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December 1987

The independent Dragon magazine

Contents

Letters

Write: ADVENTURE 2 0

Lamenting h is languishing Dragon, Pete

Gerrard suggests some new subject matter

for would-be adventure writers.

Tips on Dream c l u s t e r s and segments

September la me n t P u l s e r p ra ise

whatever happened to Eurobard? N DUG

bargain I r e l a n d ca llin g T o o l k i t and

Scribe D i s k Full Error.

Editorial

Adventure Wail

Dragon Answers

The E l Diablero inlay mystery, and mo re

hints than you've had power supplies,

Odd co lo u r d r i f t i n g p o in t p ro b le m

Dragon speech for Tandy? m a c h i n e code

transfer T a n d y rom routines

ON 5 th De c e mbe r 1987, th e new-look,

comfy chairs and carpets version of the

6809 S how hits London i n the Covent

Garden area — see the ad. on the back

page for details. Do come. The Dragon

shows need your support. and if you need

tempting, you can always combine it with

a bit of Christmas shopping in one of the

old town's nicest bits. H C Andersen will

be offering OS-9 at an even further reduc-

ed price just for the day of the show, so it's

worth the trip just on that count.

If you have ears, prepare to sprain your

wrists. Next month we are starting one of

the longest programs ever run in DU, a set

of extensions for Music Maker by David

Maki n. Br i ng y our best r eadi ng gl asses.

too, as well as your ear tr umpets. because

News

The Sth 6809 Show N e w Era modem

Starship need publisher D O S cartridges

found t w o new adventures m a g on

tape p r i n t e r research.

Dragon Soft

Starcrash from Simo n Hargrave C O M -

RON eprom from Peaksoft S p a c e Wreck

from Microdeal.

Winners and losers 2 5

Competition

If everybody's right, how come everybody

doesn't win?

Gordon Lee is still going around in that

maze, but he seems to be painting the walls

as well. Help him, and win a copy of Total

Eclipse.

Expert's Arcade Arena 7

All we have is a hint sheet, but what a hint

sheet! Part II from Paul Burgin.

Pamcodes

Part 2 o f P a m DA rc y ' s n e w se rie s o n

machine code for beginners — return to

sender

The Answer

Dragon crossword

64 columns

1 0

Figure O u t Te rry a n d De re k P ro b yn 's

Dragonword, and win a tape.

Paul Ha rriso n d o e s a n u p g ra d e o n t h e

Dragon's screen display.

Music Editor

D. Diggins composes a basic sound editor

with nine different options.

Telephone number

(All departments)

437-4343

Editor

HELEN ARMSTRONG

Production Editor

DRAGON EDITORIAL

Administration

CAROL FRITH

Advertisement Manager

DRAG O N EDI TORI AL

HE LE N P E RRY

Marketing Manager

•

competition.

Communication 27

r Help a Dragon user, and let a Dragon user

dhelp you

STOP PRESS + STOP PRESS + STOP PRESS

Starshio Softwar e's ti tl es n o w avai l abl e

from Pulser Software. See page 21.

Show information and

map

Managing Editor

PETER KANE

Publishing Director

JENNY IRELAND

Subscriptions

tUK E14 for 12 issues

i Overseas (surface) £20 for 12 issues

ISSN 0265177. Telex: 296275

Dragon User. 12/13 Little Newport Street,

London WC2H 7PP

US address: c/a Business Press International,

205 East 42nd St, New York, NY 10017

Published by Scot Press Ltd.

• S c o t Press 1987

Typesetting and Production by Artext Limited,

London NW1.

Printed by Headley Brothers Ltd. Ashford, Kent

Registered at the Post Ofﬁce as a newspaper.

Dragon and its logo are trademarks of

Eurohard Ltd.

we'll e i the r have t o ma k e i t small, o r

re-name ourselves Dragon Musa.

I observe that Paul Grade of NDUG has

been a ppe a ling fo r he l p w i th Dra gon

Update, pending his nervous breakdown,

and h e ha s n't be e n ge tti ng a l o t o f

response. Now come on! Some of you out

there must have the odd evening, even if

you can't help regularly or often. I don't

know what Paul's like at delegating, but

he's beginning to sound like a winner at

overworking. I t doesn't matter if you're

not close by, give it a try. Contact Paul at 6

Navarino Road, Worthing, Sussex, or tel.

0903 207585.

How to s ubmit articles

The qualit y of t he material we can publis h in

Dragon User each month will, to a very great ex-

tent depend on the quality of the discoveries that

you c an mak e wit h your Dragon_ The Dragon

computer was launched on to the market with a

powerful version of Basic, but wit h very poor

documentation,

Articles which are submitted to Dragon User

for publication should not be more than 3000

words long A ll submissions should be typed.

Please leave wide margins and a double space

between each line. Programs should, whenever

possible, b e c omput er printed on plain whit e

paper and be ac c ompanied by a tape of t he

program.

We cannot guarantee to return every submit-

ted article or program, so please keep a copy. If

you want to have your program returned you must

include a stamped addressed envelope.

Letters

Puiser

praise

I must write to tell you of the ex-

cellence a n d p ro mp t se rvice

that I re ce ive d f ro m P u lse r

Software.

Having just recently aquired

a d is c d rive a n d De lta DOS

and h a vin g u s e d Ma g b a se

tape version I phoned B ria n

O'Connor on Tuesday evening

with a vie w t o purchasing a

copy only to be informed that

they did not have a DeltaDOS

interface b u t wo u ld I p h o n e

back after six.

I phoned back and was told

that h e wo u ld g e t o n e a n d

would supply me a copy with

Dragon User and Update ﬁles

forE6.99 + £0.50 p&p. I posted

my cheque on the Sunday and

received t h e d is c ﬁ rst p o st

Thursday.

Well d o n e P u lse r f o r a n

excellent p ro g ra m a n d s e r-

vice.

Many thanks to Dave Martin

and Peter Goodwin of DUDE

and S t u a rt M i l l s a n d P a u l

Grade of Update for the help

and advice given to set up my

system.

Terence Riley

Sheridan

March Lane

Galhampton

Yeovil, Somerset

BA22 7AN

PS How about some DeltaDOS

articles? Th a n ks f o r a great

magazine. Keep up the good

work.

Every month we will be shelling out a game or two,

courtesy of Microdeal, to the reader/s

who send the most interesting or

entertaining letters. So send

us your hints and your opinions,

send us your hi-scores and

suggestions. Send us your

best Dragon stories. What

d'you think we are,

mind readers?!

Lost lament

I'M surprised not to receive any longer the issue "Dragon User". I

didn't get the September issue. I started to be yours in February

'87,thus it should be ended in February '88. 'can't understand why

you stopped sending me your issue.

David Bets

101 Avenue St. Exupery

Entree A Appartement 7

31400 Toulouse

France

WELL, a great many people said it, but none more gracefully.

The only readers who have problems now are those whose

copies are lost in the post, because, as I said last month, we

have no extra copies. I don't mean no spare copies, I mean —

(apart from one closely guarded ﬁle copy) n o copies.

Inevitably some copies will drift back, duplicates, lapsed

members, e tc ., and we shall keep those for people whose

September never arrived. But I suspect — especially where

overseas readers are concerned — that a few copies are still

trying to get through.

Apart from slowing down the

saving o f the ﬁle, it can lead

to a non-readable ﬁ le if th e

cassette motor doesn't get up

to speed quickly enough after

every switching of the relay.

After a b i t o f se a rch in g

through memory, I discovered

that th e control ﬁeld in loca-

tions S H5 F8 A a n d S H5 F8 B

contains th e start-of-symbol-

table address.

In order to save a source ﬁle

safely, s imp ly e xit f ro m t h e

Dream editor via BREAK and

ENTER and type the following

Basic:

CSAVEM" FIL ENAME',

256 PEEK(SH5F8AA) +

PEEK(SH5F8B), 6H6000.

SH6080

Then p r e s s P L A Y a n d

RECORD o n y o u r ca sse tte

player, and hit ENTER.

This saves the source code

as a straight me mo ry d u mp

which is a heck of a lot quicker

and safer than the way Dream

does it. TO reload, simply load

in Dream, then load in the ﬁle

with a CLOADM "FILENAME"

and type EXEC and you should

of course reply t o the "Old

text?" prompt.

.R.Ellahl

Halifax. W. Yorks

Dream

saves faster

SOME of your readersmay ﬁnd

the following tip useful, especi-

ally if like me thay only have a

32K ma ch in e wit h n o d i s c

drive, and a re into assembly

language programming on the

6809.

The D R E A M a s s e mb l e r

uses avery slow method of sav-

ing its source ﬁles to tape, b y

using the ASCII version of the

CSAVE command. Basically it

causes (I t h in k) a n e w ﬁ le

header to be written for every

255 bytes or whatever. You can

hearthe motor relaygoing click

click click a l l the lime during

the program saving!

2 Dragon User December 1987

ReaDD

RighTT

MANY thanks to P.D. Smith for

his letter in the October 1987

issue o f DU. Th e re certainly

was some confusion between

'clusters' a n d 'se g me n t allo-

cation size'. I fu lly agree that

the default value o f 8 in th e

standard d e vice d e scrip to rs

should be left alone. The most

signiﬁcant difference between

using a value of land a value of

8 is the time taken to write to the

disc. If a value of 1 is used (as

wrongly suggested) lots of time

is taken u p allocating a n e w

segment once 256 bytes have

been written to the ﬁle, A value

of 8 reduces th is wo rk b y a

factor of eight (in most cases).

In practical tests I have found

that it takes about twice as long

to writ e a lo n g ﬁ le u sin g a

segment allocation size of 1 as

opposed to a va lu e o f eight.

('copy' is a special case which

is not affected because it allo-

cates sp a ce f o r t h e f u ll ﬁ le

before any writing starts). This

is probably much more impor-

tant to the average user than a

possible ' s e g me n t l i s t f u l l '

error a s d e scrib e d b y M r .

Smith.

Having looked more closely

at the problem of reading non-

OS-9 discs under OS-9 I have

found the main reason to bethe

way the OS-9 drivers rely on

information read f ro m sector

zeroof thedisc inserted intothe

drive. No rma lly this contains

information as to the density,

number o f sid e s, a n d t ra ck

density (as well as the number

of sectors/cluster!). Every time

track zero happens to be read

by the driver it updates its inter-

nal t a b le s u s in g t h is in f o r-

mation. S o me d rive rs a llo w

this information to b e frozen

once read, and thus the disc

can be changed later for a non-

OS-9 disc. Unfortunatelythis is

not possible with Dragon 0S-9

drivers and so if by bad luck the

Dragon-DOS ﬁle being read by

ReadDD h a p p e n s t o h a v e

some of its contents in the ﬁrst

sector of the disc, then there-

after the driver tables will con-

tain ju n k information and the

rest of thediscwill not be able to

be read properly. Should this

problem occur the easiest way

around i t i s t o co p y th e ﬁ le

(under DragonDOS) to a newly

formated disc which will then

be unlikely to use logical sector

zero of the disc. This new disc

can then beusedtocopytheﬁle

to OS-9 using ReadDD without

any problem.

It is mo st important to te ll

OS-9 the format of the disc in

the drive by accessing an 0S9

disc of the same format as the

Dragon disc using 'dir', This is

especially t r u e f o r d o u b le

drives (96 tpl). Remember that

on double sided discs there are

36 se cto rs p e r t ra ck s o t h e

DragonDOS directory starts at

logical sector 727 for 0S-9 (this

means t h a t wh e n e ve r 'p o si-

tion' is calculated in ReadDD

the value 18 should be chang-

ed to 36).

Hope this will help to explain

any problems some may have

had with Read DO.

Paul A. Dagleish

The Ridings

La Garangers

38850 CHIP ENS, France

This is your chance to air your views — send your tips, compliments and complaints to Letters

Page, Dragon User, 12-13 Little Newport Street, London WC2H 7PP.

Word comes

from Spain

THE next letter was written

on 2 1 s t S e pte mbe r, a n d

echoes a lot of other bits of

news w e ha v e ha d pie c e -

meal, so I am reproducing It

more or less as seen, minus

one or two unveriﬁable corn-

ments o n E uroha rd's pr e -

sent position. N o pros e o f

mine can convey the blend of

prideand regret inthe follow-

ing report from Spain.

All the true about Eurohard

EUROHARD be ga n t o s e ll

Dragons at the end o f 1984.

They made 500 every day.

It was a great industrie and it

had a lo t o f projects f o r th e

Dragon_ It wa s supported b y

the Spanish government, b y

Planeta, an important editorial

(publisher), b y SOCIMEX a n

important in d u strie , b y t h e

regional goverment o f Extre-

madura, and it began verywell.

In theperiod of November 1984

to October 1985 it sold 17,000

Dragons, but it also gave near-

ly 2 0 .0 0 0 t o in stitu te s a n d

public schools. Since October

1985 the government paid the

deﬁcit, b u t wh e n E u ro h a rd

needed money for to do inver-

sions in South American and

expansion, his distributors he

failed, and was submerged in a

very important deﬁcit.

His p r e s i d e n t E d u a r d o

Menigo re sig n e d . E u ro h a rd

owed some money divided in

SOCIMEX. Planet& and TV3,

a TV of Catalonia that made a

program of how to learn Basic

with thecomputers and using a

Dragon.

In the period of October 1985

toMarch1987allthedistributors

soldhislateststocksof Dragons

at ridicully prices. And lately, the

last distributor of Barcelona is

giving h is Dra g o n s t o o th e r

Dragon users.

In November 1985 Eurohard

shut his shops in Madrid and

his shops in Barcelona sh u t

last March. In 1986 you can buy

Dragonsandsoftware but now,

in Spain there is nothing that

sells Dragon, nothing. His fac-

tory in Caceres shut last May,

and the unic (only)thing we can

do now is wait for a miracle.

I personally never forget my

Dragon, because! have passed

very entertaining times with it.

The Dragon isn't dead!

Josep Jane

Jaun Maregall, 5

08800-Vilanoval Geltni

(Barcelona)

Spain

I'msurethatyouwillpubhshthis

letter, and I guaranteethatall the

contents of this letter is true.

WE'VE been getting sporadic

letters from all over Europe

saying that Eurohard was no

longer answering letters or

making deliveries, a nd our

attempts to ge t some news

from the Caceres factory were

met with a polite blank, until

one day nobody answered the

'phone at all.

Josep's letter is by far the

most detailed information we

have had a b o u t E u ro h a rd 's

fate. If anyone in Europe has

any newspaper reports which

they can send, so much the

better. Include a translation,

please—I only read schoolgirl

French and Anglo-Saxon.

Eurohard ( o r i ts di s tr i -

butors) apparently we nt on

tra ding o n t h e E ur ope a n

mainland for longerthan with

the U K . s o E u r o p e a n s

generally ha v e h a d m o r e

news that England has.

What is readily apparent,

and has been for most of this

year, i s tha t, ba rri ng th a t

miracle, n o m o r e Dr a gon

ha rdwa re i s g o i n g t o b e

manufactured in thefuture by

Eurohard, who are still, as far

as w e k n o w , t h e ofﬁ c i a l

licensees.

It' s alwaysa sad moment to

receive a requiem bra former

supplier. But Dragoners have

been getting along quite well

by themselves, and look like

continuing.

Josep is also now the of-

ﬁcial representative o f the

Dragon Softelubof Vilanova,

at the address above.

Secondly th e DRA W co m-

mand has an easier method of

including variables inthestring.

In a lot of Dragon programs you

will see lines such as DRA W

+ SIRS(X) + + S I R-

$(Y)". the Dragon will unders-

tand th e mu ch simp le r alter-

native: DRAW "BM = X; -

Thevariable name is preceded

byan equalssign and succeed-

ed by a semicolon. This format

can b e used in p la ce o f a n y

number in a DRAW command.

P.D. Smith

University Hall

Birchwood Road

Pen ylan, Cardiff

CF25 YB

lems obtaining these programs

they can write to me.

Also, I n o tice it says in the

articlethat thesoftware must be

used i n c o n ju n c t io n w i t h

DeltaDOS.

This is not true, as any cart-

ridge ma y b e ﬁtted wit h th e

Eprom (I have a cartridge, with

two sockets, which willtake both

programs, in any position) and

provided that Dragondos has a

spare socket. I don't see why

Toolkitor Encoder shouldn't be

ﬁtted to that.

Hope the above is of help.

C.P.A. Burridge

16 Patterson Road

Chesham, Bucks HP52DG

Ireland

calling

I have beengetting Dragon User

every month since issue 1 and

since it is now only mail order, I

think it is better in every way. I

like the maps you printed quite

recentlyandenjoytheoddbitof

programming_ But there is just

one thing I woulf love to see in

Ireland andthat isa 6809Show.

I know forafact that there are

stilla lot of Dragon owners proud

of their machines. If anybody

could organize a Dragon Show

here, it would be just great.

Keep up the good magazine

for a few years more. When all

the other magazines are dead,

the Dragon will still be alive and

kicking.

Gavin Grifﬁn

58 Old Bawn Park

Tallaght, Co Dublin

Ireland

PS I would also like a few pen-

pals to writetoso we could swap

pokes. hints, old games etc.

NDUG

bargain

THE mo d e m re vie w b y Ken

Smith misse s o n e important

point: me mb e rs of the NDUG

get a £5.00 discount o n th e

price. Had Mr, Smith joined prior

to purchasing the modem he

would effectively have paid only

E3_00 to become a member, as

the group is a bargain at £8.00.

Anyone co n te mp la tin g p u r-

chasing th e mo d e m and n o t

already a n N D U G me mb e r

woulddowelltojoinandgettwo

bargains for the price of one.

P. J. Beed

27 Findon Rd.

Elson. Gosport

Hants P0124EP

runneth over

d i s c

Toolkit in a

socket

UPON reading the October '87

edition o f y o u r e x c e l l e n t

magazine (please keep up the

good work) I read with interest

the a rticle in Dragonsoft o n

premier's Toolkit and Scribe.

I a m in possession o f two

Premier software packages on

Eprom, n a me ly To o lkit a n d

En co d e r 0 9 , a n e x c e lle n t

assemblerldisassembler. I also

have Toolkiton disc, either5,25

or 3 inch I f anyone has prob-

Dragon to

octal

I h a ve writte n t o in fo rm t h e

readers o f D U a b o u t s o me

featuresoftheDragonwhichare

not described inthe manual that

I discovered so me time ago.

Firstly the Dragon is capable of

octalto decimal conversions us-

ing'&',forexample PRINT&10

will display 8.

IS there anyone out there who

can helpandstopmyPremature

Disk Fu ll Erro r? I u se Micro -

deal's Telewriter program with

Grosvenor Software's Super-

DOS E 6 ch ip . Th e p ro g ra m

works well but ﬁlls discs far too

rapidly_ Grosvenor have inform-

ed me that there is a problem

with Telewriter but do not know

thecure. theiradvice wastoget

in touch with the author of the

program, Gordon Twist — I've

tried but without success. So

does anyone know o f a cure

before I sin k u n d e r a p ile o f

discs?

Mike Hides

23 Coniston Road

Dron ﬁeld Woodhouse

Shefﬁeld S

December 1987 Dragon User 3

5 P Y

News desk

Suppliers get S t a r s h i p in

search of new

together for Show sponsor

DRAGON publishers and re -

tailers aregearing up for the 6th

6809 S h o w i n L o n d o n o n

December 5th.

H C Andersen Compute r

Inc. , the ofﬁcial licensees for

OS-9 software, will be taking a

stand at the show, at the Con-

naught Ro o ms i n L o n d o n 's

West End.

This is the ﬁrst time that H C

Andersen have attended a UK

Dragon show, and they will be

selling t h e O S -9 o p e ra tin g

system at a special show price

of £69.

Harris Micro Software and

MacGowan Co n su lta n ts w i l l

be joining forces on a double

stand. Bob Harris will be show-

ing his recently published Klik

Utility, and MacGowan Consul-

tants have told Harris that they

will be demonstrating 'a system

of desktop publishing for the

Dragon'.

The editors of Dragon's Roar

are re-launching the newsletter

with twenty-six pages, and will

be giving away copies. A link up

from th e show via Prestel• to

allow users at the show to com-

municate with users elsewhere,

has been proposed.

Ouickbeam will b e a t t h e

show, demonstrating some new

software.

David Machin of Music Maker

fame w i l l b e demonstrating

some mo re of h is mu sic soft-

ware, some of which will appear

in Dragon Use r over the next

couple of months.

And these are just the ones

who have called us here in the

last few days.

Dragon Userhopes to be see-

ing youthere!

If you have any new products for the Dragon — software or hardware —

ring the News Desk on 01-4374343

Wild West Destiny, Composer

Companion and El Pea.

Enquiries to Starship Soft-

ware, 23Tintern Road, Cheadle

Hulme. Cheshire SK8 70F.

STARSHIP Software has had to

temporarity wit h d ra w a l l i t s

software published b y Micro -

vision a s a re s u lt o f t h a t

company's recent cessation of

trading.

The Cartwrights are currently

looking fo r a new outlet, and

would like to hear from anyone

who is seriously interested in

distributing t h e ir g a me s. " I

would like to make it clear that I

have N O T a b a n d o n e d t h e

Dragon. I have a couple of new

titles ﬁnished, and several on

the w a y , " s a y s J o n a t h a n

Cartwright.

The titles affected are Star-

ship Destiny, Dungeon Destiny,

Motorbike

repair

THE author of Motorbiking in the

November issue of Dragon User

writes to say:

"It has come to my attention

that t h e p ro g ra m ca n so me -

times give unexpected results.

This can be rectiﬁed by adding

the line:

2335S 0 : P = 0 : X - 6

"The notes to the original pro-

gram still apply."

•

m onw.2

r t -

4. 01•"1 I I h i t "

1 "

•

= 0 ,P.

• • •

40.

Booklet for

beginners

YORKSHIRE Te le visio n a r e

marketing a booklet in co n -

junction with their Channel 4

production S o VVe Bought

Computer.

The booklet costs El and is a

greatly simpliﬁed guide for the

prospective user. especially the

more serious or business user.

Literally an introduction to the

idea of computers only. the style

and brevity of the booklet gives

rise to a number of small inac-

curacies, but anyone starting to

use o r e xp a n d a co mp u te r

system seriously would quickly

clear these up by reference to

more comprehensive sources.

This is a wedge in the door.

The six-part se rie s is a lso

available o n vid e o (V HS o r

Betamax) for E49,93 for 'busi-

ness and commercial use' and

E29.95 for bona ﬁde educational

institutes. Both prices include

VAT

The p r o g r a m s a r e a l s o

available singly. but at a rather

less attractive price.

68 Club

keep going

TWO copies of 68 Microcosm.

the jo u rn a l o f t h e 6 8 Mic ro

Group f o r M a y a n d J u l y ,

arrived mo re o r less nose to

tail. July includes a hardware/

so ftwa re p ro j e c t t o m a k e

a c a le n d a r/ c lo c k f o r t h e

MC68000. M a y i s mo st ly a

report o n t h e Group's AGM.

They seem to have faced and

once again averted the cata-

strophe wh ic h co n fro n ts a l l

small organisations from time

totime: the problem of co-opting

able a n d willin g vo lu n te e rs

to undertake t h e n e ce ssa ry

tasks involved in running the

club.

However, t h e J u l y is s u e

demonstrates that they are well

under way again. The member-

ship secretary is Keith Barnes at

174 G re a t Co b , Sp rin g ﬁ e ld ,

Chelmsford, Essex CM1 5LA,

and th e group has a bulletin

board n u m b e r o n T o m

Goodfellow's 24-hour board at

01-316-7402. 1 start, 1 stop, 8

data, 300/300 or 1200/75 baud.

ennon••••

•••

, . •••

• • •

I M O I M E NI P

•

• • . .

onl i k •

As silent as a printer

EPSON are joining the rush to

develop q u ie t e r p rin t e rs b y

studying sound pressure levels

from printers in their anechoic

chamber at Hirooka, Japan.

The chamber is designed to

provide a b a se background

noise level of 0.5d BA (acoustic

d e cib e ls), c o m p a r e d t o

'domestic ro o m' background

noise of around 30d6A, a near-

by whisper (5dBA) or air condi-

tioning (3dBA). The lowest audi-

ble level for humans is OdBA.

Under these conditions, with

no echo or reverberation pre-

sent to multiply sound sources

and direction, microphones can

measure so u n d le ve ls u n a f-

fected by position or direction.

The noise made by operating

p rin te rs w i l l b e re c o rd e d ,

analysed by computer and used

as a sound-simulation source.

Epson a r e co mmit t e d t o

producing. within 12 months, a

new generation of printers with

sound le ve ls o f we ll b e lo w

55dBA. L a s e r a n d in k -je t

printers are already available

below t h i s le ve l, b u t s o me

printers print at 80d BA, as com-

pared to heavy trafﬁc passing a

window at 75dBA.

Tapeimag

Dragon M o w is a collection of

Dragon programs and reviews

on a cassette tape, which can be

bought f ro m A . R. Ho p kin s,

Common Farm, Shifnal, Shrop-

shire TH1 19HN_ Mr. Hopkins

will supply more details on re-

quest. The tape costs E1.50. and

if it is successful there may be

further issues. No typing!

4 Dragon User December 1987

THE New Era Interface is a new

piece of hardware hot off the

production l i n e f ro m H a r r y

Whitehouse (which is now the

o fﬁ cia l t r a d i n g n a m e o f

Peaksoft's Dragon retail d ivi-

sion, a s we ll a s the name o f

Harry w h o runs it). The inter-

face provides Dragon owners,

with " p lu g in a n d g o

speed communications.

- m u l t i -

The d e vice i s a n RS 2 3 2

port with instant-use cartridge

software, s u it a b le f o r t h e

32 or '64. It also has a through

port. so that disc owners can

leave the DOS cartridges con-

nected up. The DOS is simp ly

plugged in t o t h e N e w E ra ,

which need never be removed

from the port.

A modem can be linked easily

to the New Era, as the connec-

tions are standard terminal strip.

the user prefers, the interface

can be supplied with a suitable

cable ready-connected.

Transmission and reception

speeds from 75 to 2400 baud

(including the 1200175 and 300

speeds necessary for Prestel

and b u l l e t i n b o a r d s ) a r e

selected with dip switches and,

New Era for modems Larkspur

adventure

once t h e sp e e d i s se t, t h e

user only needs to press three

keys on the keyboard to go on

line.

The New Era costs E69.95. in-

cluding V A T a n d p o st a g e .

Whitehouse a lso publish th e

Dragon Us e r' s Dire ct o ry o f

Communications, wh ich list s

the names, interests, hardware

and Prestel mailbox numbers of

Dragon owners throughout the

country. A free copy is supplied

to every New Era purchaser.

The New Era package does

not include a modem, as pur-

chasers m a y b e u p g ra d in g

from an outdated or less con-

venient system. However. Harry

Whitehouse also offers a Prism

2000 1200175 mo d e m a t th e

same discount p rice fre e o f

charge to anyone who takes out

a ye a r's subscription. Ha rry

Whitehouse has made arrange-

ments wit h Micro n e t t o c o -

ordinate despatch of the free

modem at the buyer's request.

Full details are in a ﬁve-page

information p a ck f ro m Ha rry

Whitehouse, 48 Queen Street,

Balderton, Newark NG24 3NS,

tel. (0636) 705230.

Larkspur Waldorf is trapped is a

new graphic adventure game

which uses a system of ﬁve win-

dows. THe quest is to escape

from a castle where you, th e

hero, L a rksp u r Waldorf, a re

trapped. Th e adventure ru n s

entirely f ro m t h e P MO DE 4

graphics screen, a n d is n o w

ready for use on the Dragon 64

as well as the Dragon 32.

Co-author John Smallwood

says: "Anyone who bought the

game at the show in Rochdale

will have the 32-only version. I

will personally exchange it for a

new version if it is set to me with

50p to co ve r postage. Oth e r-

wise, it is available from John

Penn Software, the organisers

of the London show, for n,50."

Write to John Smallwood at

51 K i n g ' s Driv e . Fu lwo o d ,

Preston, Lancs. PR2 3HO,

Described as 'the search for

a golden death ma sk beneath

an Egyptian pyramid'. the all-

text adventure has speech and

a g ra p h ic lo a d in g scre e n .

Ch e q u e s/P Os s h o u l d b e

addressed t o T. Wh e a ls, 2 3

Ashby Road, Thurton, Norwich

NR14 6AX.

DOSes located

PRO-Tech Systems (GB) have

located ' t h e la s t re ma in in g

stocks' o f Dra g o n DO S a n d

Delta disc cartridges. Pro-Tech

are offering to supply these, with

any of the available DOS ver-

sion RO Ms , in clu d in g D O S

'Plus' (ScottDOS) which has ad-

vantages such as compatibility

with other DragonDOSes.

In addition, Delta2 (double

density)cartridgesareavailable

for Delta users.

Both types can be supplied

as separate cartridges or as a

complete system with Cumana

or Chinnon disc drives, for as lit-

tle as E136 under the terms of

the current discount offer.

For mo re information from

Pro-Tech, send a large SAE to

25, P e lica n Ro a d , P a mb e r

Heath, Basingstoke RG26 6EN.

Only Pharoah

A N E W a d v e n t u re g a m e ,

Pyradventure — Amenophis

is now available from the author

for E2.95 plus 50p p&p.

GROSVENOR SOFTWARE

SUPERDOS:DragonDOS compatible disk operating systern without the bug,

Mike Kerry. author of ALLDREAM ha5 gone far beyond the patches listed in DU. to

Produce a really reliable DOS at last Strongly recommenced as an upgrade for all

DragonDOS 10140 and Cumana 1 2 / 2.0 users.

SUPERDOS ROM to ﬁt yourself. with full documentation: E 1 0 . 0 0

Or send us your disk controller for updating

E2.50

Prograrnmer

See PNP Communications ad. for complete controliers and disk drives

ALLDREAM: The standard Dragon Editor/Assembler for machine code work

ALLDREAM: Tape 02. 95 Carl E24.95- DSK DREAM for SuperDOS etc 0 9 . 9 5

G u i d e

CROSS REFERENCE LISTER to

t o the lastest Dragon database Tape (can put to disk)

DRS:a s i c

E 9 . 9 5

, B

D r a g RADIO ENTHUSIASTS: Now available - AX25 PACKET RADIO b.,.

AMATEUR

p r o g r a m s

o n / Only Grosvenor Soilware have the knowihow to bring you this exciting

G4BMK n

new p e

S umode at an affordable price Send SAE for full details.

i n -v CW - lAMTOR - b

u a SST)/ M o r s e Tutor M a id e n h e a d - al/ avalab'e

RTTY O S a

r D

l e

Please add 40p P&P (Cl export). Send SAE for full details.

2 Beacon Close. Seaford. East Sussex BN25 2JZ (0323) 8933711

DISC DRIVE CONTROLLER

FOR DRAGONS

fully compatable with Dragon Dos

only E79.95 inc. of VAT & post

Disk drives also available

Complete Systems from E189.95

Please enclose S.A.E. with any enquiry

Dragon 32 available £49.95 complete_

Guaranteed 90 days.

PNP Communications

Unit B. The Old Boat Yard. Robinson Road.

Newhaven. East Sussex BN9 9BL

Telephone (0273) 514761

D II

IF any reader does have serious delivery/non

delivery problems with any supplier, whether or

not they advertise in DU, we would like to know.

Only rarely can we do anything to improve a

genuinely dodgy situation (which fortunately

are rare) but it helps us to build up a proﬁle and

identify any long-term problems. Come to think

of it, that includes Dragon User, as, naturally, we

want to know about any bottlenecks as early as

possible. Apol ogi es i n advance f o r n o t

acknowledging every letter, but where we can

be of practical help, we will.

Adventure Contact

To help puzzled adventurers further, we are instituting an Adventure

Helptine — simply ﬁll in the coupon below, stating the name of the

adventure, your problem and your name and address, and send it to

Dragon User Adventure Helpine, 12/13 Little Newport Street, London

WC2H 7PP As soon as enough entries have arrived, we will start

printing them in the magazine.

Don't worry - you'll still have Adventure Trial to write to as well!

Adv e ntur e

Pr obl em

Na m e

Addr ess

December 1987 Dragon User 5

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