NH2021_Popular_Computing_Weekly_Issue871119.pdf

A STORM of protest has erupted
lowing the release of CRUS Jack
The Ripper computer game. The
цате, which features pictures of
(Ç tly mutilated women, has re

Editorial

CI Software contracts...
О Sound check in Japan
О Kenn Garroch
O Interfacin
O Listings..

cently received an '18' certificate
from the British Board Of Film
Classification.

Conservative MP Harry Green-
way has lashed out at CRL and
said, "This game should immedi
ately be confiscated by the police

Greenway Was both appalled
and sickened when informed that
one scene in the game shows a
picture of a near-naked woman
lying dead in a pool of blood.

Clement Chambers, 23 year old
chairman of CRL, said "People are
used to horror and are interested
in it. Jack The Ripper is something.
that by having explicit details in it
adds а whole new dimension" he
continued.

By receiving an '18' certificate,
Jack The Ripper is subject to
certain laws as who it can be sold
to

Chambers isn't too concerned
that under 18's may see the game,
however. "Im not particularly

worried. If you think I stay up all
night worrying about it, then no.
Dealers know they can't sell to
persons under 18 as there is a
sticker saying this on the packa-
girig" he said.

Apparently the only warning

dealers have about the nature of
ihe game is on the packaging.
Electronic Arts, CRL's distributors,
didn't realise the game was of a
strong nature.
John Forrest, a Director of EA
aid: "We knew it would be certi
fied, but 1 thought it was in the
same genre as other releases, so we
have not really informed dealers in.
any major way

According to a spokesman for
The Home Office; "any dealer sell-
ing the product to under 18's could.
face legal action and face a fine up.
to $200

If the product is sold by mail
order, then a declaration would
have to be signed by the purchaser

stating that they are 18 or over

Would any police aetion be tak-
en? "We're not aware of the com-
puter game and cannot comment",
а spokesperson for Scotland Yard
said.

Ken Penry, Deputy Director of
‘The British Board Of Film Classifi-
cation said the game received an
18° certificate for two reasons.
"There is one particular graphic
picture of a woman and also there
Ís a passage in the dialogue which
meant the game had to receive an
18' certificate

Chris Paradine, research assis:
tant for Jo Richardson, the Labour
Party Spokesperson on women,
said "I would call this pornograph-
іс material
This is part of a complex
syndrome of trivialising and de.
grading women and perpetuating
sexist stereotypes,
ambers himself said, “This
game isn't sexist"

Data Protection Act in force

THIS WEEK the final element of.
the Data Protection Act came into
Torce, giving you the right to see
personal data that is held on
computer files

The storing of personal informa-
tion on computers has always had
а ‘Big Brother Is Watching You
menace about it.

Among those who receive confi
dential data are banks’ employers
and schools, and if the information
they have is inaccurate, the sub-
jec's life coud! be seriously
affected.

Sarah Spencer, General Secre-
tary for the National Council of
Civil Liberties (NCCL) gave a case.
example. "A former employee of
ап international ой company was
blacklisted because they thought
he was a communist. Although he

continued on page 6 D>

Now the Summer willsurely last forever!

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CBM 64

AMSTRAD — 9 = HZ TOBEWON IN Š: zi
Hi ME — EVERYPACK! Ex .Epyx

-CONTENTS

NEWS DESK.. ..1-8
Furore over Jack The Ripper continues... Data Protection
Act comes into full effect. ... Amiga owners plagued by Virus
hackers

NEWS ANALYSIS 10, 11

Francis Botto explains the finer implications of the Data
Protection Act, and asks who will it protect?

LETTERS .12

GAMES... . 15-24
‘Two Games of the Week this week - Defender of the Crown on
the C64, and Elite on the PC. Also RISK, Inspector Gadget,
Spellbinder, Driller, Leviathan, Travel Game, Mean Streak
and Chuck Yeager's Advanced Flight Simulator

Әу с sicnor л

David King reviews the new C compiler for the Archimedes

THE DOTTED LINE SYNDROME. .30, 31

David Lester offers advice and warnings to any programmers
starting to hawk their wares round the software houses

"SOUND CHECK IN JAPAN... 32

Mark Jenkins reports from Tokyo on Yamaha's 1988 product.
range

KENN GARROCH.. .34, 35

ON THE LATCH... .31, 38

[епп Garroch continues his series on interfacing with advice
бл decoding with the 280 processor

LISTINGS... 39-41

COMMENT

Malcolm Arnold on the question of violence

he mystery surrounding the Virus Amiga program looks

Ке being a sad re-run of Commodore's “Crisis? What
crisis?" attitude to the A500 grey imports affair during the
summer. Then, as now, a situation arose which was affecting
large numbers of Amiga owners who had paid good money - for
а machine, Then, as now, it appeared that many of them ran
into a problem without warning and about which they had no
idea what to do. Then, as now, it came to light not through any
public statement by Commodore, but from members of the
public. And then, as now, Commodore surveyed the situation
from a position of majestic inactivity. This is not good enough.

‘The pages of this magazine have been littered all too often in
the past with stories of firms not keeping faith with their
customers. All too often the simple truth has had to be restated
- computers are not cheap, and customers have a right to
expect much greater support from manufacturers in situations
such as this.

Of course it may be that, as a Commodore spokesman
suggested, that someone is pulling our collective leg, in which
сазе you can expect three lines at the bottom of an inside page
in next week's issue by way of grovelling apology.

But what if we are right and Commodore is wrong?
Commodore will then be in the unenviable position of not only
failing to respond quickly enough to а serious situation, but
compounding that failure by dismissing it as а hoax. We аге
confident that our readers will be the arbiters in this case, as in
many others and that they will prove the truth or otherwise of
this extraordinary tale. In the event of it being true, we and
they shall expect immediate action from Commodore to rectify
matters.

H: we go again. CRL's Jack The Ripper has got all the Dis-

gusteds from Tunbridge Wells and beyond crawling out of

the woodwork. Once again, a software house has won
masses of cheap, if not free, publicity by using the oldest trick
іп the book - shock horror. Once again the press - Popular
Computing Weekly is no exception - has played along and once
again the feminist lobby has found itself in bed, so to speak,
with the hang 'em and flog 'em brigade.

There are two ways for the public and the computer
industry to eradicate shoxploitation. One is obviously for the
public not to buy it and to purchase other titles instead. In the
case of games which are in any case good to play, that is maybe
too much to expect.

But another way is for the rest of the computer software in-
dustry to use a little - pardon the word - inventiveness. What is
so difficult about dreaming up other ways of making games
attractive to the public, other ways of promoting them, so that.
software houses won't be tempted to appeal to the lowest
common denominator? This kind of thing is, let's face it, more
tiresome and boring than actually shocking. If the purveyors of
this kind of product won't grow up of their own accord, maybe
it's time the rest of us set them an example,

Production Editor Yvonne Hartland
Staff Writer Nikki Carvey
Advertisement Manager David Osen
Advertisement Executive Athena
Peerman

Classified Manager Susannah King

Greencoat House, Francis Street, London
SWIP IDG

Typeset by Magazine Typesetters, 6
Parnell Court, East Portway, Andover,
Hampshire

A rocs utm rues Classified Executives Robert Cole, Printed by McCorquodale Magazines,
Tim Owen Andover, Hampshire.

COMPUTING Managing Editor Brendan Gore Distributed by SM Distribution, London
Publisher Trish Phillips ‘SW9, Telephone: 01-274 8611, Telex

Mern Group Publisher Paul Coster 261643

Executive Editor a Jago Chief Executive Richard Hease © Focus Magazines 1987.

Deputy Editor John Brissenden Financial Director Brendan McGrath — ISSN 0265-0509

Features Editor Duncan Evans Published by Focus Magazines,

Popular Computing Weekly. Tel: 01-834
1717. Fax 01-630 6165

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY/3

- NEWS DESK

MYSTERY last week surrounded a
program which is corrupting discs
and data held by increasing
mumbers of Amiga users

According to Yuri Large, of the
Amiga User's Club, the Virus pro-
gram was initiated by the Sean
navian Cracking Association (SCA)
to outdo all the other cracking
groups.

SCA created Virus by producing
a program which writes itself onto
the RAM and then infects every
dise which subsequently. comes
into contact with it. Having put the
program on all the games it had
cracked, the SCA then passed
them to its contacts and so Virus
read.
But Commodore appeared not to
be taking the matter seriously
Amanda Cridge, marketing man-
ager for Commodore UK, dis
missed Virus as a hoax saying,
“ls like something out of a

science fiction boom"

Large is adamant that it does
exist. "I is quite a big thing. We've
had a batch of software go down
and it's been on the machines in
our shops. Now we won't let any
one we don't know put their discs.
into our machines."

In addition Alan Hubbard of
Dimension Computers, Leicester,
informed us that Virus had sud-
denly appeared on his machines,
He had no idea what had caused it.

"Im completely in the dark
about it" he said. "There was
suddenly a message on the screen
saying, "Your Amiga is Alive"

At the moment, Large thinks it
is predominantly Amiga pirates
who are contracting Virus, retribu.
tion for their illicit dealings, one
might say

Sooner or later, legitimate users
will be on the receiving end, unless
the infection сап be eradicated

Despite the mystery surround-
ing Virus, Large explained that it
was very easy to get rid of, “Turn
off the machine for a minute to
allow the memory to clear and
then use a Virus killer on each of
your dises." Virus killer was de-
vised by hackers in the U.S. but is
available in Britain for $3.50.

While Large maintains that al-
most every Amiga user has heard
about or seen Virus, Commodore
remains unconcerned.

Another Commodore U.K.
spokesman stated that Virus was a
little too similar to the AIDS epi-
demic to be taken seriously. He
added, "I think someone is pulling

@ Whenever you switch on an
Amiga you need to insert а boot
disc which contains basic informa-
tion about the initial set-up -
screen colours, stack space and

Amiga plague mystery

во forth.

‘The boot sector is 512 bytes long
and loads very quickly. Some strik-
ing programs have been written in
this sector, including graphics de-
mos, stunning sound tracks - and
now Virus.

А system booted with a Virus
disc looks like any other, but the
program sits there silently waiting
for more dises to be inserted and
then writes itself to them,

Each time a Virus disc is booted
it counts, writing a number back to
the boot sector. After a while there _
is a random delay before th
machine crashes. A message ap"
pears to say ‘Something wonderful
has happened - your Amiga is
alive

The usual three-key reset does
not kill Virus. It sits there marking
time and corrupting the next di
inserted. The only way to kill it is a
full power-off re-set,

NEXT WEEK Tynesoft is releasing
its new winter sports’ simulation
game, Winter Olympiad 755

ions get underway
у in Cal-
gary, Canada, Tynesoft believe the
game will successfully capture the
atmosphere of such an event.

Available free with the game is
a booklet with an introduction
written by David Vine. One of
television's leading sports’ com:
mentators, Vine has been associat-
ed with the Winter Olympic Games.
for the last twenty years.

In addition, those who buy the
game can enter a competition to
win a holiday to the Games in
February. The closing date for this
will be 30th January, 1088.

The game will cost $7.95 on
cassette for Spectrum, Amstrad,
CI6/Plus 4, and 59.05 for Commo-
dore 64, Atari XL/XE, BBC/Elec-
tron. On disc, it will retail at 814.95
for BBC/Master Compact, Atari
XL/XE and $19.95 for Amiga,
Atari ST and IBM.

Winter Olympics game to
offer holiday in Canada

Winter Olympiad introduction by sports commentator, David Vine

Elite
plans

Elite Software last week eom-
pleted plans for its 1988 product
range - involving a 120 per cent
increase in programming capacity,
їп a statement the company also
emphasised moves it has recently
taken towards expansion of its
software activities, including:
MOVING its administration to
Lichfield, thereby freeing (һе
whole of its Aldridge offices for
use as a software development
centre;
APPOINTING George Yapp as soft-
ware development manager, Niki
Penny as brand manager for the
Loriciels product range, and Geoff
Grimes as marketing manager,
thus freeing sales manager Ber-
nard Dugdale to spend more time
‘with customers;
STRENGTHENING its software
team by adding three additional
supervisors to the management,
an.
BUYING Durell.

AJPOPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

The cute computer show

By Peter Worlock

WHILE the rest of the world is
preoceupied with the burning is-
‘sues of the day - where is 08/2? is
the Amiga better than the ST?
should 1 buy an Amstrad PC or
someone else's?, Macintosh owners.
quietly continue their love affair
with the cute computer and Apple
continues to rake in the millions.

Tosay that Apple is doing things
its own way is a massive under-
statement and nowhere was this
more evident than at last week's
MacUser Show at North London's
Business Design Centre.

‘The Business Design Centre and
the Mac might have been made for
each other, sharing that "very
designer" appearance. Not for the
Mac the soulless caverns of Olym-
pia, nor the every day feel of some
anonymous city hotel

Once you had gained entrance to
this hallowed ground, the first
impression was bewildering to any.
hardened show-goer, For one thing
there was near silence - no throb-
bing soundtracks booming from
neon-lit stands; for another there
were no thronging masses barging
down crowded aisles. Instead there
was a cool, unhurried elegance,
like a Palace garden party organ-
ised by the marketing department.

But there was new product, and
а Jot of it. Some was newer than
others: Ashton-Tate was showing

Pirate
launch

THIS WEEK budget company,
rate Software, launched their first
Spectrum +3 compilation.

The new label is called Pirate
343 and is priced at $0.95. Leigh
Richards, Pirate Publishing Man-
ager, explained, “Instead of paying
for games on separate discs, we are
offering the consumer the chance
to buy three on one;

The first titles available on
Pirate 3+3 are Сай Me Psycho,
Holiday in Sumaria and Smash
Ош, all of which were previously
available for the Spectrum
48/128K.

dBase Mac, a full year after its
debut (а sort of Star Trek of the
business world), but the company
insists that the software is ready
this time. It is more or less exactly
what you'd expect: all the features
of dBase on the PC, coupled with
the Мас windows, menus and
mouse-driven control

There was a second new con-
tender in Mac databases in the
orm of 4th Dimension, distributed
in the UK by User Power Software.
Preliminary reports are good, but
at 5645 it would have to be good.

Meanwhile, Blyth Software, Пу-
ing the flag for Britain, was pulling.
the crowds (using "crowd" in its
loosest sense). Its Omnis 3 pro-
gram has established a virtual
monopoly in the area of serious
data management on the Mac and
Ashton-Tate may have taken 12
months too long in bringing dBase
to the Mac market.

Not surprisingly, desktop pub-
lishing products abounded with
laser printers, scanners and big
screens coming at you from all
sides. DTP software continues to
be a cut-throat race for suprema-
ty. Quark Xpress, a highly praised
newcomer, drew a lot of attention,
While marketleader Aldus an-
mounted Pagemaker version 3.
This is Aldus’ response to Ready-
SetGo version 3, but sneaking up
оп the blind side, Letraset an.
nounced RSG vers

Apple itself brought two new
products to the show Multifinder
and Hypercard. The first is a new
Mac operating system which offers.
limited multitasking but is claimed
to be compatible with existing
software. Hypercard defies de-

The Macintosh Plus — improved speed,
storage and peripheral expandibiy

scription and is really a new cate-
gory of software: part operating
system, part programming lan-
guage for people who can't pro-
gram, part freeform database, part
graphics paint program, part Side-
kick lookalike, and some of just
about everything else you can
think of.

One noted Macintosh observer
has said Hypercard will be recog-
nised as a milestone in the history
of computing. 1 can't help feeling

NEWS DESK-

it's much more important than
that, but you'll have to see it for
yourself

One for the Dear Santa Depart-
ment take а Mac П, add Super-
mac's Spectrum graphics board
and its 18-ineh colour monitor and
you've got a commercial graphics
workstation. The system gives you
а 68020 processor, megabytes of
ВАМ, 1024 x 768 pixel resolution,
and 256 colours from a pallette of
millions. Not much change from
310000 though.

On a more accessible scale,
there was a Mac version of BBC
Basic, Borland showed the latest
versions of Sidekick and Turbo
Pascal, and like Canute trying to
hold back the tide, HSV Computer
Services fought for that old com-
puter show feel by flogging dis-
count discs, printer ribbons and
boxes of paper.

By any standards the MacUser
Show has to rank as a success, not
least in the sense that it demon-
strated the Mac's victory - against
all the odds - in establishing itself
as а serious rival to the IBM PC
standard.

But 1 couldn't escape the feeling
that in achieving that success,
Apple has lost something along the
way - a sense of fun, pethaps, or
the spirit of adventure. These may
not be valuable commercial assets,
but I've always thought they were
the computer industry at its best,

Joint BBC Micronet
venture for charity

ON NOVEMBER 27th, the BBC's
Children In Need appeal will be
broadcast and, with the aid of
information technology, you can be
part of it.

Micronet, the magazine similar
to Oracle, will once again be pro-
viding an on line service. With
eight computer terminals at the
BBC TV Centre, it will enable you
to pledge money, talk to celebrities
and bid in the auction of computer
products, Last year, contributions
to the auction included $4500 of
Acorn RISC hardware, computers
from Atari and Commodore and
various modem, peripheral and
software donations.

Executive Producer of Children
In Need, Mark Patterson said:
“The BBC is always interested їп
using new technology, and we are
delighted with the success of the
on-line Children In Need appeal
organised by Micronet.”

Normally only available to its
20,000 subscribers, Micronet will
be opening up its systems to Pres-
tel users so that more people сап
access the appeal. In addition, it
has linked up with ITEC, which
has 150 information technology
centres throughout Britain.

Such a move will allow anyone.
to take part in the programme if
they go to their nearest ITEC

Terry Wogan will present the Children in
Need Appeal

centre and log into Micronet. Vie
Taylor, a Director of the ІТЕС5
commented: "The ITECs are all
about introdi new technology
to, the public at large, and on-line
Children In Need is an ideal way to
do that.”

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY/S

- NEWS DESK

THE SPIDER and The Fly is not an
exciting new computer game but
two alarms designed to protect
home and office equipment.
Released by ABA Systems, both

alarms are compact and unobtru-
sive and react to fingertip touch or
the slightest movement by emit-
ting a high-pitched 98 decibel
scream.

The Spider is a central alarm
box with four sensorised tentacles
which are attached to equipment
by double-sided adhesive pads. It is

To catch a thief

suited for clusters of equipment or
those consisting of more than one
element, such as disc drives and
printers. An advantage of this
alarm is that normal working use
will not activate it. The Spider will
retail at $39.95, excluding VAT.
The Fly is similar in size to The
Spider but since it does not have
any tentacles, it is aimed more at
single items. Once set, the alarm
will be activated by the slightest
movement. The Fly is priced at
$20.95,

ADVENTURE '87, the Second Na-
tional Computer Adventurers’ Con:
vention will take place next Satur
day at the Sutton Civic Centre,
Sutton, Surrey.

The event is aimed at all levels
of adventurers, from the single
user to those interested in multi-

Apology

We owe an apology to Elite, In our.
last edition it was suggested they
were pulling out of computer
software.

Clearly our sources of informa-
tion were inaccurate. We have it
directly from Elite themselves that
in the financial year to July 1987
their turnover was up 65 per cent
and their profits double the previ-
‘ous year to July 1986 (see separate
story in News Desk).

The Spider, anti-theft alarm product from ABA Systems

Adventure '87

user games (MUG). The latter is a
relatively new concept, originating
from Essex University. The game
enables а number of people to
participate in the same adventure,
if they have a computer, modem
and telephone line. The most re-
cent MUG is ‘Shades’ on Prestel's
Micronet.

The convention will be the
launching pad for a new MUG
Federation IL There will also be
seminars on the technical side of
programming and software demon-
strations of single-user adven-
tures, some of which are in the
play-test stage.

The Convention will start at 10
am and continue all day. Tickets
are $2.50 on the door or $200 in
advance from Mr. D. Wilkins, 21
Village Row, Mulgrave Road, Sut-
ton SM2 6JZ Sae and cheque
payable to Sutton Library Comput-
er Club are required with orders.

Data Protection Act
in force continued

denied this, he has since been
unable to get work in any other
major company and believes that
inaccurate information is held on
file about him.

The procedure for accessing
your file involves writing to the
Organisation concerned, stating
that you wish to exercise your
subject access right under the
Data Protection Act”

According to Erie Howe, the
Data Protection Registrar, any re-
quest must be met within forty
days. However, a subject may have
to prove his or her identity, pro-
vide more information to help
locate the data and pay a 510 fee.

After forty days he or she can
either apply to the Registrar or to
the courts for access. Howe added
that there was limited access in
certain cases, for example ‘where
it would be likely to prejudice the
prevention or detection of crime’.

Whilst the Act is aimed at
helping the public see their files,
the NCCL believes the £10 fee will
put many off.

Spencer,

was also unhappy

about other weaknesses of the Act,
particularly its exclusion of man-
ual files and the exemption clause.
"Since most schools still keep pa-
per files on pupils, it would mean
that many people would still suffer
аз a result of inaccurate informa-
tion at this stage. In addition the
tax file is exempt, so that people
will not have the right to see poll
tax information, which is collected
from all sorts of sources.

So that the public becomes
aware of their rights concerning
computerised data, an advertising
compaign has been launched and
leaflets are available at the local
library or Citizen's Advice Bureau.
Spencer hopes that people “Ішу
make use of the Act but indicate
that jt was below the NCCL/s
expectations, stating, "We will
monitor it carefully and if it proves
unsatisfactory, press for it to be
extended.

Any further details on the Act is
available from: The Office of the
Data Protection Registrar, Water
Lane, Wilmslow, Cheshire SK9
BAX; tel: (062

Epson scanner

EPSON is about to release an
Image Scanner, giving desktop
publishers the bonus of digitised
bitmapped graphic versions of
im,

The Scanner will be an option оп
four of Epson's printers
EX800/EX1000 (RRP 5180 ex-

АТ) and LQ2500/LQ2500 + ($195
ex-VAT). On the EX printers, the
scanning speeds are 25 inches per
second and on the LQs they аге 27
inches per second. Maximum read.

able areas are 11” x 8" (horizontal:
vertical) on the ЕХІ000 and LQs
and 6” x 8” on the ЕХЗОО.

It comes complete with scanning
software and is suitable for all IBM
PC-compatible machines. Thus us
ers can integrate scanned graphics.
with text from any word process-
Ing or similar application, without
paying a fortune for new software.

For further information, contact
Epson (UK) Ltd, 388 High Road,
Wembley, Middlesex HA9 6UH.

Scanning on Epson's printer

me

G/POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

А MERRY CHRISTMAS AT THE

© SIZZLING SINCLAIR BARGAINS ON THE 12th DECEMBER 87

ng and join in the fun at the Christmas Microfair. It's
he biggest

gest market place іп the world for the whole
trum machines, plus full QL support and bargain | HowTo
«оте

| ow British Rail:

4 Victoria Station,

on sale — all the new releases and lots of Bis Bale TIR.
and ds Arrow 507

software

t — printers, tables, monitors, dise

nd lots of new products

5 tes, discs, label. ғ SENDNOW DUCED 1

1 PRICE ADVANCE TICKETS I

| Send to Mike Johnston (Organiser), Dept, S.U.. ZX l

з competitions and prizes MICROFAIRS, 71 Park Lane, London N17 0HG I
sed bar Please send me. „advance tickets (Adults @ £1.50) |
so Set lese ail (he reat | Please send me.........advance tickets (Child under 14 @ £1 “|

be yone enjoys the and you can always find | Name 25th
sin | Address
Why not send today for cut-priced advanced tickets. І

și addressed envelope and make o

= г ктт
а on 01 801 9172 f | payabieto Mic

Exhibitors ring Mike or
stand availablity

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987 POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY/7

NEWS DESK

DIARY
DATES

NOVEMBER

ovember 21

Wales and West Computer
Show

Central Hotel, Cardiff.

Details: Regional computer show
of particular interest to Dragon
users

‘Tickets $1 adults, 50р children
Organiser: R & A J Preston,
(0656) 880965

November 28

Adventure 87

Europa Gallery of Sutton Civic
Centre, Sutton, Surrey. 930-450
Details: National Computer
Adventurer's Convention,
Seminars and Workshops

Adults $2.50, 82.00 in advance
from Mr D Wilkins, 21 Village
Row, Mulgrave Road, Sutton

SM2 612.

Organiser: Vernon Quaintance, 50
Beattice Avenue, Norbury, London
SW16 40N, evenings 01-764 6556

а

DECEMBER

December 5.

6809 Colour Show

Grand Hall, Connaught Rooms, Gt
Queen Street, London

Details: Show for Dragon and
‘Tandy owners

Tickets 52 adults, $1 children
Organiser: John Penn,
(04203) 5970

December 12
Christmas ZX Microfair
New Horticultural Hall, London

st innovations for
Sinclair users

Advanced tickets: $1.50 adults, 51
children

Tickets on the door:
51.50 children.
Organiser: Mike Johnson,
01-801 9172

2 adults,

жыл ы = г

JANUARY

BAKERY KITCHEN

SOFTWARE
HOTLINES

January 2
‘The Amstrad Computer
Show

‘The Great Hall, Alexandra Park,
London

Details: Displays and
demonstrations of all the latest
hardware, software and
peripherals for Acorn computers
Adults 83, Under 16's $2 - $1 off
for advance tickets

Organiser: Database Exhibitions,
061-456 8383

Prices, dates and venues of
shows can vary, and you are
therefore strongly advised to
check with the show organiser.
before attending. We cannot
accept responsibility for any
alterations to show
arrangements.

Well with Duncan Evans, our usual
Hotlines writer taking а well
earned two week holiday in Ber
muda, the job of writing this
column has, again, landed on my
desk.

‘The first game I managed to get
my grubby little hands on this
жеек had something really special
going for it; it's free! Programmed
by Wordmongers, it is given to all
purchasers of 82K blank eproms
for the 788. Using scrolling remi
miscent of the ZX81, the game
called Scrazble, is amusing, al
though what it loses in gameplay
it makes up for in price!

On the more serious side,
screenshot of the week award oes
to Magnetic Scrolls for Jinzter
(above). I'm sure they're bored
with people complimenting their
same because of the quality of the

CHARTS
Top Twenty

1 (8) Grand Prix Simulator
2 (1) doe Blade

3 (2) Soccer Boss

4 (12) Game Set Match

5 (6) Renegade

6 (6) Pro Ski Simulator

7 (NE) California Games

8 (11) World Class Leaderboard
9 (4) Indiana Jones

10 (8) BMX Simulator

H (8) Мау

12 (16) Fruit Machine Simulator.
18 (T) Back To The Future

14 (10) Paperboy

15 (18) Comp. Hits 10 Vol 4
16 (13) Live Ammo

17 (18) ATV Simulator

18 (20) Six Pak 2
ионына

20 (25) Bubble Bobble

All figures compiled by Gallup/Comy

Code Masters.
Players
Alternative
Ocean
Imagine.

Code Masters
US Gold

Code Masters
Code Masters
Code Masters.
Firebird
Elite.

Beau Jolly
‘Ocean

Code Masters
Hit Pak
Palace
Firebird

pater Trade Weekly

graphics. but let's face it, that is а
pretty important part of any gra:
phic adventure.

Available on almost every
machine you have heard of, the
game should be available in the
mot to distant future.

Konami, the company with the
rights to some of the best arcade
games ever, are putting the finish-

ing touches to Salamander for the
Spectrum (below). Based on the
fabby (© J. Cook 1985) a
game, Salamander promises to be
опе of the best shoot-'em ups ever
of the Speecy

As Salamander should be ready
before Christmas, what I want to
know is when th

are going
Siart work on WEC Le Mans!)
As а cricket fan 1, like man

others, got up at some ungodly
hour to watch England give the
World Cup to the Aussies, Whilst.
dro my sorrows later, | had a

great idea for a game, We've had
ter Shilton's Handball Mara.
donna, what about Mike Gatting's
reverse sweep giveaway???

You're probably sick of hearing
about it, but а screenshot for Jack
the Ripper just arrived on my
desk. 1 must be honest here, I feel
the game has gone a little too far,
and that screens of women with
their intestines hanging out ought
m wed, whether or not | |
they have an 18 certifi

Little has heard from | Í
either Rainbird or Hewson about
Braybrook /Turner dispute, so
s hope that it has been settle
amicably, it would be a pity not ti
get any new games from these two
because of the dispute,

Well, that's it for this week, МІ
speed to you again next week, and | |
Duncan will be returning the week
after that (once he has his handi-
сар down to six!)

Daniel McGrath

S/POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

FAN
Ram Electronics (Fleet) Ltd

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Music Machine 5003 54895 ‘Speech Syntn — Rom. 2003 53995

Famprint 5004 £9495 Speech Synth — Tape А004 £2995
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Tight Pen and interlace 5006 £1495 Light Pen — Tape ‘A006 £1995
Centronics Interface. 5007 Ram А007 63995
56 мау Ribbon Cable. 356K Ram ‘A008 £75.00
ОКТ Programmable I/F 256K Silicon Disk System A009 £98.95
3 Channel Sound Synth Printer Cable А010. 81298
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256K Ram Board £89.95 128K Fast Card. Pior 611000
384/512 Ram Board 812495 512K Memory Expansion. P102 £124.95
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WE ARE ALSO DISTRIBUTORS FOR THE FOLLOWING PRODUCTS

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19-25 NOVEMBER 1987 POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY/9

rNEWS ANALYSIS

Protection Registrar truly became

the Data Protection Registrar, with
Powers to prosecute offenders in the
criminal courts, and initiate searches of
premises if suspicions arise. But just how
effective is the Act going to be; will it be a
‘white elephant Act’ being impossible to
enforce?

‘The Data Protection saga began in July
1984, with the very purpose of eventually
governing the conduct and manner of
computer bureaus, individuals or establish-
ments utilising computers to store personal
information, In other words, the Ас
attempt to keep tabs on data users, As
expected, a logical starting point was to
catalogue all data users by requesting
them to apply for registration. In the brief
registration period - November 1985 to
May 1 1986 - little more than half of
Britain's data users registered. Though
this may sound totally discouraging or
perhaps disgraceful, we are assured by the
Data Protection office that this is in
keeping with similar ventures implement-
ed by our European counterparts. Accord-
ing to the Act, data users failing to register
are technically offenders, who may subse-
quently be fined up to $2,000 in the lower
courts with unlimited fines in the higher
courts.

Principles

In theory, the Act is quintessentially
concerned with protecting the rights of
individuals like you and me, by attempting
to ensure all collected data is accurate,
solely relevant, legitimately acquired, di-
vulged for a particular purpose and per-
haps most important the Act seeks to
impart personal information with subjects
concerned - a right we are presently
deprived. Erie Howe has drafted eight
easily understood principles that set the
Act’s purpose in motion.

()` November 11, Eric Howe the Data

@ The information to be contained in
personal data shall be obtained, and per-
sonal data shall be processed, fairly and
lawfully,

@ Personal data shall be held only for
specified and lawful purposes.

@ Personal data held for any purpose or
purposes shall not be used or disclosed in
any manner incompatible with that pur-
pose or those purposes,

© Personal data held for any purpose or
purposes shall be adequate, relevant and
not excessive in relation to that purpose or
those purposes.

© Personal data shall be accurate and,
where necessary, kept up-to-date.

@ Personal data held for any purpose or
purposes shall not be kept for longer than
is necessary for that purpose or those
purposes.

@ An individual shall be entitled:
O at reasonable intervals and without
undue delay or expense:
© to be informed by any Data User
whether he holds data of which the
individual is a subject; and
O to access to any such data held by a
Data User, and,
О where appropriate, to have such
data corrected or erased.

@ Appropriate security measures shall be
taken against unauthorised access to, or
alteration, disclosure or destruction of,
personal data and accidental loss or de-
struction of personal data.

Arguably, though most of the principles
can be comfortably put into practice, the
seventh principle seems {о be the one

The Data Protection Act-
Will it protect?

Francis Botto outlines the new Data Protection
Act and analyses the effect, if any, it will have
on accessing and protecting personal
information.

which threatens the Act's over-all effect
iveness, For example, if a subject feels
data user possesses inaccurate personal
data or is illegally vending information,
unless the subject knows of the data user,
the subject is helpless, as is the case now.

Also after November 11, data concerning
any tax or duty will remain inaccessible as
will information likely to hinder the рге-
vention or detection of criminal activities,

Of course I'm not suggesting the Act will
be useless, but merely highlighting the
problem of pinpointing the not so scrupu-
lous data users. For, many individuals now
falling victim to such data users will no
doubt continue to do so.

Who should register?

In many respects the А ensibly aimed,
80 not everyone who uses their home
computer to store personal information
need register. Here are some examples:

If you store information about member:
of your family for other than professional
purposes.

Personal information relating to
members of your computer club or whatev-
er can gain you exemption providing the
eight Principles are observed and each and
every member of your club approves of his
or her personal data being stored.

Certain payroll and accounting opera-
tions are also exempt.

If you are not sure whether or not you
should register, it is perhaps advisable to
contact the Registrar's office for further
information, which will be issued to you
free of charge. And if ambiguity should
occur, and we are informed that it will,
then it is perhaps safer to pay the $22
registration fee rather than risking a
heavy fine that could cripple your com-
pany, organisation, club or whatever.

Professional data users of any kind are
most likely obliged to register even if they
are data users in a third party sense,

10/POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

where perhaps their accountant handles
personal data - you don't even have to own
а computer to be a data user. Once again, if
in doubt contact the Registrar's office.

The register

As would be expected the register is open
to scrutiny by the public, with copies of the
register and index already available in
of Britain's main libraries. The
besides containing data users and
registration numbers, also conveys the
type of data stored and the use to which it
is put, and to whom the information is
divulged. Additionally, the register is a
catalogue of addresses that can be contact-
ей to request copies of your personal data.

many

for viewing the Data Pr

However, here is the ‘sting in the Act's
tail, data users are to be eventually
permitted to charge for this service - the
price of which will be decided by the Home
Office,

You could be forgiven for thinking that
the seventh principle infers there will be
no charge - in fact it merely implies this
notion. But just how contradictory princi-
ple 7 is will largely depend on the forth-
coming cost of the service.

The outcome

The outcome of the Act in terms of ability
to tame the likes of ruthless data users will
largely depend on the effectiveness of
complementary detective work in sifting

NEWS ANALYSIS-

n Registry

out offenders. And as for this new open-
ness the Act seeks to achieve, that will
largely depend upon the cost of obtaining
such information - which will make or
break the Act.

In short we shall just have to wait and
see, but I for one am sceptical.

For further information contact:

Office of the Data Protection Registrar
Springfield House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire SK9 БАХ

Tel: 0625 535777

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY/11

‘LETTERS

Now the good news

note with dismay the absence of
any reference whatever to the
puzzle in your issue dated 10-13
November. Obviously, you have not
been able to agree a fee with
Gordon Lee and you have not been
able to kid any of your readers to
do it cheaper, If the puzzle is
phased out, I shall certainly not
bother to renew my subscription.
Phil Amey
Esher, Surrey

Puzzle saga continues

agree with several points in Mr

Godman's letter ("Sinister
ring"). too fail to see how you сап
devise a consistently new format
{ог a written puzzle. Perhaps once
or twice you eould, for example,
write it in “Playfair” cypher, or
pehaps as an ordinary crossword;
but what then?

To my mind, a written puzzle
needs to be no more than just that.
- à written puzzle.

Being set in print, all that seems
to be necessary is that the problem
should be clearly and fairly set out
(though the problem itself need
not be obvious): it should have a
unique solution unless otherwise
stated? and it should be most
conveniently solvable by the in-
vention and use of a program
which сап be run on the average
micro (since it is after all written
for a “popular” computer maga-
zine), What else is needed which is
not merely a fancy waste of col-
umn inches?

But do your allegedly discon-
tented readers really want a true
puzzle at all? It is probably un-
charitable to suspect that the
"overwhelming demand" comes
from those who find the puzzle in
their existing format too difficult
and/or too much trouble; and that.
what they are really after is an
easier crack at the S10,

Perhaps the “overwhelming de-
mand” is in effect for some sort of
quiz rather than a true puzzle,
with questions like "Who runs
Amstrad computers? Tramiel, Sin-
clair, Sugar or Dr Runcie?"

1 suggest that there are too
many of these already, and that
they are in any case screamingly
dull, You might just as well run a
straight lottery, Perhaps this is
what you will end up with - perish
the thought!

Or perhaps an "overwhelming"
number of solvers find the puzzles
too easy, and are ti
Tor their names to "
hat"?

Somehow 1 doubt it. Only you
know the true reasons for the
"demand", and you haven't speci-

fied them.

Please may we have our puzzles.
back as they were? They were
usually of just the right standard,
and I thought the setter(s?) did an
admirable job. Like Mr Godman, 1
buy PCW mainly for the puzzle, in
very narrow preference to other
magazines which don't have one.

Incidentally, when can we ex-
pect the solutions and winners of
puzzles 271 to 2752

M W Peters
Blandford, Dorset

We've been pleasantly surprised
by the volume of support for Mr
Lee and his puzzles - but puzzled
by the fact that it's taken the
temporary disappearance of the
puzzles to provoke it,

The good news is that the
puzzle will be returning as before
very soon — either next week or
the week after.

As for your suspicious mind,
Phil Amey, shame on you! You
clearly underestimate the ге
spect we have for our readership
if you think we would not keep
you all fully informed about an
issue which is obviously of such
interest.

In addition, your idle and mis-
taken speculation upon the pri-
vate dealings between us and our
puzzle compiler is, shall we say,
less than constructive? What
about informed contributions
like this next one - Ed.

Join hands

І would like to request, through
your magazine, those dynamic
and expanding hardware/
software dealers that the Zambian
computer scene is expanding
quickly though still at infancy.
Those willing to hear more or those
willing to join hands with new
distributors are welcome to соп-
tact me at the address:
Crispin Lavu
Infordeal Consultant
с/о PO Box 30029
Lusaka, Zambia, Central Africa.

Surely some mistake?

am doing a project on “Alterna-

tive Medicines" for my General
Studies AO. 1 obtained your ad-
dress from research into the book
"Healing Without Harm”, so 1 de-
cided to write and see if you would
be so good enough to help me in
anyway with my research.

As I have said I am doing my
General Studies AO, which means 1
am in the first year of the sixth
form (ie starting “A” levels).

1 am enjoying doing this project.
very much, and I have learnt a
great deal from doing it, as in the
beginning 1 hardly knew what it
was all about. I would be very
grateful if you could in any жау
help me and look forward to hear-

ing from you.
Sandie Delmar-Morgan (Miss)
Horsham, W Sussex

Will you be wanting any precautions
10 use with hal, Si?

Great debate

'urther to the great debate on the

Atari ST v Amiga, I would like
to add my views,

Bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla,
bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla,
bla, bla, bla.

Bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bi
bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla,
bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla,
bla, bla.

Bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla,
bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla, bla
(letter edited for length).

Mark Stevens
Cowley, Oxford

Protect the
dishonest

m writing regarding the two

letters printed in Vol 8 No 44
regarding poor service received
from mail order companies.

Thave to ask what was the point
in printing them at all. Surely the
idea behind the writing of such
letters is for the author to air his
grievances about a particular com-
pany and to warn other readers
from falling into the same trap
Therefore by not naming the com-
panies concerned you have ren-
dered the letters pointless.

In effect by not naming the two
companies concerned you have
protected the dishonest at the cost.
of those who try to give a good
service. The net result of all this is
that at a time of the year crucial
for mail order companies’ survival,
you have in effect persuaded a

large number of potential eustom-
ers not to buy goods via mail order,
The end result is potentially
disastrous for all concerned. If this
type of letter continues then we
and no doubt several others of
your advertisers тау well question
the wisdom of continuing to spend
money on advertising in your mag-
azine whilst we are unnecessarily
condemned and - if enough decide
- the magazine could
through lack of revenue.
Anonymous
Mail-Centa
Belper, Derby

How wrong you are. By not
naming the companies concerned
-by agreement with them, by the
way - we were avoiding the
danger of legal action by them,
We tried to contact both com-
panies and printed the letters to
show the readers in question that
it is worth contacting us if prob- У
lems are encountered with one of
our advertisers.

Surely you would agree that
your primary responsibility is to
your customers. It is after all
their money you spend when you
advertise.

Here at Popular Computing
Weekly we are constantly
amazed by the shoddy service
customers receive from computer
companies, large and small.

We have a responsibility to
our advertisers certainly - but
we all, press and advertisers
alike — have а greater responsi-
bility to our readers and your
customers.

It is for that reason that we
take up their queries. We accept
that companies like yours pro- |
vide а good service, but until the £
industry as a whole shapes up,
surely you and we must declare
‘open season on companies which
fail in that responsibility.

We are in a dilemma, If we
name companies which are fail-
ing their customers badly, we
risk being sued, If we do nothing,
же are seen to be in league with
disreputable firms. If we investi-
gate, print a letter but do not
name the firm in question, other
companies cry foul. Surely repu-
table companies - unnamed or
otherwise - have nothing to fear.

12/POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

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19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY/13

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|

[fter a long wait, the game that

launched a thousand Amigas
has arrived for the ST, Defender
Of the Crown,

The time is November 1149
and dirty deeds have been perpe-
trated. The King has copped a
one-way ticket to the great tour-
nament in the sky and the king-
dom's in a bit of a mess. Saxons
and Normans are blaming each
other and warfare is about to
erupt across the green fields of
England.

You play a decent law abiding,
pure of heart Saxon lord, with his
own castle in the country, and
are determined to wipe the scum-
my Norman filth clean off the
map and claim the crown for
yourselt.

There are three main options
available to the man (or woman)
who would be king, seek con-
quest, hold a tournament, or go
raiding.

Initially, all territories except
those containing castles are un-
claimed and contain vassals who
аге only too willing to join your
force. As buying an army, be
they soldiers, knights, catapults
or small castles, takes up an
entire game turn, the best bet to
start with is to blitzkrieg the
countryside and avoid opposing

М rmies. This way you can gobble
up territories, which put varying
amounts of gold into the castle
coffers, and mop up lots of float-
ing vassels. When you go home

there’s а huge pile of swag to
spend on building a really big
army.

You'll need a large pack of
Saxon troops to take on the
enemy castles, as even the small-
est force can be difficult to
extract from behind those stony
walls, To attack a castle you
should need a catapult, to make а
hole in the wall, although you
don’t have to demolish it comple-
tely. However, there is а bug in
the early versions which results
їп the defenders supplying you
with a catapult if you haven’t
bought one!

In addition to reducing the
wall to rubble (an undamaged
one doubles the defensive
strength) you can throw Greek
fire into the courtyard to make
things even hotter for the resi-
dents, or even lob a dead horse
over to spread disease.

One of the arcade elements is
that you are responsible for fir-
ing the catapult, and it’s by no
means as easy as the Amiga
original, which was too easy.

Should you win the day and
take someone's home castle, then
they are eliminated from the
game and you take control of all
their lands. A couple of interest-
ing points are that you can be
given safe passage through Sax-
оп lands, and that you only have
to capture all three Norman cas-
tles to win the game.

The other main option is hold.

ing a tournament whereby you
can joust for leadership points or
land.

Jousting represents the next
of the arcade sequences, in that
you see your opponent thunder.
ing towards you, and you have to
point your lance, which bounces
up and down wildly, at the very
centre of his shield and click the
the mouse button when you hear
a metallic clanging sound.

Your third option is to go
raiding, which involves two
swordfights, one in the enemy
castle's courtyard, and one in the
keep.

Although none of the char-
acters would give Errol Flynn a
moment's worry, the swordfight-
ing is certainly good fun.

If you win both fights then you
get to plunder the castle's trea-
sure room.

The adult entertainment as-
ресї comes into play when a
Saxon lady is kidnapped by the
Normans. To avoid being called а
big girl, and other Saxon insults,
by your men you must stage a
rescue. This involves repeating
the raiding scene but this time
the reward is much more satisfy-
ing than a few gold pieces. The
Saxon doxie shows her gratitude
by inviting you into her bed.
chamber. In a couple of humor-
ous, but pretty tacky, scenes the

GAME OF THE WEEK-

Fight to the top

obliging wench becomes pledged
to you.

This has two side effects, One
is that her рісеу appears on the
map alongside yours and that
your men fight better in battle.
The second is that whichever
Saxon lord was her protector,
bows out of the game and hands
over his lands to you. Well worth
the effort really. Let's talk about.
the graphics, which after all were
the selling point for the original.
A couple of superfluous scenes
have been cut, but the main ones
are still there. I could expend
lots of words like fabby, excel
lent, brilliant, until it became
nauseating. And it would all be
true. But the most glowing com-
ment must surely be that on the
ST, the graphics are virtually the
same as on the Amiga original.

Defender of the Crown on the
ST is а lot more difficult and
more challenging than before,
and, unless you want to watch
endless repeats on the ТҮ, essen-
tial entertainment this
Christmas.

Duncan Evans

Program Defender of the
Crown Місто Atari ST Price
$2495 Supplier Mirrorsoft,
Athene House, 66-78 Shoe
Lane, London EC2.

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY/15

All you have to do is obti

the Mirror Card d

from the Daily Mirror Club: cut out the Ç
from Daily Mirror — one coupon each day
7 days, week commencing 30th Novembe
Take the club card and the coupon in to
selected branches of Woolworths and yo
be entitled to £1 off the selected game.

Each day has а £| voucher off a different £

TITLE Rampage a
MACHINE Commodore:
PRICE £939

Items subject to availability at selected branches only.

| Тє Zigzag
MACHINE Cor
PRICE £9.95

|
-

"GAMES

Your complete
guide to all the
software released
this week

Amstrad CPC

Program Spore Type Arcade
Price $1.9) Supplier Mastertronic,
8-10 Paul Street, London EC2.

Program Combat Mission Type
Arcade Price $1.99 Supplier Mas
tertronie, 8-10 Paul Street, London.
ЕС?.

Program Agent X2 Type Arcade
Price $1.99 Supplier Mastertronic,
8-10 Paul Street, London EC2.

Program Grid Iron "Type Simula-
tion Price $1.99 Supplier MIL,
Chiltern Enterprise Centre, Station
Road, Theale, Berks RGT 4AA.

Program The Elite Collection con
tains Bomb Jack, Commando,
Frank Bruno's Boxing, Airwolf,
Battleships, PaperBoy, Ghosts 'N'
Goblins, Bomb Jack II Price
$14.05 (cassette) 819.05 (disc)
Supplier Elite Systems Ltd, Eas-
tern Avenue, Lichfield, Staffs
WSI3 6RX.

№ mo, it's back to the dun-

geons. Why can't people set
computer games in interesting
places. Like a Ferrari dealer
showroom or a Bangkok cat-
house. Instead we have to put up
with scenarios that sound like
the deranged ramblings of а ter-
minal Genesis fan in the last
stages of Tolkeins’ disease.

With Spellbinder жете in а
place called the Castle of Lor
raine, which sounds like a plug
for someone's girlfriend.

The basic plot is like all the
other basic plots you've ever
heard and contains people with
silly names, such as ‘Magelord’
and ‘Eldon the Spelibinder’. Es
sentially you have to explore the
castle to find and collect the
ingredients for a powerful spell.

There are all the usual castle
type things, like one-way doors,
secret passages and, um, tele-
ports. While you're wandering
around, picking things up, exam:
ining other things and generally
having a cool time you tend to
bump into nasty creatures, like
Deathmonks, Zombies and Forest
Hags. A couple of those can spoil
your whole day, though you can
cast spells to heal yourself.

ising another attack of rheu
matism, I started my exploration
of the castle, This is a graphic
adventure in the Knightlore tra-
dition, and at first sight the
graphics are quite pretty.
They're monochrome, but come
in a range of colours and are
detailed, and your character
moves smoothly around the
screen.

After a while, however, all the
locations start to look the same.
If you haven't already got well
into the game by then you'll
probably just give up, as I did. I
think I'd rather have a real

adventure game and do without.
graphics, or have a good fast
arcade game. Some people will
doubtless love Spellbinder, but
frankly I am on the side of the
Deathmonks.

Steve Mansfiel, °

Program
BI

Spellbinder Micro
B Price $9.95 (cassette),
5 (525in disc) $14.05
) Supplier Superior
Lid, Regent House,
Skinner Lane, Leeds 157 ТАХ.

һе latest release from Mel-

bourne House puts you in the
starring role as cartoon super-
sleuth Inspector Gadget, chief
investigator of the Service. In-
spector Gadget has been sent by
his boss Chief Quigley to investi-
gate a series of mysterious going
ons that have been occurring at
the International Circus.

Together with his ever faithful
companions, Penny and Brains,
his pet dog, Gadget enters the
circus. The three of them then
started their investigations by
entering the Big Top, unfortuna-
tely, for Gadget, a loose EXIT

sign swung down and knocked
him flat ош.

Having recovered from the ac-
cident, Gadget awoke and rea-
lised that Penny and Brains have
gone missing. What Gadget first
thought of as being an accident
was no more than a devious plot
by the wicked MAD organisation
to undermine Gadgets
investigations.

Now they have got Penny,
Gadget must find her and ensure
that MAD don't start a world
war. Unfortunately for Gadget,
as he was lying unconscious all
his special gadgets were stolen.

Gadget is unable to get into
action until he can find all his
essentials. And this is where the
‘fun’ of the game starts as Gad-
get visits all the areas of the
circus after his gadgets. Without
the gadgets, Gadget is unable to
arrest the MAD spies. Time is of
the essence, the future for Penny
rests with Gadget, indeed the
future of the world rests М,
him.

What a brilliant plot for a
game, what wonderful atmo-
spheric music is played as you
explore the circus, it's а real
shame that the actual gameplay
and graphics are a slight let
down. As a budget game Inspec-
tor Gadget would be brilliant at
$1.99, but at $8.95 it's not too
impressive. The movement on the
characters are not very smooth
and Gadget himself moves in
“bloek' directions.

Although not one of their best
releases, Inspector Gadget will
appeal to all Gadget fans, and
the music is so good, it should be
able to sell the game on its own.

Leslie Bunder

Program Inspector Gadget Mi-
cro Commodore 64/128 Price
$8.95 (cassette), 814.95 (disc)
Supplier Melbourne House,
3-10 Port Street, London EC2.

18/POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

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POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY/19

MIMIC IN FREE LIBRARY CASES

DS 86 TPI 10s £7.60
FUPSIDED 10s £115
DS 48 TPI 10s £6.80
UNIVERSAL 10s £7.95

55 105 іп Library Case £13.55
05 105 іп Library Case £15.95

5.25” BULK UNBRANDED DISKS (LIFETIME GUARANTEE)

FULLY CERTIFIED 55 48 ТРІ 5596ТРІ 0548ТРІ DS 96 TPI
Try 10 and see £4.75 £5.55 #555 £6.35
25 £960 — £1040 £1040 £11.20
50 £1840 41920 £1920 #2080
100 £33.60 £35.20 £35.20 £36.80
250 £76.00 £77.60 £77.60 £80.00
500 £144.00 £148.00 £148.00 £152.00

3.5” BULK UNBRANDED DISKS 135 TRILIFETIME GUARANTEE

ss 05
10 £11.95 £13.55
25 £28.00 £32.00
50 £52.00 £64.00
100 £96.00 £120.00
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500 £400.00 £520.00

AMIGA HARDWARE

А500 Amiga £475.00
Cumana compatible 1 meg disk drive £140.00
Modulator £24.95

ALL 5.25” DISKS HAVE REINFORCED HUB RINGS, SLEEVES,
LABELS AND WRITE PROTECTS.
ALL DISKS CARRY A LIFETIME GUARANTEE.
ALL DISK PRICES INCLUDE VAT AND P/P.
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All disks now sent 1st class or courier

RED, GREEN, BLUE, YELLOW, WHITE

10 in single colour OR 2 of each please state in large quantities your choice. (If stocks are available) * in library cases

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ACCESSORIES INC VAT

IBM/Amstrad PC1512 Printer Cable GPR10125 x cent. £715
Disk Notcher /doublers. £3.60
Disk cleaners 3.5” £3.95
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FOR A.T.S.

10 50 100
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Verbatim preformatted for use with Kodak 6.6 meg drive or equivalent (5
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525" 50 capacity £6.95. 100 capacity £9.35
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10 x 3.5” or 5.25” (library case) £1.20

SOFTWARE

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20/POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

[ле vto watched the tsi
ating ВВС? television series.
on test pilots about two months.
адо will be pleased to hear that.
there is now a game that can
recreate this 'seatof-the-pants"
type of flying; Chuck Yeager's
Advanced Flight Simulator.

Programmed by Electronic
Arts, and released in the UK on а
variety of machines - in this case.
the Commodore 64 — by the
European arm of this well ге
spected software house.

‘As with the rest of EOA’s
games, this AFS comes with a
lengthy and well written manual

eviathan could be the greatest

game since Space Invaders,
but anything that uses a dongle
gets top marks in the pain in the
backside department. Yes, in this
Amiga incarnation, it's wrestling
time as you evict a defenceless
mouse from its home and replace
it with the sawn off end of a
joystick plug.

Enough of that though. Now to
the plot. Refreshingly, English
Software hasn't bothered with
one. Just fly your ship, Levia-
than, over (and into with sicken-
ing regularity) three types of
landscape, each one being pre-

A
К auis

Which is essential reading for
anyone attempting to get the
most from the game - especially
if you are a flight sim enthusiast.

Graphically, AFS is excellent,
although as you would expect of
the Commodore 64, the anima-
tion is not exactly fast, though
by no means unplayably slow.

In play the game allows you to
sample the delights of 14 differ-
ent planes, ranging from Sopwith
Camels to “Top Gun' like F-16
Fighting Falcons. To add to the
problems of being a test pilot,
there are also three experimental
planes.

sented in a couple of different
colours, and destroy every enemy
ship that you find. AII within the
time limit. I liked that; complete-
ly unpretentious stuff.

As usual your ship is contin.
ually running out of diesel so
landing on the arrows near the
fuel pods in the Cityscape is
recommended rather than the
take a spare can approach.

On the control panel at the
bottom of the screen there's all
the regular guys; score, fuel
counter, lives indicator, timer,
value of BP shares, and a couple
of new ideas. One is a snapshot of

Oooo (t

The most obvious comparison
to make is with Flight Simulator
II, the industry standard simula-
tor from Microsoft. Although
AFS is not quite as smooth or
relaxed, it more than makes up
for this with action and ‘thrills’.

The philosophy behind the
game is typically American, but
thankfully Chuck Yeager seems
more endearing than most, and
even quite amusing.

“Crash is not a word pilots
ever use. I don't really know why,
but the word is avoided in de-
scribing what happens when se-
veral tons of metal ploughs itself.
and its pilot into the ground.
Instead, we might say "He au-
gered in." Or, "He bought the
farm!”

Overall, AFS is a game that
will appeal to everyone who has
wondered when simulations will
start to bridge the gap between
arcade games and simulations,

Daniel McGrath

Program Chuck Yeager's Ad-
vanced Flight Simulator Type
Simulation Price $9.95
Machine Commodore 64 Sup-
plier Electronic Arts, 11/49
Station Road, Langley, Berks.

the type of enemy coming next
while two arrows flash green to
point in which direction the ene-
my is actually lurking.

In play Leviathan is a Zaxxon-
style game, but much better. The
screen scrolls diagonally up and
down, and does so very smoothly
when you're moving at top speed.
The graphics for the landscapes
are made up of shades of one
particular colour at a time, en-
abling detailed shadowing and
similar effects to be realistically
portrayed.

It’s nice to see a game that
actually looks like it's running on
an Amiga rather an ST, and the
Greekscape in particular is de-
lightfully done.

The music on the title page, by
the prolific David Whittaker, is
пр {о the mark without being in
the jaw dropping class.

Still, this Amiga version of
Leviathan is easily the best, and
one for the Christmas stocking of
those who like mindless action
games.

Mark Ullyat

Program Leviathan Micro
Amiga Price $24.95 Supplier

English Software, 1 North
Parade, Manchester M3 2NH.

GAMES-

Software guide
continued

Atari ST

Program Talladega Type Simula-
tion Price $1.99 Supplier MIL, 12
Chiltern Enterprise Centre, Station
Road, Theale, Berks RG7 IAA.

Program The ChessMaster Type
Simulation Price $24.95 Supplier
Electronic Arts, Langley Business
angley, Nr Slough, Berks

Amiga

Program Red October Type Com-
bat Simulation Price $24.95 Sup-
plier Argus Press Software Ltd,
Victory House, Leicester Place,
London WC2H 7NB.

Program The ChessMaster 2000
‘Type Simulation Price $24.05 Sup-
plier Electronic Arts, Langley
Business Centre, Langley, Nr
Slough, Berks 512 8YN,

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY/21

"GAMES

Software guide
continued

TAN YOU NAN 1:5
€

Commodore 64

Program Bosconian Type Arcade
Price 51.00 Supplier Mastertronic,
8-10 Paul Street, London EC2.

Program The Elite Collection con-
tains Bomb Jack, Commando,
Frank Bruno's Boxing, Airwolf,
Battleships, PaperBoy, Ghosts 'N’
Goblins, Bomb Jack I| Price
31405 (cassette), $19.05 (disc)
Supplier Elite Systems Ltd, Eas-
tern Avenue, Lichfield, Staffs
WS13 6RX.

Program Tailadega Type Simula-
tion Price $199 Supplier MIL,
Chiltern Enterprise Centre, Station
Road, Theale, Berks RG7 444.

Program Alice In Videoland Type
Adventure Price $2.99 Supplier
MIL, 12 Chiltern Enterprise Cen:
tre, Station Road, Theale, Berks
RGT 4AA.

Program Basil The Great Mouse
Detective Type Adventure Price
30.99 (cassette), $14.99 (disc) Sup-
plier Gremlin Graphies Software
Ltd, Units 2/3 Holford Way, Hol-
ford Industrial Estate, Bir-
mingham B6 7AX

hile the world waits with an

expectant hush for Super
Hang On to make an appearance
on the shelves ~ Mirrorsoft have
sneaked out a motorcycle extrav.
aganza of their own in the form
of Mean Streak - weighing in on
the Spectrum (48K and 128K
natch) and Commodore 64 and
it's not half bad.

Best played (as with all moto-
cycle games) with a hair dryer
taped to the top of the telly for
added effect, Mirrorsoft have
shunned the "over the shoulder"
perspective usually adopted, and
plumped for the more technically
demanding (though less trouble
оп the knees) "sitting in the
grandstand” view, with a nicely

done diagonal scroll, as in Paper:
boy. But whereas the latter
lacked the gratuitous violence
needed for a truly classic work
(relying heavily on the teen-age
subconscious need to exercise
the work ethic and several дойду
under-the-counter payments)
Mean Streak requires the plucky
gamester to blow thousands of
Outcast Bikers away in a verita-
ble orgy of destruction.

‘The senario is set a Mad Max:
like far future, with your riding
round the Battletrack (a disused,
rubble strewn motorway circling
a capital city), a Rebel, shunning
the hedonistic New Ways which
seem to amount to staying іп.
doors watching reruns of Neigh-

bours . .. riding your Super Bike,
armed with machine guns, rock-
ets and oil.

The aim is to complete the
circle round the city (all five
levels of it) blowing away every-
thing in your path, watching out
for the pin-tacks, picking up ex-
tra fuel, avoiding sundry nasties
‘on the track, and generally hav-
ing a good time. As an extra
incentive for hackers, there is a
competition attached to the
game so that if you complete all
the levels, you get a special code
— and so get a chance to qualify
for a play-off to win a fabby new
ultra trendy mountain bike.
Coooo.

Тһеге аге опе and two player
versions on both the Speccy and
the CBM, which you pit yourself
against a biological opponent,
and the 128K and 64 versions

have the appropriate hip-hip( ,

body popping musi
Admittedly buying this game
won't gain you automatic admit-
tance to your local HA chapter —
but for the true feel of the open
road in times to come, wear some
funny clothes, load it up, turn on
the drier and think of the M25.
Fabby
John Cook

Program Mean Streak Micro

Spectrum. 48K/128K, CBM 64
Price 575/885 Supplier
Mirrorsoft, 66-73 Shoe Lane,

mdon ECA, Tel: 01-

4645.

he Travel Game is a game for

adults which does not have an
X-certificate; nor does Samantha
Fox make an appearance.

In fact, the game is charm
ingly old-fashioned in its appeal,
but very modern in the sophisti-
cation of its programming: you
match your brains against those
of a very cunningly-devised pro-
gram. The idea is to travel round
the world, collecting clues at
various locations. The prize
which awaits you at the end of
the journey is the answer to the
Endgame; this answer is current-
ly worth 5,000 which inereases
by 1 each time another copy of
the game is sold.

This sounds easy but RuleFor
mat, the producers, expect that
it will take several months before
the Endgame is cracked. The
problems begin with the fact that
you start off with only $500 and
you need money to pay for travel
by boat, train or plane as well as
to buy the souvenirs which lead
to your next destination and

your next clue. You must take
decisions about how to plan your
route to maximise speed and
minimise expense; the best strat

egy is not always obvious.

‘As you progress the game
becomes more difficult and unex-
pected things happen; your ex-
pertise increases as you advance.
You must accumulate extra mon-
ey by answering a set of brain.
teasing questions most of which
are based on numbers and letters.
rather than general knowledge.
Perhaps the best way of captur-
ing the game's flavour is to say
that it has already received the
endorsement of Magnus
Magnusson.

There are no graphics in the
program in order to ensure that
the game will run on any PC. The
screen is functional and looks
more like a business application
than a conventional game. А box
in the topleft reminds you of
your current location; a box top-
Tight records the passage of
time. Most of the screen is taken

пр with the box where informa.
tion, questions and help text,
appear. Your instructions aré
typed in at the bottom of the
screen.

The program is written in Ç -
in other words, it is a classy and
sophisticated program with no
apparent bugs. If, like me, you
enjoy working out puzzles and

to unravel secrets, then 1
would recommend the Travel
Game. How far have 1 got? Well,
I have just spent my second
expensive night in a London hotel
and, when I resume playing this
evening, I will be staring at a
large overdraft, desperate to
serape together enough money to
continue my journey.

Robert Hollier

Program Travel Game Micro
Adventure Price $24.95 + 95р
p&p Machine Any IBM PC
compatible Supplier The Tra-
vel Game, Freepost, Liverpool
L1 SAB, (051) 708 8202.

22/POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

he game that launched а thou-

sand space pilots is now атай.
able on the IBM PC and compati-
bles. Along with Starglider,
Elite must be the most eagerly
awaited conversion, and those
who glimpsed it at the PCW show
will know that this version has
something special - a solid 3D
option!

For the few who have never
heard of £lite, it is quite simply
the best 3dimensional space
combat game going. You pilot а
Cobra Mk. Ш, a ship well-suited
to both combat and trading.
"Trading is an integral part of the
game as you need to increase
your credit. balance in order to
afford all those cute little acces
sories, such as docking comput
er, military lasers, fuel scoops
and so forth. However, piracy
and bounty hunting сап also

ove profitable. The aim is to
ссн your rating from ‘Harm
less’ to "Elite. However you
should be offered your first mis.

sion before reaching that coveted
status
When you load the game (the

disk is not protected will copy
straight to hard disk), you may
select either Shaded or Line
lite. Both utilise low res. and
four colours, and these are
hatched to produce shading var-
iations on the control panel and
ships. Firebird recommend an
80286 micro at 6Mhz or higher
io appreciate the solid anima-
tion, but the PCI512 display is
adequately smooth.

Before play starts you are
prompted for a word chosen ran.
domly from the enclosed novella,

Piss ite launches

This consistently refused to work
for me, and I eventually tried the
Flight Training Manual instead,
Instant success! Firebird will be
changing the entry screen to
specify the current manual,

The title screen displays your
sleek Cobra Mk. Ш, rotating in

time to the Blue Danube Waltz
The shaded Cobra looks very
impressive, although you might
ateh the odd screen-swap flicker
оп а PC1512, it's still remark
ably smooth.

Unable to resist an immediate
test flight (and having flown
Cobras before on a Beeb), I
promptly hit Fl and launched
into the cold void above planet
Lave. The PC key layout is easy
to adjust to, and | was soon
skimming the space station, won.
dering if it was worth annoying
the local police fleet? Common
sense said No, but I opened up оп
the station anyway. Instantly a
stream of police Vipers erupted
from the dock opening and com.
тепсей to return fire. I counted
10 of them before my career as a
Cobra pilot was abruptly cur-
tailed, and the screen displayed

my wreckage spinning away
towards Lave.

Because there are any number
of IBM clones operating at vary.
ing speeds, not to mention the
7286 and '386 families, there is
an option to increase/decrease
the rate of frame display, on a

scale of 1-10 (highest), with *8"
being the default. Unfortunately
this also seems to affect the
frequency with which the key.
board is scanned, so while '10'
offers the smoothest animation,
it loses you accurate steering and
your Cobra tends to veer at the
lightest touch. On the Amstrad I
found the default of ‘8’ was fine
for combat, but docking required
setting of '1' (at least until I can
afford a docking computer!)

There is little doubt that IBM
Elite is a masterly conversion.
The shaded space stations are
most impressive to behold as
they rotate majestically against.
а backdrop of drifting stars and
distant, blazing sun. Also impres-
sive is the circling attack ma
noeuvre taken by police Vipers as
they dart from dock, fly round
the space station in a chain, then
pursue you and set up a circling
attack formation around you.
Very pretty though somewhat
lethal to watch. The most pleas-
ing image was that of two incom-
ing missiles оп the rear view
screen, rapidly gaining ground,
but lost just before Impact as my
Cobra completed count down and
leapt into the colourful display
of Hyperspace.

Elite's appeal was always long-
term: with over 2000 planets to
trade with and the elusive rank
of Elite to be gained, not to
mention the occasional mission
оп behalf of the Space Navy,
there is always something to do.
It’s destined to be the most
popular PC game this Christmas,
if not this y

Pete Gintz

Program Elite Type Adventure
Price $24.95 Supplier Firebird,
67-76 New Oxford Street, Lon-
don WCIA IPS.

GAMES-

Software guide
continued

BBC/Electron

Program Warehouse Type Arcade
Price $2.99 Supplier MIL, 12 Chil-
tern Enterprise Centre, Station
Road, Theale, Berks RGT 4AA

Spectrum

Program Slaine Type Adventure
Price 5890 Supplier Martech,

Martech Hous е, Pe-
vensey Bay, x BN24
6EE.

Program Grid Iron Type Simula:
tion Price 21.90 Supplier MIL, 12
Chiltern Enterprise Centre, Station.
Road, Theale, Berks RG7 4AA.

Program Agent X [I Type Arcade
Price $1.99 Supplier Mastertronic,
8-10 Paul Street, London EC2.

Program Alien 8 Type Adventure
Price $1.99 Supplier Mastertronic,
10 Paul Street, London EC2.

Program The Elite Collection con-
tains Bomb Jack, Commando,
Frank Bruno's Boxing, Airwolf,
Battleships, PaperBoy, Ghosts 'N’
Goblins, Bomb Jack П Price
51495 (cassette), £19.95 (disc)
Supplier Elite Systems Ltd, Eas-
tern Avenue, Lichfield, Staffs
WSI3 6RX.

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY/23

GAMES

Software guide
continued

IBM PC

Program The ChessMaster 2000
Type Simulation Price $21.95 Sup-
plier Electronic Arts, Langley
Business Centre, 11-49 Station
Road, Langley, Nr Slough, Berks
513 8YN.

Program Vegas Casino Type Si
mulation Price $9.95 Supplier
Mastertronic, 8-10 Paul Street,
London EC2,

Program Pub Pool Type Simula-
tion Price $9.05 Supplier Master-
tronie, 8-10 Paul Street, London
Е

jemember the age old game of

Defender, where the object
of the game was to fly across
planet and rescue humans from
Aliens who were going to turn
them into zombies?

The folks at The Edge seem to
remember the game particularly
well. Unlike a lot of copies of
that all time classic, The Edge
have taken Defender as a basic
plot and expanded on it. RISK is
primarily a shoot 'em up but it
also contains elements of strate-
gy in the actual gameplay as you
can equip your spaceship with
various objects as you set about.
customising the ship.

You can add thrusters, boost-
ers, retros infact a whole host of
objects that will help you seek
ош and destroy those offending
aliens.

There are several different ob-
jects involved in the game. The
first is to explore the planet
Christon 3 and destroy the aliens
who have occupied the planet.

Further objects involve you
having to rescue as many scien
ists as possible from the planet
and eventually find the under-
ground complex to get hold of
more fighting power and the
blueprints of a top secret weapon
system that was being re
searched on Christon 3. Graphics
are large and detailed.

The mountainess terrain,
looks very realistic but it's really
no surprise as apparently a lot of
work has gone into the writing of
the game by brothers Chris and
Tony West,

Controlling your spaceship is

done а la Defender in that you
are positioned horizontally and
there is a box on the top of the
screen showing you where the
aliens are coming from and how
near they are to you.
The music on RISK is very
good and is very reminiscent of a
theme tune to some top scifi
adventure film.

It’s а real shame that during
the actual playing of the game
there is no music playing.

‘The only sound effects are of
you shooting at the aliens, It
Would have been nice if the

authors could have let the music
from the introduction run into
the game.

What conld have been consi-

dered as a ‘rip off of an old game
has turned out to be a game with
added originality.
It's pleasing to see that old
ideas can be taken to and
brought back in a modern way.
Congratulations to The Edge.
How about bringing out a new
version of Asteroids or Space
Invaders, Edge?

Leslie Bunder

Program Risk Micro Commo-
28 Price 5805 (cas.
5 (disc) Supplier
5-58 Southampton
ndon WC2E THE, 01-

dore 64,

sette), Š

Incentive has been talking about
its ‘Freescape’ technique for a
while, but at last here's the
finished Spectrum version of
Driller, with CBM64 and Am
strad to follow. Was it worth the
wait? Yes, especially if you've

enjoyed games like Mercenary
and Sentinel. Driller gives you а
solid 3-D landscape, with objects
that you can walk round, walls
you can climb on (and fall offt)
and the ability to look in any
direction. Look up as you walk
through a passageway and you'll
see the roof going by, and if you
raise your viewpoint when you
come to a wall you can look over
into the next playing area.

Control requires most of the-
keys on the keyboard, though a
Joystick makes life easier; Kemp-
ston, Sinclair and Cursor are
supported. Even with a stick
you'll still need another 16 keys!
‘These enable you to look up and
down, tilt left and right, do a U-
turn, rise and fall vertically and
teleport drilling rigs.

Drilling rigs? Well there is a
game in here as well! It takes
place on Mitral, where a build-up
of gas beneath the surface needs
an experienced driller just like
you to explore Mitral’s 18 sec
tors and place the drilling rigs in
the right spots to relieve the
pressure. You also only have four
hours (real-time) before a meteor
hits Mitral, and if the gas prob-

lem hasn't been sorted out by
then the resulting explosion
could mean the end of civilisation
as we know it. With a potential
playing time of four hours, it's as.
well there's a SAVE feature,

There are 16 controls around ,
the main viewing screen, so T
won't go into all those, but some
of the more sensible include the
ability to alter your rate of
movement and the angle through
which you turn round when you
look to left or right. Driller does
take a while to get started, as
you try to get used to everything
that’s going on, but it repays the
effort.

Driller has lots of amusing
touches. Not a fast-action shoot
"emp, and I've a feeling the
Freescape technique will produce
even better games than this, but
it's a good (if pricey) start,

Mike Gerrard

Program Driller Type Adven-
іше Micro Spectrum Price
81195 (tape), 51705 (disc)
Supplier 2 Minerva House, Cal-
leva Park, Aldermaston, Berk-
shire RG7 4QW

‘24/POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

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C language in their software catalo-
gues, and one is 400 times faster than
the other! I'm referring to Acornsoft C for
the BBC Master Series, and also Acorn С
(notice the lack of ‘soft’) for the new "ВВС
Micro’, none other than the Archimedes.
These two products serve to underline
Just how many worlds apart Acorn’s old 8-
Pit BBC workchorse and the new 32 bit
‘Super-micro are. It is not just speed of
course; with the 8-bit C language you are
restricted to fairly small programs because
of memory limitations, and run-time code
is not true machine code, but an intermedi-
ate interpreted type, which is also non-
portable. The Archimedes on the other
hand has pretensions to being a full-blown
Unix workstation, and so C forms an
extremely important part of the new
machine's initial repertoire of languages.

Ас currently has two versions of the

Programming б

If you want to program in C on your Archie,
you'll need а 1 megabyte machine - either
ап A310, or an expanded A305. The version
of C we looked at was a pre-production
release, and this was openly admitted and
warned about in the documentation, Acorn
{g's had ARM (Acorn RISO Machine) С

compilers running for well over a year
now, and according to details supplied with
the version we had, our version was a
recent release originally written in C itself.
We ran Noreroft release 1.40. Acorn have
opted for the ANSI (American National
Standard for Information systems) stan-
dard, which should mean good portability
across the already crowded spectrum of
rival C compilers on other machines.

Features
The package has all the basic features you
would expect from a professional C compil-
er, a linker is included (an essential part of
а C system but often supplied as an
‘extra’!) - though ours wasn't documented!
Nevertheless, there were no surprises
here, and users familiar with other com-
monly available systems shouldn't have
any problems getting started.

The Archimedes doesn't currently have
any floating point co-processor hardware,

however a floating point emulator is sup-
plied, and you're directed to have this
present when using the compiler,

No editor is supplied, though Acorn
programmers swear by their in-house de-
veloped Twin editor - a multi-tasking
version of Edit as supplied on the Master
128. We didn't have this but got by using
View under the Archimedes 6502 emulator!
There's no debugger either, which could
put some professional applications houses
off.

The pre-production compiler on sale at
present does have some annoying bugs, but
these аге not too serious and they are

жт

ныне шөл)

БИЧИК
ix

р sir ti

I

comet iler
rations tar);

ter (18; інен)

A shot of a typical C program in action.

documented. Some limitations are also
evident, like the lack of linker documenta-
tion, and the lack of flexibility in some
features - the stack is fixed at 16K for
example - but addendums supplied
promise to shore up these weaknesses in
later releases,

Acorn C has а standard library, once
again with nothing basic missing. Exten-
sions to the library include graphics calls -
basically links to the extended graphics in
the Archimedes’ Arthur operating system,
plus the ability to use what was referred to
as the Arthur WIMP system.

We didn't have time to test this feature
but assume this is a reference to the
Archimedes Desktop Windows module.

SOFTWARE-

See C Signor

The first C compiler for the Acorn
Archimedes has appeared. David
King concludes that it is not all
that it could have been.

A Sieve of Eratosthenes program is
supplied, and we used this to find the first
1890 prime numbers.

Speed

Execution speed of the resulting ARM code
was impressive - just 0.58 of second. This
compares with over three minutes for the.
poor old Master 128 running Acornsoft С,
For some reason we were unable to get
Beebug's C compiler for the BBC to accept.
the example program, Brasscourt C for the
BBC Model B, which compiles true machine
code, was much more impressive at 38
seconds, but still over 60 times slower than.
the Archie. However rather more relevant
comparisons disappoint. Running the same
Sieve program on both Motorola 68020
based NCR and Intel 80386 based Altos
Unix multi-user systems, the same pro-
gram ran three and five times faster
respectively.

This has to be down to the compiler, and
perhaps the early 0.20 release of Arthur in
Our Archimedes. The Archie's ARM is
capable of matching, or even exceeding,
the performance of either a 68020 or an
80386, so we can only deduce that those
machines have better optimised compilers.

However this probably shouldn't be all
that surprising. Acorn C is currently the
only commercially available C compiler for
the Archimedes and will probably benefit
greatly from further optimisation in later
releases. Acorn will send later releases to
current users as long as they receive a
user-registration coupon supplied with the
original package.

Conclusion

Perhaps this initial release of Acorn's C
package is а touch disappointing, but it's
Still good enough to get going with, and
certainly very important for Acorn's cru-
sade to get the Archie recognised and
installed as a powerful business/utility
workstation. Ü

Acorn ANSI C, $80 plus VAT
Acorn Computers Limited
Cambridge

Technopark
645 Newmarket Road
Cambridge CB5 8PD

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY/27

APOLLO I
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CONTRACTS

а high when they finally agree on

the terms by which MegaBucks Soft-
ware Ltd. will publish their latest hit.
Their eyes fill up with pound signs and
unfortunately realism takes something of a
back seat,

Signing a contract
When you negotiate a deal with a
software house for it to market your game,
they will usually require you to sign a
contract. I was staggered recently when
the Hewson programming experts left to
join Firebird - and it was revealed that
there had in fact been no written contract.
I would hazard a guess that in the future
all software houses will require program-
mers to sign a contract. They do say one
learns by one's mistakes . , ,

But this is not something to be afraid of
- but rather, something you should push
for as programmers, since the contraet is
there to protect both parties, and might
end up your only means to get what is owed.
to you. Contracts have been used widely in
the industry ever since it began, and they
are usually fairly similar. But, as history
has shown, you should read anything
through very carefully, and be aware of
what you are signing before you pen your
scrawl on it.

Unfair Terms Act

The English legal system is such
that the contract may not be the be-all and
end-all of any agreement. If you sign a
contract which later turns sour, you may
have some comeback under the Unfair
‘Terms Act - which over-rules any written
contract under certain conditions, and may
help you. Being under 18 might also help,
but don't rely on it, if you can sign
something you are happy with, do so.

Verbal

Another interesting, and little known,
point about the law of contract is that a
contract need not be in writing, it can be
spoken. So if a firm offers you $10,000 for
the UK rights to your latest Jupiter Ace
program over the phone, they can techni-

M: programmers are on something of

cally be held to it: the problem, of course, is
in proving that they made that offer. For
any contract to be valid, there must be an
Offer (“TII give you $1500 for that Spec-
trum game"), Acceptance ("I accept") -
and some sort of consideration (in our
example, the $1500 from the software
house, and the UK rights to the Spectrum
game from the programmer) although it
doesn't matter how much - a penny will do

There is a lot more detail than that, of
course, but generally speaking if you have
those three elements, then a contract
exists which is legally binding. The law is
currently changing, or about to, concerning
the ability of minors (anyone less that 18,
for your information, John, not someone
Who works underground!) to make con-
tracts, if this is relevant to you, it might be
worth your while checking with a solicitor
about this.

Signing a contract
So, what are the main points to watch
out for in publishing contracts with soft-
ware houses? The basis of the contraet will
explain who both sides are (ie, you and
"your agents" and the software house, and
their agents; for practical purposes,

“<The English legal
system is such
that the contract

may not be the
be-all and end-all of
any agreement . . „7?

merely means you and them!) it will then
explain what the contract does: usually
licensing the rights to manufacture, mar-
ket and distribute your software title, or
the copyright to it; it will then have a
section about what “consideration” you are

The dotted line syndrome

If you are thinking of selling computer games,
or already do so, David Lester has some handy
advice on signing contracts, how to avoid
financial disappointment and how to tackle
legal wrangles.

being given for licensing these rights, ie,
the royalty arrangement you have nego-
tiated, or the lump-sum payment, or
whatever.

Copyright

Most programmers 1 have come across
like to maintain ownership of the сору.
right to a title, and simply license the
rights to it. This then gives you control
over sub-licences, and the rights to any
income earned from subsidiary products
(such as T-shirts sold with the game name
on it, etc). That is, assuming that you do
not assign these rights to a publisher, too,
You might not think that this is desperate-
ly important, but just suppose that your
program really hits the big time: there
have been instances where board game
manufacturers have converted a software
game to a board game; and where arcade
game firms such as Taito or Sega have
bought the rights to a home computer
game for conversion into an arcade game
(for example, Star Glider). While this is
pretty rare, you would be none too happy if
you saw nothing of the profits of these
licences. My advice is therefore to only
assign the precise rights your publisher
needs,

Publisher's rights

The other side to this coin is that the
publisher will usually make you sign a
clause saving that you guarantee that you
own all rights to the product, and will
protect the publisher from any infringe-
ment of them. This just means that if
anyone starts producing copies of your title
which are a bit too close for comfort, the
publisher can make you sue, they cannot
sue themselves, since they are not the
owners of the copyright. This could get
expensive, so the first time I saw this, I felt.
decidedly worried about signing it. But if
you are with a reputable firm then they
will probably help you out financially if it
comes to this (which is very unlikely
anyway). And if you are with a smaller
firm, then they will probably be less keen
to sue anyway. You can be fairly happy
about this simply because the publisher

30/POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

„

will be even harder hit than you by any
infringement, so it is in its interests to help
you sue.

Royalties

Then comes the royalty or payment
clause, [tis impossible to say what you can
reasonably hope to get. The best thing to
do is just to show the game to several
publishers, and take the best offer you сап
get (never just accept the first offer you
are made, just in case ..; there are less
programmers ripped-off now than there
were “in the early days”, but it still
happens from time to time),

For budget software titles, an outright
payment of about £1,000 to £1,500 is fair,
unless you are dealing with one of the big
three firms, who should double that figure.
‘The best thing by far, though, is to obtain
ап advance on royalities, so that if sales
really do take off, you get a piece of the ac-
tion, І have only come across two firms
which refused to offer royalties, so you
should be able to negotiate such a deal. On
full-price, expect royalties of about 15 to
20% (of the net price, ie, what the software
house actually receives from the distribu-
tors for the game, and some sort of
advance but the market is just so volatile
(sounds like the City, doesn't it!) that
predicting the size of any advance would
be foolhardy,

This is the clause to check, recheck, and
check again. Simply make sure it says
what you agreed with the publisher, and
nothing else. Note how often the royalties
аге paid, too, some firms only pay them
once a quarter (every three months) which
means that you won't see anything for a
long time after you have finished the
game. If you possibly can, negotiate this
down to monthly payments; while you
should still get the same sum, if your firm
goes bust after two months, at least you
will have had two months’ payments
rather than none! (not to mention any
interest earned on the cash).

Conversions

You should make sure that the contract
is clear about arrangements for conver-
sions of your game to other formats

(assuming that you are providing it on only ^

опе or two yourself). This can be an extra.
source of income which might make you
more money even than the original, so
don’t sign away your rights to money here.
One publisher I have come across claims
that its contracts, don’t actually entitle the
original programmer to any of the proceeds
from conversions - if so, don't sign it.

If you think about how many formats
some games аге available on (with 8 and 16
bit, there must be at least 9 relatively
‘common ones) that is a lot of sales. As
copyright holder, you should be entitled to
at least 25% of what the converter gets for

the new versions. Talk this over with your
software house, they should be quite
happy with this arrangement, and you can
then include it in the contract. You should
also take into account whether or not you
keep the right to license out conversions to.
other software houses - for example if the
publisher of the original version doesn't
publish on the Spectrum or Commodore,
would you be allowed, under the terms of
the contract, to license a second firm to
publish the Spectrum or Commodore ver-
sion, respectively, of the game. If not, you
stand to lose out.

Overseas sale

Similarly, make sure you are happy with
апу arrangements for overseas sales. This
is clearly crucial if your game is likely to be
a hit somewhere like the United States, but
if it is a small-time UK-only game, it
probably won't matter so much. But for
any arcade game, and most good strategy,
adventure, or simulation games, there
could well be large markets overseas or
your program. There is usually an extra
clause dealing with this, which usually
drones on about sub-licences. 1 would
reserve the right to veto any sub-licence

“<The main point
is to avoid at
all costs signing

any sort of
exclusive
agreement . . .??

with which I was not happy (unlikely, but.
you never know) and negotiate a fairly
high proportion of sales revenue for these
sales. After all, there is not much work
involved at that stage - the artwork and
packaging has ай been done, and the costs
of actually producing the tape or disc are
extremely lov. It's just а case of using your

sown judgement about what is either fair,

or the fairest deal you can get (not always
the same, unfortunately).

Sub-licensing

This sub-licensing is more important
now than it used to be, since so many titles
are released at first on their own, then
later as either budget titles, or on compila-
tions, or both. Of course, when you first
sign up a contract, you have no idea
whether this will happen or not, and if so
how much revenue will be gonerated by it.
So I would suggest having a clause which
lets you re-negotiate the terms of any such
deals yourself, as and when they arise.

That way, you might have a better idea of
the likely success of the budget title or
compilation, and be able to get a better
deal for yourself. The software houses
might not be too keen on this, though, since
itis a very lucrative sideline for them, but
stick up for your rights; it is, after all, your
talent (and that of their other program-
mers) which earns their living for them.

There are two other clauses to note, one
you should try to include, the other you
should try even harder to exclude! Firstly,
you should incorporate а term of the
Contract about what happens if they go
bust, or are taken over, If they get taken
over by someone who doesn't like your
game, sales could literally stop dead, and
with them, your income! You need to
specify the different types of possibility
here in some depth as people have been
caught out before by excluding one or
other of the categories, Allow for “ceasing
to trade, going into liquidation or receiver-
ship, bankruptcy or being acquired by a
third party”; should any of these events
happen, you then automatically own any
rights assigned under the contract once
again, and as such are free to go and resell
them to a new firm, if you can find one
interested.

The main point is to avoid at all costs
signing any sort of exclusive agreement,
whereby you agree to (and are legally
bound to) offer the publisher of your
current title first refusal on all subsequent
programs for the life of the contract.
Under an exclusive agreement, the soft-
ware house can get away with paying you
very little for your new titles, since you
cannot legally offer them anywhere else,
One to avoid,

Protect your interests

There are no easy answers to protecting
your interests, and none which will guar-
antee anything. If in doubt, go elsewhere,
ог at least get as much as possible in up-
front money, One way out is to use an
agent, who then fights for you and ar-
ranges contracts on your behalf ... for a
small fee; two such firms I know of are
Marjacq and Black Knight Computers Ltd.;
the latter usually take a commission of
about 10%, and report an increasing level
of interest from programmers who have
worked for major firms, most of whom
have a story to tell concerning their own
brand of shark.

A tight contract will only help you if
there is someone you can sue, and so long
as that someone, or firm, has enough
readies to pay your debt and costs. Other-
wise, even the law won't be able to help. So
why bother? Because without a decent
contract which protects your interests, you
are definitely sunk. It’s a great world, isn't
E n

— CONTRACTS} -

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY/31

-SOUNDCHECK IN JAPAN

Eastern Delights

Mark Jenkins with computer
news from the heart of it all...

Europe, which has recently been set-

up to co-ordinate Yamaha's activities
in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy
and elsewhere, we recently got a chance to
fly over to Japan to check out next year's
new products, As far as Yamaha are
concerned, the main line in computer
music is the CX5 series, which as you'll
probably know is in a state of flux in the
UK. However, thanks to Yamaha's "X-Day
6", а trip to their retail store in the
Shibuya area of Tokyo, and various other
exhibitions, we have managed to gather
quite a lot of information about the state of
computing in general, and music comput-
ing in particular, In the land that does all
that sort’ of thing best .

First, the CX5 series. Users who have
been frustrated by the apparent deletion of
the line due to the failure of the MSX
standard in the UK will be pleased (or
more frustrated) to know that it is going
strong in: Japan, Spain and Germany still
take large numbers of MSX computers -
and the home market is healthy, so much
so that two expanded models - the
CXBHIL/128 and thge CX11 - are currently
available. These are, of course in addition
to all the other MSX machines from Sony,
Canon, Toshiba, Mitsubishi arid many oth-
ers, which can be used as music comput
now that Yamaha have made their SFG-05
FM synthesizer cartridge available
separately.

‘A music computer is only as good as its
software, and currently Yamaha Japan
offers a long line of options. The full list.
runs as follows.

[e] Computer Music Workshop; Keyboard
Chord Master, Keyboard Chord Progres-
sions, Guitar Chord Master

ө] FM Auto Arranger; FM Auto Arranger
Utilities

ө] Graphic artist; Graphic Artist Utilities
ө] FM Voice Data; Vols 1, 2, 3

[e] DX100/DX27 Voice Data; Vols. 1, 2

[e] DX 21 Voice Data; Vols. 1, 2, 3

[e] RXI5 Rhythm Data; Rock Vol. 1, Vol. 2,
Swing/Shuffle

[e] RXLI Rhythm Data; Rock Vol. 1, Vol.
Swing/Shuffle

[e] RX21 Rhythm Data, Rock Vol. 1, Vol. 2
| Music Pad, Music Pad Accessories

Те” to the Yamaha Corporation Of

The last of these, the Music Pad, is a
chunk of hardware similar to a flatbed
plotter which allows you to enter music,
arrange pieces and create new sounds
using a plotter pen to control the computer.
Yamaha also make a word processor
available for their MSX machines, and use
the CX11 to run automatic testing routines
at their DX synthesizer factory in Toyooka.

The Japanese FM77AV40 and Fujitsu monitor

The most popular MSX line in Japan
seems to be the Sony Hit Bit, which can be
built up into a complete business system. If
you don’t want to use a keyboard, this can
be run from a tiny numeric control pad
with just 0-9, cursor, and function keys,
and you can clip on a 300/1200 bps
MODEM to communicate with music net-
MC and ESI Street.

has an optional clip-on
tridge called FS-CAI which gives it poly
phonic synth voices for use with packages
such as the standard "MSX Music".

If you really want to integrate your
music, hi-fi, computing and TV interests,
the Fujitsu FM77 AV/AV20/AV40 is the
one for you. It's described as an Audio-
Visual Computer and comes with a power-
ful polyphonic sound-chip, two disc-drives,
TV, keyboard and hi-fi sound outputs. A
MIDI interface, the FM77-40 is optional, as

are various boards to add SCSI (hard disc)
interfacing, e-mail, and what looks to be à
voice-activated control system, or perhaps
just а sound sampler.

The FM77 is shown being used for
computer-aided design, MIDI control of
Yamaha, Korg and Roland synths and
effects (using a package called FM Music
World created by Fujitsu and Music Plan),
running an FM Music Editor, creating
abstract graphics, doing word processing
and accounting tasks, and generally being.
a bit of a jack-of-all-trades,

Of course, it's hard to give an idea of the.
cost of the machine since so many options.
are available. Prices in Tokyo are high now
due to the strong Yen, but to give you some.
idea, the Apple Mac and SE are about the.
same price їп Tokyo as in the UK, so you
won't in faet make any enormous savings
on electronics by shopping in Japan
nowadays.

However, if you're after equipment
which isn't available at all in the UK,
Japan is still the place to be. The country's
leading computer graphics and music mag-
azine, Epsilon, covers MIDI basics, digital
mixers, photographic equipment, profes-
sional video equipment, computers from
manufacturers such as NEC, Sharp and)
Panasonic, computer graphic tips with
BASIC listings, drum machines, scanners,
CAD packages, films, books records, and
shows.

Epsilon is largely in Japanese, but it is
good to look at and contains tempting
pictures of lots of items not yet available in
the West. The publishers would no doubt
be pleased to hear from you if you'd like to
subscribe, Write to them in (straightfor-
ward) English c/o Studio Somewhere, 1-

1 Gohongi, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 159, Japan,
Tel: Japan 03 793 0655 (8 hours ahead).

Incidentally, non-Atari owners will be
pleased to hear that the ST is very little in
evidence in Japan, and that Yamaha seems
to have no intention of flooding the world
with ST-based software. However, one still
suspects that the Japanese professional
musicians are stealthily using Steinberg's
Pro-24 and other MIDI music packages
familiar in the West rather than more
obscure packages for NEC or other micros.
More Far Eastern stuff next week! Пп

32/POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

‘There 7% nothing that can compare with the incredible value for money offered by Ata
S20ST-FM. For only £260 (+VAT=£209), you can purchase а powerful 512K RAM compute
‘with а 95 key keyboard (including numeric keypad), MIDI interface, GEM, a palette of 512
mouse controller, and a 512K buili-in disk drive. The S20ST-FM has а TV modulator

14 to plug it straight into any domestic colour
"built-in to the keyboard, so there are no messy

ire nearly 500 software titles already.
lable for a wide variety of applications and the list із growing all the lime. And that's not
"When you buy your new 5205 -FM (or any Atari ST computer) trom Silica Shop, you will
a lot moro, including a FREE Silica ST Starter Kit worth over £100. Read the ONLY FROM
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To: Stica Shop Lid, Dept РСМ 1087, 1-4 The Mews, Hatherley Road, Sidcup, Kent, АМ 4DX

PLEASE SEND ME FREE LITERATURE ON THE ATARI ST
П '

Initiate: Surname:

Postcode:

= um шы == шю

A bit dense

G А Sansom, of Orpington, Kent,
writes:

T have read in your column a

couple of times about dises

and the different densities
and formats. However, most of
what you say seems to go right
over my head. Could you explain
in very simple terms the various
aspects of dises ~ with pictures if
possible?

Starting from basies, a disc is
a round piece of plastic coat-

ed on each side with a layer
of magnetic material (Fig. 1). This
material is very similar to that
used on magnetic tapes and if it is
magnetised in one direction, stays
that way until it is changed to
another direction. At its simplest
level; the direction in which the
material is magnetised can be
taken as a one or a zero and can be
rend back from the disc by a coil of
wire which senses the direction.
This makes them easily written to
and read as well as giving a pretty
reliable system.

То store as much information as
possible on the disc, its area is split
up into tracks which are then split
into sectors (Fig. 2). Each sector
holds a series of ons and offs
according to the information
stored, This sectioning of the disc
is known as its format and is
purely magnetie ie, the physical
aspect of the disc is not changed by
it - allowing the same dise to be
used under different formats.

A common format is to split опе
side of the disc into 40 tracks, each
having 10 sectors and each sector
holding 256 bytes of information.
The whole dise can therefore hold
ир to 102400 or 100k bytes of data.
То find the first track, the index
hole is usually used. This is a
physical hole in the disc whose
position can be detected by means
of a light beam shining through it.
Sector zero can then be found by

-KENN GARROCH

allowing a certain amount of time
to elapse before reading or writing

ince the speed at whieh the disc
is spinning is known.

То read or write the tracks, ап
arm holding the read/write head
is positioned over the disc and can
be moved in and out in precise
steps (Fig. 1) one for each track.
To find track zero - usually the
‘outermost - the arm is pulled back
as far as it can go until it hits a
stopper. This position defines track
zero, and all other track positions
аге based on offsets from this.

Before a blank disc can be used,
it must be formatted and this
operation is performed by taking
the two positions described above
ie, track, zero and sector zero, and
then writing information to each
track that splits it up into the
correct sectors. Once this is done, a
‘couple of tracks are set aside to
hold the directory information ie,
what files start where and how
long they are. This directory info
varies quite a lot from system to
system and is usually the reason
why dises that may be incompati-
ble at first sight, can often be read
by a system if the format is known.

There are a couple of ways of
getting more information on a disc,
the most obvious of which is to use
both sides in this situation, there is
а read/write head positioned on
each side of the disc giving twice
the number of tracks. The other
way is to increase the number of
tracks, usually doubling them ie,
from 40 to 80. An 80 track (or
double density) double sided dise
with the sector format described
before would hold 409600 or 400k
bytes (Ik is 1024 ог 219), It is also
possible to have quadruple density
but this is quite rare since it puts
great demands on the quality of
the magnetic material and the
drive mechanism. To get 80 tracks
the read/write arm must move
exactly half as far for each track
ав before - obviously things are
getting a little delicate when it is
moving half as far адай

Floppy discs come in four main
sizes, 3”, 35°, 525" and 8" with the
3,5" and the 5:25" being by far the
most common (Fig. 3). The format-
ting of these is pretty much as
before and the number of tracks,
sectors and bytes per sector varies
from system to system. You'll have
noticed that 525" and 8" discs
have notches in their cases. This is
for the write protect and if the
notch is there, the drive is able to
write to it. f, however, the notch is
covered with a write protect tab (a
piece of sticky ТОЙ), the hardware
in the dise drive stops any informa-
tion being written protecting the
disc from harm.

When dises are manufactured,
they are coated on both sides and
then tested to see how well they
hold the information. If both sides
work well then the disc is sold as
double sided double density. If one
side has faults then it may be sold
as single sided, and if both sides
have minor faults then it will be
single density. Since the disc is
always coated оп both sides, it сап
be used in a double sided double
density system, but is not guaran-
teed to retain its data. I have a
number of discs that I have used
without any problems in this wa
both 5:25" and 357, however, it is

not recommended. You should al-
ways buy the correct density and
sides specified by the computer
system manual, since most discs
are guaranteed for life (I'm not
sure whose but then I'm not Meth-
uselah - yet) you will have no
trouble.

One final thing is that Commo-
dore dise drives don't use the index
hole and so can be turned over
allowing both sides to be used in a
single sided system, You do have to
buy special dises, or cut an extra
write protect notch in the other
side of the dise to make them work
however:

г

wass sensor

њаунемы |
|

ада

Motor to move arm e

notch.

The disk itseif
Disk cover

5.25" disl

Fig 3 - the commonest disk types.

Motor to spin di

Fig 1 — the main components of a disk and drive seen edge on.

Fig 2 - the sectors and tracks
(only ten shown) of 2 floppy disk.

ене

Index hole

Magnetic Wer
— НН
t

Magnetic tayer

write
protect

Solid disk
cover

Siding cover
3.5" disk

34/POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

Testing time

C Wooley, of Pelsall, W Midlands,
writes:

1 use three Amstrad com-

puters, the PC1512,

CPO6128 and the
PCW8256, and find the Basic on
two of them quite good. However,
T have hit on a problem with
Locomotive Basic 2 in that the
‘TEST and FLOOD commands do
not operate, For me this is a
serious problem in that I have
persuaded my company to pur-
chase a PCI512 so that I could
write the required programs.

I have been in touch with

Amstrad, Locomotive Software,
and Digital Research and, al
though they were very helpful,
there seems to be no solution to
the problem.
It turns out that Basie 2 was
written for use with the original
GEM environment which was not
complete, What I find strange is
that when DR needed these com-
mands for GEM Paint, they in-
cluded them. Locomotive, how-
ever, didn’t, but left the
commands there anyway ie, they
are in the manual but don’t
actually work.

Could you please identify a
Basic which is compatible with
the Amstrad PC machine and
which will support the graphics
commands that I need. I would
also like to know if other Basic 2
users have encountered other
problems and ways of resolving.
them,

1 think that Mierosoft's

GWBasic is the one you want,
E although I am not 100% cer-
tain. Other possibilities are Bor-
land's Turbo Basic and Quick Basic.
(MS), Since I don't use PCc's very
often, | am not really an expert оп
the software available, The best
thing would be to ring a couple of
reputable dealers and ask their
advice - possibly our readers
know for sure?

Sound Qut

ТЕ McCabe, of Walton, Liverpool,
rites:

What I want to do is use my

520 STFM with an Amstrad
colour monitor that I used
to use with my CPC464. Thanks
to you, the video connection is
fine, the problem is the sound
output, 1 know which pins to use
but I am a bit worried about what
to connect it to. Could you clarify
the situation please?

that the sound output is 1

Volt peak to peak but 1 can-
not find the impedance which 1
“assume to be around IKQ. In
plain English, this means that it
more or less matches the common
‘phono’ input of most modern
amplifiers.

It also more or less matches
most modern (Walkman type)
headphones. This leaves you with
three choices, a pair of head-
phones with the two channels
‘connected to the single output for
the ST, straight connection to an
amplifier - the CD input is suitable
otherwise one of the tape inputs
will do,

‘The final, and by far the most
difficult is to obtain an amplifier
especially for the system, I haven't
got space here to detail this but
basically it should have IkQ 1V
рр input, and be able to drive an
ВО speaker at about 10 Watts.

Personally, | prefer the head-
phones since they cause no distur-
bance to anyone else, and they can
be quite loud.

A The manuals for the ST state

Coded

Philip E Jones, of Anfield, Liver-
pool, writes:

1 wonder if you can help me?

1 am at University and

studying a computing
‘course, the system is using Algol
68, but so far I have only
learned, Basic, Pascal and some
780 machine code. I know that
Algol 68 and Pascal are similar.
and that a Pascal compiler can
be bought. But, I would like to
know if there is such a thing as
ап Algol 68 compiler, and if so
how much will it cost? If there is
more than one, which is best? 1
‘own а Spectrum 128K (the one
Sir Clive brought ош).

As far as | know, you are
mpletely out of luck when
comes to Algol 68 compil-

ers, especially for the Spectrum.
‘There may be an IBM РСс (small с
stands for clone) version but 1
think that this is rather unlikely
as well

The problem is that Algol 68 was
designed well before the age of the.
micro-computer, іп 1908 in fact.
This means that any compilers for
it will be written for elephantine
machines such as the ICL 1900
series, at least, that is the only
computer I have ever used it on.

I think that the best thing to do
would be to stick with Pascal and
maybe c as these are the closest to
Algol. If you сап get to grips with

Pascal, converting to Algol should
be fairly easy.

Perhaps some of our readers
know of an Algol implementation
for microcomputers? If so then
please let me know.

Driving force

R Stevenson, of Islington, London,
writes:

Трал to buy an ST but need
advice in order to decide
between the following
opt З
1) Buy a 1040 5ТЕ

2) Buy a 520 STFM with 1 Meg
wpgrade and a Cumana 1 Meg
drive.

The second option would seem
to give the equivalent of a 1040
and a second drive, for not much
extra cost. But would it?

Is a 520 STFM with RAM
upgrade really the equivalent to
the 1040 (except for the drive) or
would there still be some
differences?

What about the drive? Would
the external drive be able to do
all that the 1 Meg internal drive
does on the 1040 eg, when
booting?

KENN GARROCH-

As far as | can see, the 520

STFM plus memory upgrade

plus 1M Cumana drive would.
come to approximately S477 (I
didn't look for the cheapest prices
around) whereas the 1040 STP is
3480 and including a Cumana dri
this would come to $619. So it looks
as though you are right about the
price advantage.

As far as 1 know, the 520 with a
RAM upgrade should behave ex-
actly like а 1040 since the operat-
ing system takes care of the addi-
tional RAM when the machine
boots up.

Also, since pretty well all ST
software comes on single density
discs, it should all run from the
internal drive. The only drawback
with the system you propose is
that you will not be able to boot
from the external drive unless you.
either fit the switch shown in P&P
a couple of weeks back, or fit a
double density disk drive (also in
P&P a while back).

As | have said before, my
answers are all ‘as far as | know’
and I have been known to be wrong
(ableit rarely) I would think that
your best bet would be the 520 +
upgrade + external drive since it
seems a far better deal than the
1040 external drive.

Giving the boot

A Bradshaw, of Chorley, Lancs,
writes:

e read а couple of times
in your mag, people asking
how to use auto running

programs on 1 Meg disks when
their STFM's always boot up on
the built in } Meg drive.

Pins 19 and 20 on the ҮМ2149
sound-chip control the drives,
switching these over, switches
the boot drive. I have enclosed a
drawing showing how to put a
switch in, this allows either drive
to be drive А.

Fitting the switch means desol-
dering the two pins, and cold

soldering four wires, one wire to
each of the pins, and a wire to
each of the holes where the pins
came from. These four wires are
then taken out of the ST via the
mouse/joystick port and at.
tached to a DPDT (Double Pole
Double Throw) switch.

Anyone who wants the switch
fitted but has little experience of
soldering should get someone
who is capable to do it for them.

‘Thanks for the tip it is pretty

obvious when you think

about it, the only drawback is
that the warranty will be invali-
dated - but this is usually not too
great a problem.

The four corner]

es н
83 pins on the YM2149
28 switch should
8% be wired as
š shom, corner
Жала, саты: DIT Pim 19 & 20
swich мызык

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY/35

4

ALL PRICES INCLUDE
VAT & DELIVERY

ВИС оге Сї
520 STFM NEW LOW PRICE

M Oniy £279.00 A.
АТАН Back in stock ATARI

520STFM £338.00
1040 5ТЕ £469.00 5М125 мломо £134.00
МЕСА ST 2 £899.00 МЕСА 574 “1199.00
All ST prices include: mouse etc. PLUS 5 disks full
of s'ware including demos, utility, wordpro & game
Philips СМ8833 tires colour montoriwsT cable — £279.00
(ONLY £269.00 f tought win an ST)
Atari SC1224 Hi-res colur monitor £299.00
Atari SMM804 Printer (Special, few only) £149.00
1MEG MEMORY UPGRADE (темом) Є 59.00

(Requires soldering, tree fitting H you buy а naw ST from us)

" 10... Е 11.95 In 10 cap plastic
Q.D asks ЖЛ £2788 ma eap pane

AMSTRAD 1512/1640

ALL PRICES VAT в DELIVERY INCLUSIVE
Select an Amstrad PC from our wide range
(° fui range of models including the high
models. Gur single hoppy 2\32 MEG moa
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Versions use а hardeard. 1912 models cen be suppi
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SIES FREE with 1512... Migent Ability & 4 gamos
il value over 1200,00)

AMAZING OFFERS!

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with View & Viewsheet — only £65.95

Please add 95p for P. & P.
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SOFTWARE BARGAINS
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“S 0532687735 ВІВА REGENT STREET

for latest produc otters Atos
ewe vate fido masaq 1574РЕ

TRADE OR EXPORT ENQUIRIES WELCOME

AEE.. Western Digital Filecard, supplied with
XTREE file management software FREE (Normally £50.00)
Supplied ready configured. NOW ONLY £299.00

ИШДИ ТӨ I] Tandon Business card, top quality at a
low price. Supplied fully configured .. NOW ONLY ... £249.00.

64С computer only £149.95 Connoisseurs pack € 195.95.
|128 computer only £199.95 — C128 starter pack £239.95
1541C D.drive £189.95 Music exp. pack £ 75.00
Excelerator+ CBM compat. disk drive (inc, GEOS) £ 159.95
Excolerator+ as above c/w Freeze Machine cart. — £179.95
Complete brand пон 764 circuit
boards. Uso for гер;
а upgrade a VIC-20.

£279.00
NLY £ 269-00 i bought wih an AMIGA)

5
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VAT, DELIVERY а CABLE

ve Бази

spare ribbons FREE with ШЕР.

фо carriage version el l ds

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Н ше стр Famin Ss

Amstrad LO 350024 pin nt now instock £378.00

PANASONIC КХР-1Об1. Best sub £200.00 model 517300

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63 BRIDGE STREET
EVESHAM
wores wHi asr
Tel: 0386 765500
‘Aino a: 1758 Pershore Ra Cotteridge, Birmingham B30 38H. Te 621 452 4364

36/POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY

THE PLAYERS TEAM ARE OUT LOOKING FOR
YOU!

CAN YOU WRITE COMMERCIAL QUALITY
GAMES IN MACHINE CODE?

Write in Smctest Confidence to:
RICHARD PAUL JONES
PLAYERS SOFTWARE. CALLEVA PARK
ALDERMASTON.

BERKS. RG? AGW

ог phone: (07356) 77424 (5 lines)

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

output (i/o) systems to use on home
microcomputers, the 6502 and 780
types. This week I'l look at how to decode
the address and data buses on the 780
(8080 ete) to bring it up to a similar state
is systems using w.i.m. chips.
There are six main signals that have to
be decoded to specify ап i/o access, the
address bus which tells the hardware
which part to use, the data bus where the
information is read in or written out, the
read and write lines which define the

E week, I looked at the two basic input

On the latch

Kenn Garroch continues, in the
second part of his series on inter-
facing, to deal with aspects of
decoding on the 280.

byte of data on it ie, physically setting the
8 lines to different states is not allowed as
it would interfere with the rest of the
system,

To get around this a system known as
TriState is used for any signals to be
placed on the bus. АП chips designed to be
interfaced directly to a data bus have tri-
state outputs, and when they are in tri-
state mode, are effectively invisible to the
data bus as though they were physically
switched off, not set high or low,

When the processor is ready to receive

ArT »—

x
| & /- with INP

089
4 RD

Fig 1 - Port 63 read select logic for 280
(actually for Spectrum)

High w

active.

direction and the memory and iorq selects
to separate memory from i/o. When an
input or output instruction is come across
by the processor the port number is placed
оп the data bus, the memory request is
sent high ie, deselect, the i/o request is set
low and for an in, the read is set low and
write high. For a write, the read and write
signals are swapped and the data bus has
the data to be written placed on it.

Simple logic

Some simple logie is needed to decode all
of these signals into a single signal that
foils the external hardware to become
active, Because the data bus is constantly
in use for memory access, simply placing a

input, the tri-state can be disabled (also
known as chip/device select) allowing the
processor to read the information placed
on the data bus.

Decoding

The logic circuit shown in Fig 1 is one
way of decoding the various signals to give
a signal that is used to disable the tri-state
when the microprocessor is ready. To form
a simple read/write port, the 8212 chip
(Figs 2 and 3) can be used. This is simply
an octal (8 lines) buffer that has tri-state
and latching capabilities, It can be used for
either input or ouptut depending on how it
is wired up, When it is used as an output
port, the latching facility becomes impor-

PROGRAMMING-

tant. Since the data is only available on the
microprocessor's bus at the time it is
written, the 8218 needs to store it so that
any external circuitry can read it at any
time.

Latches

For instance, when using the computer
to control а set of lights (up to 8 Light
Emitting Diodes or LEDs), each data line
оп the bus defines one of them, Setting bit
0 to 1 (БУ) turns the light on, and setting it
to zero (OV) turns it off.

Since the data bus is being used for a
number of other things like reading and
writing memory, reading the keyboard, ete,
simply attaching the light to one of its bits
will cause it to flash. To sustain the output
sent with the OUT command, the byte that
was sent out on the data bus has to be held
їп the 8212 until it is changed by the
computer. The latches perform this func-
tion. Each of the C inputs is a clock that
takes the state of D and passes it along to Q
where it remains until another clock pulse
is sent, or the latches can be cleared with a
pulse on R.

Device select

There are two device select lines, 051 and
DS2 and to disable the tri-state, 081 is set

continued on page 38 b>

yoo
iT
от
007
ов
006
05

005
рм

004
ав
052

Fig 2 - 8212 pinout

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY/37

Үт

r PROGRAMMING

< continued trom page 37

low, and DS2 high. For an output, they will
always be in this position for an input (to.
the processor) they are only set when
needed.

The advantage of having two select lines
is that either a high select or low select can
be used simply by setting the other line to
its active state.

The circuit in Fig 1 can be used to make
the 8212 into an input port by taking the
output of the last AND gate ie, select, and
using it to control DS2, DS1 is attached to
OV so that the output from the chip is
placed on the data bus when DS2 goes high.
At other times it is in tri-state mode,

STB

DIO

он

Inputs

The inputs to the 8212 work according (C.

the table in Fig 4, SEL is used to denote the

DS lines in selected state ie, 051=0 &
2 is SEL-1 and any other state is

012

DIZ

There are other lines on the 8212 and
examination of Fig 3 in conjunction with
the truth tables shown last week should
‚ом

into an output port is a
little more complicated as the data placed
оп the data bus with the OUT command
must be latehed so that it is available when
the processor goes off to do other things,

"The logie circuit in Fig 1 is changed so
that write (WR) is used instead of read,
MD is set to 0 and the select from the logic.
goes to STB. As can be seen from the table
in Fig 4, a transition of STB from | to Ü sets
the output of the chip from straight
through to latched data.

So, when port 63 is selected with the ouÑ)
command STB goes high and the data on
the data bus goes straight through.

After the command, STB goes low, and
the data is latched so that it appears at the
cursors until more is sent out. Obviously,
the 8212 is changed around so that the DI
lines come from the data bus, and the DO

015

016

07

lines are the output. n
m 7 = STB MD SEL Data out is:
Some simple logic is O O 0 Tri-state unseen by processor data bus
needed to decode all of these 1 0 O Tri-state
signals into a single signal O 1 O Datalatch This is data that was latched in
that foils the external 1 1 O — Datalatch
hardware to become 0 0 1 Datalatch
active . . . the logic 1 о 1 Data in Data input straight through to output.
peit is о 1 1 Data in
circuit is one way of i 1 т eme

decoding that.
Fig 4- truth table for 8212

38/POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY 19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

Spectrum
Various

J Collins

ће following routines were sent in as a

series by J Collins of London. They all use

the same loader and so you will have to
include lines 10-50 of the first one with them
all.

The first is Music which allows dual channel
sound to be played. The syntax is:

INPUT USR 60300 duration,note 1,note 2.

Where the duration varies from 0-255. The
routine starts at 60300 and is 45 bytes long. The
loader is included in this listing to show how it
works.

The second routine is Bases and is used to
convert and print decimal. numbers into the
bases of 16 (hexadecimal), 2 (binary), and 8
(octal), To convert the 8 bit number (0-255) to
опе of these bases, use RANDOMISE n where n
is the number. To print the number use LET
XxeUSR 6140Y the last digit (Y) depends on
Which base you want. Y=0 is hexadecimal, Y=3
for binary, and Ү-б for octal. Use lines 10—50

from the Music listing for the loader. Fade
‘The third routine is Fade and is used to fade
out any graphics on screen. The utility is called 5i al
With RA NDOMISE USE БИЙ, 5 LET x-61600: LET y=61650: LET s=B
‘The fourth utility (POKES) allows strings to
DEM ie н. The. пулу fe the 1@@@ DATA 1,0,24,33,0,64,54,0,176

routine is INPUT USR 61700,addr,string where
addr is where the string will start and the
string is a normal string ie, "This is OK" or p$ or
pS2 TO 4) ete.

Finally, Passord also involves string but this
time in the guise of a password system that
locks the Spectrum up until the correct pass-
word is entered. The syntax is: INPUT USR
01000 pass where pass$ is any form of string as
described for POKES, Short of turning the
computer off, there is no way out.

-please wait"
15 FOR n=x TO u STEP s: LET to
20 FOR m-0 TO s-1: READ а
25 POKE n*m.a: LET tot=tot+a
3@ PRINT AT 2,0:n*m: NEXT m: READ toti
35 IF tot<>tot1 THEN PRINT АТ 2.0;
"Data error in line ":: GO TO 50
40 NEXT n: PRINT AT 2.0;"Code created":
STOP
50 PRINT 1000+(((n-60000)/8)*5): STOP

1000 DATA
1005 DATA 240,58, 118,92,245,
1010 DATA 31,205,237,239,241,230,15, 254, 1452]

1015 DATA
1020 DATA 81,92, 229, 245, 62.
1025 DATA 22.241,215,225,34,81,92,201,1111
1032 DATA 42,81,92,229,62,2,
1035 DATA 22,58,118,9:
1040 DATA
1045 DATA 62,49.215,203,36,16,240,225, 1046.
1050 DATA 34,81, 9:
1055 DATA 62.2.205.1.22,58, 118, 92,560
1080 DATA 245
1065 DATA 48,215, 241,245,203, 6:
1070 DATA 203,63, 230, 7, 198, 48
1075 DATA 230.7, 198,48,
1080 DATA 92,201, 0,0,0,0,0,0,293

1005 DATA 205,203, 240,17. 7,0, 25,124,821
1010 DATA 254,88,
DATA
1020 DATA 88, 1,255,2,58, 141,92, 119.756
1025 DATA 237,176
1030 DATA

1015

Poke $

5 LET x=61000: LET y=61053: LET ==
Music
1000 DATA 231,205,140.28,205,241,43, 120, 1213|
1005 DATA 254,0,32,8,121,50,104, 238, 807
5 LET х=60200: LET u=60245: LET s-8 1010 DATA 254,0.32,2,207,11,33. 125, 664
i СЗ + PRINT кве ЯБ up code 1015 DATA 238,235,237, 176,33, 125, 238, 6, 1288

1020 DATA 3,253,203, 1,110, 40, 250, 253, 1113
1025 DATA 203, 1,174,58,8,92, 190,32, 758
1030 DATA 235.35,16,237,201,97, 97,97. 1015

Password

1530:

1400: LET v:

195,225, 239, 195,8, 240, 195, 44, 1341
1,31,31.846

10,56,2, 198,7, 198, 4B, 42, 561
05,1,917

05,1,714
, 103, 6, B, 203, 610
124,32,5,62, 48,215,24,3, 513

201,42,81,92,229,852

+ 198, 1096
203, 63,1281
15,241,1205
15,225, 34,81, 1038

Q3, 7,203, 7,230,

2,38,64,11,120, 609.
177.32, 235,33, 0, B8, 17, 1,583

2@1,197,6,3@,16,254,1117
193,201.0,0,0,0,0,0,39%

1000 DATA 205, 121, 28,205,127, 28, 205, 148, 1869]
1005 DATA 30,245,205, 148,30, 245, 205.148, 1256]
1@1@ DATA 30,71, 241, 103,241, 111, 243, 229, 1269]
1015 DATA 209,37, 32,5, 238, 16,211,254, 1002
1020 DATA 98, 45,32, 245,238, 16,211,254, 1139
1025 DATA 107,16, 238,251,201,0,2,0,813

5 LET х=61700: LET u-61722: LET s-B

1000 DATA 205,129.28.231,205.140,28,205, 1171
1005 DATA 241,43,213, 197,205, 153, 30, 197, 1279]
1010 DATA 209, 193, 225, 237, 176,201, 0,0, 1241

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987 POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY/39

-PROGRAMMING: C64

READY.

51200
51208
51216
51224
51232
51240
51248
51256
51264
51272
Size

5128!

51236
51304
51312
51320
51328
51336
51344
51352
51360
51368
51376
51354
51392
51400
51405
51416

READY.

49152
49160
49168
49176
49184
49132
49200
49208
49216
49224
49232

in next week's.

READY.

UFO 2

Steven Pattullo
ТЕ week is the second part of the arcade

10 I-51200
20 READ ñ:IF R-256 THEN ЕМО
$0 POKE I,ñ:I=I+1:GOTO 20

DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA

10 I=49152
20 READ ñ:IF A=256 THEN END
30 POKE I,A: I=I+1:GOTO 20

DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA

game UFO 2. Last week's section should be
named - in the order they were printed -
RECON, SPRITE and CHARSET.

The two sections in this week's and next
week's issues should be typed in and named
ALPHA CHARS, M CODE and UFO 2.

Full loading and playing instructions will be

255,255, 195, 195, 195, 195,255, 255
248, 252,254, 239,258,255,231,231
248 , 252, 284,239,254, 231,255,254
120,252, 254,239, 224,227,255, 126
248,252,254,239,231,231,255,254
248,252,254,231,240,224,255,254
248,252,254,231,240,224,224,224
120,252,254,224,239,231,255,127
224,228,230,231,255,231,231,231
56,28,28,28,28,28,28,62
120,124,30,31,28,220,252,120
224,228,230,239,252,238,231,231
224,224,224,224,224,224,255,255
64,236,254,223,215,215,215,215
128,196,230,247,255,255,239,231
120,252,254,239,231,231,255,126
248,252,254,239,255,254,224,224
120,252,254,239,251,239,254,127
245,252,254,239,255,254,238,231
120,252,254,240,126,15,255, 126
248,252,254,31,28,28,28,26
224,225,230,251,251,231,255,126
224,228, 230,2393, 238, 252,248,240
192,196,214,215,215,255,255,110
128, 196,238, 254, 124, 126,255,231
224,228,230, 255, 126,30,252, 120
120,252,254, 206,28, 14, 15,126
24,24,24, 255,255,256

163, 147,32,210, 255, 1563,0, 141
32,208, 141,33,208, 120, 169, 127
141,13,220, 163,64, 141,20,35
163, 192,141,21,3,169,1,141
26,208, 141,25,208, 163,255,141
15,206, 173, 17,208, 41,127,141
17,208,88,26,0,0,0,0
9,0,0,0,0,0,0,0
173,25,208,41,1,208,3,76
49,234,141,25,208,173,15,208
201,255,240,0,165,255,141,15

49240
49248
43256
49264
49272
45250
45288
49256
43304
49312
49320
43328
49336
49344
43352
43360
49368
49376
49384
49332
43400
43408
49416
49424
49432
43440
49448
49456
49464
49472
43450
43488
43496
49504
49512
49520
49526
49536
49544
49552
49560
49568
49576
49554
45552
45600
42605
45616
43624
43632
45640
43645
43656
45664
49672
45650
43666
49656
43704
43712
43720
43728
43736
49744
49752
43760
49765
49776
49784
49732
49500

DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA

DATA 41

DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA
DATA

208, 162,0, 160,0, 153,1, 141
132,3, 189,60,3,201, 1,208
3,75, 183,193, 201,2,205,3
76.196,193,201,3,208,3,76
224,193,201,4,208,3,76,242
153,201,5,208,3,76,14,154
201,6,208,3,76,27,194,201
7,208,3,76,55,194,201,5
205,3,76,73,134,200,200,24
46,152,5,252,224,5,208,186
169,0,141,187,3,173,3@,205
41,1,201,1,208,5,169,1
141,187,9,173,182,3,201,1
208,118,173,0,220,201,126,240
30,201,125,240,39,201,119,240
48,201,123,240,62,201,118,240
69,201,117,240,75,201,111,206
87,76,201,194,76,56,193,169
1,141,60,3,169,2,141,6Э
3,76,56,193,169,5,141,60
3,169,2,141,69,3,76,56
193, 169,3,141,60,3,173,69
3,201,2,240,43,238,69,3
76,56, 193, 173,69,3,240,32
206,69,3,76,56,193,169,2
141,60,3,16>,2,141,63,3
76,56,193,165,4,141,60,5
169,2,141 76,56,193
173,83,3,201,1,205,13,162
1,173,82,3, 157,249, 193,232
224,3, 205,248, 173, 15, 208, 41
32,201,32,208,8, 173,21,208
41,223,141,21,208,173,16,208
,128,201,125,205,8,175,21
208,41,127,141,21,205,169,0
141,30,206, 1
201, 132,208,8, 17:
123,141,21,208, 1
136,201,1
41,119,141
41,144,201,
206,41, 111,141
206,41,1,201
1,141,187
1,208,
208.7
253,

101,134, 153,0,208, 75,157,192
185,0, 208,24, 125,63, 3,144
3,32, 101, 134, 153,0, 208,76
157,192, 185,0, 208, 24, 125,63
3,144,3,52, 101, 134, 153,0
208,185, 1, 205,24, 125,563,3
153, 1,208,76, 157, 192,185,1
208,24, 125,693,3, 153, 1,208
76,157,132, 185, 1, 208,24, 125
62,3, 153, 1,208, 185,0, 208
56,253,69,3,176,3,32,113
134, 153,0, 208,76, 157,192,185
0,208,565, 253,693,3, 176,3
32,113, 194, 153, @, 202, 76, 157
192, 185, 1,208, 56,253, 63,3
153, 1,205, 185,0, 205, 56, 253
63,3,176,3,32, 113,194, 153
9,208,76,157,192,173,16, 208
77,192,3,141,16,208,169,0
36,173,16,2085,77,132,5,141
16,208,173,16,208,45,132,3
205,132,3,205,5,169,95,76
140, 134, 163,255, 36, 2354, 234, 234

c

40/POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

T

PROGRAMMING: C64-

DATA 173, 16,206, 41,352,201, 32,208 1006 PRINT " — 7$4$$| pom
DATA 8,173,16,205,73,82,141,16 <<<- erret n

DATA 285,173,21,208,9,32,141,21 1008 PRINT" — 74444222222222 ВН
DATA z08,169,7,141,65,5, 173,16 +++ enna an

DATA 208,41,4,201,4,240,17,175 1010 PRINT" тар &ttttttttt +t
DATA 4,208,253,29,141,10,208,173 +++ attt” (n

ӘНІН 5,zU5,141,11,200,32, 17,195 1012 PRINT" 7447-9 ФИНЕ | ^ Re
DATA 96,173,84,3,201,1,208,62 HHH ttt

DATA 165, 144,141,255, 135,173, 16,208 1014 PRINT" —+4/44+++/_)))) yer Q+ ee
DATA 41,126,201, 126,206,8,173,16 +++ éte"

DATA 208,73,128, 141,16,208, 163,3 1016 PRINT" —+++++++ &+++++++++“&+++++
DATA 141,67,3,169,7,141,76,3 [ét HY
DATA 173,0,208, 105,30, 141, 14,208 1018 PRINT" ' —4222222222 4 44449 Bt
DATA 173,1,208,141,15,208,173,21 “ЖЕР? е"
DATA 203,5,128,141,21,205,32,75 1820 PRINT" =))))4 +++++++++/4-,
DATA 195, 169,0,141,84,3,76,56 hs de
DATA 135, 162,24, 169,0,157,0,212 1024 PRINT Attol ++++7&; ССС
DATA 202,203,250, 169, 15, 141,24,212 СӨРЕГЕ,
DATA 169,50,141,5,212,169,130,141 1026 PRINT" dee Dee eere
DATA 6,212,159,125,141,4,212,160 „зый
DATA 0,162,0,140,1,212,140,0 1025 PRINT" ӨРЕЛ ЛЫ
DATA 212,232,224,100,208,245,200,192 %-2224":созив 35000:FORF=1T05
DATA 65,208,226, 169,0,141,24,212 1023 FORN=5® TO 1@@STEPZ:POKE 5+4,33:РОКЕ
DATA 96, 162,24, 169,0,157,0,212 5жі,М:РОКЕ S,M:MEXTM,F POKES+24, @
DATA 202,205,250,169,15,141,24,212 1030 FOR М-51194 TO 51196:POKEN, 131: NEXT
50008 DATA 155,10,141,5,212,169,130,141 POKE 51197,139:РОКЕ 242,10
50016 DATA 6,212,169,17,141,4, 212,160 1034 POKE 850, 131:POKE 950,1:POKE 951,1:
50024 DATA 65,162,0,140,1,212,140,0 POKE 832,7
50032 DATA 212,232,224,100,208,245,136,205 1035 POKE 841,2:РОКЕ 632,7:РОКЕ8З7,2
50040 DATA 240,169,0,141,24,212,36,256 POKE 51192, 143
1040 POKE ¥+1,150;POKE V,7O
READY. 1050 POKE у+3,160:РОКЕ V+2, 80

1060 POKE V+40,0:POKE V+26,253
1090 POKE V+21,17:X=0:POKE V+16,16
READY. 1095 POKE ¥+9,150:POKE V+6,100
1100 FOR N=i TO 30:GOSUB 25: NEXT
1105 POKE у+5,11Э:РОКЕ ү+4,240:РОКЕ V+?,
@ REM IF SIMON FROM DEVON READS THIS THEN 183 РОКЕ V46,240'PDKE 841,4
CONTACT STE С TYE LOST YOUR ADORESS 1110 POKE V+21,25:POKE 630,7:РОКЕ 831,7
1 DIM ASS): DIM Z(S):8$C1 )- " ТЕМЕН POKE 523,2:POKE 840,2
PRTTULLO":A$(2)-"OUR SNOOKER MOB" 1120 IF PEEK(555)=1 THEN 62000

2 A$(3)="KEV ОЙ" ASC4="KENT MURRAY" 1135 IF (PEEK(Y+16 ANDI 5=1 AND РЕЕКСУУ»
AS(S="GAZZA JONES" POKE 43873,145 бә THEN GOTO 2000
3 scce 1136 GOSUB 25
4 FOR Net TO S:Z(N)-500 = NEXT 1137 X=%+1:IF ХагФ THEN SYS 49606: xX=0
r 5 POKE 535,3.POKE 540, 1138 IF (РЕЕКСУ%30 )RND1325-132 THEN
POKE 55270,24:PRINT "И" :РОКЕ 53282,14 POKE ¥+21,PEEK(¥+21 )-4
POKE 55283;6:РОКЕ 43573, 144 1140 GOTO 1120
> 60508 19@00:5c=0 2000 PRINT "MPM" FOR N-51154
10 POKE Y+21,0 POKE $1193,146:FORN-704 ТО TO 51195-POKE M, 140: NEXT: SC-SC.
T19:POKE М,@:МЕХТ:РОКЕ 51192, 143 Ze0z PRINT" WZAZAZWZWZATRCAETINTA TETTE
11 POKE У%27,0 BARRE RL"
£0 FOR М=ЗЭ TO 46:POKE V4M,7:MEXT:POKE 2004 PRINT" QOKOkOkOROROROROEOROROROROROK
W476 (EORR CI"
21 GOTO 100 2006 PRINT"g; 422442244 DIES 4442 424
25 IF (PEEK(Y+30)AND132)=132 THEN POKE
W421, PEEKCV421 )-4 2008 Hebe 4e 2244 4A I 4 24A AA
26 IF (РЕЕКСУжЗ1 2АМО1 )=0 THEN 62000 +++ een
27 IF «3555-1 THEN 62000 Z010 PRINT"WZ 4444022 44774427 2 424 44444
28 RETURN Pat ану
20 FOR М=837 TO 844:РОКЕ N,2: 2@12 PRINT" CH 44447222 442744272 2 4422 4244
MEXT:POKE 842,6 ока
100 PRINT "д" 2014 PRINT"MZ НУЛЕ EE ttt
ЭЭЭ PRINT "ЮЕШ": Х=@:РОКЕ 652, 1:POKE 2+++++++
51192,144:POKE 61197,159 2016 WO ELLE PEED LI IID CLIO 2) $
1000 PRINT" PSSESESEES ISS Zacke"
#55 175551" 2®ї& PRINT" BLAZE ZH ZAIRE ELA CADIT
1802 PRINT" Eee 9| +++ ee RAVENA
MR err 2 2020 PRINT" CkOkOKOROROEOROEOROROR EO OR
1004 PRINT" dk DERBI ET. ORC
aad het

continued on page 42 pe

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987 POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY/41

-PROGRAMMING: C64

< continued тот page 41

FOKE vV,20:POKE V«2,30:POKE У%16,28:РОКЕ 852,1

FOKE Уж21;29:ХшФ:РОКЕ 841,2

FOKE 839,2:POKE 840,2

POKE ¥+5,150:POKE У%4,100

FOKE У%7,150:РОКЕ У%6,100

POKE У%9,15Ф:РОКЕ v«5,100

FOR М=1 TO 500:МЕХТ

FOKE 531,8:РОКЕ 840,5

РОКЕ 832,6:РОКЕ 841,5:РОКЕ 839,4

IF (РЕЕКСУ%16)ЯМО1 2-і AND РЕЕКСУ)280 THEN GOTO 3000
60508 25

Жі:ІҒ X=1@ THEN SYS 43606:
IF (РЕЕКСУжЗ0 )AND132 )=132 THEN POKE ¥+21,PEEK(Y+21 )-4
IF РЕЕК(955)-1 THEN 62000

GOTO 2145

IF (PEEK(¥+3@ )RND132
PRINT "ТТ" FOR
PRINT" 4...
PRINT" АШ
PRINT" — ^$$$| тен
PRINT" — 7+++++| 222 9%%$®%ЖЕБЕБЕРЕ+Н+++++++"
PRINT" S$$+++4++++/ $$$ 7 ELA утын

S£ THEN POKE V+21,PEEK(V+21)-4
|=51194 TO 51196:РОКЕ М,142:МЕХТ

а

N

7$$$54$"

PRINT! ERE. нн УДЕО ИН ET ttt ttt!
PRINT! ebbe eh e t+ CRORE EEE"
PRINT" +4400 )ж++++2 0007 HES HELMS MEET
PRINT! ууф eee COCOS RRRREH
PRINT" hee -)))0)))))0c
PRINT" -»» ——————

== -))))

М+16,252:РОКЕ ¥,Z0:POKE V42,30

POKE 830,7:F0R N-839 TO 841:POKE М,2:МЕХТ-РОКЕ V421,253
1,7: YX=0

as2,7

У+5,10@:РОКЕ У%4,150

Y+7, 150: POKE ¥46,50

POKE ү+9,200:РОКЕ ¥+8, 130

IF Y=0 THEM POKE 830,6:POKE 832,8:РОКЕ840,1

GOSUB 25

IF РЕЕК(955)-і THEN 62000

IF THEN POKE 830,8:POKE 832,6:РОКЕ 84@,2

5 ОҢ X=15 OR Х=25 OR X:
M=@ OR Х=1@ OR X=ZO OR X=3@ OR

5 THEN v=o
Q THEN Y=1

+1

PROGRAMMING: ST

Bload D$(P2),Varptr (A$)

:
Film Show Бона De Pi arate

D Eaton TECUM

AS=AS+LEFtS (AS, 34)

PRINT! +448 EA /+++++/ KCN CORE tet к

ФРЕЕКСУ%16 )ВМО1 )=1АМО PEEK(V)>7@ THEN GOTO 4000 к

week's GFA Basic program - a Degas

Т: is the continuation and end of last Procedure Col
п

picture show util

Procedure Rd buff

Void Xbios(5,L:Varptr(Colr$))
Return

Procedure Fixit
On Error Gosub Fixit

FiX-Fiuzei Tz-Fatel
F$=Mid$(Buf$,31, Instr (31, Buf$,Chr$(0))-31) 14 TZ=-1
DS (Fi%)=F$ Resume Start
Return
2 Endif
Procedure Get_pic Run
Sget A$ Return
A2/POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY 19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

MICRO-FILE

FOR SALE |

MICROWARE COMPUTER SERVICES ED
AS 2 ILLINIETAR
AMIGA HARDWARE € = mutts

‘Amiga 500 inc. Deluxe Paint modulator & Starter Pack £449 o"

Amiga 500 inc. Deluxe Paint modulator & Starter Pack & 1081 Colour

Medium res monitor £738

Amiga 500 inc. Deluxe Paint modulator & Starter Pack + NEC 3j" Dise

Drive £559

Amiga 800 ine Deluxe Paint modulator Starter Pack + 1081 Monitor & NEC

disc £845

PERIPHERALS

1081 medium res. colour monitor £329

Philips АТНАЗ med. tes. colour monitor stereo £279

Phiips 8852 med/hi res. colour monitor stereo £319

NEC 3)” 880K disc driva £129

512K RAM expansion with clock £99

Diggi view II with ABOO. t189

Easy drawing tablets for ABO. £289

20М6 hard disc for A 1000. £669

2Mb RAM expansion for A 1000. £410

ATARI HARDWARE

Atari STM with Mb disc drive, mouse and software £279

Atari STM as above + mono monitor £369

1040 STF TMb drive mono monitor 24K RAM £499

Atari XE and computer games consul with joystick. £79

Specirum Pius 2 e129

8 BIT HARDWARE

Commodore 64 package includes Computer data recorder joystick, 11 top

james £159

бапта B4 + 1841€ disc dive + joystick & Ti games. £299

1541C disc drive £159
Commodore musie expansion үт £99 si т

оттодое Sound sampler £69 t last, о high speed version of the classic
Atari XE computer games consul with game and joystick £79
THIS IS ONLY A VERY SMALL SELECTION OF OVER 250 PRODUCTS. game is available for the Amstrad РС!
PLEASE PHONE FOR CHRISTMAS SPECIAL OFFERS.
: Available ot good software retailers or send cheque /PO
PO Box 2, Skegness, Lincolnshire PE25 20L. Tel: 0754 610217 mode payable to ILUMITABLE, 14 Clausentum Rood,
c ration » , Portswood, Southampton 502 OAZ.
Deoler Enquiries Welcome. |

MICRODRIVE AND INTERFACE OFFERS

Express Service - order by phone. Free C.0.D. service over £20 in UK.

STORT SOFT OFFER STARTER PACK 1
If you have an ATARI 8-bit system, why not part "MMe алы
exchange your hardware/original software for STARTER PACK 2

an exciting new ST system from STORT SOFT. ‘Two Microdrive units, Interface 1 plus a demonstration cartridge. Delivered for only £83.50.
Ring with full details or just drop us a line EXTENSION PACK

Write for more information. Cheques etc: STORT SOFT (International SOM EUM C ЕР ар R STE

orders remit in pounds Sterling by bank drat or international money order and send СААРА
Amt qued wich ий a ne of VAT ha cud el pog. Was Р ео ке

fut quote in any other currency) "Mate cer paaie w Age Tcl
en irs ER рий Doo,
‘ACCESS/MASTERCARD/EUROCARO/VISA accepted wirst si Wi rd petl tue sm alit кой o tt ane
CRÉDIT CARD ORDER UNE - 0279 89503. pi
24 HOURS A DAY, 7 DAYS À WEEK - VAT & P P INC. NO HIDDEN EXTRAS — Debe tock at imme ot gong o уйи, nta cry manufacturers“ 1987s симе,

WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU PAY
18 CROWN CLOSE, SHEERING, BISHOP'S STORTFORD OEOD TECH HOM

HERTS CM22 7NX өю Tol: 076341754 (522,

ADVERTISING RATES FOR MICRO-FILE

Semi Display £8 per single column centimetre (+VAT)
Lineage 35p per word (+VAT)

CALL SUSANNAH KING, ROBERT COLE or TIM OWEN on
01-834 1717 FOR SEMI DISPLAY ADVERTISING

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987 POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY/43

CRIBBAGE

The popular pub game six card cribbage is now
available for the Spectrum 48K/128K
Features include:

IMPRESSIVE FULL COLOUR
PLAYING CARD GRAPHICS
100% MACHINE CODE
TWO LEVELS OF PLAY
AUTOMATIC SCORING
HELP OPTION FOR BEGINNERS
Six card cribbage is suitable for both beginners and
experienced crib players and comes with full
instructions and rules of the game.

ж ж Ж Ж MONEY BACK GUARANTEE Ж Ж Ж Ж

If you are not delighted with six card cribbage then
simply return the tape within 5 days and your cash
will be refunded

ЖЖЖЖ ЖЖЖЖ ЖЖЖ x X
Send cheque or postal order for £6.95 to
ESEM SOFTWARE

y Road, Patchway, Bristol BS12 5PH
Tel: 0272 236064

YOUR LAST CHANCE TO BUY:
* SPECTRUM
зк + 55495 ак...
RECONDITIONED, TESTED, AS NEW.
ALPHACOM 32 PRINTERS

EXPANSION PACKS..
INCLUDES MICRODRIVE, I/FACE 1, BOOKLET, NET-
WORK LEAD, INSTRUCTION CARTRIDGE AND FLEX.

„£14.95

£42.00

£59.95

MICRODRIVES wrrs SOLID CONNECTOR... £24.95

SUPADRIVE UTILITY .
FORMATS TO LOOK, FINDS FILES ETC.

£7.95

ACCESSORIES

MICRODRIVE FLEX CONNECTOR
MICRODRIVE SOLID CONNECTOR
NETWORK LEAD..

DEMO-INTRO CARTRIDGE.
CARTRIDGE BLANKS (10).
CARTRIDGE SINGLE.

POWER SUPPLIES
SPECTRUM AND SP+ (1400mA).
128K (1880mA).

* RS 232 PRINTER LEADS
MINIMUM ORDER £10; UNDER £35 ADD £2 P.&P. OVERSEAS
ADD £4. TERMS C W O. OR VISA.
ORDERS TO EEC LTD, 18-21 MISBOURNE HOUSE,
CHILTERN HILL, CHALFONT-ST-PETER,
BUCKS SL9 9UE. Tel: 0753 888866.

KENT BARGAINS.
ATARI ST and COMMODORE software
SPECIALISTS IN BBC. AMIGA AND AMSTRAD
Master Compact.. "nb

— BUSINESS 01
Amstrad PC1512.... ... SAVE £100

— BUSINESS PACK

BUY A PRINTER AND
WE PAY THE

EDUCATIONAL SOFTWARE A SPECIALITY

Lighthouse VU Service
4 Park Avenue, Deal. Tel: (0304) 362049

вз)

CROWN COMPUTERS!
ANY PRICE AND WE WILL MATCH ITI!
In Stock now

Atari 520 STEM 269.95
Amiga 500 Sports Bundle 519.00
NEW
PC 1640 Mono Single Drive 539.95
PC 1640 Colour Single Drive. 699.95
PWW 9512 Mono/M Daisy Printer + Software ..... 539,95
PC 1512 Mono Single Drive. 445.45

=

PC 1512 Colour Single Drive
‘Commodore, Amstrad, Spec 10% off RRP

6 High Street,
Boston, Lincs.
Tel: (0205) 53611

Phone now for orders! ГЕЛ

599.00

OL JOYSTICK — £7.99
Plugs directly into CTRL 1/2.2 Firing Buttons.
“Probably the best | have seen” QL World 2/87

QL HOUSEWIFE — £5.99
“А general planner for shopping and meal control
interesting and useful” QL World 2/87

u INVESTMENT MONITOR — £19.99
$ The ideal method for controlling all your

Come and see us on Stand 30 at the ZX Microfair, December 12th

For further details send S.A.E. for DJW News
Order direct from:

DJW SOFTWARE

(PCW), 11 Pound Close, Bramley, Hants RG26 5BL

or ‘phone 0256 81701
Overseas orders please add £2 ЕЗ

MAKE YOUR MICRO EARN!

Yes, making money Becomes incidental when you know how.

Your micro is, if only you knew it, a gold mine. The size and make

is irrelevant. Маке the initial effort NOW by starting your own
HOME BASED BUSINESS

REMEMBER: You'll never get rich by digging someone else's

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ү HOME BASED
(| Z Ў BUSINESS
x 97 PILTON PLACE (Pcw 8)
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44/POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987 `

FOR SALE

£399. 00 + free modulator

AUTUMN OFFERS FROM CITY CENTRE

AMIGA A500 (with modulator) s. £399
COMMODORE 64/Vic 20 power packs £11.50

DISCS! DISCS! DISCS! DISCS!

All discs come complete with labels

3.5” ds/dd discs 10...

3.5" ds/dd discs 25

3.5" ds/dd discs 50

3.5” ds/dd discs 100 (plus free lockable disc box)... £93
3.5” ds/dd discs 200 (plus two lockable disc boxes)£ 183
3,5" ds/dd discs 500 (plus five lockable disc boxes)F447

Lockable disc box — for 80+ 3.5" discs
Disc labels 1,000 for
Plastic library case holds 10

Prices include VAT and carriage in the UK

£££££fff££f£ft£f£t£f£ff£ffff

REEELELELELELELELELLELELELELELE

L3

HOW TO MAKE YOUR MICRO EARN YOU £s
YES! It is possible, our manual tells you how

Make money with your micro computer.
Details many money making opportunities
for you and your micro.

How to start — services to others — going full
time — all is explained in readable non-
technical language. All the know how you
need to turn you and your micro into a
money spinning partnership. YOU can do it
but you have to act NOW. You're risking
nothing because we promise a full refund in
the unlikely event of you not being 10096
satisfied. So order your copy today by send-
ing your cheque/PO for just £9.95 to:

| SPECIAL OFFER | Compass
FREE with every Publications
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| Chrisimasafree | Norfolk NP12 ВТА

| сору of our manual This could be your

| үріп Success | first step on the road
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CHRISTMAS BARGAINS - WE WERE NOT THE FIRST ТО DROP PRICES, BUT NOW WE
HAVE, WE ARE THE BESTI AMAZING DEALS ON EVERYTHING! PHONE USI

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hee miles тоне UE langon де cere кзз ын ance uda fe
AMIGA A500 - £469.95

Aor Wen Ron ble Ap Bas ier fat duc Pe ten ih ds Der pd

PLUR Fi a RES PRESE FREIEN

COMMODORE C64 SPORTS PACK — £169.95
ré дин: дей Cb, Commode CIN сизин өй. кулу, Dots sr Vl bag. Bary
s in a бы осы eun Fed Кош. Sy apu быва

FREI Doring November inroduetion to Ваве рөп 1
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MAIL-CENTA
17 Camp Stet, Вари, Denis DES JAP. Talaphane: 077 382 6830.

ШЕ Me res талша ng істелді тезен М eir
on ge Eu ti peo Seva ert

You can have your Christmas pie and eat it
LOCKABLE CASE WITH
EVERY ORDER OF 25 OR MORE
100% CERTIFIED 05/00 DISCS
25 48р! @ £17.50 - 25 Әбірі @ £18.95
50 48tpi @ £26.55 - 50 96:рі £29.50.
ALL DISCS INCLUDE ENVELOPES, TABS AND LABELS,
SENT BY RETURN, INCLUSIVE PRICE
NO QUIBBLE GUARANTEE

ChequesjPO to:

35 Rochford Way, Croydon, Surey CRO 3AG Tet: 01-6893487 сөл Ф

COMPUTAMART

Used Computer %

AMAZING LAST MINUTE XMAS DEALS
ATARI 520STM + half Meg Drive, Mouse, First Word W/P
* 5 P.D. discs £269
ST Games — Christmas Super Deals
Our Price
£12.99
£12.99

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Trivial Pursuit £17.99
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We have such good deals on all software we just dare not
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4 Swan Court, Dunstable, S. Bedfordshire LU6 3DE
Tel: 0582 604610 (583)

A NEW GENERATION AID TO
dBASE PROGRAMI WRITING

1. PRODUCE PROFESSIONAL QUALITY
SYSTEM DOCUMENTATION
А ы эзе Ба one bh итии ges ениреп бе gc

"ow th QUANTUM та cm menm рісі жемі, 3. PRINTOUT PROGRAMS

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
Ж йй np wr TS ed p c А
Бара

UPDATE POLICY;

ee

БЕТ
"пилик SYSTEM STHUCTURE сият
FA ANALYSE DATABASES AND ПЕ
FA DATABASE AND INDEX MATORNG.
FS ANALYSE ЕГЕТЕМ МОЛЯ

ESC) MAN мені

"ns
пан те ата Mia wire wen M en d prc “

аз mt чш venera qim wa мезі um whos CUSTOMER LIAISON POLICY:
We a totas таа we sz comas ex wé көсем ay
WA caido su умы Coran wi mde a е.

2. PROPERLY INDENT CODE MESE C u ааыа PUTUCENCEPONCY н з
Shp con а ин) би лан пат мі mapa oan dicm ае key ur саду A ere эз MEM қа еб мен SITE LICENCE POLICY:
Был tag a a ecto beast p E

роп wil Муў! “suspect” programa ГІ = блай

IF YOU UNDERSTAND THIS, THIS PRODUCT IS A MUST!
QUANTUM

Brief description: 1. Produces pro/system documentation. 2. Highlights possible system bugs. 3. Simple to use menu driven format with on-lir
help. 4. Works with either single or entire hierarchy. 5. Automatic user controlled indentation. 6. Use with dos/2 XX or line. 7. Not copy protected.

Contact: Virgina Flagg, Brigitte Neese & Associates any time, for more info on this exciting mew product.
53 OSBORNE TERRACE, STACKSTEADS, BACUP OL13 8JY. TEL: 0706 876072 (568)

STORT SOFT

ATARI MAIL ORDER SPECIALISTS

35" SPECIAL OFFERS
INCREDIBLE LOW PRICES! 25 55/00 135 TPIMFIDD) 8 80 or 60/90 ledig dise bor | (1500
% 53/00 135 TPIMF 100) A во er 60/30 жың ac bor £58.95
ALL DISKS CARRY А NO QUIBBLE REPLACEMENT GUARANTEE ARE CERTIFIED 38 08/00 135 ТРІМР200 & 80 er 6/30 lacking dac hor | £38.96
100% ERROR FREE AND COME WITH LABELS, 51" ALSO HAVE SLEEVES AND 50 0$/00 135 ТРИМР200) & 80 or 60/90 lacking dise box £65.00
WRITE PROTECTS. FLIP SIDED DISCS HAVE TWO INDEX HOLES AND TWO 135tpi unbranded 10 25 EJ 100 00 10
NOTCHES, PE @
sm) — ns m s 19%
—— 05/00 (M200) — 119 Dr
25 SS 48TPI 5.25" DISCS 8 100 CAP LOCKING DISC BOX £16.00 ATARI ST 1 MEGABYTE £139.00
50 SS 4ВТРІ 5.25" DISCS & 100 CAP LOCKING DISC BOX £25.00 AMIGA 1 MEGAB) £129.00

100 SS ABTPI 5.25" DISCS 8 100 CAP LOCKING DISC BOX £39.95
25 DS 48ТРІ 5.25" DISCS 8 100 CAP LOCKING DISC BOX £17.00
50 DS 48TPI 5.25" DISCS 8 100 CAP LOCKING DISC ВОХ £26.50

100 DS ABTPI 5.25" DISCS & 100 CAP LOCKING DISC BOX £42.00 520 STM. SF354 (} meg ne) £27998
520 SIM. S34 [Ime ve) сюе
51 DISCS FROM AS LITTLE AS 33 PENCE 520 SIM, SF354 $М125 mano monitor £37495
520 SIM. 53148 SM 125 us
IK 5 1/4" DISK: 1040 STF & SM125 mana montor ES
ma sasa Mega ST (2 megabyte RAM А 1 mep дле) £845.00
DISK NOTCHER FREE WITH EACH 100 DISKS PURCHASED Мер ST (2 megabyte RAM 8.1 meg Sve) 8 5125 153500
юа Meg ST ( пери RAM В 1 теў $w £109 00
UNBRANDED TRIAL 10 25 50 100 ре rase Mega ST repe RAM ! meg ve) а SM125 сї
S948 TPI PASO. £900 £1700 f2300 ^ £550 Arcane with en ust cvs! AI STs cone vitt 5 publie тал ding CPM
DTP кү ЗЕТ ТТТ [аи ed rt цит, $ y oy py Ono ыы
0998 TPI £650 £1200 £21.00 £37.00 — £750 20 STM ONLY canes win 1и Mord word processor and pling ми,
0586 TPI FUP SIDED £700 £1400 £2200 £3800 #800
MMCRIPSUEDDSUOTH £8.95 #2000 43800 £70.00 4955
MIMIC HGH DENSITY me £23.00 £5200 610000 £180.00 62400 SI^ DISCNÜTCNR қайты сора ока ийди белі. m
DISK CLEANING KITS Lad ra arai tpe - Protect your valle software
LOCKING DISK BOXES Eu bari ERI аз
Size /aSTRAD 1512 0 CENTRONICS PRINTER LEAD Í2 mates)
5" HOLDS 50 £195 51“ HOLDS 100 caas RM MEM LAD Deed ү fs
3j" HOLDS 40 £795 60/90 (HOLDS 603" w 3031)£895 BATTERY POWERED MINLVAC - for keyboards, printers ек ЕІЯ

„Just write for more information. Cheques ete. payable to STORT SOFT (International orders rent in pounds String by bank draft or international money order and send amount quoted which
wil be excusi of VAT but ince абдбопа postage. Write for quote in any other currency)
ACCESS/MASTERCARD /EUROCARD /VISA accepted. CREDIT CARD ORDER LINE - 0279 89508
24 HOURS A DAY, 7 DAYS A WEEK - VAT 8 P P. INC. NO HIDDEN EXTRAS — WHAT YOU SEE IS WHAT YOU PAY

18 CROWN CLOSE, SHEERING, BISHOP'S STORTFORD, HERTS CM22 7NX

»

=

FOR SALE

Z88 FROM
SECTOR SOFTWARE

288 computer ..........
QL Z88 file transfer
Mains adaptor

32K RAM pack
128K RAM pack
32K Eprom..

128K Eprom.....
PC 288 link . `
Eprom eraser with in built in timer
RS 232 printer lead ......
Parallel printer interface
BBC to Z88 link.
ll) 4 rechargeable batteries
Battery charger ........ s
Diconix 150 portable printer .
Portable battery powered printer ....

£287
£23
£10
£20
. £80
£20

39 Wray Crescent,
Ulnes, Walton, Leyland, Lancs. PR5 3NA
= 0772 454328

Learn “С, the modern computer language.
From ‘what is a computer? to ‘pointers to.
dynamic structures’, you will learn how to
write commercial quality software at your
own pace, and in easy stages.

You will have a personal tutor to answer
your queries and solve your problems,

‘This friendly course comes in ten parts, and
is offered at the

SPECIAL XMAS PRICE..... £99.50

STONE SOFTWARE, FREEPOST, LONDON SE7 7YZ

AM Prices inode VAT and postage,
ALL TRADE ENQUIRIES WELCO

M.D.S. Computer Sur lies
11 Church hal tater РИА,
24-hour Credit Card Hotline
08206 23477
Enquiries — Tel: 08206 23399
А Division of венци Enterpiom Lid.

NEW AND USED BARGAINS

WANTED ALL TYPES OF HOME COMPUTER
EQUIPMENT

$ TOP PRICES PAID

WE ESPECIALLY REQUIRE THE FOLLOWING:
Commodore 64
Commodore Plus 4
Spectrum 48K
Spectrum 128K
MPS 801 Printer
CBM 1541 Disc Drive

WORKING OR NOT

FOR IMMEDIATE QUOTE TELEPHONE
0602 410 493

NO TIME WASTERS

SOFTWARE CITY (PCW)
173 Mansfield Rd.
Nottingham NG1 3FR

Tel: (0602) 410493

sem

SOFTWARE CITY BARGAINS SOFTWARE CITY BARGAINS

80 TRACK / DS DD 51"
HALF HEIGHT DISC DRIVES

Uncased bare drive I еннен, OOO

Drives in cream metal cases. Ls £70
Cased drive with connecting leads to suit BBC
micro. PPH SEE а, revo £74.95

Special Offers on IBM compatible add-ons
Few only
Olivetti plug in 20 megabyte hard card ...
Racal CP2123 plug in modem сат...
Teac 40 track 05/00 bare drives, black fronted... £60
AT and T CDC Wren 1 36mb hard disc drives (abu)
(uncased) ....
Money back if not satisfied and Ese undamaged ao 7
days. Callers welcome Mon-Fri 9-!

Pinboard Computers Ltd,

Unit 9, Bondor Business Centre, Prices include VAT, packing
London Rd, Baldock, and parcel post.
Herts 567 6N

iG
Tel: (0462) 894410

жәл

FOR SALE

AMIGA A500 NOW IN STOCK
FOR ONLY £429

AMIGA PACK 1 INCLUDES
1.2 Ж Very First Steps Tutorial
£429.95

Amiga А500 x Deluxe Paint Ж Workbench

AMIGA PACK 2 INCLUDES

First Steps Tutorial

Amiga A500 + 1901 Colour Monitor Ж
Deluxe Paint Ж Workbench 1.2 Ж Very

MORE PACKS AVAILABLE, PHONE FOR
DETAILS.

AMIGA HARDWARE

Commodore PC

Ani 200. y
XT Big Сай (Апан 2000)
Internal 1 Meg Disc Drive (Amiga 2000)
1010 External Disc Drive...
Amiga Internal 1 Meg Upgrade..
Triangl 1 Meg Disc Drive...

Cumana 1 Meg Disc Drive...»
‘Amiga (2000) 2 Meg RAM expansion...
Commodore 64 C pack

wo £1259.25
£573.85
£228.85
... £286.85
£113.85

Tib es

£159.00

Now in stock SEGA Master Systems £99, + software now in stock

AMIGA SOFTWARE

King's Quest (3 pack) ‘Araa/Braticus
Barbarian Diablo
Gold Runnar ‘Aten Sii
Тотаройз Mouse Trop
Putos
Road War 2000.
oral
5 Hunt For Red October
Skyfighter
бш

Space Ranger
Tho Fea Trp.

Grand Sam Тө

King's Quest Triple Pack.
King's Quest 1/2/3.

Doop Space.

BUSINESS SOFTWARE
Word Perfect .
Super Base ..

More Software than we can show please ring.

LEARN CHESS

Sinclair Spectrum 48K + 128K +2

2 massive programs, using approximately 80K
of memory, teach everything that the beginner
needs to know to play the fascinating game of
chess at club level.

^... Very comprehensive .. .” (Sinclair User).
“1 An excellent implementation ...” (Ocean).

RRP: £9.95 Mail order: £6.95 from:

COXSOFT

31 Fullwell Avenue, Barkingside, ford, Essex 105 2HB
Tel 01-505 3822
Please allow 28 days for delivery.
Trade enquiries welcome. sm

bridgeworth,

Office automation at a price that is affordable.
Lease an Amstrad PC1640 DD-MD + Ерзоп
printer + wordprocessor + spreadsheet, for
under £7.00 per week.

As an approved dealer for Amstrad. Epson. Seikosha, Star, Olivetti
etc.. we offer free unbiased advice on various machines and software.

Our sales team can demonstrate any machine anywhere in Britain and |
will advise you on which of our eight different leases will suit your needs

best. CONTACT US TODAY FOR A FREE QUOTATION.
NATIONWIDE NEXT DAY DELIVERY ж CONSUMABLES Ж FREE TAX &
FINANCIAL GUIDANCE ж CONTINUO. IONERY Ж 24 hr MAINTENANCE
сом

PCW 9512 in stock £499 + VAT (including FREE maintenance)
SPECIAL OFFER - ATARI STFM £274.00
AMIGA A500 £439.00 inc. УАТ & P.P. modulator + software,

JACKPOT 1

The ultimate pools development program
for the ATARI ST

Analyses every team's past perfor forecasts the results
Three tuning levels. Not only draws but ay wins. Create
your own league tables with teams f can develop.
your own plans with any number of Xols coupon.
I be, if a

of plans аге

° permutations and
anything that requires you to fore s from any number of
Selections up to 991. Also keeps a file of every week's score draws for

useful manipulation. B colour

ONLY £24.95 (inc. VAT & P.&P.)
Send cheques or postal order to:
FUTURESOFT

11 Meath Close, Hayling Island
Hants PO11 ЭОМ

We are a Commodore appointed dealer

All trade enquiries welcome

BLANK DISCS

2i
£21.50 £49.95
Trade enquiries welcome

10
£10.95

Lockable disc boxes 3.5" holds 80

Spend cvor £50 on Software and get a Free Celculator

11 Silk St, Leigh, Lancs WN7 1,
Phone now for det:
Cheques and P/Orders payable

jelcome in showroom. Send S.

SOUND N VISION [2%]

AW.
— Tel: (0942) 673689
und N Vision PAP. VAT INCLUDED

Athene Consultants

33 Holly Grove, Fareham, Hants PO16 7UP. Tel: 0329 282083

Tete dened ы
Күр er
pel

"eti nnt d беш көт lom pice. жа P te.

/ Athene Consultants
HK ‘Dept (POP, 33 Holy Grove, Fareham, Hants POTS
Z TUP. Ta 0329 282083 Pret MBX 329282063
) CALL FOR THE LOWEST PRICES FOR QUANTIY WIL. vam

SPECIAL OFFERS
* EXCEPTIONAL VALUE
*
25x525; Ds-po DISCS
100 CAPACITY LOCKABLE DISC BOX

FOR
ONLY £17.60

OR
50 x 5:25" DS-DD DISCS
PLUS
100 CAPACITY LOCKABLE DISC BOX

R
ONLY £27.10
20x25" DS-DD DISCS
PLUS
40 CAPACITY LOCKABLE BOX
FOR.

ONLY £29.50

OR
50x 35708-00 DISCS
PLUS.

90 CAPACITY LOCKABLE BOX
FOR.

ONLY £68.20

ө REMEMBER THE PRICE YOU SEE IS ALL
YOU PAY. (U.K. ONLY)
THEY INCLUDE VAT AND CARRIAGE

Cheque or Postal Order to.

ІМ | Manor Court Supplies Ltd

с Dept YC10, Glen Celyn House, Penybont,

S Llandrindod Wells, Powys LD1 5SY.
Telephone: 0597 87784 or 0597 87792

FOR SALE

Orders accepted from educational and government depts.
Dealer enquiries invited. (610)

SPECTRUM
MICRO DRIVE OWNERS

OUTLET

ж The new electronic maga-
i zine. For a copy send £1.00
and a blank cartridge

S.A.E. for details or log onto Micronet

Chezron Software
605 Loughborough Re

ATARI 520 STFM NOW IN STOCK FOR
NEW PRICE ONLY £289.95

Includes mouse controller. manual, language бес and starter pack

be as happy

And let's alt
as children (GH
Buy from Sound N Vision this Christmas.
SEE HALF PAGE FOR BEST PRICES ON HARDWARE/SOFTWARE ETC.

this Christmas!

nes УУМ? ТАМУ,
"Tet (0942) 873689

^
IBM PC and AMSTRAD PCI512/1640
SHAREWARE/PUBLIC DOMAIN SOFTWARE

WATCH OUT! There are SHAREWARE SHARKS about, and
they're after your money!!!

Why pay them £5 to £10 per disc when you can have a larger
choice plus the latest releases from us, at only £3 per disc (less
for quantity, Starter pack at only £2/disc!), Send SAE for a free
catalogue.

NEW!!! Modula-2 compiler, 3D Chess, Bridgepal, Com-
poser, UK General Ledger, plus many more.

| PC-STAR

P.O. Box 164, Cardiff CF5 3YB 673)

DIGIPIX isk price зза B
3.5" DS/DD DISKS

bonded 8/00 13ин MOD) вына р 4% 2400 400 S000
Mimic 05/00 1359í ) cases labels ph. 1495 3650 7010 13000

All Disks Fully Guaranteed

Disk customers may also purchase any amount of the following
with their order. (Available only with Disk orders.)

Mouse Mat £3.50 Ж 40 Л 3.5" Disk Box £5.75.
80 capacity, locking 3.5" Disk Box £7.00 100 3.5” Disk Labels £1.50
‘Send Cheque or Р.О. to:

DIGIPIX в)
1 Brasher Close, Bishopstoke, Hants. 505 6PY

Central Media shop now open at address below

CENTRAL MEDI

3.5 INCH DISCS
WE SELL Е We sl
Aramis | TOUNSRANDED 05/00 3S :wir989 | „ш,
HARDWARE AMIGA 500 Garlock
Ring for ONLY £44911! computerised
details | AU ATARI ST come with Mouse & SAD disk 8 Basie | ideo system,
520 STM + } meg drive PL
520 STFM ONLY £273 totals you
£273 1040 ONLY £389 wil at be
TRADE ENQUIRIES wetcome | бердін

ALL CHEQUES Е PO's PAYABLE TO
CENTRAL MEDIA
101 SPRING BANK, HULL НОЗ 1BH TEL: (0482) 26581 ien

Central Media shop now open at address below

CENTRAL MEDIA

3.5 INCH DISCS
WE SELL Wesel
МАМ st | TOUNSRANDED 05/00 135 1pi £9.89 | „мш
HARDWARE | AMIGA 500 [o
Ring for ONLY £449nt computerised
details | A ATARI ST cone with Mouse & SAD dsk а Basie | Vigan vtm,
520 STM + } meg drive E ring lo
520 STER. ONLY £273 debis you
£273 1040 ONLY £389
TRADE ENQUIRIES WELCOME

"ALL CHEQUES & PO's PAYABLE TO
CENTRAL MEDIA
101 SPRING BANK, HULL HUS 18H TEL: (0482) 26581 iss,

| FOR SALE

CHEER un er iod

We've gai you cover through which you

can type freely and easily.

COVEFed SEAL'n TYPE

Accidents сап happen!
PAS Protect against spills dust,
ash end grime; any oí

which could ruin you

keyboard. Stop erosion of

your key lettering.

SEAL'n TYPE™
Made of clear, flexible|
plastic moulded to fit over
every key. Removable,
\ Washable, Reusable.
"Amstrad — PCWIPC, BBC, AB/B+

For

This is the verdict from all our customers who purchased a copy of “The

Gamester”. This is a truly unique utility that allows the user to gain infinite.

lives on most types of games, and includes the brilliant "Siomo” device, to.

slow down most programs to your desired speed. Win all those top prizes.
with "The Gamester".

Well worth buying . . ." CRASH

Very easy to шзе.. 7” A S D Mid:

К Glamorgan
“Absolutely brilliant. now | play all those impossible games and easily
gain high scores.” RD. Manchester

Spectrum 48/+/128/+2/+3

Compatible with Multiface 1/Multiface 128/Snapshot
R.R.P. £9.99 .MAIL ORDER £5
Cheques/POs to:

8.0., 155 Wash Lane, Yardley, Birmingham B25 8PX
SAME DAY DESPATCH

... Siraightened

FEED'n PRINT™
A Paper Guide for the PCW 8256/8512 which fits simply onto your
printer. Now you can easily ‘feed’ in paper and have precisely
aligned margins every time.

FEED'n PRINT™

Includes markers to centre A4 and inch scales

in pitches 10 & 12 matching screen layout.

' On Microdrive

504 TAPE TO OPUS DRIVE UTILITY As for 504 - bt nct 10

Price: (685 (ne РАР).

SHARPSHOTER. А 100% Machine Code mutiscreen Arcad Соте with spe agis wd зала. Mam,

Sorel ftre. mute did lenis. ver interd Кет o D viva 2 ops тон,

Sici Pee £135 (ас РАР)

XOBRANSOFT SPECTRUM 280 MACHINE CODE COURSE: A 12 month couse from Beginner to

‘vanced ені Sota for anyone. Apples 1 MÍ cores Spacon т. Price: 15

SLA ADVANCED SPEEDLOADER. Covers most шут: t Fas Loaders weh a ост ot SX мі

Seeds Mul coloured ad varous ter ong bordert = cose ew th att урта ULL Manu

PLUS FREE nte nde FREE Disassemble. Price (828 (mc ҒАР).

SUPER INTERFACE НІ: A superb interlace wich coer snot ANY program to reload и any one of

H pp Fs Lande AUTOMATICALLY Fg n sete s P, Pie LI

[^ 70)

SUPER INTERFACE MOI: Tis terface comers prs to modo Му AUTOMATICALLY,

СОМРАСТ cts ret TWO LONG pant ре rd Берен endende MOI P
yos Ори driva AUTOMATICALLY

pos Dove ` my supe vale.

on inked!

PROLONG PRINTERRIBBONLIFE — [7
Ring 0784 252662 for FREE Қа ROV
porter SAEs.

10-12 July
Same day service Stand A5

128.95 line PA
SUPER INTERFACE 001: Аз tot MDI. BUT conv popu
Ses spechicatn to MO. Price £28.86 (ас РАР /
Send деме? x
obrahsot,Plasaot View, Hulme Lane, Hume
"eee Europa ET P&P PER TEN. тез,

tan, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs ST3 SBM,

£1.30 per ribbon
f "nt tor FREE DETAILED Catalogue

SPECTRUM REPAIRS

ONLY ONE COMPANY OFFERS YOU:

An honest 6 month guarantee, We repair any fault within 6 months, you do no
same fault has reoccurred as with other companies

Full overhaul and up-date with each repair to identify and repair all f
reliability.

Over 17 years computer maintenance experience on all types of systems from main frames to
micro's. Probably ten years more than our nearest competitor.

Fast efficient service. Most units are despatched fully insured by first class post within 24 hours of
receipt.

No "free" games tape - we could offer you £50 worth of games with each repair, but instead we use
top quality components, sophisticated test equipment and professional engineers

All inclusive price of £17.50 regardless of number of faults

‘ove that the

$

Ив ensuring continuing

BBC, Commodore, Amstrad. Free estimates. Normal repair costs £25.00.
Educational Authority orders welcome.

We also service a wide range of peripherals, including disc drives and printers.

M.P.C. ELECTRONICS

The Laurels, Wendling, Dereham, Norfolk NR19 2LZ. Tel: 036 287 327

em

BLANK CASSETTES

WITH LIBRARY CASES

Cio Cis coo coo
20 7% 970 790 670
50 1600 1820 1530 1850
100 2900 3000 3100 3600

Fully Inclusive (CO D. ЕТ extra)
DISKS
1054 DS/DD

£6.00 inc. case

1931 85/о
£11 Inc. case

10 MAXELL 3” CF2
£20

IEMOTECH CC
AND ACCE

MTX 512 COMPUTER £43.00
DMX 80 PRINTER £180.00
RS232 13000

PASCAL ROM.
SPECULATOR ROM £30.00
Timp, DISK DRIVE 8 INTERFACE £160.
\ mb. DISK DRIVE & INTERFACE £160.

Auta fers
дас re mom
ment Menu ume
Мапе м тетін dac
анато automaticaly create» master cate
ing ofa th contents a al your dacs
No typing in! Search, update ete
Mule tent o паа + much moret
asy to use = Groat apes - Ony £12 95
SAE tor dotais nd iiit
BETTERBYTES
10 Spal Toren, estar
Novit open ie NES UT

and use this

MEGA The Magazine on

MAG “= fer the Amiga,
and coming soon for

DISK Commodore 64.
Price 65.00 monthly

Send cheques/POs, made

payable to: Mega Mag Disks
or write for info to:

ги байы,
Malay Nevis o 16 106

QUALITY DISCS
DD/DS BOXES OF 10
bi". ТЕ 16180
НЕО
«1. £20}

Victoria Telecom, 198 Gloucester Road,
Bishopston, Bristol BS7 80J. Accees/Visa
Tol: 0272 47632/428381 ss)

COMMODORE 64, C2N, 2 joy
sticks, over £350 of software and
games, £275 o.n.o. Tel: Antony 01-
908 3019

WANT THE BEST ST DEAL? | did,
Send ЕБ for my product choice deci-
sion and phone survey of 13 suppliers.
mam pm

ATARI 1040 STF, SC1224 12" col-
‘our monitor, SMM 804 Atari dot ma-
trix printer and lots of software (al
brand пом with 1 year's guarantee),
Only £825. Tol: 05827 64152.
GRAPHIC DESIGNER is selling his
Amstrad 464 colour with disc, AMX
‘mouse, 256K Ram pack, 2 light pens +
games, £350 ол.о. Tel: (Leicester)
0533 392185,

AMIGA 500, Ram/clock expansion,
ТУ mod. Deluxe Paint 2, Fareytale,
Starglider and others. Under guaran-
тее. £450. Tel: 08832 5259.

SERVICES

large selecton of languages. domo s
ies, comm s and games ac.
avaiable. A stamp for
угш hours of frustration
Discs from

9 Abingdon Gardens, Bath,
AvonBA22UY — (vm

ДИДОК!

Ta aon сне д-нин
LEE
кези
ЕЛИНИ (Dept PC),

Eua
E
MESES NET e

ТТОРРҮ SHOP ST USER GROUP
AND PUBLIC DOMAIN LIBRARY
таво
w Feta
Floppy Shop ST
КД ү АИ

KELSOFT specialising in
TICTIONEERING
Sewa 1 Wake Sc dog п KELSOFT
PAW Tet Mentor wi SX.
ESCAPE NTO SPACE EASO,

PAW Mer METEORE SIUE. ди sa ay
famen PAW, wa d GAC
Sed SAE trii
KELSOFT
28 Oveon Svest. Siro Lees PE9 10S.

Telephone 0780 56V ве

M.D.S. Computer Supplies
54 05/00 10 for £4.75
Amazing savings.

11 Church Street
Banbridge BT32 4AA

HOTLINE
08206 23477 an

AMIGA
‘CUMANA DISC DRIVES/JUMPDISK
CHRISTMAS PACK

George Thompson Services Ltd.
‘Dope ер, Ben. ВЫ. Аға.
Жаа MI Tr 80223 сз)

NEW SPECCY CLUB. For details
send S.A.E. to: ZXSC, 18 Poplar
Close, Biggleswade, Beds.

SERVICES

EAST LONDON MICRO
SERVICE CENTRE
Spectrum, Commodore, Amstrad,
Atari, MSX plos peripherals.
Turnaround typical of 2-5 days.
Three months warranty guaranteed
Computer ICs Ергот 7415 seres
near ICs components soid.

Diskottes Branded.

105} £850
1031 21200
Power supplies 664 £25.00
Spectrum о. £9.95
‘Accessories sold. Maii order trade
'enquiries welcome.
Open Зат-Врт Mon-Sat

SAN ELECTRONICS
63 Plashet Grove, East Ham
London EG ТАО
Tel: 01-472 4871
Four тели wa om Upton Part Td Sun.
=

Computer REPAIRS Fins Ain

Fixed Super Low Prices! TECHNOLOGY
Inclusive of parts, labour and VAT

1 week turnround
Free collections/delivery available for local area

Ж AUTUMN OFFERS x
SPECTRUMS £14 inc. + Free Game
£22 inc. + Free Game

C16 £18 inc.

VIC20, C+4 £22 inc.

BBC. £32 inc.

ELECTRON £19 inc.

AMSTRAD 464 £32 inc. + Free Game

SPECTRUM 128 £16 inc.

C64 P.S.U. FOR SALE £20 inc.

Please enclose, with йет - 3 month warranty on repair
enclose advert with repair

W.T.S. ELECTRONICS LI

5-3 Portia Road, tulon, Beds LUA BAT. Tol: 0562 458375. Telex: 265871

COMPUTER REPAIR SERVICE

Have your computer repaired for Christmas
ж Special Christmas Offers ж

Amstrad CPC 464. £25 | Amstrad PCW 8256 £30
Sinclair Spectrum + £18 | Atari 130 XE £20
Acorn BBC B. £27 | Atari 520 ST £27
Commodore 64 £20 | CBM disc drive. £25

All prices include parts and labour
Come along or post with payment. Please phone before posting

WYNTER ELECTRONICS
Unit ЗОР Atlas Village
Oxgate Lane
Staples Corner
London NW2 7HU
Tel: 01-452 5660

We also upgrade units — please phone for details | saw

2 N
T.M. COMPUTER
SERVICES
FAST COMPUTER REPAIRS
Spectrum Plus. £15.95
Commodore 64. £22.00
Vic 20...... £22.00
C16.. а n E2000!

Plus 4.....
Amstrad 464 ..

FREE collection and delivery in Leeds, Bradford and
Huddersfield areas.

Phone Heckmondwike 0924 402715 day or night!

Computers direct to:

Mr. T. Marshall
21 FOURELL STREET, HECKMONDWIKE,
W. YORKS WF16 ОЕА

enclosing cheque and brief description of fult

(200)

3 SCOTLAND

SPECIAL
OFFERS

Atari 520 STFM ..
Monitor 12" mono
Telemod modem
Fantastik joystick .
CBM power supply...

.£279.95

Spectrum power supply.
PRINTERS

Star NL10....
Citizen 120D.
Olivetti, spark jet...

51” discs (box of 1
34” discs (box of 10)...

COMPUTER DEPOT
205 Buchanan Street
Glasgow G1 2JZ
Telephone: 041-332 3944

Бөз)

GLASGOW

dread
ORGAN SER

1284

Ай our computer and games machines come with free software. Check out the freet
you get with the list below.
Atari 57%:
5 Discs, 5 Public Domain discs, Neochrome, Ist Word, DB Master and Mouse М:
OR a 3 Game Entertainment Pack (titles may vary)
Sinclair +2 and +3:
6 Games and Joystick.

SEGA:
"Hang on” and controllers.
NINTENDO:
Mario Bros, Gyromite, Duck Shoot (depends on pack)
Atari 2600: Free Warlord and Breakout
Atari 65ХЕ: Free Flight Sim Il and Bughunt
MEGABYTE IS ONE STOP
COMPUTER SHOPPING

12 ғала Square, Town Centre, Cumbernauld G67 1ND
ЕЗ Telephone: (0236) 738398 L

Ме

a.

DEALERS!
You can reach 40,000 readers for as little as £25 a week!

For more details phone Susannah on 01-834 1717

3 SCOTLAND

Te

AMIGA GLASGOW
CENTRE SCOTLAND | Буя Жыз ня

‘Amiga Specioists since 1985
Amiga A500 and A2000 пон available.
Technical end software support ta tur cus-
tomers. Full range ol AMIGA software and
peripherals.
Send SAE би our software catalogue

mm 4 Hart Steet Lane шшш 122 WEST MAIL STREET
Edinburgh ЕНТ ЗАМ GLASGOW G1 20Z
Te: 031-587 4242 (24 кз) | ТЕЁ: 041-552 1522. о»

1 THE SOUTH EAST

EALING COMPUTER

CENTRE

19 Queens Parade, Ealing, London W5. Tel: 01-991 0928.
West London’s newest and best computer showroom
Special opening offers - VAT inc. (limited stock)
ATARII040STF.£399.99 — 1040STF + SM125. £499.99
STAR NLIO.....£199.99 — OPUS РСШТЕ....... £699.99
All models on display. 100s of titles for Atari, IBM

ЖАТАР! Star

PRINTERS FOR BUSINESS
PC COMPUTERS,

Atari appointed desler
and Service Centre

Specialists in Atari ST Computers

WE'VE MOVED TO:

Of Norfolk

2 NORTHERN ENGLAND
ASHBY DE LA ZOUCH
ASHCOM

Atari hardware

520 STFM, keyboard/mouse/0.5 meg drive £259.95
1040 STF keyboard/mouse/1 meg drive £439.95
1040 STF plus colour monitor. £799.95
SF 314 1 meg drive. £169.95

Commodore Amiga range

A500 + Otter Pack + modulator £435.00
A1010 disc-drive. £249.95
35 inch discs DD/DS guaranteed (packed in 105) £12.00
25 bulk packed 3.5 inch discs 05/00 guaranteed £25.00
Free publi domain sofware on request with discs. АП products fully guaranteed
Amazing prices on peripherals and all software. All prices include VAT at 15%

and P&P on UK malniand. For more information call us on (0530) 411485.
send SAE for full pricelist. To order send cheques/PO or Visa/Access details

10 the address below or phone with credit card.

ASHCOM
10 The Green, Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire LE6 5JU

iin

MANCHESTER/HINCKLEY
се

‘Comlex floppy discs DS/DD £7 рег

ay PO aaa

TAR ыт
COMMODORE.

GOVERNMENT AND EDUCATIONAL ORDERS WELCOME,
EXPORT ENQUIRIES WELCOME
STANDARD DELIVERY C780 AND NEXT DAY (8.80 — AOD ТЕХ TO ORDER TOTAL

9
Serious computer application based around the Amiga computer, video
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r COMMENT.

"gs this just a game or is it real?" asks
І the boy at the keyboard

"What's the difference?" answers
the voice synthesiser of the computer.

This is the chilling moment in the film
War Games when the young hero realises
that by hacking into someone else's mai
frame he may have gone just a little too
far. This particular mainframe ~ you will
recall - turns out to be the artificial
intelligence running the whole of NATO
nuclear arsenal! And playing ‘Global Tacti-
cal Thermonuclear War’ with this baby is
definitely not recommended for light
entertainment.

Instead, maybe our hero should have got
stuck into High Frontier the Strategi
Defence Initiative simulation from Acti
sion, At least then he would have known
that any harm he could wreak would stop
at his monitor = or in the realms of his
imagination, Just good clean fun.

No room here for informed discussio
questioning the practicalities and desir-
ability of SDI in the world arena. High
Frontier's promo blurb makes sure you
know whose side you're on right from the
start: "4,000 Soviet nuclear warheads are
targeted at the North American main-
land... You are the project leader com-
mitting staff and funds to make SDI a
reality, You must make the decisions that
could save the American mainland . ..” Oh
good. Because, let's face it, if the whole
world were teetering on the edge of
oblivion we'd all want to be reassured that
the good ol’ U.S, of A. was going to be ok.
Sod the rest, and especially those Ruskies
with their awful ‘Evil Empire

Activision are by no means alone in
their very definite approach to who the

HACKERS

good guys are. A number of battle simula-
tion games do away with the niceties of
any pretence of attempting to remain
apolitical. Why waste time and trouble
inventing imaginary enemies when we all
know what the public want? Micro Prose’s
F15 Strike Eagle provides us with all the
hi-tech weaponry we need to blast those
nasty MiG fighters, and to cheerfully bomb
Egypt, Lybia, Haiphong, Hanoi, the Persian
Gulf, Iraq, or Syria. Gung ho ho ho!

Are these games to0 warlike - too
violent? Is this what I'm driving at? No.
SDI at least involves, as far as I can gather,
shooting down missiles, not people; and
any war game or battle simulation will
inevitably involve a degree of sanitised
violence, as will any kind of fictional
adventure from Hansel and Gretel to
Raiders of the Lost Ark, What is worrying
here is not so cut and dried as the anti-
violence lobby would probably see it. I am
certainly less concerned than the German
government seem to be about the odd
decapitation in fantasy games such as
Palace Software's Barbarian, which they
have just banned. I personally don't be-
lieve that the graphies in such a game
could possibly produce images of violence
50 realistic as to cause offence, or that
violence itself in а game necessarily incites
violent behaviour.

Fantasy as a fictional genre is generally
regarded as useful because it allows great
moral questions to be pondered in symbolic
form. A great deal of hack and slay or
zapping with futuristic weapons goes on in
the tussle between the forces of light and
darkness. Look at Tolkien as a prime
example, or Dr. Who! The problem 1
perceive is not the action itself in computer

What are we playing at?

games, but rather the values and rationale
which underpin the action. High Frontier
and Strike Eagle have more worrying
qualities than the more overtly ‘shocking’
Barbarian.

They are set very firmly in the real
world, and they propose a definite set of
political preconceptions for gameplay,
which qualify the action whilst inadver-
tently reinforcing an insidious and reac-
tionary ‘us and them’ mentality,

Though I have said that I dispute that
the portrayal of violence in games in itself
incites violent behaviour, 1 can see a
problem where violence is portra;
against a ‘realistic’ backdrop, and is 56
as nothing short of desirable. Where the
violence becomes the in focus of the
game and is merely gratuitous.

The software companies know how im-
portant the scenario is. How else do you
explain the inclusion of a 48 page novella.
іп Firebird’s classic Elite? Outside the
simple maze or platform format, computer
games are after all role play. And the more
satisfying the scenario, the more satisfying
the playing of the role. But what values are
we willing to take on board in the process -
or to compromise?

The software companies should realise
this, and take careful responsibility in
future games design concepts.

With echoes of War Games, the High
Frontier promo concludes that it's
*. . hopefully as near as you'll ever get to
the real thing . .. or is it "

“Is this just а game or is it real?" The ac
tion is just a game, but what's underneath
the action - and what does playing it say
about me? п

MALCOLM ARNOLD

SA/POPULAR COMPUTING WEEKLY

19-25 NOVEMBER 1987

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GARFIELD © 1978 United Feature Syndicate Inc.