SINC - LINK

1988 Vol. É No. |

STN. LING I5 A PUBLICATION OF THE TORONT TIE:-SINCLRIR RSS CLUE AND IS ISSUED t TIMES A YEAR. COPIES OF THE NEWSLETTER ARE $1.50 EACH FOR r CH-MEMBERS, CLUE MEMBER: RECETVE A FREE CORY AS PART OF THE SE, ₪ MEMBERSHIP FEE,

NEWSLETTERS ARE EXCHANGED, FREE OF CHARGE, WITH OTHER TIPEI-SINCLRIR USERS eed:

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Attention: SINC-LINK Editor TORONTO TIMEX-SINCLAIR USERS CLUB P.0. Box 7274 Stn. A, Toronto M5W 1X9

EXECUTIVE OFFICERS

PRESIDENT ED MAYPEE

VICE PRESIDENT: JEFF TAYLOR TREASURER: BILL LAWSON SECRETARY: GEORGE CHAMBERS ACTIVITIES DIRECTOR: RENE BRUNEAU TAPE LIBRARIAN 28453: REMATO ZANNESE TAPE LIBRARIAN 2%01: RENE BRUNEAU SAFER LIBRARIAN: TOM AROELLA NEWSLETTER: HELP WANTED

JAN - FEB

of Contents

Neus from the VP Bob's Notebook Sinc Bits

Color Mscript Autoload Menu ZX81 Eprom Board TS in Portugal GL Tips

Disking with Jou Larken Load/Save

TORONTO TIMEX - SINCLAIR USERS CLUB

P. O. Box 7274 Stn. A Toronto, Ont.,

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MSW IX9

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Taylor Mitchell Robertson Taylor Zannese Bruneau 5XY (who 7) Chambers Zannese Chambers Mitchell

Message from the Vice-President By Jeff Taylor

Welcome 1988! This year should be eventful for the Toronto TS Users Club. A neu executive was formed Just prior to the end of 1987 and our first executive meet ing, January 20th, proved to be most fruitful. There will be some format and procedure changes that will benefit both you and the club.

First of all, you should know that the club meets on the first Wednesday of every month at Forest Hills Collegiate Institute, 730 Eglinton Ave. West Capprox. 1/4 mile east of Bathurst). Meeting times are from 2:00pm to 9:30pm with the session being called to order at 7:30. This neu start time is to enable us to conduct the usual opening remarks and stiil haue time to complete demonstrations and any other business which may arise.

Your club treasurer, Bill Lawson, informs us that the TTSUC has a healthy bank balance and that the transfer of signing authorities C3 signatures required) went smoothly.

George Chambers, the club secretary, Liaison officer and chief mover & shaker tells us that the out-of-town membership is quite healthy so why isn't the השס:-ה!‎ membership? To this end I've been calling our delinquent members to Inform them of the changes in the club and to get them back out to meetings. Do you know of anyone who might have lost interest? Invite them to the next meeting Cit's freel).

Newsletter Editor Greg Lloyd wants your articles, tips and reviews. They can be on any topic relating to Timex-Sinciair products and they don't have to be full Length dissertations, Just a few lines will do. Text from any printer Cincluding the TS2040) is acceptable as long as !t can be photocopied onto an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet. Give it a try, we'd like to read your comments, opinions or anything you've heard or read from other sources.

Demonstrations for the ZX81/TS1008 , TS2068/Spectrum and QL are being scheduled and a list of upcoming demos will appear in the next issue of Stne-Link. Our activities director assures us that he has lots to show you, Do you have something you'd like to show or demo? Speak to Rene Bruneau. He'll be happy to schedule it for you.

Tape librarians, Renato Zannese CTS2868) and Rene Bruneau (2X81) are compiling new listings of their respective Libraries and you're sure to be amazed at all the new tapes available for’ you to borrow. Reg Cottle CQL) has compiled a listing too and you can make arrangements with him to transfer data on microtapes.

Paper librarian Tom Aroella has made a list of all the printed material available to club members. Speak to him about that book or magazine you're Looking for in our extensive library.

Some of the other activities to watch for: Teaching seminars for you of member-requested topics by our resident experts Cwatch for a schedule of seminars in Sine-Link), Articles chronicling the history of our club, Question & Answer section in the newsletter and a Swap & Sell event at the May 4th meeting.

President Ed Maybee and I hope that together we can all keep this club Viable, interesting and enjoyable. We need your help to do so. Take an act! Interest and you'll get far more out . thts club than you'd have ever thought possible.

SINC-LINK

BOB’S NOTEBOOK

PRO/FILE 2068 REVISITED 871012

Tom Woods’ file management program (PRO/FILE) with the machine code sort included (BREAKTHROUGH: Upgrade for Pro/file 2068 Issue #1) is a very acceptable program for information storage and retrieval. The upgrade gives the added advantage of a fairly fast machine code sort. Those of you who have not tried it should write to Tom at PO Box 64, Jefferson NH, 03583 USA and order a copy. But for those who already have the upgraded version, here are some notes on using it and, of course, tailoring it to suit individual needs. I modified the BASIC to work with the Larken DOS (ie, LKDOS). This version uses Peter Hacksel's printer interface code which George Chambers had imbedded into the profile machine code. George and | worked on some other changes which are included below..

1. Me changed the SAVE routine to save DATA onlu. This reauired saving the value of p (the length of current data) in the array. Why save the whole program when only variable p had to be kept. So, the SAVE routine became:

107>IF x$="SAVE"THEN RANDOMIZE p:LET d$(LEN d$-1)-CHR$ PEEK VAL "23570" :LET d$(LEN d$)= CHR$ PEEK VAL "23671' RANDOMITE USR VAL "100 "SAVE f$". AS" DATA D$():60 TO PI/PI

This puts the value of p at the tail end of d$ and this is decoded on LOAD as follows:

551U^ INK 7:CLS :RANDOMIZE USR 100:CAT *.4$',

5520 POKE VAL "23658",NOT PI: PRINT AT 16,1; PAPER 5; INK O;'WHAT FILE NAME DO YOU WISH "SAT 17,15" TO LOAD “和 INPUT F$: PRINT f$: RANDOMIZE USR 100: LOAD F$*'.A$* DATA D$O 5530 LET p=(CODE d$(LEN d$-1)+CODE d$(LEN d$) *256): POKE VAL '23558',VAL "8": GO TO 1

Line 5510 displays the part of the disk catalog with .A$ extensions. Line 5520 LOADS the array and 5530 decodes the value of p from the last tuo butes of d$.

2. You can size an array differently from the original (ie, 28020) and SAVE the array. This will be taken into account when you LOAD it, despite the DIM tatement in LINE 9996, To change the array size for a SAVE, alter DIM d$(2B020) to whatever you want: do a CLEAR and GO TO 9996. Select "'C' and create a ney file. Here is the new listing from 9990 to end.

9990>CLEAR VAL "34000": BORDER NOT PI:PAPER NO

T PI:INK NOT PI:RANDOMIZE USR 102

9992 CLEAR VAL '63487": RANDOMIZE USR 100: LO

AD "profil.C1"CODE : REM Includes LPRINT à 6

5000

9991 POKE VAL "24704", VAL "254": POKE VAL "65

535", NOT PI

9994 PRINT AT VAL '5*,VAL "B"; PAPER PI/PI; I

NK VAL *7";** PRO/FILE 2068 *';AT VAL "7",VA

L "4": PAPER NOT PI;'1984 Bu THOMAS B, WOOD "SAT VAL "10* ,VAL "11"; INK VAL סי‎

ox 64* 3AT VAL "11",VAL "6°; INK VAL °6°3"Jef

ferson, N.H. 03583"

9996 DIM d$(28020): LET p=20: LET d$(1 TO 20)

="#SEARCH IS COMPLETE*': LET a$='1/2/3/0": L

ET c$z'': FOR x=1 TO 3: LET c$=c$+CHR$ :א‎ NE XT x: LET c$=c$+CHR$ 0: LET s=0

9997 POKE VAL '23558',VAL "8": PRINT AT 19,25 INK 73'Press''C'" to CREATE a neu file or **L'* to LOAD an existing one": INPUT uf: P RINT AT 19,0:D$(100 TO 164): IF y$="L" THEN G0 TO 5510

9998 PRINT AT 19,4: INK 7;"ENTER A NAME FOR T

HIS FILE": INPUT F$: IF f$="" OR LEN f$210 T

HEN GO TO 9998

9999 GO TO 1

J. The machine code sort is very good. It does have one annoyance and that is! unless you are printing a copy of the data, you have to sit with your finger on the ENTER key until the sort is done and this can take a few minutes. Here is the mod to let you go for a coffee while the machine does its thing.

5200 זם‎ a=1:LET sfs=O:PRINT AT 14,0;PAPER 0;

INK 73'PRINT OUT? (Y/N) s 44444: INPUT. YS:LET

Por TIENE Y THEN INPUT “Superfast sort? l=

yess(ü-no''sfs

202*IF Y=0 AND sfsTHEN CLS :G0 TO 7000

. 7203 IF Y=0 AND NOT sfs THEN GO TO 1050

7221 IF INKEY$<>"* THEN GO TO 1

With these changes, PRO/FILE should meet the needs of the most exacting users. Saving just the array saves disk space; the AUTOSEARCH routine is easier to use}

. the appropriate part of the disk catalog is displayed

for your LOAD selection.

R.H.Mitchell

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255 [an Robertson UPDATES It's been a while since [ have turned on nu 2008 and used Tasuord. Seems to be a familiar refrain. Last sunmer mu QL was off for so long that the battery, on my battery backed clock, died of boredom. Maybe it is true that if you don’t use it, you lose it! Sure is a shame that earning a living interferes with ones hobbies! Of interest to ALL TS Users is the Florida Winterfest, to be held March 4,5 and 6 in Orlando Florida. Those lucky enough to be able to attend will be able to combine both a TS and a regular vacation. Just to ensure that this column is a true computer oriented coluan I am sending it to Greg via the 2050 and he will print it out using his printer. Isn’t that what everybody daes? SPECTRUM The ever popular game ‘Guess What The Next Spectrum Will Be Like” is still being played, with glee, in the UK. The latest guess is that a SPECTRUM +4 will hit the marketplace soon and that it will probably have a proper Sinclair edge connector, Thus making it compatible with everything prior to the SPECTRUM +3 (which is not compatible). The SPECTRUM +1 apparently does not like having another 3° drive attached - you can copy from drive 1 to 2 but not the other way. There is also a list of standard SPECTRUM +3 bugs being circulated. As 1 keep saying ay SPECTRUM 128 looks better all the time, especially with a MULTIFACE 128 attached to IFl and the 2 microdrives. But, I an still looking for a used BETA 128 DDI, if anyone has one for sale. Believe it or not, there may yet be SPECTRUM Clones available, with 32K ROM ,128K RAM (8x16 pages) 180R (6MHZ), a proper keyboard and lots of ports. One manufacturer already has a working prototype. I have seen some local interest in BETA BASIC and rightly so as it is quite advanced compared to Sinclair Basic. Well Andrew Wright, creator of Peta Basic, is purported ta be a consultant for the Clone Basic. Where do: I send my money?? Have been playing around with THE RAM MUSIC MACHINE and can say without fear of contradiction that this is one sweet 'cpaplete home coomputer music sustem'. That is the way RAM ELECTRONICS describes their own product. If I had any musical talent I would probably disagree (someuhat) with this hyperbole, but, since I am one of those people that say '[ only know that I like it* - that is the best decription. A sound sampler and a vivid imagination gives a user hours of enjoyment! If anyone has both the Beta Disk interface and THE LAST WORD, there is a new and improved version of TLW that is being marketed by TROJAN PRODUCTS at 164 Derlwyn, Swansea SA2 7TF UK, for approx '15.09 (sterling). A German company is marketing a replacement ROM for the BETA Plus interface that uses pull down menus. It’s on order, so I should know all about it by the next issue. . 2058 One very important piece of 2048 news is that TS 2968 UP-DATE, published by Bill Jones 1317 Stratford Ave, Panama City FL 32484, seems to be a sucess, with over 140 subscribers, as af end of Nov. last year. With

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all the magazines and newsletters that have hit the dust it sure is nice to see the birth of a new aie. By far the most important piece of news pertains to George Chambers. He has made MTERM II into a disk interactive program and it now operates the way ee always thought it should. See the article in TS-UPDATES. Also of note is the Jack Dohany Mscrip modifications that are custom for your setup. Jack is also marketing a version of Profile and VuCalc for full size printer. Qu

Lots of activity in this section. I still marvel at being able to buy serious application software and at having this software upgraded on a continuing basis. Imagine - a market that is not 99.9% games oriented! New software includes SPEEDSCREEN - which as the title suggests, speeds up your screen presentations, by augmenting the video RAM - FLASHBACK - < advertised as being a flexible database and was written by the author of TASKMASTER and SPELLBOUND -TEXT87 - a WYSIWYG word processor, but don’t buy it yet as I placed an order Sept 38th and have not received to date, I have written to them and expect an answer soon. While talking to Tom Bent, Quanta Librarian and editor of QUANTUM LEVELS, I was advised NOT to buy or recomend the SCHON REPLACEMENT KEYBOARD. Tom took his apart and noted the keyboard traces are simply silver paint sprayed in place and that the key contacts are copper. Two things wrong (1)the board cannot be repaired and (2) the two metals are not compatible (remember your physics). That is why owners of this keyboard (myself included) get all those repeat keypresses on the screen. While on the subject bounce, OL World is selling a keyboard Controller Chip (really a V1.2 8049, IC24). While it does nothing for a QL with a Schon, it does seem to control bounce on a stock OL. Now, on to hardware etc. How about instaliing a SPDT microswitch on your 14K eprom cartridge. It is simple to do and allows you to disable this Power hungry device, before energizing your QL. Simply cut the trace between pin & of the 78LS10 and pin 22 of the eprom, then solder a (short as possible) wire from pin 22 of the eprom to the centre post of the SFDT switch. Next, solder a wire from pin ^ of the 750818 to one side of the switch and lastly solder another wire from pin z8 (*3v) of the eprom to the other side of the SPDT,but this wire must have 2.2k resistor in it's circuit. The switch and resistor can be purchased at Radio Shack. Anyone for 3 1/2 ' drives? Steals on Steeles, a local Computer Suupermarket, is selling a Panasonic DSDD 88 track 135tpi as a kit for installation in a 5 175 * IPM drive case. It comes with an adapter for installation in a 5 1/4 ' case, a power adapter cable and a J4 conductor ribbon cable with 5 connectors. Mine installed as drive 1 and the 5 connectors off the cable and in my connectors off the cable to be used at a later date. The price is $149 ($128 US). Now for my latest goodie - Tony Tebbu's Eprom Programmer. I have read all the hype and digested it with a grain of salt. But, I am happy to sau, all the hype is true. This device looks like a QL disk

interface with an outboard ZIF socket, where the ₪ 5

n 1 BRIGHT O: BORDER 3: FAFER 5: INE 1 2 DRAW 255.0: DRAW 0.175: DRAW -255.0: DRAW O.-175: 3 PRINT AT 3,.19s "Directory" 10 FOR n=4 TO 13 STEP ₪ ii REM line 10 is amount of programs on disks 15 READ at 20 FRINT AT .ה‎ 5% 5ש‎ NEXT n 24 PRINT AT 20,3s"Enter=Select &-doun 7=up" 30 DATA "Jet Set Willy"."Enight Lore"."Highway Encounter". "Skool Daze". "Sabote ur" "Gyroscope". "Dynamite Dan" 31 REM line ZO is name of programs. Change titles for different games. zz REM maximum amount is 7 SO LET r=4 55 PRINT AT raits ">" 60 IF INKEYS$z"" THEN Go TO 40 45 LET m$=INEEY$: LET pr=r IF m$=CHRS 13 THEN fo כ‎ 0 IF "5="6ה‎ THEN LET r-zr*2 IF m$="7" THEN LET ש-959‎ IF rZ& OR rèk THEN FAUSE Z: FRINT AT preits "s GO TO 30 FAISE ₪: PRINT AT pr.&:" "5 GO TO 325 rt FRINT "Loading Jet Set Willy" 165 REM Disk Command + Screens Command כ‎ STOR ₪5 * PRINT "Loading knight Lore" REM Disk Command + Screen Command STOF CLS * PRINT "Loading Highway Encounter" REM Disk Command + Screens Command

=: + PRINT "Loading Skool Daze" REM Disk Command + Zcreent Command

STOR

CLG FRINT “Loading Saboteur"

REM Disk Command + Screens Command

= TOF

RLS : FRINT "Loading Gyroscope"

REM Disk Command + Screens Command.

STUF

CLS +: FRINT "Loading Dynamite Dan"

REM Disk Command + Screens Command

ST Oe

| STOP

REM Autoload Save

CLEAR 32000: RESTORE 2050: FOR 23276=ה‎ TO Z3304: READ at PORE nsa* NEXT n RANDOMIZE WSR 23296

RANDOMIZE JSR 100: OREN #4. "dd": Go TO 1

O TATA ZOE. 102 0 LZ. 3.0, 211-244: 201

2060 REM Run only when the directory has the proper load commands

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Coloured Text Printouts with MSCRIPT

Jeff Taylor

In the previous couple of issues 1 have reviewed an interface and software designed to produce colour plots by mating a TS2068 to a Commodore VIC-1528 colour plotter/printer. For the utility user, John McMichael has produced a Program called CMS/152@ which enables you to use the 1520's colour printer capabili ities along with the power of Customized MSCRIPT.

Now you can produce text in four colours Cblue, black, red or green), four character sizes (10,20,48,80cpil, underlined and rotated all with the ease that MSCRIPT US or 5.2 allows you.

As a printer the 1520 is certainly adequate. As you can see in this revieu, it produces an easy-reading character set that is actually drawn on the paper with ink pens (no more worries about printer ribbonsi).

The instructions to load CMS/152@ are remarkably simple. First, load Customized MSCRIPT versions 5 or 5.2, br xk into basic, load CMS/1520 code, ec . one line and add four pokes, then RUN. The printer is now ready to display anything you type by using the functions offered in MSCRIPT. There are no other changes required and there are even five new characters availiable beyond the TS2068 set.

Anyone using the TS2068/1520 combination uiil welcome CMS/1520 as a necessary addition to their word-processing capabilities.

For more information contact:

Mr. John McMichael

1718 Palmer Drive,

Laramie, Wyoming, USA, 82078

Here is a simple program a person can use to make a autoload directory program. It is set up for 7 games and there loading screens. This is for the new Larken Disk users who have a regular D.5.D.D. disk drive. which formats to 407600 bytes per disk. Once all the proper loading names have been changed, you can type GOTO 2000.

All loading instructions are on the program. See By Renato Zannese 5

SiNCBITS CoN'T

Mose fa Miele haps foi

wes tions

Do you have a guestion

about TS COUNPÀITers?

Free cie

Send questions to the Sinc-Link Editor Answers will be

in the

issue

printed following

RRSMETS

crore pa Meer bape fei

is on internallu item is worth the increasing price. $2.55 Canadian, it is that all UK purcahses be well thought out, Bo tru and at least talk over potential purchases if

drive cable should be. The operating systes eprom and the burning voltages are generated. This Now that the pound is approx. essential

you cannot investigate. That is the reason that I subscribe to QL World and to QUANTUM LEVELS. Another economy is to join QUANTA and use the club Library, which is now over 18 Mbytes!

Sinc-Link

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COMPUTER BUS

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OUR COMPUTERS IN PORTUGAL KSXY

When I was in Mexico City, I tried to find some trace of our Sinclair computers. Some time ago we published a review of some Sinclair type computers which were supposed to be made in Mexico, but they apparently have sank without a trace. \

My efforts in Portugal had quite a different result. There I saw more Timex and Sinclair computers than any other kind. Notice I said Timex and Sinclair not Timex/Sinclair. The corporate lineage of our computers is getting quite complicated, especially since Anatrand bought out Sinclair; but who nakes them is not as important as what is being made. Let ne tell you what I found for sale starting with the least expensive.

The least expensive was the Timex

It was selling for about 8160. It is made by Timex in Portugal. It is of a reduced version of the T/S 2068. the

TC 2048. really sort The keyboard is the chiclet type used on T/S 1500 and is about the same size. That makes it smaller than the T/S 2068. The main feature.left out is the cartridge port on the right hand side. It is a full color computer however. It has the same keys almost in the same arrangement as the ZX Spectrum +. It has fewer keys, which means that more of them are multifunction keys.

The ZX Spectrum+ was prominently offered for sale at about 8170. The Spectrum* is imported from Amstrand in Great Britain but is still called a Sinclair

computer. The ones I saw may be part of the inventory Amstrand got when it bought Sinclair. The Spectrum+ has a keyboard which looks similar to the QL. The case is noticeably shorter and wider than the QL.

Lt has several more keys than the T/S 2068 but is basically the same configuration.

The T/S 2068 was obtainable for a little over $180. I was unable to find out if the examples offered were new production from Portugal or inventory shipped over from the United States. All I can say is that the boxes were printed in English.

The ZX Spectrum+2 was being sold for about 8285. This computer is much different than a Spectrum+, with a built in standard cassette tape recorder, although the recorder is the most obvious change. Another obvious change is the keyboard, which is similar to a standard typewriter. All the keywords like GOTO and RUN are completely missing. They will have to be

spelled out. As compensation for this loss, one has a much more straightforward keyboar: with far fewer multifunction keys. The various characters are still scattered in some pretty non-standard places. The space bar is there in its usual place but much shorter than standard. The overall size is about one inch shorter than the QL and about an inch wider.

The QL was for sale too. for over $350.

Some particularly interesting Sinclair

It was going

(Anstrand) and Timex accessories were also for sale. Sinclair was selling add-on wafer drives for the Spectrum computers which needed a special interface. Of greater

interest, was a large disk drive unit being sold by Timex. This unit contained one 3 1/2 inch disk drive with a place for another one. It cost over $320.

I was able to read about the next computer (some consider it to be the last) in the Spectrum series - The ZX Spectrum+3. Basically it is a Spectrum+2 witha 5 1/4 inch disk drive instead the tape recorder.

An one Sinclair computer magazine. were trying to create a data base addresses of all who had tried out the Sinclair ZX88. Apparently Sinclair is not through with computers yet, but no details were given about this =achine.

The magazines available were revealing. It seems that the machines (except for the QL) have become game machines. The magazines carry almost nothing except game reviews. Games are cheap and come in a wide variety. The store shelves were filled with many feet of cassette tapes containing games with almost no serious software. Games are apparently coming out so fast it is difficult to keep up with them; and, given the quality of many of the games, I saw no reason to keep up with them.

The magazine, Sinclair QL World, was well worth reading although one slim 60 page issue cost over $3.30. There was not a game review in the issue although many of the advertisers did offer good games for the QL.

intriguing little note appeared in The editors of the

very Sinclair

Accessories were considerably more expensive than in the US. It was impossible to get any monitor for less than 8100. Color monitors were almost twice as

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expensive as cheap ones in the US. The QL printer was selling for about $390. There was a little price competition between

‘stores with prices varying by about 2%.

All the stores selling Sinclair computers sold Amstrand ones too, but these were auch bigger and more expensive machines. Many sold computers made by Phillips too. I saw no Commodore or Atari computers.

There were two plush stores selling Apple computers and one Computerland store with three IBM computers. I saw one store which specialized in IBM computers. These

other stores were obviously selling only to businesses with a lot of money to spend.

It was good to see sone popularly priced computers that people could afford and some stores which catered to real hobbyist users. Young people were attracted to these stores and one even had a bulletin

board for communication between clubs and users so the computer scene is not completely taken over by businesses with

money to spend. (NOTE: HERE IS A TABLE) . T/S Computers for Sale in Portugal

Designation Distributor Price ezzzrz:22z222z:2222232z2z22222z222222-2--7 TC 2048 Timex $160 ZX Spectrum+ Anstrand 8170 T/S 2068 Tinex $180 ZX Spectrum*2 Amstrand 8285 QL Amstrand 8320

—————— — e — ——— —— ————À—————

All prices include 16% sales tax The T/S 2068 on Packet

QZX has finally gotten the T/S 2068 on packet. Other of our readers have done it (see back issues), but this is the first time we have. You need a RS232 interface and a terminal program. Relatively inexpensive examples of each are sold by Grey and Clifford Computer Products (see ad in this issue). It is easy to get these products working. For complete reviews on using them for packet, see the next two issues of QZX.

A Tip For QL Owners

One of our out-of-town QL owners has a tip that may save other QL owners some grief.

Stoughton has found out the hard way

11 Schengt quote from his

that the QL chassis is grounded. I

So take note you QL owners. S. Stoughton's address is 191 William St. N., tines Ont. K9V 488, if you are interesting in contacting him.

G. Chambers 9

Diskdriving with a Joystick ננננבנ111111111111111111111‎

Do you have a old Larken interface that doesn’t seen to work with your Kempston interface? Recently I had trouble mith my joystick. It seemed to work alright without the disk interface pluged in. but it was a different story when the interface was pluged in.

Talking to friend. he suggested that they may occupy the same port. It worked out that port 31 or AS is aso used by the Larken Interface.

A way to solve the problem is to disable the joystick interface while the diskdrive is in use and thenenable the interface after your game has loaded.

To disable and enable your joystick interface you should wire a minature slide switch to turn on and off the +5V that powers your interface. This should solve your problem.

By Renato Zannese 02.01.22

Of Interest to QL Owners by G. Chambers

Our club received a letter from David Sullivan re uu fein up of a new QL Users Club. I quote from

"Dear Club Officer,

il am in the process of starting a Sinclair QL users group I got the QL bug at work. I ama computer echnician with a Keene-based computer service center. One time we were an authorised Sinclair service center. I have access to service liturature and bulletins. I thought it would be beneficial to contact other clubs to solicit members.

"This group will be a forum for QL owners world wide. My immediate objective is to establish a software library. Anyone uishing to join may do so by sending public domain software to the above address. Each d cepta rogram will earn credit for a MU. Md RS Any software Sub ce m return postage m cartridges will not be returned.” Ue MIS

"Once a membership has been established a newslett M ne put outs, ite patter will sr be paid for 4 n er co asis. to cover the expenses to put ou the A b 2

"The overall objective is to establish disseminate information and software ac eere 4

reasonable cost (prefe j rea Zo Er (p rably just the cost of postage

"Any help you can give in the establishment of group eld be appreciated. Thank you very UR incerely, David A, Sullivan." tnd of quote.

My own thoughts are: Is the international users group) QUANTA, not doing a satisfactory job? If any of ou owners wish to pursue this, write to David at

his address: P.0. Box 353, Gilsum, N.H. 03448 U.S.A. א זו א‎ e dese ve א א‎ defe e n

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£j 6) F F2 C) C) Fa £j 4-4 m n תי ו‎ cn f Hru UL 6a F3 -4 £F HODOM en AI EI A I LI S 上 > ns

gn‏ ודי ודי ודי ודי ותו וזו וד LILI C303 09 GI C)‏

or Bab M+zhell 1988 loapins & SAVING ₪

nica

17400 0 64m - 400 רו‎ m 03

rca ni Ti C3 63 65;‏ כו

MACHINE CODE

FE ur | 83816 LOAD entry pent"

Swe 83045 SAVE

aa CALL SS Turn ON Cartridge

rn OFF Cartridge (EXT)

FS CALL cstos ,

ER Pete DUE ae LOAD a track rovtine

Ss ה‎ / "E

@ CALL 188 —— —— ——————— rir

Be dram 188 e ad Lifter tron: disk

A iu move bulfer data ta 63504. /984 bytes moved

EE Es SAVE a track routine

F3 LS HL.83S04

20 LP DE.8204 move butter data back e ee BC, 19384 to S304

₪ CALL 8 CHECK ££ PeoT sticker

CALL 120‏ ו

E. eee T, Bur SAVE buffer to dis

+ Track #15 FOKED into 23728 h^ BASIC line.

1E FE 38 80 SC 32 if IZE LET curtrack = 43/28 BO Sc 32 if 30 21 10 120 Pork ל‎ GB 98 28 56 TE DO CD 136 RANDOMIZE USB

00 C3 23 FE 06 oa O0

63ddd - REM to load

Use this routine to eliminate need for using disk 42oS's nili LDS.

This program was devebped using Zeus, then relocated ta ORG 63006 Using | rece.”

Addresses Ceg. 6554) equae fo 4936564 + 6%

4 LARKEN LOAD/SAVE ROUTINES / George Chambers

Bob Mitchell, whose column appears regularly in our newsletter, has sent me some material on a M/C

utility for the Larken disk system, We include it in Reis, ERU: Bob 15 presently in Florida, and says in

"I started off the year with a at eliminating the need for LD0364 Stc. in m utilities. I had taken a good look at the disassembly of Larry Kenny's Move

ac ae and decided I could use some ideas there to do a M/C routine that would meet my needs. I think it might meet yours, and others in the club might find it useful. Since I have no Typi ee or big printer

have done a sheet in longhand which I enclose, and which could be printed as 15 in the club newsletter." end of quote.

Bob's routine will be useful for owners of the original Larken system, the one that stores 1960 bytes of data per track. You should also have the This includes most of the Larken owners in our club. The code provides two functions, namely LOAD a track into memory, and SAVE a block of memory to a disk track. When 1 tried it out on my "DOCTOR" program I found that an additional routine was desirable. One of the routines in "DOCTOR" looks at each track on the disk in succession. Bob's LOAD routine moved the head back to track 0 every time that a track was read, causing a great deal of unnecessary head movement,

I found another DOS call which eliminated this head movement and rearranged Bob's code to incorporate this third function, I include a disassembly of it; compare 1% to the original.

The DOS calls mentioned prus other data are contained in a three-page brochure put out by Larry Kenny. Most LARKEN owners in our club have a copy. If you do not have it and are interested, ask me for a

cop 《ince Bob' aptam ion may be a bit obscure to non-M/C fans ( I have provided my code in a BASIC progran so that you can more easily get it into use. nter the BASIC pro ram, RUN it, Then save it to disk by PRINT USER 100: SAVE "RHMDOS.C2'" CODE 63000,110. The code could be givenany name. I suggest that for consistancy you name it as above.

The "reloc8" mentioned in Bob's article is a BASIC and which is in our club M/C around in

DOS captured and used as a disk D 20 FOR n=63000 TO 63110: READ a: POKE n,a: NEXT n 30 STOP 200 DATA 195,43,246,195,72,246, 195,104,246,243 201 DATA 205,98,0,201,58,100,0, 251,201,205 202 DATA 33,2586, 58,176,92, 50,29 ,32,205,126 203 DATA 04205912350) 33,112, 32, 17,16,248 204 DATA 1,192,7,237,176,195,398 »246,205, 33 205 DATA 246, 58,176,92,50,29, 32 »33,16,248 206 DATA 17,112,32,14,192574,221^ 175,205,150 207 DATA 0,205,126,0,205,120,0, 195, 38,246 208 DATA 205, 33,246,205,129,0,2 05,123,0,33 209 DATA 112,32,17,16,248,1,192 1242374195 210 DATA 195,38,246,0,0,0,0,0,0 ,0,0 Il 1000 STOP

63000 C32BF6 JP 63019 63003 C348F6 JP 63048 63006 C368F6 JP 63080 63009 F3 BI: 63010 CD6200 CALL 98 63013 C9 RET 63014 326400 LD A,(100) 63017 FB EI 63018 C9 RET 63019 CD21F6 CALL 63009 63022 328050 LD A,(23728) 63025 321D20 LD (8221),A 63028 027800 CALL 126 63031 627800 CALL 3 63034 217020 LD HL,8304 63037 1110F8 LD DE,63504 63040 010007 LD BC,1984 63043 EDBO LDIR 63045 C326F6 JP 63014 63048 CD21F6 CALL 63009 63051 3ABOSC LD A,(23728) 63054 321220 LD (8221),A $3080 2110F8 LD HL,63504 060 117020 LD DE,8304 63063 016007 LD BC,1984 63066 EDBO LDIR 63068 CD9600 CALL 150 63071 CD7EO0 CALL 126 63074 CD7800 CALL 120 63077 C326F6 JP 63014 63080 CD21F6 CALL 63009 63083 CD8100 CALL 129 63086 CD7B00 CALL 123 63089 217020 LD HL,8304 63092 1110F8 LD DE,63504 63095 01C007 LD BC,1984 63098 EDBO LDIR 63100 C326F6 JP 63014 63103 C9 RET

ITEMS GLEANED FROM OTHER CLUB NEWSLETTERS by G. Chambers

The Jan 88 issue of the PLOTTER reports that one of their members had sent 5 2068's to Dan Elliot, of Promiseland Electronics for repair, and that he has received three of them back, within 5 weeks, repaired, for a total cost of $75 US. The other two need SCLD chips, and it will take a bit longer to repair then.

Another newsletter reports satisfaction with 2068 reapirs by one of {t's members. Incidentally, Ken Gamey, one of our members, has sent his there also, so I expect to be able to report on his experience also.

The PLOTTER also reports that their circulating program tapes get hung up in their circulation, Some thing as I found happened to our circulation of newsletter to out-of-town members. They get hung up with an uncooperative person.

The Nov 87 issue of the CATS newsletter has a do-it-yourself article about connecting the QL to an RGB monitor. A little circuit uses two chips to buffer the signals from the Ql. The same issue also has articles on adding a reset switch to your 2040 printer, and one about a circuit to let your 2068 power supply run cooler. These are repeats of articles from other newsletters.

The December '87 issue of the same newsletter has an article on adding a reset switch to your QL. Also an article on how to use the QL program 'ARCHIVE' effectively,

The Nov 87 issue of the L.I.S.T. newsletter A & J MicroDrive, now known as A & J Assembly will no longer supply microdrives. The reason is said to be because they can no longer obtain the cartridges.

This issue also has an article on fitting 16K under the hood of the 7X81, et al.

Also mentioned is a speech synthesizer which 5 available, and which can be hooked up to an RS232 port, such as the SER2 on the QL. The units are surplus, sell for $39US (I believe). To quote the short article in the newsletter"...and very easy to use as well. Just plug into the serial port, plug the included power supply into an outlet, and turn on the power, The units will announce their presence with and OK, Then just open a channel to the serial port and PRINT to it-yes text to speech is all there is to it!" The item is sold by Richard Moldovan, 7414 East Cuernavaca Place, Tucson, AZ 85710.

The same issue has a lengthy article on how to run your 7X81 programs to an IBM PC. You upload them using a combination of a bit of harware, software, and 'sweatware'! Briefly, the idea is to load the X81 file into a 2068 using UPLOAD 2000 (software), then use an interface on the 2068 to provide an RS232 port on the 2068, Also a 'null' modem and a ‘gender changer’. The article did mention 'sweatware', now you see what 1t means!

The Chicago Area TUG newsletter 'NITE-TIME NEWS' has a review of Tom Woods’ NVRAM board. This appears to be 32K supplementary nonvolatile memory for the 2068. You will have to read the review to see if this is the thing for you. Seems to leave me a bit cool about it.

If anyone thinks they would like to get into desktop publishing with the 2068 they should ask for a copy of Pixel Print Press. This is a three page ‘newsletter’ put out by LemKe Software Development to show off their program 'PIXEL PRINT'(cost US$20). The n/1 is a demo of what their program can do. Ask me for

a copy. eve ese defe de dee dede ARERR

REPAIR 7 A LARKEN Disk Repair Utility by George Chambers

One of the things that I have experienced with the LARKEN disk system, particularly the earlier vint: was the occasional overwriting of the Directory track. This would result in the loss of all the programs on the disk. Now, these programs were not really lost, just inaccessible because of a messed-up track O. I was always able to reconstruct the Directory manually, and after a while I wrote "DOCTOR" to make it easier.

There had to be a simpler way to do this. After all, the LARKEN system places a program name at the start of every used track. What could be more simple than to look at these track headers and use them to make up a new directory. That is just what "REPAIR" does.

The listing shown here is suitable for the earlier LARKEN systems (the ones that save 1960 bytes per track). This listing is given because the majority of LARKEN owners in our club have this vintage. I have also modified this program to work on the current vintage i.e. saves 5090 bytes per track, Both programs are available from our LARKEN tape library.

490 REM Disk Directory Repair for the LARKEN system

1198 REM By G. Chambers

14 Richome Court ough, Ont.

Scarbor CANADA MiK 2Y1

120 REM Use to reconstruct a da. . ged Directory(Track Ø)

130 REM Data statements contain the '"RMHDOS.C2''" Code.

135 REM For disks made prior to the Larke n cartridge DOS,modify lines 720 and 830, replacing the 34 in each line with a 33.

136 REM Use only with the LKDOS i.e. 1960 bytes/track.

140 GO TO טסו‎ =

150 RANDOMIZE USR 100: SAVE "repair.B1'" L INE 169

160 RESTORE 210

170 FOR n=63000 TO 63104

187 READ a: POKE n,a

190 NEXT n

add GO TO 297

210 DATA 195,43,248,195,72,246,195, 174,24 8,843,225,98,2,221,58

220 DATA 100,8,251,201,205,33,246,58,176, 92,50,29,32,205, 126

230 DATA 0,205, 123,0,33, 112,32, 17, 16,248, 4,192,7,237,176

240 DATA 195,38,246,205,33,246,58,176,92- 50,29,32,33,16,248

250 DATA 17,112,32,1,192,7,237, 176,205, 15 2,0,225,125,2,205

system

*. 260 DATA 128,0,195,38,246,205,33,246,295,

129,8,285,123,08,33

270 DATA 1142,32,17, 16,248, 1,192, 7,237,176 ,195,38,246,291,0

290 DIM a$(79,9): DIM c$(79,9): DIM b$(9) : DIM d$(256)

309 LET trac=23728: LET nexttrack=63796: LET loadbuf=63799: LET savebuf=63003

310 LET D=79: LET e=1: LET f=1: LET buffe r=63500: LET name=63608: LET trackno=6361 8

312 BORDER 1: PAPER 1: CLS

300 PRINT AT 2,7; INK 2; PAPER 6;''LARKEN DISK UTILITY"; PAPER 1;,,TAB 2; PAPER 6;" Directory (Track J) Recovery"; PAPER 1,,T AB 7; PAPER 6;"By George Chambers"

325 INK 3: PLOT 0,128: DRAW Ø,62: DRAW 25 5,0: DRAW 9,-62: DRAW -255,9

326 INK 6: PLOT 8,114: DRAW 9,50: DRAW 23 8,0: DRAW Ø,=-5Ø: DRAW -238,0: INK 7

338 PRINT '''TAB 2;''Install newly-formatt ed disk"''TAB 6;"and press any key": PAUS Eg

349 POKE trac,@: RANDOMIZE USR loadbuf ספב‎ PRINT AT 19,9;d$;AT 14,1;'Now insert your defective disk"''TAB 2;"and Press an y key to start": PAUSE Ø

369 REM Picking program names

each successive track

379 POKE trac,1: RANDOMIZE USR loadbuf

380 PRINT AT 19,0;d$

398 PRINT זג‎ 10,0;d$;AT 10,1;"Lifting nam es off disk tracks";AT 13,8;''Track Prog ram!"

400 PRINT AT 14,9;''No.

410 FOR nz1 TO 79

415 IF 1<ה‎ AND PEEK 6351820 AND PEEK 6351 920 THEN LET n=79: GO TO 49g

420 LET dn

430 FOR m=1 TO 9

440 LET a$(n,m)sCHR$ PEEK (63505+M)

450 NEXT m

4569 PRINT AT 16,9;n;" "'sa$(n)

480 IF n<7S THEN RANDOMIZE USR nexttrack

off

Name"

490 NEXT n

508 REM Placing Used/Free track rd in buffer (Track Ø)

519 POKE trac,@: RANDOMIZE USR loadbuf 52g FOR n=1 TO d

537 POKE 63527+n,n+127

540 NEXT n

559 REM Compile the program names into C$ array

560 PRINT AT 9,8;d$;AT 9,9;''Reconstructio n of the directory will take a couple of minutes'''TAB 19;"Please wait"''TAB 4;''Co mpiling program names"

570 LET c$(1)-2a$(1)

580 FOR n=e TO d

59g LET b$-a$(n)

600 LET fzü

reco

617 FOR m=1 TO e 620 IF b$=c$(m) THEN LET 1 638 NEXT m 640 IF f= THEN LET eze*1: LET c$(e)-bS$ 659 PRINT AT 16,11;c$(e) 6650 NEXT n 670 REM Poke pgm names into buffer(Track 9) 675 PRINT AT 13,0;d$;AT 14,0;"Placing tra ck names in directory" 688 FOR n=1 TO e 685 PAUSE 39 699 FOR m=1 TO 9 709 POKE name*m,CODE c$(n,m) 710 NEXT m 726 LET namezname-*34 734 PRINT AT 18,11;c$(n)

740 NEXT n

756 REM Poke track numbers in to buffer (Track Ø)

760 LET +1

778 PRINT זג‎ 13,9;d$;AT 14,0;"Putting Tra ck No's in Directory"

780 FOR n=1 TO e

798 LET 41

FOR k=1 TO 79‏ ששה

810 IF c$(n)=a$(k) THEN POKE trackno+f,k +128: LET fzf*1: POKE trackno+f,249

aeg NEXT >

837 LET trackno=trackno+34

840 PRINT AT (ה)16,11;05‎

858 NEXT n

860 PRINT AT 9,40;d$;AT 10,1;"The director y has been rebuilt"'!''' PAPER 5; INK 2;"R emove WRITE-PROTECT label from defective disk and install. "זז"‎ Press a key to save to track Ø ": PAUSE Ø

878 POKE trac,@: RANDOMIZE USR savebuf 880 PRINT AT 11,2;d$;AT 13,9;J08 COMPLET ED": PAUSE ₪

899 STOP

1000: SAVE "repair" LINE 12

14 EA

Two Hundred and Sixty Seven Words From the President

We who run the T. T. S. U. C. would like to cater to your interests in computers, and we would like to print your questions and answers in Sinc-link, as well we would like to know what you would like to see demonstrated at the meetings. Is there a piece of equipment or software that you don’t understand and would like to see demonstrated in order to understand it better? Let us know. Do you have a question? Then please ask us, no matter how elementry it may be. WE can’t all know everything so by asking you are not being stupid but rather you are being smart because it is by asking that you get the answers that help you to better understand your computer. Don't let all that technological jargon those other guys use scare you, they really don't know what they are talking about, for example, "raise ram top", this means to take the head of a sheep and put it in the attic. "Ram pack" this means more than one sheep. "Rom" as any one knows means Royal Ontario Museum. "Peeking" is a city in China. "Poking" is what my daughter does to get her sister to get her mad. As you can see we don't know any more about computers than you do, so don’t be ascared to ask your questions; heck, we might even be able to give you the right answers. Your President, 8. Eddy Maybee

Postmaster, if Undelivered Return to :

Toronto Timex - Sincicir Users Club ק‎ 0. Box 7274 Sin. A

Toronto, Ont., MSW IX9

Canada