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• BBC MICRO ELECTRON’ATOMI £1.20 EXJANUARY 1986 USB* SPECTRAIYIANIA: Zippy game for Electron and BBC LOGO SOFTWARE: Joe Telford writes awordprocessor HyfHimm,H BBC B+ PROGRAMS: Our advanced HdlilSIii t user’s guide mm BASIC AIDS: pjpifjBpia *- -* ‘‘.r? r v arwv -v v .* - The hard facts about debuggers WIN AT ELITE: Secrets of the Commander files SUPER Forget the rest, our graphics program’s best! COMPETITION Three Taxan monitors to be won COUPON OFFER Save £20 on a Kaga NLQ printer ISSUEACORNUSERNo JANUARY 1986 42 EDITOR Tony Quinn NEW USERS 48 TECHNICAL EDITOR HINTS AND TIPS: Bruce Smith Martin Phillips asks how compatible are Epson compatible printers? 53 SUBEDITOR FIRST BYTE: Julie Carman How to build up your system wisely is Tessie Revivis’ topic PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Kitty Milne BUSINESS 129 EDITORIAL SECRETARY BUSINESS NEWS: Isobel Macdonald All the latest for users of Acorn computers in business, plus half-price Mallard Basic offer PROCESS: 133 TECHNICAL ASSISTANT WHICH WORD TO David Acton Guidelines from Roger Carus on choosing a wordprocessor to fulfil your business needs 139 ART DIRECTOR BASIC CHOICES: Mike Lackersteen Edward Brown compares BBC Basic and Mallard Professional Basic, supplied with the Z80 ART EDITOR Liz Thompson EDUCATION EDUCATION NEWS: 153 ART ASSISTANT questions Paul Holmes Proposed European standard for educational micros raises many OF WORDPROCESSING: 158 ADVERTISEMENT MANAGER THE WONDER Simon Goode Chris Drage and Nick Evans look at wordprocessors to help children express themselves j SALES EXECUTIVE j ; REVIEWS Jonathan Rawlins GAMES: 171 : SUBSCRIPTIONS MANAGER Talkback; Death Star and Caesar the Cat Kate Evans Strike Force Harrier; Jump Jet; Match Day; BOOKS: 175 PUBLISHING DIRECTOR beginners to advanced, plus more reviews on page 197 Michael Potter Four books ranging in level from CUMANA TOUCH PAD: 179 EDITORIAL DIRECTOR asks Simon Williams Christopher Ward Is this product a solution without a problem? NUMERIC KEYPADS COMPARED: 181 Simon Williams says if you work with numbers then a numeric keypad could make life easier MORLEY TELETEXT ADAPTOR: 185 How a cheaper alternative measures up to Acorn’s similar device, by Trevor Buck THE PROS AND CONS OF PROWORD: 187 Patrick Quick’s verdict on a reasonably priced wordprocessor with many facilities UTILITIES MAKE THEIR MARK: 189 Sleuth, Microscope and Basic Extension are the debugging ROMs examined by Peter Sandford SOFTWARE: 195 Magazine Bibliography; Design 7 REGULARS News 7 Bar code reader offer 99 Beeb Forum 123 Reader Services 17 Cassette subscriptions 100 Atom Forum 125 Xoticeboard 18 Acorn User cassettes offer 101 Software Charts 169 Letters 56 UserDump offer 102 User Groups 215 Central Processing 61 Listings cassette and disc 103 Free ads 217 Dear Kitty 61 Yellow Pages 105 Small ads 223 Competition 93 UserRAM offer 121 Acorn Abuser’s Diary 224 (prices include for 12 issues). Published by Redwood Publishing A Subscriptions- UK £17 50; Europe £25; Middle East, Americas, Africa £30; rest of the world £35 p&p *q/~ Typesetting and colour reproduction by Publishers Reprographic * Ltd. 68 Long Acre, London WC2E 9JH. Tel: 01-836 2441. Printed by Watmoughs Ltd, Bradford. Middlesex UB7 7QE. Tel. 44405. ISSN 0263-7456. .-,'.e T Services, London. Distributed to the news trade by Comag, Tavistock Road, West Drayton, (0895) mv ACORN USER JANUARY 1986 2 » FEATURES COVER SPECTRAMANIA A fast arcade-style game by David Acton for you to type in and play. You’ll have hours of fun guiding Ray Robot around the Spectramaze but beware of the evil Smiffs LOGO WORDPROCESSOR Cover illustration by nr Jonathan Inglis from a screenshot created with the Super Painter oe Telford > helps you develop your own wordprocessor to use with the RsHsut » - - iw -> » ». program in this issue *»' »»•««•** »»lt< mi. N«t lit met <tr« t* InSvt Logo language that’s a favourite of educationalists and widely used in >:r.ools, but mainly known for its Turtle graphics 'D GRAPHICS — McGregor and Alan Watt conclude their four-part series on riphics for the BBC micro and Electron by revealing two ways to :~a:e three dimensional solids on screen - PER PAINTER T- ; -uperb painting package is quite simply the best around! Jonathan 1. win has combined popular colour-filling and painting programs b: this bumper program NEXT MONTH BJTISM SHRINKING SCREENS Save precious memory by creating smaller screens Software for sideways ROMs Make the most of the B + and B+ 128’s extra memory ' • rrow and Paul Springate help you succeed at Acornsoft’s best- Add extra commands to Basic rame, Elite by fair means or foul, and reveal , how to create an Members of Ultravox review the : Timander Umi music interface : Publishing Ltd 1986. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior written permission of the publisher. The publisher cannot accept ant -I.r claims or errors in articles, programs or advertisements published. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publisher -raters Ltd or Acornsoft Ltd. Acorn, Acornsoft and the acorn symbol are the registered trademarks of Acorn Computers Ltd and Acornsoft Ltd. it JANUARY 1986 EDITOR Tony Quinn TECHNICAL EDITOR HINTS AND TIPS: Bruce Smith Martin Phillips discusses how to make on screen colour combinations legible BYTE: SUB- EDITOR FIRST Julie Carman Faster, faster - Tessie Revivis shows the many simple ways of speeding up your micro PRODUCTION ASSISTANT Kitty Milne BUSINESS NEWS: 131 EDITORIAL SECRETARY BUSINESS Basic offer Deborah Henderson All the latest for users of Acorn computers in business, plus half-price Mallard 135 TECHNICAL ASSISTANT ON TO THE DATA: David Acton Roger Carus concludes his advice on how to set up a business system 141 ART DIRECTOR CP/M CORNER: Mike Lackersteen A bumper crop of tips for CP/M users from Edward Brown ART EDITOR EDUCATION Liz Thompson EDUCATION NEWS: 153 ART ASSISTANT Paul Holmes What’s new in the world of micros in the classroom from Nick Evans WITH DATABASES: 158 ADVERTISEMENT MANAGER DABBLING Simon Goode Chris Drage and Nick Evans describe the value and variety of databases for schools SALES EXECUTIVE REVIEWS Jonathan Rawlins GAMES: 163 SUBSCRIPTIONS MANAGER Diary Adrian Mole from Level 9 and Phantom Combat from Doctorsoft Kate Evans Ultimate’s Alien-8; The Secret of GAMES: 165 PUBLISHING DIRECTOR Ultimate and Micro Power’s Gauntlet Michael Potter Citadel (tom Superior; Atic Atac by SOFTWARE AND BOOKS: 167 EDITORIAL DIRECTOR Control Speech Microelectronics to Z; Within the BBC Microcomputer; The BBC Microcomputer in Christopher Ward ; A BOOKS: 169 puzzle books for your micros Guide to the BBC ROM; Winning at the Races; two ‘Byte Brothers’ books and UMI MUSICAL INTERFACE: 172 Peter Wood and Chris Cross of Ultravox recommend this inexpensive music system BOOKS: 175 Wordwise Plus: a User’s Guide; Advancing with the Electron; BBC Micro: Music Master Class JOYSTICK JARGON: 180 Chris Drage’s guide to the how, what, why and which of joysticks DISC DRIVE UPDATE: 185 REGULARS News 7 Bar code reader offer 99 Beeb Forum 123 124 Reader Services 15 Cassette subscriptions 100 Atom Forum Noticeboard 18 Acorn User cassettes offer 101 Software Charts 161 195 Letters 57 UserDump offer 102 User Groups 197 Me and my micro 73 Listings cassette and disc 103 Free ads 199 Competition 93 Yellow Pages 105 Small ads Diary 200 Bibliography offer 97 UserRAM offer 121 Acorn Abuser’s - for 12 issues) Published _hv Redwood Publish 6 - IX rrat E» £25c Mid* East, Americas. Afnca £30. rest of the world £35 (prices include p&p A g reproduction by Publishers Keproftapme Q a u SMI »— 1 —1— mtow 6JM Tct 01-836 2441. Primed br Witmouirhs Ltd. Bradford. Typesetting and colour Middieses CB? ’QE. Tel: '08951 44405 ISSN 0263-~45e . Ti b, r Trrmock Rowd. WesDrarton. '• '.RY 1986 EXCLUSIVE COVER NEW BBC micro The Master, Acorn’s new BBC micro, is launched this month. Internal second processors giving 16 and 32-bit computing are a major feature. Details on pages 7, 10, 11 and 17 FUTURES INTO THE SHADOW RAM Cover photograph by John Barlow 74 Joe Telford explains what shadow RAM is and puts forward his ideas on how to use this extra memory and the facilities offered by the B + and B+128 SHRINKING SCREENS This technique has been used in several recent games and Robert O’Leary shows you how to save precious memory by shrinking the area of the screen used for graphics EXTENDING BASIC COMMAND ENTERED MACHINE CODE ERROR JL INTERCEPT E RROR V ECTOR 83 (& 202 BBC Basic offers a wide and versatile range of commands and functions ) but there comes a time when every programmer needs more, and Michael Ginns has found a way to incorporate them into the language AT DA DOO ROM ROM 89 NEXT MONTH Steve Picton describes how to write very long machine code programs ACORN’S NEW MASTER for use in sideways RAM with all the advantages of speed and none of the bother of EPROMs what it can do Learn about music on the BBC CHEAT ELITE AT micro and Electron Gaining extra program memory from sideways RAM Speech systems reviewed News of a super music 95 competition This Elite commander editor allows you to do well at Acornsoft’s Chris Drage and Nick Evans bestselling game without having to gather credits. Paul Springate and look at adventures and authoring Paul Skirrow are your fellow conspirators languages ( Redwood Publishing Ltd 1986. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced without prior written permission of the publisher. The publisher cannot accept anv responsibility for claims or errors in articles, or programs advertisements published. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publisher, Acorn Computers Ltd or Acornsoft Ltd.
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