. Uses standard type IBM ribbons and
lift off correctors. Perfection as a typewriter {used by local authorities). Perfection as a printer.
Ask your local computer or office equipment dealer for furthyer information. EXSTOCK DELIVERY
SOLE UK AGENT. TRADE ENQUIRIES INVITED.
a
veel CROW/D) susiness centre
EASTBOURNE, 56-58 SOUTH ST.,
SUSSEX. (0323) 639983.
@ Circle No. 256
L&J Computers r \\
192 HONEYPOT LANE, QUEENSBURY, STANMORE, MIDDX HA7 1EE. 01-204 7525 yy,
THE “PET” SPECIALISTS
DON'T MESS ABOUT
IF YOU WANT ANYTHING “COMMODORE”
PHONE 01-204 7525
OR CALL AT OUR SHOP FOR CHEAPEST PRICES!!
FOR EXAMPLE: 8032 OR 8050 £749 (£861.35 INC VAT)
WE DO NOT BOAST ABOUT OUR SIZE — BUT
WE DO BRAG ABOUT OUR SUPER SERVICE!
WE CARRY LARGE STOCKS ALSO OF SOFTWARE, CHIPS & ANCILLARIES.
TRY US — YOU WON'T BE DISAPPOINTED
PERSONAL SHOPPERS WELCOME ALL GOOOS SENT SAME DAY WHEREVER POSSIBLE <1) |
Phone & Mail Orders accepted. LARGE S.A.E. FORLISTS ETC. =p
@ Circle No. 255
184 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
LONDON COMPUTER CENTRE
j TOMORROW'S COMPUTING TODAY
ACT SOFTWARE AVAILABLE
SITUS 7 WORDSTAR, MAILMERGE, SELECT,
SUPERCALC, MICRO MODELER,
£2395 PULSAR ACCOUNTING, TABS
16 BITS FOR THE PRICE ACCOUNTING, INTEGRATED
OF8BITS ACCOUNTS, COBOL-—FORTRAN,
128K RAM 1.2M DISK PASCAL —M BASIC
STORAGE
TELEVIDEO SINGLE-USER TO MULTIUSER S, -
802 £2170
Superbrain Compatibility
800K Disk Storage
Green Screen. True descenders
22 Function keys 806/ 816
802E 1.6M/b Disk Storage £2295
802H 10M/b Hard Disk £3990 :
806 6 user 10M/b Hard Disk £4095 Word Processing Payroll Nominal
= —~
816 16 user 23M/b Hard Disk £7385 —_—
800 64 K user station £1025
Prices above based on exchange rate $2 = £
Epson Type3 |, New Superbrain 2
MX 80/FT from £1595
. a
Sales Invoice Purchasing
H A Fi D DIS KS ‘ | —MX100 ; Dedicated Wordstar Keypad
for Superbrain,
TRS 80 Model Il, Apple
Model 6 6M/b £1860
Model 12 11.5M/b £2295
AUTO SHEET FEEDER AUTHORISED TANDY
New! 12” Wide DEALERS = x
: vs Model | Model II Model Il
Automatic Ke 48K System with TRS DOS
Sheet Feeder rn _ andCPMat ea ee
; F reen Screen no extra charge 48K wit isk 4
fits all below Complete€995_— from £1995 drives £1395
DAISY WHEEL PRINTERS Save £300 on this LCC Software Starter Pack
LETTER QUALITY PRINTING Wordstar
£250
FLOWRITER RP 1600. 60 CPS The most intelligent Daisy, -
Proportional yee Right Justification on Wordstar Trainer Manual £ 25
WORDSTAR, WORD PRO, APPLE WRITER SCRIPSIT etc. £1500 Dbase Il £350
ivetti ET 121.20 CPS. Doubles as typewriter E795
TEC 40. 40 CPS. JAPANESE DIABLO 630 uses Supercalc £175
Diablo Daisy Wheel & Ribbons. £1,235 £3800
DAISY WHEEL II 60 CPS. RICOH 1600 Daisywheel £995 £500
QUME SPRINT 5. 45 CPS £1,350 Special Package Deal
NEC. 55CPS £14,
FUJITSU 80 CPS, a wheels £1,695 Saving £300
All prices are Exclusive of VAT and Delivery. Dealer Enquiries invited on all Products.
Large range of CPM Software available. Please phone for Prices.
Demonstrations on all models.
43 GRAFTON WAY, LONDON WIP 5LA (Opposite Maples }
OPENING HOURS: 117 MON-FRI 124SA1_ Tel. 388 6991/2
24 hour answer phone: 01-388 5721
@ Circle No. 325
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 185
TRADE AND EXPORT
Definitely the very best deal for
0.E.M.. DISTRIBUTORS ANDO OEALERS
throughout Europe
THE SINGLE SOURCE FOR MICROCOMPUTER EOUIPMENT,
PERIPHERALS, SUPPLIES ANDO SOFTWARE
EPSON - ANADEX - TEXAS INSTRUMENTS - QUME - DIABLO - NEC -
RICOH - OKI - CENTRONICS - TEC - OLYMPIA - ADLER - APPLE -
_ COMMODORE - HITACHI - SHUGART - CONTROL DATA - BASF -
FACIT-FUJITSU - PRINTRONIX~ DATA PRODUCTS - OLIVETTI- ETC. ETC.
Obtain substantial savings by combining your purchases with
hundreds of other trade buyers throughout Europe
@ No commitment to purchase minimum quantity
@ Parts and labour warranty
@ Fast delivery
Telephone ‘or ‘write for details of
INFORMEX CONSORTIUM PURCHASE SCHEME
INFORMEX-LONDON LTD INFURM ER Ta
8-12 Lee High Road, London SE13 5LQ
AGENTS REQUIRED WORLDWIDE
Tel: 01-318 4213 (10 lines) Telex: 892622
@ Circle No. 258
CAN YOUR
1)
COMPUTER
000201"460790
READ THIS? |
Light-pen and signal conditioning unit enable your computer to read all
types of bar code. Typical applications include data collection, ticket
identification systems, security checkpoint verification, stock control,
identifying assemblies in service, repair or manufacturing environ-
ments, programming computers and intelligent instruments, matching
of patient and transfusion blood, retail product price information at
checkouts etc. Various interface options available for all computers.
Hardware from £149 + VAT ............ Further details on request
Professional quality light pens for use with VDUs, graphics
terminals etc. Stainless steel construction, glass lens
optics, bulit in buffer amp and touch sense switch.
£50 + VAT . .Data sheet available
‘FAST DATA’ light pen system (complete hard-
ware/software package) for ,Commodore
PETs. This is a quality product designed for
serious use. Typical applications include
Computer Aided Design (CAD), wordproces-
sing, data selection etc. When the pen is
pointed at the screen its high resolution coor-
dinates are automatically returned as BASIC
variables. Compatible with Supersoft & MTU hi-
res boards.
Complete system £149 + VAT ... Full litera-
ture available.
(PC) 1 Green Lane
ALTEK seissnsis, sm
Phone (093 22) 44110 — 24 hours
Access... Visa... Callers by appointment
@ Circle No. 257
Microcomputer training at the
Peak Computer Education Centre
Based at Buxton in the heart of the beautiful Peak district we offer a
wide range of residential courses. The Centre, located in the elegant
St. Ann‘s Hotel in the town centre, offers excellent facilities and
accommodation. The courses are designed to give you practical
experience of micro-computers and our own machines are available
for your use.
Take this opportunity today to learn about the tools of tomorrow.
Courses currently on offer are:
BASO1: BASIC Programming. 5 days.
Cost: £350 + VAT
Start dates: 16, 23 August; 6, 20 September.
BASO02: Advanced BASIC programming. 4 days.
Cost: £325 + VAT
Start dates: 23 August; 13 September.
MGO01: Managers guide to microcomputers. 2 days.
Cost: £200 + VAT
Start dates: 19, 30 August; 13, 15, 20 September.
MIBO1: Microcomputers in business. 3 days.
Cost: £275 + VAT
Start dates: 16, 30 August; 8, 22 September.
N.B.: Accommodation and meals included in price.
For booking or further details phone or write to:
Course administrator,
Peak Computer Education Centre,
St. Ann’s Hotel,
Buxton. Tel: Buxton (0298) 2788.
@ Circle No. 259
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
This microcomputer
comes with something no
other can offer.
The Xerox name.
The age of the microcomputer has only
just arrived.
Rank Xerox, however, have been around
for some 25 Pie supplying and servicing
sophisticated office equipment for many of the
businesses in this country.
The Xerox 820 frees you from adminis-
tration, from figure-work, from all the time-
consuming routines that impose on your day.
And it will help you make py soe business
decisions by presenting a detailed picture of
your operation. Information youcan manipulate
to chart the way ahead.
The 820isa compact, versatile, easy-to-use,
desk-top microcomputer. With its CP/M
operating system it opens up a vast array of appli-
cations in software and language.
From our software catalogue you canselect
programmes to suit your needs whether they be
word-processing, financial planning and model-
ling or data-management, plus a whole range of
business applications.
You will have access to diagnostic help and
assistance for both hardware and software.
Just ring the Xerox Help Line and there'll be a
Xerox expert to advise and assist you.
The 820’s technical capabilities include:
1. Storage Options The 820 has a range
of storage options Pont 5%” and 8” disc drives,
offering capacities of up to IMB, to Fixed Disc
with capacities up to 12MB.
2. Display Screen/Processor Display
Screen:23 lines. 80 characters per line. White on
black background. Brightness control.
Processor: 64K RAM, 4K ROM. Z80" processor
using the universal CP/M operating system.
3. Keyboard Nationalised 94 character
with ASC11 keys. Independent cursor control
and statistics key pad.
4. Printers There is a range of Xerox
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 7982
printers available for the 820, such as the 630
which has: High quality 40 CPS Daisy Wheel
Printer. Bi-directional printing, choice of 10,
12, 15 pitch and PS. Two matnix printers are also
available.
5. Communications Port In-built RS
232 communications port for point-to-
point communications and for link through a
Communications Server to Ethernet.
The 820 is available through Rank Xerox
Sales Offices, XeroxStoresand AuthorisedRank
Xerox Microcomputer Dealers.
RANK XEROX
We gi le ti hink
e give people time tothink.
*Z80 (Registered Mark) is registered trade mark of ZILOG Inc.
+CP/M (Registered Mark) is registered trade mark of Digital Research Inc.
Name Position.
Company/Organisation_
Address —_4
Postcode
Type of business. :
Please tick if you are a Rank Xerox customer
24-hour information service.
Ask the operator for FREEFONE 2279 or dial 01-380 1418.
PCHNSI6
@ Circle No. 260
187
Software for
TRS-80 Models 1/Ill
CRYSTAL ELECTRONICS
CC ELECTRONICS
FOR YOUR SHARP MZ80K CP/M 2.21(XTAL)
BAS!IC CP/M FACILITIES INCLUDE:
* Dynamic file management Fast assembler
¢ General purpose editor * Advanced debugging utility
YOUR SHARP CP/M 2.21(XTAL) PACKAGE INCLUDES:
* Hardware modification (if fitted by a SHARP dealer does NOT break
the guarantee) * SHARP CP/M 2.21 (latest version) on disc * XTAL
Monitor and Operating system * 7 Digital Research manuals « 12
months guarantee and up-dates (on all our products)
CP/M 2.21 (XTAL) FROM £150 + VAT
Ask your SHARP dealer for further details or contact CRYSTAL
ELECTRONICS
CP/M SOFTWARE HOUSES—XTAL CAN HELP YOU ESTABLISH
YOUR SOFTWARE ON THE SHARP.
XTAL BASIC (SHARP)
Takes 5K less memory, has all the features of SHARP BASIC PLUS
Multi dim strings. error trapping. logical operators. machine code
monitor, more flexible peripheral handling. improved screen control.
increased list control, auto run. If..then..else —and it doesn't stop there
—it grows. You can extend the commands and functions at will — 10K,
12K, 16K, BASIC?. SHARP to XTAL BASIC conversion program is
included. £40 plus VAT.
Bi-directional serial board for your SHARP RS232 compatible ‘150
Baud to 2400 Baud adjustable. <5,6,7,.8 Bit words, plugs into MZ801/0
£99.50 pilus VAT. Includes software for bi-directional use in XTAL BASIC,
software for using SHARP BASIC with serial printer and self-diagnostic
software for testing Baud rate etc.
Also suitable for Video Genie II
most for Video Genie |.
S.A.E. FOR FULL DETAILS
WE ACCEPT ACCESS
Members of Computer Retailers Association & Apple Dealers Association
mele Road Shop open 0930—1730 except Saturday & Sunday
ancnory 40 Magdalene Road, Torquay, Devon, England. Tel: 0803 22699
AB3 3UR Access and Barclaycard welcome COMPUTERS '
03302-4168
COMPONENTS
@ Circle No. 262 @ Circle No. 263
SIMPLE ECONOMY
Simple to operate,economic to use.
Low cost high value accounts program (on cassette) Designed for the Video Genie | and for the Tandy TRS80 model III
for use with printer. Available in Sole Trader/Partnership or Limited company versions.
FEATURES
@ Bank, Cash and VAT summaries.
@ Fully itemised audit trail.
@ No limit to the number of entries.
@ Profit and loss statements.
@ Full financial year calendar.
Comes with a comprehensive, easy to understand manual.
ONLY £95 + VAT FOR PROGRAM CASSETTE TAPE AND MANUAL.
Just tick the appropriate box.
NAME Sole trader/partnership version [J]
Limited company version ma]
Manual! only - £10 per copy. a) |
1 enclose £ per copy
(Cassette £10925, Manual £10) |
made payable to Tetherport
Limited, PO Box 4NL,
83/4 Berwick Street, London Wi 3P} |
@Standard and zero-rated VAT entries.
@Weekly summary of all accounts.
@ Quarterly on demand cumulative
summaries of all accounts.
| ADDRESS
@ Circle No. 261
188 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
OLUMBIA
Acomplete range of
microcomputers from
320K-80M
Single and multi-user upgradeable/expandable
microcomputer systems from Columbia Data
Systems offer the disk storage capacity that’s
exactly right for you. Single user machines to
take 544” or 8” floppy disks giving 320K-
2.4M capacity and multi-user machines
with up to 80M on hard disk.
Upto 5 users can work
simultaneously while sharing a single
processing system. Ideal for word
processing, general accounting or
other special purpose business
applications.
Icarus handle the whole range of microcomputer systems produced by Columbia
Data Systems of the U.S.A. This includes CP/M and MPIM single and multi-terminal
units with hard and floppy disk storage capacities. Itis adaptable to suit each and every micro-based
application there is. So whenever you need a microcomputer, for whatever purpose, Columbia and Icarus have the answer.
The Icarus dealer network
A.P. LTD, Maple House, Mortlake
Crescent, CHESTER CH3 5UR.
Tel: 0244 46024
BASIC BUSINESS SYSTEMS,
61 Loughborough Road, WEST
BRIDGEFORD, Nottingham,
Tel: 0602 819713
BUSINESS INFORMATION
SYSTEMS, 602 Triumph House,
189 Regent Street, LONDON.
Tel: 01 437 1069
BORDER COMPUTING LTD,
Dog Kennel Lane, BUCKNELL,
Shropshire. Tel: 054 74 368
CAMBRIDGE MICRO
COMPUTERS, Cambridge Science
Park, Milton Road, CAMBRIDGE.
Tel: 0223 314666
COMMONSENSE COMPUTING
LTD, P.O. Box 7, BIDEFORD,
Devon. Tel; 02372 4795
CONQUEST COMPUTER SALES
LTD, 92 London Road, BENFLEET,
Essex. Tel: 03745 59861
CULLOVILLE LTD, Thornficid,
Woodhili Road, SANDON,
Chelmsford, Essex. Tel: 024 541 3919
DATA PROFILE, Lawrence Road,
Green Lane, HOUNSLOW,
Middlesex. Tel: 01 446 1917
DATA WARE, 48 Eaton Drive,
KINGSTON, Surrey KT2 7QX.
Tel: O1 546 2984
DAYTA, 20b West Street, Wilton,
SALISBURY, Wilts. Tel: 0722 74 3898
Icarus Computer Systems Ltd.
DRAGON SYSTEMS LTD,
37 Walter Road, SWANSEA,
W. Glam. Tel: 0792 474498
DUPLEX COMMUNICATIONS,
2 Leire Lane, Dunton Bassett,
Lutterworth, LEICESTERSHIRE.
Tel: 0455 209131
EASIBEE COMPUTING LTD,
133/135 High Street, LONDON
E6 IHZ. Tel: 01 471 4884
ESCO COMPUTING LTD,
154 Cannongate, EDINBURGH.
Tel: 031 $57 3937
ESCO COMPUTING LTD,
40a Gower Street, GLASGOW
GSI 1PH. Tel: 641 427 $497
EFFICIENT BUSINESS SYSTEMS,
9Clarence Street, BELFA§T 1,
N. Ireland. Tel: 0232 647 $38
EMTEK COMPUTERS LTD,
40 South Furzeham Road, BRIXHAM,
Devon, Tel: 08045 3566
FAST COMPUTING, 52 High Street,
HENLEY-IN-ARDEN, West
Midlands. Tel: 01 438 2813
B, FITTON, 97 Melbourne Road,
ROYSTON, Herts. Tel: 0763 41949
FOREST ROW COMPUTERS,
$3 Freshfield Bank, FOREST ROW,
East Sussex. Tel: 034282 4397
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
G.T. OFFICE SYSTEMS,
12 Clovelly Road, LONDON W5 SHE.
Tel: 01 567 9959
G.LC.C., P.O. Box 519, Manama,
Bahrain.
JAEMMALTD, Unit 24, Lee Bank
House, Holloway Head, Lee Bank,
BIRMINGHAM. Tel: 021 643 1609
JENNINGS COMPUTER
SERVICES, 55/57 Fagley Road,
BRADFORD,
W. Yorks. Tel: 0274 637867
KENT BUSINESS SYSTEMS LTD,
85 High Street, Ramsgate, Kent
Tel: 0843 687816.
LAWMAR BUSINESS SYSTEMS,
1 Paterson Drive, Woodhouse Eaves,
LOUGHBOROUGH, Leics.
Tel: 0509 890900
LONDON COMPUTER CENTRE,
43Grafton Way, LONDON W1.
Tel: O1 388 5721
M.G. ENTERPRISES, 32 Ruc Victor
Hugo, 92800 Puteaux, France.
MASS MICROS, Wellson House,
Brownfields, WELWYN GARDEN
CITY, Herts. Tel: 96 31736
MICRO-K, 186 Martin Way,
MORDEN, Surrey. Tel: 01 543 1119
MICROAGE LTD, 53 Acton Road,
LONG EATON, Nottinghamshire.
Tel: 06076 64264
MICROSERVE LTD, 811 Kennedy
Way, Pelham Road, IMMINGHAM.
Tel: 0469 72346
MICROCARE COMPUTING LTD,
18 Hawarden Road, NEWPORT,
Gwent. Tel: 0633 278040
MICROCOMPUTER
CONSULTANCY, Lyngen, Oldhill
Wood, Studham, DUNSTABLE,
Beds.
NASTAR COMPUTER SERVICES
LTD, Ashton Lodge, Abercrombie S1.,
CHESTERFIELD. Tel: 0266 207048
OMEGA ELECTRIC LTD,
Flaxicy Mill, Flaxicy Road,
MITCHELDEAN, Glos.
Tel: 045 276 532
PROTOCOL COMPUTER
PRODUCTS, 49 Beckenham Lane,
Shortlands, BROMLEY, Kent.
RANMOR COMPUTING LTD.
Nelson House, 2 Nelson Mews,
SOUTHEND-ON-SEA.
Tel: 0702 339262
ROGIS SYSTEMS LTD, Keepers
Lodge, Frittenden,
NR. CRANBROOK, Kent.
Tel: 058 080 310
S.D.M. COMPUTER SERVICES,
Broadway, BEBINGTON, Merseyside
L63 5ND. Tel: 051 608 9365
For further details, or if you want
to become a dealer yourself, contact:
~ Computer Systems Ltd.
SAPPHIRE SYSTEMS, 19-27 Kents
Hill Road, BENFLEET, Essex.
Tel: 03745 59756
SHEFFIELD COMPUTER
CENTRE, 227 London Road,
SHEFFIELD S2 4NF. Tel; 0742 53519
SISCO LTD, 4 Moorfields, LONDON,
EC2Y 9AA. Tel: 01 9200315
HUGH SIMMONS LTD, Braidicy
House, St Pauls Lane,
BOURNEMOUTH. Tel: 0202 20713
SORTFIELD LTD, E. Floor,
Milburn House, Dean Street,
NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE.
Te); 0632 329593
SPOT COMPUTER SYSTEMS
LTD, New Strect, Kelham Street
Indus. Estate, DONCASTER.
S. Yorks. Tel: 0302 25159
STAG TERMINALS LTD,
30 Church Road, Teddington,
Middlesex.
Tel: 01 9430777
STUKELEY COMPUTER
SERVICES, Barnhill, STAMFORD,
Lincs. Tel: 0780 4947
TERMACRE LTD, 126 Woodwarde
Rd., LONDON SE22 8TU.
Tel: 01 693 3037
THAMES VALLEY COMPUTERS,
10 Maple Close, MAIDENHEAD,
Berks. Tel: 0628 23532
TURNKEY COMPUTER
TECHNIQUE, 23 Caldergien Road,
St. Leonards, EAST KILBRIDE.
Tel: 03552 39466 -
WORD PERFECT, Old Town Hall,
Box 148, READING, Berkshire.
Tel: 0734 589068
Deane House 27 Greenwood Piace London NW51NN Tel: 01-485 5574 Telex: 264209
@ Circle No. 264
189
eectron for Soa
JRS SOFTWARE
19 WAYSIDE AVENUE, WORTHING, SUSSEX, BN13 JU
TELEPHONE WORTHING 65691 (Evenings and Weekends only)
CASSETTE prefeysionally recorded by As reviewed in ‘YOUR COMPUTER’ —
March 1982
16K RAM PACK
GAMES PACK ~ Seat thus for velo! $ x 16% programs PLUS 2 x IM programs
3D Barte (Micode-1K) — Fast-moving space battle with continuous count-aown
of eneray units left
City Bomb (code 1K) — 0 4 land your plane, Your tue! £35 ($69.95)
vou civcle the city towel and fone
Warp Ware Basic by M/cods jaleefic soace-craft moved by M/code lor
(previously sold at Microtat with instant respanse
Sweet Tooth lor £4 953
Snake Basic 16K) —
A game of though! @ng shitl. Pass through alt the marked
loreslausly sald a Miccotals squares whhout crosuing of doubling back on your path,
¥ 13 95: but watch out tor the 1g dIack blob.
Sweet Tooth (Basic & M/code- 18K} —M code rauth 8d to move your tat lace round the
Acteen and 9 he aweels
PLUS Glatom and Black Holes (previourly sold together lor £4.95)
An ESSENTIAL addition to your IK RAM 2X81 for ZX80 BK ROM
Inleave arate whieh when oFd
deving)
EEA fw stten by PAUL HOLMES!
Provides the Iollowing additional tacines
Line renumber — you state starting number ang increment value
Search ond replace — changes evory occurence of a character #s you require.
Free space —tells you how many free bytes you have ‘eft —
SPECIAL GRAPHICS ROUTINES Fully built, tested and guaranteed
Hyper graphics mode — graphics never seen on 8 2X81 belore No additional power supply required.
pen — instantly sets up as many empty print lines a8 yqu requit@. 11K version only! black case
Fil) — used In conjunction with OPEN fills your screen instantly with your No wobble problems — fully
specitied character compatible with ae 73 etc
Reverse = changes each character on your screen to Ne inverse video (Please send lan large S + 50p
TAPE ROUTINE — provides @ system WAIT condition until » aignel ia received in cop of DMPUTER RAM
ti Maoh 1982)
jefunded when you purchase th
AAM pack}. Please allow 21 cava for
delivery
STOP PRESS
NOW AVAILABLE — 64K RAM pack
(56K useable} €75 inclusive
WEW) GRAPHICS TOOLKIT (Arfother masterpiece by PAUL HOLMES)
22 exciting MACHINE CODE routines that give you control over your screén as never before !
{ZX81 - 16K RAM ONLY)
fora
(he cassette ear jack — many uses |
All these routines ate written in machine code and together take up only
164 BYTES of your precious RAM | an Incredible acthevement!!
The ptice ig incredible tool ONLY £395 (87 88) for cassette. including FULL
instructions and example programs
ALSO available 16K version ONLY £495 193990) which includes all ihe above RLUS
GOTO's and GOSUB's included in line renumbet
Search for and list every line containing specitied character
ORAW/UNORAW draws of deletes your
multi-character shape which is defined in a REM
Statement. You may define a8 many different
shapes as you like end draw of undraw each al
will at whichever screen position you choose
FOREGROUNO ON/OFF use this to ‘protect’
‘existing characters on your screen. When on new
shapes will appear to slide behind and re-emerge
from other shapes
BORDER/UNBORDER Draws @ border round the
edges of your screen sraz. Edit lines con be used
if required. Your border is protected when
foreground is on
FILL Fills any aumber of lines you specity, starting
at any line you specify, by your ehasen character
REVERSE Converte all charecters to thelr inverse
video, contro! as in Fil
PRINT POSITION CONTROLS
uP
ocayn After your next PRINT position in
LE the direction indicated
RIGHT
EQUTPRINT Moves next PRINT position to first
edit line
SCROLL facilities
UPSCROLL 7
DOWNSCROLL
RIGHTSCROLL
LEFTSCROLL
ONSCREEN/OFFSCREEN turne your screen on of
off
BACKGROUND ON/OFF
Fills your screen by your specified character
When foreground Is on existing Information is
unaffected and shapes will appear to pass in front
of your background, without deleting it
Scroll your screen in the
direction indicated
SEARCH AND REPLACE will search the acreen for
every occurence of the character you specify and
replace it with your new character
SQUARE draws ® square or rectangie fram your
specified co-ordinates
ALL these routines sre in machine code for
SUPER-FAST rasponse | Simply load GRAPHICS
TOOLKIT, which repositions itself at the end of
your RAM, and then your own pragram (or key in
a new one), GRAPHICS TOOLKIT uses only 2K of
your RAM and that includes space to load the
programmera TOOLKIT described above {16K
RAM version)
AUTHORISED
SERVICE AGENT AGENT
@ Circle No. 266
REGISTERED REFERRAL CENTRE
FOR THE BBC PROJECT
BEEBUG fi:
BBC MICRO
INDEPENDENT NATIONAL USER
GROUP FOR THE BBC MICRO
IF YOU OWN A BBC MACHINE, OR HAVE ORDERED ONE, OR
ARE JUST THINKING ABOUT GETTING ONE, THEN YOU
NEED BEEBUG.
BEEBUG runs a regular magazine devoted exclusively to the
BBC Micro (10 issues per year).
Latest news on the BBC project.
What you should know before you order a machine.
Members’ discount scheme on books and hardware.
New program listings, regular advice clinic, and hints and
tips pages in each issue.
April Issue: 3D Noughts and Crosses, Moon Lander, Ellipse
and 3D Surface.
Plus articles on Uprgrading to Model B, Making Sounds,
and Operating System Calls.
May Issue: Careers, Bomber, Chords, Spiral and more. Plus
articles on Graphics, Writing Games Programs and
Using the Assembler.
June Issue: Mazetrap,Mini wordprocessor, Polygon; plus
articles on upgrading. The user port, TV set and monitor
review. Graphic Part ll. More Assembler hints.
Structuring in BBC Basic, plus BBC Bugs.
Membership Make cheques to
Introductory offer (closes 30 June) BEEBUG
6 months £4.50 and send ta:
1 year £8.50 BEEBUG, Dept 5,
After 30 June £4.90 and £8.90 374 Wandsworth Rd,
Send £1.00 and A4 SAE for sample London, SW8 4TE
(Dverseas add £1.00 for 6 months, £1.50 for 1 year)
This Inctudes a cassette with 2 coples of the program
ALL FOR ONLY £5.95 ($11.90) ics c'comprenensive insteuction booklet with
{smazing value from JRS? examples —
NOTE: All prices are lully inclusive — eend cheque or P.O. to JRS Software at above address
OVERSEAS CUSTOMERS Payment may be ey in Sterling (Money Order available at | Prices quoted above are aiso export
your bank} ou $U.S.{U S.A customers only}. prices and Include AIRM All postage
@ Circle No. 265
190 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
UNLIMITED
ae Cassetle player is not included in the offer.
With this remarkable new self-teach package from the
National Computing Centre, you can master Business Basic
in your own time, at your own pace, and on your own
microcomputer.
The Business Basic Self-Teach Programming Course is an
imaginative, practical, and realistic approach to learning the
most widely used of all microcomputer programming
languages.
The course draws on NCC's unrivalled expertise in
developing effective training methods. It is based on the
Centre's wide experience of the real needs of the business
user. It teaches not only Basic as a business programming
language but also good business computing practice. And it
is applicable to Basic on any microcomputer.
Hands-on learning
The heart of the package is the Workbook; a systematic
step-by-step guide through every feature of Business Basic.
And right from page one you'll be learning in the best
possible way — at the keyboard of your computer as you
work through the hundreds of practical ‘activities’ which
illustrate the facilities of Basic and their use.
Making the point
The Audio Tape is an integral part of the package which
you will use throughout the course. Its purpose is to
introduce new ideas, emphasise important concepts, and
give a detailed explanation of some of the more difficult
tasks. In all of these areas the spoken voice has proved
invaluable in ensuring effective communication.
Checking progress
At frequent intervals you will be given more formal tasks
— for example, modifying, writing, or explaining a program
— to ensure that you can put what you have learnt to
practical use. Solutions to these problems are contained in
the separate Answer Book.
PERSONAL
TUITION IN BUSINESS
* Offer applies to UK and Ireland onty
Putting Business Basic to work
When you have completed the Workbook, the
Application Study Guide sets six real-life ‘Assignments’ —
creating programs for such commercial applications as order
analysis, mailing list creation, stock file maintenance, and
invoice production. Each assignment includes a brief and an
analysis of the programming task. The Guide includes
program listings, sample runs, and explanatory notes on
which to base your solution.
Business Dasic and your computer
Different computers have different versions of Basic.
The Workbook points out where there are likely to be
differences, tells you when to check with your suppliers
manual, and-encourages you to note these differences as
they occur on the Reference Card. By the end of the course,
therefore, this card will have become a convenient reference
summary specifically related to your machine.
The complete Business Basic Self-Teach
Programming Course, including Workbook,
Answer Book, Application Study Guide, Reference
Card, and audio cassette, costs just £39.50
including VAT.
At that price it’s probably the best investment
you’ll make in business computing.
Return the coupon today for your copy.
The National Computing Centre Limited
Oxford Road, Manchester M1 7ED Tel: 061-228 6333 Thesatonel Competing Centre
i] To: Marketing Manager
i O ye | The National Computing Centre Limited
rder Form ==
Manchester M1 7ED
‘ Please supply to
1 Name _
q Position __
} Company/Organisation
j Address ___ =
4 Telephone Signature
1 Cheques should be made oayable to NCC Lid. Or debit my Access/Barclaycard
a f | | ete Access | BARCLAYCARD |
ae |
1 Signature = =
Address
Name ____
} =
REG No 881195
Ve ee ea a ee meat
' @ Circle No. 268
I9\
ome ase eS = eee SF KM Mw eS KM | Se =
Re
Standard
specification includes:-
@ IEEE-488 AH1, L1, E1 Interface
@ Full A4 format @ 700 mm/s max. writing speed
@ Suitable for direct connection to PET and many other
computers
® Optional software including character generator available
Price including JEEE Interface £596 + VAT
Brook Avenue, Warsash, Southampton, SO3 6HP
England. Tel: Locks Heath 4221 (STD 048 95).
Telex: 477042 — JAY JAY — SOTON.
| | JJ. LLOYD INSTRUMENTS LTD.
INSTRUMENTS
@ Circle No. 270
KNIGHTS SHARP OFFERS
DEAL Ai Sharp MZ-80A with 4 languages — BASIC,
PASCAL, FORTH, MACHINE CODE + 100 programs. £477
DEAL A2 Trade in any Sinclair computer and get £50
allowance against deal A1 £427
DEAL A3 Everything in deal A1 plus expansion unit £559
DEAL A4 Complete MZ-80A system — computer, printer,
disk, expansion unit, all interface cards, cables, manuals,
etc £1,399
KNIGHTS MZ-80A
LANGUAGES
KNIGHTS WEE PASCAL + 4 programs £20
KNIGHTS FORTH + 4 programs £25
KNIGHTS MACHINE CODE (as supplied to Sharp) £30
KNIGHTS MONITOR PLUS — 30 extra commands £40
All four together — special deal LA £79
DEAL B2 M2Z-80B with 70 programs, Knights ASSEMB-
LER, + Sharp double precision BASIC £999
ALL PRICES EXCLUDE VAT BUT INCLUDE DELIVERY.
108 ROSEMOUNT PLACE, ABERDEEN
AB2 4YW
TELEPHONE: 0224 630526
TELEX: 739169 “KNIGHTS TV”
Knights TD
COMPUTERS
@ Circle No. 271
CODE EXPANDS TO FIT THE SPACE AVAILABLE
When developing a system you know how one good idea follows another until CRUNCH; the system has run out of store.
Then good ideas have to be sacrificed to make the system fit onto the available hardware, and your skills have to be diverted
to finding compromises and making unsatisfactory choices.
IMAGINATION BECOMES PRACTICAL witH BCPL CINTCODE
Imagine being.able to compress your code effortlessly into
half the space it now uses, the result would be a better,
more comprehensive, and more competitive system - often
developed in less time.
imagine having the power and freedom of assembler in a
high level language which is easily transferred to new
computers.
Imagine using better development aids than those norm-
ally available on mainframe computers.
A WELL DESIGNED PRACTICAL LANGUAGE
BCPL is a modern well structured language, easy to learn
easy to write and easy to read. It is related to Algol and
Pascal, but is particularly strong in solving the practical
problems of real computer systems. Thus BCPL specifies
input and output, provides for separate compilation, and
supports very efficient implementations. Portability was
an important part of the language design, and the avail-
ability of inexpensive and convenient conversion aids has
led to compatible implementations on many different pro-
cessors.
The language provides a basic framework of operations
which can Be adapted to any application by the declar-
ation of procedures. The simplicity of the underlying
structure ensures that BCPL requires little overhead. But
in keeping with the practical nature of the lanquage, a
range of useful standard routines are defined, in part-
icular for input and output.
BCPL CINTCODE. is a new implementation of standard
BCPL Specifically for Microcomputers. It has been care-
fully designed to hold the logic of a program in a mini-
mum number of bytes. This releases store and disk for
more code and data. Tests show that CINTCODE requires
only a third the space of fully compiled code, and that it
is significantly more compact than other language systems.
CINTCODE is freely relocatable and links at runtime. This
means that common procedures used by several tasks need
only be stored once. It is distributed with 94 useful proc-
edures, which include all those normally provided in
BCPL implementations.
The debugging aids provide breakpoints, symbolic traces,
displays of the sequence of calls feading to an error, etc.
ph way which is easily related to the high level source
code.
BCPL CINTCODE supports multitasking and overlays
under CP/M ina simple and effective way.
The full BCPL CINTCODE development system on CP/M
is £250, the User Manual is also available separately for
£35, Licences for the interpreter and libraries on target
systems are only £20. Products developed in CINTCODE
under CP/M can also be run on Apples and other 6502
processors.
RICHARDS COMPUTER PRODUCTS LTD, Brookside, Westbrook St., Blewbury, Didcot, Oxon. eno Cr
192
@ Circle No. 269
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Personal PEARL
Turns people
If you could program a computer by simply create your own library of programmes that
telling it the result you wanted, without using matches your operation today, and tomorrow.
complex codes or languages, then anyone After all, no-one understands your
could become a programming professional. business better than you. So let Personal
Sounds fantastic? PEARL take the technology out of computer
But now it’s possible with Personal programming, and you'll find yourself writing
PEARL, and all for less than £200. It generates professional business software — at the touch
quality Business Programmes, Data of a button.
Management, Costing, Mailing — in fact you
Tel: Parkstone (0202) 741275 PO Box 34, Poole, Dorset, BH14 8AR
Tel: Parkstone (0202) 741275
—
Name:
Company:
Address:
Tel:
| | Computer Make:
1 Disk Size:_____-. VDU Make:
Pearl Software International (UK) Limited, PO Box 34, Poole, Dorset, BH14 8AR. | Pearl Software International (UK) Limited,
| ,
@ Circle No. 272 =
FOR APPLE USERS,
_THE WAIT IS OVER!!!
Question: What's faster than a Winchester, and
cheaper than a floppy Disc drive?
Answer: A 128K Disk emulator card.
If your software crawls along because it accesses the disk drives
frequently, a disk emulator will speed your system enormously. The
Disk Emulator consists of 128K of bank-switched RAM plus software
to fool DOS into believing that the card is a disk. Once the software is
installed, the card behaves exactly like a disk, except that it operates
like lightning. Random access to data files appears instantaneous.
Programs are LOADED and SAVED in far less time than with a floppy.
The software provides new commands to load from a floppy onto the
Disk Emulator, and from the Disk Emulator to a floppy for backup.
Instructions are provided to enable the creation of turnkey systems
utilising Disk Emulator cards.
The Disk Emulator is fully compatible with all software which uses the
DOS 3.3 commands. It will not function correctly with programs that
bypass DOS.
PASCAL and CP/M disk emulation is also supported. The Pascal
implementation follows the protocol defined in Apple’s ATTACH
BIOS specification.
VC-PLUS is a software package included in the 128KDE system which
allows VisiCalc to use memory on one of the 128KDE cards to give
82K for the VisiCalc model. If two 128KDE cards are installed, 145K
becomes available.
Up to four 128K cards may be installed, giving an incredible 512K of
instant-access disk space!!!
The cost of a 128K DOS 3.3 Disk Emulator system and VC-PLUS
software is less than the price of a floppy drive and controller. Pascal
and CP/M emulation software are low-cost optional extras.
SALE
Computers-Software
Application Pacs-Manuals
Books.
Hewlett-Packard Texas Sharp
Mainframes
H.P. 85 £1595 Texas 99/4A £255
Sharp MZ 80B £895 + VAT
Similar Huge Reductions on
In-Stock Peripherals, Interfaces,
Software,calculators and home
electronics. Own an HP 67/97.
HP41 or Ti59? Sale offers of up to
Please contact us for further details.
speciay printer offers for this month:
EPSON MX80 FT/2 printer
QUME Sprint 9/35
Silentype and interface
Stylafont daisywheel and interface
BROMLEY COMPUTER SHOP 01-460 2580
49 BECKENHAM LANE 01-464 0541
SHORTLANDS, BROMLEY, KENT BRI ODA
@ Circle No. 274
only £345 + VAT
only £1250 + VAT
only £165 + VAT
only £425 + VAT
50% off application pacs and books.
. BUSINESS S Send for
) ELECTRONEC full list
MACHINES today or telephone
we § 7Castle St., Edinburgh 031-226 5454
4 EH2 3BB. Tel: 031-226 5454
=i “1.
[wmIlc Instant Credit Typical Apr 29.4. Von-ss 9-5.30.
om Card Holders Phone Your Order.
@ Circle No. 275
WHY BUY FROM CAMDEN?
* We supeLy : THE HARDWARE MICROCOMPUTERS AND PERIPHERALS SS MAES OF
x WE SUPPLY : THE SOFTWARE FROM THE LEADING SOFTWARE HOUSES — WITH PROVEN
« We supPLy : THE BACK-UP
« We supPLy : THE EXPERIENCE
& WE SUPPLY : THE KNOWLEDGE
FROM OUR OWN ENGINEERING WORKSHOPS WITH FULLY
QUALIFIED TECHNICIANS OR ON-SITE SERVICE — YOUR
CHOICE.
AS ONE OF THE COUNTRY’S LEADING DISTRIBUTORS WITH
PROVEN SALES RECORDS — AND ONE OF THE PIONEERS OF
THE MICROCHIP.
OUR FULLY TRAINED STAFF WILL ADVISE ON YOUR
REQUIREMENTS TO SUIT YOUR NEEDS AND IMPROVE YOUR
BUSINESS.
128K MODEL
INCLUDES MONITOR
VISICALC Ill — SOS
MAIL LIST MANAGER
AND APPLE BUSINESS BASIC
PLUS SILENTYPE PRINTER
PLUS ADDITIONAL DISK DRIVE
£21 PER WEEK LEASE
4 OR PURCHASE
Zz commodore
Superbrain
64K QD MODEL
PLUS EPSON MX80FT
8032 80 COL MODEL
8050 1 MEG DUAL DISK
PLUS FULLY INTEGRATED RP1600 DAISYWHEEL PRINTER
ACCOUNTS PACKAGE WORDCRAFT 80 WORD PRO
£21 Biecsssee™ £19 Se tREsAseee dacornputer
CAMDEN COMPUTER SYSTEMS LID =
THE COMPUTER 462 COVENTRY ROAD, SMALL HEATH, BIRMINGHAM B10 0UG ,
PEOPLE
OER
PHONE: 021-771 3636 (10 lines) TELEX: 335909 (CAMDEN G)
NORTHERN BRANCH OFFICE: 95 MEADOW LANE, LEEDS LS11 5DW Ga)
TELEPHONE: 0532 446946 TELEX: 335909 ce
@ Circle No. 273
194 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
a a on oe on oe ee on
- 4 é - roe
7 >
A total business
computer
The Transtec BC2 is a brand new business computer with a
64K capacity and double sided double density disk-500K per drive.
It utilises the CP/M operating system giving the user access toa
huge range of already proven software packages. Alternatively, the
BC2 also operates on the UCSD Pascal system. The stylish console
incorporates a 12” non-glare green screen and comes with
separate matching keyboard. And the BC2 is.totally expandable
so it.can grow as you do! Find out more by clipping the coupon
and mailing it to your nearest Transtec office.
under £1,500.
I'd like to know all about Transtec. |
| Name
Company — 7 |
| Address |
ackage
= at: |
ANTED
Dealers w by
record to
13A Small Street, Bristol W.1. Tel: 0272-277462
35 Lisburn Road, Belfast. Tel: 24009.
IDA Complex, 22 Macken Street, Dublin 2.
Tel: 713049/7 15954 ; :
@ Circle No. 276
(9S
WANTIS
THE PRINTER YOU
PERTEC P80 RICOH RP 1600 TRIUMPH-ADLER STYLIST
* Heavy duty matrix printer ata * Advanced daisywheel printer * Low cost daisywheel printer
sensible price. * 80cps. for word processing, mini and for most popular micros and
* 80/120 character lines. micro applications. * 60cps. minis. * 14.5cps. * Proportional
* Optionai character sets, with * Intelligent option includes spacing. * Bidirectional / logic
true descenders. * Centronics Qume/Diablo compatible seeking. * Range of type styles
and RS232 serial interfaces. commands and auto and languages.
£439 + VAT bidirectional operation. £695 + VAT
£1395 + VAT
Trade and OEM discounts Write or call for further information. 3
available. Butel-Comco Limited Ww
Garrick Industrial Centre,
Garrick Road, London NW9 6AQ
Telephone: 01-
So”. PET/CBM
- syne
oot ue
‘This book is excellent.’
- Jim Strasma
‘Unquestionably the most accurate
and comprehensive reference I have seen to date.”
- Jim Butterfield
as 7 Many programs, charts and diagrams.
Bestseller comprehensive 17 chapters, appendices, and index.
teaching and reference book on iv + 504 pages. 19 x 26 x 2%cm.
all software aspects of Paperback. ISBN 0 9507650 O 7.
Commodores 2000, 3000, Price in UK and Europe £14.90 each
(incl. post and heavy-duty packing).
4000 and 8000 LEVEL LTD., PO Box 438, Hampstead,
microcomputers and London NW3 18H. Tel: 01-794 9848.
peripherals. Five or more £12.90 each. Clear plastic
covers 25p each with order.
Dealer/Bookseller Enquiries invited.
(os eee Gees ees ee ee ee ee ee ee ee eee eee eee eee
Cut out or copy coupon, or write to:
LEVEL LTD., PO Box 438, Hampstead, London NW3 1BH.
Send copy/ies of Programming the PET/CBM at £14.90 (post free)
| enclose cheque/P.O. for £
NAME
ADDRESS
Fast Service — same day despatch
@ Circle No. 277
196
2022277 Technology for business
@ Circle No. 278
We will assist YOU in your DECISION
for Planning, Modelling,
Accounting or Commercial systems
We will support YOU in achieving
the most from your Microcomputer
now, and as your business grows
VISICALC ‘ MICROMODELLER * MICROFINESSE
SALES, PURCHASE AND GENERAL LEDGER
COSTING AND STOCK CONTROL
WORD PROCESSING AND MAILING
For the best professional service contact:
JOHN CHANG, MSc, ACMA
Komputation Automation Information Ltd
203A Belsize Road, London NW6
01-328 7038 & 01-328 3968
AND OTHER GOOD MICROS
@ Circle No. 279
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
S-I00 MULTI-USER MULTI-PROCESSOR HARDWARE
Each user running Upgrade. package is
standard CP/M2-:2 or available for:
CP/M86 with zero CPU > — North Star Horizon
degradation. uper ir — Comart
DESKTOP COMPUTER Communicator
PACKED WITH: — Vector Graphics
PROCESSING POWER the more standard Z-80 user processors. The system may be and other S-100
Up to 8 users each with its own private configured in any 8 bit/16 bit combination, or as a totally systems
card which contains Z80A, 64 KBytes, VDU exclusive 16 bit system only to provide the ultimate in y
i/o and printer i/o, ie total of 8 Z80s and performance and exibility in advanced micro systems. SYSTEM SOFTWARE
Each user processor runs its own
512 KBytes of RAM. {Optional 16 bit 8086
processors with 128 KBytes) dedicated copy of the industry standard
CP/M 2.2 or CP/M 86. Shared
ed esi resources (Disks and Systems Printers)
Integral 5.25" Winchester Disc with up to
aE Uilviheil vaares eld are controlled by DPC/OS which
15M te capacity and integral 5.25” ) ) [
Floppy Disk with up to 800 KByte capacity. supports file/record locking, print
Optional — 14 MByte cartridge tape back- lsd tae Sa ped
up unit, up to 80 MByte Winchester Disk l eC communi ns.
P| ale YS Language available: BASIC, COBOL,
Unit PASCAL, FORTRAN, PL/1, AP1.
The revolutionary Super Star Is the only system that allows
the total integration of powerful 16 bit 8086 processors with
HIGH PERFORMANCE
Unlike single — CPU multi-user systems
{eg. MP/M, MVT-FAMOS, OASIS, etc.)
where system throughput degrades as
additional users are added, Superstar has
no CPU degradation at all. Each user has
its own private processor and memory and
VDU i/O running at 4MHz.
PRINTER INTERFACE
1 serial and 1 parallel printer ports shared by all users plus a
private printer for each user.
16 BIT 8086 PROCESSOR
More power and faster processing time is offered
APPLICATIONS SOFTWARE
Word Processing, Sales, Purchase, Nominal
Ledger, Payroll, Order Processing/Invoicing,
Stock Management, Job Costing, Mailing
System, Insurance Brokers System etc.
LOW COST (FROM £1935) AND
EXPANDABLE (AS YOUR NEEDS GROW)
Superstar starts at £1935 for single user system with 2
Quad density floppies and it is field upgradable to hard-
disk system of up to 80 MByte capacity and by simply
adding a private processor card for each user the system
through 16 bit private processor card based on 8086
CPU and 128 KByte RAM expandable to 1 MByte. The
system automatically loads CP/M 86 to the 16 bit private processors.
CP/M MULTI-USER MULTI-PROCESSOR SOFTWARE
WILL RUN UNDER CP/M 80, CP/
M 86, DPC/OS or MmmmOST
(ie any CP/M machine)
Superstar®
PROGRAMS
Standard Packages:
®@ Stock Control
@ Order Processing and
Invoicing
@ Sales Ledger
@ Purchase Ledger
@ Nominal Ledger
@ Payroll
@ Job Costing
@ Mailing System
@ Word Processing
Specialised Packages:
@ Wholesale/Retailing
Insurance Brokers
Bookmakers
Industrial/Office Cleaners
Property Management
Importing Agency
Manufacturing Control System
Underwriting Agents
@ Variable Rental System
can be configures up to 8 users as and when required.
Each package is
’ available:
— Stand alone
or integrated
— Single-user
or Multi-user
— Floppy or
Hard Disk based
General Features
Menu driven
Interactive
Password protected
Modular structure
Expandable
Easy to use
Professionally designed
Field proven over the years
Bromley Computer Consultancy specialises in the cost effective application of micro technology. Our services include
feasibility study/system analysis, systems development, installation, training, consultancy and maintenance.
Systems supplied range from 8 or 16 bit floppy based system to 80 MByte multi-processor systems.
Bromley Computer Consultancy
PROFESSIONAL APPROACH TO MICROS
244A High Street, Bromley, Kent BR1 1PQ.
Telephone: 01-464 8080 Telex 896691 TLXIR G (Attn. ““-BROMCOMP"”’)
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
OEM DEALERS ENQUIRIES AND OVERSEAS ENQUIRIES WELCOME
Superstar is a trademark of Bromley Computer Consultancy. CP/M is a trademark of Digital Research. Horizon Is a trademark of North Star Computer Inc. DPC/OS is a trademark of ACE Inc.
@ Circle No. 280
SUPERBRAIN
BEST VALUE IN THE U.K.
SUPERBRAIN
(64K + 350K DISKS)
SUPERBRAIN ‘QD’ £1,799
(64K + 700K DISKS)
OLYMPIA
MICROLINE 82A ~ =e — SCRIPTA KSR
120 cps er TYPEWRITER
bi-directional logic ayers \ TERMINAL
seeking. Matrix £850
printer 399
MICROLINE 83A ) Highspeed daisy
MICROLINE 80 120 cps bi-directional \ wheel printer
80 cps uni-directional logic seeking. \ Special intertaces
Matrix printer £2905 Matrix printee £690 \ available
ALL EQUIPMENT CARRIES A 90 DAY WARRANTY - MAINTENANCE AVAILABLE
SOFTWARE PAYROLL £290
WORDSTAR £225 INVOICING AND STOCK VERBATIMDISKEDEES Sete Ul he
MAILMERGE £70 CONTROL oie foterere PRICES
DATASTAR £165 SALES LEDGER £290 PRINTER RIBBONS
T/MAKER £150 | PURCHASE LEDGER £290 COMPUTER LABELS
DATAFLOW £99 NOMINAL LEDGER £290
(ALL PRICES EXCLUDE VAT)
051-2 d d QUANTITY ORDER
BUSINESS EQUIPMENT CENTRE, 35 EDGE LANE, LIVERPOOL L7 2PA ENQUIRIES
WELCOME
@ Circle No. 282
A complete business computer service from
——torte data systems
a
Introducing the New
ACT
| ~~ SIFIUS 1
Minicomputer Performance - Personal
Computer Price — 16 bit processor: £2,395
Free consultation — Implementation — Customisation
Forte Data Systems offer a free consultation service to
evaluate and discuss your requirements. We will under-
take to install systems and provide you with an after
sales support service to ensure that you get the full
benefit of today’s technology.
To: Forte Data Systems
27 Rathbone Street, London W1P 1AG
Tel: 01-637 0164
Systems include: PLEASE CONTACT ME WITH FURTHER DETAILS
Word processing . order processing . stock control . Name z 7
invoiding . sales ledger . integrated accounting . manage- Position
ment accounts . mailing lists . financial modelling . a
mainframe communications . databases Company/address
Telephone 01-637 0164 to arrange for a demonstration of
or complete the attached coupon. Callers by appoint- Tel P.C.1
ment only.
ean meee eee eee eee Se
@ Circle No. 281
196 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
STOP HERE
a
APPLE SYSTEMS
WANT TO BUY AN APPLE Il
| £550 =
HERE’S HOW!!!
PURCHASE OUR HARDWARE PACKAGE
HARDWARE
* 48K APPLE]
# DISK W/CONTROLLER
% DISK W/OUT CONTROLLER
% BMC 12” GREEN SCREEN HI! RES MONITOR
# MX80 F/T2 HI RES PRINTER
& PRINTER INTERFACE
SOFTWARE AVAILABLE
INVOICING
PURCHASE/SALES LEDGER
PAYROLL
VISICALC
VISIDEX
VISITREND/VISIPLOT
WORD PROCESSING
HARDWARE PACKAGE PRICE £1699
PETSYSTEMS
Ideal for: YOUR BUSINESS e EDUCATION e WORD PROCESSING
8032 32K Computer 80 column £755
8096 96K Computer 80 column £1040
8050 950K Dual Drive £755
8023 Tractor Feed Printer £785
NEW PRODUCTS NOW AVAILABLE
8422 22 Megabyte Winchester Disk POA
9000 SuperPet 134K
MULTI LANGUAGE POA.
4016 16K Computer
4032 32K Computer
2031 171K Single Drive
4040 343K Dual Drive
4022 Tractor Feed Printer
Choice of software packages available, such as:
WORD PROCESSING, INTEGRATED ACCOUNTS WITH STOCK, INVOICING & FINANCIAL PLANNING, AND MANY OTHER APPLICATIONS
LONDON’S MAIN EPSON DISTRIBUTOR
TERMS
PRINTERS
EPSON MX100; £480
15%" carriage, 254 col-
umns, hi res graphics,
true descenders, bi
directional.
EPSON MX80 £320
Dot-matrix printer Pet
and Apple compatible.
True bi directional, 80
cps.
EPSON MX82 £355
As MX80 plus high re-
solution graphics, para-
llel and serial. Inter-
faces.
EPSON MX80 FT/1
£340
Dual single sheet friction
and tractor feed, 9 wire
head, true descenders.
EPSON MX80 FT/2
£380
An FT/1 with high re-
solution graphics.
SEIKOSHA GP100
£189
Dot matrix 5x7, 80 col-
umns, 30 cps graphics,
double width characters.
- Please add 15% to
Telex 22568. Official
orders welcome.
FURTHER DETAILS
See
=
Allitems carry 1 year
guarantee parts and
labour. Delivery at
cost. All prices
exclusive of VAT.
total
JUST PHONE FOR
PHAUMASOMC electronics
48 JUNCTION ROAD, ARCHWAY, LONDON N195RD TEL01-2639493 2639495 TELEX 22568
100 yards from Archway Station and 9 Bus Routes
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 7982
@ Circle No. 283
199
Advertisement
LEARN VISICALC!
For Better Business Decisions
A single day! That’s all it takes at a Micromark seminar,
and you can learn for yourself modern decision-making
with VisiCalc — an incredibly simple-to-use microcompu-
ter program. As easy as a calculator! Anyone can learn
VisiCalc.
YOUR PLANS PLAIN AND SIMPLE
VisiCalc is a decision-support system used worldwide by
half a million firms. Big and small alike.
You can use it too, for financial decisions, planning,
forecasting, costing, pricing, production, inventory, sche-
duling, budgeting, cash flow, bill of materials, estimating
and thousands of other applications.
MACHINE INDEPENDENT
LEARN VISICALC! uses Apple work stations for fast
‘hands-on’ tuition. But you can use VisiCalc on Pets,
Tandys, the new IBM Personal Computer and many
others.
This makes LEARN VISICALC! an ideal starting point
for anyone considering microcomputers for the first time
... because you get a basis for comparing computers
difficult to achieve any other way — all for a cost of £108
(+ VAT) including: course notes, work discs and lunch
with wine.
But the one-day seminar is equally valuable for self-taught
VisiCalc users. Many never get past the basic commands.
Micromark explains the more complex functions as well.
SUMMER PROGRAMME 1982
Our summer programme started in June, with weekly
dates at Kensington, Gatwick Airport, Bracknell, Ham-
mersmith, Egham, Swindon, Heathrow Airport and
Luton, ending in August. Write or phone now for the
remaining programme.
WHO SHOULD ATTEND
*Company directors and senior managers who specify the
facts & figures they need. “Managers and executives who
present the figures. *Small businessmen, professionals,
accountants, sales, production, personnel, training, adver-
tising & market research executives, planners and finan-
cial managers.
LEARN VISICALC! assumes you know what figures and
reports you want. Let us show you how to get them, the
way you want to see them!
APPLY NOW FOR COURSE PROSPECTUS
Complete and return to: Micromark Training Division, Ravens-
croft Road, Henley-on-Thames, Oxon RG9 2DH. Telephone:
049-12 777926 or 77085.
Name
Firm
Address
Teiephone
@ Circle No. 284
200
5100
MB64 — 64K STATIC RAM BOARD BY SSM
For use with IEEE696 systems as well as CROMEMCO (including
a NORTH STAR, VECTOR GRAPHICS, DYNABYTE and man
others.
*24 bit addressing or BANK SELECT
*Operates without wait states up to 6MHZ
*Works with 8 or 16 bit CPUs
*Configured as 2 — 32K Blocks, independently addressable. Memory may be
disabled in 2K increments to allow co-existence of memory mapped devices.
*Up to 8K of RAM may be exchanged for 2716 EPROMs
“Low Power — uses 6116 CMOS RAM.
*Connector fitted for BATTERY BACKUP.
*Fully burned in and tested. £369
We stock the full S100 product line by SSM, including:
*VB3A- 80 x 24 (Expandable to 80 x 48) Character Video display. Kit £253 A&T
£292.
bee Popular low cost interface with 2 Serial and 2 Parallel ports. Kit. £128 A&T.
171.
*108- Eight full handshaking Serial Ports and Timer, fully software programm-
able. A&T. £324.
3 *105- Two Serial Ports, three Parallel Ports, (including one with CENTRONICS
compatibility) and timer, all fully software programmable. A&T, £195
Prices exclude Postage at £2 per board and VAT. Educational, OEM and Dealer
discounts available.
A Comprehensive range of boards by SD SYSTEMS, DUAL
INTERACTIVE and many others is available from stock. Full price
list on request.
RATIONAL SYSTEMS
Cedar House, Union Street,
Newport Pagnell, Bucks MK16 8ET.
Tel: 0908 613209 Telex 825619
@ Circle No. 285
NETKIT II
Universal Communications
for the Commodore PET
Why buy an expensive terminal when you can use a Commodore PET
and still be able to run normal business software.
“NETKIT His being used in many varied and diverse applications, not only
as an intelligent or dumb terminal to MINI or MAINFRAME
COMPUTERS, but also to support PET to PET communication with
shared processing and transfer of programs and data. Numerous other
applications are in use including interfacing to NC MACHINES, PAPER
TAPE PUNCHES, TELEX EQUIPMENT, HAND-HELD DATA CAPTURE
TERMINALS and other industrial and scientific equipment.
NETKIT Ilis the completely re-designed and upgraded version of the best
selling NETKIT communications interface.
Unlike other software communication packages which are available
NETKIT Il is a combined HARDWARE and SOFTWARE package which
provides the PET with an RS 232 interface and new powerful
communication commands. As the software is contained in a 4K EPROM
within NETKIT II a disk drive is not a necessity,
NETKIT II is now available for all series of PETS and is supplied with a
comprehensive operation and applications manual.
ONLY £150 + VAT.
orkshire
(CO, computers
28 RAMSHILL ROAD SCARBOROUGH NORTH YORKSHIRE YO11 20F
TEL 10723' 78136 TELEX 527579
@ Circle No. 286
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
EIFFAR THE SPECIALISTS IN
comursssiems 9 LOO SYSTEMS
MIDAS $100
SYSTEMS
MIDAS 1: From £835
MIDAS 2: From £1,790
MIDAS 3: From £2,450
MIDAS 3HD: From £5,495
ITHACA-DPS 1: From £1,494
@ Our versatile Z80 Microcomputers are available as standard units or custom
configured to your exact specification from a comprehensive range of stocked
$100 boards.
Disc storage capacity of the MIDAS 3 can be 2M Bytes, expandable to over
80M Bytes with a Winchester Hard Disc Unit in our MIDAS 3HD range.
MIDAS runs CP/M and MP/M. Other Software includes M-BASIC, C-BASIC,
FORTRAN, COBOL, CIS-COBOL, PASCAL and Word Processing.
A MIDAS 3D with 64K RAM and 2M Bytes storage on two 8” drives with two
Serial I/O Ports and CP/M only £2985.
Printers, VDUs and other peripherals stocked to give complete package
system at keen prices.
BOAR DS We stock over 50 different S100 Boards all from quality manufacturers, such as Godbout,
SSM, Micromation, Dual, Ithaca, Vector, S.D. Systems, Morrow, Pickles & Trout, etc.
PROCESSOR TRAM —————————SSiRR MAINFRAMES
Z80 Starter Kit Static RAM 16-64K 24 Bit add. From £175 | We are the sole UK Distributor for Integrand
SBC 100 Dynamic RAM 64K 8/16 Bit £683 | Mainframes and Disc Enclosures, available
8085/88 CPU £190 | Memory Manager £60 | in nine models including Desk Top and Rack
Z80A CPU 4MHz {4 Types)
Mounting, with or without provision for Disc
8086 (tba)
5
Drives. All units totally enclosed, painted on
{/O BOARDS all external surfaces and complete with
power supply etc.
2716 EPROM (2 x 16K) £95 | 2S/2p or 4s/2p or 3p/1s etc From £120
2768/27 16/2732 Programmer A/D & D/A8 or 12 Bit From £220
oo. SSBESOFTWARE
VIDEO BOARDS on Sa SOFTWARE
cafes IU gg MISCELLANEOUS BASIC VE, XYBASIC FORTRAN 80, COBOL
V5, ; ;
Rene Real = Clocks {2 Types) From £120 Be. ee CORD ier fone
DISK CONTROLLERS Eisonice512 x 286 yp Forth, MAC, ZSID, Disassembler, Wordstar,
' ; mae p x Datastar, Magic Wand, Wordmaster,
Single Density 5” or 8 Maths Board AMD 9511 Supersoft etc etc
Disc 1D/D DMA ’ | Extender Boards/Logic Probe ‘
Double D/D + Serial 1/0 Mother Boards 8-20 Way Prices exclusive of VAT.
We are pleased to discuss your requirements and will advise you as to whether your
needs can be met with one of our computers.
—_———— =
All of our systems are specials as they are configured to suit your specification, thus
ensuring that you get what you want rather than what happens to be available.
Write or phone for a catalogue. —, | a - L. g a ||
Unit 14, 29 Willow Lane, Mitcham, Surrey oOo
Telephone: 01-640 6931/2/3 computer systems
@ Circle No. 287
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 201
Lin, igi igs
A& FSOFTWARE * "
+48 FSOFTWARE # ATOM ‘. & BBC
OTHER ATOM TITLES
gvEni WP N7 O POLECAT____+ 4.95 EARLY WARNING
MINEFIELD____+» 4.95 ROBOT NIM____»_ 3.95
ba ATOMIC CUBE___+ 4.95 POLARIS___+_3.95
First eS Prize
4.95
MISSILE COMMAND + 4.95 PONTOON ___+ 3.95
+= 5Ktext 6Kgraphics ++ = 5K text 1/2graphics
x= Floating Point Required
O62 CCA G6 CCD OCA OVC Ed C8 G'S
CPS C282 CPN CF S2 CPL CPL CPL GPP CPL
PLUS 10 RUNNER UP PRIZES : ATOM SUPERCOS
By following the clues and overcoming the. obstacles Tired of waiting for your programs to load?
can you solve the mystery of the “DEATH SATELLITE” SUPERCOS is a low cost HIGH SPEED(I200 baud) COS
you will be able to savelload 5 times faster than normal.
i 277
ond [emote Sge este ay In addition SUPERCOS provides visible load, program test
Your ATOM will require 12K RAM. (F.Point. NOT Required) verifying, plus 8 other commands. Req's 1:25RAM anly 5°95
Full competition details supplied with all orders __ apy, NA). any,
CYLON AT TACK Two popular games from our Atom range converted and
enhanced to run on BOTH MODEL A&B _ MICRO’s
In this 3D all action game, hi-resolution graphics EARLY WARNING Destroy the attacking waves of ICBMs
are used to simulate the pilots view of space using a radar tracking system and intercept missiles.
from the cockpit of his Starfighter. 48 Levels-Each one harder than the last 6.00
Your instruments are constantly displayed and
include -Long range scanner - Laser energy status - POLECAT Find your way through the warren onto the
and fuel status. Score and Hi-score also displayed surface and return to your burrow with winter supplies.
BEWARE THE POLECATS-——— 6,00
Easy !!!
Written in mic for the ATOM using SK text 6K graphic
PRICE = 4.95 SPECIAL OFFER Deduct’ 1.00 per additional cassette when you
order 2 or more programs
WE PAY 25% ROYALTIES ON YOUR PROGRAMS
ORDERS TO A&F SOFTWARE 1O,WILPSHIRE AVE, LONGSIGHT, MANCHESTER, Mi2 STL
iCRO-8 UK Subscription Dept.
24 Woodhill Park Pembury Tunbridge Wells Kent TN2 4NW
GET THIS free software offer when you subscribe to MICRO-80 — The specialist magazine for
TRS-80 and VIDEO GENIE.
LOOK AT the programs you get FREE when you subscribe .. .
* Level | in Level Il — Convert your Level ii TRS-80 to operate as a Level | machine. Opens a whole
new library of software for your use.
* Copier — Copies Level li System tapes, irrespective of where they load in memory. Copes with
multiple ORG programs.
* Z80 MON — A low memory, machine language monitor which enables you to insert OP codes,
edit memory, punch system tapes etc.
* Improved Household Accounts — Powerful enough to be used by a small business.
* 80 Composer — A music generating program which enables you to play music via your cassette
cord.
* Plus Two Games — Poker and Cube (a version of the Rubiks cube for Disk users)
[Access/Borclay card on(061)320 5482)
@ Circle No. 289
and don’t forget MICRO-80 is now available in monthly cassette edition as well — all the published
programs each month ready to load on cassette.
Piease enrol me for an annual subscription and send me my FREE cassette program. | enclose
£16.00 LJ (magazine only) or £43.60 [] (magazine and cassette edition).
(enclose your cheque/P.O. made payable to MiCRO-80 and send to the above address)
Software offer, and cassette edition prices applies to U.K. residents only. Overseas subscription rates
on application.
BLOCK CAPITALS PLEASE
Address
PC/7/82
@ Circle No. 288
202 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
TALS9C
74LS92
74LS93
74LS95
74LS96
74L$107
74LS109
74L$112
74L$113
74LS114
74LS122
74LS123
74LS124
74LS125
74LS126
74L$132
74L$133
74LS136
74L$138
74L$139
74LS145
74LS147
74L$148
74L$151
74L8153
74L$ 154
74LS155
74LS 156
74LS157
74LS158
74L$221
74LS240
74als24i
74LS242
74LS243
74LS244
74LS245
74L8251
74LS253
74LS257
74LS252
74LS259
74LS260
74LS266
74LS273
74LS279
74LS280
74.8283
74LS293
74LS295
74LS298
74LS299
74LS323
74L$324
74LS348
74LS352
74LS353
74LS356
74LS363
74LS364
74LS668
74LS669
74LS670
74LS682
74LS6B84
TT
74 SERIES
7406
7407
7416
7417
7425
74121
74128
74180
74182A
741844 90p
74185 120p
74LS00 1p
74LS01 12p
74LS02 12p
74LS03 12p
74LS04 12p
74505
74LS08
74LS09
74LS10
74LS11
74LS12
74LS13
74LS14
74LS15
74LS20
74.821
74S00
74802
74804
748058
74808
74810
74811
74820
74$30
74$32
74837
74874
74585
74886
745112
74S113
748114
748124
748132
748133
748138
745139
748157
130p
74LS22 74LS160 74LS365 32p | 745163 300p
74LS26 74$161 74LS367 32p | 748174 250p
74LS27 74LS162 74LS 368 36p | 745175 5320p
74LS28 74LS163 74LS373 70p | 748188 350p
74LS30 74LS164 74LS374 70p | 748189 350p
74LS32 74LS165 74LS375, 50p | 748194 350p
74.833 74LS166 74LS377 70p | 74S200 450p
74LS37 74L$170 74LS378 60p | 748201 400p
741838 74L$173 74LS390 55p | 748225 550p
74LS42 74LS174 2418393 50p | 748241 400p
74LS47 74LS175 74LS§395 190p | 745260 70p
74LS48 750 | 74LS181 74LS$399 200p | 745261 300p
74LS51 15p | 7418183 74LS445 1110p | 748262 £10
74LS55 30p | 74LS190 50p | 74LS540 = 1355p | 745287 350p
74LS723 25p | 74.8191 SOp | 74LS541 1135p | 748288 350p
74874 16p | 7418192 BOp | 74LS640 200p | 745373 400p
74LS75 24p | 74L5193 48p | 74LS641 200p | 748374 A00p
74LS76 20p | 74L5194 40p | 74LS642 200p | 748471 650p
74LS83 45p | 74L$195 48p | 74LS643 2000p | 745474 400p
74LS85 65p | 74LS196 60p | 74LS644 = 250p | 748571 900p
74LS86 20p | 74LS197__—_—«G5p _| 7ALS645 748873 900p
VOLTAGE REGULATORS
FIXED PLASTIC OTHER REGULATORS
1A + ve —ve LM309K 135p 78HOS5SKC 550p
5V 7805 50p 7905 55p LM317K 325p 78MGT2C 140p
12V 7812 50p 7912 55p LM312T 200p 78GUIC 200p
15V 7815 55p 7915 60p LM337T 225p 79GUIC 225p
18V 7818 55p 7918 60p LM323K 500p 79HGKC 700p
24V 7824 55p 7924 60p LM723 37p ICL 7660 200p
6V 100mA 78L0530p 79L0565p L494 400p TL497 300p
12V 100mA 78L12 30p 79L12 70p 78S40 300p LM305AH 250p
15V 100mA 78L15 30p 79L15 70p 78HGKC 600p
ACORN ATOM
Basic built 8k + 2k £135 Expanded 12k + 12k £180
5k + 8k + Colour Card £175
(p&p £3/unit)
F.P. ROM £20, 1k RAM (2 + 2114L) £2, Tool box ROM £25.
6522 VIA £5, DP8304 £4.50. 81LS95 £0.90, PL67 £3.50 ea.
5K67 £4 ea. PLS SK5 £2 ea.
New colour encoder card £32.00.
FULL RANGE OF SOFTWARE AVAILABLE
ASK FOR ATOM LIST
AES
connector to Hi-Fi equipment kit £34.95
51” FLOPPY DISC DRIVES
pg
TEAC FDS50A Single sided drive mechanism £140.
Olivetti F501 Single sided drive mechanism £140.
Single TEAC FD50A in cabinet with PSU £190.
Two TEAC FDS50A in cabinet with PSU £360.
control electronics plus case and & cable 275.00.
Carriage £4 per drive.
DISKETTES: 10S.S.D.D. case £20 + £1.50 p&p.
10 D.S.D.D. + case £24 + £1.50 p&p.
ATOM VISION: Stepper motor driven ultrasonic transducer scans
environment — data displayed on TV monitor screen in radar like
picture + distance measurement. Complete kit £46. Software
cassette + documentation £4.80. Project described in April/May
ATOM SOUND: The board plugs into Atom bus. The VIA provides
two parallel and one serial ports. PSG provides for full audio
frequency range output to on board speaker or through board DIN
Atom psu £7 + £1.20 p&p. 3A 5V regulated supply £22 + £2 p&p.
8KRAM + 16L EPROM or 16k RAM memory expansion PCB £11.50.
64k Dynamic RAM module (fits inside Atom case) £70 + £1 p&p.
APPLE II Disc Drive: Siemens FOD 100-5 chassis, head, motors,
track zero micro switch, & motor control PCB with read, write &
201A 400p
210121 =—:120p
21078 500p
21118 300p
2114 2L 90p
2147 450p
4027 3 300p
404445 7200p
411615 —-95p
411620 _90p
41183 500p
41184 450p
41642 £6
4816AP3 320p
5101 300p
6116P3 6008
651345 400p
6810 200p
7489 210p
748189 «325p
745201 -350p
745289 -325p
aa
748188 325p
eee 748287 © -380p
oe 748288 226p
eee 748387 -325p
eee? 748471 «650p
748473 850p
7aS474 «6850p
748570 © -650p
748571 ——-650p
748573 950p
1702A —500p
2708 300p
2716 250p
2564 £25
2516 250p
2532 480p
2732 480p
27163505
2732350 £7.50
BAUD RATE
GENERATORS
COMB116 £8
74MC14411 £7
4202A 750p
AY31015P 300p
AY31013P 350p
M6402 450p
TR1602._ -300p
COM8017 _ 300p
§ MODULATORS - |
6MHz UHF 375p
8MHzUHF 450p
ZB0ADART 800p
Z80ADMA £122
zeosio/t/2 £9
~ LOW PROFILE Dik SUUKETS BY
TEXAS
6 pin 9p 16 pin 16p 24 pin 24p
14 pin 10p 20 pin 18p 28 pin 26p
16 pin 11p 22 pin 22p 40 pin 30p
MX80 F/T1 £350
—— ~~}
—
SEIKOSHA GP 100A
@ 80 cols 30 CPS @ 116 ASCII std characters @ Full graphics @ 10”
wide paper multiple copies
GP100A £199+£8 carr.
200MHz 225p
24570MHz 280p
ADS5S58Cl = 775p 3276MHz 1150p
ADS61CJ £14 35795MHz 100p
AM25S10 3350p 3686MHz 300p
AM25LS2521 £2 400MHz 150p
AM26LS32 190p 4194MHz 250p
DAC80 £20 443MHz =110p
DM8131 =. 375p 500MHz 1175p
DP8304 450p 6 OMHz 150p
0S8a31 375p 6144MHz 150
DS8832 250p 7 OMHz 150p
Ds8833 225p 7168MHz 200p
0S8835 225p 886MHz 1175p
DS8836 150p JOOOMHz 4175p
LFI3201 450p 107MHz 250p
MC1488 65p 42MHz 350p
MC3489 65p 14 3168MHz 150p
MC3486 = 500p 1600MHz 250p
MC3418 =. 950p 1800MHz 200p
MC3446 =. 300p 18 432 250p
MC3480 =: 850p 19968MHz 3390p
MC3486 = 5500p _| 20000MHz 175p
MC3487 =. 300p 26 690MHz 300p
MC4024 3325p 27145MHz 250p
C4044 325p 38667MHz 350p
MM58174 850p | 480MHz 300p
UNL2003A 100p 55 SMHz 400p
UNL2004A 100p 116000MHz 350p
7511012 1609
/p
7511415 — 160p tg
35150P 1490p ENCODER
182 220p AY52376 700
75324 325p | 74C922 600p
BEANE tite 81LS95/96 90p
5365 60p | 81 i 30
75451/2 72p pal E
Meee aoe CHARACTER
EES 120p GENERATOR
95/96 90p RO-3-2513U 750p
9602 220p RO-3-2513L £7
9637AP 160p | aLS262 £10
gee 3p
ZN426E Op
ZNa27E8 650p DISC CONTROL
ZN428E 8 £5 FD1771 £20
FD1791 £30
CHT FD1793 £32
FD1795 £35
CONTROLLER FD1797 £37
comso27 £18 | WD169) £15
comsoa7 £18 | W02143 £50
SFF93634 £8
TM59927 £18
TELETEXT
DECODER ICs
SAA5020 £5
32768kHz 1100p TEXTOOL
1OOkHz 250p
200kHz 280p ZIF SE REIS
1 OMHz 290p 24 pin 600p
1008MHz 275p 28 pin £8.50
18432MHz 220p 40 pin £10
8pin 25p 18 pin 50p 24 pin 70p
14 pin 35p 20 pin 60p 28 pin 80p
16 pin 40p 22 pin 65p 40 pin 100p
SOFTY Il
An ideal software development tool. A
program can be developed, debugged,
verified and then can either be commit-
ted to an EPROM or the program can be
used in any host computer by plugging
the SOFTY into its EPROM socket.
Most +5v EPROMs can be programmed on
SOFTY. See the review in Sept. 81 PE for the
various facilities provided on the SOFTY.
SOFTY Il complete with PSU ROMULATOR and
TV LEADS £169 + £2 p&p.
PRINTERS
EPSON MX 80 F/T
@ Bi directional printing @ Logic seeking @ 80 CPS 80 cols @ True
descenders @ Variety of character sizes @ Full high res. graphics
capability (F/2)
MX80F/T2 £360+£8 carr.
CONNECTOR SYSTEMS
24" cable with DIP header
14pin 16pin 24pin 40pin
Single 145p 165p 240p 380p
Double 210p 230p 345p 540p
24” cable with sockets
20pin 26pin 34 pin 40pin
Single 160p 210p 270p 340p
Double 2290p 385p 490p 540p
24" cable with 26 way D. Conn.
Male 500p Female 540p
1D CONNECTORS
(SPEED BLOC TYPE)
No. of ways
10 36 634 40
Header
90p £1.75 £2.00 £2.44 £2.70
Socket
90p £1.7 £2.00 £2.40 £2.70
Edge Conn.
£2.00 £2.50 £3.20 £3.80 £5.60
EURO CONNECTORS
Plug Socket
20
DIN41612 2x32way £3.00 £3.50
angled 2x32way £3.50 £4.00
angled 3x32way £4.00 -
(for 2x32way specify a+b or
a+c)
DIN41617 31 way £2.00 £2.00
MIN. D CONNECTORS
No. of ways Le en a
MALE
Solder 95p 135p 200p 280p
angled 160p 230p 265p 425p
FEMALE
solder 125p 190p 245p 375p
angled 175p 240p 310p 500p
Hood 100p 100p 100p 125p
(Top or Side Entry)
37 way Centronix Type connector
£6.
0.1" 0.156"
2x18 way 150p ZIF
2x22 way 310p 170p SKTS
2x23 way 335p 24pin £6
2x25 way 350p 28pin £8.50
1x43 way 260p 40pin £10
2x43 way 450p
1x77 way 700p
$100 connector 600,
pin 16pin 24pin 40pin
Solder type 40p 50p £1 £2
IDC type £2.25
200p
120p140p £2
per met
10 way 60p 20 way 105p 40w 265p
14 way 80p 26 way 140p 50w 330p
16 way 90p 34 way 220p 64w 370p
4 way 110p 8 way 140p
6 way 125p 10 way 160p
UV ERASERS
UV1B £47.50 p&p £1.50
(Erases 6 Eproms in about 20 min)
UV 140 £61.50 p&p £2.00
(Erases up to 14 Eproms in 15/20
mins)
UV 141 £78 p&p £2.00
{As ‘UV 140 and with built in elec-
tronic. timer)
Spare tubes
£10+£1.50p&p.
Direct Mains operated tube
£10.50
+£1.50 p&p
MONITORS
BMC 12” Green Screen moni-
tor £100
BMC 14” Colour monitor
£250+£8carr/monitor
for above
% SPECIAL OFFER *®
1-24 25-99
100p 95p
90p 85p
250p 225p
400p 375p
2114L-200nS
4116-200
2716
2532
ALSO AVAILABLE FROM STOCK FULL RANGE OF TTLs, CMOS & LINEAR ICs.
DETAILED PRICE LIST WILL BE SENT ON REQUEST
TECHNOMATIC LTD
N NW10 1ED
MAIL ORDERS TO: 17 BURNLEY ROAD, LON
SHOPS AT: 17 BURNLEY ROAD, LONDON NW10
(Tel: 01-452 1500, 01-450 6597. Telex: 922800)
305, EDGWARE ROAD, LONDON W2 Tel: 01-723 0233
PLEASE ADD 40p P&P & 15% VAT (Export no VAT)
Government, Colleges, etc. ORDERS WELCOME
BARCLAY & ACCESS CARDS ACCEPTED
STOCK ITEMS ARE NORMALLY BY RETURN OF POST
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
@ Circle No. 290
203
A+G COMPUTERWARE
THIS MONTH'S SPECIAL OFFER
COLOUR MONITORS
BMC 14” RGB TTL COLOUR MONITOR
Features Include:
“ Bandwidth — 18MHz * Horz. res. 400 Dots * Display format — 5 x 7 Dots/25 x 40
characters * Full controls — Horz. & Vert. hold, picture & focus * Overall size 16”
x 16 x 16” (approx.)
14” TTL Colour Monitor for BBC Micro £321.00
8M — 1401 RGB 14” Colour Monitor £229.00
8M — 1402 RGE 14” Colour Monitor
(same as 1401 but 24 x 80 characters)
ideal for Acorn Atom and BBC etc. £558.00
Apple RG Card and Cable £99.00
Sharp MZ80K RGB Card and Cable £230.00
PRINCE 12” GREEN SCREEN MONITOR
*Very high resolution * Bandwidth 24MHz * Character display — 24 x 80
characters * Resolution 800 lines center/600 lines corners * Overall size — W
12.59" H 10.63°' D 10.62" * Suitable for Apple, BBC Micro, ZX81, Acorn Atom etc.
** Please state your Micro type when ordering **
Prince 12" Green Screen Monitor £120.00
ALL PRICES INCLUDE V.A.T. & CARRIAGE
PRINTERS
EPSON MX80F/T £409.00 EPSON MX80T/2 £409.00 EPSON MX82F/T £466.00 MICROLINE 80
£323.00 nate 82A £466.00 MICROLINE 83A £719.00 EPSON MX100 £593.00 EPSON
MX82 £397
FULL RANGE OF INTERACES AVAILABLE
a
DISK DRIVES 5.25”
For TRS80 Model | & Ill, Video Genie and II, Heathkit, 88C Model 8B, Nascom &
Superbrain
* TEAC SINGLE SIDED 35/40 TRACK £218.50 * TEAC DUAL SINGLE SIDED 35/40 TRACK
£391.00 * SIEMENS APPLE II SINGLE DRIVE £310.00
“ Ali prices INCLUDE V.A.T. & Carriage
* Write (enclosing large s.a.e.)
or Phone for further details and price lists
* Payment by cheque or bankers order
* Open 6 days a week (Phone anytime)
* Mail order only
.P.0. BOX 34, CHEADLE, CHESHIRE. SK8 4PT
TEL: 061-428 2014
PET EPROM PROGRAMMER
ACORN EPROM PROGRAMMERS
SUITABLE FOR ALL PET OR ACORN COMPUTERS
THE
2716/2532 ; | 0 ;
MODEL £46.00
PLEASE ADD
£2.00 P&P
The programmer includes the software
Only 6" x 4” x 2”
* Pet IEEE Port Connector and
Cable.
Acorn expansion Port Connec-
tor and Cable.
Independently powered.
Mains switch with neon indi-
cator light, anti surge fuse at
rear.
Zero force insertion socket.
Indicator light for read and
programme.
Switch select for read and pro-
gramme.
Switch select for 2716/2532
Eproms.
The programmer can read and
programme 2716 and 2532
EPROMS. And read any
2716/2532 pin compatable
ROMS, i.e. any Pet ROM/
EPROMS.
Software control programme
supplied on tape.
Instantaneous read of EPROMW
ROMS verification of data.
Total price inc p&p £47.50
Remittance with order.
2532 compatible EPROMS
£10.50
2716 compatible EPROMS £4.50
Incl P&P
tape for reading/programming the
274612532 EPROMS. Plus a FREE pro-
gramme for making your own Pet
graphics on a 2716 EPROM.
PET SUPERBOARD 32 ./ 9
0 FAB SE ant
+£1.50 P&P
PLEASE STATE TYPE OF PET
* This board can be plugged into any,
ROM socket from $9000 to $FO000.
* You can plug up to 8 ROM/EPROMS
into the board in any combination of
1K or 4K 2716/2532,
Simply slots onto tha expansion port,
no soldering or wires required.
Each chip is programme selectable at
a speed of 4us.
You can now have viscal, toolkit, atc
plugged into one socket.
It is possible to run @ 32K m/c pro-
gramme from any single ROM loca-
tion.
The board plugs onto the expansion
port and is compatible with any other
add on board.
Up to 7 boards could be used simul-
taneously giving a maximum of 244K
of on board ROM/EPROM.
These boards could be used to have
several languages residing in the Pet
permanently.
Can also be plugged into the charac-
ter generator socket to run 8 differ-
ent character sets.
@ SAE for further details
IEEE connectors and cover £6.00 inc p&p
COMPUTER INTERFACE DESIGNS
4 Albert Road, Margate, Kent CTS 5AN.
Tel: (0843) 294648.
@ Circle No. 292
LEEDS COMPUTER CENTRE
@Gerpic Il EUROPLUS \V]] (& 2) 1]
| £150 - i c30
FE oe gas de £675 + vat
Disk with controller .......... £360 + vat .
Disk without controller ........ £275 + vat FREE 6 programme tape with each C2N
Monitors b/w or green. cassette recorder £40 inc VAT. Price
includes fully tested unit with fitted plug.
Complete range of Vic-Peripherals.
@ Circle No. 293
Full range of Peripherals, Epson and Paper
Tiger printers all discounted, Post & Packino
£4.
SHARP MZ 80K Cx COMMODORE PET
Full range of
printers Ricoh
RP160. Daisy.
Epson MX. Range.
Walters BD80P.
48K MODEL
£345 + VAT
P/P £5.00
4000SR. WITH LARGE 12’ GREEN SCREEN
32K MODEL
P-P-¢5.00 £520+ vat
COMPLETE RANGE OF COMMODORE EQUIPMENT EX-STOCK
Official orders welcome: goods dispatched 24hr delivery. Please phone for our lowest prices.
SERVICE SATISFACTION
ADVANCED COMPUTER EQUIPMENT (LEEDS) LTD
95 MEADOW LANE, LEEDS 11
ACCESS AND BARCLAYCARD WELCOME
SALES
PHONE: 0532 446960 TELEX: 335909
@ Circle No. 291
204 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
HOW TO
GET MORE
TAKE A COURSE AT
THE COMPUTER
TRAINING AND
EDUCATION
CENTRE.
\
CP/M* (User level) 2days
A practical course designed for those unfamiliar with
CP/M, familiarising the new user with the operation of
the typical hardware attached to a disc-based Z80
microprocessor system, and giving an understand-
ing of the facilities available and of its management
of disc files.
Advanced CP/M 2 days
This course is designed for those who wish to modify
the standard CP/M operating system and includes a
detailed investigation of BIOS and its interaction
with CCP and BDOS. Previous assemblerexperience
is essential.
Programming in BASIC 1 week
Giving a thorough understanding of the BASIC
language and enabling the student to put this
knowledge into practical use, facilitated by hands-on
sessions and practical exercises.
»
A professional organisation with first class
training facilities in Central London.
*CP/M is the T/M of Digital Research Corp.
tWordstar is the T/M of Micropro Corp.
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
Programming in PASCAL
Giving an understanding of structured programming
techniques as used in PASCAL and providing
practical experience on a microcomputer.
3 days
Wordstart Wordprocessing | 2 days
Giving the user an understanding of the facilities
available in the Wordstar/Mailmerge Wordprocess-
ing System and hands-on experience which enables
this knowledge to be put to practical use.
All courses are in London. A wide range of
hardware is available for practical work.
Contact The Courses Secretary, Computer Training
& Education Centre Ltd, 102-108 Clerkenwell Road,
London EC1. 01-251 4010/4019.
61/1) SY | \ eee eR coerce
/\0{0| (2) ee ee as
@ Circle No. 294
205
Sonus |
128k RAM
) 1, 2Mbyte disk storage
CP/M-86, MSDOS
) Choose your language
) 800 x 400 pixels
) 3 interfaces
POST FI Gey >) Up to 21Mbyte hard disk
FREE - VAT ) Choose your software and printer
Northstar
ADVANTAGE
©. 64k RAM + 20k display RAM
720kbyte disk storage
) CP/M, G-DOS
© 640 x 240 pixels
© Choose your software
© 5Mbyte hard disk
O 15 function keys
© Choose your printer
IMPORTANT NOTE: This offer strictly ends at the end of this
month.
© Circle the number to choose half price SOFTWARE, PRINTERS
and CONSUMABLES
© Insurance, Maintenance Contract, Training After Sale support
available.
SHOWROOM: 618 Kingston Rd.,
London SW20. Tel: 01-543 4729
OFFICES: 5 Farnham Grdns.,
London SW20. Tel: 01-947 8837
@ Circle No. 296
Microcomputer interface boards
Trying to find a cost effective way to provide comprehensive input/
output facilities for your Micro?
Cyte 's interface cards will provide
you with a solution for a range of
Microcomputers.
BOARD RANGE
FO11 Combination Analog-Digital Output Board
% 2 Anaiog Channels
* 1 Reed Relay Channel
* 3 TTL Digital Channels
FO12 8 Channel Microcomputer Data Acquisition Board
* 8 Multiplexed Analog to Digital Channels — Chanreis @ and 1
are fully buffered differential analog inputs with zero pffset null
control, variable gain control and may be switched to accept
unipolar or bipolar inputs £85.00
FO15 Combination Digital Input Output Board
* 8 inputs connected to 8 switches
* 4 handshake lines
* 8 output lines with LED Display including 7 buffered to 50V
500MA, and 1 reed relay (240 ac 0.5A 10W max) £70.00
Manuals are available at £1.50 board refundable against orders.
Each board is designed to operate on a 40 way bus which is provided by the
Output port of the microcomputer via an adaptor. The boards may be daisy-
chained which means that any combination of several may be interfaced to the
microcomputer at the same time, providing great flexibility in the input/output
facility which may be set up.
ADAPTORS PRICE
FASO Motorola D2°Kit £20.00 FASO/A Motorola D5 KIT £20.00 FASS PET M
£16.00 FA60 APPLE £16.00 FA61 AIM65 £20.00 FA66 PET MK2 £18.00. _
Please add .15% V.A.T. and £1.00 postage and packing to all orders.
Government Colleges etc. Orders Welcome.
Enquiries and orders to:
Ep CYTEL INSTRUMENTS LTD
61 Woodburn Road, Carrickfergus BT38 8HQ
Telephone 09603 62494
@ Circie No. 297
The Industry Standard
The RM/COBOL language
runs on more different
Operating Systems and more
different-sized computers than
any other. similar language. For
starters it runs on NCR and TI
Minicomputers and in the
micro field on CP/M, MP/M,
TRSDOS, OASIS, MOASIS, toa
and UNIX (ONYX version) shia
Until now, serious business
software of the scope and
flexibility seen in the
minicomputer world has
not been available on
micros. RM/COBOL
now allows transfer of
such software with
a minimum of
fuss.
ANSI 74
KM/COBO
Add to this: —
MULTI-KEYED FILES
EXTENDED ACCEPT/
DISPLAY
INTERACTIVE DEBUG etc
gives the most powerful
language system available
For Further Information Contact:
XENON COMPUTER SYSTEMS LTD
18 Old Rectory Gardens, Wilmslow Road,
Cheadle, Stockport, England SK8 1PG
Tel. 061-428 9508
-» gets a little help
=RTY
CRT! is an interactive, easy-to-
use system for RM/COBOL
software development and
maintenance. It will generate
complete RM/COBOL source
programs that present data
entry screens, allow data entry
with extensive input editing,
update (or enquire into) files
from the data entered and print
simple or complex reports.
Data dictionaries of files,
records and fields are built and
maintained by the system
allowing easy, rapid changing
of parameters to alter the
source programs for changed
requirements.
@ Circle No. 295
PROFESSIONAL
UPERBRAIN
SYSTEMS
HARDWARE
SUPERBRAINS FROM £1350 PITRUCURELTIN.
tah Mt
VARIOUS DISC OPTIONS (capacity 320K — 16 th
million bytes) oun BLETATEE
WIDE RANGE OF PRINTERS (QUME, NEC,
DIABLO, SANDERS, ANADEX, DOLPHIN etc.)
HIGHLY COMPETITIVE CASH AND CARRY
PRICES
OUR OWN ENGINEERING MAINTENANCE
SERVICE (24hr response contracts)
HARDWARE AND SOFTWARE SUPPORT FROM
THE SUPERBRAIN SPECIALISTS
DEALER ENQUIRIES WELCOME
MICRO SOLUTION APPLICATION SOFTWARE
—Integrated Accounting System —Bill of Materials
—Stock Control System —Payroll System
The Accounting System includes: Bill of Materials includes:
—Full double-entry accounting —Maintenance of Assembly structures
—Sales/Purchase/Nominal Ledgers + VAT —Multi-level Parts Explosion
—Sales Invoicing —Assembly Components cost calculation
—Trial Balance/Profit & Loss —Requirement Breakdown by period
—Open Item or Balance Forward
—Up to the minute Enquiry facility ;
—Alphanumeric Account codes etc. —Up to 15 Gross and Net pay fields
—Retention of Historical data
Stock Control includes: —Pension and Holiday pay calculation
—Order processing —Special Stationery available
—Invoice/Delivery Note printing —Multi departments
—Reordering and Valuation reports —Up to 9999 employees
COMPILERS AND UTILITIES
—NMicrofocus CIS-COBOL Compiler —SPELLBINDER word-processing
—Microfocus FORMS-2 utility —WORDSTAR word-processing
—Micro Solution REPORTER —Mail Merge option for above
(CIS-COBOL Report Generator) —DATASTAR data management
—Microsoft MBASIC interpreter —SUPERSORT sort/merge
—Microsoft BASIC 80 compiler —BSTAM inter m/c transfer
—Microsoft COBOL 80 compiler —TTY asynchronous emulator
—NMicrosoft FORTRAN 80 compiler —MICROMODELLER financ. planning
—Microsoft MACRO 80 assembler —CBASIC compiler
Payroll System includes:
Contact:
Park Farm House telephone:
Heythrop CHIPPING NORTON (0608) 3256
Chipping Norton ask for: Bill Whaley
OXFORDSHIRE or
OX7 5TW Virginia Chadwick
@ Circle No. 298
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 207
OSBORNE-1. THE UNIQUE
MIGROCOMPUTER!
The OCC1 represents a genuine advance in computer cost
effectiveness. See what you get for its remarkably low price of £1250:
@ self-contained, portable system
@ powerful microcomputer — Z80A, 64K, CP/M
@ built-in display screen with twin disks
@ word-processing and financial planning software
~—~..__ Think of the possibilities — a powerful word-
processor; a flexible management
> computer; a low-cost
software development
system; a portable
remote terminal — all for
only £1250 (+ VAT).
Let's show you the unique
Osborne-1 — you'll be
impressed.
Oo #HHE
ll Cambridge Computer Store
1 Emmanuel Street, Cambridge CB1 1NE
Telephone (0223) 65334/5
also: Tandy Apple Hewlett-Packard Sirius North Star Acorn Sinclair Commodore
REMOTE ‘MICRO’ CONTROL \
Control domestic or office appliances with your micro
without the need for wiring.
By using just one TX O08 you can link your micro to remote RX 018 anywhere in your home or
office. This interface system works with any micro (Apple PET 2X81 etc.)
@ TX 008 COMPUTER INTERFACE @ ST KIT STARTER KIT
The TX 008. is the link between your micro and any , The St KIT is a standard starter kit containing one TX 008
remotely located RX 018. Its function is to pass instructions and two RX 018. For further expansion of your system you
from your micro to defined remote points. The TX 008 is only require more TX 018’s.
simply plugged into the mains and connected to an output -
port of any micro computer. St kit price £85.00 inc. VAT
The TX 008 comes complete with output port connections,
drive software and application examples. @® CONTROL PANELS
ZX81 users require an extra input output port module not Control panels for interface with RX 018 are available, for
inluded in the TX O08 price see code no ZX81 CP. further details and prices tick box provided on order form.
TX 008 price £45.00 inc. VAT
Order Form
@ RX 018 REMOTE TX <a. ee ee
INTERFACE TO: Price |
The RX 018 carries out instructions | eet ete ya tii eaene Each £ |
passed to it from your micro via the tripelan vg WARM Pbeicliperel Altre TX 008 | 45.00 |
TX 008 as with the TX 008. | Formby, Merseyside 37 6BR. |_| 008 | [45.00] |
No wiring is necessary just plug your | Please send me items listed. = RX018 25.00 pay, l
RX unit into any convenient mains | ST Kit 185.00 maw
socket and plug in the appliance. |_| enctose a cheque/postal order for |
Your micro now has | £ ZX81cp ]13.90 oe |
digs | Please add £2.50 P&P to your calculated total. |
Price £25.00 inc. VAT | Total |
Name. ...00.0 « Sere. A |
| Please send me details of
Ship eierolncad, j ASCMESS... 0... omnis segs sess seme 1. St contro! panel _ a]
Formby, Merseyside L37 6BR. | a ee oo oe ae
Tel:.07048 78062 et ee Sosa . . eater. 2. Super Control panel (“|
| P/C/7/82 important — Please state type and make of computer
Lee ee Ss ee ee ee
@ Circle No. 300
208 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
FANTASTIC OFFERS
PRICE LIST
MANUFACTURER/ PRODUCT
ASHTON-TATE
dBase |! {data base management system) £360.00
CONDOR COMPUTER CORP.
Condor Il {relational dBase sys.) (extensive report writer/computes
within the report writer) £508.00
LEXISOFT INC.
Spellbinder (word processor) £210.00
MICROPRO.
Wordstar/Mail Merge (word processor} £280.00
OASIS
“The Word" (spelling checker —.electronic dictionary with 40,000 words,
plus your own) £49.50
ORGANIC SOFTWARE
Milestone (critical path analysis) £160.00
SORCIM
Supercalc (CP/M based visicalc £165.00
STANDARD MICRO SYSTEMS
Quic-n-Easy (Business Applications Development System) £207.00
SUPERSOFT
Disk Doctor (lost data recovery from crashed disk) £55.00
Diagnostic II (hardware checker) £55.00
The above prices may be subject to 15% VAT
Please allow 14 days for delivery
The above is only an extract from our main price list which is available on
application
Prices subject to change without notice.
With all orders please state computer model and disc format.
Order with payment (state computer model and disc format).
>> DEALER ENQUIRIES WELCOME <
SYSTEMISE LTD., 36 Trinity Road, London SW17.
Tel: 01-672 1132
The Typing Tutor VIDEO-TYPER
Increase your programming speed.
Help your secretary type even faster and more accurately.
Learn quickly yet at your own pace.
Features include:
Automatic speed rating in w.p.m.
Automatic accuracy rating (as a percentage).
Graphic display as the keys are pressed.
The jatest speed learning techniques.
Contains a series of step-by-step lessons which progress in line with your
accuracy and speed.
(44k required.) A CP/M programme from Western Digital Systems Ltd. £49.50
ENCIPHER—-DECIPHER
For anyone ‘concerned with data security. There are hundreds of millions of 8
character passwords for you to invent at will. The file is read into RAM,
enciphered, then written back over the original. This is not a toy, your orlginal is
completely changed by this very sophisticated programme.
* Enciphered files can be transmitted by Modem or data courier.
* Disc editors, DDT and disassemblers reveal nothing.
A programme from Western Digital Systems Ltd.
DISC—-MASTER
DIRECTORY DATABASE
You can find in seconds any file or group of files according to name or type, or
disc ttle or disc number.
Wild card searches can be used (i.e. ? in place of a letter; * in place of word or
part).
The programme reads the disc's directory tracks into its database automatically
removing dead files and updating with new ones.
The information can go to the screen or printer.
Menu driven. Written in °C’.
A CP/M programme from Western Digital Systems Ltd. £49.50
Buy any two of these programmes from Western Digital Systems Ltd. and get
one free. Dealer enquiries welcome.
@ Circle No. 302
(ko research ltd.
A/D BOARD FOR NASCOM
8 input channels e 8 bit resolution
30 microsec conversion e Sample and hold
Over voltage protection @ Full flat/interrupt control
Prototyping area e NASBUS compatible
Price £120 + 15% VAT (post free)
GRAPHICS BOARD FOR NASCOM
384(H) x 256(V) high resolution graphics display
Fully bit mapped e@ Mixed text and graphics
Full software control e@ NASCOM 2 or 4MHz
NASCOM 1
Graphics software supplied
Price £55 + 15% VAT (post free)
EPROM PROGRAMMER
Programs 3 rail: 2708/2716
2508/2758, 2516/2716, 2532/2732
Single rail:
Software supplied for Read/Program/Verify
Can be used with other machines with 2 paralfel ports
Price £63 + 15% VAT (post free)
DUNCAN
Fast real time interpreter/control language for NASCOM 1 or 2
(please specify)
Price £12 + 15% VAT (post free)
MEMORIES
4116-150ns 95p each + 15% VAT (min order 8)
64K-200ns £6 each + 15% VAT
MONITORS
BMC 12” green phosphor — 18MHz
Price £150 + 15% VAT (carriage paid)
6 Laleham Avenue, Mill Hill,
London NW7 3HL
Tel: 01-959 0106
@ Circle No. 301
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
(ko research ltd.
“PLUTO” COLOUR GRAPHICS PROCESSOR.
Pluto is a self-contained colour display processor on an
8” x 8” NASBUS and 80-BUS compatible card featuring:
e Own 16 bit microprocessor
@ 192 Kbytes of dual-ported display memory for fast flicker’- free
screen updates. (Outside of the host address space).
@ 640(H) x 288(V) x 3 planes (8 colours) — 2 screenfulls
OR
640(H) x 576(V) x 3 planes (optional extra)
e Fast parallel !/O interface usable with ALMOST.ANY MICRO.
Only single +5v supply required.
Pluto executes on-board firmware providing high level
functions such as:
@ Fast vector draw - over 100,000 pixels/sec. Lines can be drawn
using REPLACE, XOR, AND, OR functions
@ User-definable characters or symbols
e Spare display memory with memory management facilities for
allocating symbol storage space or workspace
@ Rectangle Fill and copy using REPLACE, XOR, AND, OR plus 5
other functions
e Fast access to single pixels
e Write protect memory planes during copy
@ Double-buffered screen memory for animated displays
e@ Complex polygon colour fill
Pluto is expandable. An expansion board will be available
later this year to give Pluto up to 8 memory planes with no
loss of resolution. $100 Interface now available.
AVAILABLE NOW. ONLY £399 + VAT (p&p free)
Dealer and OEM enquiries invited.
6 Laleham Avenue, Mill Hill,
London NW7 3HL
Tel: 01-959 0106
@ Circle No. 303
209
Buyour
EAT)
Daisy Wheel Printer
for your computer
and you havean
Electronic Typewriter
absolutely FREE
The T/Printer 35 is the lightest weight and
lowest cost daisy wheel printer you can buy for your
computer. So it will fit within your budget and you can
carry it wherever you take your micro. Yet it is tough
enough to give years of reliable service. Interchange-
able typefaces (standard Olivetti 100 character daisy
wheels), variable pitch, multiple copies—all the features
you would expect of more expensive word processing
printers.
Yet the T/Printer 35 costs only £475 with
parallel interface. Operating speed under computer
control is approximately 120 words per minute of letter
perfect output. What typist can equal that?
Then when you're finished using it as a
computer printer, the T/Printer 35 is ready to go night
on working as an electronic typewriter.
That’s the dual-purpose T/Printer 35—the
versatile computer printer that fits your budget.
Orders are shipped within the UK carriage-free.
Toorder or for more information about the T/Printer 35:
*The T/Printer 35 costs £475 with Centronics compatible parallel interface.
With RS-232C interface it costs £535. Prices listed ave exclusive of VAT.
| Fa
Datarite Terminals Ltd
Caldare House
144-146 High Road
Chadwell Heath, Essex RM6 6NT
eee T SS aicircle No. 304
210
PRACTICAL COMPUTING
BACK NUMBERS &
BINDERS
BINDERS
UK — £4.80\including packing, postage and VAT
Overseas — £5.75 including packing and postage
Please make all cheques payable to Practical Computing and sent to
the General Sales Dept.
BACK NUMBERS
Fill in the coupon in every issue and return it with your remittance
to Practical Computing, General Sales Dept. Room 205,
Quadrant House, The Quadrant, Sutton, Surrey SM2 5AS.
== ACT
o= SITIUS 1
THE State-of-the-Art Microcomputer
— 16 bit processor
— 128K RAM
2 x 600K disk store
— 800 x 400 pixel resolution graphics
— CP/M operating system
Extremely well-documented, user-
friendly state-of-the-art application
software
— ACT PULSAR accounting system
— Sapphire systems management
accounting and reporting system
— Sorcim SUPERCALC
— Intelligence (UK) MICROMODELLER
— Micropro WORDSTAR
A range of high level languages,
including Microsoft BASIC-86, Digital
Research C-BASIC 86, Micro Focus
Cis-COBOL etc, etc.
For more information on the ACT SIRIUS | or the above
software packages please contact Dr. Gordon Relf at
DRAGON SYSTEMS LTD.
(0792) 474498
37 Walter Road, Swansea, West Glamorgan
@ Circle No. 306
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
FRBRAINE SOUTH.
FROM
cis
COBOL £425 —
TTI IITVTTI
eas aca ¢, Ue PAYROLL
re re i
ACCOUNTS
if
TOTALLY INTEGRATED MSL ACCOUNTS SYSTEM
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE & SUPPORT
FOR QUOTATIONS OR FURTHER DETAILS CONTACT
EASTFERN LIMITED
19 ALEXANDRA PARADE WESTON-SUPER-MARE AVON TEL: 0934-418346
@ Circle No. 308
THINKING ABOUT BUYING A COMPUTER
SYSTEM? TALK TO DATALECT FIRST!
...because who else provides all
this—at a price you can afford
We offer you a choice of these budget priced, easy to operate microcomputers.
Starting in price from an amazing £200 for a computer, £1,500 for a complete
system. All come with a versatile range of programs to meet todays modern
business needs.
Try one out for yourself If you’re not sure how a microcomputer can help,
call in at our WOKING or CROYDON SHOWROOMS.
Keeping you GOING Fast reliable SERVICE if you're in London and the South.
Buying your system Attractive terms, leasing and the best deals available.
°F \ Remember, when you buy from Datalect, you're getting 10 yrs EXPERTISE,
EE SERVICE, ADVICE, and TRAINING and the best after-sales care.
eS SHOWROOMS:
PACKARD _ WOKING. 32, Chertsey Rd., Woking, Surrey. Tel: 04862 63901
CROYDON. 7 St. Georges Walk, Croydon, Surrey. Tel: 01-680 3581
A portabl
Lass, 9 mae A omit Your computer company for London and the South DATALECT
nae es es a ee ee ee en ee es es es es es COMPUTERS
® = Please send me details and price list.
ACT SIRIUS 1 J Name
COMMODORE [ia.
No.1 best seller
in the U.K. | wane |
APPLE
One of the most versatile .
on the market. ,
Expandable up to 48 Kbytes.
A revolutionary personal computer Company ——________________ Position
developed from the outset for Address
business and professional use. fi
PostCode.
@Registered trademarks of Commodore,
Apple Inc., Hewlett Packard, ACT.
L DATALECT Computers, Dept PC.7, 33/35 Portugal Rd., Woking, Surrey GU21 5JE
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 @ Circle No. 307 O11
CITY MICROSYSTEMS LIMITED
65 LONDON WALL, LONDON EC2M 5TU
01-588 7272
TELEVIDEO SYSTEMS
VIDEO GENIE
SUPERBRAIN
a with VISICALC
Multi-user, multi-task, multi-processor, televideo
reliability with complete expandability.
One to sixteen users.
Complete system £1275, inc. Computer,
Monitor, Expander, 1-disk drive printer
and Software.
Vast library of standard software.
320K, 680K and 1.5MB Diskdrives.
__ Full graphics available.
Wide range of standard packages.
Complete business accounting systems from £2000. Word processors from £1420
ADVICE, TRAINING AND MAINTENANCE
ALL YOUR COMPUTER REQUIREMENTS READILY AVAILABLE
IN THE CENTRE OF THE CITY — LONDON EC2
VISITORS TO OUR OFFICES MOST WELCOME 10.30am-4.30pm
@ Circle No. 310
community community communit 7 community community communit
computers cou computers communit computers computers computers
community community communit community community communit
computers computers computers computers computers computers computers
The New BASIS 108
Apple compatible 64K (Cexpandabileto 128K) with 6502and Z80 processors
80 and 40 Column screen display Upper and tower case RGB Colour Output
Serial and Parallel interfaces 6 Apple compatible slots £1095
BASIS 108 Floppy System
complete with Twin floppies NEC 12in Screen & NEC PC8023 Printer £2313
BASIS 108 Hard DiskSystem
complete with 5Mb SYMBIOTIC Winchester Hard Disk
8Mb Floppy back up Screen & Printer as above £4453
BASIS 108 Budget Word Processing
Twin Floppies Daisy Wheel Printer NEC 12in Screen £2595
ROS APPLE Network System
Connects up 127 Apples STARTER KIT tor 3 Apples $425
VAT extra
send for more details
community community PO Box 3 34 Dragon Street Petersfield community community
computers computers Hampshire GU32 2ER Telephone (0730 87567) computers computers
@ Circle No. 309
ail PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
44% EDEL.E: EP
TAKING CARE OF BUSINESS
64K P2 Alphatronic includes
Basie interpreter WordSiar
MailMersée
90 days warranty
WORDSTAR
The screen-oriented, integrated word
processing system offering unequalled
convenience with exceptional capabilities.
MAIL MERGE A powerful file merging tool.
SuperCalc
FINANCIAL PLANNING
SUPERCALC
A planning tool you need to make better use
of your time and energy having a direct
positive effect on your business profits.
OCSC
A typical business environment comprising
computer power with functional software
- ; : OCSC
tools at the untypical price of £2095 + VAT. session
A choice of printers is also available — dot practising accountant, and book-keeping
matrix/daisy wheel, prices on application needs of the businessman.
WORDSTAR, MAILMERGE are trade marks of Micropro
International Corporation.
SUPERCALC is a trade mark of Sorcim Corporation.
CP/M is a trade mark of Digital Research Corporation.
Adler Alphatronic is distributed and fully supported by
e]
~ r Plus Business Systems
{
Plus Business Systems Limited, Ashton Lodge, Ashton Road, Dunstable, Bedfordshire LU6 1NP.
Telephone Dunstable (0582) 666661
@ Circle No. 311
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 213
MORE FROM
EES OURCE
MICROSOURCE sells mainly APPLE software, peripherals and books. We cannot list
all our products in a short space, so took in back issues and other magazines. We can
get hold of most of your wants quickly, and at a competitive price. We specialise in the
specials, what you need but cannot get elsewhere. Write or ring for a quote or more
information — you can't lose!
“THE POWER OF VISICALC”
VISICALC is one of the most exciting developments in computing. The manual is
thick and meaty, but when you have worked through it and mastered the use of
this new language, you have a powerful tool at your disposal.
Now with THE POWER OF VISICALC, there is a book which takes you through a
number of exercises on various aspects of VISICALC, which allows you to follow
the logic of VISICALC functions, and apply them to specific problem solving
situations.
You may find uses you had not thought of, or find out how to use parts of
VISICALC you didn’t know existed.
All exercises are step by step with explanations as well as printouts of the screen
as you should see it.
THE POWER OF VISICALC costs £8.50 incl. post & packing.
from the authors of
BENEATH APPLE DOS
a companion volume:
BAG OF TRICKS
which comes with a disk of programs. The disk contains 4 programs which are
described in detail in the comprehensive book. There is new information on DOS
and handholding tutorials to take you through the use of the programs to repair
disks, change sector ordering, etc. Much more description than BENEATH APPLE
DOS, and easier to understand. The programs are:
1. TRAX dumps, examines tracks, allows you to look at errors and protected
disks.
2. INIT reformats one or more tracks and allows more efficient use of the disk.
3. ZAP is possibly the best sector editor on the market. Can be used to transfer,
and compare DOS CP/M or PASCAL files.
4. FIXCAT automates the process of repairing a damaged disk catalogue, with or
without user intervention.
The book may be useful on its own; the disk is invaluable. Together they are not
only a tool, but also an education into the workings of DOS.
And the price is £27 including P&P and VAT.
BENEATH APPLE DOS is still available at £11.95.
MICROSOURCE is pleased to announce their appointment as distributors of
BLUE CHIP SOFTWARE.
If you are a basic programmer, you will find the following a useful addition to
your ability programs:
SUPER EDITOR £22.50
Super Editor is an essential tool for anyone writing programs in Applesoft or
Palsoft. Using a simple command format, this machine-code routine will speedily
list out every program line which contains a Basic command, function, variable or
string designated by the user, highlighting it in inverse characters. Super Editor
also enables the user optionally to substitute any other command, function,
variable or string for the item found, whatever their respective sizes.
% Remains in memory whilst programs are loaded and saved.
% Reduce long descriptive variable names in final versions of programs.
% List every occurence of a designated variable for debugging.
% Check all GOTO, GOSUB and THEN references before deleting a line.
%& Change Integer arrays to real arrays and vice versa.
%* :Convert Integer programs to Applesoft and vice versa.
SUPER TRACE £22.50
Super Trace is a high-speed 6502 machine-code utility routine for use In
debugging Applesoft programs. As each of your program statements is executed,
it is displayed at the bottom of the screen, together with the values of any variable
types or functions that you may have pre-selected.
% Programs can be written, loaded and edited without affecting Super Trace.
% Does not interfere with DOS.
% Can be invoked and disconnected as often as required during program
run-time.
* Simple to use. Run-time control by single keystrokes.
% Optional display of all statements or only statements containing selected
variable types or functions.
% Variables highlighted in inverse display and their values displayed.
% Normal screen display not affected.
% 6 run-time speed settings plus instantaneous stop and sigle-step.
% Optional review of previous 10 program statements without destruction of
screen display.
ALSO AVAILABLE
THE PACKING SUITE — unpacks lines for easier debugging. Removes REM
statements. Packs statements together, for faster operation and memory saving.
SYMDIS — for the machine code programmer. Disassembles machine code
ready’ for reassembly using any Assembler/Text Editor.
ALL BLUE CHIP SOFTWARE £22.50.
ANY TWO for £42
ANY THREE for £62
ALL FOUR for £80
‘ALL PRICES INCLUDE VAT UNLESS SPECIFIC MENTION IS MADE. ALL PRICES,
INCLUDE P&P
' 1 Branch Road,
BSS OURCE Sriccr
Tel: Park Street (0727) 72917
@ Circle No. 312
214
LET IRWIN EXTEND YOUR
MICROCOMPUTER’S CAPABILITIES
B IRWIN
Irwin have a range of programs, accessories, inter-
faces and peripherals which will increase the capa-
bilities of a variety of microcomputers from ZX 81 to 380 Z.
These Irwin products are primarily designed to assist in the teaching environment
where the computer can be related to laboratory experiments or used in investiga-
tion of control systems and computer applications.
EDUCATIONAL CONTROL
PERIPHERALS
The Irwin PIPPA series microcomputer peripherals
use parallel Input/output facilities to perform prac-
tical tasks and educational demonstrations. The units available Include A/D conver-
ter, D/A converter, stepper motor, relay, bar code reader, audio output and visual
output modules. These may be used individually or linked’ into a control system,
INTERFACES FOR YOUR COMPUTER
Parallel input/output interfaces and connectors for
z use with Irwin PIPPA peripherals are available for
most microcomputers including ZX 81, Apple, 380 Z, PET, TRS 80, Aim 65, etc.
These products can also be of general use where parallel input/output is required.
PERIPHERAL BOARD FOR 380Z
A plug in board extending the capabllities of this
popular microcomputer, enabling it to measure
voltages and plot graphs using A/D conversion, produce voltages under software
control, switch external loads such as lamps and motors, act on data from external
switches, and perform accurate timing.
A varied range of programs on audio cassette
augmented by instructional material and back-
ground information. Some programs relate directly to existing science syllabus
material, others to computer applications, graphics, computer assisted learning,
electronics, genetics, and word processing.
Send or telephone for a free, catalogue to:-
IRWIN-DESMAN LTD, 294 PURLEY WAY,
CROYDON CR9 4QL TELEPHONE 01-686 6441.
EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE FOR
380Z
@ Circle No. 313
If we can satisfy the
offshore oil industry -
we can satisfy you
Our level of professionalism
has to be that demanded by
North Sea Oi! companies. E
We offer that same level of
microcomputer expertise and
service to your business,
WE SPECIALISE:
In Business, Process Control,
Engineering Database and
communication applications.
WE SELL:
Acorns, Apples, C.A.D.O. Cat, Cromemco, and now the
amazing ACT SIRIUS 16 — BIT microcomputer designed
by Chuck Peddle.
WE OFFER:
On-site engineering maintenance contracts for any
microsystem in the Grampian Area.
WE ARE:
Sole distributors for the highly acclaimed CONDOR
database management system.
GRANITE CHIPS
MICROCOMPUTERS
21 Bon Accord Street, Aberdeen.
TEL: (0224) 22520 TELEX: 739740
@ Circle No. 314
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
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“SERIAL \INTERFACESt™
General
Data communication between compu
has been around since the early days of
the large range of low speed peripherals
almost universally accepted serial data
The two most common! used serial data c
are the RS232/V24 standard and the 20 mA
types the RS232/V24 Is the most common
There are six serial interfaces avatlabl
for the Research Machines 3980Z, tnese be
the $10-1, the $10-2, the SI0-3,
$L0-4 and the SI0-5/6
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For colaw wea cmlow @iver board 1s reccesary un additifh to the
Vunderd blac ard ahite board Ten versions are aarlable For we with
aL writer wr a television sat the PALMbaulator beard 1s neccesary
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for te bosiin alley Suen P62 monitor should be used, Loptner
wi a MD river -vowd Please contact the Sales Office for
asLBiLiby mformtion If you Ne a cassette based Belem, you at
hea Ou you Ne a Ds Lerminator board ad abs Cable with Oe
CarTUct mater of pligp to tase the ackt-on vars you have ordered 1 @
Senoth Seroii ing Smooth Seral ling Smooth Serolling
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Sanath sero} ing Sanath scrolling $apoth scrolling
Saooth Scrolling .... Saooth Scrolling .... Sagoth Scrolling
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Providing exactly the right facilities for different
applications can be a real problem when a system is as
versatile as the 380Z.
Take, for example, screen line length. Not only do
different users have different needs; so too do individual users.
They might welcome forty character clarity for
presentation, display, and control applications; but they also
want eighty character capacity, because word processing,
some programming languages, and many general-purpose
applications demand it.
So we've developed Varitext — to provide both, on the
same machine.
Varitext means that the 380Z user can always choose
the line length best suited to the application. It gives access
to a growing range of 80 character software without losing
all those well-established and popular 40 character
applications. It makes the 380Z equally effective as a
computer and a word processor. It lets programmers use the
character mode with which they are
familiar -or which languages like ALGOL, 9P{ SS 941 0. @ 5 MACHINES
MICROCOMPUTER SYSTEMS
FORTRAN, and PASCAL really need.
CHARACTER
MACHINE
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Research Machines
And it improves the quality of our already exceptional graphics,
by offering a smaller character size for neater annotation.
But the Varitext option goes a great deal further than
that. We also saw it as the opportunity for a major
enhancement of the 380Z’s screen handling capabilities.
So we added:
0 an8 x 10 dot matrix, to further refine the character set;
LJ an additional set of 128 user-definable characters;
LJ] reverse video, underlining, and selective character dimming;
() smooth scrolling and faster screen filling;
1] user defined windowing (and independent scrolling)
of screen areas;
L] audible tone generation (option)
* And all that, we believe, makes the 380Z’s screen
handling the best on the market.
The Varitext option is available with new systems
or as a user-installable enhancement
to existing 380Z systems. Contact
our Sales Office for details.
RESEARCH MACHINES LTD Mill Street, Oxford OX2 OBW, Tel: (0865) 49866
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
@ Circle No. 315
215
| ANITA BUSINESS SYSTEMS
FENCHURCH
STREET
WHITEHALL NELSON’S
COLUMN
Visit London's new attraction
(Entrance FREE)
Anita Business Systems has
opened its new retail shop and we
can now offer:- * Commodore,
Apple & Adler Micro Computers *
Associated Printers * Disk Drives
* Full Software Support * Demon-
stration Facilities * Calculators *
Typewriters »* Dictaphones *
Office Furniture * Experienced
service back up on all equipment
* Video Department
For all your business equipment
requirements come to:-
ANIA BUSINESS SYSTEMS
ANITA BUSINESS SYSTEMS
50 Fenchurch St., London EC3, and
15 Clerkenwell Close, London ECl1.
Tel: 01-253 2444
@ Circle No. 317
HAVE YOUR
FLOPPIES
FLOPPED
*We offer a quality floppy disk drive repair
service:
Most major manufacturers drives.
Fast repair turn-round time.
Very competitive repair charges.
Exacting quality contro! procedures.
*We sell Shugart and Shugart compatible
floppy disc drives:
Prices from £150.
2 months full warranty on all purchases.
“*We buy your floppy disc drives (purchase or
exchange).
TELEPHONE THE FLOPPY DISK DRIVE SPECIALISTS
TODAY!
A 2 W » SERVICES LTD.
PHONE SLOUGH (0753) 78424 (ASK FOR JON
—PAVITT).
@ Circle No. 316
216
SA2 ROBOT
Runs PET, APPLE and
other microcomputers.
ROBOT £399
CONTROLLER £148
(ex. VAT)
»
INTELLIGENT ia ee aad
ARTEFACTS LTD. Royston
A wholly owned subsidiary of Sands Whiteley Research and Development Ltd
,° vv at nS
D
@ Circle No. 318
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
ACORN ATOM SUPERBRAIN
BBC MICROCOMPUTER} TORCH
RAIR BLACK BOX
sessile sss ICL MICROCOMPUTER
Business sytems with speciality software from Dental
Appointments Package to Integrated Accounts.
CP/M BUSINESS SYSTEMS
FROM £2,750 including printer and software
AMAZING PRINTER OFFER
Epson Printers
MX80T
MC80F/T
MX82T LIMITED
MX82F/T PERIOE
MX100 OMY
Plus VAT and £6 delivery charge
CONTACT US FOR DETAILS
OF THE FABULOUS NEW TORCH COMMUNICATOR
@SUPER OFFER — Superbrain Q.D. at £1,950
(only while stocks last)
VIXON COMPUTER SYSTEMS
49 GRIMSBY ROAD
CLEETHORPES
TEL. GRIMSBY (0472) 58561
Apple Il + 48K £639.00 Wordstar P.O
Disk Drive + controlier £329.95 PC 1500 P.O
Disk Drive £289.00 PC 1211 Pocket Computer £59.95
16K Ram Card £60.00 CE121 cassette interface
Pascal System £239.95 CE122 printer
APPLE SOFTWARE CSR700 paper roli (40}
Visicale (3.3) £99.00 MZ80K
Visiplot £95.00 MZ80A
Visidex £99.00 (New arrival}
Visitrend/plot £135.00 MZ80B
Apple World £29.95 MZ80K computer 48K
Apple Writer £34.95 MZ80 FD dual disk
Desk Top plan I! £105.00 M2Z80 P3 dot printer l
DOS plus £19.95 MZ80F1/Odisk interface £49.95
Aplus £19.95 MZ80F15disk cable £8.00
Apple guard £19.95 MZ80 1/0 expansion box £94.00
MZ80T20C machine eld
8.00
WORD PROCESSING MZ80TU Assembler £35.00
Apple writer {I} £34.95 400 16k computer £295.00
Apple writer II {80 col} P.O.A. 800 16k computer £549.00
Magic window £59.95 16k Ram Upgrade £49.95
Mailmerge (80 col) £60.95 DISK DRIVE £295.00
DEANS) ftonsington
INT KENSINGTON HIGH STREET LONDON W8
bel OF 937 7896 oxt 8
Open MON to SAT (9.30am 6.30pm)
@ Circle No. 319 @ Circle No. 320
Advertisement Index
A . Datalect Bit the R
A&F Software 202 = Dataright Terminals 210 L&J Computers 184 R.M.R. Computer Service 132
A & GComputerware 204 + DDP 102 = Level Ltd 196 Rade Systems 5
A.1. Computers 100 Deans 217. ~— Lifeboat Associations 83 Rank Xerox 187
A. J. Harding (Molimerx) 44 Digico 161 London Computer Centre 185 Rational Systems 200
A. W. Service Lid 216 ~—— Digital Equipment 150 Lowe Electronics 29,138 Research Machines 215
Abraxas 88 Discom 38 = Lucas Logic 25 Richard Altwasser 26
A.C.T. Computers 114,115 Dragon Systems 210 Richards Computer Products 192
Adda Microshops 39 M Riva Terminals 146
Advanced Business Systems 80 £ M.C. Systems 186
aun = Eastfern Ltd. 211 Mass Micros ne s
e. . Electronic Brokers 182 Memotech cla 58, 59, 94, 95
Anglo American Software 30 Electronic Hobbies 103 Metrotech 4 Deb ea
Anita Business Systems 216 Encotel 134 Micro 80 202 Stripeland lid 208
Apple Orchard 103° Euro-micro 220 Micro Business Centre 140 Swan Packaging 98
Adanta Data 129 Micro Mods 18 Symbiotics 26
Avery Computer Co 12 Micro-peripherals 52 System Logic 88
Forte Data Systems 198 Microcentre 2 Systemise 209
a Microcomputer Products 188
Bees = c Micromart Ltd 200g
Gemini 116 cronetworks
Bromley Comp. Shop 164 (eile Biscironics Aen werontite 113,121 Tabslid 51
Bromley Computer Store 187 Gyaffcom Systems 10.1] Microsolutions 207. Technomatic 203
Business Equipment Centre 198 Grama Winter 12.13. Microsource 214 +Telesystems 100
Butel Business 196 Granite Chip 214 Microsystems 24 +Teletone 195
Grundy Business Systems 130,131 Microtechnology 6,7 Tetherport 188
c Gueste} 60 Microvalue Dealers 8,9 Texas Instruments 20, 21
Calco Software 182 Microware 18] Thorn EMI 19
Cambridge Computers 208 f Microware 21g Transam 35
Camden Ace 204 Hi-tech 3] Millbank Computers 103 Triumph Adler 156
Camden Electronics 194 Hites’ 43 Mitsui UK. Ltd 90
Chromasonic 199 Mom Systems 160 U
<— ne Monolith 218 U.S. Abroad 129
lo
Codified Computer Systems 137. 1.0.Systems _ 209° ON Wiss SIE LS Ose
Comart Ltd 69 Icarus (Columbia) 189 National Computer Centre 191
Community Computers 212 Icarus (Soft Option) 28 Northamber ar WV,
Compshop 23 ‘Icarus (Superbrain) 7 Vector International 42
Computace 152 Independant Computer Engineers 132 O Vixon Computer Systems 217
Computech 87 Informex 108,186 Osbourne Computers 122,123 Viasak Computers 65
Computer Enterprises 206 ~=Intelligent Artefacts 216 Overseas Computer Centre 20
Computer Interface Designs 204 = Interam 89 Ww
Concept Computing 129 Irwin Desman 24 Watford Electronics 4
Cossor Electronics 190 Pad-mede Computers 57 Westrex 144
Crofton Electronics 9 oy Pearcom 73 Willis Computers 18
Crown Business Centre 181 ‘J.J. Lloyd Inst. 192 Pear! International 193. Wordsworth 188
Crystal Electronics 188 Johnsons Micro Computers 158 Pete &Pam 128
Ctec nH Johnsons Micros 34 Hid 2 eee a x
Cumana Software 190 oenix Marketing
CWP a Plus Business Systems 213 Xenon Computer Systems 205
Cyber U.K. 82 OK Prentice Hall International 31 .
Cytel Instruments 206 = Kai 196 Preston Computer Centre we YF 2
7 Karadawn 110 Yorkshire Microcomputers 200
D KGB Micros 40 Q
Data Applications 124 ~=Knights TV 192 Quadrophenia 9 2
Data Efficiency 19 Kram Electronics 16 Qume(U.K)Ltd 72 Zenith Data Systems 32
PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982 217
Microware (London) Ltd., The North London Computer Store, 637 Holloway Road, London N19. Tel: 01-272 6237
01-272 6398
MEMOREX FLOPPY
wHFOR END USERS ~=©6 DISKS
Be Ox secs, £1.59
F' Doubledensity £1.99
8" sivcdeniy £2.29
Q" Potlesaet 299
fullrange &
of 53” and 8” |
models available
104 1D £2.45
104 2D £3.15
og full range
16 Sector available
Full range available
In stock
Dust Covers for Micro’s &
Printers & VDUs from £6.95
Floppy Saver Kits from £7.95
Indexing Systems from £2.00
@ Circle __ @ Circle No. 32: 322
ARE YOU A 2X81 USER WHO'S NOT
PLAYING GAMES?
—_— ECR 81 DATA RECORDER SAVES AND
LOADS YOUR PROGRAMS EVERY TIME!
The ECR81 Enhanced Certified Recorder fromi MONOLITH is a
major advancement in cassette recorder technology which minimises
the problems associated with standard audio recorders. The unit is a
high reliability program store for ZX computers based on a modified,
proven cassette mechanism. The two sections of data recording
\" f4 50 circuitry automatically ensure precise levels are written onto the
a
, tape and that optimised signals are received by the computer.
Including VAT.
complete THE ECR81 IS NOT SUITABLE FOR AUDIO REPRODUCTION
SS Rees NO MANUAL VOLUME OR TONE CONTROL ADJUSTMENT PROVIDED
@ Each ECR81 comes complete with its own individual
certification tape, tested and serial numbered to prove your
machine reliability.
@ Mains Operation only.
@ Mains & DIN connector leads provided.
@ Certification of tape head alignment - height and azimuth.
@ Certified tape tension, torque and speed.
@ Fast forward and rewind tape search controls.
|
|
|
|
|
|
The ECR871 is also suitable for Sinclair ZX80 |
|
|
I
I
To: MONOLITH ELECTRONICS CO. LTO., 5/7 CHURCH STREET, CREWKERNE, SOMERSET
Please supply me with: — Price Total
__.-(Qty.) Monolith ECR 81 Enhanced Certified Recorder (s) “hes
to be used with my 2X81
| also enclose postage & packing per recorder | £2.50
@ Please allow up to 28 days delivery. @ The ECR81 is
backed by our 14 day money-back option. Please print
Name: Mr/Mrs/Miss. L [illic il | | Plt | i | | | ih 11
VMIONOLITH ot LoL cee eee ce
electronic products ‘2 ©) GRRE? PY ERED ERE eee Eee
Telephone: Crewkerne 0460 74321 Telex: 46306 Se) Se ee ae all
; @ Circle No. 321
218 PRACTICAL COMPUTING July 1982
THE LOW COST
HIGH PERFORMANCE
MICRO FOR THE
BUSINESS PROFESSIONAL
UP TO 10M BYTES OF INTEGRAL DISK CAPACITY!
HARDWARE FEATURES
@ Powerful Z80 processor. @ 64K memory.
@CP/M’° operating system.
@ Detachable QWERTY keyboard, numeric and
cursor control pads, and 24 programmabie
function keys.
® Floppy and Winchester disk options
350 K bytes to 40 Mbytes.
@ Instrumentation interface.
@ Attractive desk-top styling.
® Robust, reliable and easy to maintain.
SOFTWARE
When it comes to software, the M-Three
maintains the highest standards throughout.
First of all, itis equipped with a CP/M° operating
system and therefore the user has every
opportunity to select programs from the vast
zm, WiiOMNin, BUSINESS SYSTEMS
Ukom Systems Ltd.,
44 Connaught Place, London W2 2ET
Tel: 01-258 0077 Telex: 299067 Slave G
@ Circle No. 323
range of CP’/M* based applications software
generally available in the micro- computer market.
A comprehensive range of ready-to-run business
applications packages is available from us for
immediate use with your Ukom M-Three.
MAP (Modular Accounting Package) is a fully
integrated agcounting system featuring
INVOICING SALES LEDGER, PURCHASE LEDGER
NOMINAL LEDGER. Other Applications include
STOCK CONTROL. WORD PROCESSING,
PROSPECT MAILING, AND PAYROLL.
OASIS is also available.
In addition, if you've something special you want
the M-Three to do, then take your choice of a range
of high-level languages. Programming is no
problem, using, for instance, BASIC or COBOL.
“CP, Mis a registered trade mark of Digitat Research
ie oe
MAGNETIC bus
8” floppy rigid/fixed rigid/remove
5%” floppy rigid/fixed
tape Qtrack cartridge
A full range of terminals
and printers available
—= pane,
’
STRETEEE CURE EET GRERRE.
Available without hardware front panel
For further details on how this quadruple
decker can help solve your problem call
today for a SuperFAST™ response.
01-341 2447
EuroMicro Limited
Telephone: 01-341 2447
TM SuperFAST, EuroMicro and EuroMicroNet are the trademarks of EuroMicro Inc.
“CPIM and MPIM are trademarks of Digital Research Corp.
systems bus
shared resources
[Edoorand\iasreaptNeet™)) file transfer
gateway to greater things
hardware
bus
IEEE $100
front panel
graphics
analogue I/O
instrumentation
number-crunch
eprom/burn
eprom/emulate
prototype
EuroMicro House, Coleridge Lane, London N8 8ED. England
=—_
@ Circle No. 324
220
Open Library