Products on Parade

Memotech Corp.
99 Cabot Street
Needham, MA 02194

This word-processor from MEMOTECH is a tough thing to review, as it would take more space than I’ve got left to cover all its features. Sim ply Stated, it is a marvellous piece of work. You could compare Memotext (M/T) against commercial word processors for fancier machines costing hundreds of dollars, and the T/S – M/T combo would come out ahead in many cases. If you have a printer and a Memotech I/F, you really should get one. Sell your typewriter if you have to.

One of the nice things is that the keyboard is re-defined so that it’s like a typewriter. If you’re a typist, then you’ll feel pretty much at home. It takes some re-adjustment for “old timers;” it just doesn’t “feel” like your good ole ZX81, and you’ll tend to stumble around a little when going back to programming after doing a bunch of Memotexting. Another mind-boggler is that if you’ve been word processing with the Memotech I/F; Memotext also reverses the cases, making inverse video upper-case. But boy, is it quick! You’ll find it challenging (impossible?) to out-type. If anything, the debounce is a little too fast; with soft-touch keyboards you might sometimes get double characters if you don’t hit the key dead on. There’s full auto-repeat on all keys. Error trapping is extensive and almost too foolproof. Files can be saved one at a time or all at once.

What don’t I like about it? For one thing, text files can’t be split or merged, and when printing a text file paper is automatically advanced to the next page, no matter how short the file. Great for letters, but annoying for newsletters. I should say that there’s probably an easy way to get around this using data files (a separate kind of file usually used for inserting “customizers” into form letters, mailing lists, etc.) but I haven’t learned near all the tricks yet. Really, my only “gripe” is that M/T takes over completely. there’s no way to return to BASIC when it’s on. But I suppose that would really be asking too much. [Since this article was first printed in SWN 1:3, we’ve come up with a way to run M/text in RAM, and have included a QIT function, among other things; contact us about availability. ed.]

Although M/T is easy to use (with atypically complete documentation – done with M/T of course) it will provide you with a challenge to use it to the fullest. It will take some thought and plenty of experimentation (and paper) to really make it do all you could want. It’s well worth the effort. And oh yes, it’s certainly worth $49.95. If you don’t do much writing beyond short notes, etc, it might be more than you need; but if you like to write and are frustrated with BASIC WPs, this one’s for you.

G. Russell Electronics
RD 1, Box 539
Centre Hall, PA 16828

KEY is a utility of the tool-kit variety, containing “Protect” and “Merge” routines which allow you to load two separate programs and combine them into one listing. Also included is a “bytes remaining” routine, and the star of the show, “Unlock,” which lets you break into those unLIST/SA VEable tapes for modifications and personal back-up purposes, All are easy to use and reliable, The package resides above RAMTOP, and it is thus immune to NEW. Best of all, KEY takes up only about 1/2 K, making it a viable alternative to the larger toolkits when memory is tight. Even if you have other toolkits, this one will make a useful addition to your utilities collection because of its compactness, It comes with a well-written “scoop sheet,” and is well worth the $10 (postpaid) asking price.

G. Russell Electronics
RD 1, Box 539
Centre Hall, PA 16828

This (pron. “zee-accelerate”) is a “speed load” program which you’ll love if you’re going grey waiting for those long tapes to load, It takes up 2K of memory, and may be located anywhere in RAM (e.g. the 8-16 block). It is all in software, so there is no additional stuff hanging around your computing space, Z-XLR8 is very well documented in a 20-page manual and costs only $11 (cassette) or $21 (EPROM).

One of its nicest features is that rate of data transfer is set when you initialize; rates from about 4 to 10 times normal speed are possible. Not only that, the cassette package comes with a calibration program to help you determine just how much you can “XLR8” the save/load process before your cassette recorder imposes “hardware limitations.” the faster you want it to go, the better your cassette machine (and tape!) must be,

But even that’s not all, In addition to program SAVE/LOAD (analogous to normal tape routines), you can also SAVE and LOAD alone the screen display, any array, or any selected part of memory (e.g. machine code, etc.). You can also do hi-res graphics save/loads if you have the Advanced Interface Designs graphics board. Even that’s not all! You can do an “index load,” in which your tape is scanned for the file names and types it contains.

The one thing I didn’t like is that there’s no way to abort the LOAD functions once started. So if you give it a wrong file name you’re sunk and have to start from scratch, This is not a problem with the EPROM, of course, but it can be annoying to have to re-load Z/XLR-8 “the hard way.” If you realize you entered a wrong file name before specifying function, you can recover by entering “BS” (Binary Save) and small integers for “start address” and “No. bytes.” The computer spits out those few bytes and you’re back in business.

Z-XLR8 was originally supplied by Brad Bennett’s (the author’s) company Advanced Interface Designs, but distribution is now through G. Russell Electronics, Definitely a good product, well worth the price. Since it is very flexible, it takes some experimentation to get the best results with your particular system; but the rewards are great, Wouldn’t you love to load a full 16K program in less than a minute? Well, now you can.

G. Russell Electronics
RD 1, Box 539
Centre Hall, PA 16828

HRP (high-resolution printing) allows you to individually address each dot on your TS2040 or ZX printer, It sets up a 256×192 pixel map, taking up about 6K, which you then fill with your data. You can then dump the map to your printer. The program is well-documented with several examples, and the tape even includes a ready-to-run application example – least-squares regression with both low and high-res plotting, The result is quite impressive; if you didn’t know better, you might have trouble believing that the output came from a ZX/TS, I like it because it’s all in software and is easy to control, Since each dot takes up one bit, the map takes a sizable hunk of memory, but this is not too great a price to pay for the beautiful and relatively fast high-res printouts you can get. Besides, the map is re-locatable beyond the 32K address, if you have a 32-64K RAM, All in all HRP is a quite unique program and well worth checking out.

You probably already know that G. Russell Electronics supplies the popular “Winky Board II” passive cassette filter, You may not know that they also have some fine M/C utilities, at reasonable prices. Bill Russell spear-heads the company, and sent evaluation copies of KEY and HRP and arranged for a sample of Z-XLR-8.

Bill Russell is also the driving force behind the Central Pennsylvania T/S User’s Group, a dedicated group of ZXers near Penn State, and the only club I know of that meets at least once a week (they still meet every Wed. night at Penn State-ed). Really devoted ZX hackers! Bill also publishes a small but informative monthly newsletter, SYNAPSE, containing programs, reviews and helpful hints. Subscription = $12 per year.

Authors: Paul Bingham (Art(s)iste Z Xtraordinaire), Rick Goulian (Low Level Language Z Xpert)

Publisher: Pleasantrees Programming, Tucson, Arizona

This long awaited paperback covers something for everyone who may want (or need) to draw or plot to the display file, This reference manual (just chocked full of goodies at 200+ pages), has a program on practically every page. It covers such off the wall things as controlled crashes (good for visuals), to sophisticated multifigure movement of such creatures as ZXak(pac)-man in two dimensions, and touches on the really tough stuff (three dimensional overlay movement for smooth diagonal scrolling). This feat is the basis for their game “City of Xon,” Techniques for drawing simple graphic figures to complex math graphics and designs are discussed in detail. ZX listings are provided (proof of the pudding) as well as screen dumps for many of the programs.

The most interesting part of the book (for me anyway) is certainly the several chapters covering the use of the Memotech High Resolution Graphics interface. This part includes not only programs using the various commands, but also an explanation of each of the 31 commands AND a full disassembly of the HRG ROM. Many of the programs come compiler (a la Bob Berch V1.1) ready. This is quite nice as one of the slower features of ZX BASIC is printing to the screen. The speed increase is naturally “breathtaking.

Did you ever envy those machines that can list more than 10,000 lines? Well don’t turn green because the solution is in the book, It’s a little tedious to say the least, but it does provide a good place to tuck away some often-used routines. How about upper- and lower-case compressed characters? It is right here with much more.

Well, as you can see, ZXcellence, but at a price. $17.95 brings this no-filler vehicle to your hands. However, you do get what you pay for. Is it for you? If you have HRG and/or a compiler then I recommend this book highly, if not then it is a _ little over priced. I have the book, but no HRG. I am thinking about getting HRG now that I have more insight into what I can do with it (without all the trial and error), Think of this book as a text, as you will have (want) to study it. Many of the techniques used for entering programs are quite tough, and I suggest a good assembler/ disassembler to help input and debug some of the listings.