Fred 77

Issue 77

Magazine

CA                      Colin Macdonald

Excuse me for starting the editorial with something that should
blatantly be at the end, but Colin's intended to read this, and
he only ever reads the first page.  So it has to go here.

Hang on, the fire alarm has just gone off.  I'd best just check
the house isn't burning down.

Right, where was I?  Oh yeah, Colin Macdonald.

This is mainly just to say goodbye from me and from the rest of
the readers.  Even though I had a 0% increase in my pay for the
whole time you were boss (big pause), it's been really
enjoyable, especially ringing you up early in the morning.  Make
sure you keep writing bits for FRED, and if you ever become rich
and famous, I want a job.

Oh bugger.  This means my FRED jumper has got the wrong address
on the back now!  Colin, come baaaaaaaaackkk........

CA          Happy Valentine's Day, Mon Petit Cheri

This just isn't funny.  It's the second day of term, and my
house mates appear to have buggered off to lectures, leaving me
sound asleep in bed.  I've missed all my lectures for today.
And I've got a stinking hangover.  And I've wet the bed (joke).

Anyway, hello.  How's your month been?  Dandy, I hope.  Mine has
been really boring, what with exams and stuff.  I think I've
made a bit of a hash of them, but I'll work harder in the future
(maybe).

The highlight of my month was probably celebrating the end of
exams.  I single-handedly managed to stop us getting into a club
(because I was too, erm, merry) and banned from our local curry
house!  Hurrrah!  To be fair, though, Claire caused the
"problems" in the curry house, I merely got blamed for it all.

I cut my toenails yesterday.  I was chewing one of them for a
good ten minutes.

CA                     Swiftly, swiftly

This co-editor thingumy is paying dividends already.  In a
normal month, this would be the second page of gubbings that I'd
be writing and, to be fair, the expected finishing date is
probably another couple of weeks.  However, I received a phone
call from Mr. Clarkson himself yesterday telling me he's done
loads of stuff and it's all pretty much ready for me to do my
editorial and the letters.  Which should only take me ten days.
Or three if I can be bothered to work hard.

The only thing I have to think about now is how I can rip him
off and pay him less.  Maybe I could point out that he's a
Yorkshire-man born and bred and he can't possibly afford another
whippet.

Or maybe not.  Maybe I can cleverly pile all the work onto him,
and still claim half the pay.  That'd be clever.



CA                   Why Do I Never Listen?

What is the single-most important thing people ever tell you in
your life?  Think.  The one thing that you're told that matters
more than anything else.  Not "look both ways when you cross the
road".  Not "Don't accept sweets from strangers".  Not even
"Don't ever become a mass murderer".  It's clearly, "Make
regular back-ups of the editorial".  What a plonker I am.  A
great big stinky plonker.  The idiot downstairs in our house was
attempting to do the washing up and watch telly at the same time
and masterfully poured water all over the plug sockets, sending
my telly and stereo into a coma-like state.  Or off, as is
sometimes better known.

"NOOOOOO!" I screamed as I watched the editorial shrink to a
small dot on the telly screen then vanish.

So, now I'm about to have as much fun as Cliff Richard does and
re-type everything up.  Oh, happy days....

Meanwhile, have a read of Colin MacD's show report...
CM             Finally...'the' Gloucester report!

I know this report has been a long time coming, but there
have been 'one or two' things to keep my mind preoccupied -
some of which you may find out fairly soon... However, at
long last, I can give the story behind the Gloucester Show
many moons ago in October. There's little point in my relaying
the events of the day, in terms of the Show itself, and of
SAM, because so long has passed, and because there have already
been a few reports on such matters.

However, purely for the purposes of amusement, I will now
try to retell the events of Gloucester that are NOT directly
related to the SAM...and yes, that means mostly at the pub!

My weekend started with the pleasant 400-odd mile drive down
to Gloucester on Friday afternoon - in the past I've always
driven down over night, but I thought it might be nice to
get SOME sleep before a show! (show regulars will know that
on every show up till now, I don't think I've ever had any
sleep the night before the show). I had arranged to go out for
CM                       Gloucester...

a quiet drink on the Friday night once I got down to
Gloucester, and so had a schedule to keep to.

The one time I'm actually in a hurry to get down to Gloucester,
things start to go horribly wrong! There's a silly game I
play when I'm driving long distances - I try to go as long
as possible without putting petrol in, and see how close I can
cut it without running out! I was past Manchester, and the
petrol light had been on for a while, but I decided not to
go into services, because there were more in another twenty
miles or so. A mile down the road, and I hit heavy traffic.
And I mean HEAVY! When the road sloped down, I could see
a line of brake lights as far as the horizon!

Of course, I knew stopping and starting, and the car just
crawling along was going to guzzle petrol, so I was using
very trick imaginable to save petrol - mainly involving
not using the brakes - which meant some near misses!

CM                         Gloucester

Two hours late, I eventually got to Gloucester, had a nice
evening, and a good night's sleep before the big show.

We got tidied up from the Show at around 5pm, and being the
good samaritan that I am, made various offers to give people
a lift into the city centre...provided they filled in any
spare time, in a public house. Messrs Stefan Drissen, Dan
Doore, Tim Paveley and Stewart Skardon were unfortunate
enough to suffer my driving into Gloucester centre, and we
quickly ditched the car half way between the pub and the
train/bus stations.

And that was when we worked extremely hard on refreshing
ourselves after a long day at the show...the pub thought it
was Christmas I'm sure! However, as the night wore on, and
the things become...ever more cheerful, a couple of
memorable events occurred :


CM                       Gloucester...

Silly event 1)
       I decide to go to the toilet, see a sign next to a
blank door that says 'Toilets' and wander in...only to find
the Ladies toilets! Feeling rather stupid, I hurry out
thinking of the abuse I'll get when I return to the others
after they'd seen me walk into the Ladies.

Silly event 2)
       Fortunately, no-one had noticed my little slip-up,
so I decided not to mention it. However, Stefan then decided
to use the toilet... and made the exact mistake I did, of
walking into the wrong toilets. Not one to be forgiving, I
-immediately point this out to everyone, and we're all sat
watching the door for Stefan to realise his mistake and
come running out...
30 seconds pass, and no Stefan - we're in hysterics
A minute passes - no Stefan, and we're puzzled
Three minutes pass - no Stefan, and we're worried!
Eventually he emerges to rolls of laughter, and to his
CM                         Gloucester

credit, immediately realises his mistake and trying to cover
up by saying he thought British toilets might have been
mixed sex....

Silly event 3)
       After much merryness, Dan has to catch his last train
home...so leaves us. Myself, Stefan, and Mr Brenchley's
lovely daughter AnneMarie decided to move on to another
establishment. Meanwhile, Dan misses his train, can't find
us back at the pub, so books into a local hotel, and although
the stories are patchy, there was talk of someone falling
down a flight of stairs and being woken up at 5am by the
hotel!

Silly event 4)
       This might well be Stefan trying to chat-up our
landlady for the weekend by talking Dutch before finding
out she was German, but I couldn't be sure!

CM                         Gloucester

Silly event 12)
       Definitely upon leaving the nightclub - myself and
Stefan decided it wasn't fair that AnneMarie was driving us
around all the time, so we picked her up - an arm and leg
each and tried to carry her back into the nightclub. The
bouncers on the door were not amused.

And that is the story of SAM people winding down in style..
or disgrace, depending on your viewpoint. There is however,
one more point worth mentioning, and it is first thing the
next morning - Stefan and I left the B&B shortly after
breakfast...got out of the door...onto the street...and
didn't have a clue which way to go! Not only did we not know
where we were in relation to the City Centre, but after
wandering aimlessly and eventually finding our bearings,
we werenit sure where we'd left the car!!

Fortunately, we did find it at last (the remote keychain
coming in extremely handy in verifying it was the right
CM                         Gloucester

car!). Stefan left for his return to the Netherlands, and
I made my way back up to Scotland, both having promised
to repeat the weekend!

So as they say, until the next time!!

Just in case you happened to be wondering what happened to
the silly events which were missed out - so are myself and
Stefan!! We're sure you understand though...

Having just spoken to Mr Anderton, we've made tentative
arrangements for the Leeds Show coming up in February...
anymore caring to join in the hilarity...on the premise of
NOT talking computing for the WHOLE night should consider
themselves welcome and should book themselves into a B&B
for one or both nights....



AC                       Howdy, folks!

  Right, if Colin doesn't move this then it looks like I've got
the introduction to Fred 77, although I ought to be revising for
an exam which I have tomorrow. Erk. I'll revise later, I
suppose.  [Consider yourself moved!  Mwahaha, such power at MY
fingertips - CA]

  Anyway, what's been happening, then? Well, I've been busy
trying to get this issue of Fred out before the 2nd NSSS, as
well as issue 18 of Crashed. I've got to get the show organised,
too, which is a problem because Daniel (the other organiser)
seems to be incommunicado recently. Or should that be
incompetent? Who knows.

  I've been over to Colin's cardboard box... ahem, I mean house,
to get a few disks, steal a couple of Simpsons videos and laugh
at his new haircut. As I haven't a photo to show you, I can only
tell you that it makes him look like The Fonz, from Happy Days.


AC                          Yeehar!

  He probably won't like me saying that, but I know he's going
to insult me somewhere so I might as well get them in while I
can. And anyway, it's true.  [Just because you've got less
masculinity than Emma from the Spice Girls - CA]

  This issue there's a few changes to normal; not great big
changes, but little things that I think improve Fred's
presentation. The first, and most obvious, is this font. I think
it makes mode 3 text easier to read because it's wider and
shorter than most fonts, making the vertical lines of text wider
and increasing the gap between lines. Anyway, that's the theory,
let us know what you think.

  I've also made SamPaint headings for Fantasy Fred League,
Modules and any C Libraries that we put on. These only take up a
couple of K, which we normally have free on the disk anyway, and
they look really nice. Well, I think so, anyway.


AC                  More Of That Lovely News


for more information, or have a look in January's Format, 8Bit,
or other mags.


  West Coast Computers have started including software vouchers
worth up to £50 from Revelation and Fred with all new SAM Elites
and reconditioned Coupes from the first of January.
Reconditioned Coupes are only £139.95 and with the £50 vouchers
represent excellent value for money. Lovely.


  There's a couple of computer birthdays coming up soon. First
is the ZX81, which will be 16 years old, and there's also the
good old Zilog Z80 CPU, which all SAMs, ZX machines, and London
telephone systems (sorry, my old job coming out there), amongst
other things, contain. It will be 21 in April, which is older
than a lot of Fred's readers!

CA                            News

The Gloucester show is looming round the corner, so make sure
you get the day off for that.  Once again, it's in Quedgely
village hall near Gloucester.  It'll give you the chance to buy
Kaboom, which is now finished (at last) and it'll also give you
(and me) a chance to check out the new FRED owner.  Wow.

FRED is moving back to labels!  The price of on-body printing is
proving to be too expensive now, so Darren Wileman has decided
to go back to labels.  Well, it was either that or give me a pay
cut.  I think he's done the fair thing.  It's a great shame that
FRED won't look so sophisticated or exciting any more, but rest
assured the contents will be just as good.

Blitz 3 is out, but from what I've heard it's just a bit of a
cut and paste of FRED items.  Most noticably, Wayne Coles' game,
Stax was put on there while Wayne was still considering letting
them have it.  Wayne decided against it, but it was already on.
I'd give you the address, but then you might buy it.  A bit
harsh maybe, but who cares.
CA                  Ffffantasy Fffred League

   Team Name                               Manager        Score

01 Scotland                            Colin Macdonald      101
02 The Crashed Crusaders               Allan Clarkson       090
03 "Headless"                          Stefan Drissen       088
04 Crikey...My Wig Is On Fire!         Andrew Chandler      084
05 I'll Cheat If I Start Losing...     Colin Anderton       083
06 Frank Broughton Appreciation Soc.   Mark Sturdy          072
07 Team Mango Chutney                  Matt Vowles          064
08 Real Nice World                     Andrew Collier       063
09 Sentai Power Sammers NL             Robert Van Der Veeke 061
10 What's In A Name?                   A. Francis           056
11 Children Of Satan (ahem)            Stephen McGreal      056
12 Scorpion Soft Productions Team (?)  Paul Dudley          055
13 Blue Foot United                    Stewart Skardon      055
14 Happy Slug Productions              Tim Paveley          054
15 I Still Use My Sam, Honest..        Dave Handley         043
16 Death By Electricity                Doug Young           043
17 Har Har Har                         Sylvia               042
CA                    Fantisy Frod Leagie

18 Some Dead Good People               Graham Goring        041
19 James Curry's Team Of SAM Wierdos   James Curry          040
20 Crap Games Co.                      Dean Nicholas        038
21 NewZealandStory                     Howard Price         038
22 The Kick Butt Crew                  Mark Bennett         035

       MANAGER OF THE MONTH : COLIN MACDONALD - 26 POINTS

I imagine you're all sat with a surprised look of, erm, suprise
on your faces.  I wept when I saw it.  Colin flaming Macdonald
at the top.  What a swizz.  The good news is that Allan has
finally been knocked off, but the bad news is that it's Colin.
Other big scores from Drissen, Chandler, Ando and Vowles mean it
isn't completely over.  Yet.  More interestingly though, is the
fight for Supreme Loser.  The Rock Bottom Crew remain in last
place, but have caught up a little, leving the unsuspecting
Price, Nicholas, Curry and Goring in suspense.  Sylvia, our
female player, shoots up onto the first page.  She made up her
team, you know.  You lot are a disgrace.  Tut.
AndyC     AMIGA TO SAM MODULES CONVERSION USING RS232
          -------------------------------------------

This article accompanies the software on this issue of FRED. It
will allow you to convert modules from the Amiga to the SAM
using the communications interface. You will not need any
special Amiga software - the whole process can be carried out
with the lowly Workbench.

You will need: A 'working' Communications Interface,
               A copy of the Amiga Workbench,
               The transfer software on this FRED,
               A 3-core cable with connectors & hoods.


NB. Some versions of the Communications interface have small
'faults' which need correcting. These have been mentioned in
earlier issues of FRED and Format. Issue 3 of Based On An Idea
(yet to appear) will contain a comprehensive article on this.


AndyC           AMIGA TO SAM MODULES CONVERSION

CABLES
******

You will require a short length of screened 3-core cable. It
doesn't HAVE to be screened or of a short length, BUT if you
have a long un-screened cable, then you will experience noise
problems which can only then be overcome by using much slower
speeds that by the time the data has been sent, you've grown a
spectacular beard!

Next, you will require a female 9-pin D-type plug (look on the
back of the Communications Interface for the socket). If you
have a mouse, this is the type of plug required. These can be
obtained from Tandy or Maplins along with the protective 'hood'
or cover required for you to be able to use it.

You then need a similar plug and 'hood' but with 25 connectors
for the Amiga. All the required plugs, hoods and cables can be
bought for around  7 to  8.
AndyC                  Modules Conversion

The plugs need to be wired as followed:

     SAM  Signal name         Amiga     Signal name

     2    Rx                  2         Tx
     3    Tx                  3         Rx
     5    Gnd                 7         Gnd
     -    -                   1         Frame Ground
                                        (for Hood / screen)

   -------------    -----------------------------------------
   \ 1 2 3 4 5 /    \ 1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9 10 11 12 13 /
    \ 6 7 8 9 /      \ 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 /
     ---------        -------------------------------------
     SAM SOCKET                    AMIGA SOCKET


                 (Looking at back of machines)

AndyC                  Modules Conversion

The shield of the cable should be connected to the hoods of both
connectors and to  pin 1 on the Amiga. Unfortunately there is no
equivalent pin on the SAM.


Amiga Software
**************

You do not need any special software for this (apart from
possibly ProTracker / NoiseTracker if the module is packed). The
conversion can be done with the standard Workbench software.

Firstly, boot the Workbench and then click on the Workbench
icon. Select Preferences and then Serial (the telephone icon).
You then need to alter the settings as follows:

Handshaking - None
Parity - None

AndyC                  Modules Conversion

Baud - 9600 *
Data Bits - 8
Stop Bits - 1
Buffer can be set to 512 bytes or greater.

*The baud rate is not actually critical with a good link, as
long as both machines are set the same. If the link is of a poor
quality, then a slower speed will be necessary.

With the Workbench disc unprotected, select the SAVE option and
these settings will then be stored on the disc so you don't have
to keep adjusting them. The Amiga will also exceute an automatic
USE command and so the settings will be activated straight away.

The next thing to do is to open a CLI (Command Line Interface).
Select System from the main Workbench window and then select the
CLI icon (NOT a Shell). Once the '1>' or '2>' prompt appears,
you're ready for action!

AndyC                  Modules Conversion

Next, boot the SAM and start the software, enter the following
command on the CLI:

                     COPY filename TO SER:

After a short burst of disc activity, the data will start to
appear at the serial port. The SAM should now start making a
'modem' sound and have a flashing border. Once the data has been
sent, it will use Stefan Drissen's 'CALC' program to obtain the
correct length of the file received. The Amiga will not produce
any prompts unless there has been a serious error. When the '1>'
or '2>' appears, all the data has been sent.

(DIR df0: or DIR df1: will give a directory of either unit 0
[internal] or unit 1 [external] on the Amiga or LIST df0: or
LIST df1: will give you a more detailed directory listing).

*NB. This has been tested on an Amiga 500 (1MB) with RAM Drive

AndyC                  Modules Conversion

and two 3.5inch disc drives. If you only have a single floppy
drive, then you may be prompted to keep swapping discs. If this
is annoying then you can create a recoverable RAM Drive as
explained in the Extras manual and load as many of the useful
commands as possible in to this. (Amigas with only 512K may find
it a tight squeeze, but it should work). Copy such commands as
DIR, LIST, COPY, CD etc. in to the RAM Drive in the C directory
so that when you enter these common commands, it will search the
RAM Drive first and will not use the Workbench disc. Don't worry
if you didn't follow that last bit, you can continue as normal
except you may have to exchange discs more often.


SAM Software
*************

The software comprises 4 parts. The first is the machine code
which contains a small extract from Cliff Jackson's 'STU' disc

AndyC                  Modules Conversion

and is an extension of the work I was doing with him. (available
from SAM PD folks!). Next is the MGT serial driver program
(slightly altered), the main transfer program and then Stefan's
CALC program to correct MOD lengths.

The SAM Software is very basic. There are no parity checks on
the data etc. and there is no sophisticated error-trapping. If
the file is to large it will overwrite important code, so keep
it smaller than about 400K (though the MOD Player has a lower
limit than this).

The program starts off with the standard Serial Driver Program
which came with the Communications Interface as this software
drives the timing in the interface. The defaults are set as per
the Amiga section elsewhere, but can be changed as long as the
settings on the Amiga are also changed to reflect this. Exit
will execute a BOOT command and SAVE settings will SAVE OVER the
serial driver machine code.

AndyC                  Modules Conversion

Once initialised, you are directly in to the main program. You
will see an indicator in the centre of the screen which
continually updates (each time it updates, the software has
'timed-out' due to no data being present). When you enter the
transfer section there will be a short pause while the software
clears the buffers. DO NOT send any data until the status bar is
moving.

When you enter the copy command on the Amiga, there will be a
short pause before the SAM responds as the Amiga will not send
any data until it loaded all of the code from the disc.

When the line goes dead for about 1-2 seconds, SAM assumes that
all the data has been sent. It will then proceed to calculate
its correct length, display the total number of bytes to SAVE
and prompt for a filename. If you enter nothing (by simply
pressing Return), it will ignore the current data it holds and
simply start again. The program automatically adds a '.MOD'

AndyC                  Modules Conversion

extension and so you are limited to 6 characters and it will ask
you for another filename if you enter more than this.

If you wish to quit while the line is dead, hold down  the space
bar for approximately 3 seconds and you will return to the
Serial Driver start-up menu. You can't quit while the data is
being received.

The file, once saved, can then be loaded straight in to either
the FRED demo MOD Player or the proper MOD Player (on issue 75).
All you need to do then is to connect up your SAMDAC / EDDAC or
Quazar to hear the modules as nature intended.


The following pages contain a troubleshooting guide, in case you
have any problems. It would probably be a good idea to print all
this out if you're going to use the program.


AndyC         Modules Conversion - Troubleshooting

Error                              Rectification / Check
-----                              ---------------------

No data received                   >Cable wired correctly.
                                   >Baud rates / stop bits/
                                    start bits etc. are set
                                    correctly on BOTH machines.
                                   >Cable in correct slot on
                                    Amiga.
                                   >Command entered on Amiga
                                    correctly.

Data Garbled                       >Settings correct on BOTH
                                    machines.
                                   >Valid Module sent.

Amiga Says:                        >All relevant serial drivers
"Can't write to device"             installed. SERIAL.DEVICE is
or similar message.                 required to run.
AndyC         Modules Conversion - Troubleshooting

                                   >Cable wired correctly.
                                   >Cable connected.

MOD Player crashes or              >Valid Module transmitted.
can't identify module              >Module must NOT be
                                    compressed or packed and
                                    must be from ProTracker /
                                    NoiseTracker / StarTrekker
                                    or MED3.0 ST/NT converter.

Modules corrupted during           >Send module again. If
transmission.                       problems persist, reduce
                                    transfer/receiving speed.

SAM Crashes                        >In rare occurrences the SAM
                                    may automatically reset when
                                    the Amiga is reset or you
                                    are swapping serial leads

AndyC         Modules Conversion - Troubleshooting

                                    between the computers.
                                    Not sure why!
                                    Reboot.
                                   >Module too large and has
                                    overwritten DOS. Reboot.

I am currently working on converting pictures to the Amiga via
the same method. I have approached the problem from many
different angles using several different  methods and so far a
small number of them have been successful (some may appear on
FRED in the near future). If anyone has been experimenting in
this area or can offer any help, then feel free to contact me at
the following address:
      Andrew Chandler, [redacted]
I hope to be able to write another article in the near future on
the subject of converting Amiga pictures to the SAM using the
RS232 link method, hopefully using the least amount of
conversion software on both the Amiga and the SAM.

CA                  Disc Contents Continued

Slightly less technically now, we have a game in slot D.  For
all of those people who have written in saying they wanted to
play with me, now's your chance.  It's a trip into the slightly
psychedelic world of Colin Anderton.  It's written by the
cockiest man alive, Stephen McGreal.  Can you believe he told me
not to put it on FRED until it would get in slot D?  Cheeky git.
You don't know how tempted I was to stick it in Bits n Bobs.

Anyway, it's a cracking little three-parter this game.  You play
me, the handsome hero of the hour who miraculously invented some
trousers that allowed him, er, me, I think, to travel in time.
Rather than going back a few years and betting on the horses,
Colin decided to go into the future.  But disaster, Doormat
magazine has taken over the SAM community!  It's your job to
save the community from this disaster and once again put FRED on
top of the world.

The first part is a platform game, which appears impossible at
first, but you soon learn the tricks.  The second part is a
CA                       Disc Contents

shoot-em-up and the third part is a mix, guest-starring Colin
Macdonald.  I can't get past level 1, but Allan can complete
it.  Cheers, Stephen (and the hair is lovely, thanks).

In F we have a crossword program from Mr Womble.  It's not one
for the brain dead plonkers out there.  I can't get any of them.
It is hard, but very rewarding if you answer one (I assume).
Good luck!

Faller is an addictive little game where you control a
mathematically accurate ship and you have to blow up the square
that's trying to get you.  It's not much of a looker this game,
but it is addictive.  Use mouse or cursors and , and ., and if
you can beat 63% damage, you deserve a medal.

Bits n Bobs is back with a vengance.  For one month at least.
George Boyle graces our screens with his first ever
contributions to FRED.  Well done, George.  I knew you could do
it...
CA                        Thankyou...

TOUR THE WORLD : COLIN 'Sniffle, goodbye' MACDONALD
GOING NO-WHERE : COLIN 'We had some good piss-ups' ANDERTON
DEAD-END JOB   : ALLAN 'We didn't, coz I don't drink" CLARKSON

    ********************
    *                  *    ATTENTION, ATTENTION, ATTENTION
    *   HONOURS LIST   *
    *                  *        Send contribtuions to:
    * Stephen McGreal  *
    * Tobermory Womble *           FRED Publishing
    *    Tom Wilson    *            [redacted]
    *  Andy Chandler   *
    * Matthew Lavibond *
    *   George Boyle   *
    *                  *
    ********************


                      See you next month!

Letters & Reviews

                 * Letter From Andy Chandler *

Dear Colin,

     I've managed to get around to writing something at last and
here it is. Please find enclosed a disc which contains the
following: Converted Amiga Modules, Converted Amiga screens,
Amiga converter software, and an article on converting Amiga
modules to SAM using another (over-looked) method and this
letter. (In other words, a bit of an Amiga infested disc).

This letter, along with the article is on the disc (I'm good to
you) in ASCII format (contains linefeeds etc.), as well as a
printed copy to read while on the bog.

I have a question: Is there a new version of SAMPaint due out?
Don't get me wrong. It's a great program, one of the best
released to date, except once you start to use it quite often
(like I have recently), you start to find the annoying bugs.

There is a major bug with the Palette menu where if you choose
                 * Letter From Andy Chandler *

the 'Select' option, it often crashes (I have the latest version
of MasterDOS and Graham Burtenshaw said it was an unpredictable
error and that is why it still remains). I have encountered this
error nearly 5 out of 10 times I have been using it.

You'll be pleased to know that's all. I would like to take this
moment to wish every Fred reader a (late) Happy New Year.......


           Happy New year to every single Fred reader
               (including the editor of course).
                   (and the boss of course!)


                        Yours Sincerely,

                              Andy


                  Didn't Expect This Page, Eh?

P.S. Do you like the new printer (it's an Epson 500 colour
Stylus). If only there was a program that could use it properly.
SAMPaint is about as useless as a toilet-seat in a french lav.
when it comes to printing out on the new printer.

(Astute readers may well realise that was the second
'toilet-humour' joke in this letter - What is going on here?)

P.P.S. Colin, why are you sad that Angel's left Home and Away?
Surely Shannon's worth 10 Angels? (and as a bonus, you've now
got Jenny McCarthy on British TV - shame the programs cr*p!)

P.P.P.S The version of the MOD player on FRED 75 was V2.10. I
own V2.30 and I believe the latest is now V2.50. Just thought I
had better mention it.




CA                   Reply To Andy Chandler

You may be wondering why Andy 'What A Great Bloke' Chandler had
stars next to his letter title.  Star letter?  No, there's no
such thing.  It's because he's a star.  Why?  Because he typed
his letter up and sent it in on disc!  You don't know how good
that makes me feel.  How elated, how grateful, how wonderful.
And mainly how relieved that I don't have to type in another
long letter.  Thankyou Andy.  Thankyouthankyouthankyou.

It's a bit puzzling how he knows I read FRED letters when I'm on
the toilet, though.  Quite worrying, actually.

No new SAMPaint's are in the pipeline yet.  Some are being
thought about - we wanted ideas about a year ago, but we only
actually got two suggestions!  A hard drive version will come
out if enough people buy the hard drive, but that's obviously a
matter of time.

In repsonse to PS 1, yes, I think it's a lovely printout.  Did
it do the logo in the corner too?  Obviously these poor readers
CA                   Reply To Andy Chandler

will never get to experience this wonderous logo, but rest
assured that I'm looking at it now, and I love it.  Hohoho.

Yippee!  This next PS is just the kind of thing we want to hear
in FRED.  I'd love to hear EVERYONE'S views on Angel leaving
Home and Away.  And Andy's point is a fair point.  Shannon is
certainly a mega-gorgeous bird.  Definitely my favourite.  In
fact, if anyone knows her, please pass on my address and a photo
of someone really sexy.  However, I think there's something to
be said for Angel too.  If you'd seen today's Daily Star, you'd
agree (phew!).  I've got a picture of them both on my wall
(Selina was on it too, but I folded her round).

Oh, by the way, Andy.  Thanks for labelling your disc "Pictures
of Shannon naked".  Lying git.

And the response to your PPPS is that Stefan gave us the version
we put on, so it's clearly him who's conning the whole country.
Let's burn him at the stake.
                     Letter From Tom Wilson

Dear Colin,

           Many thanks for your kind offer to help me out with
the problem of '\t' in 'C'.  As I mentioned, I am elderly, have
had no formal training in computing, and can just about handle
BASIC on my Speccy and SAM, and a very little m/c above, and I
have no contacts to whom I can turn except INDUG and your good
self, and I do not really like imposing on either of you if I
can help it.

            I decided I would like to learn 'C' when you brought
it out. but I did very little about it because I got put off by
getting a "SYSTEMS FAILURE" message when I tried to load from
drive 2: I wrote to you at the time and you explained that there
was a bug in the system, and that an updated version was being
prepared and would be sent to all who had bought V.1"



                     Letter From Tom Wilson

           This did arrive, but I still found problems and lost
enthusiasm: When FORMAT brought out FORMAT PC, I revived a bit
because I would like to upgrade eventually and I would like to
be able to program a PC for which I believe "C" is the thing: so
I started again.

           May I say that it was only by trial and error that I
found out that if I load a .c program from drive 1, change to
drive 2 and compile it - so getting the error messsage "open
failure in include file"- changing back to drive 1 can I get the
drive 2 directory to load. This seems odd to me !! but it works:
I found the handbook sadly lacking in the instructions how to
handle the compiler: but then maybe it is second nature to all
you young'uns and not really needed. I wonder, however if there
are any other oldies who have been put off, and if an article or
two on the proper way to handle Sam C might not be helpful.

         Well anyhow! I bought Herbert Schildt's book "Teach
yourself 'C' (2nd. edition) and set off.  After the usual
                     Letter From Tom Wilson

beginner's faults like no ;. I got into the swing of it and
after stumbling on the notion that his compiler was not"Small C"
and that programs like compute the number of seconds in a year
were not possible for me ( I think that's right! because
floating point stuff is needed for variables >65535 ) I got as
far as p51 where he talks about the backslash codes being
character constants: and there I stuck!!

       I tried int'\t': char'\t' and just t all to no avail, and
then I remembered that the example of "\a" in the handbook had
the form fprint("\a\arg1\arg2  and I tried that and got a little
forther as you see from the enclosed printouts: but I am really
up the creek, and will be extremely glad of any help you can
give me in getting round the problem so that I can go a bit
further along the 'C' road.

Wishing you and yours a good, happy amd prosperous new year,

                           Tom Wilson
CA                    Reply To Tom Wilson

Many thanks for your tips on SAM C.  Hopefully, this will clear
up some problems that other users have been having.

Any kind of articles on SAM C are most welcome.  As you said,
there's only really FRED and FORMAT out there that can help SAM
C users along, so it is essential that people stick with C and
write in with their problems, questions and hints.  Maybe you
yourself feel confident in writing some kind of article?  You've
been through the learning process that people are getting stuck
at and giving up.

Someone out there must understand the backslash codes, so if you
do and you're reading this, please write in.






                    Letter From Sean Bernard

Dear (dear, dear) FRED,

Well-a, hot dang!  I'm being made!!  And it's all cuz'a YOU
guyz!!!  Roughly translated this means 'Many thanks for putting
me in the limelight of SAM fame!'

I don't believe it!  Already I've had requests from the likes of
Andrew Collier and Graham 'Pog' Goring to produce some music for
them (which I'm still slaving away on at the mo' - expect a
wodge of them in the next month, lads).  Les Quinn has received
his E-tune that I've whipped out especially for his menu (thanks
go to FRED for forwarding that) and has already sent me a letter
of gratitude.  I mean, cripes!

Okay now that the acknowledgements (cunning laced with
self-gratification) is out of the way, I'm to tell you that as
from the 26th, I'm moving.  "Why?" you may well not want to
bother ask.  Well, it's closer to my mum's workplace (but not
mine.  Hmph!), and basically I'm living in a room where you
                    Letter From Sean Bernard

can't even swing a flippin' amoeba, let alone a mouse!  Not to
mention the fact that there's a blimming great crack going from
top to bottom of our present abode!!!

So because FRED is (still) fab and I'd still like to have my
monthly fix-on-a-disc for some time to come, I have enclosed my
new address.  This is also for the benefit of the people who
already have my old address and the address where I THOUGHT I
was going to move to:

       [redacted]

That's all I have to say, except keep up the fab work and expect
some more e-tunes from me sometime in the future.  (That is if
I survive the subsidence!)

Yours,

Sean Bernard
CA                   Reply To Sean Bernard

Sean, mate, there's no need to thank us for your glorifying
fame.  It's all down to that wonderful (or really lucky) musical
talent of yours.  Erm, hock-a-dong-dang, though, eh?

Glad to hear you're in popular demand, but don't forget to write
a little tune for FRED every now and again.  The e-tunes section
just couldn't survive without you!

You mentioned the crack in your house.  My room's got one of
them, and it's pretty frightening.  I'm too scared to tell
anyone grown-up incase they shout at me.  I just lie in bed and
worry.

I've never heard FRED described as a "fix-on-a-disc" before!
Although it is a pretty addictive magazine (cheese).

And the address I've printed is for mates and favours.  It's not
for you programmer-hungry thieving swines who write other disc
mags.  He's ours.  Sod off.
                  Letter From Tobermory Womble

Hello again Sam people,

It's Howard (Tobermory Womble), back again... very lengthy
gap... lots to contribute... (snore)... my FFL team will beat
everyone's to oblivion... WHAT? How can I have, in the space of
a few short months, plummeted right to the bottom of the League
tables?! It's immoral. I suppose it serves me right picking lots
of Entropy-related people. (and a Womble)

Just had a bit of a scare. Since I'm not hardware-proficient at
all, I dread the day when my Sam refuses to work any more. It
happened not so long ago - SCARED! The whole thing didn't boot
no more. So I did what I'd usually do, which was try it loads,
then turn it off and on again, try it again, then go away and
leave it for a few hours, then try again. Eventually I got a
screwdriver and, after promising myself I wouldn't lose any
screws or take it too far apart for me to make it work again, I
started peeling off the various bits of disk drive.

                  Letter From Tobermory Womble

Breathe a long sigh of relief - when I took off the shiny metal
cover from the drive, I saw, wedged in the middle of the drive
head, one of my homemade stickers. One fishing trip later, and
some more screwdriver action, and it loaded! Huzzah. I've still
got an old ROM2.0 and a 1990 copyright, so this Sam has lasted
about 6 years, without a serice! Proof that it doesn't take a
huge company to make robust computers (my MGT logo is still
intact on the (admittedly, horrid) square white box.

Okeydoke, so I write in the vain hope that the stuff I'm
programming at the moment will get finished, and therefore I
might finish the Fred league off the bottom. You got to do
justice to a game like NewZealandStory (I love the game so much
we named our band after it!), haven't you? And in any case,
Crossword's a bit shite. Never mind, eh?

 -Tob


              Offensive page from Tobermory Womble

PS Can you say "shite" on Fred yet?   Cos you can copy the whole
of the Spectrum's ROM, and say Price is "up shit creek without a
paddle"...         Wowsers.

PPS Cool - try loading up  some old MODs (my favourite is  Super
Mario Land off Fred54) onto MOD player.  One off Fred56 says:  6
HELLO HACKER F***ERS MY NAME IS MATT BURLISS   HERE'S THE DEAL
IF YOU HACK THIS GAME I WILL FIND YOU WHERE EVER YOU ARE
AND  BREAK YOUR  LEGS       AND THAT'S A  PROMISE      (! Ace)










CA                      Reply To Womble

Ha ha ha.  Your FFL team is going to what?  Beat everyone's to
oblivion?  Tee hee hee.  It might beat quite a few teams to
score nothing, but that's about the best you can hope for.

Nice to see that other people believe in the wonderful "maybe if
I keep trying it'll work eventually" technique for fixing
things.  I was a bit disappointed that you didn't try the "talk
nicely to the computer and beg it to work" technique, though.  I
can see you're a bit of an amateur.

I've got a problem.  My TV has got loads of interference all
over it.  I haven't a clue why.  Hope it's not channel 5.  But
anyway, I've solved it by turning the colour down so much that
the screen is in black and white!  No visible interference!
Boy, am I a genius or what?

New Zealand Story is truly a magnificent game, but I'm afraid no
bonus points are awarded for using that as your team name.  Nice
try, though.  Nearly as sneaky as Stephen McGreal.
CA               Letter From Bomble the Womble

Money is quite a good way of acquiring bonus points, though...

There's absolutely no problem in using the word "shite" in your
letter in FRED.  Though why you would want to refer to a man who
wanders around religously in a white robe, I don't know.

And anyway, it wasn't me who wrote that disgraceful sentence in
FRED.  It was a pixie.

I've got a new boss soon though.  He won't dare tell me off.
He'll be really scared of me.  And he doesn't know any
embarrassing secrets about me like other certain bosses
threatened to print unless I behaved.  Ha ha, I'll be able to
swear until my head drops off.

Star Trek: The Useless Ones (Ctd.)

STAR TREK : THE USELESS ONES

PRIME EXAMPLE (part 5)

By Robert Brady


Previously on Star Trek : The Useless Ones...

A CardoBajoran invasion of Earth in 2409 prompts O'Brien,
Goring, Barclay, Dax, Macdonald and Paris to go back in time and
alter the course of history to save Earth.

And now, the continuation...


Unfortunately, the small room that they materialised in was the
port warp nacelle. It was staffed at that moment in time.

However, Ensign Mitnivik was not the most perceptive member of
staff. This was due to him being severely drunk.

"Well, what do we do? We have to act, now - we arrived late,"
pointed out Macdonald.
"Perhaps we should just explain the situation to him?" suggested
Paris.
"No. Let's stun him and hide him in a storage crate," said
O'Brien.
"OK. Where's the phasers?" asked Dax.
"What phasers?" asked Goring.
"No phasers?" asked Barclay.
"There's a metal rod over there," suggested Macdonald.
"There's got to be a better way than that," protested Dax.
"I say we go with whacking him over the head with the rod,"
stated Goring.

O'Brien walked over to Mitnivik, and knocked him out with a
metal rod.

"Right, let's hide him here," he said, pointing, and they
dragged him into a storage crate.
"What's the plan now?" asked Barclay.
Macdonald said "Well we have to make sure the Grapefruit doesn't
crash. Then it will be able to take part in the Dominion War,
allow us to win easier, and ensure that the CardoBajoran
alliance is never formed."
"Perhaps we should convince the Woppens to stop fighting the
Grapefruit. Is that possible?" asked Goring.
"Hmmm. They seemed pretty stubborn when I tried to argue with
them like that," replied Macdonald.
"Here's an idea. We get someone to go up to the ready room, and
plant a bomb in the ceiling of it," suggested O'Brien.
"Why?"
"Then Captain Macdonald here can take his place."

Barclay increased the fat content of White's waffles, and then
waited.
A few minutes later, they intercepted a call to engineering.
"White, my chair's broken, I want a repair team on it now."
Barclay tapped something into the computer, and it came up with
the words "Aye, sir," in White's voice.
"What happened to White?" asked Macdonald.
"After he got rescued he expanded his waffle business and is now
president of White's Waffles PLC, which has 7% of the
Federation's waffle-supplying business" replied Goring.

Barclay rushed upstairs to the ready room, pretending to be
Femto Pico, and fixed the captain's chair.

Meanwhile, in the port warp nacelle, two minutes later, there
was a chirping of a communicator badge. The sound came from a
storage crate. This was followed by a muffled voice
communication.

"White to Mitnivik. Can you adjust the power flow to the second
coil? The readings are a bit wonky."
No response.
"Mitnivik, can you hear me?"
No response.

The six discussed what to do next.
"Now they know he's missing they are bound to search this bit,"
said O'Brien. "It's time to move. Anyone got any idea where to
go?"
Goring considered this and suggested that they use his quarters
on deck 2.
"I'll hack in and use the transporter to beam us there," said
O'Brien.

Minutes later, they were in Goring's quarters on deck 2.

"Where do you keep the weapons?" asked Dax.
"Over here," said Goring pointing to the box marked 'phasers' in
50d0 point writing.
Jadzia Dax opened the box he had pointed out and removed five
type III phaser rifles. "Oh." she said. "There are only five of
them."
"Well, five is enough for one person, isn't it?" pointed out
Macdonald. "In fact, I'd like to know why you have so many. I
only remember approving one type I phaser per person."
"Under Guarantee 7 of the Federation Constitution, I refuse to
answer that question on grounds that it may incriminate myself,"
replied Goring.
"Oh, dear, oh dear, oh dear. We seem to have a smuggler in our
midst," said Paris.
"You weren't exactly a model of good behaviour, were you,
though," pointed out Goring. "What was it? Fraud? Then treason.
Then you got back into the 'Fleet because you were the only
pilot on the Voyager. You got sacked for a good reason, and I
was disgusted when you got let back in, you Maquis scum."
"OY!! Stop it!", shouted Macdonald. "Good. Now, let's get
planning. We need a plan, since the bomb didn't work."
"I have an idea - ", suggested Dax. "The problem with this
battle was that you won. If you hadn't won, the Federation could
never have given Wop Gamma 2 up, could they?"
"But if the ship hadn't been destroyed, the Dominion War could
have been over sooner. And the CardoBajoran alliance might never
have been formed if Bajor hadn't fallen," pointed out Goring.
Macdonald suggested "We have to make the ship leave the area.
Let's immobilise it. Use all it's energy elsewhere."
"How are we supposed to do that?" asked Goring.
"Well, what's the most powerful device on the ship?" asked
Macdonald.
"After the warp drives? It's the transporters," said O'Brien.
"Yeah, but the transporters are all supervised. What about the
replicators?" said Paris.
"OK, let's replicate some really difficult stuff," suggested
Dax.
Barclay walked to the replicator and asked for a black hole.
The replicator attempted to replicate a black hole. It ran out
of mass fairly soon (within a few microseconds to be precise),
so then it used energy reserves and converted that into mass.
But this was not enough, so it increased the warp core output to
9.7 equivalent, and used that energy for creating more mass. It
was not allowed to touch the fuel supplies directly. However,
this process was going to last some time.

About two hours after Barclay gave the improbable command to the
replicator, the current Lieutenant Goring walked into his
quarters, and found six unauthorised people in it. Five of them
stunned him.

"Oh, come on," protested the older, time-travelling, Goring.
"There was no need to do that to me."
"Yes there was. You could have found out about what we were
doing here, and then stopped it," said Dax.
"No argument there," said Macdonald. "What do we do with him
now, though? If we hide him somewhere and scarper, I'm bound to
have realised what was going on."
"Oh, I've probably got some time off due now. I'll just put in a
request for a holiday for the next fortnight. Satisfied?" asked
Goring.

Several days later, the replacement science officer on the
Bridge of the USS Grapefruit noticed a large mass on deck 2.
"Captain, we have a black hole in Goring's quarters."
"What?"
"I know what is sounds like, but it's about 90% of the way to
being a black hole. Weird, isn't it?"
"Weird indeed. Set course for Starbase 493. Call Starfleet to
get the Sputnik to deal with the Woppens. We can't go into
battle with a black hole next door to my quarters."

People who have been reading intently may have noticed that,
until now, no changes have been made to the past. From now, the
timeline has changed.

Paris, Macdonald, Goring, Dax, O'Brien and Barclay beamed back
into 2409, only to find that they already existed in that year
anyway, and to find that most of history between 2369 and 2409
had changed. They resigned themselves to the pointlessness of
everything, and all had autobiographies out within seven years.

Back in 2369, the USS Grapefruit, the experimental Soya class
vessel with a black hole in the science officer's bedroom,
docked at Starbase 493.

"Sir, we've found out what caused the black hole, sir. It was
being replicated. And we found Lieutenant Goring in his
quarters, heavily stunned," said Anderton to Macdonald.
"Well, I hope you've cut power to it! What does that fool have
to say for himself?" asked Macdonald.
"He says he was stunned by six people sir. Didn't recognise any
of them, sir. I think he's a bit weird. I've had Drissen check
him out. But more importantly, we found these in his quarters,"
said Anderton, handing five type III phasers to Macdonald.
"Really? Very strange. How could these have got there?"
"I don't know sir, but I think we should question Goring about
them."

THE END!

Meanwhile a trailer for the next episode.

Next time on STAR TREK : THE USELESS ONES :


However, more important things were occurring on the ship. Matt
Round, the tactical officer, had started a rival
Waffle-supplying firm on board. It had stolen 40% of White's
customers in the past eight hours. This was mainly because the
fat content of White's waffles had been increased - no-one
realised this at all, but customers were more inclined to by
Round waffles due to this.

WHAT ON EARTH IS GOING ON?


Find out in the next, waffly episode of Star Trek : The Useless
Ones

written by Robert Brady,
created by Robert Brady.

based upon :

(created by)Roddenberry     Pillar    Berman   Taylor
Star Trek           x
Star Trek : TNG     x
Star Trek : DS9                   x         x
Star Trek : Voyager               x         x       x

Any resemblance of characters or events portrayed in this work
to real characters or events is purely intentional.