Storybook

by Allan Knopp

 

Issue 29

Sep/Oct 87

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Enthral your children or your friends by making up your own illustrated stories with this easy to use program

Storybook will enable you to write and illustrate a story as a series of screens which can be saved to disk or cassette. The pictures are drawn in the top section of the screen, using a redefined character set in Antic mode 4 and each screen only takes eight sectors on disk, making loading very fast. If you are using cassette a screen will load in just under a minute. I wrote Storybook to be as simple to use as possible as I wanted it to be possible for children to use it, both young children by using the view option, and older children to be able to create their own stories. You should find it quite easy to use.

GETTING STARTED

When run the program will first present you with a brief list of the commands available. To begin creating screens just press START. If you want to view a previously saved series of screen then press SELECT. I will describe this option later.

After you press START the screen will clear and there will be a short pause while the character set is redefined. The new character set will then appear in the selection area at the base of the screen and a few seconds later the cursor will appear at the left of the selection area. You are now ready to create a screen. Any of the characters shown can be used to draw a picture.

Using a joystick, move the cursor to the character you require and press the fire button. Now move the cursor to the drawing area, press fire again; the character selected will be plotted on the screen. This character can be repeatedly plotted until it is changed by selecting another from the selection area.

CHANGING COLOURS:

Colours can be changed while you are drawing. Press SELECT and then a number between 1 and 5 which corresponds to the colour register you wish to change (5 is the background), then push the joystick forward or back to cycle through the colours. Press START to continue drawing. You can also toggle between two of the colours (actually inverse and normal, but they appear differently in Antic 4). Press START to toggle the colours.

ADDING TEXT

When the picture is complete press OPTION to clear the text window. You can now type in up to five lines of story to go with your picture. You will find that the editing facilities are somewhat limited. This is because location 766 was poked with 1 to cause any control characters, for example Shift/Clear, to be printed to the screen rather than performing their editing functions.

The Delete/Backspace key is the only editing facility available. Once you have completed the text for the screen press RETURN to save the screen to disk or cassette.

SAVING SCREENS

If you are saving to cassette just answer C to the filename prompt. If you are saving to disk, give the filename as D:filename.STO, 'filename' should not be more than seven letters long and the extension STO is needed for the screens to be loaded from disk. Again, because of the lack of editing facilities, if you should type the wrong filename you will not be able to correct it. However, unless the first letter is either D or C the filename will not be accepted, and on pressing RETURN the prompt will reappear and you will be able to enter the correct filename.

If you are saving to cassette, save the screens one immediately after the other on the tape in the order that they are to be viewed. If you are saving to disk, it is important to save them to a newly formatted disk in the order that they are to be viewed. Although each screen takes up only 8 sectors, only one story per disk is allowed as the program does not at present check filenames, it assumes that all files with the extender .STO are to be loaded in the order that they have been saved to the disk. In theory over 80 screens could be saved to disk but DOS has a directory limit of 64 filenames. It is suggested that you keep to a maximum of 60 screens which will then allow you to have DOS.SYS, DUP.SYS (if required) plus an AUTORUN.SYS file and the STORYBOOK program or the STORYBOOK READER from this issue's disk.

LOADING SCREENS

To load a previously saved screen for further editing, first open the text window by pressing OPTION, then press ESCAPE and enter either C or D:filename.STO in response to the prompt, depending on whether you are using cassette or disk.

READING A BOOK

Storybook gives the option of displaying previously saved screens in sequence. To do this, first run the program and when the instruction screen appears press SELECT. The first screen will appear, and subsequently pressing any key will load and display the next picture in the sequence.

When the text window is open the entire screen can be cleared by pressing Shift/Clear. The text window can be closed and the graphics selection area returned by pressing TAB. Please note that any type in the text window will be erased when you do this.

I have included a character set which I hope should be suitable for most purposes. If you wish to change it, the data for the new characters begins at line 810. Don't change the first number of each line, just the other eight.

The pictures produced by Storybook are somewhat blocky, but I chose to use a redefined character set for two reasons. Firstly it makes creation of a screen very quick and easy and secondly it makes saving and loading much faster, particularly when using cassette.

I have used routines from elsewhere in the program. The loading and saving routines are based on Ian Finlayson's Slideshow program from Page 6 issue 20. The display list interrupt which restores the normal character set and sets the colour of the text window was accomplished using DLI Maker by Greg Anderson, which was published in Analog No. 38.

DISK BONUS

This issue's disk contains a double bonus — a separate program called STORYBOOK READER plus a complete story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. With STORYBOOK READER you can read any story disk created with STORYBOOK and create stand alone disks for your children and friends. The disk is available from PAGE 6 at the usual price of £3.95

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