Pitstopper's Chum

PROGRAM PITSTOP


Your Sinclair, January 1992





Poor old JONATHAN DAVIES! Christmas means it's cold and damp in his student


hovel. Never mind, as long as he's got your listings he's a happy man!





I had a choice this evening: take up a very tempting dinner invitation


from the girl next door, or stay with my Speccy and compile Program


Pitstop. My rubber-keyed buddy, as always, won hands down. It takes


more than the promise of a Spaghetti Bolognese and a glass of Chianti


to lure me away from my old Spec. (Actually, my tux was at the


cleaners.)





If you're into scrollers (and if you're not, you probably gave up on


Pitstop years ago) you'll be completely o'erjoyed to see that John


Allen's Triscroller is just about the most impressive one yet. And if


useful utilities are more up your street, Charles Samson's offering,


the Pitstopper's Chum, should strike a chord.





Yep, as long as you've got Program Pitstop you can't go wrong!





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TRISCROLLER


by John Allen





A couple of months ago I announced a complete embargo on message


scrolling programs due to saturation of the market. Despite this


embargo, here's another scroller. Y'see, that's the kind of


unpredictable guy I am. The only reason I'm printing this is cos it's


the best I've seen for a long time, and it would be unsporting to keep


it all to myself.





So what's so special about John Allen's scroller? Well, as you might


be able to deduce from its name, it scrolls three messages at once.


Coo, eh? And they're no ordinary messages either, cos this is no


ordinary message scroller. The first is three character squares high,


with its own shadow, the second is over half the screen high, and the


third runs all the way round the edge of the screen. Quite what


advantage this gives you I'm not entirely sure, but it looks darned


impressive. (Well, you can write absolutely massive messages on the


screen and leave them there for your mum to see. Something like, "Id


like a skateboard for Christmas." Ed)





To test the delights of this simultaneous three-message scroller,


first type in the BASIC listing and save it with SAVE "triscroll" LINE


10. (It's a bit long, and mostly decorative, but type it anyway, eh?)


Then use the Hexloader to enter the hex listing. (A tad long, but well


worth the effort). Save the code produced after the first bit, and


then reload. Good, eh? As usual, you can substitute your own messages


for those in the program simply by typing them in at the relevant


places in the program.





Now, I've definitely had it up to here (about level with my nose) with


scrollers. Until somebody comes up with a 3D, parallax, five-way


scroller with musical accompaniment, I think we'd better draw the line


there. And I really mean it this time. Get your Santa-like thinking


caps on and come up with something really awesome. How about a program


to make it snow, or one which enables you to craft expensive-looking


gifts out of nothing. Anything but scrollers!





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PITSTOPPER'S CHUM


by Charles Samson








[WARNING! This works OK if you're running a BASIC program, but if you're]


[just sitting at the BASIC command prompt when an auto-save is triggered]


[then it causes a Spectrum reset. JimG]





How many times have you been halfway through entering a tremendously


long Pitstop listing when your Speccy decides to crash? More than


once, I'll wager. Annoying, isn't it?





The only way to avoid potential disaster is to save the listing every


few lines, but this is both boring and easy to forget But nay fret,


Spec-chums! Cos here's Charles Samson to the rescue! His program


relieves you of the burden of having to save regularly by doing it for


you. You just give it the length of time between saves (from 1 to 255


minutes) and, regular as clockwork, it'll save the program for you.


All you have to do is start and stop the tape when prompted.


Brilliant, eh?





Just use the Hexloader to enter the hex listing below. Once you've


done that and saved it use the following procedure to get it running:





CLEAR 64249


LOAD "" CODE and load the code you just saved in


POKE 64296, number of minutes between saves (1-255) and


RANDOMIZE USR 64524





The program can be deactivated by typing:


RANDOMIZE USR 64253





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CRUMBS!


Hey ho, looks like we're out of space again. How come that always happens?


(It's called the end of the page. Ed) If you'd like a place on the starting


grid for next month's Pitstop, and the chance to win #50 or a YS badge, put


a copy of your favourite home-grown program onto a tape or disk. Just post


the whole lot to me at Program Pitstop, Your Sinclair, 30 Monmouth Street,


Bath BA1 2BW.