[{"TitleName":"DK'Tronics Light Pen","Publisher":"DK'Tronics Ltd","Author":"Roy Eastwood","YearOfRelease":"1983","ZxDbId":"0008362","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"ZX Computing Issue 22, Dec 1985","Price":"£1.95","ReleaseDate":"1985-11-28","Editor":"Ray Elder","TotalPages":124,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Ray Elder\r\nEditorial Assistant: Cliff Joseph\r\nGroup Editor: Wendy J Palmer\r\nSoftware Assistant: John Gerard Donovan\r\nSales Executive: Alice Robertson\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Barry Bingham\r\nDivisional Advertising Manager: Chris Northam\r\nCopy Controller: Sue Couchman\r\nPublishing Director: Peter Welham\r\n\r\nOrigination and design by MM Design & Print, [redacted]\r\nPublished by Argus Specialist Publications Ltd, [redacted]\r\n\r\nZX Computing is published bi-monthly on the fourth Friday of the month. Distributed by: Argus Press Sales & Distribution Ltd. [redacted]. Printed by: Garnett Print, Rotherham and London.\r\n\r\nThe contents of this publication including all articles, designs, plans, drawings and programs and all copyright and other intellectual property rights therein belong to Argus Specialist Publications Limited. All rights conferred by the Law of Copyright and other intellectual property rights and by virtue of international copyright conventions are specifically reserved to Argus Specialist Publications Limited and any reproduction requires the prior written consent of Argus Specialist Publications Ltd.\r\n\r\n©Argus Specialist Publications Limited 1985"},"MainText":"LIGHTPENS\r\n\r\nI've had most success to date, with the package from Dk'tronics. The pen itself is rather like a biro or felt tip pen. It is attached by a wire to a control interface which of course comes with the package. The interface is plugged into the back of the Spectrum. A program on cassette is included.\r\n\r\nThe glass screen of your monitor is the working area and drawing surface, so some consideration has to be given as to whether this is the way you want to work. Then there are practical aspects such as the distance of your screen from your keyboard, and the fact that you have to work on a perpendicular 'face'. The height of the screen is therefore important if you do not want to suffer from muscle fatigue in your drawing arm.\r\n\r\nLightpens give you a physical contact and interaction with your drawing surface if that is important. Calibrating the pen each time may prove a chore, but after that it's plainsailing - within the limitations of the power of the program. Again it's a good way of getting started or the very basics of graphics, of getting into the picture as it were. Sensibly introduced in the classroom it could be useful aid and introduction for children in an educational context. It is limited though in its potential for advanced or complex screen designs. Graphics Tablets give you similar physical point of con tact with your drawing-surface. This time it is horizontal and again a 'pen' is used. There's a review of the Saga Graphics Pad in this issue. So when you are ready look it up. They certainly take you further than the lightpen. But then you pay a lot more for the facilities they offer.\r\n\r\nNow for something almost completely different, the Sinclair LOGO pack. Another excellent starter, but as I have hinted, quite different.\r\n\r\nThis pack has very obvious educational applications and for very young children. The founding father of the LOGO language intended it as a language for children which would develop logical thinking, introduce young minds to computer programming and have very definite terms of reference for the teaching and development of mathematical concepts. Drawing is achieved by moving a small graphics 'turtle' - a triangle - around the screen. This is done by sending through the computer commands known as Primitive Procedures (mostly single words and abbreviations of those words). Your sense of direction needs to be accurate and formulated mathematically. Once you have established procedures for drawing, say, a square, this group of procedures can be assigned a single word or name which LOGO will then understand as a command to repeat the whole set of procedures.\r\n\r\nThe emphasis or bias is fundamentally mathematical, arithmetical or geometric. You do not just learn to draw a square, you also learn what makes a square what it is and from there the difference bet ween a square and a rectangle or a parallelogram.\r\n\r\nIt is a language itself, apart from BASIC. Hence learning to use it is learning to program a computer in another language. The graphic aspect being displayed on the screen is part of the incentive and motivation for progressing with the new language.\r\n\r\nTwo fairly weighty and comprehensive books or manuals are part of the pack. The first book deals exclusively with Turtle Graphics and is an absorbing and refreshingly different kind of programming experience. The second book acts as a reference manual for Sinclair LOGO, The growth, use and development of LOGO by Spectrum owners, especially in schools will, I think, be affected by the cost factor.\r\n\r\nWhen DREAM SOFTWARE released Computer Aided Designer, my own children had not had their Spectrum for long. They, like me were exploring the full graphics potential of the machine when C.A.D. turned up and kept us enthralled for days. Now, still an old favourite, I would recommend it as another in the 'Starter' category. With very obvious educational values and as a springboard for more ambitious projects later in Design.\r\n\r\nThe manual is simple and very straightforward - alphabetically leading you through the twenty seven commands available in the program. Some forty custom shaped graphics, UDGs can be designed. By giving precise measurements most geometric shapes can be drawn, filled and so on. It remains impressive after all this time, and the potential for drawing in 3D is considerable.\r\n\r\nSimilarly, another old favourite, VU-3D from PSION. \r\nThis has the added and appeal of enabling the viewer to move around the object in 3D. Graphics and Design, pure and simple. High resolution colour and an incredible understanding of perspectives are real bonuses with this program.\r\n\r\nFuture designers in the Aircraft or for that matter almost any other industry, may have started young with something like C.A.D. or VU-3D.\r\n\r\nI doubt if they would have been able to afford the RD Digital Tracer, from RD Laboratories. This is closer to an instrument than anything else I've come across in graphics and design hardware and software for the Spectrum.\r\n\r\nIt comes in two versions, the Standard and the Professional. Both are fairly highly technical and sophisticated tools. The Tracer consists of a short fixed arm and pivot from which extends a drawing arm hinged at the centre with another floating pivot which moves across your drawing surface area.\r\n\r\nThe arm is connected to the computer by a length of cable via an interface plugged into the rear port of the Spectrum. A cardboard template and transparent grid overlay are included for calibration purposes, the tracer is a precision instrument. The software cassette contains five programs. The usual options are offered in the first, plotting single points, construction of basic geometric figures, filling, hatching, change of ink, border, paper colour, adding text, UDGs and so on.\r\n\r\nThe display image can be moved up, down, and from side to side, scaled up and down, and reversed. Multiple screen images including images at different scales and at different positions can be achieved. By adding other BASIC routines and software, the Tracer's capabilities can be extended into the field of statistical analysis. This immediately puts the Tracer into a specialist Graphics and Display category. Although the Tracer can be used with the ZX81 and 16K Spectrum, its full potential can only really be developed on the 48K and then only by competent programmers. It's a versatile instrument for the specialist.\r\n\r\nIt's the season of Good will and all that, so why not give a last mention for all whose speciality is Games Designing. It's been around for a while, but standing the test of time in lots of ways. I'm referring of course to the High level User Friendly Realtime Games Designer from Melbourne House. Or as it is more commonly known, HURG.\r\n\r\nStill a powerful program and a very good manual. How did they do it in those all time greats like Pacman, Donkey Kong and Space invaders? H.U.R.G. will tell you how.\r\n\r\nIt's a pretty good list of graphics goodies and that other seasonal expression comes to mind. 'There's something here for everyone.' You have no excuse for not knowing how and from whom in Spectrum Graphics, just how to enjoy the graphics power behind those buttons.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"41","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Colin Christmas","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":null,"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]