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* * * * * * EDITORIAL * * * * * *
Hello again, and first let me welcome you not only to another
issue, but also to another year.
I was thinking the other day, that it doesn't seem like 2 years
since the Sam Coupe was launched, but it's true, I received one
of the first machines on offer, in December 1989.
My machine cost over £200 and hadn't got a drive, had 256k of
memory and took an age to load something like FLASH. In fact it
took longer to load FLASH than to actually draw the picture.
There were also the bugs in the version 1.0 ROM, which allowed
the machine to lock up or crash at the most inconvenient
moments, but MGT, as they were then, assured me that a
replacement was on the way.
I quickly decided to add a drive, which cost me another £80.00,
and eagerly awaited its arrival. When it did arrive, I was in
for another disappointment, because the DOS was not working
properly. This meant that you had to BOOT the DOS, and then CALL
a number before you had DOS commands, which made auto running
programs impossible.
I lived with this until May 1990, when I was informed that a new
DOS and ROM were on the way. In the meantime, I was fortunate
enought to get a 2.0 ROM, which was a great improvement on the
version 1.0.
Of course in June/July 1990, it was announced that MGT had gone
into liquidation, and again my heart sank.
As you all know, Samco was then formed, a version 3.0 ROM came
out, Masterdos and Masterbasic have been written, and the
machine has now started to get noticed.
If I had waited until a few months ago to buy a machine, I could
have got 512k of ram, a built in drive and a fair range of
software to run. So really I should be niggled that I bought one
so early on and paid through the nose for the privilege, but I'm
not!!!. I would have missed 2 years of enjoyment and challenge,
I would not have got to know so many nice people, and now have
an 18 hour a day job writing this flamin' mag!
I have a friend who, after seeing my Sam, sold his Atari ST to
buy one. After a few months, I asked him if it was alright, and
his reply was that he had done more with the Sam in 6 months
than he did with the ST in all the 3 years that he had it.
So I for one, am wishing the Sam Coupe all the best for 1992 and
may it grow and grow.
Happy New Year everyone.......
Dave
EDITORS NOTES.....
Brian Mumford has asked me to apologise to the 20 odd members
whose issue 15 was glitched. This was caused by a bug beyond
Brian's control, but steps have been taken to ensure it doesn't
happen again.
oooOOO OOOooo
Bob Evans of POKES/CHEATS fame has a plea to anyone who has a
collection of either Sam or Spectrum game tips or pokes.
Could you please send them to him at the address below for
inclusion in his column.
oooOOO OOOooo
Just to prove that I take note of your suggestions for the mag,
this issue and all future issues will have the option on text
pages, of using either "N" and "L" for turning the pages, or the
left and right cursor keys.
While on the subject of text, I've changed the colour of the top
and bottom bars, because I had complaints that it couldn't be
seen on a TV.
oooOOO OOOooo
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16, Queen's Park,
Coleraine,
Co. Londonderry,
N. Ireland BT51 3JT
tel: 0265- 42231
Dear Dave,
A suggestion for club members.
A dictionary of around 50000 words would be very useful and
should be well within the 512k capacity of the Coupe.
Uses include an extended Scrabble, as an aid to crosswords, as
a spellchecker for Tasword, and for creating word games.
If each of our 400+ club members agreed to type in around 170
words in DATA lines and send them in to you, the hard graft
could be reduced to a small task for each individual.
Each person would be given a very short section from a
standard dictionary to type in. In order to minimise memory
needs, the words would need to be stored in condensed form
just as in Scrabble, with words having the same root like
bream,cream, & dream condensed as bcdream.
This would also allow the Scrabble code to be used with only
minor mods.
Apart from everyone who contributed receiving a useful
dictionary in return for their help, it could also be sold on
a commercial basis by the club to raise funds and keep costs
down? If enough members think it is a worthwhile suggestion, I
would be happy to assist you in organising it.
The explanation of masking in issue 12 was very useful. What a
pity that Mel Croucher could not have used similar clear
examples instead of gobbledy gook. Either the manual was
rushed into print or Mel did not really understand the
commands. Page 78 is a case in point dealing with OPEN and
CLOSE screen commands. OPEN SCREEN must be followed by the
screen number which must be between 2 and 16, not 1 and 16,
and the number must be followed by the mode. So OPEN SCREEN 2
fails, as does OPEN SCREEN 1,4. Similarly, CLOSE SCREEN 1
fails. This is far from being made clear in the manual.
Could anyone write a short routine in a) BASIC b) in mcode which
will page in different pages of RAM and also switch them out?
The Technical manual is not very helpful and any routines I
tried have failed miserably.
Mathew Collinge raised an interesting point about random number
generation in issue 11. However, as chapter 11 in the Speccy
manual explains, no computer can generate truly random numbers-
only pseudo random, and after several thousand calls to the
random generator function, the sequence is repeated. There are
many different random number generator functions- the one used
by the Spectrum is described on p.75 in the manual- and
depending on the constants used, the repeat point can be made as
large as you wish- 2 to the power 31 or 2 147 483 648 is a
common value for 32 bit computers. This is why the constant is
65536 on the Spectrum. Does anyone know the random generator
function used by the Coupe??
There are several tests which can be made to determine how good
the random generator function is and the results can be compared
statistically using the chi squared test. An old and
unsatisfactory method- and I quote- for generating a
pseudorandom number sequence is the mid-square or inner-product
method.
As an example take the number 2222. .......rn1
To get the next number, square 2222= 4937284.
Then take the middle four digits 9372. .......rn2
Now square 9372= 87834384.
Take the middle four digits 8343. .......rn3
and so on.
Anyone interested in the subject can find useful information in
"A First Course in Discrete Mathematics" by J.C.Molluzo and
F.Buckley, published by Wadsworth, California from which much of
the above was taken.
Finally, could you include the actual programs which generated
the excellent mandelbrot graphics in issue 12 so that everyone
could benefit by seeing the programming methods used?
Incidentally, D.A.Lorner's tray puzzle can be impossible to
solve due to the way in which pairs of tiles are randomly
transposed at the start. So if you end up with the number 14 and
15 tiles in the wrong order, you may not be able to get them
switched!
best regards,
Duncan Munro
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Fichtenweg 10C
W-5203 Much
Germany
Dear Dave,
I would be grateful if you could publish this letter
in the next issue of the Supplement as it concerns the 'SAMMON'
program from Sam Supplement Nr.14.
Although you did not mention it, as with the 'BAZA database
the 'SAMMON' program was from Slawomir (Slawek) Grodkowski ( you
probably already have my letter asking you to correct this
oversight in the next issue ). However whereas the 'BAZA'
program was completely written by Slawek 'SAMMON' was a Spectrum
program thought to be Public Domain (Author unknown) which
Slawek converted to Sam and to which he had added his own
Calculator and Window routines.
In fact thanks to a letter from Dr. Andy Wright I now know
that in fact this program was written by Simon Goodwin (of
Computer Shopper fame - before it became a PC newsletter) and it
was a program which he had sold to ARGUS PRESS some years ago
for publication in ZX-Computing and we believe it was also
published in one or two other journals.
Although I have already phoned Simon I would like to use this
letter to make sure that Simon gets full recognition as the
author of what is a very good Spectrum/Sam dissasembler.
In fact I believe that Simon is at the present time working
on an enhanced version which will run faster and also contain
extra features such as recognising all of the Sam floating point
codes and which will hopefully become available in the not too
distant future.
Best Wishes,
Ian D. Spencer
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From :: Mr. F. Harrop, G3DVL, 15 Keymer Road, Hollingbury,
BRIGHTON. BN1 8FB.
Dear Dave,
As far as I can judge there are just three radio amateurs
and two short wave listeners who are members of Sam Supplement
and they will have been pleased to find in Supplement the first
part of the programme, MULTIMODE, which is being developed by
Ian Spencer, whose own callsign is DJ0HF. There may well be
others who are interested in short wave listening, but do not
know where to find information to enable them to take up the
hobby. If there are any members who have that in mind they may
like to drop me a line at the above address. For those short
wave listeners who have the facility to receive radio teletype,
(RTTY) they may like to know that I usually operate that mode on
Sundays around 3.585 Mhz. at 0930 hours, and Monday evenings
around 7.035 or 3.585 Mhz.(depending on conditions) at 1830
hours. Operation is on Upper sideband, 45.45 bauds.
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From Matthew Collinge...
Dear Readers of the supplement,
There were a lot of reactions to
my letter which was included quite a few issues ago. Most
comments were included for the sole purpose of stirring up some
strong views on the Coupe and to liven up the letters pages. I
therefore would like to say that all bad comments about the
Supplement were not true. I would also like to say that I enjoy
the utility programs, reviews, and the magazine as a whole (SO
THERE!). I'm sorry if I offended anyone (esp those making
databases) who contributes to the Supplement - the standard of
programs on the disk is undoubtably rising. But I would like
some programs to be written in machine code - fractal
generators for example.
Thanks to all who supported the Coupe and the Supplement by
sending in their opinions over the past few issues.
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Chris Ash
9 Crispin Road
Gleadless
Sheffield
S12 2NH
Dear Lads
Well done with the SAM supplement so far, every byte is so good
(joke). At the moment I am writing a few simple demos, the
first of which is on this disk.
Got Prince of Persia yet? No! I hear you cry. Well all I can
say is get the game cos its amazing. The SAM games are of an
extremely high quality don't you think?
A bit about me. I have every issue of the supplement so far,
but as yet I have not contributed, so here I am. The demo on
this disk is on my own demo disk called AMSAM. The disk has a
game, utility, animation and my demo on it. It is rather bare
at the moment, but P.D is to be distributed, so if you have any
original software you now know where to come (as well as the
supplement).
I have just completed my City and Guilds and my 1st Diploma in
information technology (and I still can't program the damn
thing). I would really like a career working for a software
company, as it is what I have always wanted to do. I devote
nearly all my spare time to the SAM, but I never miss a
Sheffield Wednesday match.
Anyway enough from me (you can wake up now) I hope to be a bit
more interesting next time.
Ta Taa!
Ed's Note...
Chris's "PARAROLL" can be found in this issue in the
ODDS & ENDS section, and just goes to show what can be done with
just a little BASIC.
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