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Disk 24 News
* REVIEW SECTION *** REVIEW SECTION *** REVIEW SECTION *
SAM SEQUENCER ver.II
This is very much a 'first encounter' with Tim Humphries'
enhanced midi sound sequencer. Not having seen ver.1, I am not
able to comment on the differences between the two versions, but
a letter in issue 23 suggests that they are significant.
Having little knowledge of midi and sequencing, this is very
much new ground for me. My wife has a Casio CT-470 keyboard with
a somewhat rudimentary manual, so my first two actions were to
obtain a pair of midi leads and then to try and find out more
about midi. The first discovery was that Casio do their own
thing, which hasn't exactly helped.
The sequencer comes on a single disc with a comprehensive 46
page manual which is well written and contains a wealth of
information. It is essential to sit down and read the manual at
least once, as there is a lot of information to take in. As both
keyboard and mouse are catered for, I chose to use the mouse,
this, being well implemented, works extremely well.
For this complete novice, the manual is a little light on
start- up information. However, the author has made the starting
a little easier by including some music on the disc and a step
by step tutorial in the manual. I found this a great help both
to familiarise myself with the various functions and to learn
how the keyboard responded.
My first efforts were disastrous, I was able to play the
supplied example tune but not to record from the keyboard. After
my initial panic, a quick read of the troubleshooting guide
showed that the problem was a defective lead. That repaired, it
was off again.
The main screen is packed with boxes of various sizes, some are
options ie. MERGE, COPY, DELETE, SONG, FILE etc. Clicking
onto one of these boxes usually results in a menu being
displayed, which may lead onto other menus. It sounds more
complicated than it is, in reality it works extremely well.
Available choices are highlighted when the cursor passes over
them, an option which doesn't highlight is not available at that
time. All of this makes the program very responsive and as easy
as possible for such a complex and powerful tool.
Other boxes on the main screen are for track information, ie.
track selection, track name, playback channel and so on. It
takes some time and effort to make sense of all this information
however clearly laid out, and this screen IS well planned.
Indicators take the form of shaded 'buttons', the shading
showing if the button is depressed or not. I find this clear,
even on a TV screen.
Slowly, I am learning to use the various functions, each new
revelation a 'giant leap for music kind'. This is a very complex
program and is probably as easy and user friendly as is possible
without reducing its undoubted power.
As my CT-470 has two banks of voices which need to be switched,
I still havent quite figured out how to make the instrument
numbers tie-up with my keyboard though Tim Humpries has promised
me some additional information. The playback voices are still
something of a lucky dip until I get the hang of using the edit
facility, which allows the insertion of special control codes
into the track information. Also some of the more complex
facilities will have to wait until both my knowlege of midi and
music increases.
I would like to have seen a list of recommended books included
in the manual and perhaps some more 'basic' examples and/or
explanations to assist beginners like me. Most of my
frustrations stem from the lack of specific information on my
keyboard, but that's down to Casio not Tim Humphries. The
program does seem to be aimed at the more knowlegeable, but that
may just be from a novice's point of view.
If you have a keyboard and are interested in music, then this is
a well developed program which I have no hesitation in
recommending to others. But be prepared to put in some work to
get the best out of it, you wont be disappointed. It has
considerable power and potential for the persistent.
The review copy is to be passed onto someone with a greater
knowlege of both music and midi, so, with a bit of luck we'll
have an 'in depth' review at a later date.
Available from;
Tim Humphries:14 Swinscoe Way:Chesterfield:Derbyshire: S40 4UU
Price is £30 excluding midi leads, those with ver.1 can upgrade
to ver.2 for £8, overseas add £1.50. Details from Tim Humpries.
These reduced prices are the result of possible uncertainty due
to the demise of Samco. But Tim believes that the original price
of £40 was competitive with similar products on other machines,
I for one must agree, I'm very impressed with the power and
potential of this program.
PS. Have now recieved the extra info from Tim, I will send it
to Dave Tonks for possible inclusion in the tips section.
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FLEXIPAGE
An update from Les Phillips
Some 18 months ago, I reviewed the programme "FLEXIPAGE", and
readers of SUPPLEMENT at that time may remember that my
enthusiasm for the programme was moderated by the difficulties
presented by the 'omnibus' nature of the instructions which
covered not only the Sam Coupe, but also the Spectrum 48K and
128K, the programme having originally been written for the
Spectrum computers.
Soon afterwards, I was able to report that SAM-specific
instructions had been produced, thus removing the basis for my
major criticism. The instruction booklet was very comprehensive,
but meantime the author, David Wornham, has worked steadily on
significantly improving the programme, presenting him with the
problem of keeping the booklet up to date. I was impressed by
the effective and elegant solution which David has adopted.
Purchasers of the programme, in addition to receiving the
printed instructions in booklet form, now also receive an
instruction disc which carries a fully updated version of the
instructions, any part(s) of which can be printed out to modify
the booklet if desired. These disc-based instructions are in the
form of an indexed database, using FLEXIPAGE as its presentation
method. So, read the booklet for a sound grounding in the basics
of the programme, and load the disc for a complete update and
for a first experience of using the programme in one of its
three applications, namely FREE FORMAT. This provides a novel
and painless way of acquiring experience of using the programme.
Existing users have not been forgotten, and can obtain the
disc instructions for a "once-only" payment of £1.50. Further
updates of both programme and instruction discs are provided on
return of the original discs together with an S.A.E and two
additional first class stamps.
A reminder that FLEXIPAGE is a flexible authoring system which
has three modes of operation. These are FREE FORMAT, for random
access to databases; AUTOMATIC, for displays, advertisements and
continuously running instructions; and INTERACTIVE, which lends
itself to self-teaching programmes and adventure type games or
puzzles. These are applications which are, perhaps, specialised
to some extent, but if needed, there is no doubt but that
FLEXIPAGE takes all the hassle out of their construction.
In summarising my earlier reviews, I commented that FLEXIPAGE
already made good use of Sam's capabilities, and I had no
hesitation in recommending the programme to anyone interested in
producing teaching/training/information type programmes. There
is now evidence of the effort David has been devoting further
to take advantage of SAM's versatility.
FLEXIPAGE works satisfactorily with the current SAMDOS (even
with the 'old' ROM), but the programme now takes full advantage
of MASTERDOS. If MASTERDOS is used, FLEXIPAGE automatically
makes use of the memory capacity of the computer, be it 256K,
512K, or 1 MB, by loading as much of the programme as the memory
permits, into a RAMDISK which considerably speeds up use of the
programme by reducing the number of disc accesses which would
otherwise be involved.
Flexipage is very user-friendly. Prompts requiring key presses
are clearly indicated, and flashing messages keep the user
informed of processes taking place. A Sub Menu first appears
from which can be selected a demonstration of typical
INTERACTIVE or AUTOMATIC programmes, or one of several
utilities, including the Graphics Designer and a HELP page
detailing the conventions used in the programme. Control of the
printer is effected from this menu, and also the desired input
and output selected (tape, disc 1, disc 2, RAMDISK). A key press
of F brings up the Main Menu from which can be undertaken the
task of producing a FLEXIPAGE programme. The making of a typical
programme is set out step by step in the instructions.
The programme provides for text lettering in single or double
height, choice of eight colours for ink and paper, each either
standard or bright. A palette of graphics is available for use
in illustrating your pages (of which there can be up to 200),
and the graphics can be edited with the Graphics Designer, to
produce your own. A demonstration described in the instructions,
takes the user through the stages of constructing a picture of a
policeman as used to illustrate the demonstration CRIME QUIZ. It
is also possible, using a Converter provided, to incorporate
pictures produced with "FLASH". There are 10 different sounds
which can be associated with certain actions or calls for
action. Tunes produced with SOUND MACHINE can be loaded to
accompany any page as it is displayed. There is also a guided
build up of a typical INTERACTIVE mode adventure game.
Amongst other facilities are provision for saving one's work;
altering the order of display of pages in AUTOMATIC mode; rapid
reviewing of selected pages; movement of blocks of text within
pages or between exercises.
Although David has by no means come to the end of the
improvements he has in mind, the programme is already at the
stage where the limitations of any programmes produced using it
would appear to be determined by the skill and imagination of
the user, and in no way limited by the capabilities of this very
comprehensive programme.
J.L.Phillips, The White House, St. Catherine's Well, Milton
Abbas, Blandford, Dorset. DT11 OAS. Tel: 0258 880394
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SAM ADVENTURE CLUB/ZENOBI SOFTWARE
"MARLIN MAGIC" and "DEEP WATERS" are two compilations of
adventure games which resulted from a collaboration between
ZENOBI SOFTWARE and THE SAM ADVENTURE CLUB.
In order to use them, a copy of the "ROM" file from SC_SPECLONE
must be copied onto your disk but if you don't have this, there
is a program on the disk that will convert a standard copy of
the 48K Spectrum ROM to this format.
The individual games on each disk are called up by the start
menu. Although they were originally Spectrum games, they make
maximum use of SAM by means of a command (usually DISK) within
each game. This calls up a menu enabling games to be saved to
disk at any stage and reloaded later. In most cases, there is
also the facility to change fonts and also change colours to
any in the SAM palette.
MARLIN MAGIC consists of three games ("THE JADE STONE", "CLOUD
99" and "AGATHA'S FOLLY") whereas DEEP WATERS consists of
twelve complete adventures!
It would be reasonable to be a little wary in case these all
turned out to be Tolkien clones (dwarves and wizards, dragons
and magic swords) but in fact, although this genre is
represented, the adventures cover a wide field ranging from
Agatha Christie type mysteries to a nursery rhyme simulation,
from a 'Marie Celeste' clone to jungle adventures.
MARLIN MAGIC will cost £6 and DEEP WATERS £8 but members of SCAC
have a £1 discount and there will be a further £1 discount on
either disk for anyone buying before 1st September.
I had a minor moan:- MARLIN MAGIC has to be reset and rebooted
to select a new adventure although DEEP WATERS' games could be
left directly to the main disk menu. However, this apart, both
disks seem excellent value for money to any keen adventurer.
For all SCAC SOFTWARE enquiries, write to:-
Dave Whitmore,
3 Pass Way
Carr Mill
St Helens, LANCASHIRE,
WA11 7HL
Ron Fox, Suffolk.
P.S. I haven't given details of individual adventures because
I'm still playing them, and expect to do so for quite a time!
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SOFTRIX ISSUE 1
- £3.50 - JMP SOFT
Review by Michael Nicholas
If you want a really documented disk magazine, then this is it.
The disk contains a lot of useful programs that can be easily
adapted for your own use. All the programs on the disk are
accompanied by explanation text to tell you exactly what they do
and how they do it.
The programmer explains in the editorial that the disk is used
as a means of passing on tips and tricks on how to use this
machine.
I think the way the magazine is presented is quite good, though
I didn't like the way you had to select the program which you
wanted to load. The program options scroll along at the top of
the screen, the direction is determined by you. So you could
have to wait a long time before the option you wanted scrolled
along, rather than having all the options displayed in front of
you all at once.
I think the best program on the disk is an interupt driven
scroll/roll procedure which is written in machine code. It
allows you to have a number of parts of the screen scrolling all
at once.
Another program which I thought was good was a stepper program,
which lets you step through a program line by line. The line
number and procedures which are currently being executed are
displayed at the bottom of the screen.
There is also another disk which comes in addition to this one
which contains a sampler and samples of music from Queen and
Star Trek. You can get some reasonable results from the sampler
if you have the right equiptment to put the correct level of
sound through the ear socket on the computer i.e HI-FI, Graphic
equalizer, Compact Disc player etc.
Contact: John Pitts at JMP SOFT, 20 STUBBING WAY, SHIPLEY
WEST YORKS. BD18 2EZ
SOFTRIX ISSUE 2
Disk based magazine for the SAM
Softrix Issue two arrived for review. Not another disk based
magazine was my first thought. Bet I've seen all the Screen$
before, probably seen most of the PD progs under one guise or
other as well and I'll have played half the games and built most
of the bloody fractals. What is worse, Dave wants the review by
the 14th AND it's the 1st AND I am busy loading the caravan for
the family hols AND the wife's in a foul humour because I am
SAMMing when I should be packing. OK Softrix impress me!!
Because the contents of every magazine will vary from issue to
issue and depend on what's being submitted by its readership, I
think it is only fair to look at the way it is presented rather
than the quality of the programs it contains.
Softrix has a pleasant enough loading screen and the choices of
where to go to from here are selected by moving a pointer with
the cursor keys and pressing the CNTRL button to select. I found
that I kept wanting to press SPACE or ENTER to select and the
CNTRL was awkward.
As this was the first time I've seen this magazine I don't know
if the initial headings are regular features or are unique to
this issue, but "machine code madness", "back to basics",
"utilitarian suite" and "scribblings" describe what is behind
the headings quite well.
The majority of the magazine is text based with only a very few
programs to run and play about with.
The pages of text are loaded into a text driver program that
bristles with commands that allow you to configure to your own
spec. The bottom two rows of the screen tell you how to key up
or down a page or a line, how to change ink and/or paper
settings, load another text file or to quit back to the main
menu. Pressing the "K" refreshes the bottom two lines with even
more commands. Now you can move to the bottom or top of the
text, return to default colours, redifine the viewing window and
send printer control codes and line feeds. A couple of other
niggly little thimgs I would like to have seen would have been
the chance to control text size and an indication of how many
pages of text were in the section and where I am in it. I can
imagine someone with bad eyesight being annoyed about having to
stare at their screen to read the 80 column "mode three type"
print.
The text content was good and varied. The target audience is
obviously supposed to be very wide. There are simple tips such
as when merging progs merge small ones into big ones to save
time and there are complicated explanations of chunks of machine
code. All in all there is something for everyone, which I like.
It is a pet hate of mine that, as mags develop and computers
have been on the go for a while,there is an expectation on the
part of the editors that everyone has grown up with the machine
and already knows how to ensure that all letters are capitals by
POKEing a particular address! There are still a lot of people
who will benefit from mag contributors getting back to basics
(no pun intended folks).
Don't get me wrong about the content. I said there were not a
lot of proggies to play with. I just mean not as many as are
included in, for example, SAM Supplement or Outlet. The programs
that are there are interesting. Whilst the text covers all
interests, the proggies don't. These are definitely for the
knowledgable. Included on this disk were a Mode switcher, a
screen swapper, a fast disk copier, a pointer generator, to name
but a few. Not a game amongst them....that's not a criticism,
ater all if you want games you can always go out and buy them,
good utilities are always harder to get.
All in all, I think I did like it. I don't know whether I would
subscribe or not though. £3.50 seems awful pricey per disk. If
you're interested in parting with some cash just to see whether
it's your cup of tea or not, Softrix can be got from:
JMP Software
20 Stibbing Way
Shipley
West Yorkshire
BD18 2EZ.
** * ***** * * ****
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______________ISSUE 24_______________
Well here we are again bursting to the brim with SAM specific
news for the merry month of September.
First the SAMCO (deceased ) scene.
The creditors meeting was held on Wednesday 29th July and the
news is as follows:
I really don't think anyone stands a cat in hell's chance of
recovering any money from the creditors as I read it. They went
down to the tune of £97 466. Now thats one heck of a headache.
All is not doom and gloom, people are scrambling to salvage what
they can, and I have heard bits and pieces of news that I cannot
print at present, but the SAM is safe, and who knows, the
support may turn out to be better. this month I have heard of
more software releases than in the past three months. If only I
could tell you what I've heard !
David Ledbury and a team of programmers are expecting to start
work on a new SAM game very shortly, at present it's called
Manic Mansion but this may change. It's hoped it will be a Jet
Set Willy type of clone. As yet no firm release date is
available but rest assured once I know you will know. Thanks for
your continued support for SAM, David.
Another Dave now, this time Dave Hood of Betterbytes fame, who
wrote some really spectacular software for the Spectrum and it
was hoped would support the SAM, has given up writting for both
machines and moved on to the PC. He blames paging problems for
leaving the SAM and the much bigger market for PC software and
says if you ever buy a PC look out for Betterbytes software.
After last month's news of the spellchecker, Colin McDonald has
sent me details and pretty impressive it looks too. Features
include :- over 80,000 words, anagram solver, crossword solver,
built in fully functional word processor, 100% machine code,
personal dictionary, autocheck- spell checks as you type and it
will accept files from Outwrite, Tasword and the Secretary plus
all the usual features like add, ignore and change a word and
many more. Its scheduled release date is 15th August, the price
£14.99
Fred publishing also plan to release SIX more titles in the next
month or so, Full details should appear in Fred 24.
Many thanks Colin for your continued support for SAM.
Still on the subject of spellcheckers, there is one in ENCELADUS
issue 9. It's an intelligent one which enables you to add words
to it as you go along. It'swell worth a look. Available from:
Enceladus
6 Rawlins Avenue
Weston super mare
Avon BS22 0FN
And yet more news on spell ckeckers. Chezron Software are
shortly to launch the rapidly becoming SAM standard word
processor, OUTWRITE version 2. This sounds simply amazing and is
supposed to knock version one, excellent as it was, into a
cocked hat (my words not theirs). It, too, comes with a spell
checker that includes 7000 words on a 256k Sam and 33000 words
on a 512k Sam.
There are lots and lots of added features that are far too
numerous to mention here, the package also includes a new 20
page manual. The price for existing owners who wish to upgrade
their version 1 is a mere £3.00 and that includes the manual,
you must send your original copy of Outwrite with your order.
For those not upgrading the price is £15.00 its a snip !.
Chezron say they are putting version 2 through its final tests
and orders may be placed now but please allow 28 days for
delivery in the first month. Unlike other companies I have known
I am sure they will stick to their word. For more details
contact : Chezron Software
605 Loughborough Road
Birstall
Leicester LE4 4NJ.
More software news this time in the shape of THE MOUSE DISK.
This is a compilation of programs for use with the SAMco mouse,
the disk contains mouse information and a basic driver with a
difference, also on the disk are Pacman, Space invaders and Nuke
There is also a version of FLASH which makes FULL use of the
mouse. Also THE COLOURING BOOK. This program lets you colour
screens by using 15 colour pens. Also on the disk are 30 turtle
screens. The program has an auto colour mode so you can let the
program colour your pictures for you, there is an erase mode
that will un colour your pictures so you can start again if you
want to. The colouring book works with the Mouse, Joystick or
keyboard.
THE SAM JIGSAW DISK.On this disk you will find 42 screens that
are re-arranged to form a jigsaw (this is not a slidy game),
there are four modes of play from easy to hard, and to add even
more interest some screens have palette scrolling. Controls are
Mouse, Joystick and keys.
The Mouse Disk, Colouring Book, and Jigsaw Disk are £5.00 each
and are written by Dylan Kevin Hall (Colony software) of
Australia and are available from:
Derek Morgan
18 Mill Lane
Glenburn road
Old Skelmsdale
Lancashire WN8 8RH
The next piece of software, also available from Derek,is a
WIMPS utility. This program is a must for anyone who likes to
keep their disks orederly. The program works best with MasterDOS
but will work with SAMDOS and still show sub-directories. 1&2MB
memory and two disk drives are catered for.
The WIMPS utility was written by Paul Skinner of New Zealand and
as stated above, available from Derek Morgan at the above
address for just £6.50. I am told there is quite a meaty manual
with this program and that'7 why it's slightly dearer than the
others.
Derek has also asked me to mention The Sound Digitiser program
that he has been selling for quite a time now, is still
available and is also priced at £5.00.
There, who said that SAM would die if SAMCo went bust !
And one more final word on spell checkers, Les is about to put
his brain into spell check mode and sort this lot out. Good Luck
Les !. (I do my best!!....Les).
Don't forget If you have any news or If you are writing
software or building hardware for SAM, tell me and I will tell
the world!
Bye for now, Steve.
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