Update April 1988

Date: April 1988

Articles

  • S.N.U.G. Sinclair Northamerica Users Group
    During one of the organizational meetings of the recent Sunstate Timex/Sinclair Winterfest ’88, the idea of a National organization for the advancement of Sinclair computing came up. It was decided that since we had developed a “core group” that was dedicated to promoting Sinclair computing, we would attempt to lay the groundwork for such an
  • The Changing Complexion of Timex-Sinclair Computing Seen at the Orlando 1988 Winter Fest
    This issue of Up-Date was delayed a week to report upon the Orlando 1988 Winter Fest. Representing the Western USA was Tim and Stephanie Woods (Time Designs Magazine), and the Central USA was represented by the staff of SyncWare News and attendees from the Michigan user group.
  • Budget
    This BUDGET program Is In three parts. First the long program in BASIC Is given. When the listing is keyed in the program will work right away by RUN. BUDGET is really a spreadsheet software that has the purpose of planning a annual household budget and then tracking the expenditures, providing various comparisons, and displaying
  • SDOS AUTO_DEX, MARK_MOVE, AND VERI_DISK
    DOSDEX stores and accesses from a single disk an index of more files than most will ever get around to using. AUTO-DEX provides an automatic search for a given title. MARK-MOVE moves files from one disk to another. VERI-DISK checks the integrity of files on the disk. All are adapted from programs written by Roelof
  • The Issue Disk
    The UP-DATE ISSUE DISK is a valuable tool to verify all of your key-in work. Larken Disk section contains Budget by Robert Mitchell. John Oliger and Larry Kenny for the nucleus of the 2068 disk drive support system; Aerco has slowed developed of FD-68 DOS.
  • Dense Pack Basic: A Method to Conserve Memory and Speed Up Basic
    Dense Pack BASIC employs memory and time saving techniques integrated with BASIC programming. It is not a new langauge, but a “method of programming.”
  • A Practical Study of System Variables: Put Them to Use with BASIC.
    Examines several system variables and how users could use them in programming.
  • A Utility that uses System Variables
    The following utility really should be in the EXTRA MEMORY section, because It Is so useful be able to MOVE a BASIC program to a specific STARTING MEMORY ADDRESS, It Is a take off from the “MOVE” utilities given In the January issue of UP-DATE, but, we are discussing the use of SYSTEM VARIABLES, and
  • Screen Files in Strings
    The following demo listing shows how up to a maximum of 704 characters in a 32-column text screen such as a menu may be stored in a string, then printed back on-screen either from RAM storage or after retrieval from disk or tape files.
  • The Mysterious "DEF FN and FN" Functions
    The two functions DEF FN and FN are used together like bread and butter to store math formulas in memory and then solve the problems by input of the missing factor.
  • Jack in the Redwoods Heard From
    SYNX is a 46-byte relocatable machine language reoutine for Aerco disk users. It allows you to turn off the BASIC syntax checker when writing or editing BASIC lines and to turn it back on. Syntax checking during program execution remains in effect.
  • A Review of a Aerco FD-68 Utilities Program Disk
    This is a nifty set of disk utilities for the Aerco FD-68.
  • A Universal Treatment for Bugs in the Program Area
    Editorial about John Oliger’s article, “Problems in using the new V2.4 MERGE Command,” and how the techniques can be applied to debugging programs.
  • Book Review: Epson, Epson, Read All About It!
    Review of Julie Knott and Dave Prochnow’s book about Epson printers.
  • Problems in Using the New V2.4 "Merge" Command
    Problems traced to attempting to merge corrupt programs.
  • SAFE Questions and Answers
    Questions about Oliger 2068 Disk I/F and JLO SAFE DOS.
  • The Larken Disk Section
    This section in UP-DATE is devoted to providing information about the Larken Disk System(s) in the same manner as we provide the section titled “Computing with SDOS, by John Oliger.”
  • Accessing LKDOS from Machine Code
    The DOS is easy to access from machine code using the internal jump table starting at address 120 in the cartridge. The jump table is a list of 20 or so entry points to the most often used sub-routines in the dos.
  • FREE Blocks
    This routine allows you to find the number of free blocks with out displaying the catalog. It will return the number of free blocks in the BC register, so it can be accessed from basic with PRINT USR FREEBL or LET K=USR FREEBL.
  • Move Catalog to Upper Ram
  • The Hungry Orphans
    There are two TS-2068 Disk Drive Systems that are still in use despite the fact the their manufacturers have discontinued support of the systems. These are The RAMEX MILLENIA and the TIMEX of PORTUGUAL Disk drive systems. UP-DATE will publish every bit of information about these “orphan” disk drive systems that we can lay our
  • A Little About Me
    I am a native Floridian, second generation. I have written several articles and letters for TDM, SPDOS SURF, and now TS 2068 UPDATE. Among my credentials is a BS in Computer Science and I am working on my MS at present. You may or may not have heard of the University of Central Florida (a
  • Shell
    The listing in this article allows you to COPY or ERASE any or all of the files on a disk. The first part asks you what you want to do in a series of questions. The second part of the program creates a sequential file using the screen channel. This redirects the screen output to
  • The History of the RAMEX Millenia K
    There once was a little orphan computer named TS 2068. Like all orphans, it was not responsible for being an orphan. Along came the carpet baggers. Ramex was just one of many of this species. They sought to exploit the poor orphan by making grandeous additions. When the orphan was unable to support their standard
  • Fractions: Hard for Youngsters and a Problem for Programming
    Those of you who have had to help your children with fractions in arithematic have probaby wished you had a driller for them. The following program can provide that driller and its two major subroutines can be used as a bcusis for your own program.
  • Checker: A short Lesson on SPDOS
    The SPDOS system call is one that checks for a filename’s existence on a disk. If you try to load a file that is not on your disk, SPDOS will create an error that cannot be trapped by the usual ON ERR GOTO.
  • The Issue Disk Program
    Generally, the feature programs included in the issue diskette are original programs never before offered to the TS-2068 user group and not for sale from other sources. The April Issue diskette will include the Feature Software “Budget”, plus the compiled program, plus the printer annex, plus the customized “Loader Manager” for either Oliger Safe, or
  • The North American Timex Sinclair Association
    The Florida User Groups, who organized [the 1988 Orlando] Winter Fest, came to Orlando with a plan to organize a national Timex Sinclair association. “National” was changed to “North American,” a more appropriate name wihc includes the Canadian user groups. Eric and Mary Lynn Johnson are the key persons. The two had major parts in
  • System Variables and Number Storage
    Appendix D of the TS-2068 user manual gives four pages of “System Variables”, which most users klnda ignore, These variables are used by the TS-2068 operating system to control things, and we users can use the vars to advantage. The most confusing thing about the tables are the “two byte numbers”, which leaves us out
  • Whither Goest, TS-2068 UP-DATE
    This April issue of UP-DATE marks the third of a four issue year, and a time for a decision for the second year. I am having fun publishing UP-DATE and learning a bit with each issue. But it is a lot of work: I hope that you like what is being done because it has
  • TS-2068 Publication Support
    There are some excellent small publications that are worthy of a look: QZX, CATS Newsletter, QL USA, D-FW Data Expansion, ZX Appeal, SINCUS News, DATSN, The Plotter, Timelinez, Smug Bytes, LISTing, FDD Newsletter, SINC LINK.
  • TS-2068 Cottage Software Support
    Fairware (Jack Dohany), Chia-Chi Chao, RMG Enterprises, S&K Enterprises, Lemke Software, Byte Power, Grey & Clifford, Bill Pedersen.

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