8-bit Software Disc Magazine (c) Duncan Webster September 1991 Issue 15 September 1991 ACORN USER SHOW 1991 A lot of members have asked me if I shall be attending the Acorn User show this year at Wembley. I cannot arrange a formal meeting like I did last year, but I shall probably be at the SATURDAY show from 12.30pm until the show closes. However I cannot guarantee this as I am scheduled to work that Saturday morning - If I am able to transfer this then I shall certainly be at the show and would love to finally meet you all. Would you beleive that I have never met a single member of 8BS face to face??? Please come along to the show if you can, but not especially to meet me as I MIGHT not be able to make it. Assuming I am at the show this year, the arrangements will go something like this... I shall be at the bar, or cafe for 10 minutes every 1 hour (ie. from 1.00 to 1.10pm, then 2.00 to 2.10pm etc. right through the day). I shall be wearing a GREY jacket and a RED badge with the words "The more People I meet the More I Like my Dog" embossed all over it (don't take this personally), and I shall probebly have my nose in a TODAY newspaper. If you notice me and I am asleep, then don't wake me up. There will be no set program. I will probably just buy you a drink and have a chat (maybe whilst walking round the show). I might even have an advance copy of issue 16 I can let you have, but don't bank on it. I shall do my VERY BEST to attend - if you would like to be sure I am attending, then give me a call the SUNDAY before the show, bearing in mind the new times for phoning (see NEW 8BS PROCEDURES section of the magazine). Actually, having thought about it - if I have a drink with every member I meet then you'd better get there early whilst I'm in a legal state of mind. MISCELLANEOUS DISCUSSIONS K1P: Rob Bathgate I've had a quick playabout with that weird file. As countless others have probably told you, the hex value for the 1st letter of the file is often stored in memory as the higher character value (ie 128 is added to it). So for the file weird, the w can be stored as &F7 as well as &77. I'm not sure what exactly causes the different value, but I think if you do a *. it causes the higher value whilst, say, if you just save a program then you get the lower one. As you can probably tell, I'm not very knowledgeable in these technical matters! Anyway, to overcome this the easiest way I can think of is to AND the value read from memory with 127. SEE ALSO MESSAGE FROM 105 BELOW... K1P: Rob Bathgate I'm currently working on a pretty massive football program. Its a sort of combined results stored, league tabler and a few other little goodies if I can fit them in and get them to work! Unfortunately the current season has started and so it wouldn't be much use to other members. I will send it in eventually anyway, even if it is for the start of next season! I'm open to suggestions, what do members think? YJ2: Andrew Snodgrass Does anyone know what the AMX Pagemaker/StopPress equivelent is of the AMX ART ROM command *UPDATE? 105: Duncan Webster On behalf of Alex Savvides (Y80), I would like to say a big THANK YOU to all who replied to the "Weird" program problem. Many of you sent in corrected versions. I actually received 25 replied to this problem, and 15 of these replied had a fixed program saved to disc. Obviously I cannot publish each solution. I beleive that Hugh Williams had the honour of telephoning the member concerned in order to help with the problem. It just goes to show how much help is readily available for anyone who want's it, so if YOU have a problem or a question, then write in and I can ALMOST guarantee your problem will be solved by somebody. Thanks to you all once again. 105: Duncan Webster I have had numerous enquiries about how the mailbox system works. I will put my hands up to this at once, as the present system is being severely tested due to the volume of mail received. There is to be a new system introduced within the next few months. Until the new system is implemented, please consult the NEW 8BS PROCEDURES section of this magazine for details of the temporary procedures I have implemented. 105: Duncan Webster I must apologise to members who became increasingly annoyed with the KICKSTART routine employed when booting the issue 14 disc. For those of you who do not know, here is what to do if you would like this routine moved ... Insert the issue 14 disc into drive 0 Press CTRL and BREAK together to return to BASIC Enter the following ... *ACCESS !Boot *BUILD !Boot You will then see the figure 0001 (or just the number 1) appear on the screen. I have given an example below of how you should complete each line .... means you must press the RETURN key. 0001 *BASIC 0002 PAGE=&1900 0003 CHAIN"!Menu" Now press the Key once. When the cursor (>) reappears enter the following .... *OPT 4,3 If you now boot up your disc again the KICKSTART should be omitted.