Character Sets

A TRIO OF CHARACTERS


[file: Characters]





The first contender this month is Ben Stagnell, 13, of Radway, who


sent us three variations on a program to create new character sets.





Now I don't know about you, but I never bothered to alter my chars in


programs because the effort of either typing in at least 52x8 sets of


data to individually create a new char. set or to modify each letter


using a char. definer program was just too time consuming.





Ben's programs cleverly make modifications to the existing set after


copying them to ROM [sic]. This makes each variation short, fast and


easy to use.





All 96 characters are modified and once you type in the program run it


and save it when instructed you are ready to go. To see the effect


type POKE 23606,0: POKE 23607, 117 and all printing to the screen will


be in that font.





Now as it stands the code of each new character set is located at


30208 which does not give a lot of room for anything else, however the


code can be loaded into any area of memory as long as you follow the


next instructions:





1. CLEAR to the address one less than the code will be loaded to i.e.


to load it to 64000, CLEAR 63999


2. Type or include as a program instruction LOAD "" CODE address i.e.


LOAD "" CODE 64000


3. Play the tape with the program code on it.


4. Type or include as program lines:


LET a=address-256


POKE 23606,a-INT (a/256)


POKE 23607,INT (a/256)


ie. "address" would be replaced by 64000 for the general usefulness


of these routines.


[The line 4 instructions were all wrong, so I've corrected them. JimG]





Ben wins the #20 Star-Cut prize.