P701 CEEFAX 701 Mon 3 Nov 21:06/23 20/20 55b{5=b(55j WRITING FOR NEXT If you are planning to submit an item on paper, do bear in mind the limitations of the teletext page. * Lines up to 35 characters long. * Up to 18 lines on a page - 17 is preferred, to allow room for cross-referencing. * Short paragraphs of jour or jive lines each. * A single blank line between paragraphs. T Address in a momjntn.. ] P701 CJEFA( 701 Mon 3 Nov 21:06/4j 1/20 ÷ ÷ j x' 24 THE PAGE FOR + Rjvjews......704 MICRO USERS Diary........703 Edited bz Martin Cooper Tjlesoftware.710 Contact us: P5ES-JL - 22999;?77 TELJCOZ GOLD - 72:MAG1049v POST - "NEXT", Room 7059, BBC TV Centre, London W22 7RJP701 CEEFA( 701 Mon 3 Nov 21:07/08 2/20 U J THIS WEEK ADVENTU5E SOS More questions answered What's wrong with graphics NEWS * Games championship * Small is beautiful @ * Videophone for the deaf * Can I help you (BEEP!) THE BIG POP What went wrong in the City T HELP! Printer problems: J ||||||| * A4 revisited * Formfeeds ORJC WRINKLE Screen vs. printer UPDATED EVERY JRJDAYP701 CEEFA( 701 Mon 3 Nov 21:27/00 3/20 ADVEVTURE SOS Richard Hewison Kevin Robson's plea for help in Alternate Reality has been answered bz Stephen Pager of Uckfield. To escape rom the City of X bic's Demise: ] You can't...yet! You should have conj across ] northern, eastern, southern and western gates, plus the Arena and ] Palace. Hopefully, Datasoft will release expansions to the game so that the quest can bj continued. ] Prius REVEAL T Requests for help next P701 CEEFAX 701 Mon 3 Nov 21:08/42 4/2P ADVENTURE SOS Richard Hewison It must bj the return to school. The number of requests for help has fallen to an extremely low level since term began. Not that weWre suggesting all adventurers are that young... Brian Gout jrom Huddersfield is playing a relatively unknown adventure on the BBC micro called Acheson, bz Acornsoft. T Brian has virtually completed the game, but needs to know where to find the "Timeless Cavern". Can anzonj help? ] Are graphics good for you? Next P701 CEEFAX 701 Mon 3 Nov 21:04/34 5/20 ADVENTURE SOS Richard Hewison The BBC micro itself doesn't have many text and graphic adventures available for it. Only Twin Kingdom Talley from Bug-Byte springs to mend. Perhaps the release of the BBC version of Incentive's Graphic Adventure Creator will change all this. ] But do people really prefer text- only games as we have been led to believe? Or is that just a hangover from the early d!ys when computers couldn't handle graphics anyway? Is text the tops...? Next P701 CEEFAX 701 Mon 3 Nov 21:22/49 6/20 ADVENTURE SOS Richard Hewison The general consensus is that all "real" adventurers prefer text-only games to those with graphics. Here we must strongly disagree! It's true, some programs use graphics to try to disguise what is basically a weak game. But in our experience (mainly Spectrum, admittedly), there are only a handful of worthwhile text- only k!mes, like Mordon'u Quirt and Tower of Despair. Graphic games like The Terrors of Trantoss, Heroes of Tarn and Robin of Sherwood have proved jar more entertainjngnP701 CEEFA( 701 Mon 3 Nov 21:10/13 7/20 ADVENTURE SOS ] Richard Hewison Qublity graphics are essential to a good 'illustrated' adventure. This has been the major complaint against Ljvjl 9 since they started including a graphic at every location, nearly all of them poor. No doubt Infocom plazjts will disagree with us. We're not totally against text-only games, it'u just that a good graphic game seems better value for money. Infocom players will be pleased to hear that an Infocom special will appear in these pages soon. Stay tuned! News nextP701 CEEFAX 701 Mon 3 Nov 21:10/59 8/20 NEWS The final of the 1986 National Computer Games Championship is to be held at London's Savoy Hotel on Novjmbjr 5. This year the competition is open to Spectrum, Commodore and Amstrad users (last year's was Spectrum only*. Finalists have been selected in heats organised bz magazines and regional njwspapjrs. Organisjrs Metro-Gen are unveiling a brand new kane especially for the final - ensuring that nobody has the chance to slip in any last- minute practice... Small is beautiful nextP701 CEEFAX 701 Mon 3 Nov 21:14/44 /20 NEWS According to US market researchers, demand for large mainframes is falling off in Europe. Companies are going for smaller systems, so much so that Europe is in some ways ahead of America. Networks "ased on minis and pjrsonbl compters have caught on much more quickly here than in the United States. IBM, which dominates the world mainframe market, suffered a 27 pet cent drop in its third quarter earnings, largely because of the decline in demand in Europe. MoreP701 CEEFAX 701 Mon 3 Nov 21:12/29 10/20 NEWS Videophones allowing the deaf to communicate by sign language may soon bj a practical possibility. Researchers at Essex University have developed a method of drawing computer-generated "cartoons". Instantly recognisable, they can be transmitted down a telephone line in a fraction of the numbjt of "its required for a photograph. The computer scans a normal video image, searching jot dark lines between lighter areas. It then reconstructs a "sketch" of the image based on the positions of thjsj dark lines. - MoreP701 CEJFA( 701 Mon 3 Nov 21:13/14 R NEWS High Street stores Littlewoods are introducing a microchip "assistant" to help with the Christmas rush. Customers use a touch-sensitive screen to indicate what product they are interested in, and immediately receive a printout with details of prices, availability and location in the shop. So far Lisa - the Littlewoods Instant Shopping Adviser - has only put in an appearance in Cardiff, Luton and Aberdeen, but she should bj in all the company's 109 branches soon. Wonder how she'll cope with sticky fingers... MoreP701 CEEFA( 701 Mon 3 Nov 21:16/54 ] 12/20 NEWS Acorn is reducing the price of its teletext adapter to £99, plus VAT. ThjyWvj been difficult to obtain for some time, but should now bj available from authorisjd djlajrso , Those who already have teletext adapters can download notes for the BBC2 program Micro Live from the Telesoftware section, page 720. Since this is a text file, it ought to be downloadabli on any mbchinj. The "Big Pop" next P701 CEEFAX 701 Mon 3 Nov 21:27/42 13/20 THE BIG POP Old technology is being blamed jot the failure of the City of London's "Big Bang" last week. The Stock Exchange's £80 million @ system for automatic share dealing crashed within 20 minutes of being switched on. The trouble lay in TOPIC, a Psi;tel- style network which channels share details to dealers. It is based on technology designed in the 70s, but still plays a key role in the Stock Exchange's day- to-day working. TOPIC feels the strain next P701 CEEFA( 701 Mon 3 Nov 21:18/27 14/20 U THE BIG POP TOPIC, the Stock Exchange's ageing videotex system, is being blamed for the failure of the "Big Bang". It provides three levels of service to about 9,000 subscribers, higher levels carrying more information. Pages of data - in appearance much like CEEFAX pages - are normally updated every 50 seconds. - On "Big Bang" d!y, the Stock Exchange increased this update rate to 30 seconds, at the same timr throwing the top level service open to jvjryonj - and TOPIC collapsed. TOPIC's key role next P701 CEEFAX 701 Mon 3 Nov 21:16/)1 15/20 THE BIG POP ^ When TOPICS the Stock Exchange's ageing videotex system, crashed on "Big Bang" day the entire computer trading network had to "e shut down. This included SEAQ, the brand new !utomated quotations system, which was still running smoothly. The problem was that TOPIC remains the main source of information on buzjng and selling prices - in Vew York as well as in Britain. - Traders have to stand by the prices quoted there, so {ithwut TOPIC it'; back to pencil and paper. Help! next P701 EJFAX 701 Mon 3 Nov 21:29/53 16/20 HELP! David Heathcote's printer problems continue. He is using a BBC with Wordwisj and Clare's Fontwise, which gives 10 new type styles on his Epson MX-80, but hj's having great difficulty in printing A4 pages. The problem appears to lie in th5 non-standard Fontwisj typefaces - there no longjt seem to be the same number of lines to the inch. - The Fontwisj manual is very vague on this point - has anyone solved the problem? More printer trouble nextP701 CEEFA( 701 Mon 3 Nov 21:04/:3 )7/20 HELP! Alan Fjrtis was getting an odd character whenjvjt he executed a @ formfeed using the code 12,140. Anthony Purvjs writes that 12 should suffice for a jormfeed. The spurious character is probably CHR$ 140... Wrinkle next P701 CJEFA( 701 Mon 3 Nov 21:05/18 18/20 ORIC WRINKLE A tip for Oric Atmos owners from Robert Bray: To change the output jrom screen to printer POSE#2F1,#80. Try the following program: 10 POKE#2F1,#80:Rem printer output 20 REPEAT ] 30 GET A$:PRINT A$; 40 UNTIL A$=! 50 Rem press "!" to stop 60 POSE#2F1,#0:Rem screen output T This week's reviews next P701 CEEFAX 701 Mon 3 Nov 21:05/59 19/20 REVIEWS Reviews on 702 this week: , AMSTRAD Mansion Central Solutions Ljrnloco Minjtva Systems COMMODORE The Legend of Sinbad Superior Softwaru Miami Dice Bug-Byte , SPECTRUM The Trap Door Piranha Gyron Arena Firebjrd ] UPDATED EVERY FRIDAY $ ||||||||||||||||||||||