Season’s Greetings
It’s hard to believe that another Holiday Season is upon us again. Soon we will be into a new year. Tom Woods, Fred Nachbaur, Tom Bent, and myself would like to offer you our best wishes for the Holidays and the coming New Year. – Jeff Moore
Attention Programmers!!
The Second Sort-of-Annual Programmers Competition is offically underway! The topic this time around is interactive educational software for children. Complete competition rules and entry information are given in this issue. Get those computers fired up and ready to go! The prizes are fabulous! TS1000/TS1500 division 1st Runner Up – a Byte Back MD-2B Modem. TS2068/Spectrum division 1st Runner Up – a 32K Non-Volatile Memory Board. Grand Prize, Best Program Overall – a Writeman NLQ Dot Matrix Epson Compatible Printer! And that’s not all! Don’t forget the Fame and the Glory. All the winners will have their programs published in SYNCWARE NEWS. The best of the rest could very well find their way into one of our journals published for the TS1000 and TS2068. Get with it guys and gals. Let’s hear from you soon.
New Improved
Ad agencies claim that tacking the words ‘new and improved’ onto your product is good for at least a moderate sales increase. Whether this is just Madison Ave. hype or not, I’m not sure. I am sure that those words, new and improved, could honestly be applied to our computers on an almost monthly bases. Even before I became Editor of SYNCWARE NEWS, I was always amazed at how many new ideas for improving software and technical applications continued to crop up for our computers. As Editor of this publication, I see something new for each Timex computer on an almost weekly basis. Even though the corporate mogols of computerdom have turned their backs on the Timex Computer line in the US, the “commoners” have proven over and over that we own more than just high-tech door stops. To prove my point, I’d like to turn your attention to two articles appearing in this issue.
Other than its keyboard, one of the biggest complaints about the ZX81/TS1000 is its low resolution graphics. Those of us that have been struggling along with the graphics will be excited to read Wilf Rigter‘s article. In it he presents an honest-to-goodness software-only high-resolution screen display program for the ZX81/TS1000. A whole new world of screen displays awaits exploration.
Have any of you TS2068 users ever turned a little green with envy when looking at your buddies’ QL or Mac-alike computers that could do pull down windows? You’ll be back in the pink again after reading Paul Bingham‘s article. He has come up with an easy to program and use machine code window routine. Add this to your programs and be the envy of your buddies.
Get those ‘new and improved’ computers going! Don’t forget the CONTEST!