[{"TitleName":"Scope","Publisher":"Interactive Software People","Author":"","YearOfRelease":"1983","ZxDbId":"0008659","Reviews":[{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Computer Issue 4, Apr 1984","Price":"£0.8","ReleaseDate":"1984-03-15","Editor":"Toby Wolpe","TotalPages":236,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Toby Wolpe\r\nAssistant Editor: Meirion Jones\r\nStaff Writer: Simon Beesley\r\nProduction Editor: Ian Vallely\r\nSub-Editor: Paul Bond\r\nEditorial Secretary: Lynn Dawson\r\nEditorial: [redacted]\r\nSubscriptions: U.K. £10.50 for 12 issues.\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Shobhan Gajjar\r\nAssistant Advertisement Manager: Nicholas Ratnieks\r\nAdvertisement Executives: Nigel Borrell, Julian Bidlake, Kay Filbin\r\nNorthern Office: Ron Southall\r\nAdvertisement Secretary: Jeanette Mackrell\r\nClassified: Claire Notley\r\nPublishing Director: Chris Hipwell\r\n\r\nYour Computer, [redacted]\r\n©Business Press International Ltd 1984\r\n\r\nPrinted in Great Britain for the proprietors of Business Press International Ltd, [redacted].\r\nISSN 0263-0885\r\nPrinted by Riverside Press Ltd, [redacted], and typeset by Instep Ltd, [redacted]"},"MainText":"GAMES WRITING PACKS\r\n\r\nProducing fast-action games without the need to learn machine-code programming - Simon Beesley reviews a crop of games designers including the newly-released Hurtg.\r\r\n\r\r\nThere are few more dismal experiences than playing a version of Space Invaders written in Basic. The invading aliens dawdle across the screen while your missiles take an age to reach them. The fact is that Basic is usually too slow for writing adequate arcade games. For best effects you need the speed and flexibility of machine code. But for most of us learning machine code is a daunting task.\r\r\n\r\r\nAs an alternative there are now a number of programs which offer a more painless way of writing arcade quality games. These are either extensions to Basic or full-blown games designers.\r\r\n\r\r\nMelbourne Houses's Hurg is such a program. Hurg, incidentally, stands for High-Level, User-Friendly, Real Time, Games Designer. The terms High-Level and User-Friendly refer to the fact that by using Hurg you can design a game without writing a line of code - the entire system is menu driven. It offers, in fact, an extensive hierarchy of menus and sub-menus which between them cater for almost every aspect of designing a game.\r\r\n\r\r\nDEFINE EIGHT OBJECTS\r\r\n\r\r\nNot only, for example, can you define up to eight different objects but you can also animate each in a different way and determine how it is to move. Movement can be described in considerable detail. You could instruct an object to mimic the movement of another object or give a weighting to movement in certain directions. Alternatively you could define eight paths and link four of them together.\r\r\n\r\r\nThe animation facility is extremely impressive. Each object can be given up to eight animation sequences. It can either be allotted two different shapes for each direction or be made to pass through an entire eight shape cycle in every direction. Once you have defined its shapes you can set the speed at which animation occurs as well as the speed with which the object moves across the screen. Two Shape Generator is one of the most enjoyable features of Hurg. In effect it lets you construct the frames for a cartoon. As soon as you have defined at least two different shapes you can see tour cartoon character in motion.\r\r\n\r\r\nThere are a host of other options such as a regeneration menu, a collision table, and a games variation menu. To take just one of these, the games variation menu allows you to alter the pattern of a game after a specified event. Thus you could instruct the ghosts in a PacMan-type game to move away from the player when a power pill has been eaten.\r\r\n\r\r\nAlthough there is no facility for designing a background you can load in a predefined screen. This means that an assortment of different games can be designed. Two of the demonstration games included with Hurg show its range. Manic Koala is a creditable Manic Miner type game - with only one screen - while Ms Hortense is a Pac-Man variation.\r\r\n\r\r\nDesigning a complete game with Hurg is quite a complicated business. The program's facilities are so extensive that they need much fuller explanations than are given in the manual. More examples are needed. The manual gives an example of how to write a simple game but this is rather sketchy. When I came to design an Invaders type game I was unable to make my missile leave its silo. Doubtless I had made an elementary mistake but detailed step by step instruction would have been handy.\r\r\n\r\r\nQuicksilva's Games Designer is easier to use bin more limited in its scope. Essentially it is an instant shoot em up kit. Seven game formats are open to you - Invaders, Asteroids, Scramble and so on - but these are really a matter of fixing the directions the aliens come from and how your character moves. The program does not allow you to design a game at the same level of detail as Hurg. So you are confined to producing variations on the same shoot-em-up theme: aliens approach and you blast them out of the skies.\r\r\n\r\r\nAgain it is menu driven. There are eight options on the main menu; Play Game, Select New Game. Alter Sprites, Configuration, Movement, Attack Waves, Load from Tape, and Save to Tape. Selecting any one takes you to you to another section. The sprite option, for example, takes you to a character definer where you can define either your own player and missiles or the enemy characters and their missiles.\r\r\n\r\r\nIncluded in the configuration sub-menu is quite a sophisticated sound editor - a feature lacking in Hurg. By moving a slide up and down on five scales you can create he sound of your choice for explosions or missiles. Given the range of different sounds that can be produced this is particularly simple to use as well as being fun to play with.\r\r\n\r\r\nAlthough you can give the aliens a limited degree of animation and set their flight path you cannot animate your own character. This feature does not begin to compare with Hurg's extensive facilities for defining animation and movement. Only one set of aliens can appear on the screen at any one time and all move in the same way.\r\r\n\r\r\nNor is it possible to define the background. The background option reduces to a choice of colours and the decision to include stars or not.\r\r\n\r\r\nBut for all its limitations Games Designer is a highly effective package. The eight are predefined games which are included with it show that you can certainly design games of commercial quality. If shoot-em-ups are your taste then this program will allow you to indulge yourself to the full.\r\r\n\r\r\nGames Designer programs, however, have their frustrations. They restrict you to a set course menu. With Hurg, for example, it is possible to design a Pac-Man game but you could not instruct the ghosts to move intelligently. As the blurb for Interactive Software's puts it, such programs cannot satisfy those who enjoy the challenge of true programming.\r\r\n\r\r\nScope is a computer graphics language. It has 31 command words which are tagged onto Basic Rem statements. They cannot, however, be intermingled with Basic. Once you have written a Scope routine it needs to be compiled into object code in another area of memory. The idea is that once compiled your graphics routine can be called from Basic.\r\r\n\r\r\nENTIRE GAME IN SCOPE\r\r\n\r\r\nYou could also write an entire game in Scope: although with only 31 commands on hand this would be a daunting task. Scope does not allow floating point variables so the sine and cosine functions cannot be used. Nor are there commands for multiplication and division. User-defined graphics need to be set up in Basic.\r\r\n\r\r\nAt first glance Scope's syntax seems rather complex. To set up the equivalent of the empty loop FOR A = 0 to 100 NEXT requires the following commands:\r\r\n\r\r\n10 REM Var,a,0;\r\r\n20 REM Label; A;\r\r\n30 REM Inc;a,1;\r\r\n40 REM Test,194,a,100,A;\r\r\n\r\r\nBut the language's graphics commands like Plot, Draw and Attr are familiar enough; while Fscr is a useful addition which scrolls the screen pixel in any direction.\r\r\n\r\r\nBy using Scope to build up graphics routines you could undoubtedly speed up your Basic programs considerably. It is also an interesting introduction to lower-level languages - a compromise between Basic and assembly language. As an alternative to Scope one could use a fully-fledged Basic compiler or Forth.\r\r\n\r\r\nRichard Taylor's Fifth is a more accessible aid to writing fast games and, arguably, just as effective. One of Your Computer's regular contributors Richard Taylor needs, as they say, no introduction. In an interview he once said that he like to make machine do thing they are not designed to do. Having given the ZX-81 high resolution and speeded up its loading rate, he is now doing amazing things for the Spectrum.Fifth is a 4K extension to Basic which lets you harness effects normally only available through machine code. It supplies 25 new commands and a further 13 functions. To use them you simply enter the commands and their parameters after Rem statements.\r\r\n\r\r\nThe largest group of commands provide the Spectrum with a sprite facility. The beauty of this is that since the sprites are interrupt driven they move independently of your program. You can specify the direction of one of up to 255 sprites and then set the speed and number of pixels un;p at a time. Once set in motion the sprites carry on moving while the program attends to something else. If a sprite collides with another object or veers off the screen control returns to Basic whereupon you can redirect it.\r\r\n\r\r\nAlong with the spite facility Fifth offers a number of other new commands. Among them are Sound, a far more powerful instruction than Beep, and Replace which changes colours on screen in a similar way to the BBC's VDU 19 command. With Get and Put you can store away any rectangular section of the screen and then reprint it at a new position.\r\r\n\r\r\nPut together these facilities make up a hugely useful tool for writing games without dipping into machine code. The sprites are particularly impressive. As they can be set to move pixel by pixel at a rate of 50 jumps per second they are both fast and smooth.\r\r\n\r\r\nThe Commodore 64 already has sprites but using them in Basic is a slow and tedious business. Almost unchanged since the days of the PET Commodore's Basic now looks a little long in the tooth. It has no specific commands to handle sprites, high resolution graphics or the 64's sophisticated sound chip. To access these facilities you must instead rummage through the manual in search of the requisite Pokes.\r\r\n\r\r\nSimon's Basic remedies this state of affairs. It is an extension to Basic which makes good the resident Basic's shortcomings with a further 114 commands.\r\r\n\r\r\nNUMBER OF NOVELTIES\r\r\n\r\r\nWith the Simon's Basic cartridge in place Commodore's Basic can hold its own and indeed feel superior to any other versions of the language on the market. Before writing it David Simons drew up a shopping list of all the commands and features he would like to see in his idea of Basic. And here they all are: structured programming features such as Repeat Until and local variables; programming aids such Auto, Trace and Remember; error trapping commands, extra string handling commands, scroll commands for any direction; and, of course, an extensive range of instructions to deal with sound, high-resolution graphics and sprites. There are also a number of novelties like Delay which varies the rate at which a listing is printed and Disapa which hides a program line as a security aid.\r\r\n\r\r\nThe graphics commands, in particular, do all you could hope for. To mention just a few, Paint fills in an enclosed area, Rec draws a rectangle, while Rot will rotate and expand a predefined shape.\r\r\n\r\r\nIn return for 8K of your RAM Simon's Basic gives you a remarkable number of new software features. Some were sorely needed, other cans be considered bonus extras.The pity is that Commodore did not think to rewrite its Basic at the outset incorporating some of these features in the ROM.\r\r\n\r\r\nFIFTH\r\r\n48K Spectrum\r\r\n£9.95\r\r\nCRL\r\r\n\r\r\nGAMES DESIGNER\r\r\n48K Spectrum\r\r\n£14.94\r\r\nQuicksilva\r\r\n\r\r\nH.U.R.G.\r\r\n48K Spectrum\r\r\n£14.94\r\r\nMelbourne House\r\r\n\r\r\nSCOPE\r\r\n48K Spectrum\r\r\n£11.95\r\r\nISP Marketing Ltd\r\r\n\r\r\nSIMON'S BASIC\r\r\nCommodore 64\r\r\nBusiness UK Ltd","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"77,78","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Simon Beesley","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":null,"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"ZX Computing Issue 14, Aug 1984","Price":"£1.95","ReleaseDate":"1984-07-26","Editor":"Ray Elder","TotalPages":140,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Ray Elder\r\nEditorial Assistant: Jamie Clary\r\nGroup Editor: Wendy J Palmer\r\nSales Executive: Penny Scoular\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Barry Bingham\r\nDivisional Advertising Manager: Beverley McNeill\r\nCopy Controller: Ann McDermott\r\nManaging Editor: Ron Harris\r\nChief Executive: T J Connell\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 1984"},"MainText":"SCOPE COMPUTER GRAPHICS LANGUAGE\r\nISP\r\nTim Pickford-Jones\r\n\r\nFor those hardy souls wishing to write arcade-ish games to run at phenomenal speed with slick graphics and dynamic sound there is really no alternative yet to joining the ice-cool whizz kids whose daily diet DJNZs and EX (SP), HLs send shivers of incomprehension down the computer corridors. However, with the SCOPE a small step towards a human interface with the machine has been made.\r\n\r\nWhat you have to do, after perusing the 48 page instruction book-cum-dictionary of SCOPE terms, is to type a lot of single statement REM lines as per BASIC, then type in the magic command PRINT USR 60450 and hey presto (if you've done it all O.K.) the SCOPE compiles wads of unseen code which will certainly run a lot faster than the equivalent BASIC. The SCOPE system uses 31 key words, deliberately unlike their BASIC counterparts, such as \"PUT\" instead of \"PRINT AT\" which nearly all have certain arguments like line and column numbers, colour numbers, pitch and duration etc.\r\n\r\nIf, however, you need to know the value of PI to 16 places or the 1,000th prime then stop here. The SCOPE has a very limited arithmetical vocabulary; only increase and decrease on 1 -byte integers and add for the 2-byte integers intended for scores. What you do get is a system for producing chunks of code which could be used as a complete programme or part of a hybrid. Passing values on from BASIC to SCOPE and vice-versa is not mentioned in the book, nor is it at all obvious how it could be done. Suffice it to say that you will have to search around until you find the SCOPE variable store and do some nifty PEEKing and POKEing from BASIC.\r\n\r\nThe tape loads easily in 35 seconds and produces a suite of subroutines (one of which is the compiler itself) from address 60000 to the end of the computer. It then NEWS the BASIC area with the ramtop set at 59999. So, naturally you would write the eventual code at some point below this. Having successfully compiled some code the clever programme tells you the next free byte after the chunk it has just done. One slight drawback here is that the whole of the SCOPE programme has to be in the computer as well as the code you have written. This is because the resulting code calls the many subroutines contained in the SCOPE. This is not really all that bad as the routines have to exist somewhere, but there are other compilers that provide copies of the required routines in the compiled code and don't bother with the ones you haven't used, so the finished article is independent of the compiler.\r\n\r\nA word to those who have managed to bust the bank (not to mention Uncle's waiting list) and have Microdrives. The SCOPE as it stands will encounter problems compiling your BASIC if it does not begin at 23755, which of course it will not if you have recently used your drives. All is not lost, however, and three quick POKEs into the SCOPE and re-recording of the code before use will solve the problem once and for all. First load the SCOPE then, as direct commands, enter the following: POKE 60459, 42: POKE 60460,83: POKE 60461,92. This now tells the SCOPE to find the beginning of the BASIC from the Spectrum's system variables instead of slavishly imagining that all BASIC must start at 23755. Now SAVE \"Scope\" CODE 60000,5535 to a new piece of tape and there you have it. A simple and very useful modification. You will need to make a copy of the SCOPE BASIC loader, or write one yourself, remembering to set the ramtop to 59999 before loading \"Scope\" CODE.\r\n\r\nNegative aspects of the SCOPE are that text printing leads to some rather long winded code, the Fine-scroll (by one pixel) works in all directions, but leaves the attributes behind, and coarse scroll only works upwards, but does include the attributes. There is a need to end each BASIC statement with a colon, which to my mind is redundant as Sinclair lines have an end of line marker and a 2-byte length of line indicator. It is a pity that the SCOPE writers did not use this instead of requiring the user to put in an additional marker. Error trapping is quite good, but having trapped mistakes in the BASIC you are not given much of an idea as to where the error is or what is wrong. All you get is \"Parameter Error\".\r\n\r\nON the plus side, use of the SCOPE can encourage more structure in programming without the user realizing it. It may tend towards less spaghetti in future BASIC. For the more adventurous it can provide a selection of useful code routines which can be copied or amended for specific purposes, and there are some interesting solutions to the problem of indirect and implied addressing in relocatable code! As for that claim made by the makers that, \"SCOPE has one of the great advantages of FORTH without the comcomitant disadvantages...\" read carefully. They do not mention what these disadvantages are, and the ability to write subroutines which can call other subroutines is not confined to FORTH; the reference here is a little specious.\r\n\r\nNeatly packaged, well documented, SCOPE is a slightly friendly bridge between the real world of invaders and galaxians and the innermost workings of the micro. At £11.95 it's rather expensive, but as the blurb says: \"Now; unlock your imagination.\"","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"63,64","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Tim Pickford-Jones","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":null,"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Your Spectrum Issue 1, Jan 1984","Price":"£0.95","ReleaseDate":"1983-12-15","Editor":"Bruce Sawford","TotalPages":98,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Bruce Sawford\r\nContributing Editor: Roger Munford\r\nTechnical Editor: Ron Smith\r\nEditorial Consultant: Andrew Pennell\r\nSoftware Consultant: Gavin Monk\r\nProduction Editor: Derek Cohen\r\nContributors: Guy Kewney, Phil Manchester, Toni Baker, Steve Mann, Stephen Adams, John McNulty, Mark Anson, Maggie Burton, Alan Jowett, Dr John Nunn, Jonathan How\r\nArt Editor: Jimmy Egerton\r\nGroup Advertisement Manager: Jeff Raggett\r\nAdvertisement Executives: Norman Setra, Arthur Medley\r\nTypesetters: Bunch Typesetting\r\nProduction Manager: Sonia Hunt\r\nGroup Art Director: Perry Neville\r\nPublisher: Stephen England\r\nDistribution Manager: Colin James\r\nPublished by Sportscene Specialist Press Ltd, [redacted] Company registered in England. Telephone (all departments): [redacted]\r\nReproduction: Graphic Ideas, London\r\nPrinters: Chase Web Offset [redacted]\r\nDistribution: Seymour Press [redacted]\r\n\r\nAll material in Your Spectrum ©1983 Felden productions, and may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written consent of the publishers. Your Spectrum is a bi-monthly publication and the second issue will be available during the first week of February 1984.\r\n\r\nThanks to Pilot Software City ([redacted]) for the loan of countless pieces\r\nof software, and without whom the miraculous would have been totally impossible."},"MainText":"GREATER SCOPE\r\n\r\nFor all those who want to write graphics or arcade type games, there's a new computer graphics language from the interactive Software People which allows you to do just that, and without any knowledge of machine code.\r\n\r\nKnown as Scope, the language resides in high memory and is run by using the USR command. It's a recursive compiler that takes the 31 user friendly command words and rewrites them in machine code; producing fast and efficient programs, quickly and easily. Most command words have two operands, but there can be as many as four - or none in a limited number of cases. A highly structured language, Scope is similar to FORTH in that a routine can be defined, then a further routine that combines the first, and so on.\r\n\r\nIn the next issue of Your Spectrum we will be running a competition for the best use of this program. And for anyone who doesn't yet own a copy, the word is that somewhere amongst these pages is a coupon giving £2 off your purchase (hint, hint).","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"14","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":null,"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"Personal Computer Games Issue 3, Feb 1984","Price":"£0.85","ReleaseDate":"1984-01-19","Editor":"Chris Anderson","TotalPages":176,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Chris Anderson\r\nProduction Editor: Roderick George\r\nArt Editor: Ian Findlay\r\nTechnical Editor: Stuart Cooke\r\nStaff Writers: Steve Cooke, Peter Connor\r\nEditorial Assistant: Samantha Hemens\r\nSoftware Consultant: Tony Takoushi\r\nCartoons: Kipper Williams\r\nProgram Control Guardians: Jeff Riddle\r\nIllustrations: Mark Watkinson, Andy Bylo, Tony Hannaford\r\nPhotography: Ian McKinnel, Chris Bell, Tony Sleep\r\nGroup Editor: Cyndy Miles\r\nArt Director: Jim Dansie\r\nPublishing Manager: Mark Eisen\r\nAssistant Publishing Manager: Sue Clements\r\nAdvertising Manager: Herbert Wright\r\nAssistant Advertisement Manager: Jan Martin\r\nSales Executives: Joey Davies, Marion O'Neill, Louise Hedges\r\n\r\nPublished by VNU Business Publications, [redacted]. Typesetting by Spectrum Typesetting, [redacted] Origination by Fourmost Colour [redacted]. Printed and bound by Chase Web Offset [redacted]. © VNU Business Publications 1984."},"MainText":"MAKING MONSTERS\r\n\r\nA wave of new Spectrum programs allows you to design your own games and graphics. Stuart Cooke investigates.\r\n\r\nThe computer market is flooded with machines offering high resolution graphics, sound and joystick ports. It's therefore not surprising that a person who is learning a new computer language usually starts by trying to draw pictures on the screen or even attempting to program a game. This may be either one of their own design, or a copy of an arcade game.\r\n\r\nUsually this results in disappointment because the game is too slow and objects jump around the screen; nothing like the smooth graphics in the arcades or even in the programs that come from the well-known software houses.\r\n\r\nSoftware packages designed to aid graphic creation are now appearing on the market. These range from games designer programs to self-contained graphic languages which enable the owner of a home computer to produce games with something like arcade quality, including smooth graphics and good sound effects.\r\n\r\nThe Sinclair Spectrum, being one of the best selling micros in Britain at the moment, has perhaps the widest range of graphic software.\r\n\r\nFor the person who wants to design their own graphic games easily. Quicksilva have produced a menu-driven games designer program, unoriginally named Games Designer.\r\n\r\nQuicksilva's claim that you get 'a lifetime of games in one package' is probably a little exaggerated. Nevertheless, for a person who wants to design his own games this package is an ideal introduction.\r\n\r\nGames Designer is menu driven. This means that you need no programming knowledge at all to use it as you never have to write a single program statement.\r\n\r\nWhen loaded, Games Designer automatically runs and the main menu is displayed on the screen, giving you a list of eight options. These are: 1 PLAY GAME, 2 SELECT NEW GAME, 3 ALTER SPRITES, 4 CONFIGURATION, 5 MOVEMENT, 6 ATTACK WAVES, 7 LOAD FROM TAPE, and 8 SAVE TO TAPE.\r\n\r\nOption 1 allows you to play the 'current' game. The program automatically uses the cursor keys for movement, but it is possible to select other keys and even use a joystick.\r\n\r\nThe second option allows you to select one of the games included within Games Designer. There are eight of these, for example - Attack of the Mutant Hamburgers and Halloween.\r\n\r\nQuicksilva claim that four of the games supplied with the program were designed by people with no programming expertise but, in fact, all were high quality.\r\n\r\nThe characters used in Games Designer are called sprites. Each sprite consists of a 12 x 12 square in which each dot can be either the foreground or background colour.\r\n\r\nOption 3 lets you define your character on the 12 x 12 grid. There are 31 sprites in all and these are grouped as follows: 00-15 are the aliens; 16-23, player's ships or bases; 24, player's missile; 25, missile for the aliens; 26, spare (used for moving sprites around); 27, shield; and 28-31, explosion sequence.\r\n\r\nAll of the keys used to design a character are displayed on the screen making it very easy to design a character of your choice. Pictures overleaf and on page 17 show the 31 sprites from the Halloween game and one of these sprites being designed.\r\n\r\nThe configuration section allows you to choose the game format, screen colours, special effects and to define the sounds for the bombs and explosions.\r\n\r\nGame format allows you to choose from Invaders type, Asteroids type, Scramble type and Berserk type of game.\r\n\r\nThe special effects select whether you have a blank screen or stars as the background (but no other choice is available). You can also select whether the aliens appear singly or in groups and whether a shield will protect your ship.\r\n\r\nDefining a sound is simplicity itself. When you select the sound you want, the sound editor chart appears on the screen. This consists of five slide controls.\r\n\r\nFREQ sets the pitch of the sound; RAMP 1 sets the speed at which the pitch increases; RAMP 2 sets the speed at which the pitch decreases; LEVEL sets the amount of pitch change caused by Ramps 1 and 2; and TIME sets the length of the sound.\r\n\r\nAny change that you make to the controls can be heard by pressing the symbol shift key.\r\n\r\nA wide range of sounds can be made by altering the slides and as much fun can be had defining the sounds as in playing the games themselves.\r\n\r\nYou can define the movement of the aliens or monsters by using the fifth option. This is a little limited as you can only move the character in any of eight directions following one of eight programmable movement patterns which can be linked to each other.\r\n\r\nBasically the movement pattern consists of a series of numbers, each representing a certain direction as specified below.\r\n\r\nNorth: 0\r\nNorth East: 1\r\nEast: 2\r\nSouth East: 3\r\nSouth: 4\r\nSouth West: 5\r\nWest: 6\r\nNorth West: 7\r\n\r\nSo for example 0, 0, 0, 2, 2, 2 would move three units up then three right. As can be seen it's a little crude but nevertheless. some complex movement patterns can be designed.\r\n\r\nWhen option 6 is selected the ATACK WAVES chart will appear on the screen. This screen allows you to choose which aliens appear on the screen, whether or not the aliens are animated, the score value and speed of the aliens and which movement pattern they follow.\r\n\r\nAs previously mentioned this option is used to animate the sprites and it is possible to 'chain' together either two or four slightly different sprites, this enables you to make wings flap or eyes move, for example.\r\n\r\nThe main problem with Games Designer is that even though you can redefine the graphics and the movement patterns, the games designed are all basically the same. If you choose the Invaders format what you get is essentially a game like Space Invaders with graphics that you have designed.\r\n\r\nAnother disappointment is that you can't define your own background. The only thing you can do is select the colour and whether you wish to have stars or not.\r\n\r\nDespite these limitations Games Designer is simple and fun to use. It is possible to produce fast games with smooth graphics and good sound without having to know a thing about programming.\r\n\r\nFor the programmer who doesn't want the limitations of a menu driven games designer, such as the Quicksilva program, and who is willing to put a little more effort into his programming, two new 'graphic languages' have appeared for the Spectrum. Fifth from Computer Rentals Ltd (CRL) and Scope from ISP Marketing Ltd.\r\n\r\nThe first of these packages, Fifth, is not so much a new language but rather an extension of Basic, giving the Spectrum owner another 25 commands. These new commands are placed within REM statements so that the Spectrum will accept the words and not reply with a syntax error.\r\n\r\nCompared with some of its (dearer) rivals, one of the main disadvantages of the Spectrum is that it lacks sprites. A 'sprite' is a user-defined graphic, that once set moving on the screen, will continue independently while the Basic program performs some other function.\r\n\r\nIt will only return to the Basic program if the sprite collides with another object or goes off the screen. With Fifth the Spectrum user now has access to sprites or rather to 'objects', the name given to sprites in this program.\r\n\r\nAn object can be defined as any of the Spectrum characters, both alphanumeric and user-definable graphics. Once an object has been defined it's possible to set it moving in any of 16 directions using the VECTOR command to set the direction and then MOVE to start the object in motion.\r\n\r\nOnce it's moving the program can 'go away and perform another function while the object 'glides' across the screen pixel by pixel on its own - an effect which is really amazing to watch! The SPEED command allows you to change the speed at which an object moves on the screen.\r\n\r\nAs well as commands to move 'objects' around the screen there are other graphic commands. For example FILL changes the ink and paper colours of the whole screen without clearing it, a function that is not possible in Basic.\r\n\r\nREPLACE is similar in effect to FILL but is only changes a colour to another specified one. For example:\r\n\r\n10 INK 0: PAPER 7\r\n20 PRINT INK 0: PAPER 1\r\n30 REM REPLACE\r\n\r\nThis will change all occurrences of black ink on blue paper to black ink on white paper.\r\n\r\nFifth also provides a new sound command, having no fewer than four parameters rather than the usual two. The effects that can be produced are simply amazing and are as good, if not better than the sound in commercial games programs.\r\n\r\nThe second of the two, Scope, unlike Fifth is a self-contained graphics language. A 'SCOPE' (Simple Compilation Of Plain English) program is written within Basic in REM statements and is then COMPILED by the Scope program.\r\n\r\nThe Scope manual states that, 'SCOPE is primarily intended for high speed handling of graphics, colour, sound and animation', and fast it certainly is.\r\n\r\nScope offers 31 commands, nearly all of which have an equivalent Basic instruction, the difference being that Scope is much faster.\r\n\r\nHowever, most of the commands only handle integer numbers in the range 0 to 255 and it is possible to set up variables (A to Z and a to z) with the VAR command.\r\n\r\nBecause there will be occasions when you need a larger number, for example to hold a score in a game, Scope also provides a BVAR (Big Variable) command which allows you to calculate and print numbers between 0 and 65535. A possible limitation of Scope is that variables can only be increased or decreased. There are no commands for multiplication, division or any scientific functions.\r\n\r\nScope is a structured language, which means that a program can be written in small separate sections, then tested as you write the program in. Later routines can then call up those which you have previously tested.\r\n\r\nFor the serious programmer who wants to write fast games programs, (or any program which includes graphics) both Scope and Fifth deserve to be looked at. Both packages have their good and bad points but Fifth appears to be more flexible allowing you to use Basic as well as Fifth commands and to pass variables between the two.\r\n\r\nAs well as programs that enable you to write faster and smoother games programs, there are those that are invaluable to anyone wishing to produce a graphics display, be it for a games program or some other purpose. Two such programs are Melbourne Draw, produced by Melbourne House and Spectrographics, by Bridge Software.\r\n\r\nBoth these programs are 'sketch pads' which enable you to draw more objects on the screen. They each have their good and bad points, but one failing of both programs is that it is difficult to draw curves. It is only possible to move the 'pen' in eight directions.\r\n\r\nSpectrographics has a built-in user definable graphic producer, making it easy to define your graphics characters, while Melbourne Draw allows you to save an area of the screen for graphic characters.\r\n\r\nAnother good feature of Melbourne Draw is its ability to enlarge sections of the screen, thus making it much easier to see exactly what you're drawing.\r\n\r\nBoth packages enable you to fill in an area of the screen with the current ink colour, if there are any holes in the object, the ink will leak out of the shape and spread all over the screen.\r\n\r\nMelbourne House's program has a facility that allows you to stop the fill command, and return the screen to its original condition before the fill was started. However, with Spectrographics you will have lost your picture.\r\n\r\nMelbourne Draw only has facilities to draw lines while Spectrographics allows you to draw boxes, triangles, and circles, automatically.\r\n\r\nBoth programs save time when designing any playing areas or other graphics for use in a program, though it would have been nice to draw curves easily.\r\n\r\nPaintbox, a graphics program from Print 'n' Plotter Products offers similar facilities to Melbourne Draw and Spectrographics.\r\n\r\nPaintbox allows you to define 84 user-definable graphics and is the only package seen that allows you to draw curves easily. All you need to do is specify the two ends of the curve and then enter a positive or negative number depending on the direction and strength of the curve.\r\n\r\nUnfortunately this program was received too late for this review to cover it in depth. First impressions are that it is a very comprehensive drawing/graphic design program offering some of the facilities that other graphics packages are missing.\r\n\r\nSound is a very important feature in any games program. With the Spectrum using the BEEP command in Basic, it's very difficult to get the sound you require. But with packages like Scope and Fifth it's possible to produce excellent arcade-type sounds.\r\n\r\nAuto-Sonics from Buttercraft Software allows you to create the sound effect of your choice and then the program gives you the Basic statement to produce your sound. Auto-Sonics has 26 pre-programmed sound effects, including sounds such as a frog, pig and telephone.\r\n\r\nAn on-screen 'synthesizer' control panel allows you to modify any of the supplied sounds, or you can create your own. You can instantly hear the effect this has on any sound.\r\n\r\nThe control panel allows you to control such settings as pitch - whether the sound rises or falls and the speed at which it does so. All alterations can be made by one key press, and all the necessary keys are shown on the screen.\r\n\r\nIt must be remembered that the sounds produced by this program are all from the Basic BEEP function, and therefore are not as good as a machine code program such as Fifth. Nevertheless, the sounds that Auto-Sonics produces are reasonable, and the Basic statement produced can be put into any program.\r\n\r\nAuto-Sonics is an excellent program that allows you to create the sounds you want very easily.\r\n\r\nThe above programs are only a small sample of the aids that a games programmer can buy. All of them have their good points and their rough edges. Before buying any package, consider the cost, and check that it will perform the functions you're after.\r\n\r\nYou might find you need to use two programs, each offering similar facilities before you end up with the game that you require.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"15,16,17,18","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Stuart N Cooke","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[{"Text":"Buttercrafts' on screen 'sound synthesizer' program gives finger tip control of the Spectrum's BEEP command."},{"Text":"Bridge Software's Spectrographics allows you to define up to eight graphic characters on the screen at the same time."},{"Text":"The sprite table for the game Halloween supplied with Quicksilva's game designer program."},{"Text":"Sprite number 0 from Halloween being designed with the 'alter sprites' option."},{"Text":"The first screen of Games Designer's Halloween."},{"Text":"Just move the sliders to create your own sounds for your latest game created with Games Designer."}],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":null,"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"C&VG (Computer & Video Games) Issue 26, Dec 1983","Price":"£0.85","ReleaseDate":"1983-11-16","Editor":"Terry Pratt","TotalPages":222,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"Editor: Terry Pratt\r\nAssistant Editor: Eugene Lacey\r\nEditorial Assistant: Clare Edgeley\r\nReader Services: Robert Schifreen\r\nArt Editor: Linda Freeman\r\nDesigner: Lynda Skerry\r\nProduction Editor: Tim Metcalfe\r\nStaff Writers: Seamus St. John, Richard Frankel\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Rita Lewis\r\nAssistant Advertisement Manager: Rob Cameron\r\nAdvertising Executive: Louise Matthews\r\nAdvertisement Assistant: Louise Flockhart\r\nPublisher: Tom Moloney\r\n\r\nEditorial and Advertisement Offices: [redacted]\r\n\r\nCOMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES POSTAL SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE. By using the special Postal Subscription Service, copies of COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES can be mailed direct from our offices each month to any address throughout the world. All subscription applications should be sent for processing to COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES (Subscription Department), [redacted]. All orders should include the appropriate remittance made payable to COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES. Annual subscription rates (12 issues): UK and Eire: £14. Additional service information including individual overseas airmail rates available upon request. Circulation Department: EMAP National Publications. Published and distributed by EMAP National Publications Ltd. Printed by Eden Fisher (Southend) Ltd.\r\n\r\n©Computer & Video Games Limited ISSN 0261 3697.\r\n\r\nCover Illustration: Kathy Wyatt\r\nNext Issue: December 16th"},"MainText":"SIMPLE WAY TO CREATE GOOD GAMES\r\n\r\nIf you are trying to write a fast arcade game on the Spectrum then you can rule out Sinclair Basic.\r\n\r\nYou may like to try Scope. This is a new programming language available on cassette for a 48K machine and is, says its author, designed for writing fast arcade style games.\r\n\r\nScope stands for Simple Compilation Of Plain English, which gives a clue as to why programs written with it run so fast. It is a compiler, which means that when you have written your program, it is translated entirely into machine code before running. This allows an inexperienced programmer to turn out quality games.\r\n\r\nif you think that this is a good idea, then you can buy a copy from you local Smiths'. It costs £11.95.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"12","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":null,"CompilationReviewScores":[]},{"Issue":{"Name":"C&VG (Computer & Video Games) Issue 32, Jun 1984","Price":"£0.85","ReleaseDate":"1984-05-16","Editor":"Tim Metcalfe","TotalPages":172,"HasCoverTape":false,"FlannelPanel":"CREDITS\r\n\r\nEditor: Tim Metcalfe\r\nAssistant Editor: Eugene Lacey\r\nEditorial Assistant: Clare Edgeley\r\nStaff Writers/Reader Services: Robert Schifreen, Seamus St. John\r\nArt Editor: Linda Freeman\r\nDesigner: Lynda Skerry\r\nProduction Editor: Mary Morton\r\nAdvertisement Manager: Rob Cameron\r\nAssistant Advertisement Manager: Louise Matthews\r\nAdvertising Executives: Bernard Dugdale, Sean Brennan, Phil Godsell\r\nAdvertisement Assistant: Melanie Paulo\r\nProduction Assistant: Roy Stephens\r\nPublisher: Rita Lewis\r\n\r\nEditorial and Advertisement Offices: [redacted]\r\n\r\nCOMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES POSTAL SUBSCRIPTION SERVICE. By using the special Postal Subscription Service, copies of COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES can be mailed direct from our offices each month to any address throughout the world. All subscription applications should be sent for processing to COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES (Subscription Department), [redacted]. All orders should include the appropriate remittance made payable to COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES. Annual subscription rates (12 issues): UK and Eire: £14. Additional service information including individual overseas airmail rates available upon request. Circulation Department: EMAP National Publications. Published and distributed by EMAP National Publications Ltd. Printed by Eden Fisher (Southend) Ltd.\r\n\r\nIllustrated by Bob Wakelin"},"MainText":"MINCING WORDS\r\n\r\nCompilers are often regarded as magic. A plain program goes in at one end, and pure machine code comes out at the other. But are these programs all that they seem? Will they cope with just any program? And what about languages other than good old Basic? Will new languages, invented for the convenience of the compiler's author, perform well for the inexperienced programmer too? Bug Hunter has been trying them out and here he presents an easy-to-read jargon-free report.\r\n\r\nBasic is slow. Very slow. When you're running a Basic program, you may sit marvelling at the apparent speed with which it churns through those calculations, or moves all those aliens around the screen, but things are not quite as they seem.\r\n\r\nAt the heart of any computer is a chip called the CPU (that's the Central Processing Unit). It is this chip which actually does the work of running your Basic program when you type RUN. Unfortunately, it doesn't understand Basic words like PRINT, INPUT or GOTO.\r\n\r\nThe CPU can only understand programs written in a special, very complex language which is difficult for us humans to understand. These programs don't have real words, just lists of numbers which is fine for a chip, but not for a person, However, because the CPU can understand it directly, the program will run very fast. This language which the machine uses is known as machine code.\r\n\r\nSo how can we make our programs easier to understand, and take advantage of the speed of machine code?\r\n\r\nWhat's needed is a computer which can be programmed in near English and not those endless streams of numbers. And so, in 1964, Basic was born.\r\n\r\nThis was a simple programming language, where INPUT meant read the keyboard and PRINT meant print out on paper.\r\n\r\nHowever, there was one major problem with this language: although the programmer could understand it, the computer couldn't. The CPU, you'll remember, can only understand programs written in that simple language called machine code. So what was needed was an extra program built in to the computer which could convert one language to another. This was designed, and was given the same name as a human doing the same job - an interpreter.\r\n\r\nThe interpreter is a program which usually sits in a chip of its own in the computer. This means that, although it's a program, you normally don't have to load it from tape each time you use the machine which would be time consuming.\r\n\r\nWhen you've finished entering your Basic program and type RUN, the interpreter takes over and translates the first line of your Basic program into lots of separate, short machine code instructions which can then be run by the CPU chip. The interpreter then starts work on the second line and so on, working its way down the program and translating each line into a form which the CPU understands.\r\n\r\nIf, when running your program, the interpreter comes across a line which says 'go back to the first line', then it will have to start translating again from the top. Although it has already translated the first line once at the start, it'll still have to do it again each time it needs that line.\r\n\r\nThe problem is that all this translating takes time which is why Basic programs run around 30 times slower than those written entirely in machine code.\r\n\r\nWhat would be ideal, then, is a program which could translate the entire Basic program into machine code at the start before running it. Although this means a short wait at the beginning, once translated, the program would run at the speed of true machine code - in fact, it would BE true machine code. We call this special kind of interpreter a COMPILER.\r\n\r\nSo a COMPILER is a program which translates an entire Basic program into pure machine code. But why stop at Basic? Why not create other languages and write compilers for these, too? The program would have a choice of languages, but the final machine code would still be the same.\r\n\r\nWell, people did just that. As well as Basic compilers, you can now buy a compiler for Pascal, Forth and many other languages. Some companies have even invented their own for special tasks. ISP, for example, has a language called Scope which is designed for writing fast graphics games. It's not really a games designer, more a program language and, because it's a compiler. It produces machine code which means that the programs you write in Scope run very fast.\r\n\r\nYou'll remember that machine code is a very simple language and it has very few instructions, so recreating some of Basic's more involved functions will often require hundreds of machine code instructions.\r\n\r\nFor example, the Basic function LEN (A$) will work out how many characters are in string A$. Although this is simple in Basic - you just type PRINT LEN (A$) - think how difficult it is in machine code.\r\n\r\nThe CPU doesn't have a built-in way of calculating lengths of strings - in fact, it can't even handle strings directly. To find the length of a string in machine code, you'd have to start at the first character and work your way along the string, counting the characters as you go. You'd also have to check that each character existed before you counted it, to make sure that the end of the string hadn't been reached. Next time you use LEN in a Basic program, think how much work the interpreter is saving.\r\n\r\nSo every time the Basic program contains a LEN function, the compiler would replace it with the relevant block of machine code instructions and, apart from the name of the variable, the code would be almost identical in all cases.\r\n\r\nFor this reason, the standard routines are converted into machine code and stored, along with the compiler itself, in the memory of the computer when the compiler tape is loaded.\r\n\r\nWhen compiling the Basic program, any LEN instruction can be replaced in the resulting machine code, not by the code itself, but just by inserting a diversion to the already-prepared machine code.\r\n\r\nHowever, there's one big problem with a compiler written in this way. When you save the compiled program on tape or disk, you have to save the actual compiler as well, otherwise you won't be able to run your machine code as parts of it will be missing! This means that if you write a program using a compiler of this type, and you then sell your program, you are giving away copies of the compiler tool. An example of this is some of the early copies of Blue Thunder for the Spectrum by Richard Wilcox Software.\r\n\r\nIf you think that you have such a copy, load the first 5K of machine code then PRINT USR 48011. You'll then be in the compiler and, with a little experimenting, you can use it to compile your own programs. If you are going to try this, type CLEAR 27001 first, otherwise you'll get some weird lines inserted. To run the compiled program type PRINT USR 27002.\r\n\r\nAnyway, with all those different compilers around, it's about time we reviewed some. So let's start with one from Salamander Software, normally known for their Dragon programs. The compiler, though, is for the BBC and is called Turbo.\r\n\r\nProbably the best feature of this package is that it also runs on the Electron as well as the Beeb. The reason for this is twofold - first, because it lacks all the features which makes the Beeb tower over the Electron under normal Basic circumstances and second, because it's only 2K long in total. If you're now wondering whether or not you can fit a decent compiler into 2K, I'm here to tell you that the answer is definitely no.\r\n\r\nThe program comes on cassette, with a tape version on one side and a disk version on the other. If you want to use the disk version, you'll have to load the cassette and then save it to disk using the instructions supplied in the manual. Other than telling the user about this transfer, the remainder of the 28-page manual serves as the entire reference on the subject.\r\n\r\nReading through it, you begin to realise the limitations of the program which is a shame, as the idea is very good. The fact that it occupies just 2K is amazing, even if what it can do is not.\r\n\r\nThe range of commands which Turbo can handle is limited. The list includes PRINT, GOTO, GOSUB, RETURN, FOR-NEXT, LET, CLS, CLG, CALL, VDU, SOUND and IF. In fact, that's about the whole list, but there's worse to come. Reading on, all line numbers in the Basic program you want to compile must be between 0 and 255. Multiple statement lines are out and so are all variables except A to Z. Strings are not directly supported nor are numbers with a decimal point. And we're only on page 10 of the manual!\r\n\r\nAlthough this compiler is pretty rudimentary, I admit that, If you're only interested in writing simple, fast games, then you may find it useful. However, a good compiler should allow you to load absolutely any Basic program which you have written in the past and compile it. This is certainly not the case with Turbo.\r\n\r\nIf it's a Dragon you own, you can get a Basic compiler for £14.95 from Oasis Software of Weston-super-Mare. Like Turbo, it won't allow numbers with decimal points, but apart from this fairly important omission, Sprint does approach something resembling a true compiler and it will cope with nearly every command in Dragon Basic. Although it is better than Turbo for the BBC in this respect, it's partly because Dragon Basic is far less sophisticated.\r\n\r\nAnyway, to use the compiler you first write your program in Dragon Basic on the machine itself. When you're satisfied that it's working perfectly, you save it on cassette.\r\n\r\nTo compile, you load the compiler and then the Basic program The compiled version can be run with an Exec command, or saved on tape and loaded later with CLOADM.\r\n\r\nThis is the way it should work - your program is perfected under normal Basic and then compiled, The reason that you write it under normal Basic is that if you find bugs, you cannot correct the final machine code version as easily as a Basic listing.\r\n\r\nThere are very few commands which Sprint will not support, although some are written slightly differently under Sprint to get round the lack of decimal numbers. Commands not available include CLOAD, RENUM, LIST. EDIT and MEM. The trig functions (sin, cos, tan, etc.) are also missing as these cannot be calculated without decimals.\r\n\r\nAt the back of the manual is a list of hints to help in running and loading. Loading the blocks of uncompiled program is often unreliable and a few helpful POKEs are suggested. If all else fails, the final paragraph says that \"you'll need to beg, borrow, buy or steal another cassette recorder\". Yet the warning to potential copiers of the compiler tape itself is made very clear at the front.\r\n\r\nIn addition to compilers which start with Basic, there are some which have their own language. It is this language which is converted to machine code, so the end result is no different to machine code produced from original Basic, but because the writer of the compiler also invents the language which the programmer uses, it can be made more specific to certain areas.\r\n\r\nOne such product is Scope from ISP. Scope stands for Simple Compilation Of Plain English. This new language has just 46 different words, and is graphics oriented. Although its main function is to produce fast-moving graphics. ISP goes to great lengths to point out that this is certainly not just another games designer. Scope is actually a programming language. Originally available on the 48K Spectrum, it has recently been improved and renamed Scope 2. Owners of Scope 1 can simply return their original cassette and, for the difference in price of £3, obtain mk 2.\r\n\r\nScope is now also available on cassette or disk for the Commodore 64. To write programs here, you just write it as a normal Basic program, but each line must start with REM. So although you won't be able to run the program under Basic, the Scope compiler will know what to do. A simple Sys call will compile the program, and another one will run it. The compiler does not have to be in the micro's memory for the compiled program to run. This system handles sprites. graphics and sounds. Gone are those endless POKEs to various graphics and sound control registers: four Scope commands handle all the sprites, and a few more deal with music.\r\n\r\nAn added extra is that everyone who buys a copy of Scope gets free membership of the Scope Users' Group. You can send off for your free piece of plastic, complete with special membership number and, which is more useful a telephone hotline number with a friendly voice on the other end who will help you in your hour of need while trying to perfect your Scope Program.\r\n\r\nSo now you know what a compiler does. Or what it should do. There are literally dozens of them around at the moment - some costing a few pounds and some costing hundreds. Oxford Computer Systems produce some very good ones, including what's called a cross-compiler. This doesn't mean that it's fed up with writing programs! What it does is allow you to write in Basic on one machine but produce machine code which will run on another. So, for example, you could write a Basic game on a Pet but compile it so that the machine code would run on a Commodore 64.\r\n\r\nIf you'd like more information about what's available for your machine, have a look through the adverts in this magazine. Or try the computing section at your local library.","ReviewerComments":[],"OverallSummary":"","Page":"140,141,142","Denied":false,"Award":"Not Awarded","Reviewers":[{"Name":"Robert Schifreen","Score":"","ScoreSuffix":""}],"ScreenshotText":[],"BlurbText":[],"TranscriptBy":"Chris Bourne","ReviewScores":null,"CompilationReviewScores":[]}]}]