To: 999 (all members) From: D6A (Gordon WILEMAN) Subject: ACORN Z80 Master Discs A very big THANK YOU to all the members who offered assistance to me. However, top marks go, not surprisingly, to Stephan RICHARDSON(K20)who, without prior contact and completely on trust, sent me the complete CP/M set of Master Discs. You are a real gentleman, Stephan; perhaps the last of a dying breed(?) ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: 15A (Steven Flintham) Subject: Program updates Firstly, apologies to anyone who has sent me a message recently; I've been out of touch for a while so I haven't received any recent 8BS issues. Secondly, I have some time on my hands at the moment so I'm hoping to be able to do a bit of work on the various programs I've written for 8BS. I can't promise anything as I haven't miraculously become a brilliant programmer or anything, but if anyone has any suggestions (particularly small, easy to implement ones ;-) then please let me know. I will try to bear in mind any comments already made, but I may miss/forget them so if you have an old comment which is still relevant then you might want to message me pointing out which issue it was in (and preferably where it was in that issue). I look forward to hearing from you all! ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: D2G (Neil Parry) Subject: Am I A Sad Person After A conversation with Cris, Our esteemed and highly talented President (Thats got to be worth a few quid), I thought I would ask all the members of our highly qualified and talented body of members. What a load of twaddle. Well anyway back to the point, I have recently been on hoilday to Alton Towers, The weather was wet,windy and wild, but while I was there being scared silly, soaked to the skin, scared sillier, piged out on southern fried chicken and freezing cold, all for the bargin price of 37.00 I thought about something I seem to do quite a lot. Now Here is the question you have all been waiting for. Do any of you, as you go about your daily lives, think "I wonder if I could turn that into a program for my computer", While I was there being spun around the Corkscrew it was going through my head about how you could create a program to create a Roller Coaster, about friction, gravity, Newton's theory of objects in motion. It's not just while I was there I find that I do this throughout my daily life, Reading, Writing, Driving, Watching the TV anything. Please can you reassure me that it not just me doing this. Very Sad of Harwich ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: D6G (Sprow) Subject: User ids Am I alone in receiving the 8BS disks with the text "I.D.***" in the corner. A quick look at the !Boot program reveals that the text required for this ID (D6G in my case) is held in REM statements at the start of the program and is read using $(PAGE+&2F). However the text held here is "***" so I assume that the disks aren't being customised at Chris' end. It's not really a problem,I've only just noticed it! Any comments? Sprow. 8BSmail D6G EDITOR......... I used to enter all of the User IDs into the REM statements using a little program. On issue day it would take fifteen minutes or so to enter all of the IDs. Not a lot of time on its own. Coupled with all of the other jobs, it was one that could go. It would be nice to have your User IDs where they are supposed to be, but there you go. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: D6G (Sprow) Subject: 6502Em Last month this BBC emulator was reviewed in 8BS,and I would like to add a few views of my own: 1.Speed Using a Risc PC 700 (ie.ARM710) I find the speed of the BBC emulator still FAR slower than the real McCoy.Master 128 mode isn't too bad as was forecast in the article, but resetting (ie.pressing break) takes ages. 2.Coding The front end is written in BASIC, as many desktop programs are. Support modules are written in assembler, but based on the speed factor I would tend to agree that the actual emulator is written in something like 'C' 3.VDFS The Virtual DFS I find is the most dire piece of filing system software available. Even the *HELP code is crap - showing text when not asked for and not offering anything in response to *HELP DFS the command *HELP DFS. It just needed hacking. A patched VDFS ROM appears elsewhere on this disk. 4.Pros Well,yes,I do still use it.It allows me to develop programs very quickly,as I can use !Edit to write the software,drop the program onto the emulator.Test it.Return to the desktop by pressing F12 and still have the source code on the screen.Very handy. Sprow. Contact: ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: D6G (Sprow) Subject: Summer contacts Please don't email me using my University of York address until October.I won't be able to read them! Emails should be redirected to the address shown on my webpage. jaffa@cryogen.com Marked FAO Robert Sprowson,as this isn't my email account! Sprow. Fax ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: D5B (Jon Ripley) Subject: Richard's Dilemma In issue 54 Richard Harker sent in a few questions for us to ponder over, it was refreshing to see that so many people chipped in to answer all his questions. In the past it seemed that even though people knew the answers to the questions they didn't take the time to reply - just a few seconds to write a message - and left it to others. Of course, with everybody leaving it to everybody else, nobody ever received the answers to their problems. In recent issues it is refreshing to see that more and more people are willing to help. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: D5B (Jon Ripley) Subject: L O N G W O R D S I I Seeing Paul Clucas's reply to Richard Harker's longest-word-from-the-top-row-of-the-ke yboard-challenge in issue 55 (can it really be that long ago?). I thought I'd chip in a reply. Not being a countdown mastermind I can only offer these as the longest words... Typewriter, perpetuity and proprietor with 10 letters. Etiquette, pirouette, potpourri, prototype, puppeteer and typewrite with 9 letters. Prettier, priority and property with 8 letters and about 17 words with 7 letters Now for the longest-word-from-the-middle-row-of-the -keyboard-challenge... Alfalfa was the only 7 letter word I could find but three of 6 letter words sprang to mind... These being: Alaska, Flasks and Salads. There were around 18 five letter words that I spotted, I'm sure that there are more but I won't bore you with them here. Finally the not-too-easy longest-word-from-the-bottom-row-of-the -keyboard-challenge. I could only find two words that fitted, Mmm and Zzz. Both really are in the dictionary! There were a couple of abbreviations as well, BBC and BNC being the most obvious. I seem to remember that there is a really, really long word to do with volcano dust but I can't remember that at the moment. I shall send it in as part of the longest-word-from-the-keyboard-challeng e. All challenges are in english apart from the not-too-easy longest-word-from-the-bottom-row-of-the -keyboard-challenge which is in any language - aside from gibberish! I'm not sure whether Paul Clucas actually thought he'd get a reply to the last one! ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: D5B (Jon Ripley) Subject: I'm Back! This was intended to be a quick message but it grew a bit longer than the system allows. It should be elsewhere on this disc! Unless Chris put it in as a message, then you can ignore this one! That is, if Chris hasn't deleted it! ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, To: 999 (all members) From: D5B (Jon Ripley) Subject: Archimedes Contacts Wanted I have recently purchased a 2 meg A3010 (RISC OS 3.1) and I am looking for other members with Archimedes computers who would be interested in swapping software. If anybody wants to send me any questions about the Archimedes (not hardware related) to me either personally through royal mail - send a stamped addressed envelope for my reply - or through the 8-Bit messaging system please feel free to do so. You could even phone me up - I can't call you back I'm afraid, I have recently had to give up work due to illness and can't afford a big phone bill. My 8BS ID is D5B (obviously - it's at the top of this message) and... My address is: ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,