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SMUG BYTES *

Volume 5, Number 4 * APRIL 1988 *

Subscriptions- $10.00/year x or free with swap. Send to: * *

SINCLAIR MILWAUKEE USERS GROUP * P.O. Box 101 Butler, WI 53007 *

THIS MONTH: — Bill On MSCRIPT — PC8300 Visted - DR. Dreger* - Rudy's "SQ" NOTES — Presidents Message — And Other Great Things

If any articles are copied please credit SMUG Bytes

* x + + + x* x* HE x*

Send all contributions by the first day of the month to:

* * * Bill Heberlein * Editor * SMUG BYTES ki 5052 N. 91st Street. * Milwaukee, WI 53225 *

Fok kK KKK KOKO OK OOK Ok kk Ok Ok Ok kk k

SMUG Bytes

1988 OFFICERS & WORKING MEMBERS

All Area Codes Are 414 President - N. Schultz — 353 4522 V. Pres. - W. Heberlein — 527 2191 Secretary - L. Dreger — 321 0694 Treasurer - J. Frohboese — 377 1385 Education - R. Cultice — 542 3591

— Librarians Tape/Disk - E. Pawloski — 1 338 0260 Book - D. Nickels ` — 1 284 9691

— Sub Group Leaders Games — N. Schultz — 353 4522 Meeting on 3rd Sat. of the month. Hardware — G. Kraemer — 421 0179 No set date. Call for info. Spectrum - R. Hilsmann — 251 5291 Meeting on 3rd Wed. of the month. RP/M - R. Cultice

— 542 3591 Meeting on 4th Wed. of the month. QL — R. Hilsmann

= 2951 5291

Meeting date see Spectrum group.

1988

(NOTE NEITHER ANY AUTHOR OR SMUG BYTES TAKE ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY HARDWARE MODIFICATIONS TO YOUR EQUIPMENT.)

Bill on MSCRIPT

As I said last month I wanted to back up my print page but my printer, the Gemini 10X, doesn't have the capability. Well I found a good deal on the Star NX-15, which does have the capability and also has a 15" carrage, so this issue is printed on the new printer.

Some of the printer codes required some changes to my old printer codes. Also the overflow from page to page did not work. After two days I got it working. Now no more "cut and paste" for the columns of the newsletter. The secret was to change the page length to 66 and the page spacing to 0. I now have to count 66 lines myself to get page overflow but it works!

Tune in next month.

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April 1988

West Allis WI 53227

2 SMUG Bytes

"SA" NOTES

BY R.A.HILSMANN

This month I have a new program for you, something which I had been working on in the past, but put aside after seeing a program called "DOSDEX" published in January's TS-2068 UP-DATE. It looked like someone had done the job already. After taking a closer look at DOSDEX the other week, I found that DOSDEX was not what I had in mind. so here is the "DISK LIBRARY"

DISK LIBRARY will not just list programs for LOAD, it will do a lot more, as you will notice. It's MENU driven. and should be easy to use. I hope when I reentered it, making changes as I went along, I did not enter to many bugs. I have checked it as much as I could in the short time I had to get it ready for SMUG BYTES. So watch the next issues of this News-Letter for updates.

Below is a screen copy of the menu, which should give you a good idea of what this program will do. especially #9, which should help me clean up my Disk Garbage that has accumulated over the years.

Sorry about the sorting, it's in basic, maybe I will write a sorting routine in MC. Again, watch this column for further updates.

LIBRARY FILE: LIBR Hi fÀGÓQXtXXXtfXitiXxiffkbrkr ftf

& LOAD A PROGR. IH LIBR.

& LOAD PROGR. IN LIBRARY 3i ENTER A DISK TO THE LIBRARY

4} DELETE A DISK IN THE LIBRARY

SMUG Bytes

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SMUG Bytes

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2: LET &S5-&5-i: LET “D=oK-1 3180 CLS : PRINT "1-PHGIHG s ENT ER=HOUE 4ZERO=EXITFILE- NAHE TYF E DISK-HRHHE"^"xx PiirfigiiiriiririX 32323X432222212221" : GO SUB S88: LET

=Y: GO TO UAL “aire”

S110 LET G=3: LET H=1: FOR ~I TO J: PRINT AT 6,8; INVERSE i; GUE R 1;B£$: PAUSE 8: LET üG-CODE INKE Y: IF G-zi3 THEN GO SUB UAL "ass

$120 IF @=48 THEN GO To uni "za" Sis IF @=42 THEN LET Asd4¢i: LET KzK4258: GG ii GO SUB Si 5@: GO TO 323 $148 PRINT AT

sa SUB S218:

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SMUG Bytes

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84808 REST O 23758645 sT x: FOR S588 DATA i = 4,2,25,235, i: 2,276,398 ,16; 6 235,17,4,0, i g3?,175,z2z2: 5 @,4,23,25,4: F 25,34,85,

Now what. Just following the prompts will keep you out of trouble I hope, but here a few hints to get you started. Initialize the program after you have it all entered with "RUN 9400". this will put the machine code into the REM line and also change line 10 to line Ø, this is the same machine code you'll find

in the menu loader, but shorter, it's almost the same code as used in another famous menu loader,

Sorry, but there is only one way to do it. As they say in Wisconsin: “there is only one way to milk a cow, you have to...." But thats another story.

Make sure the DATA line is entered correctly, otherwise you may get a crash when you run the program. Be sure you save the program before you run lit.

Option 3) Will add a diskfile to the library.

Option 4)

Will delete all files with the same disk-name of your choice (in the library only of course).

April 1988

Option 5) Will update a disk file by deleting it first and then reloading the new diskfile.

Option 1)

Will search for a given program name and give you the option to load same program.

Option 2)

If in doubt about the name of a program, this option will list the disk library files, and lets you load the program after you located it:

Option 6)

Will sort all disk files into alphabetic order. This may take a while, depending on the size of the file, so be prepared, have a Beer, or go play 9 holes of golf. Nah, not quite that bad. but it's basic alright.

Option 7) Will give you the choice of either loading or saving library data.

Option 8)

Will Lprint all files to either the Timex 2040 or a Centronic type printer. On line 8030 you may enter any printer codes you prefer.

Option 9)

Tired of the slush on your disks, take a new disk, put it into one of your drives (two are needed), hit 9, and presto, you may now scroll through all the files pressing enter to move one, two, or twenty programs, data etc. on to a new disk. Yes you could make some disks for all the slush too. This option could prove to be the answer to the missing delete command on Oligers system, dont delete, regenerate. Still the best System around though, (geez I would hate to use "Print #4").

This program thas been written for your 2068 being in the SPECTRUM MODE, utilizing the SDOS system by JOHN OLIGER. Diehard Timex fans

April 1988

will have to change Line 97400, to read; RESTORE 9500: FOR X=26715 TO 26715+63: READ B: POKE X,B: NEXT X: POKE 23711,0

To use this program RUN it. If you have data present, and the pro- gram should give you an error re- port, GO TO SQ, gets you back to the MENU. If your moving data from disk to disk and have the wrong disk in a drive will give you an error too, enter CONTINUE after in- serting the right disk.

If your too tired or lazy to enter this program yourself, send $ 5 for postage & handling to...

R.A. Hilsmann * - P.O. BOX 45 Menomonee Falls.Wi. 53091, and I will send you a Cassette. Li:

ADDENDUM'S * FIXES (BLOOPERS)

Last month I added paging to the Menu Program which I published some time ago, but files are not paged in correct order after one moves the cursor down and then hits. the paging key. Change line 35, to read "IF 0-49 THEN LET A=J+1:". Also add to line 7@ a PAUSE statement to prevent the cursor from scrolling past the first item on the next page when scrolling through a page. 70 PAUSE 2: LET G=3: Also IF F-I»- 18 THEN LET J=J+18:..to LET J=J+19.

Well that's it for now, next month I will give you another goody. A program I was forced to write, because I accidentally star- ted formating the wrong disk, while debugging this program.

It will not restore a totally wiped out disk nor does it restore a disk, period, but it will let you retrieve intact data on a disk.

Till next month & 3

SMUG Bytes

The PC8300 Computer by Dr. Lloyd Dreger

Ah so, the TS1000/ZX81 has a clone, and like all good clones it comes from the exact, complete with a Chinese manual. No, you really don't have to learn Chinese to read the manual

as all the examples should be quite familar to the TS1000 ZX81 user as they are directly from that computer's manual. Other than the additional commands and the appendixes if you do machine code, you can use your TS/ZX manual. It

might be a computer built by the Chinese but it still functions with only good old English commands. Imagine those poor Chinese having to learn English to use the PC8300. in fact, somebody has already written an English version of the manual. Well, for $24.95 it's still the cheapest computer available.

Ihave read all the articles written on the PC8300 so far and everyone is missing the point of writing an

article. IT CAN BE USED BY AMERICANS. Yes, the 16k RAM pack and the 2040 thermal printer are completely compatible. No, the 64k Memoteck RAM is't compatible. In addition, you get a rubberized keyboard and each key giving a

distinct tone when pressed. No, you don't have to hunt for the right token key to press but merely type out all the keywords when you enter a line. You can skip all the spaces between words as the PC8300 parser will sort them out and tokenize them for you. Sorry, but it still is only one command to a line.

In addition you get outputs for both the TV (channels 3 & 4) and a monitor. You also get a joystick Plug but as far as I can surmise no way of using it as there is no BASIC programable STICK command. A quick look at the appendix of the Chinese manual shows that they have shifted some of the tokens to different values which means that using TS1000/ZX81 programs directly

is going to run into problems-unless you edit down those

SMUG Bytes

Orient-Hong Kong to be.

lines containing these keywords and reenter them before trying to run programs. Of course any machine

code calling ROM routines isn't going to run as well. That in essence is what other articles talked about.

One very important thing everyone forgot to mention is that although the PC8300 requires the sane power as the TS1000/ZX81 and even uses the same type of jack they have reversed the polarity of the

terminals so that if you accidently Plug your old power supply into the PC8300 its goodbye computer.

Nobody mentioned the fact that we no longer have to deal with a squished floating screen when running short of memory. Machine

code writers will remember that the Dfile was in back of the Basic program listing so as the program length changed so did the starting address of the screen. Then when you had less then 3.5k of memory, the display used only the. minimum amount of space by taking out .all the unused bytes. The PC8300 still comes with the 2k of memory that we knew with the TS1000. The Display file starts where the Basic program used to start and is followed by the Basic program at 17302. This, if you use code in line 1 of a Basic listing it would start at 17307. However, RAMTOP can be lowered, together with the hanging stack pointer so that code could be poked above ramtop as in the 2068. Unfortunately, no means can be used to save such code to tape.

Several other things are changed as

well. The error codes are no longer numbered but two character abbreviations of what they are which makes it easier to memorize than the numbers. I guess they expect the Chinese to play Space

Invaders as some of the gray scale graphics have given way to these monsters and some diagonal graphics instead. It's a shame as these monsters have no meaning in

1988

serious computering. Also, the ? and apostrophe are also gone while the #, *, @ and & are still missing. Several new commands have been added. Line No. allows for automatic line numbering. Beep and Nobeep are for the sound together

with Sound, Music and Tempo. Dispite Chinese, the manual is explicit enough to learn these

commands with ease.

Saving and loading programs no longer has the helpful lines across the screen to help adjust the volume of your tape recorder which is a handicap.

I have not fully disassembled the ROM as yet Dut with these changes it has been extensively revised. Very little is the same and everything is revised. Nothing is in the same location. Just the Parsing of the edit line would take extensively more memory. The new command would also take some more memory. Dispite this there is still 500 bytes of unused ROM in that

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April 1988

D t DGs with the built in UDG design mode. You will have your choice of type styles and fonts to choose fron. You can even install a scrolli

message with extra large letters! A great attention ge for ads, promotions of shows. You will be amazed at how simple this program is to use! Many built in commands like

All in all, the definite improvment over the old TS1000 and the 2ZX81, ‘and just imagine if it catches on in China. With 4 times as many peoples as the US, and all of them learning English computering, they could well catch up in no time at all. We really didn't completely exhaust all the possibilities of the old ZX81 before the 2068 came along and almost everyone switched. With the new keyboard and some adaptations of old peripherals it could have a come back.

PC8300 is a

FROM THE PRES. There is another happening nearby. The Cleveland group is sponsering one August 26 & 27. For more on this see the SLUG newsletter.

computerfest

Ham and Computer fests comming up Sat. May 7, Circle B Recreation Center, Cedarburg Hy 60 & County I

Saturday May 14, Manitowoc county Expo, Manitowoc 8am - ? SMUG Bytes

e. N. U. G. Sinclair Northamerica Users Group

During one of the organizational meetings of the recent Sunstate Timex/Sinclair Winterfest '88, the idea of a National organization for the advancement of Sinclair computing came up. It was decided that since we had developed a "core group" that was dedicated to Promoting Sinclair computing, we would attempt to lay the groundwork for such an organization. It was also mentioned that the greater the amount of time from the departure of Timex from the computer industry, the less of an active market would result. Since we would have users from across the nation at the fest, it would be an ideal time to make our plans known. So, the Sinclair Northamerica Users Group, or SNUG (a name submitted to us by John Cushran, and later modified by Bill Jones) was starting to come closer to reality.

WHAT IT IS

The intent of SNUG is to provide a forum for exchange of ideas. It would be a source of information, such as a listing of active members, active Users Groups, Sinclair specific Bulletin Boards, and active library of Public Domain software, and a listing of available shareware and freeware. Later on we hope to propose an industry wide standard of hardware and software compatability. So as not to have to reinvent the wheel, and to do this in the shortest amount of time, we going to try and use an already established National group, such as CORSA (Corvair Owners Assn.) as a model to base our group on. SNUG would act as an umbrella Organization, with Regions being developed to tie in with established groups in those areas.

SMUG Bytes

WHAT IT ISN'T

It is the intent of the organizers NOT to infringe or supercede any already established User Group or Vendor. It is intended to show some

strength to the industry that Sinclair is not dead, and the mere fact that we can get this

Organization together will prove that we can stick together and grow and prosper. We look at this as an enhancement to activities that have been planned on. Hopefully a Northamerican Calendar of events could be established to help co-ordinate any future plans and events. It is not designed to take anything away from anyone.

WHAT TO DO

We need the support of EVERY SINGLE SINCLAIR USER ! Whether you reside in Canada, the U.S., Mexico or for that matter anywhere, we need to know how you feel and what you want in this Organization. This is. your opportunity to be heard ... your comments, critisms, complaints, or praises. What we have here is nothing more than an idea. Nothing at this time is set in concrete. We are more than open to suggestions. To make it work, these ideas of yours have to be forwarded immediately. We are putting on a time limit until June 30, 1988. If there is no support, then we will not proceed further. If there is input, we will update on a monthly basis to whoever will put the information in print. So, lets hear from you soon!

Temporary contact for information- Mel Nathanson, 7515 Arbordale Dr., Port Richev, Florida 34668.

(813) — 863 — 5552

1988

(NICE TRY GUYS, But | TAIS TIME I DIDN'T

There it is! The man in Your program that caused all

of those problems! 22m ed Computer Store BYTES For Not-So-New computers —————

2 SAVE THE HASSLE, have 2nd BYTES sell your " unused " computer, peripherals and software — We are in the Business to sell your computer.

* SAVE MONEY, buy your computer, peripheral and software at 2nd BYTES.

* SAVE TIME, have our professional consultants essit you in finding the computer and the Programs for your needs.

- We are in the business to help you select an inexpensive system.

* WARRANTY, on almost all equipment we sell. - We service what we sell

774-1155 9721 W. Greenfield Ave. West Allis. WI 53214

April 1988 10 SMUG Bytes