Improved magazine gets the thumbs up

CONGRATULATIONS on the recent improvements in Sinclair User. The quality of print in the program printouts has been improved and the new system for displaying graphics in the printouts makes life much easier.

There was a mistake in the March issue. In the program Jaws, written for the 48K Spectrum, line 230 should read:

230 IF xl<0 THEN LET xl=30

Such a small error can be solved easily after consulting the Sinclair User Starter Pack helping with simple errors.

Soft Centre was also very useful and informative. Well done, and keep up the work to this standard.

Nicholas Wren, aged 15

Soft Centre will next appear in the June issue of Sinclair User.

Struggling with Forth

WHAT a very interesting article on Forth was printed in the March issue. I bought Abersoft Forth three or four weeks before I had seen the article. The language seems to be ideal for process control but very weak in other areas.

As I am completely new to Forth I am still struggling, with precious little help from the manuals, to do things which more experienced users find easy. For instance, what is the equivalent of Basic "PRINT AT" or how do you read or write a data line to tape; or, having written a new word into your dictionary, how do you get it out again to change or modify it?

I will be looking forward to new projects with Forth and to attempts to give more attention to serious work on the Spectrum instead of using it as a toy.

Alan Beer

Many readers have experienced problems with LOADing and SAVEing and John Gilbert will be answering those questions in an article which is at the planning stage. As to the other question, to retrieve a word from a Forth dictionary it is necessary to use a decompiler. Some companies, including East London Robotics, plan to produce one for their products and it is hoped that Melbourne House will issue one in the future.

Where are the women?

I NOTICE on reading Sinclair User every month that there is a distinct lack of female participation in the advertising sections. I am delighted to see that programs written by female users such as myself are included but am surprised to observe the apparent lack of foresight on the part of the advertisers. Surely the female hand looks as attractive as the male on the Spectrum keyboard?

I am convinced that your male readers would not be averse to more female-dominated advertising and, at the same time, such advertising would reassure women that computing is a unisex occupation.

Elizabeth Wilson

Watch out for glitches

I WOULD like to say that Sinclair User surpasses all other magazines for the Sinclair range of computers. The articles and the information are consistently relevant and of a high standard. Sinclair User has greatly enhanced understanding of the new technology. May you continue with this good service for a long time.

On a different note, perhaps I can inform you of some research I have done relating to loading errors. A tape loading error - or a complete failure to 'pick up' the program - will often arise from the recorder volume being too high or from the treble being too high, or both.

Customers often stop the tape when that happens and then rewind to try again. Many recorders cause a glitch on the tape where it was stopped and rewound. When that happens you have lost the program forever. The solution is not to stop and rewind until the tape has reached a blank section. Then lower the volume/treble and try again.

The stop on a program section and rewind glitch accounts for more than 90 percent of returned tapes to software manufacturers. Some tape recorders do it and some do not.

Dr Karl Glasson, Micro Master

Egg-ceptional scoring

I ENJOY reading Sinclair User very much and I have heard about the defence of Chuckie Egg. I wonder if my score of 210,010 is the highest after going through 20 interesting levels?

Wayne Dennison, aged 13

A change is on the cards

AS THE AUTHOR of Bridge Player for the 48K Spectrum, may I reply to the letter from J W Evans in the February issue in which he comments on the program?

His main criticism is of the arcade-type flashing scores and the jingles. I understand his point but on the other hand most people seem to find those at best amusing and at worst harmless. Contrary to his assumption, they occupy a minimal amount of memory, not sufficient to affect the level of play which, however, by virtue of other changes, is better on the new version of the program to be available soon.

If Evans would like to return his existing tape to me I will not only upgrade it but also, specially for him, remove the arcade games aspects which offend him.

Richard Wheen

REFERENCE letters in February issue, I endorse the observations of J W Evans regarding the CP Software Bridge Player. Nevertheless, for a serious micro user who does not go for arcade games, the program has given me many hours of pleasure. I do not know how it can be achieved with such sophistication in 48K, despite the crazy opening and responding bids by partner North.

Wheen and Vachha could solve that failing and produce an Improved Bridge Player; I and many other will rush to buy.

R G Miller

Cracking down on copying

HAUNTED HOUSE, published in March Sinclair User, had a line omitted. It should read '6 Return'. In the same program, for any readers wondering what significance the skeleton, ladder and ghost graphics characters beside the score have, they should not be there at all.

The letters AJM are the initials of the original author, Andrew Murgatroyd, from the August, 1983 Computer and Video Games, where the program was originally published.

The two programs are identical except for the removal of several AJM lines. I understand that not every entry can be checked for originality but I feel that such an obvious copy as this should have been discovered before printing.

Paul Bamborough

It has been brought to our attention by a number of readers that Haunted House was not the original work of the person who submitted the program. Our investigations have confirmed that.

While we make every effort to ensure that all programs published in Sinclair User have not been published elsewhere, occasionally one may slip through the net. Fortunately our readers are quick to inform us of any obvious plagiarism.

We take this opportunity to warn readers that programs which have appeared elsewhere, in book, magazine or cassette form, cannot be considered for inclusion in Sinclair User, whether or not such programs are the contributor's original work.

Content is too childish

I BOUGHT my Spectrum last July and shortly afterwards I received an invitation to subscribe to Sinclair User.

At the same time I also placed a subscription with another computer magazine and seven issues later the difference between them is marked.

In defence of Sinclair User I feel that the comments made regarding the amount of advertisements as being excessive is merely nit-picking and would suggest to the reader concerned that he checks other such magazines; the percentage is about the same in all of them.

With regard to the reader from Perthshire who bewails about difficult competitions, I would suspect that he fails to realise that one has to work at any competition and that prizes are not handed out on a plate. If he was unable to compete in the recent Microdrive competition through lack of knowledge, the answer is develop your knowledge and try again.

I would agree with the reader who says that the level of software in general is poor, though I would go further and say that in particular the so-called arcade games are the biggest rip-off. In all of them the theme is the same - only the locations change.

Thankfully a few software houses are beginning to realise that the variations on the 'shoot-em-up' theme are wearing thin and are starting to produce quality software; it makes a pleasant change to be looked upon as intelligent people and not as gullible idiots.

Finally, may I add my only criticism of Sinclair User. In general it is an excellent magazine but obviously aimed at the young and teenage market. One only has to look at the comic illustrations which accompany readers' programs, Sinclair Simon and the proud letters re high scores to realise that perhaps your magazine should have the title Young Sinclair User.

So once my subscription ends I will cheerfully leave your magazine to its intended market. I will miss Andrew Hewson and John Gilbert but the rest of your magazine, for me, leaves much to be desired.

P Gilbert

We have always endeavoured to publish something of interest to every Sinclair user in each issue and consequently some of the content is aimed at younger readers. At the same time there is much which is written with serious applications in mind, such as our recent articles on Forth, our continuing series on machine code, the education section, Sinclair Business User and Hardware World. Letters, news and Sinclairvoyance are also of relevance to all readers. Obviously we cannot please all users all the time but we feel we succeed in pleasing most of them most of the time.

Putting the record straight

HAVE I mastered Jetpac? If so, is this score a record? My score is 3,152,880, which took me many hours of square-eyed playing. Keep up the standard of a great magazine.

Richard Lee, aged 12

Misleading hardware review

IN THE review of the Kelwood range of Backpacks, I should like to point out that there were inaccuracies and omissions which could give the customer a misleading view of the product.

The review referred to Mullard 'liquorice all-sort capacitors' which were 20 times too big for their job. In fact, the capacitors are not Mullard and to reduce their values by 20 times would certainly lead to high-frequency oscillations and that would be unsatisfactory.

The review failed to mention that the whole range of Backpacks has a housing which is very convenient for carrying the rather weighty Spectrum power pack and, in doing so, tidies the usual mess of wires which is found round the computer. That housing also doubles as a cassette stand for those people who have already found an alternative place for the power pack. Your reviewer is entitled to his opinion but you should make sure of your facts. Surely you are failing in your duty to your readers if you do not give a full and true review of a product in question. Would it not be a good idea to have a readers' panel which could assess new products?

M D Belk, Kelwood Computer Cases

All donations gratefully received

ABOUT three months ago I bought a Spectrum. As an experiment one day I took it to work and within a short time queues were forming to use it. What is so unusual about that? The fact is that I am a charge nurse in an acute psychiatric ward for about 20 patients.

The experiment was such a huge success that we have now started a fund to buy a Spectrum and portable TV for the permanent use of the ward. If any readers have unwanted software they would like to donate I and my patients would be most grateful.

Colin Knowles

I AM INVOLVED with an ILEA Saturday school project in Islington. As part of our activities I run a computer group and although we have access to three Spectrums we desperately need more facilities. There must be a number of people who have discarded their old ZX-80s or ZX-81s, having bought a Spectrum or other micro.

Perhaps some of the people would loan or donate such unused micros, as the funding for the project is minimal. If anyone can help in any way perhaps they would contact me.

Stephen Oxford

Applying Occam's razor

I HAVE recently been reading some Spectrum books and have seen about three or four complex programs which produce regular Spectrum sound from the keyboard, rather like a small synthesiser.

Those programs were about 100-200 lines long, which was a waste of time, because most of it was printing and telling people that whatever key they pressed they would get a sound from the keyboard and what all the sounds were - middle 'C' or an 'A'; for example. There is a simpler and shorter way of doing it in one line:

10 BORDER 0:PAPER 0:INK 0:CLS:PAUSE 0:
 BEEP RND/3, RNDx69: GO TO 10

Paul Huggett

Cricket captain re-instated

WE SHOULD like to thank you for your review of our product Cricket Captain in the March issue but we would like to point out that the title of the program is Cricket Captain and not County Cricket. You omitted to print our address and as the product is not as yet widely available through retail outlets that will cause some inconvenience to readers who wish to buy the cassette.

Karl Manley