Character Recognition for the TS2068?

Don Lambert, Chairman of the Timex Sinclair NorthAmerican User Groups, wrote recently to say that he wanted to make word processor files of LarKen disk CATalogs. On only a few disks, he had trouble doing this using some sort of utility available in MSCRIPT.

I reminded him of a simple program available with the LogiCall ensemble that examines each point on the screen and creates a TASWORD TWO file with every character in exactly the same place as it was on the screen EVERY TIME! Using the SCREENS (x,y) function, each point on the TS2068 screen is parsed and the result poked into the appropriate location a TASWORD TWO file. Because TASWORD can append files to create one larger list, a catalog list can be made of all the disks in one library case.

Joyce Blaho had given me the idea for this utility when she told me of a user group member who detested the retyping his program listings for use in the newsletter because of all the typing errors that would creep in. Since this utility places the screen characters into the TASWORD file exactly where they are located on the screen, the person typing the program into his computer can see every character and space so that his finished program will look just like the original programmers document.

This utility can recognize characters made up of fonts other than the standard Sinclair font provided the font in loaded into the TS2068 and the character set pointer is pointing to it as explained in the Timex Manual. How about that! Character recognition on the TS2068 years before it was available for the Macintosh and IBM? Well, I’d like to think so!

To use this utility, first put on your screen the portion of the document you wish to put into TASWORD. On the command line type: RUN USR 100: SAVE “SCREEN.CM” SCREENS or simply press the LarKen NMI SAVE button followed by a press of the S key. Now run the $C2TAS.B1 utility. This utility puts the SCREEN.CM file back up on the screen, parses it and creates a screen.CT file. After a short wait the program calls in TASWORD TWO. You will now find a file in your CATalog called screen.cT. Call this file into TASWORD. If you are building a long list, save this file to disk using the filename of the final document. Repeat the above again but on successive calls of the screen.CT file into TASWORD load the document you are building first and then MERGE (append) the screen.CT file to it and re-save the entire file using the filename of the final document. The listing below was make using this procedure as was all listings of past issues of Nite-Times News.