Byte Power Winter 1989

Issue 12 of BYTE POWER, the Canadian tape magazine for the Timex/Sinclair 2068, edited this time by Kristian Boisvert alone. The magazine reader holds the issue’s pages: the magazine’s introduction (founded by Eric and Kristian Boisvert in May 1986, and over 130 programs in 12 issues), copying rules, a call for submissions, the editor’s note, a review of Larken’s MAXCOM terminal and BBS software, a page of instructions for each program and a tape catalogue. In his note Kristian says Eric had taken a full-time job, so some promised programs were held back and the magazine would officially become quarterly with fewer programs per issue.

The MAXCOM review covers the 300-baud (2050 modem) and 1200-baud (Z-SIO RS232) versions, and reports a 64-column display that prints only 63 columns, an Xmodem upload that keeps sending EOT, non-standard 512- and 1024-byte Xmodem block sizes, and some wrong IBM graphics characters. It found the BBS side worked well.

The download has each item on the tape as a separate TAP and TZX, a recording of the whole tape as WAV, and issue12.txt, the text pulled from the magazine reader. The reader is a BASIC loader that loads a 15,081-byte code block at 27700 and 19,763 bytes of page text at 38800.

Programs on the Tape

• AIRSHIP: Airship I (Robert Zarembka), an animation program in the style of his Rockets from the Fall 1988 issue: pick one of 18 airships, from Zeppelin LZ-1 and the Hindenburg to the Goodyear Blimp and Skyship 600, and watch it launch
• EX PLOT: Extended Plot (Kristian Boisvert), a 746-byte routine that lets PLOT, DRAW, CIRCLE and POINT reach the bottom two screen lines, with a faster CIRCLE; you call it with RANDOMIZE USR before each graphics command
• EX DEMO: Extended Plot Demo (Kristian Boisvert), a BASIC demonstration of Extended Plot, meant to be broken into and studied
• FORMAT: Format Disk (Kristian Boisvert), a replacement for Larken’s LKDOS format program, merged into the original
• MANIPULATE: Screen Manipulator (Kristian Boisvert), 24 screen utilities that you choose from, relocate to an address of your choice and save as code
• DANALYZER: Disk Analyzer (Kristian Boisvert), an LKDOS utility that reports tracks and sides, total space, space used by files, bad blocks and hidden files, and free space
• COPIER: Standard Screen Copier (Kristian Boisvert), prints a screen up to eight times its width and height on the TS2040 or a dot-matrix printer through AERCO, Tasman B or other interfaces, with four fonts for adding text and sample control codes for Epson, Star, IBM, Tandy DMP 105 and Gorilla Banana printers
• TUNEPLAYER: The Tune Player (Kristian Boisvert), plays five pieces of music
• CHRISTMAS: The Sounds of Christmas (Kristian Boisvert), plays five Christmas pieces
• THE END: The End (Eric Boisvert), a new version of the magazine’s closing program that doubles as a catalogue and price list of Byte Power software

Program Analysis

Most items are a short BASIC loader and a code block: Extended Plot at 64000 (the demo’s copy at 64500), the Screen Copier’s 10,000 bytes at 44400, Christmas at 58350 and the Tune Player at 58420. Airship I loads a 2,111-byte block at 50000, a 19,671-byte BASIC program and 15,900 bytes of airship data at 49500. The Format Disk and Disk Analyzer programs need a Larken disk system. The magazine notes that the Spectrum versions of the two music programs work only on a TS2068 switched to a Spectrum ROM.