1st April 1996Many apologies for my failing to keep up contributions to EUG while so many people have maintained their commitment, and obviously put a lot of work into it.
There are several reasons for my absence (any excuse for laziness); the Electron kept on crashing so I mainly use the Master 128, I did not have anything new or original to contribute (Of course, I realise that just making comments on other members' work would merit publication) and lastly instead of forwarding each month's subscription with some contribution, I changed to subscribing annually and got out of the habit of bothering.
I now have the task of going through the last few issues to raise a few comments (which would have been easier done as each issue was released, but still). Firstly, many thanks to Richard Dimond for including the "undo" feature in his Beleagured Castle patience game.
I was impressed with EUG #21 (The Summer Special over three disks!) and, of course, the Master 128 made Richard Dimond's animations all the more stunning. Incidentally, any programs which run too fast on the Master can usually be slowed down by simply inserting a line somewhere such as FOR delay=1 TO 100:NEXT, adjusting the 100 as required.
Something I - and I'm sure other members - would like to see is an 'index' of previous issues in the magazine. It was only when I realised that my last contribution was in August 1995 that I thought it was time to get my finger out. I never bother printing out EUG text but would certainly do so with a text file listing the contents of all the issues so far.
There have been a few items on recovering files from disks with broken directories. I use the ADT command *DEX and examine the second sector of a good disk, then insert the faulted disk. You can then move through the sectors (ADT doesn't notice the change of disks!) and, once the file has been found, press ESCAPE. Then use the *SECTORS command to load the relevant sectors to a safe address (&2000 if you are in Mode 6) before *MOUNTing a good disk and typing: *SAVE filename 2000 ????.
The ???? depends on the file's length, which can be checked with *MEX 2000. Finally, use *SETADR to correct the load and execution addresses of the saved file. (e.g. *SETADR filename FFFF0E00 FFFF8023)
Of course, the wise person will see that using the above method would take a lot of time if he were trying to recover a disk full of files but then, the wisest person would have just used *BACKUP before any problems occured.
Re: your enquiry regarding AQR. I do not have this but the utility disk with Pres' AP3 contains the utility *AQRinit, submitted for possible inclusion.
Following the mention of 8 Bit Software, I have now begun subscribing to it and find it very good. This brings me to my final point. There are many letters within it requesting help with Exile. May I submit the same solution serialised in EUG to this User Group? (I appreciate submissions to EUG become their sole property.) My intention would be the same as it was with EUG, merely to generate some interest or response for my own benefit. Apart from EUG #21's Exile map, I didn't see much feedback in the magazine itself, but hopefully many people followed it to complete the game.
I respect any decision you make regarding this and will continue to support EUG. I can see the drawbacks of not only releasing programs that members subscribe for but also the possibility of opening a floodgate.
Keep up the good work!
John McHugh, EUG #25
