Timex-Sinclair Survival Column

A while ago I received a call from a fellow who is known on-line as Phoenix Pete. He explained that he and another Sinclair computerist were putting together a booklet that would cover the Sinclair online community. This booklet, Pete explained to me, was to list as many local bulletin boards as possible which contained-at the very least-a Sinclair sub board.

The other day I received a copy of The Guide to T/S Telecommunications, edited by “Phoenix” Pete Fischer and Steve Ishii. This booklet is over 50 pages of some of the most useful information ever collected for the Sinclair on-line community. The cover of this booklet is a picture which was downloaded from a remote computer (using Run Length Encoded [RLE] graphics), decoded using a public domain program (also downloaded), and then printed from a T/S 2068 using Art Studio. (A public domain RLE program is also available for the QL in the Sinclair SIG on CompuServe.)

Over twenty boards and services are included in the first section which gives a description of the system and what it offers the Sinclair user.

Following this listing is information and general instructions how to use the message bases on the BBSs. Information is given in general terms and is mostly applicable to each of the BBSs which you might log on to. Information on how to prepare messages offline to be uploaded once you are connected is supplied for many of the different terminal and terminal/word processor combinations available. An extensive guide to downloading follows as well. Charts are supplied showing the features of many of the terminal packages now on the market. Other charts are also provided which show the various command schemes on the BBSs covered as well as compatibility of uploads and downloads according to which software you are running.

The centerfold contains a chart showing the phone number, parameters, hours of operation, accessibility via PC Pursuit, acceptance of “stacked” commands, baud rate, number of message bases, the availability of E-Mail, 2068 downloads, 1000 downloads, system capacity, total T/S downloads, total CP/M downloads and location of the BBS itselt.

Section 5 is broken into sections describing the modems which are designed specifically for the Sinclair computers. One section is ZX-81/TS-1000 /TS-1500 modems while the second covers those available for the TS-2068. (The QL does not require a specially designed modem. Standard RS232C modems work fine with the QL, although 300 baud requires the use of a Modapter.) Section 6 takes the next logical step forward and examines the software available to get you and your modem/computer combination on-line. Nine terminal programs are covered; three for the TS-1000 group; five for the TS-2068; and two for the QL! Section 6 dissusses BBS software available to the Sinclair user as well as a bit of advice on how to set up your own T/S sub board.

The appendices are perhaps even more valuable than the main body of the work. Screen dumps of the menu paths on the systems discussed are shown in Appendix A, enabling a new user to map out an online course ahead of time. Appendix B is a compendium of short routines and pokes to be used with the popular terminal software. Appendices C, D, E and F include a host of goodies while Appendix G lists reference and Appendix H is a glossary.

If all that has caught your interest, then consider this – the entire guide is in the public domain! Copies of this guide are being sent-free—to every known users group in the United States and Canada for distribution to its members. Those not belonging to a users group may also obtain a copy by sending $2.00 to cover the cost of copying and postage to: Pete Fischer, P.O. Box 2002, Tempe, AZ 85281.

I am told that a deluxe edition is now in the works which will include everything in this edition plus much more. It will be in looseleaf format for easy updating.

What do the editors expect to get out of all this work and expense? They are not Sinclair dealers so they will not receive any financial benefits. They are representative of so many Sinclair owners/users who want to see their computers used to the fullest. My commendations to both Pete Fischer and Steve Ishii for the effort they have provided for all of us.

Turning now to a look at a SuperBASIC compiler for the QL, we have Digital Precision’s Supercharge. At the end of June 1984 QLs were just starting to appear in Great Britain. The original intent of this compiler was for Quicksilva, the longtime Sinclair software house, but when they were bought by Argus Publishing, Quicksilva lost interest in the QL market. Also at the same time Digital Precision was coming on as a QL software producer.

Since the QL was delayed many times and the SuperBASIC language rushed into being, it suffered because of rushed implementation, poor documentation and changes intended to make it compatible with earlier versions of Sinclair BASIC. This compiler was intended to compensate for the features lacking in SuperBASIC without affecting the power or expandability of the language.

Very little technical information was available on SuperBASIC and the designers had to work practically from scratch. Simon N. Goodwin and Gerry Jackson were both established in the field of microcomputers and promptly went to work. In April of 1985 the first program was compiled. Not yet ready to generate machine code directly the process took place in steps so that the authors could follow the progress of the compiler. In the final stages Supercharge was itself compiled by the compiler already developed. Supercharge will work on any version QL ROM and the code produced will run on any version. In September, 1985 Supercharge was complete.

Supercharged programs while a SuperBASIC program will only handle seven decimal places. SuperBASIC is extremely slow in handling integer arithmetic but a compiled program deals with these problems in an extremely fast manner.

You also must be a little more careful in the naming of variables throughout your program since the entire program must be read before it is compiled. You cannot then re-use variable names in order to save memory space as that will confuse the compiler.

A number of bugs present in SuperBASIC are corrected by Supercharge. According to the user’s guide they are:

• Interpreted BASIC can crash if more than nine parameters or local variables are used in a procedure. Supercharge has no such restrictions.
• The rounding errors which occur due to SuperBASIC’s handling of only seven decimal places in floating point arithmetic do not occur in Supercharged programs.
• Although SuperBASIC stops with a “Buffer Full” report if more than 128 characters are input. Supercharge allows up to 32767 dependent on free memory.
• SuperBASIC programs have to be run one at a time, while compiled programs may be multi-tasked as long as enough memory is present.
• While the interpreter cannot handle Select statements for integer or string variable values, Select works perfectly when Supercharged.
• The SuperBASIC function RESPR which allocates memory cannot be used under the interpreter if a multi-tasked program is running. This is not true with a Supercharged program.
• Using a GO SUB from within a single line FOR… NEXT statement in SuperBASIC causes the program to stop with an error free message. This does not happen with a program compiled using Supercharge.

There are other fixes for earlier (British) ROM versions which don’t concern us here, but they are explained in the manual.

Supercharged programs generally run from five to ten times faster than the original interpreted SuperBASIC code. The longer and more complex the original, the greater the increase in the compiled version. Program development takes advantage of the interactive nature of an interpreter before the completed program is compiled. Add-on commands such as those in various toolkits can be a part of your program and be compiled as well as long as they follow the standard syntax. Your own procedures and definitions may be included as well. Because each program line does not have to be read and interpreted, compiled programs load faster than their SuperBASIC counterparts. Compiled programs are protected against unauthorized modification and plagiarism since there is no program listing to read.

In operation the Supercharge compiler is a pleasure to use. The only time you have to do anything is if you receive an error message in the compiling process. Unlike some less sophisticated compilers, Supercharge error messages are in clear, plain English with a complete explanation of each message given in the manual. Many SuperBASIC programs may be compiled exactly as they are written, but if an error message requires a modification, it is fully explained and usually simple to make.

Just about all of my earlier problems with compilers which had been available for the earlier. Sinclair computers have been fully addressed in Supercharge. It is as close to automatic machine code programming as you can get. It is complete enough that a number of commercial programs have been successfully compiled by Supercharge. (No software or hardware is necessary for the end user to run a Supercharged program, although a royalty fee is imposed on the developer or publisher. This is in the form of a site fee which grants the use for all future developments as well.) Despite my ongoing warnings about the inadequacy of compilers, I can fully recommend Supercharge to anyone looking to increase the speed of their SuperBASIC library.

We end this month’s column by commemorating that fateful day of February 21, 1984 when Timex’s public relation firm of Ruder, Finn & Rotman issued the following statement. “We believe instability in the market will cause the value of inventories to decline, making it difficult to make a reasonable profit…Consequently the company has decided to withdraw from the retail portion of the home computer business.” With these words thousands of us became owners of orphan computers. Who would have thought that three years later we not only would still be around in the numbers that we are, but actually stronger and closer for it? They were right when they said that the power was in OUR hand.