DragonUser51_Jul87.pdf

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The independent Dragon magazine

July 1987

Contents

Letters

Poets' corner C o Co conversions O S - 9

Cash and VAT problem h i n t s on Filmastr

and Analyzer K e e p ﬁring.

Editorial

Moving programs

2 1

J ULY rolls r o u n d a ga i n — o n e y e a r

Mike Hid e s moves machine code without

taking a peek.

since D R A GON U S E R q u i t t h e

newsstands a n d w e n t private. I

don't m ind saying tha t w e we r e

Dragon

News

Pixel colours

Answers

t o r u

conver-

threatened wit h disaster by we ll

from X.Y a u

meaning folk. Who would raise £14

Compusense developing new OS-9 buffer sion b r e a k ke y d isa b le f o r Tandy

a year? Where would our 'passing

H C Anderson's Superwriter It for disc

renumbering la rg e p ro g ra ms l o a d i n g

trade' g o ? W o u l d n ' t e v e r y one

South Bay Computer Club drop in b o o k

CoCo ROM.

offer next month co p yrig h t in g software

assume tha t the Dragon wa s n o

German group.

Winners and losers

2 4

more? Weren't we going to take the

Gordon Lee goes over the techniques for

money and run?

Dragon Soft

They should have said ' — and

solving t h e Fe b ru a ry competition, w i t h

Music Ma ke r f ro m Jo h n Penn Disco u n t

comments from entrants.

run, a nd run. a nd run'. Yup, we're

Software M i s e r ' s Dream from Microvision

still running. 'spite of all the doomy

Superkid from Quickbeam.

Write: ADVENTURE 2 5

predictions. As for the 'Dragon is

Take ten printers

Peter Ge rra rd ta ke s h is d ictio n a ry a n d

dead', w e l l , w e ' r e s t i l l ge t t ing

begins to build a vocabulary.

people just starting on their ﬁrst

Add one and you have eleven. You a lso

Dragon, phoning up to ﬁnd out how

have t h e la rg e s t s u rv e y o f Dra g o n -

The Answer

compatible p rin te rs e ve r presented b y

they can subscribe.

Dragon User and its readers.

Gordon Lee's o wn so lu tio n t o t h e A p ril

Some people forget that there's

puz z le will appear next mont h.

no such thing as a dead machine as

Expert's Arcade Arena 15

long as there's a live user. AND the

Adventure Trail

2 7

Total Ec hps e m a p f r o m J o e B r i n c a t

Dragon has a roster of committed

Deep i n t h e h e a rt o f a Co lo ssa l Cave

beating Shoalin Ma ste r P lu s s n e a k y

routine for Moon Cresta u s i n g the RESET bumbles Pete Gerrard's Uncle Elmer, who

dealers, sticking to their guns.

Just like Dragon User.

poke

seems to be ﬁnding something...

So DON'T FORGET TO RENEW

When is an Epson... 1 8

YOUR SUBSCRIPTIONS! The lights

Competition

Not all Epsons are like all other Epsons.

Gordon Lee describes now to divide and

are staying on all over Europe. We

Following Pam D'Arcy, B Yeoman Walker

looks at codes for the other ones.

Telephone number

(All departments)

437-4343

conquer, but ends on a happier note — the

prize is Music Maker

Managing Editor

PETER WOR LOCK

Publishing Director

JENNY IRELAND

Subscriptions

UK £14 for 12 issues

ISSN 0265177. Telex 296275

Dragon User. 12/13 Little Newport Street,

London WC2H 7PP

US address: cto Business Press International,

205 East 42nd St, New York, NY 10017

Published by Scot Press Ltd.

Scot 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

m i g ht e v e n r e p l a c e t h a t d i c k e y

ﬂuor° tube over my desk...

How to submit articles

The qualit y of the mat erial 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 can mak e wit h your Dragon T h e Dragon

computer was launched on to the market with a

powerful version of Basic, but wit h very poor

documentation.

Articles whic h are submitted to Dragon User

for publication s hould not be more than 3000

words long. All submissions should be typed.

Please leave wide margins and a double space

between each line. Programs should, whenever

possible, be c omput er print ed on plain whit e

paper and be ac c ompanied by a tape of the

program.

We cannot guarantee to return every submit-

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

you want to haveyour program returned you must

include a stamped addressed envelope.

Editor

HELEN ARMSTRONG

Production Editor

BARBORA HAJEK

Editorial Secretary

ANNE MARIE O'DWYER

Advertisement Manager

ATHENA PEERMAN

Administration

GABRIELLA PISCINA

Marketing Manager

HELEN PERRY

Overseas (surface) £20 for 12 issues

L e t t e r s

T h i s

CONCERNING the reviews in

c h

the Ma rch issu e a b o u t Fire

Force, the comments of Jason

Orbaum are mostly correct, in

that the gun does appear to ﬁre

blanks. and that the game is

extremely hard. But I disagree

that it is b u g ridden, a s th e

program ru n s p e rfe ctly wit h

excellent graphics and good

sound.

It might helpall players if Dave

Hitchman could tell u s which

r a

joystick he uses in the game,

and perhaps give us a hint as to

the knack of using the gun, as I

have spent many hours attemp-

ting the game and have yet to

complete the ﬁrst stage.

Ian Minshull

11 Graig-V-Dderi

Glais

o u

Swansea

SA79HT

dropped Dave a line, and

writ e s: -

yo i t h

u r letter of 13.3.87. i l l u s e

azip g a

r e joystick 2)Asto shooting

people a ll I ca n sa y is th a t

it c o m e s w i t h p r a c t i s e .

e w

o Dave H.

Regards.

real life!

J u s t

•

i k e

—

the April '87 issue of DU I

foundthearlicleby Rudy Duyck

about Co Co / Dra g o n B a s i c

conversion to be interesting and

useful. However, there is one

important detail that he did not

mention. A Co Co Ba sic p ro -

gram cannot be LOADed from

disc b y a Dragon unless the

CoCo disc is modiﬁed. To use

program described by Mr.

the

Duycks one has to transfer the

CoCo d isc p ro g ra m t o ta p e

usingaCoCaandthenCLOAD

it into the Dragon. Th is is not

really mu ch fa ste r than ju st

making an ASCII copy to tape

from the CoCo disc, in which

case the full conversion is not

needed. I f yo u u se either o f

these methods, yo u r friends

with CoCoswill soon begin toget

tired of making the copies to

tape.

An unmodiﬁ ed Co Co d isc

cannot be LOADed by a Dragon

becuasea)theCoCodisc direc-

tory

is on a different track from

that on the Dragon disc b) the

e e

Dragon User JULY 1987

Round six

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?!

Reviewer's wrights

ENCLOSED is a little poem which outlines the harsh world of the

gamesreviewerHopeJ.Orbaumﬁndsthisasamusingasweal Buzz

Software did. Never mind, Jason, it's hard at the top!

S. G o o d win , 15 St. Stephen Road, Penketh,Nr. Warrington,

Cheshire WA5 2AN

'What a joyous job it must be.

A 'Dragon User' reviewer,

Whose only plight

Is to read and write

And take stick from harassed viewers.

Games pour in

They're up to my chin

The Ed's deadline is tomorrer.

(It was yesterday, actually.)

Oh who gives a XX?

He's only the Boss (SHE — 'S ir)

Who wants to be a reviewer?"

Mr. Orbaum from atop his heap

Cries. " wh a t does Goodwin know?

His piles aren't half as high as mine

And how come he's got time to rhyne?

His wo rklo a d must be lo w!"

You mentioned rh yn e s" , then said the Ed.

' To mo rre r s not yer ideal word,

But it's better than • re vie wo .'!"

directory formats are different c)

the ﬁle headers aredifferent and

d)the disc allocation o

maps are

on d if f e re n t t ra c k s a n d i n

d iffe re n t f o rma t s . f I h a v e

IN T H E No ve mb e r issu e o f

modiﬁed Co Co d isc s t o b e

Dragon Usera Rotherypointed

LOADed by a Dragon x will be

and

out one of the shortcomings of

glad to send a copy of my pro-

Microdeal's Filmastr program.

cedure to anyone interested if

The problem is that when you

theywillsupplyan international

wish to update a ﬁle, and usethe

return p o sta g e certiﬁ cate t o

same name. the program just

cover mailing costs. -

I have subscribed o DU for

tags the updated ﬁle onto the

end of the old ﬁle rather than

over two years and ﬁnd it to be

KILLing th e o ld ﬁ le ﬁ rst. B y

very h e lp f u l. A ls o . I a m a

member of the NDUG and the

changing the following lines in

0 S9 UG a n d b o t h o f t h e se

the program called OLE/FILE.

the p ro b le m a p p e a rs t o b e

organisations h a ve provided

cured.

much useful information and

3640 MNS + NM$ + -

help as well as support for the

KILL T " :

. D A MNS I WRI TE NMS;RL

Dragon.

8005 I F E R R = 160 T H E N

Randy Longshore

CREATE N M E R R O R GOTO

15547 Chequer Drive

Chesterﬁeld

8005:G0T03640

MO63017

By adding the following line to

USA

the same program, the number

of each record can be printed:

5587 PRINT /1 DV.R(LN) + 1;

In the same issue there was a

spreadsheet p ro g ra m ca lle d

Analyzer by L. Pilz. This listing

hassomeerrorsthatneedtobe

corrected to allowthe disc user

to load and save the spread-

sheet. By changing the start of

lines 6 and 7 a cu re can b e

affected:

6 FORA - 65T074:POKES7A

FORX . 1 0 9 9 : etc.

7 FORA = 65T074:POKES8.A:

FOR X = .T099: etc.

When trying to load in a saved

sheet from tape an IE ERROR

can be prevented by changing

line 166 and adding th e two

extra lines:

166 POKES4,X + 0:GOSUB4:

IF EOF(-1)THEN168

167 NEXTZ.X

168 RETURN

Mike Hides

23 Coniston Road

Dron ﬁeld Woodhouse

Shefﬁeld S18 5PY

THANKS for the useful infor-

mation. We have had several

e n q u irie s a b o u t A n a l y z e r

wh ich Lothar Pilz is ﬁ elding.

Someof themturned out to be

typing errors on the part of the

e n q u ire rs — it's a long wa yto

go. Oz, t o g e t y o u r list in g s

double ch e cke d . s o p le a se

trip le ch e ck ' e m b e fo re yo u

write to DU.

CoCo

convert

VAT vex

CONGRATULATIONS on your

article byD. Rothery called 0S-9

Blues. I t w a s n i c e t o s e e

something written just for the

OS-9 users. I am sure there are

many other OS-9 lanswho were

delighted to read th e article,

especially those with Slylo line

feed problems. Let's hope that

this is the ﬁ rst of many OS-9

articles t o b e p u b lish e d i n

Dragon User.

One OS-9 problem I have is

with theCASH + VAT program.

and I was hoping that through

thecolumns &your magazine I

may be able to locate anybody

involved with the writing of the

original program. I amunableto

lo ca te C o m p u t e r S u p p o rt

Systems of Walsaw. who wrote

Cash + VA Tfor Dragon Data. so

if there is any reader out there

who can give me a lead I would

me most grateful.

Llewellyn Robins

64. Enbourne Road

Newbury. Berks

Tagging

along

News desk

Offer next month

LOOK out for a special offer on

Dragon books in th e August

issue o f Dragon User. Th re e

popular books, now out of print,

have come our way in limited

quantities. There aren't many of

these about. We will be offering

them to you at about a third of

their original price, with a free

game thrown in wh ile stocks

last. This is an ideal opportunity

to b u ild u p y o u r p e rso n a l

Dragon library before the books

become unobtainable — a t

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

ring the News Desk on 01-437 4343

California CoCo

THE Dragon User ofﬁces had a

visit last week from program-

mer, hacker and wheeler-dealer

extraordinaire Andre J. Lavelle

from California, bringing news-

letters from the South Bay Com-

puter Clu b a n d th e National

OS-9 Users Group in the States

computers, and the club's soft-

ware library travels along. The

newsletter has club and CoCo

news, sh o w reports and pro.

grams. The March issue carries

a suggestion for a Red Cross

Data P ro ce ssin g P a rt y o n

behalf o f t h e U S S p e c ia l

Olympics (the equiv-

alent o f t h e U K

Wheelchair O ly m-

pics). fo r which the

group does a lot of

support wo rk, a n d

the May issue sug-

gests a p i c n i c .

There's mo re to all

this than software.

The clu b can be

contacted via Andre

at 22923 Alexandra.

Torrance, California

CA 90502, US A . A n d re h a s

quite list of discontinued soft-

ware fo r sa le a s well, wh ich

would b e o f interest t o U S

Dragon and CoCo owners.

least until the wizard Magitrix,

creator of the ﬁrst 6809. awakes

fro m s l e e p b e n e a t h C a e r

Fulhaulagoe and conjures into

existence t h e lo n g a wa ite d

Dragon 3G. Dragon users who

don't wa n t t o wa it u n til t h e

Millenium have only to wait until

August. when further details will

be furnished. Someone's mut-

tering so me th in g a b o u t DI Y

Home Accounting with the soft-

ware included, a s well. Mo re

next month

South B ay

ComputEr

Dub

50 years in a vault . . .

A REMINDER from the National

Software Re g is t e r t h a t a n

author's copyright, although it

exists f r o m t h e mo me n t a

program comes into existence.

can be successfully pirated if

the author cannot prove that it

existed at a particular time —for

instance, i f a n o th e r a u t h o r

copies it and sells or publishes

•t before the original writer can

do so.

The N a t i o n a l S o f t w a r e

your p ro g ra m conﬁdentially.

and supply a numbered certi-

ﬁcate for each program.

Further d e ta ils f ro m T h e

National Software Register, 235

Chase Side, Enﬁ eld. Mid d x.

EN2 ORA,

There are, o f course, other

ways to prove that a program

was in yo u r possession a t a

certain date. The simplest is to

mail a copy of the program to

yourself b y re g iste re d m a i l

(where the date is certiﬁed) and

then store the package in a safe

place UNOPENED unless and

until you have a barney about

possession and have it opened

by the courts o r so me other

authority legally ableto witness

the contents of the packet. Make

sure the postmark is clear, and

keep the posting certiﬁcate for

luck.

This is cheaper than having

the program witnessed b y a

Notary or stored Ina bank vault,

and just as effective (as long as

you don't lose it).

Contrary to popular belief,

the material displays a copy-

right(C) sign or anyother indica-

tion. The little symbol is simply

a warning to other people that

this is copyright material. Copy-

right stays with an author (a)

until he or she sells it or assigns

it tosomebodyelseor(b)unti150

years a fte r t h e death o f th e

author.

The NSA do say that they will

store yo u r programs u n til 50

years after your death.

The S B UG me e t s o n ce a

month in Torrance and once a

month i n L o n g B e a ch . f o r

demonstrations, lectures and

chat. Members bring along their

Disc

Super-

writer

HANS CHRI S TI A N A NDE R-

SON S o f t wa re o f De n ma rk

called us up to say that they now

have Dragon Data's Superwriter

It converted for disc.

exactly. I wanted Dragon User to

know t h is , b e c a u s e s o m e

people have been wondering:'

said the chap from HCR " Th e

disc ca n a lso be loaded into

memory and then saved and

loaded to another disc.

- The package will cost E33.30

plus post and packing. Watch

Dragon User for further details

Phil Beed (and various people

on rhis behalf) apologise for a

slightly misleading statement of

thesNDUG'S subscription —it's

E8.00 t o jo in , a n d £7.50 f o r

subsequent re su b scrip tio n s.

Also, p o i n t s o u t a n o t h e r

member, repairs are not literally

at-cost, but are undertaken as

cheaply a s possible. National

Dragon User Group, 6 Navarino

Road. Worthing, Sussex.

Buffer

COMPUSENSE a re develop-

ing a ca ch e buffering utility,

Express/OS-9, for use with their

Dragon Plus and 0S-9.

Th e re i s n o s c h e d u le d

release d a te a t present. We

would be interested in hearing

from a n yo n e wh o u s e s t h e

Dragon64/Dragonplus/OS-9

and if possible 'who uses C or

Pascal' (says Stan Opyrchal) to

test this package and review it

for us. If you are interested drop

the editor a line pronto.

Fade out

AS SOON AS DU June arrived

we saw that the listings for the

Gra p h ics S c r e e n W o r d -

processor were almost unread-

able in places. Often the 'prin-

ters' get the blame for this kind

of thing when it isn't their fault,

but in this case the pages left us

in good condition (as you can

see from the ﬁnal page). so we

will be asking questions.

Anyone who wants a clean

photocopy, please drop u s a

line No SAE required.

German gruppe sie .4

,,„96.

APOLOGIES to the Siegfried

Computer Gruppe of Germany

for missing their ﬁrst show on

May 30th. We can now make

that upsomewhat bypublicising

their existence. They publish a

stout A5 magazine, Siegfried's

Dra ch e n p o st, e v e r y t w o

months. T h is i s i n G e rma n

(although this issue contains a

single cartoon in English!).

Contact the clu b via Bernd /04?

Neu ner, Din a -E rn st b e rg e r. •

Strasse 2 3 , D-8 5 2 4 N e u n -

kirchen am Brand 1, Bunders-

republik Deutschland.

-4-

1114tA

11_

Clang!

4 .

July 1987 Dragon User 3

Dragonsoft

Compose yourself

Program: Music Maker

Supplier: John Penn Software

Price: E5.00

MUSIC MAKER is another pro-

gram that allows you to write

your own tunes in four part har-

mony. The tunes still sound as

synthesised as they didwith fo r

example, Micro d e a l' s C o m-

poser program. b u t th is pro-

gram i s le a g u e s above a n y

other in its ﬁeld for the simple

reason that this is a composer

designed for a composer, not a

programmer.

Basically. there's no conver-

sion needed of music into lines

of code because all mu sic is

entered o n t o a ra t h e r n ic e

graphic stave. Nearly anything

can be entered. and I haven't

found anything missing while

I've b e e n in p u ttin g m y o wn

compositions.

The p ro g ra m i s controlled

mainly with the cursor keys with

New software for review should be sent to Dragon User

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

other functions being provided

by other appropriate keys(eg 'R'

for rest, see, pretty easy isn't it!).

It'sverydifﬁcult towrite a long

review about a program like this

because all that you can say is,

yes, it sounds okay; yes. it's user

friendly: ye s, it ' s g ra p h ica lly

easy to read. Th e only other

thing I can really do is give you

a list of its capabilities. So here

goes.

You can set the key and time

signature, enter notes (of any

length including ties and dotted

notes) onto bass and treble clef

with a n option t o u se so me

descenders, a n d a facility to

cover notes not available on the

stave. You can enter rests, inset

and delete notes, repeat bars or

bits of bars, change the tempo,

transpose the tune at anytime.

save to and load from tape, play

the tu n e (pretty obvious one

that!), and put half bars on the

start

, gr • lor I !S ti r '

.NR.1 A g o

W . I t t 111111WItt 0 1

• •

1121111t

v a - e v S S W Alle

0101:100/1/1111.010NOSIONOPOUSIWA

y z 4 fe R N IN !

- .

AMOSHwolf011111101111IIIIIMOrteligniiitgormW"

7 .

oglitniiPit•t a t WV& •

slooksowin , -

.t om tAmooamorsooK

d e row o i3 t

•

The manual ma ke s it ve ry

easy to understand and use the

program. and the table at the

back of the program allows the

user who is less well acquainted

with the theory of music to enter

his own tunes as well.

The ﬁnal important feature of

the program is that any tune

written using Music Maker can

be used independently of the

master program within your Own

programs.

So, in summing up. this is the

deﬁnitive mu sic-writ in g p ro -

gram for the Dragon. and if you

thought Composer was essen-

tial you simply must get this.

Jason Orbaum

Pennies from above

Program: Miser's Dream

Supplier: Microvision

Price: E7.95

Miser's Dream is the sort of ex-

cellent program that doesn't sell

owing to lack of publicity and/or

reviews. (I've been on at Micro-

vision, but I gather the chap in

charge o f ma rke tin g h a sn 't

twigged that you d o actually

have to draw people's attention

to games a few times before they

get around to parting with cash.

— Ed.)

Another g a me fro m Ja so n

Falcus of Eddie Steady Go fame,

it s imp ly in vo lve s co lle ctin g

coins that fall from a cash-bag at

the t o p o f t e n progressively

harder screens, a n d guiding

them sothat they fall intoa piggy

bank at the bottom.

The j o y s t i c k c o n t ro l s a

pointer, to move ledges. see-

saw style. either up or down to

guide thefalling coins intothe lit-

tle pig, though there are moving

platforms to aid o r hinder the

falling on several screens. Out

to stop all this is The American

Express (a train, not a card!),

chufﬁng happily across the top

of each screen, wh ich d ro p s

dollars d o wn a s i t p a sse s.

These destroy any coins that

touch them. b u t can be shot

away if you reach them quickly

enough. Also to be tackled is the

Money Spider. which eats any

coins it encounters on the way

to the pig. Th is must be ﬁlled

within the time limit, with bonus

points equal to remaining time

once th e little p ig h a s been

ﬁlled.

The s t a r t m e n u a l l o w s

keyboard control if desired. the

keys being redeﬁnable, and a

skill le ve l t h a t ra n g e s f ro m

'simpleton' t o 'Expert'. Th e n

onto t h e P M O D E 3 g a m e

screen, nicely detailed and laid

Out, t h e c o i n s b o u n c i n g

realistically from ledge to ledge.

Again like Eddie Steady Go.

some screens look ridiculously

easy, wh ile the later ones re-

quire some careful thought The

result o f getting to th e tenth

screen will have to wait for a true

e This i s a v e r y o rig in a l.

deﬁnitely a 'just one more go'

game, dealing with a subject

closet° my heart. and retails for

E7.95. a t wh ich p rice it gives

good value for money. A nice

tﬁnishing touch is that should

'you beat 'MTWallee in the 'Hall

tof the Rich' table, it is possible

o reset and save your achieve-

ment when you next play.

Mike R. Vine

Go to work

with

an egg

Program: Superkid

Supplier: Ouickbeam

Price: E8.95

TAKE the glasses off, put the

boots on; get out the cape. and

prepare to take the illustrious

role of a SUPERMAN, or at least

one's younger brother. in this,

quite simply the best of Dragon

games yet!

Yes, you've guessed it. Your

objective is to save the damsel

in distress, avoiding the various

nasties o u t t o destroy yo u r

wildest dreams! A s Superkid

hasn't quite yet mastered the art

of ﬂ y in g , t h in g s s o o n g e t

increasingly difﬁcult. The ﬁrst

screen places you prominently

among a series of snails. which

4 Dragon User July 1987

you ma y either jump, o r blast

with an egg. which is your only

weapon. and which you can on-

ly get by jumping on. This task

is surprisingly difﬁcult!

Once you have got rid of the

snails, you travel onwards. en-

countering a buzz-happy bee,

weaving throughout the screen,

destroying your hopes of suc-

cess (or at least mine). All this,

and don't forget those blasted

cherries, giving you energy vital

to your mission.

Superb graphics, unbeliev-

able sound. with the best built-

in speech I have heard on any

co mp u te r. m a k e s t h i s a n

unclassiﬁed him. With even a

section for you hacking freaks,

too. So com'on down, 'cos at

95 the price is right. As you

can guess. I like thisone! (Dock

this man's pay for not mentioning

the dogs. Has he got a nasty sur-

prise in store! — Ed.)

Simon Jones

40400

44444

Take ten printers

add one, and you have the Dragon User readers' guide to painless printing

OVER the months we have received a pile of letters asking for more advice on which

printer to buy for the Dragon. So we asked the people who know best: the users, and

the result is the eleven extended reviews of different models by satisﬁed customers

that you can read here.

We haven't attempted to direct you to speciﬁc distributors, or to be rigid about prices:

therearereliablecomputerdealerscountrywide, and prices vary considerably for many

models, and change regularly.

The most important thing you can do, if you are not an electronics wizard, is establish

that your dealer can make up and supply (as part of the price if possible. although this

is not always on offer) the correct connecting cable for the Dragon, and wherever possi-

ble to demonstrate the printer with your Dragon, ensuring that you understand how

to make the correct dip settings.

But you will ﬁnd all this, and much other good advice aside, in the reviews which

follow.

(Aren't you going to mention the Disc Operating Systems? — Ass. Ed. Go away — Ed.)

Amstrad DMP 2000

ANYONE wh o wish e s to u se a Dragon

seriously will need a printer, especially when

using word processors or spreadsheets. My

ﬁrst printer was a Seikosha GP100. Th is

served me very we ll wh ile I wa s simp ly

dumping p ro g ra ms o r ma ch in e c o d e

listings. I have now moved on to Flex and am

using S F-E DI T f ro m Compusense, a n

excellent wo rd p ro ce ssin g package. I

therefore needed a b e tte r printer. T h e

Amstrad came on the market last summer

and after seeing a demonstration of its print

quality I decided to buy it. in the Comet sale.

when it was priced E144.95. a bargain price

for a machine wh ich gives Epson co m-

patibility with both tractor and friction feed.

The DMP2000 is a lightweight machine

with a pair of hinged legs underneath so it

can stand over a 500 sheet box of paper. The

paper enters the machine at the front, which

also makes single sheet feeding easy, and

the path is ﬂat. so you can print on thin card-

board, useful for record cards etc.

On the right side of the machine is the

mains On/Off switch. while at the rear is the

centronics connector and two sets of DIP

switches, used fo r setting various para-

meters. These are very clearly described in

the manual.

The printer cable supplied is for con-

nection to Amstrad machines, so a Dragon

(20 pin) to centronics must be obtained, or

the supplied cable reﬁtted with a Dragon

connector. IF you have the correct tools and

wiring diagram!

On the right front there are three buttons

for On -lin e , Fo rm-fe e d a n d lin e -fe e d ,

together with three indicators for On-line,

Paper-out and Power-on. Above them is the

friction/tractor selector lever. I ﬁ n d t h e

machine functions perfectly well with this

selected to friction, even with tractor paper.

The ribbon is easily ﬁtted and at the left end

is the print pressure selector lever.

The manual is very clear. Each printer

command is described with simple software

in four languages. Amstrad. Commodore,

Microsoft Basic and BBC. For Dragon use

the Microsoft version, remembering to use

P RI NT-2 in place o f LPRINT, a n d th e

printer springs to life easily.

The p rin t e r c o me s w i t h s i x b a s i c

typefaces, but to these can be added many

variations.

The printer also has a number of foreign

characters which are accessed by control

codes, the various characters occupy ASCII

codes used b y less used symbols, cu rly

brackets etc., b u t if you a re using Co m-

pusense Flex they correspond to the built-

in foreign character sets. The character set

may a ls o b e preselected o n t h e D I P

switches.

There a re a ls o t h e va rio u s g ra p h ic

options, single, d o u b le o r quad-density

modes These follow the usual Epson style.

8/9 dot, dump routines.

All in all I have found this printer to give

reliable, good quality printing a t a ve ry

reasonable price. I t compares we ll with

printers costing several te n s o f pounds

more, and I would recommend it to anyone.

I have increased the printer's internal

buffer from 2K to BK. which speeds up word

processing b y not having to wait fo r the

printer, especially when in NLQ mode. This

is an easy modiﬁcation, the parts cost under

E5.00. and I will supply details on request.

(Anybody interested in this mod. please

send your request to DU with a stamped.

self-addressed envelope, and we will pass

them on to Frank Philbrow E d . )

Frank Philbrov,

Current Comet price: E154_95

Amstrad DMP300

THERE are some questions in this life that

are difﬁcult to answer. Wh y are we here?

Whydon't MacGowan Consultants come to

any shows? and why doesn't anyone build

printers that load from the front? Well the ﬁrst

two I will have to leave you to ponder but the

third one is now resolved with the new ﬂatb-

ed printers from AMSTRAD. Now I know that

name is going to send some of you running

for the brown paper bag RRRRGH•••!! (Now

took what you've done. You've upset our

wordprocessor — Ed. )but don't knock it till

you have tried it.

The people at my local computer shop

had been trying to convince me ever since

I mentioned replacing my old Seikosha. I

had been put off by the name, but when I was

offered the loan of a machine what could I

say?

I could go on about the joys of the front

loading paper tram but I won't. It will sufﬁce

to say that the machine has a built-in stand,

allowing fanfold paper to placed underneath

and restacked behind, and all loading can

be achieved fro m a sitting position. Th e

model I borrowed was a DM P 3000, the new

machine developed for the PC clone. It could

be se t t o default t o e ith e r o f t wo I B M

character sets or Epson FX standard, selec-

table by dip switches. In order to get a line

feed wit h e ve ry ca rria g e re tu rn i t wa s

necessaryeither to reset another dip switch

or to POKE 330,2. Print quality is very good

if a little furry on Near Letter Quality. All

July 1987 Dragon User 5

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