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Table of contents: |
| COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE Issue #23 | Home | Index | Magazine | ||||||
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| Articles in section: ABOUT COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE |
| "ABOUT
CFDM" ABOUT COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE |
| Back to top |
"ABOUT CFDM" COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE is dedicated to those who still enjoy running under RS DOS. It will deal with that format exclusively. A primary goal is to keep the COCO community strong. By providing a unique means of communication, maybe old fires will be rekindled as you and I share our knowledge and experiences! The success of this effort depends on each one who becomes a subscriber. Everyone must contribute his/ her two cents in the form of articles, programs, opinions, experiences, etc. If this happens we will all look forward to the next issue. (Check out the manual with your starter kit for details on how to submit material.) Now let's have some fun!!! =* |
ABOUT COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE is the creation and property of Rick Cooper. It is distributed solely by RICK'S COMPUTER ENTERPRISE. The material which makes up each issue remains the property of the author(s) or contributor(s) unless an agreement has been made otherwise. COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE is dedicated exclusively to those who enjoy the COCO3 operating under RS DOS. It is hoped that this publication will encourage the continued usage of our favorite computer. Neither CFDM nor RICK'S COMPUTER ENTERPRISE will be responsible for the submission or publication of any material that does not belong to the submitter. WE DO NOT ADVOCATE OR SUPPORT PIRACY! =* |
| Articles in section: ABOUT THIS ISSUE |
| CONTENTS...PART
1 (v1 i23) CONTENTS...PART 2 (v1 i23) PROGRAM DIRECTORY (v1 i23) THIS MONTH'S COVER |
| Back to top |
ABOUT COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE (2)
1 "ABOUT CFDM"
2 ABOUT COCO FRIENDS DISK MAGAZINE
ABOUT THIS ISSUE (4)
1 CONTENTS...PART 1 (i1 v23)
2 CONTENTS...PART 2 (i1 v23)
3 PROGRAM DIRECTORY (i1 v23)
4 THIS MONTH'S COVER
ACTIVE COCO (6)
1 BOOK TWO ... COMPLETED
2 CAVEAT EMPTOR
3 HRIDDLE #4
4 PNW COCOFEST-3 PT.1
5 PNW COCOFEST-3 PT.2 =>
____________________________________________________
6 THE CATTRAX CONTEST IS COMPLETE!
ADVERTISEMENTS (6)
1 ARE YOU READY FOR PP5?
2 CFDM SUBSCRIPTION
3 COMPLETE COCO SYSTEM FOR SALE!
4 CRYSTAL CITY and ZENIX
5 The "UPGRADE" Disk Magazine
6 WANTED: Disk Holders
ARTICLES OF THE MONTH (7)
1 COCOMAX 3 COLOR MIXING 1
2 COCOMAX 3 COLOR MIXING 2
3 COCOMAX 3 COLOR MIXING 3
4 COMPUTERS and OVERKILL
5 COMPUTERS and OVERKILL (Part 2) =>
____________________________________________________
6 Customizing CM3 Part 2
7 Customizing COCO MAX III
COCO FRIENDS ART GALLERY (3)
1 BABES IN THE WOODS
2 CFDM HOLIDAY PATROL <g>
3 CHRISTMAS CARD
FAMILY TREE (5)
1 HENRY KSZEPKA
2 Ibrahim G. Picard
3 JAMES H. CLAY
4 LOYAL B. GASKIN
5 ROBERT RUSSELL
=*
|
FORUM (3)
1 FAVORITE/MOST POPULAR SOFTWARE
2 Missing Rainbow!
3 OUR TRIP TO THE FORMER USSR
FROM THE EDITOR (3)
1 FROM THE EDITOR
2 GOODBYE TO A FRIEND
3 TO FALLEN FRIENDS (KUDOS) <g>
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR (6)
1 A FEW ANSWERS PLEASE
2 ABOUT THAT SUNDOG SOFTWARE!
3 KUDOS...HARDCOPY
4 MORE DRIVE CAPACITY
5 OS-9 SHAREWARE DISK =>
____________________________________________________
6 THANKS AND HELP PLEASE!
POTPOURRI (4)
1 ELVIRA MADIGAN
2 HINT: LABELING DISKS
3 REMEMBER WHEN? <g> by Jim McNeil
4 TICO-TICO
PROGRAMS OF THE MONTH (7)
1 Another Submission Form
2 COPYDIR, A DISK SAVER.
3 Directory TXT: "DISK DIR/BAS"
4 FASCINATION
5 FASCINATION (continued)
6 PLAY-MUS, VERSION 1.01 *update*
7 XMASTREE =>
____________________________________________________
REVIEWS (3)
1 "Thaediak of Ishdor"
2 Connecting the CoCo ...
3 GrafExpress 2.0
QUESTIONS & ANSWERS (7)
1 40 Track Drive?
2 COCOCAL, lets fix that bug !
3 Copying W/CFDM SYSOPS
4 HELP
5 PACKET HELP
6 To ALL, Quellhorst, McNeill
7 a PATCH for NIBSHOW (oops!)
=*
|
Here's a description of the files on the PROGRAM/
SIDE. File names preceded by an asterisk are data
files and not to be RUN or EXECed!
NAME.........COMMAND..SECTION OR DESCRIPTION......
* COLORS .NIB........ARTICLES OF THE MONTH
COPYDIR .BAS..RUN...PROGRAMS OF THE MONTH
* COPYDIR .DOC........DOCUMENTATION FOR COPYDIR
DISK DIR.BAS..RUN...PROGRAMS OF THE MONTH
ELVIRA .BAS..RUN...POTPOURRI (MUSIC)
* ELVIRA .BIN........MUSIC FILE FOR ELVIRA.BAS
* FASBFR .BIN........GRAPHICS FILE FOR FASCIN8
FASCIN8 .BAS..RUN...PROGRAMS OF THE MONTH
HRIDDLE4.BAS..RUN...ACTIVE COCO
* HRIDDLE4.NIB........PIX FILE FOR HRIDDLE4.BAS
* NIBLOADR.BIN........PIX LOADER UTILITY =>
____________________________________________________
NIBSAVER.BAS..RUN....USED BY XMASTREE.BAS
* NIBSAVER.BIN.........PIX SAVER UTILITY
NIBSHOW .BAS..RUN....VIEWER FOR NIB PICTURES
* PLAYMUS1.ASM.........SOURCE FILE FOR PLAYMUS1
PLAYMUS1.BAS..RUN....PROGRAMS OF THE MONTH
PRINTME .BAS..RUN....PRINTER DUMP FOR COPYDIR.DOC
SUBMIT .BAS..RUN....PROGRAMS OF THE MONTH
TICOTICO.BAS..RUN....POTPOURRI (MUSIC)
* TICOTICO.BIN.........MUSIC FILE FOR TICOTICO.BAS
* TITLEPGE.NIB.........ARTICLES OF THE MONTH
* WINNER .NIB.........ACTIVE COCO
* WOODS .NIB.........ART GALLERY
* XMASCARD.NIB.........ART GALLERY
XMASTREE.BAS..RUN....PROGRAMS OF THE MONTH
* XMASTREE.NIB.........PIX FILE FOR XMASTREE.BAS
=*
|
Christmas Wishes I hope everyone of the CoCo Friends has
a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. The
picture I drew I hope conveys this. Let's
not forget the real meaning of Christmas...
Luke 2-.....The Christmas Story...
Your CoCo Friend,
Jim Gibbons
=*
|
| Articles in section: ACTIVE COCO |
| BOOK
TWO ... COMPLETED CAVEAT EMPTOR HRIDDLE #4 PNW COCOFEST-3 PT.1 PNW COCOFEST-3 PT.2 THE CATTRAX CONTEST IS COMPLETE! |
| Back to top |
BOOK TWO ... COMPLETED The second episode of the Thaediak of Ishdor sci-fi
adventure has been completed. This one ended-up
having 15 chapters. Instead of sending out copies
to subscribers whose addresses have been listed in
CFDM, as I did for the first episode, this time I am
just going to offer a copy free to those interested.
Hopefully, this will be less hit and miss. So, to
get a free copy of BOOK TWO, just drop me a line.
There is no need to send a stamped mailer, or a
blank disk. (A special thanks to Dick Williams for
supplying the mailers.) Those new subscribers who
do not have the first book may make mention of that
fact; and I will send a copy of the first book, too.
Others that have the first book, but do not have the
illustrations drawn by contributing artists: Dotty
Funk, Norm Barson, and John Clemons, please make =>
____________________________________________________
note of that; and I will include the pictures for
you. (Another special thanks to Dotty, Norm, and
John.) These are CoCoMax III pictures, and may be
viewed and enjoyed using the public domain viewer
written by David Mills, called VUMASTER. There is a
new scrolling routine on this second disk. It's a
very handy and very friendly utility written by
Stuart Wyss-Gallifent. (Thanks, Stuart) Also of note
to those that already have the first book: Dave Otis
took the time to remove all of the extra spaces I
put in the first book to make the old scroller skip
to a double-spaced display. (Thanks, Dave. Your
patience is appreciated.) So, now the files have
been realigned, the segmented chapters have been
merged, and the first episode is ready to be printed
using your favorite word processor. =>
____________________________________________________
While I'm handing out the kudos, a Thank You to
Robert Allen Turner for designing and programming
the disk jacket program I will use for these disks.
The program will print all of the directory infor-
mation on one side, and give you 16 lines using a
simple word processor to write instructions and such
on the other side. It was designed for a DMP-105,
but can easily be EDITed for other printers. Watch
for this program to be submitted soon, if it hasn't
already appeared before this is published. Here's
my address:
James C. Mills
3059 220th St.
Stockton, IA 52769
=*
|
CAVEAT EMPTOR LET THE BUYER/SELLER BEWARE
I received a catalog in the mail from Rick Ulland
of Conect in Milwaukee. In it he advertised that he
was in the business of buying and selling used
COCO stuff. Well I responded to his letter with a
list of "stuff" I was willing to sell, mostly
original software, and he wrote me back saying he
would buy it all for a total amount of $ 160.00
Well, I called him on the phone and on the second
day of September 1993 UPS'ed him a box full of stuff
I got the receipt that he received the stuff from
UPS. But alas there it ended. Today is 10/12/1993 a
month and two days later, and despite several long
distance phone calls, and assurances that the money
had been mailed, I got a total of three different =>
____________________________________________________
mailing dates, and lots of sorry's and excuses, but
NO MONEY. The latest report was that he sent the
money on the 5th of October, But today is the 12th
and still no money.
I thought I'd publish this as a warning to all CFDM
subscribers. BEWARE when dealing with Conect. You
might end up loosing some money.
I will try to find someone to post this notice on
Delphi, he visits there on a regular basis, and I
will also notify the Post master general, and the
BBB and credit bureau in Milwaukee. I have told the
company CONECT that I would do this if the money was
not in my possession on 10/12/1993.
=>
____________________________________________________
---------------------------------------------------
Oct. 28th, 1993 --- UPDATE
Received a check from Conect on 10/13...bounced on
10/21.
----------------------------------------------------
GEORGE =*
|
HRIDDLE #4
Well, here we are once again, after a little vaca-
tion, with another HRIDDLE! Are you ready for this
one? Just to refresh your memory, the HRIDDLE is a
hi-res graphic that has clues which will enable you
to figure out a special hidden message. The solu-
tion to this HRIDDLE is the NAME of another "compu-
ter celebrity". Can you name the person? If you
have the correct answer, then all the clues should
make sense. Good luck!
(To view this HRIDDLE, just RUN "HRIDDLE4" which is
on the flip side of this disk.)
-***
|
PNW COCOFEST-3 PT.1 The Pacific N.W. CoCoFEST-3 was held in Port Or-
chard, Washington the weekend of June 25-26 (Fri.
and Sat.), and I really had a great time. This was
my first CoCoFEST ever, and now, I am already look-
ing forward to next year.
The 'FEST' was held at Whittman Jr. High School,
which turned out to be a great facility for such an
event--plenty of room(s).
I was one of the first to arrive, at about 6:15
Fri. afternoon, and was greeted by Don Zimmerman,
the host of the event. After signing in, I received
a coffee mug with the history of computer chips
printed on the side (from 1970 to the present). I
received my T-shirt the next day (I belong to a
unique group--size medium).
After a brief welcoming speech by Donald, =>
____________________________________________________
we all (about 30 of us) gathered around for an open
discussion about the progress we are making with our
CoCo's, led by Andre LaVelle of the South Bay User's
Group (SBUG). The main topic was of Chris Burke's
"Rocket" and his memory upgrades. A lot of people
were mentioning 1 meg and 2 megs, and I started to
feel outclassed. That all changed later.
Next, Scott Honaker of Microsoft gave a speech
about Microsoft's goal: "A computer on every desk
and in every home." He discussed the concept of mak-
ing the computer a "consumer product", much like the
t.v. He also talked of future versions of Windows,
one in particular called, as God is my witness,
"Chicago", where different tools can be brought to a
document instead of clipping and moving a document
around to different tools. =>
____________________________________________________
Next came the presentations. I chose to attend the
one of multimedia presentations via computer with
Rodger Alexander of the Bellingham OS-9 Users Group,
and a teacher at Whittman Jr. High. He showed us how
he had hooked up a CoCo 1 to a laser disk player. We
disucssed how the computer might be used in schools
in the future, making them user-friendly to the av-
erage student.
Other presentations included controlling motors
via computer, surface mounted circuit boards, comp-
uterized investing, and a Midi (music) presentation.
By now, it was after 10 p.m. and the janitor want-
ed us out, so we called it a night.
Saturday started at 8 a.m. with a flea-market and
breakfast.
SEE pt.2... =*
|
PNW COCOFEST-3 PT.2 Among the vendors in attendance were Eversoft Games Ltd., Gale Force, Bob van der Poel and his OS-9 software, Andre LaVelle (SBUG) and his soft/hard- ware, and even Chris Burke of Burke & Burke had a display running. Also worth mentioning were Rodger Alexander and his OS-9 video/tutorial, Terry Lara- way and his assortment of modems, dd's, computers, and books, and several other private vendors too numerous to mention. After about 2 hours of browsing and buying, I attended Chet Simpson's presentation of computer an- imation, which included a demo of his very impress- ive Image Master program. Next came a delicious lunch and an amusing auction for charity. Quite a few of us were clowning and having fun. You had to be there. => ____________________________________________________ After a little more browsing and (OUCH) buying, we were treated to a speech by Bob van der Poel. His point was knowledge, something all of us computer users posess. Very inspiring, and entertaining. Next came a presentation where I found I belong. Upstairs, in one of the classrooms, was a Q and A session led by Chris Johnson. A couple of topics di- scussed were how to buy a computer and the in's and out's of modeming. Needless to say, I learned plenty here. Immediately after the Q and A session, Chris moved downstairs where he demonstrated how to log onto a BBS. While I mentioned only a few of the Saturday pre- sentaions, there were usually 3 or 4 going on at the same time in different rooms up and downstairs. => ____________________________________________________ When the 'Fest' eventually ended about 5 p.m. on Saturday, at a place where I initially felt I was in over my head, I was both saddened that it WAS ending yet, I was happy and excited knowing that there IS a future with the CoCo-3! Tandy: You really messed up! My heartfelt thanks go out to Donald Zimmerman, Rodger Alexander, Terry Laraway, all of Port Orchard who helped put this 'Fest' together. Also, many thanks to all the vendors and the people of Whittman Jr. High, who gave their time and effort to insure the success of the 'Fest'. And a special thanks to Dave Lockman of Computer Tutor in Vancouver, Wa., who, after the 'Fest', came to my room to install a 512k upgrade into the machine I had taken with me. My apologies to anyone I may have forgot to ment- ion. CoCo's FOREVER!!! -Jerry- =* |
THE CATTRAX CONTEST IS COMPLETE!
It's Saturday morning, November 6th....and we're
set to find out who will win the CATTRAX contest.
So...here's as close to bringing it to you live as
we can get.
The correct entries are laying on the floor in front
of me. I'm dialing Jim Bennett's telephone number
so he can randomly pick the winner. I'll ask Jim
to generate a number between 1 and 10 (that's how
many correct entries we received).
On the next page you'll know the winner.....
=>
____________________________________________________
Jim has set up his CoCo to pick a random number.
The number is 5. That corresponds with the entry
from
Kathy Rumpel
Rt. 1 Box 67-B
Arcadia, WI 54612
Jim and I are delighted to congratulate Kathy as
the winner of the contest! Jim will be sending the
CoCo Cat statue to me and I will very shortly send
it to you, Kathy. (Please RUN "NIBSHOW" to see a
digitized pix of the statue Jim made.) Also =>
____________________________________________________
All names and addresses of the finalists will be
forwarded to Jim so that he can make and send a
certificate of participation to you!
THANKS! THANKS! THANKS! THANKS! THANKS! THANKS!
TO ALL WHO HAVE MADE THIS A MOST EXCITING CONTEST!!!
By the way, the CoCo Cat is residing in:
Cocoa, Florida
The correct answers were:
1. Jerry (McKiernan)
2. Maxwell (Mouse)
3. Allen (H. Allen Curtis)
4. Logan Ward =*
|
| Articles in section: ADVERTISEMENTS |
| ARE
YOU READY FOR PP5? CFDM SUBSCRIPTION COMPLETE COCO SYSTEM FOR SALE! CRYSTAL CITY and ZENIX The "UPGRADE" Disk Magazine WANTED: Disk Holders |
| Back to top |
ARE YOU READY FOR PP5? #5#5#5#5#5#5#5#5#5#5#5#5#5#5#5#5#5#5#5#5#5#5#5#5#5#5
Patience Pair #5 is now available. It consists of
the two games of Solitaire:
MASKED 12 and LUCKY 13
You can purchase Patience Pair #5 for $6.00 from
H. Allen Curtis
at
172 Dennis Drive
Williamsburg, VA 23185
Patience Pair, the first of this series, as well as
Patience Pairs #2, #3, and #4 can still be obtained
for $6.00 each. =*
|
CFDM SUBSCRIPTION Is your subscription running out? Here's how to check: On your mailing label next to your name is a number. The number after the last dash (-) is the last issue on your present subscription. Please don't let your subscription expire. WHEN YOU RESUBSCRIBE PLEASE INCLUDE YOUR ENTIRE SUBSCRIPTION NUMBER. THIS HELPS ME LOCATE YOU IN MY DATABASE! A single issue of CFDM is $6. Or get 3 issues for only $16. A 6 issue subscription is only $30 (a savings of 6$). Back issues are available at the same rates. COCOs FOREVER!! =* |
COMPLETE COCO SYSTEM FOR SALE! Throughout the course of 1991, I purchased the
following complete CoCo system. I have all my
receipts for each product that I purchased. This
system was and has not been used very much at all!
I'm sure someone out there could really get use and
enjoyment from this system.
On the following pages I've listed exactly what I
have and I'll only sell this as a complete package.
The asking price for the whole package is only $300.
Please contact me Monday thru Friday after 5 PM or
at any time during the weekends at 215 423-3972.
Debbie Granozio 2615 East Norris Street
Philadelphi, PA 19125 =>
____________________________________________________
Tandy Color Computer 3
Tandy RGB Color Monitor CM-8
Tandy Disk Drive FD-502
Tandy Dot Matrix Printer DMP-107
(All the original manuals for the above.)
Complete RAINBOW GUIDE TO OS-9 LEVEL 2
MULTI-VUE, HOME PUBLISHER, and OS-9 LEVEL 2
OPERATING SYSTEM
(All manuals for the above.)
Program Paks: ARKANOID, BUST-OUT, COLOR BASEBALL,
DEMOLITION DERBY, FOOTBALL2, MEGA-BUG, PREDATOR,
RAMPAGE, SILPHEED, SOKO-BAN, SPRINGSTER, THEXDER,
COLOR FILE, COLOR FILE 2, COLOR SCRIPTSIT 2, MATH
TUTOR, PERSONAL FINANCE 2, TYPING TUTOR, VIDEOTEX =>
____________________________________________________
ALSO:
RAINBOW MAGAZINES
FROM AUGUST 1989-JULY 1990
and FROM FEBRUARY 1991-APRIL 1993
ALSO:
RAINBOW ON DISK
FROM APRIL 1992-MARCH 1993
=*
|
CRYSTAL CITY and ZENIX The last two SUNDOG SYSTEM'S software packages have
arrived. CRYSTAL CITY and ZENIX are two lightning
fast arcade games for a 128K CoCo. CRYSTAL CITY
sold for $34.95 and ZENIX for $29.95 when offered by
SUNDOG SYSTEMS. You can now pay $18 + $2 each from
RICK'S or you can add them to the current list of
SUNDOG SYSTEMS programs and purchase them for $10
each when using the MULTIPLE PACKAGE OPTION.
Or...As stated in the last issue of CFDM, all those
who are current subscribers to both CFDM HARDCOPY
and CFDM on January 15th will receive a FREE copy of
CRYSTAL CITY with issue #24! Please consider that
less than three months ago CRYSTAL CITY sold for
$34.95. That alone is more than the cost of a 12
issue subscripton to HARDCOPY! =>
____________________________________________________
About the two programs: Jeremy Spiller was author
and co-author of these two programs. I consider
myself to be a little knowledgeable about the CoCo
and how to program it. I said that to say this: I
salute the programming knowledge and techniques
displayed by these two programs. You'll have to see
them to believe that they were done on a CoCo, much
less a 128k CoCo! Animation and sound effects are
here at an unprecedented level! Especially on the
higher levels.
I hope you will try at least one of these GREAT
CoCo programs from SUNDOG SYSTEMS.
=*
|
The "UPGRADE" Disk
Magazine Looking for good Coco Support?
Look to the:
"UPGRADE" Disk Magazine!
From: "Mid Iowa & Country CoCo"
Now in it's eighth year!
Three as a national Disk magazine.
With the UPGRADE National Disk magazine, we've
grown to be one of the largest CoCo outreaches! I
can say that firmly by the response from over 200
members in over 40 states and 5 provinces of Canada;
with others in Australia & England, we expect to be
around for a long, long time.
The "UPGRADE" Disk Magazine: =>
____________________________________________________
- Does not support OSK or computers not compatible
to CoCo. That we leave to those more qualified.
- Not hard copy, but can be dumped to your printer.
- Displays first rate 16 color H2 graphics, with
articles.
- Does keep you informed with news from around the
country. Including ads and recommendations of
better dealers.
- Does have OS-9 articles concerning the CoCo. We've
just started an excellent level II tutorial series
- Does have Basic program technique articles and
tutorials.
- Does carry a full variety of indepth articles and
reviews.
- Recently added "Marty's Memos" column by Marty
Goodman! =>
____________________________________________________
- We carry tips on where to buy CoCo hardware.
- Software is available thru our library. ($3/disk.)
Join the largest CoCo reach out. Join those who
write "Here's my renewal, I don't want to miss an
issue"! Just $16 keeps you in touch with the CoCo
community.
Your subscription includes: 1 year membership in
MI&CC and UPGRADE Disk magazine subscription.
Requires: 128K CC3, 1 drive, RGB or TV
$16 US $21 Canada $31 Foreign Air
Say "I say it in CFDM" and receive a surprise bonus
disk. Mid Iowa & Country CoCo (non-profit)
Terry Simons Editor/Treasurer
1328 48th Des Moines, IA 50311
(Include your phone & system information) =*
|
WANTED: Disk Holders WANTED: One to ten, TANDY, Cat #26-1452 Black, Book
Type, Diskette Holder, 10 Disk Capacity in good
shape. Send card stating how many, cost and
condition to:
Dick Williams
711 N. Cherry St.
Shamokin, PA 17872-5026.
------------ Will reply to all quotes. ------------
=*
|
COCOMAX 3 COLOR MIXING 1 In Issue 13, Keiran Kenny asked about the Color
Mix option of CoCoMax 3. Let me take a crack at
explaining it.
Richard White in THE RAINBOW, 3/87, p.112, ex-
plains how the colors are coded for an Analog RGB
monitor. The CoCo 3 controls three separate color
signals that are sent to the monitor in separate
wires for red, green and blue. Each of the signals
may be off or at low, medium or high intensity.
A byte of eight bits defines the color. A bit with
a value of 1 is on; a bit with a value of 0 is off.
Only the first six bits are used with the following
meanings:
Bit number 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0
Bit meaning x x R1 G1 B1 R0 G0 B0
'R', 'G' and 'B' refer to red, green and blue. =>
____________________________________________________
The '0' and '1' refer to color intensity (low and
medium, respectively). If bit 0 only is on, blue
will be turned on at low intensity. The color number
is 1 (00000001 in standard binary notation). If bit
3 only (B1) is on, blue will be at medium intensity
(color number 8 - 00001000). Both bits 1 and 4 may
be on at the same time, in which case a high inten-
sity signal will be sent to the monitor (color num-
ber 9 - 00001001). This explains why at first glance
the 64 colors appear to be in no systematic order.
The binary form of the number, from 0 to 63, defines
the color using the system described above.
The CoCo 3 manual, discussing color mixing, says:
Additive Mix performs a logical OR on the slot num-
bers; Subractive Mix performs a logical AND on the
slot numbers. The key phrase here is "on the SLOT =>
____________________________________________________
numbers" and not on the numbers of the colors in the
slots!
Bill Barden, in his book, TRS-80 Color Computer
Assembly Language Programming, p.81-2, defines the
logical operators OR and AND in combining binary
numbers:
OR: A bit in the result is set if either one
OR the other bit (or both) is (are) set.
0 OR 0=0, 0 OR 1=1, 1 OR 0=1, 1 OR 1=1.
AND: A bit in the result is set if one bit
AND the other bit are set.
0 AND 0=0, 0 AND 1=0, 1 AND 0=0, 1 AND 1=1.
In the following discussions, I will refer to the
colors using the names quoted by Godfrey Moll's
Color Guide, Issue 18.
Continued in Part 2 =*
|
COCOMAX 3 COLOR MIXING 2 THE STANDARD COCOMAX 3 PALETTE
Slot No. Color No. Binary Color
0 63 00111111 White
1 54 00110110 Lemon Yellow
2 46 00101110 Flesh
3 38 00100110 Apricot
4 25 00011001 Periwinkle
5 16 00010000 Flat Green
6 15 00001111 Off Blue
7 56 00111000 Teardrop
8 7 00000111 Off Gray
9 34 00100010 Maize
10 40 00101000 Light Purple
11 32 00100000 Magenta
12 10 00001010 Gray Blue
=>
____________________________________________________
13 2 00000010 Yellow Green
14 9 00001001 Aquamarine
15 0 00000000 Black
Now, let's take some examples of color mixing as
done by CoCoMax 3:
The CoCoMax 3 manual says that, in Additive Mix, any
color and white gives that color:
00000011 Slot 3 Color 38 Apricot
OR 00000000 Slot 0 Color 63 White
--------
00000011 Slot 3 Color 38 Apricot
Any color and black gives black:
00000011 Slot 3 Color 38 Apricot
OR 00001111 Slot 15 Color 0 Black
--------
00001111 Slot 15 Color 0 Black =>
____________________________________________________
Adding two colors:
00000011 Slot 3 Color 38 Apricot
OR 00000110 Slot 6 Color 15 Off Blue
--------
00000111 Slot 7 Color 56 Teardrop
In Subtractive Mix, the manual says that any color
and white gives white:
00000011 Slot 3 Color 38 Apricot
AND 00000000 Slot 0 Color 63 White
--------
00000000 Slot 0 Color 38 White
Continued in Part 3 =*
|
COCOMAX 3 COLOR MIXING 3
Any color and black gives that color:
00000011 Slot 3 Color 38 Apricot
AND 00001111 Slot 15 Color 0 Black
--------
00000011 Slot 3 Color 38 Apricot
Subtracting two colors:
00000011 Slot 3 Color 38 Apricot
AND 00000110 Slot 6 Color 15 Off Blue
--------
00000010 Slot 2 Color 46 Flesh
I have prepared a graphic which might help sum-
marize these procedures -- COLORS/NIB on the back
side of this disk. The vertical bars of color re-
present the standard palette slots (0 to 15 from
left to right). =>
____________________________________________________
The two sets of horizontal stripes also represent
the palette slots (0 to 15 reading down). The "tabs"
at the ends of each stripe show the normal color of
that slot. As the stripe moves from left to right
across each of the vertical colors, it changes to
show the effect of Additive Mix (top set) and Sub-
tractive Mix (bottom set).
Now, for the 64 dollar question -- how can you use
the Additive and Subtractive mixes? Quite frankly, I
don't see that they accomplish anything you can't do
without them. The manual says that you can darken a
color by going over it with the "checkerboard" pat-
tern (leftmost of the patterns) in the Additive Mix
mode. This will put a halftone of black dots over
any color (any color and black gives black; any
color and white gives that color. You can lighten =>
____________________________________________________
any color by using the same pattern in the Subtract-
ive Mix mode. This will put a halftone of white dots
over the color (any color and white gives white;
any color and black gives that color).
But, without using the Mixing modes, you can
create a checkerboard pattern of any two colors (or
of black and a color) and apply it without mixing.
It is actually easier this way. If you make a mis-
take in one of the mixing modes, you must go back to
the colors pop-up menu, return to "no color mix",
exit, correct any errors, return to the pop-up menu,
select your mix mode again, exit, and continue.
Keiran, I'll bet that, by now, you are sorry you
ever asked! I know I am -- I had to learn all of
this in order to explain it! =*
|
COMPUTERS and OVERKILL COMPUTERS AND A CASE OF OVERKILL, adapted from an article by Sarah Overstreet (Daily Intelligencer, June 22, 1993) Not too long ago, I decided I needed an updated communications program for my personal computer and, having become somewhat bored with poking myself in the eye with a sharp stick, I walked into a computer store. The salesmen were fairly friendly until I told them I wasn't there to buy a new computer, but to see if I could upgrade my old one. "Uh, when you say OLD," one salesman asked me, "do you mean OLD as in the one you presently own vs. a brand new one? Or do you mean OLD as in more than 2 years old?" => ____________________________________________________ "I mean OLD as in about 9 years of age," I answered, and watched the color drain from his face. The other salesman said something about hearing the smoke alarm in the back room and left. The first guy followed me out to my car like a prisoner to the gallows. When I swung my beloved [Tandy Color Computer III] off the back seat and into his line of vision, he lurched forward and caught himself on the fender. I thought for a moment he was going to throw up. "Uh, sir, what you've got there is what we call a... well, uh...I don't know what else to do but come right out and tell you. It's an antique. It has the memory of an electric pencil sharpener. Not only do we not carry any communications software for a unit that small, they haven't even made any in => ____________________________________________________ five years. The best thing I could do to help you upgrade your communications is to turn you on to a good carrier pigeon." He convinced me to come take a look around the computer showroom, and I followed him back into the store. He started pointing to units and saying words like "mega-K-Ram-bytes," which I had no idea the meaning of. However, I wasn't completely lost. I'd heard some of the other men in my office using similar words, in the same tones they used to talk about their cars: "Yeah, I told the wife it was about time we traded up. They got a great deal on a 486 gadzillion bytes with automatic potato peeler at Harry's Hacker Heaven. Why, I can't afford NOT to buy it." (SEE PART 2 FOR THE CONTINUATION) =* |
COMPUTERS and OVERKILL (Part 2) "Only 486 gadzillion? No wonder they've got it so
cheap. In a couple months, It'll be a jalopy! What
you need is a unit like I just picked up, a Robo-
Puter Skadillion. Really, Jerry, you need to pay
more attention to the trade magazines and go to the
computer shows."
In the showroom, the salesman was reciting a litany
of the fantastic software I would be able to use if
I upgraded to the tune of about $5,000.
"I'm a writer," I explained. "Unlike having a
degree in computers, all a writing degree enables
one to do is compete with other fame-seeking
crazies for 15 minutes attention of some magazine
editor with the personality of Charles Manson [No
offense, Rick].
"Besides, before I got my computer, I was using a =>
____________________________________________________
Sears electric portable typewriter that kept inching
itself off the desk each time I hit 'return.'
Compared to what I was used to, my little [Coco III]
seems like the control panel on the Starship
Enterprise.
He looked at me with the expression usually
reserved for a senile old uncle you catch frying his
trousers on the range, and then he turned away.
I remembered where I'd felt like this before. It
was in 1962, and my parents had sent me into the
MFA to buy a package of cucumber seeds. All around
me were farmers buying bushel baskets full of seeds,
and belts, and grease for tractors as big as our
little two-bedroom house.
No one cared if I bought my package of cucumber
seeds, or fell into a barrel and was planted on =>
____________________________________________________
the back 80 with the rest of the corn.
Yet those cucumbers tasted better that anything I've
eaten from a store, shipped in from giant farms from
farmers with big tractors.
Seeds, computers, vegetables or software, sometimes
bigger is simply overkill.
Additions mine from the original article by
Sarah Overstreet, "Computers and a Case of Overkill"
Daily Intelligencer, June 22, 1993. Page 6, Vol 103
No. 148. (C) Calkins Newspapers Inc.
=*
|
If CM3 still fails to work properly after copying
the ORIGINAL TITLEPGE.SYS file onto your CM3 disk,
I suggest formatting your CM3 disk, and making a
new copy of the original disk. (I doubt you will
have that many problems that you'll need to do this)
NOTE: If the file SCREEN01.CM3 is bigger than 5
granules, it will not fit on the CM3 disk. You can
do two things to solve this: 1) Delete the old
SCREEN01.CM3 file off your picture disk, and go
through these directions again. Just make the
picture in the editing window SIMPLER. (A simpler
picture takes up less disk space), or 2) Delete a
file off your CM3 disk (say a printer file that
you don't use, or TRANSLAT.BAS, or COLTRANS) You
can always get them off the ORIGINAL disk again.=>
____________________________________________________
If you are concerned, or confused, and would like
me to do it for you, just send me a disk with a
CM3 picture (It could even be a digitized picture
of you!) on it, and a brief explanation of what you
want in the editing window, and I will mail it back
with a new TITLEPGE.SYS file.
My address: 2123 Longview Rd, Warrington, PA 18976
For those of you who understand this completely, and
are not afraid to experiment, you CAN:
copy TITLEPGE.SYS onto your picture disk, RENAME it
to TITLEPGE.CM3, run CM3, load TITLEPGE.CM3 and
actually edit the TOOLS and words that say FILL,
ZOOM, and UNDO. You can put your name up the side,
or eliminate that grey-checker background. You
must be very careful to leave the PAINTBRUSH as =>
____________________________________________________
a reversed image, and the second line width as
highlighted. You can change the words across the
top, but make sure they are in the same positions.
Then save the file using SAVE AS... from the FILE
menu, exit CM3, kill the old TITLEPGE.SYS file off
your CM3 disk, copy the new TITLEPGE.CM3 file onto
your CM3 dis, rename it to TITLEPGE.SYS and put
that write-protect tab back.
See my NIB file called TITLEPGE.NIB to see what I
did for my new CM3 startup. Notice my name up the
side, the redesigned TOOLS, the different writing
for ZOOM, FILL, and UNDO, the background, etc.
=*
|
Customizing COCO MAX III
Instead of that green pyramid coming up every time you boot CM3, how would you like YOUR OWN picture in the editing window? Here's how: WHEN I REFER TO THE COCOMAX DISK, I REFER TO THE COPY YOU MADE OF THE ORIGINAL DISK. THE ORIGINAL DISK, I HOPE, IS IN A SAFE PLACE. Boot up CM3 and either load, or draw a picture. If you have loaded a picture, use the HAND tool to move the picture around so that what you want in the window is there. Now, VERY IMPORTANT, make sure in the line-width box (lower left) that the second one down is highlighted (The first one being that dotted invisible line). Next, make sure that the PAINT- BRUSH tool is selected (Not the ROLLER or CAN) THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! Go to the brush-size menu and make the paintbrush AS SMALL AS POSSIBLE. => ____________________________________________________ I would recommend the tiny square dot. Now, back on you picture in the editing window, move that tiny paintbrush dot somewhere on the picture so that you cannot see it. Hide it! It is very important that you hide the dot so that it is not noticeable. Now, hold down SHIFT and press the UP ARROW. You disk will spin. Once the disk stops, press the RESET button to get out of CM3. On the disk that spun (your picture disk, probably) is now a file called SCREEN01.CM3. This file is your new title screen for CM3. You need to put this onto your CM3 disk. First, remove the write-protect tab, then type: KILL"TITLEPGE.SYS" -this will erase the old Title page for CM3. --------------------------------> => ____________________________________________________ Next, copy SCREEN01.CM3 onto the CM3 disk (If you have two drives: COPY"SCREEN01.CM3:1" TO "SCREEN01.CM3:0" With one drive: COPY"SCREEN01.CM3" Next, RENAME"SCREEN01.CM3" TO "TITLEPGE.SYS" This changes the filename you just copied onto the CM3 disk to the new name that CoCoMax loads. Place the write-protect tab back on the disk, and RUN"CM3" to see if all looks good. If anything seems wrong, press RESET, remove the write-protect tab, KILL"TITLEPGE.SYS", get out the ORIGINAL CoCoMax disk, and copy TITLEPGE.SYS from the ORIGINAL disk onto your CM3 disk. Put the tab back, and RUN"CM3" .---------Please see PART 2 =* |
| Articles in section: COCO FRIENDS ART GALLERY |
| BABES
IN THE WOODS CFDM HOLIDAY PATROL <g> CHRISTMAS CARD |
| Back to top |
BABES IN THE WOODS
For this picture, I thought I'd try something a
little different by attempting to include people.
I only did this one time before. This is not, as
some might infer from the title, pinup art. Instead,
it is two children walking in the woods and enjoying
nature.
I deliberately avoided showing faces. Maybe I'll
get brave and attempt that sometime. The problem is
that only one color in the palette even remotely
resembles flesh tones -- a bright pink. There are no
other similar colors to use for shading and textur-
ing.
=*
|
CHRISTMAS CARD
Here's Season's Greetings from Michael Lewis. RUN
NIBSHOW and select XMASCARD to see Mike's pix.
=*
|
| Articles in section: FAMILY TREE |
| HENRY
KSZEPKA Ibrahim G. Picard JAMES H. CLAY LOYAL B. GASKIN ROBERT RUSSELL |
| Back to top |
FAMILY TREE Hi! I am in the august part of the 60's, married
to Connie and we have three children and five grand-
children.
I am a Navy Veteran and served aboard the " USS
REUBEN JAMES " DE-153 in the BIG WAR.
Worked as a Patternmaker in the local job shops
of the area. The last 20 years self employed making
Patterns and Models for the Machinery and Plastics
Industries. Now retired from jobbing.
I joined a CoCo Club 6809 about the time many
members Jumped Ship to get into the IBM/IBM Clones.
**=>
____________________________________________________
In December of 1991 the club lost the use of
a Community Room at a local Utility Company.
Even though the "Requiem for CoCo" had began
there were some last ditch efforts being made for
the "DIE-HARDS". In early 1992 "C F D M" made it's
debut Issue with Volume 1 No 1. Thank You RICK.
I have a large assortment of CoCo magazines
dating back to the early '80's. Rainbow, Hot CoCo,
Color Computer, Color Computer News, TRS 80, CoCo Cl
ip Board etc., many duplicates. I would like to fill
in some spaces by trading or what ever.
Please feel free to write, address next page.
***=>
____________________________________________________
HENRY KSZEPKA
55 BRAINARD RD
WILBRAHAM, MA 01095
=*
|
Ibrahim G. Picard Hello, my name is Ibrahim Picard, I am 43 years old
and I live in Westlake, Louisiana, with my wife
Zareena and our 13-year-old son Yusuf. Yusuf was
born in his mother's native land of Sri Lanka. We
moved to Westlake in 1980. I work at the Conoco re-
finery as a controlman.
I first became interested in electronic gadgets in
1972, and that's when I got my Amateur Radio License
WA4EGH. I was stationed at Camp Lejeune, NC, at the
time. Now my call is N5LYP. Ham Radio and computers
were a natural mix. My first computer in 1984 was a
Commodore-64. In 1986 I sold the C-64 (mistake) and
got a MS-DOS computer. It has been upgraded to a 386
-SX with Super VGA graphics and Sound Blaster Pro -
in other words, a great GAME MACHINE. My son plays
on it while I use the CoCo-3 for serious =>
____________________________________________________
computing. I have noticed a trend at Radio Shack -
they don't mind dropping a still-popular computer
and deserting thousands of faithful users. Lucky for
us we have people like Rick, who help continue sup-
port for these machines. My ham shack looks like a
Tandy Computer Museum. I have : Tandy Model 102 with
Disk/Video Interface and portable disk drive; Tandy
Model 600 with BASIC ROM; TRS-80 Model 4D with 40meg
harddrive and tons of sotfware; and 3 CoCo-3's with
2 FD-502 drives, 2 color mice, one CM-8 (looking for
another), Howard Slot Pak III, CoCoPro! Serial Inter
face, and lots of software. I am in the process of
putting together a hard disk drive for OS-9; just
waiting for delivery of Burke & Burke's CoCo-XT
interface. I bought all the back issues of Rainbow
back to 1987. Now I have enough material to keep =>
____________________________________________________
me busy into the next century. The reason I bought
so many spares for the CoCo is because it is my
favorite computer. I am learning how to use it for
RTTY (telelype) and Packet Radio. I was lucky enough
to find someone willing to part with his copy of
Start OS-9, and I am learning that remarkably flex-
ible operating system. I would like to share ideas
and information with anyone else with an interest in
Amateur Radio and CoCo-3's. And I am sure to be look
ing for help with OS-9 very soon. My GEnie Mail
address is I.PICARD1. My mailing address is below.
Perhaps we can start an Amateur Radio SIG within the
CFDM. 73 CUL de N5LYP Ibrahim Picard
501 Hudson Drive
Westlake, LA 70669
=*
|
JAMES H. CLAY Hello to all. I am 67 years old and very glad to see
that CFDM is getting better with each issue. I was
born on a farm in Arkansas. I went into the army
when I was 19. I retired as a SGT/MAJOR. After
getting out of the army, I managed a 2-way radio
repair shop for 19 years here in Colorado Springs
(where I now am fully retired). My wife, Mary is a
wildlife photographer and we travel alot to zoos and
other wildlife locations. Mary uses one CoCo2 with
disk drive and printer to print labels for her photo
slides which she then sends to her stock photo agent
for sale. My equipment consists of: three CoCo2s,
two CoCo3s, CM8 monitor, two-STAR printers, modem,
multi-pak, two 501 disk drives and some other
miscellaneous items.
=>
____________________________________________________
James Clay
927 Potter Drive
Colorado Springs, CO 80909
=*
|
LOYAL B. GASKIN Hi, I am 50 years old. I am physically and mentally
disabled. On 05/15/93 I was accepted for Section 8
housing so I could live on my own. HELP INC. moved
me here. I am on the fifth floor. There's only one
room but it is very large and modern. I really like
it alot. I have a 64k DATA BANK SCHEDULER EC-345
from R/S. I would be lost without it. I also have a
FRANKLIN SPELL/CALC MASTER that helps me with my
spelling and I call the library. (Really I call 5 of
them. This way I try not to be a pain.) When they
are closed I just call any local number. I have a
CoCo3 512K with 2 drives, a RGB monitor and DMP-110
printer. Most of my COCO stuff came from a wonderful
R/S manager. I bought a May 92 RAINBOW MAGAZINE and
tried to type in a game called SWOP AROUND by George
and Ellen Aftamonow. I couldn't get it to run. >>>
____________________________________________________
I noticed that they were from CT and not to far from
me, so I called to see if they could help. That
phone call I will never forget because not only did
they share a lot of their software, they told me
about CFDM and I have Friends that mean a lot to me
now. Like Rick Cooper and Dave Otis and all the
people that send a part of themselves thru CFDM. I
like all of you and I thank you all for giving so
much to me.
=*
|
FAMILY TREE HI! CoCo Friends, Another "Old Timer" (75 years
young). I was born and raised in the north New
Jersey area. I served an apprentice-ship as a
machinist and tool and die maker in the aircraft
industry. Forty years in this business. Retired with
a disability at age 60.
My wife, Emma, and I live in our primary home
on the north bank of the Moose River between Brassua
Lake and Moosehead Lake. A beautiful location in the
town of Rockwood in the State of Maine.
I purchased my first computer, a CoCo II in 1986
and was graduated to a CoCo III in '87. My present
system includes a 512K CoCo III, FD-502 Dual Drive,
CM-8 Monitor, DMP-106 Printer, Mouse, Multi-Pak,
1200 Zoom Modem, Deskmate 3, OS-9 Level 2, CoCo Pro
RS-232 Pak and many programs. ==>
____________________________________________________
I have no programming experience,but can hardly
wait for mid month and the delivery of CFDM. I was
a subscriber to RAINBOW from September '86 until its
demise.
Due to my disability, my wife of 51 years, and I
spend the summer months from May 1 to November 1 in
Maine and the winter months in our mobile home in
Florida.
Summer Address: Winter address:
P.O.Box 53 3 Columbia Ave.
Rockwood,ME 04478 Sorrento,FL 32776
Phone: (207) 534-7332 Phone: (904) 383-8279
==*
|
| Articles in section: FORUM |
| FAVORITE/MOST
POPULAR SOFTWARE Missing Rainbow! OUR TRIP TO THE FORMER USSR |
| Back to top |
FAVORITE/MOST POPULAR SOFTWARE I am really extremely curious to know what Friends
consider their favorite programs. My favorite pro-
grams are:
1. Max-10
2. CoCo-Max 3
3. Telewriter-128
4. CFDM
Let us know what software is your favorite.
***
|
Missing Rainbow! Well, it's been almost 3 months since I've receiv-
ed the final issue of the RAINBOW. My first issue
was the June, 1990 issue, the one with the sunglass-
es on the cover. Fortunately, I was able to order
all the issues I missed between Aug, '86 and the
June issue. The 8/86 issue was one of the first to
introduce the CoCo 3 to the readers of The RAINBOW,
I think..
Anyway, I watched The RAINBOW deteriorate from a
magazine with over 200 pages (did you all catch
that?? I said, OVER 200 PAGES!) to virtually a news-
letter with only 16 pages in the final edition. Even
with the shrinking magazine, I enjoyed each and
every one, reading the articles, entering the pro-
grams, and supporting the vendors. I learned a great
deal from The RAINBOW, but, as they say, =>
____________________________________________________
the end was inevitable. I received word from our
friend, Rick Cooper, that the May '93 issue was to
be the last. I was heartbroke. Even without Tandy's
support, I still had my subscription to CFDM and my
subscription to The RAINBOW. I felt "connected". So,
when I heard of the mag's demise, I proceeded to
call the Falsoft Bldg. to find out what would happen
to my subscription, which is currently paid up to
November '93. I was told that I would receive a copy
of a different publication, but, the facts weren't
out yet. With the last copy of The RAINBOW came the
announcement that subscriptions will be fulfilled
with subscriptions to PCM. At least Falsoft wasn't
leaving us hanging, or are they??
At the PNW CoCoFEST-3 held in Washington recently,
Terry Laraway of Port Orchard voiced his =>
____________________________________________________
unhappiness of receiving one - and ONLY one - copy
of PCM... A point that had completely gotten by me.
We all kind of looked at each other, wondering what
to do next. Terry wanted to give away his copy of
PCM - no takers. We all pretty much want either The
RAINBOW back or our money back from Falsoft. I have
not yet contacted the Falsoft people on this issue,
and I wonder if any of you Friends out there have.
I really miss The RAINBOW, but, thankfully, CFDM
is alive and well in the CoCo community. Rick: You
have the best thing going here, and I hope to enjoy
CFDM for years to come. CoCos and CFDM FOREVER!!
-Jerry- =*
|
OUR TRIP TO THE FORMER USSR The CoCo Friends may be interested to hear about my trip to Russia. Last Feb., my wife and I flew to Moscow where we were met by our friend, Dr. Zhurav- kov. We spent 3 days there and then traveled by train to Minsk, where we spent the rest of the week. It was very cold but it was the only time that we could schedule the time off work. It was a fantastic experience! The people were extremely polite to us and treated us like royalty. Although they are liv- ing very poorly, they managed to make each meal a banquet! The kindness and politeness of the people is beyond anything we had ever experienced before. The people we met were very eager to make friends with Americans. They hate the communists and want to have democracy. However, they are pessimistic about the chances of achieving it - they fear => ____________________________________________________ that the opponents of democracy are too well organ- ized. The economic situation is catastrophic: it is difficult to buy food and clothing. Although our friend is a doctor he can afford only a few things. Also, there is very little food in the stores. They eat a lot of fish and potatoes. Fruits and vegeta- bles are almost non-existent. My wife had difficul- ty eating the fish and some of the other dishes. It was definitely not like US food! The difficult part was that our hosts insisted that we must eat lots! Each meal consisted of 4 to 6 courses! Soup was al- ways the first course and it was always delicious. My general impression of the country as a whole was not positive. There seemed to be very tight-knit family relationships but a total lack of trust and cooperation beyond that. Just about everything => ____________________________________________________ looked run down and dirty. We saw no stores at all like we have here. Their big "department" store in Moscow looked like a flea market! The grocery store was small, dirty, and looked like it was a makeshift operation. The international airport in Moscow was small and dirty. And you could not buy your tickets there; you had to buy them at an airline store at another location! Efficiency is an unknown luxury! Unfortunately, private enterprise is struggling to exist but is being choked by the mafia's total con- trol of everything. For example, I found out that to buy train tickets, our friend had to contact his "connection". Our general impression was that the people are wonderful and we should reach out to them in friendship. Everything else is horribly disorgan- ized and very discouraging to me. =* |
| Articles in section: FROM THE EDITOR |
| FROM
THE EDITOR GOODBYE TO A FRIEND TO FALLEN FRIENDS (KUDOS) <g> |
| Back to top |
FROM THE EDITOR --- MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL THE COCO FRIENDS! ---
It's a little hard for me to write the above at this
early date (November 22nd). But by the time you get
this issue it will almost be Christmas! Here's
wishing you have a great holiday season and a great
New Year!
Another thing that's hard to believe is that with
the next issue, CFDM will be two years old. That's
24 issues! That's 24 disks plus 6 bonus disks! Now
you can tell the truth; did you really think we'd
last this long? Well it's a definite truth that
without our many faithful Friends we would have
folded long ago!!
=>
____________________________________________________
This has been a pretty eventful month. The good
news is that there seems to be no sign that the
CoCo Community is going away! All of the magazines
just keep going and seemingly growing. Just today
I got my first issues of Frank Swygert's "68micro"
and I gladly compliment it to the highest degree! If
you haven't seen this publication, please give it a
try. Write to: FARNA Systems P.O. Box 321 Warner
Robbins, GA 31099-0321. The price is $23 per year.
That's 8 issues.
Also, the late arrivals from SUNDOG SYSTEMS, ZENIX
and CRYSTAL CITY, are now ready for shipment. These
two fantastic programs did not arrive with the first
shipment and the documentation had to be retyped.
You can add them to the current list at $18 each..=>
____________________________________________________
or use the the MULTIPLE PACKAGE OPTION for an even
better price. (See the entry in the ADVERTISEMENT
section as to how to get a FREE copy of CRYSTAL
CITY.)
There was also some very sad news. (See GOODBYE TO A
FRIEND in this section.)
----------------------------------------------------
And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold,
I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall
be to all people. For unto you is born this day in
the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the
Lord.
- St. Luke 2:10, 11
=*
|
GOODBYE TO A FRIEND It is with a very heavy heart that I report the
following sad news.
On Monday, November 15th, I received a call from
Detective Mike Marlow of the Waco, Georgia Police
Department. He was investigating the murder of Dale
Kramer. He was interested in retrieving information
from Dale's CoCo system which might lead to the
apprehension of the party that murdered Dale. The
only information he could give me was that Dale had
indeed been murdered and the time was probably on
Friday, November 12th. He asked that I not report
this for at least 5 days.
On Saturday, November 20th, I called Waco and spoke
with Detective Marlow's partner, James Perry. =>
____________________________________________________
Detective Perry related that a suspect had been
apprehended and was currently in custody. The
suspect was a co-worker of Dales, although not a
close acquaintance. The motive appears to have been
robbery.
It has been rather gloomy around our house this week
as we recalled the short tho enjoyable relationship
we had with Dale. His visit this past summer was
a lot of fun and his help during the recent Atlanta
CoCo Fest was invaluable. Dale was an intelligent,
friendly young man and he will be sorely missed by
his Friends. Although not a contributor of programs
or even graphics, his entries have been a source of
information and humor. He took on the nickname Elad
Remark rather early on in CFDM's beginnings. =>
____________________________________________________
Dale loved to explore different programs and built
a very powerful CoCo system. I know that he often
communicated with a number of CoCo enthusiasts and
again...
We will all miss our dear Friend, Dale Kramer.
=*
|
|
<< ROY ATKINS >> << NORM BARSON >> << JIM BENNETT >> << LOGAN BLECKLEY >> << JAMES CLAY >> << H ALLEN CURTIS >> << STEVE FELKER >> << LOYAL B. GASKIN >> << DON GOOD >> << DEBBIE GRANOZIO >> << ARTHUR HINMAN >> << KEIRAN KENNY >> << HENRY KSZEPKA >> << MICHAEL LEWIS >> << JIM MCNEIL >> << JIM MILLS >> << COLIN NORTH >> << IBRAHIM G. PICARD >> << GEORGE QUELLHORST >> << ROBERT RUSSELL >> << TERRY SIMONS >> << JERRY TOFTE >> << ROBERT A TURNER >> << J.R. WAGGONER >> << LESLIE WALTZ >> << DICK WILLIAMS >> << STUART WYSS-GALLIFENT >> |
| Articles in section: LETTERS TO THE EDITOR |
| A
FEW ANSWERS PLEASE ABOUT THAT SUNDOG SOFTWARE! KUDOS...HARDCOPY MORE DRIVE CAPACITY OS-9 SHAREWARE DISK THANKS AND HELP PLEASE! |
| Back to top |
A FEW ANSWERS PLEASE Sir,
I would like to ask some questions and place a
small order please. The questions first.
#1. When I print my labels for my backup copies of
CFDM, I print the whole year's set of labels on
one setup. My question is: HOW MANY ISSUES OF
CFDM ARE YOU PLANNING FOR VOLUME 1?
(Rick): You caught me J.R.! Due to the way I set
up my subscrition numbers (which tell me how
many issues are left on a Friend's subscription)
it was not feasible to go with a volume 2 after
issue #12. So..I decided that we'd just keep
volume 1 forever..but...with issue #25 =>
____________________________________________________
you are going to see the volume designation
disappear altogether. From that point on it
will just be issue #??.
#2. According to the Nov. 93 issue of UP TIME, I see
that you gave a seminar on "Putting a Disk
Magazine Together" at the Atlanta CoCoFest in
October. Since I was unable to attend, I was
wondering: IS THERE A TRANSCRIPT OF YOUR SEMINAR
AVAILABLE?
(Rick) Although the seminar was more "About CFDM"
than on "Putting a Disk Magazine Together" I'm
glad you asked! I have contacted Terry Dodson
who just happened to tape that event. He has
agreed to send me the tape and I'll check =>
____________________________________________________
out the feasibility of making it available.
#3. DO YOU HAVE ANY "BLUE STREAK ULTIMA" SERIAL TO
PARALLEL INTERFACE UNITS LEFT?
(Rick): Less than 15.
#4. Several issues ago, in CFDM, you mentioned
something about a video. IS THIS STILL A
POSSIBILITY?
(Rick): J.R., I did attempt to start the video
just before school started. I didn't get a lot
done, but I'm still interested in trying it if I
can just get some time. I really do appreciate
your interest in this project!! =*
|
ABOUT THAT SUNDOG SOFTWARE! Dear Rick,
I am enclosing a cheque for $20 for the programme
THELDA that you have purchased from SUNDOG SYSTEMS.
I have purchased most of the others over the years
so it would be pointless for me to buy the entire
package. The people that get this package are
getting a real bargain.
Colin North - Australia
--------
RICK: Thanks for your support Colin and for your
endorsement of the SUNDOG SYSTEMS software. I am
very very pleased to have it on our order form!
=>
____________________________________________________
Dear Rick,
I got the Package yesterday, and I bet I know which
one is your favorite. I can't believe how wonderful
PHOTON is. The game is just Awesome. I can only get
to level 9, but I will get past that. You can bet on
that.
...I really can't believe how good that game is, it
is ADDICTIVE. One other thing on the SUNDOG logo, I
can't recall seeing anything like that before. That
is real nice.
Loyal B. Gaskin Sr.
30 Framingham Dr. Apt. 5-F
Waterbury, CT. 06705 =>
____________________________________________________
-------
RICK: You guessed right Loyal! I've really enjoyed
PHOTON and finally got up to level 34. (I don't know
how many more there is.) And lately...I've been
checking out ZENIX and CRYSTAL CITY. I'm really
impressed with these two programs!
I once hesitated to buy software because of the high
prices. But now in the after-life of CoCo, I'm
enjoying the best at low costs! I encourage everyone
to try some of these GREAT programs!
=*
|
KUDOS...HARDCOPY KUDOS TO RICK FOR THE "CFDM HARDCOPY", I FIND MYSELF
ENJOYING THIS JUST AS MUCH AS I DID "THE RAINBOW".
I ALREADY HAVE REMOVED THE STAPLE AND USED MY
3 RING PUNCH TO START A BINDER.
GOOD JOB...
MICHAEL LEWIS
=*
|
MORE DRIVE CAPACITY IF YOU NEED MORE DRIVE CAPACITY CONTACT OWL-WARE,
P.O. BOX 116, MERTZTOWN, PA. 19539.
I BOUGHT A KIT FROM THEM THAT FITS INTO THE TOP
HALF OF MY RS 502 DRIVE. A NEW CONTROLLER CHIP IS
INCLUDED AND THE CONVERSION ONLY TAKES ABOUT 15
MINUTES. I NOW HAVE TWO DOUBLE SIDED DRIVES TO WORK
WITH AND IS IT EVER GREAT! COPYING AND BACKING UP
IS A SNAP AND IT TAKES THE LOAD OFF OF DRIVE 0.
BUY THE DISK TUTORIAL WITH THE KIT AS IT EXPLAINS
EVERYTHING IN GREAT DETAIL. TOTAL COST ABOUT $140
INCLUDING SHIPPING. A REAL BARGAIN!
ARTHUR HINMAN KD3KN
=*
|
OS-9 SHAREWARE DISK Rick, thanks for letting me mention this software on CFDM. Although it is OS-9, I believe it to be worth anyone's time to download these programs from either DELPHI or GENIE. On GENIE -TANDY ROUNDTABLE - M635, it is listed as R3 SYSTEMS (I believe!). On DELPHI - OS-9 APPLICATIONS DATABASE it is archived with AR or OS9ARC. The search name is DONRGOOD or PT. I have written permission from Rick R Roth to upload this software to any BBS. Rick marketed the 'R3 SYSTEMS' software through MICROCOM, but has since dissolved 'R3 SYSTEMS' tradename. If anyone does not have the access to either DELPHI or GENIE, then I will, for the cost of disk and mailer ($1.50 for stamps should cover it) mail you an unARCED version of the files and the documentation. If you use OS-9 as much as I do, it will save a lot of typing and having to => ____________________________________________________ remember pathlists and pathnames. I use it almost daily. PT is in my OS9BOOT file for quick access. Rick Roth switched to IBM for his programming needs, and may be a little difficult to locate or receive any response from. But his homebase address is on the disk. Also, Rick, while on the subject of OS-9, I would like to say that I have all of the OS-9 software that you are advertising and it is all excellent and well worth the price you are asking. I paid the original cost a couple of years ago, and do not re- gret it. As for the word processor 'SIMPLY BETTER', it just cannot be beat - on the CoCo 3. Since the next issue is my last in this series, I am enclosing a check for the next six months of CFDM. Having just subscribed to 'HARDCOPY' for the next => ____________________________________________________ year, I should have plenty of goodies to keep me occupied. While I am at it, here is a word about the offer from Walter Bayer of COLESS COMPUTER DESIGN. I have the CIII PagesE V2.5, CIII Fonts, D10 Fonts, and the CIII LetterX programs. They are all excellent, and Mr. Bayer is a gentleman and a man of his word. That means a lot to me. Rick Cooper, I sincerely hope that you and your family have enjoyed an eventful summers' vacation. If anyone deserved a little R&R, I know it has to be you. Keep up the great work on CFDM! Until next time...thanks. DONRGOOD 3858 N BRYAN FRESNO CA. 93722 209/276-9119 >**********************************************< =* |
THANKS AND HELP PLEASE! For those who were kind enough to send support re:
the bargraph request, my humble & hearty thanks!
Now can anyone point me to the issue of RAINBOW that
had a basic windows program?
Logan Bleckley
717 Piedmont Ave. NE
Atlanta, GA 30308-1416
=*
|
| Articles in section: POTPOURRI |
| ELVIRA
MADIGAN. HINT: LABELING DISKS REMEMBER WHEN? <g> by Jim McNeil TICO-TICO |
| Back to top |
ELVIRA MADIGAN. One of my favorite pieces of music is ELVIRA MADIGAN
from the movie by the same name. The music was taken
from the ANDANTE OF MOZART'S 23TH PIANO CONCERTO IN
C MAJOR.
I wanted to transcribe this rather complicated piece
of music and play it on the COCO III. But alas the
only music processor I had that would play the whole
range of this music, all the highs and the lows, was
MUSIC+. However, after the first two measures I came
to the realization that the seven note window was
just too small to transcribe this complicated piece.
Some measures used up as much as 14 notes. At this
point my oldest son jokingly suggested that I write
a new BASIC driver for MUSIC+ that would allow the
entry of real notes, instead of entering letters and
numbers. Well, to make a long story short, =>
____________________________________________________
I took up the challenge, and MUSIC3+ was born.
ELVIRA was entered into the computer.
And the results are on the flipside of this disk.
Just run ELVIRA/BAS. ENJOY
George J. Quellhorst.
*>
|
HINT: LABELING DISKS After being frustrated by labels that never seem to
stick very well to disks, I discovered a simple and
easy solution: I write the name directly on the disk
with an opaque paint marker. These are available at
many art supply stores. The paint dries immediately
and is permanent. I use white or a metallic color
(the marker pens also come in gold and silver). You
just have to be careful not to press down too hard.
=*
|
TICO-TICO I do not have much information about TICO-TICO
other than it was from the MGM movie "Bathing
Beauty".It has a South American rhythm probably
from Brazil.
Just RUN"TICOTICO"
=*
|
Another Submission Form Here's another submission form for subscribers
who use, or can select IBM font on their printers.
On the program side of the disk is a program named
SUBMIT/BAS that I put together to use on my DMP 107
printer using IBM character set 1.
Check the program lines to see if you need to
make any changes before you run it. Line 20 contains
a 2400 baud printer poke (POKE150,18). In line 50,
the CHR$(27);"!" selects the IBM code set on the DMP
107. CHR$(27);"7" selects character set 1, CHR$(27);
CHR$(58) selects 12 characters per inch, and CHR$
(27);CHR$"U";CHR$(1) selects unidirectional printing
for good alignment. In line 100, CHR$(27);"S";CHR$
(1) switches to subscript, CHR$(27);"T" cancels the
subscript, and CHR$(27);CHR$(59) restores the
printer to TANDY mode. Now, send a submission! =*
|
COPYDIR, A DISK SAVER. COPYDIR/BAS is a utility that will keep a copy of your directory on track zero of the disk. Thus, should your directory ever get scrambled, it will no longer mean the loss of all the programs on the disk Simply run COPYDIR, use the RESTORE option and you are back in business. ON THE DISK YOU WILL FIND: COPYDIR/BAS [ RUN ] The program itself. COPYDIR/DOC [ --- ] The documentation. PRINTME/BAS [ RUN ] Prints out COPYDIR/DOC. SET YOUR PRINTER TO 12 CPI BEFORE RUNNING PRINTME. ENJOY, AND MAY YOU NEVER RUN OUT OF RAM !!!! GEORGE QUELLHORST. for A.S.H. ............ *> |
Directory TXT: "DISK
DIR/BAS" The program "DISK DIR.BAS" will write a file called
"DISK DIR.TXT" to the diskette that is in the drive.
This file will contain the directory information
about all of the files on the disk. It will contain
all of the info as provided via the DIR command.
Upon RUNning the program, you are given a choice of
three options: [D] will generate the "DISK DIR" text
file. [Q] will exit the program and [C] will allow
you to configure the DRIVE (0-3) and characters per
line (32-132) of the generated file. The defaults
are DRIVE 0, CPL = 80.
Robert Allen Turner, PO Box 396, Double Springs,
Alabama 35553
=*
|
FASCINATION ALEXANDER THE GREAT is considered one of the most fascinating of all Solitaires. To accommodate the graphic capabilities of the CoCo 3 I have developed a variation of ALEXANDER THE GREAT which I have dubbed FASCINATION. FASCINATION features a Foundation, a Tableau, a Stock, a Hand, and Vegas type scoring. Initially the Foundation is empty. During the game, cards are played ONE AT A TIME to the Foundation on each of 4 piles in UPWARD suit sequence starting with an Ace. At the onset of the game the Tableau consists of 15 piles of 3 FACE UP cards each. Cards are played ONE AT A TIME in DOWNWARD suit sequence to each pile of the Tableau. As represented on the CoCo 3 screen the lowest card geometrically of any pile of the Tableau can be played on the lowest card geometrically => ____________________________________________________ of another pile of the Tableau or on a Foundation pile. If a pile of the Tableau becomes empty, it can only be filled with a King. In accordance with Vegas type scoring, FASCINATION begins with a negative score: -52. For each card played to the Foundation 5 points are added to the score. The object of the game is to play all 52 cards to the Foundation to obtain a score of 208. Each of 15 piles of the Tableau has been assigned a number or letter designation. The designations are 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,A,B,C,D, and E. Because of space limitations on the screen, at most 4 cards in any pile of the Tableau will be visible. The lowest card geometrically (called the bottom card) in a pile of 4 visible cards will be the lowest denomination in a sequence of 2 or more cards. The card just above => ____________________________________________________ the bottom card will be the highest denomination card in the sequence. For example, suppose pile 8 initially consisted of the 6 of Clubs, the 4 of Diamonds, and the Jack of Spades (the bottom card). Suppose the 10 of Spades was played on the Jack. Then pile 8 would consist of 4 visible cards and the bottom 2 cards would represent the Spade sequence: Jack, 10. Next, suppose that the 9 of Spades was played on the 10 in pile 8. The 10 would no longer be seen and the bottom 2 cards would be the Jack and 9, representing the sequence: Jack, 10, 9. Key commands are used to make the plays. The Next command causes the next card from the Stock to be dealt to the Hand. The N command is executed by merely pressing the N key of the CoCo 3 keyboard. Similarly, pressing H followed by F causes the =* |
FASCINATION (continued) current Hand card to be played on to the Foundation.
Pressing H followed by a number key, 0 through 9, or
a letter key, A through E, will play the Hand card
to the designated Tableau pile. Likewise, pressing
a number key, 0 - 9, or letter key, A - E, followed
by F will cause the card from the designated pile of
the Tableau to be played on the Foundation. Playing
a card from one pile of the Tableau to another is
accomplished by pressing the keys designating the 2
piles in succession. When you are ready to Quit the
game, press Q twice in succession. A menu at the
bottom of the FASCINATION screen acts as a reminder
of the valid key commands. If you press an invalid
key or try to make an illegal play, a beep will be
sounded.
=>
____________________________________________________
The file FASCIN8.BAS contains FASCINATION and
FASBFR.BIN contains the graphics for FASCINATION.
I would be overjoyed if some musically inclined
programmer would augment the game by adding a few
bars of the song "Fascination" when a player wins
the game.
If you enjoy FASCINATION, be sure to look for my
ad in this issue.
=*
|
PLAY-MUS, VERSION 1.01 *update* In issue number 17 of CFDM, I presented a program
that would convert MUSICA files to stand alone /BIN
programs, as well as allow them to be played in
mono (TV/Monitor speaker) or stereo (Speech Systems
Stereo Pak or Orchestra 90-CC Stereo Pak). That was
version 1.0. It works well and several readers sent
their compliments. Well, it just got better! The
player routine now recognizes the [BREAK] key to
allow you to stop the playing of the music, if
desired. Follow the directions as pointed out in
issue 17 of CFDM or CFDM Hardcopy, except use:
RUN "PLAYMUS1" to start the program. The program is
still shareware, and the source code is once again
included for your perusal and comparison with the
original, if desired. ENJOY! (-: BOB :-)
=*
|
XMASTREE
It's too late for Christmas 1992, but it will do no harm if you have your CoCo Christmas Greeting al- ready and written for Christmas 1993. As they say, only so many shopping days and the tme is here again before you realise it. The program puts a stylised Xmas tree on HSCREEN2 and then small decorative ikons are drawn in a rect- angle top left. Each ikon fits into a 16 by 16 frame within the rectangle. The star is placed at the top of the tree and then a further seven ikons, are drawn and stored in the buffer labelled 1 to 7. These seven ikons are displayed in a column at the right of the screen and numbered in accordance with their order in the buffer. Press 1 to 7 to make a choice, and the chosen ikon will appear flashing left of the tree. Use => ____________________________________________________ arrow keys to move it to a position on the tree. Press a vertical and horizontal arrow together for diagonal movement, X with arrows to speed up the movement. Press ENTER when the ikon is in position. Press another number to select another ikon or press an arrow to repeat your last choice. You can move an ikon across or through an existing ikon with no damage. When your decorating is complete, press Q. Unwan- ted elements will then be cleared from the screen and the greeting message in line 1180 will be added. Line 1190 will then run NIBSAVER and your Xmas Tree picture will be saved with no further hassle. This, of course, means that you will have to have NIBSAVER/BAS and NIBSAVER/BIN on your disk. The BREAK key is disabled, but you can press=> ____________________________________________________ SHIFT-BREAK to abort a picture save. Buffer labels 13 and 14 are reserved for a back- ground and the star, but you could use other labels to add ikons if you wish. Follow the examples in lines 210 to 620. For Rick's convenience I have put a sample pic- ture, XMASTREE/NIB, on the disk together with my NIBLODR+ that I made to replace PIXLOADR on my NIB picture disks. =* |
| Articles in section: REVIEWS |
| "Thaediak
of Ishdor" Connecting the CoCo ... GrafExpress 2.0 |
| Back to top |
"Thaediak of Ishdor" In January/93 I received two disks marked "Thaediak
of Ishdor", Books 1 & 2. Following directions I
began to read the story and much to my surprise and
pleasure it was a Sci-Fi story, a type of writing I
use to read many years ago.
The story is about an alien and his droid from be-
yond our solar system. The two have become stranded
here on earth. The alien takes the form of a cat so
he may roam the earth without detection as an alien.
The cat then makes contact with a young boy and from
there on the story really takes off with other young
people becoming involved.
=>
____________________________________________________
I recently received two more disks with upgraded
Book 1 and a completed Book 2, along with new gra-
phics and 'reading' programs.
Here are a few things that impressed me. One, the
story is well thought out, contains little violence,
NO SEX, no swearing and shows a lot of imagination
from its author, Jim Mills. Two, the reading and
viewing programs are excellent and very user friend-
ly. Three, the numerous graphics are outstanding.
Four, Thaediak is not just a Sci-Fi story, it is a
'project' with at least ten CoCo Friends contribut-
ing their expertise to the programs.
=>
____________________________________________________
At the risk of inadvertently leaving someone out I
will name the participants and you may recognize
where the expertise is coming from.
Jim Mills, author and coordinator; Madmike Hoke,
Stuart T. Wyss-Gallifent & David Mills, reading and
viewing programs; Dave Otis, compacting; Norm Barson
,John Clemons, Rolland & Dorthy Funk, graphics; with
Robert Allen Turner working on possible future sound
Please forgive me if I missed any project Friends.
If you like good clean Sci-Fi reading and graphics,
fit for any age, contact James C Mills, 3059 220th
St, Stockton, IA 52769 to order "Thaediak of Ishdor,
Books 1 & 2", price at this time unknown.
=*
|
Connecting the CoCo ... In 1990 Bill Barden published a book titled "Con-
necting the CoCo to the REAL World". I'm not cer-
tain whether or not this book is still available,
but it describes some really interesting things that
you can do with your CoCo. For example, there are
instructions for building a CoCo weather station
that will enable you to measure the temperature and
the speed and direction of the wind. There are also
chapters covering the joystick circuitry, light de-
tectors, voice synthesis, a CoCo oscilloscope, light
detectors, event counter, burglar alarm systems, and
information about using the various ports (serial,
cassette, ROM).
The book is spiral bound and has 176 pages.
=>
____________________________________________________
There are two things I really like about this book:
it is extremely well-written and the projects are
almost all simple enough and inexpensive enough even
for a complete klutz like myself. The first sen-
tence of the book begins, "Even if you've never held
a soldering iron or know what a transistor looks
like, I'm going to show you how to do some amazing
things with your CoCo 1, 2, or 3." This statement
is completely true.
So, if you're into tinkering and you'd be interested
in learning how you can use your CoCo in new and
amazing ways, I highly recommend that you try to
find a copy of this book. The author's address is:
William Barden, Jr. P.O.Box 3568; Mission Viejo, CA
92692 ***
|
GrafExpress 2.0 If writing programs which use animated graphics,
windows, and music is your interest, then you will
certainly be very impressed with GrafExpress 2.0.
This program functions like a machine language rou-
tine that you LOADM into protected memory and then
access through BASIC programs that you write. It can
give you greater speed in creating and manipulating
graphics (including a sprite capability); you can
create windows and scrolling text of different sizes
as well as multiple screens; it is even possible to
play 4-voice musical compositions. The animation
and music that you can create with GrafExpress are
really first class!
=>
____________________________________________________
In order to use this software, you will have to
learn some new commands which are similar to BASIC
commands except the syntax is different. For exam-
ple, to create a filled box you would first define a
string thus: C$="BOX 10,8..100,80". Then you would
EXEC the GrafExpress ML program. I found this fair-
ly easy to learn to do.
The demonstration programs which come on the GrafEx-
press disk are super impressive. The person who is
interested in writing game programs will find these
especially interesting.
There is only one big problem with GrafExpress, it
uses a huge amount of available memory (almost 16k!)
=>
____________________________________________________
which means that any BASIC program which uses GE is
limited to just about 6k or must be broken into 6k
modules. Because program modules can be loaded from
disk as they are needed, the memory problem is not
totally restrictive.
"GrafExpress" is definitely for the person who is a
good programmer at least in BASIC. It gives greater
programming capability and speed than is possible in
BASIC alone.
"GrafExpress" was written by Jeff Steidl and sold by
Sundog Systems, which I think is still in business.
It is an excellent buy for anyone who programs in
BASIC and wants ML capabilities and speed.
=*
|
| Articles in section: QUESTIONS & ANSWERS |
| 40
Track Drive? COCOCAL, lets fix that bug ! Copying W/CFDM SYSOPS HELP PACKET HELP To ALL, Quellhorst, McNeill a PATCH for NIBSHOW (oops!) |
| Back to top |
40 Track Drive? I read in a back issue of the Rainbow (June '86)
that even back then many of the Radio Shack disk
drives were actually 40 track drives masquerading
as 35 track drives. I bought by FD-501 back in '86,
so I decided to POKE in the right POKES, and see
what would happen. Behold! My drive did format to
40 tracks! All this time I have not been using
those last 5 tracks, and missing out on an extra 22K
of storage.
Since this is new to me, I want to get clarifi-
cation on a few questions. Will the disk drive save
information on the last 5 tracks only after the 1st
35 have been used up? Will a drive set for 35
tracks do just fine with a disk formated to 40, and
having files saved while in the 40 track mode? I
have a good backup program using 3 passes with a =>
____________________________________________________
single drive. I assume that I can format a disk to
40 tracks. Then, I should use the backup program
for 35 tracks. After the transfer is made, I will
be able to use the new 40 track disk, right? I be-
lieve that main thing I should not do is transfer a
40 track disk to a disk formatted to 35 tracks. Is
there anything else I should be careful about? I
really do need to start using 40 track disks because
I am always running out of disk space, especially
with my word processor files.
Any answers and other suggestions will be ap-
preciated.
P.S. The pokes needed for 40 track BASIC use are
also on pp.16-17 of "Supplement to 500 POKES, PEEKS
'N EXECS...." =>
____________________________________________________
-------
RICK: Steve, you've raised some very good questions!
I've heard others talk about it before, but since I
try to stay very "standard" I've not become very
knowledgeable about the subject.
But....
I'll bet there's a number of Friends who can give us
the straight facts. How about it Friends?
=*
|
COCOCAL, lets fix that bug ! There is a bug in the program COCOCAL issue # 20. Line 141 contains the ADOS command DATE$. Because the BASIC TOKEN for DATE$ is not recognized by RS-DOS, the program will lock up the computer if you try to list it to the screen. THE CURE: If you DO NOT have ADOS, load the program in from the disk and type DEL 140-145 and press ENTER. LIST line 121 and make sure there is a REM or ' as the first character after the line number. DO NOT DELETE LINE 121, the program goes to it. If line 121 does not have a REM statemant after the line number insert one. Now save COCOCAL/BAS back to the disk. That's all. GEORGE J. QUELLHORST. *> |
Copying W/CFDM SYSOPS When reading CFDM and coming across an article I
want to copy, I push F1, select "Copy File to 1",
enter, drive starts and I get "No Room...Aborting"
when the drives stop. I am using a FD-502 two disk
drive and fresh (never used) and newly formatted
disks. What am I doing wrong?
----------------------------------------------------
RICK: Dick, to understand the problem I must explain
that the SYSOPS MENU was originally designed for me
only!! The purpose was to allow me to copy entries
which the Friends send on their submission disks to
a master disk here at CFDM headquarters. Due to the
requests of Friends for a printer option inside the
magazine, I started including the SYSOPS MENU to all
CFDM disks. Now to answer your question.... =>
____________________________________________________
The CFDM disk is unique in that the magazine has its
own directory for the entries of each section. This
directory is similar to the RS Dos directory on each
CoCo diskette. But...it is located on tracks 8 and
9 (not track 17 as on standard RS Dos disks). To use
the SYSOPS MENU to copy to another disk, you must
have in drive 1 a disk with a CFDM directory. That
means the disk in drive 1 must be either a copy of a
CFDM disk or a copy of the SUBMISSION DISK TEMPLATE.
I assume you are trying to copy files to a standard
RS Dos formatted disk. As you have seen this won't
work, because there is no CFDM directory on that
kind of disk!
=*
|
HELP THE COCOPRO! SOFTWARE
RICK COOPER
I bought Rick's special UNBELIEVABLE OFFER #4 and
now I would like one of my Friends to help me run
one program from that UNBELIEVABLE OFFER.
I have the OS9 LEVEL 2 software. The program that I
would like help with is COCOPRO! SOLITAIRE.
This person will need to tell me what to do right
from scratch. My hopes are that this type of
instruction will teach me as to how the other soft-
ware may RUN. Please share your knowledge.
MY ADDRESS IS ON PAGE 2=>>
____________________________________________________
LOYAL B. GASKIN
30 FRAMINGHAM DR. APT.5-F
WATERBURY, CT. 06705
=*
|
PACKET HELP I am having a problem getting my ham packet setup
to work. Perhaps someone can help me out.
I have a MFJ1274 TNC and two programs, ULTAMATERM
which crashes, and COCONECT 6.0 which runs but gets
no response from the TNC. I have double checked my
baud rate, parameter settings, and cabling - but to
no avail, nothing works.
There is no COCO ham around here that I know of
but hopefully a CFDM member could give me some sug-
gestions. If so, write me direct. Many thanks!
Arthur Hinman KD3KN
7881 Jefferson Street
Hummelstown, PA 17036 =*
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To ALL, Quellhorst, McNeill A couple of interesting things that you may all want to know: I recently called RAINBOW to ask about its copy- rights and subsequent demise. The answer is that any program that you gave them rights to, they still own. Although RAINBOW does not publish, Falsoft, to whom you sold to, still maintains a SIG on Delphi. Therefore, programs you wrote are still under them. It is possible that if Falsoft ever completely pulls out from CoCo, that you will own your programs once more. To George re spacing. Okay, I got a little over- zealous. Spaces can be eliminated in general betw- BASIC words like ELSERETURN and immediately after => ____________________________________________________ numbers like: THEN370ELSERETURN You are correct to point out that spaces should FOLLOW all variables: ONA GOSUB1000,2000,3000,4000 * notice the space AFTER A (but not before) To James McNeill re: Serial switching At one time, several companies through RAINBOW offered Serial Switchers that did exactly what you ask (eliminate cable swapping on the i/o port) RAINBOW also ran a series of articles on a project called the OLD SWITCHEROO, which did what you want. If you are handy with a little wiring, or know someone who is, here is basically what you do => ____________________________________________________ You need: an RS-232C plug, two RS-232C jacks (avail from the Shack), wire, project box, a 4PDT switch (meaning it switches 4 independent connections each between two poles/positions) (I think the Shack has them) From the plug, connect a wire from pin 1, to the first common connection on the switch. Then a wire from each of the poles, one to pin 1 on one jack, the other to pin 1 on the other jack. Do this for pins 2,3, and 4, connecting each to a common connection on the switch, and each pole to the same pins on both jacks. Mount it in the case. You've got your switcher. If you want specific details/schematic write to me: 2123 Longview Rd, Warrington, PA 18976-1524 (215) 343-1364 =* |
a PATCH for NIBSHOW (oops!) If you have more than about 12 NIB pictures on a
disk, NIBSHOW will give you an ?OS error. This
is because it needs more string space. If it is
causing problems, here is what you do.
-load the NIBSHOW program: LOAD"NIBSHOW"
-edit line 60. Change the CLEAR500 to CLEAR1000
-edit line 370. Change the CLEAR500 to CLEAR1000
-edit line 700. Change the CLEAR500 to CLEAR1000
-save under NIBSHOW: SAVE"NIBSHOW"
I apologize to anyone who experienced problems
due to this overlooked little number.
I only realized there was a problem as I started a
disk of NIB pictures, and too my surprise, the
program errored!!! (oops!)
=*
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