ANYONE IN CARDIFF?
Dear Editor,
I would be grateful for your assistance in printing
the following plea for help.
I have 'output', do you have 'input' and live in the Cardiff area? If
so and you are interested in joining or forming an Atari User Group
please contact me at the address on this letter. You may even find a
computer being put to uses that you had not thought of. I look forward
to hearing from all you Atari enthusiasts in the wilds of the Cardiff
area.
Yours faithfully,
Raymond
Price,
Mandeville
House,
9, Lewis
Street,
Canton,
Cardiff
_________
1027 PRINTER
Dear Les,
I was particularly interested in Phil
Rae's article in issue 16 regarding Atariwriter and the 1027 but I was a
bit concerned about his suggestion to re-ink the roller using ordinary
stamp pad ink. During seven years as a franking machine engineer, I came
across a number of inking rollers that had been re-inked with this stuff
and it invariably ruined them. After a while the thin endorsing ink
(which is made for rubber stamps) begins to dry and leaves a tacky,
impermeable glaze over the surface. It is very much better to use the
thicker ink that is specially formulated for use with metal dies such as
automatic enumerators and cheque signing machines. I have successfully,
and repeatedly used this type without any sign of glazing.
A few more tips. If you select Printer
Option 2 you can use Inverse Video to underline but your line feed
instructions in the formatting block are ignored and you must insert
your own returns where you require double spacing. If using Alog
Pagewriter CTRL-O starts underlining and CTRL-N stops it. When using
Letter Perfect, select E for Epson printers rather than Atari and
CTRL-V, 15 starts underlining and CTRL V,14 stops it.
I hope that these tips will help others
with the 1027.
Best Regards,
Keith Berry,
Birmingham
_________
ILLOGICAL ADVENTURES?
Dear Les,
I have recently finished 'The Sorceror of
Claymorgue Castle' and there are a couple of points you might like to
publish to aid anyone who is getting frustrated by it. Firstly, the
American for cupboard appears to be cabinet. Secondly, and much worse,
Scott Adams has chosen, for some unfathomable reason, to define a new
meaning to the word WALK. Whereas RUN, CLIMB and GO appear to be
entirely synonymous, WALK means, illogically, something entirely
different! I would be grateful if anyone can explain why there are
certain places where I can GO or RUN in, but not out, though I can WALK
out and certain very similar places where I can GO and RUN both in and
out but I can't walk in or out. What does Scott Adams think WALK means?
Infocom was never like this. Having survived some Vogon poetry, I am now
attempting to persuade a door that I am intelligent, but I am confident
that the solution will be more interesting than guessing that WALK and
RUN bear no relationship to one another!
Yours,
John Sweeney,
Nottingham
_________
VAL+GET=PROBLEM
Dear PAGE 6,
I have a tip for anyone who is having
problems when using the VAL and GET functions in the same program.
An error occurs when you use the VAL
function to convert a numeric string to a numeric value. The VAL
function alters the BASIC buffer pointer INBUFF to point to the string
where the value is to be taken. Then when you do a GET function the
character you GET will be stored in the string that VAL used instead of
the location pointed to by INBUFF. The value in INBUFF would be correct
if the VAL routine in the O.S. had re-initialised INBUFF but it doesn't.
The pointers for INBUFF are stored at locations F3, F4 hex or 243,244
decimal, so all that is needed to clear this bug is to use the following
POKEs after all the VAL statements in your program.
POKE 243,128: POKE 244,5
Remember you only need to use this POKE
if you are using both VAL and GET functions.
Yours
faithfully,
Martin
D. Bann
PLEASE WRITE TO US! We get plenty of
letters about problems with typing or asking questions but not many
general letters that would be interesting for other readers if
published. If you have a hint or tip or have discovered something, share
it with others. Please make sure that your letter is clearly headed
READERS LETTERS.
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