| software scene |
FROM the newly-formed Dunrobin Software, a bridge scorepad is claimed to be flexible and comprehensive. It is menu-driven and is said to be crashproof, with easy-to-follow instructions.
The pad includes a scoreboard, with automatic scoring of doubles, re-doubles, honours and so on, a history page detailing each hand played, a statistics page, and the ability to save the details for later study.
The names of teams are restricted to 14 letters and if stakes are not to be played for, a 0 should be entered at the 'pence/00' prompt. To prevent the program crashing it ignores impossible inputs and awaits a valid reply. It is also possible to reject valid inputs after the bid entry routine, in case a mistake has been made.
Each cassette, which costs £4.95, contains two copies of the program and has a full list of instructions.
It was written by John Williamson and is available from Dunrobin Software at West Lothian.
A CASSETTE with a series of routines is provided by IRS Software under the title Toolkit. For £3.95, eight routines can assist in the writing of programs.
All are written in machine code and take up only 164 bytes of RAM and are put in the high end of the storage to avoid being over-written by users' programs. They are for use with the 16K RAM pack and include four general routines, three graphics routines and a tape routine.
They can be used by adding the instructions as commands.
A more expensive version, at £4.95, includes other routines, plus GO TOs and GO SUBs in the line re-number.
Toolkit is available from IRS Software at Worthing, Sussex.
MACRONICS has developed what it claims is an original technique for the production of high-resolution graphics. For £3.95 it is possible to save and reload pictures on cassette but it cannot be listed on the ZX printer.
Large pictures can be created by dispensing with the normal character set and setting-up a system which needs following carefully to ensure that mistakes are not made.
It can be supplied in a package of four programs costing £7.95. All are available from Macronics Systems at Solihull, West Midlands.
ELEVEN GAMES in one pack for £6 must be a bargain and as they all fit into 1K of the ZX-81 they are ideal for the person who has just bought the machine.
The games have to be simple to fit into the space but most are interesting and give a good guide to the possibilities of the ZX-81. There is a good variety with names like Man-eating budgies, Space Pirate, The Wall and Maze.
Attempts to play the games in sequence require stopping the cassette as soon as it has loaded but if only one game is required that can be done easily.
The pack is available from Artic Computing at Hull, North Humberside.
CALCUSLAVE is described as a calculation workhorse for the ZX-81. According to its inventor, the secret of the program lies in the superb string-handling and slicing capabilities of the ZX-81 with the data being held in strings.
It can be used for a wide range of repetitive calculations which do not need a database. The only limit is that any calculation cannot be more than 18 characters long, but within that there is a wide range of possibilities, including personal accounts, income tax, physics problems and VAT.
The program has five expressions but users car put in their own calculations. A knowledge of Basic is not needed to do that, so long as the detailed instructions are followed.
If used with a ZX printer an automatic copy of all calculations is provided.
It takes up 14K of memory and costs £4.95. It is produced as part of a new range of software by Softouch of Cambridgeshire.
A SYSTEM has been produced to provide management information on holidays and sickness for small businesses. Running on the ZX-81 with the 16K RAM pack, it will handle up to 80 records.
The holiday version compares leave entitlement to the number of days taken and will print a list of people with more than a set amount of leave not yet taken. The sick leave system records and prints the names of people with more than a set amount of time off sick.
Both systems are available on one cassette costing £9.95 from Computator, Greenwich, London.