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Meet Fluff - is she 
fbe CPC's answer 
to Sonic and Mario? 




Copying devices: 

Killers or cures? 







JS AA guide to: 



f ■ vr 



tMnk Tab* That ara poputarr Vou 



■ _ ___ ( j__» UtiaJI tWauj'j'j. 



opymg 
devi 



Review: 
Colour printers 



»,kilheblii( 



the Star LOA- 
th* <Kl*an ABC 24. 




^^k AA guide 
^«a«*^ Machine < 



mart who Hit* 



Wm«H H.iiry . 



% 



or piracy 
c*r are tfvey Ic oc plrpf j 



the major software companies, 
people who produce the devices and the a nti- piracy 
anrsations. Discover what each had to war 



l Review: Maps 
for MkroDesign 

Soma nHty btti of dip art far MlcroDaawjui 
that place the w h pli world at your fingertip* 
I, actually. h?i only the UK at the meaaaw 

KwMailatHwIdHM). 







— ^.. 







ilUUUi 



Type-Ins 



As the battle rage* In tb* latter* . 
about whether Typa-lna thouM be put 
bach Ml tba coverlape, w* cany on with 
our DfV pa Hc y. On* day you'll thank in. 



Interview: 
Elmsoft 



W* dared give ZapTBaAt a ntara 85 par 
Mow wa gin th* nuui who wrote It hi* 
to explain why BS par cant *wj* a*app* 




Leisure 




Reviews: 

Public Domain 



Who t»«MJi mjjor taHwiirp houin? Tha 
Public Dontani It ttill producing wn» great 
flimn , application* and utilities . ff* also 
producing some dro». But which H whifh' 




Adventures: 

The Examiner 

If your quest for knowledge include* a 
voyage 111) omjh ihv world of Cf*C tost 
admnliai than there h an* wife and 
r**p*ct*d 





Review: 



riui 



*# tha 



V**, Radical'. Fturf I 
H the full 




HT7CI 




're talking unique bare. There's 
- been another game quite like 
us. Irs a pln tfo i rn t r, sure, 
I one with a difference - you've 
to make It to the top of a 
:ular tower using the exterior 
tircese, the problem being that 
the staircase looks like rf s boon 
1 by Mleronymous Bosch. 



N*1ao#i* to SPEECH m »oft»#*r» ipftch 
ynthpsisir for the Ami trad r*ng* a 



uirti only flK 
hr included 






SPEECH un undorttand dtait* ** veil 
is Irtttri, »nd a dwwm icif a* * p*UI 

ISAY,~S, 4, 3,2,1,0 MS h*vr lift off " 

A qurition iiuk < ^ ) *t th» end of 
in* Mill ran* th# pitch of the l»* 



on n*rh 




Round up: 
Shoot-'em-ups 



Thft month'* m* t»J Invent of Tb* Good,, Th* 
Bad And Th* Ogly tak** a look at what ii 
probably the mo*t popular form of 

computer 9JMf** - tfc* t liO Wt -'OlW-Up, 





41 



Game tips: 
Cheat Mode 



chut. And he+r are three 
essential Info that'll help 

i do J*rrt that |*o long as what yWr* * 
taHin itbi CPC gin I. Hurt ft). 



d what your CPC* 
b r te t p ie ta t J o n of Hamlet would be 
like H only rt could speak? Here'i 
e to fmd out (but don't 
■ Oscar nominations), 
s your CPC do the taNcbi 
long as you tell It what to say. 



Turn Use 



for full 




COVERTAPE 



itiint mw.m im. m w ** 
iaus 



1 






Mvlconf to SPEECH * i«ftyirf *j>**ch 
untfifiiitr for the Anatrad mngt o 
on* oonputtrl. 

SPEECH ro<iitifii only OK of ntnory and 
an eaelly be inolud**l In BASIC oi 
,»ohirif cod» program 

SPEECH can understand digits *i well 



, obey your direct commandt , 

*p*»ch but with a btt of fiddling you 

riBfl * of can use Speech as part as 

ory and your own pro-am* to 

basic *r p f0 ^uce synthesiser speech 

as well or torn * r «a"y odd sound tit, 

* s*tMtee L^d Uj B program tha 

t off " normal way (using control and 



SPEECH can understand digits a* well »»u.wi™»jv«i.™™... 
* TtUtn, and a etim« act* as a pause Load the prognni the 

tsnv."s.4.3.a,i.o tte haw* urt off ■ normal way (u«ng control ant 

?nrSni ?a7t* k th* SiSofi* ft'iK* ?«! thtWMll^rkaytand 

'"»*■<* ■ Speech wlH load - you'll have 

■ ' return a couple of times while 

*•*•. I ..,- mm - »M. M r^dy, it*/l Wf *» P* *™ 1 » to"** *° 

keep an eye on the screen 

peecfi is the sort of program that Once If s loaded die program will be r 

any self-respecting matter criminal ready for you to type In wordi for 

should never be without. Perfect for the CPC to synthisisa. There are 

iota times when you need to tftsgutse your three commands available to you 

Dice or record anonymous messages In SAY. SPEAK and PITCH 



appy tancy, tailry, happy folk, 
talk about thing* you Ilka to da 
(like climbing towers and 
making your CPC speak). You've 
got to have a tape. If you don't 
have a tape, how's Clur gonna 
make your dream* coma true? 

phoneme*. Phonemes are just tha basic 
sounds that make up ■ spoken language; 
look In a dictionary and the words will be 
spelt out In phonemes In brackets before 
the definition. 

iSPIU 

For example: iSFIM.VHtNlLOIfi" 
This tells Arnold to bypass hi* phoneme 
dictionary and only speak exactly what b 
written; that's why hello needs to be spelt 
phonebcalty otherwise the CPC Jut 
roouce* iwsm 



peecfi is the sort of program that 
any self -respecting matter criminal 
should never be without. Perfect for 
mote time* when you need to disguise your 
voice or record anonymous messages In 
fact, Bief ekf s failure to take ever the world 
can be attributed to the fact that he never 
had a copy of Speech (er, I think the hard 
self's going ■ tad OTT. Our - Dave]. 

Just type in what you want It to say and 
your Amstrad writ speak And not only will It 



I filf 

For example: ISAi/tSLM' 
The *ay command wffl take the word 
In quotes, convert rt to a set of 
phonemes and speak those 




Tilt Is ftw *pb I lii>* let! tattle* vf ttw program ■ <w* 
H*a Ml «f witty tp*m*f ealttak**, Urn, It*. 



Getting your programs to talk 



I know • lot of you wont n**d this, but for thoie 
who art interested In machine code here art 
tame notes that ihould htlp you if you're thinking 
•bout using Speech In your programming 

creating a version of spaecn 
la ran at a fixed ad dra ia . 

The standard Speech program leads into 
memory at the top ot the block of memory 
reserved for the Basic system, Tha program 
requires 7,840 bytes of memory and mi the 
tyitem variable HfMEM It reduced by thit 
amount and die tpact available 'or Basic 
programs if reduced by the uma amount. 
However, the petition of HIMEM I* not fined and 
dependt on whether any resident system 
extension* {RSX'tj have been loaded before 
Speech. Thit meant diet the program mutt be 
relocated to that it wiM run correctly at whatever 



address It Is loaded. This Is done by the 
loader program SPEECH BAS 

The Speech program It 
■to red in two filet. 
SPCODE BIN and 
SPDICN.BIN. It has a number 
of section*. SPDICN.BIN It the 
dictionary file used In converting 
English language text into t phonetic form. 
Tills file can be edited using the dictionary editor 
EDIT BAS |iea later). The file SPCOOE B1N 
consists of three sections, These are. 
1 The English text to phonetics translator, 
9 The RSX operating fyitem interface, 
3 The phoneme pronc-uncer 

This last routine can be used independently 
from tfther BASIC or machine code program*. 

The tetittt way ot incorporating the Speech' 
routines info t machine code program It to make 



t copy of die routine which hai been 
relocated lo the required address. To 
do this you must m*he the 
following temporary changes 
to the Speech program. 
1 initialise the machine so 
that no RSX routines are loaded 
and me maximum amount of memory 
Is free. Do mis by pressing the ESCAPE, 
SHIFT end CONTROL keys simultaneously. 
1 Load the Speech loador program {SPEECH BAS). 
9 Che Die the addroii et which you would like the 
routine to load and run at. 

4 Set the variable RELAD In line 102 to the 
desired load address. 

5 Replace line 220 with: 220 STOP 

6 Now type RUN and press RETRUN. Speech wit 
be loaded and the routines relocated- The program 
will now stop and print the Break n 



TRAD A 



while 



mm 

For example IPIICI, 
The command PITCH followed by a 
number afters the speed at which the 
phonemes ire spoken 20 It the fastest 
af»d so give* the Impression of being 
spoken it ■ high pitch end Hi the ill 
md to it the lowest In pftch 

Bock to school 

The next program on the tape if a 
spelling Lett wfth a twin To load the * 
program you will need to have Speech 
already loaded Into your computer Type 
RUN "SPELL" to load and run the test. 

There are three difficulty levels: A, I 
and C. The lowest level, C, tests you on 
words like carat*, level B takes you on to 
more complicated words like kayos wh 
level G tests you on things like 
acomoddation and parlimentry (and yes, 
we do that know we've spelt them all 
wrong here - we dont want you cheat. 
by just referring back to this page). 

The test takes the format of a 
sentence wfth one word missing; the 
computer will say the missing word ant 
you will be prompted to type it in f If you 
want to hear the word again all you have 
to do il hit return}. Dont worry about 
things like upper case and tower case 
letters - rf s a test of spelling, not gramrn 

Disc crazy 

rf s realty easy to covert your Speech 
program to run from disc. Make sure that 
you dont write over your original cassette 
version while you're doing this. Do a 
catalogue of the tape by typing CAT and 
then hit return: make a note of exactly what 
each section of the program it called Then 
load each section separately on to your 
Amstrad and save them on to disk. Now all 
you have to do is make a few changes to 
three of the programs. Load these three 
programs hi separately, edit them and write 
them over the original hies on your disk. 
90 in SPEECH B AS to r 



The Speech 
memory map 

|stHT |M#|PH wfw VlH# ffwt vtrt tf fMUNp] 



-I start * 7ft«a c old HlMEM 
I position 



SPOtCNBiN 



I start • 544? 



I Text 

I Translator 



I Interface I 



1 Start + 4493 -. Initial entry point 



l Phoneme 
I Producer 



I Basic 
l System 



I start = New HlMEM position + 1 



cassette version of Speech supplied with the 
magazine; only after them on your disk 
copy of the program. 






; niwn Mk m ui I I * ft I • : 






■EiiK.-mwM, 



number < 1 -M J 



l»7" tilt* IS WI5TMD ACTIOH-B 
t_ 

l»i"» wy It ell n p o ther, yew, see east 
Ameld) These lex AfwnmsoMf a\* (•*. 



COVERTAPE 



m 



Getting started 

To load up titter slot of the tape, simply rewind 
ii. hold down CONTROL and press ENTER Owners 
of 6128s or 664i will have to switch their 
machine* to tape by typing I TAPE Ant 

Hip* to disk offer 



If you've got a d»k drive and you want to got a 
disk version of this month's tap* it'* easy WTiip 
out your scissors and cut off thai token at bottom 
of tNs page, chuck it in an envelope along with 
your name and address end i cheque or postal 
erder for £2 made out to Able* Audio Video, then 
send off the whole krfn haboodla to: 
1103 Otok 



Border for . 
send off tl 
MM] 



HaelaiefleJd 14 r 
at iaepawit 



Loading troubles? 

Wo make the greatest effort j to ensure our cover- 
tapes work properly, but If you've tried alt that 
and your tape's (till not loading then pop ft in the 
port | with a nolo telling us your name, address, 
type of CPC you use and a brief description of 
the problem | tr>: 
•tattOO 



1*. 



Ihre esses Era 
IT 0992 01013 1 
MB When returning faulty rapes re-vld 
yaw pl«m»e alia Include a tldmeed, 
self-addressed envelope- Thank you. 



Is ste> swlnt. We 



T© ewaewtO)M^ Itvf VI* BTVfM 

efS take yew twite ■■ ieeaf 

(M ert -III 
■keeylwi* 

i here* 



tee* 



W* 



7 Save the block of code you want using die SAVE 
command, eg: SM "HSPCCD BIN* J, loadid, l#!i. 

The value of LOADAD will normally be 34740 . To 
save the whole routine LEW should be 7,880. though 
this will bo different If you have made any changes to 
the dictionary. To save only the SPEAK routine UN 
should be 4,493. W you have made any changes to the 
dictionary then the value of LEN will be given by die 
expression LENTA8 + LENGTH (whore LENTAB and 
LENGTH are variable* in SPEECH) . 

You should now have a Ala which can be loaded 
back into the machine at a fixed address and called 
from Basic or machine code, if you're toading the full 
routine you'll need to introduce it to the AM1J005 
Operating system by CALLIng Che routine at an address 
equal to LOADAD ♦ 4493 (where LOADAD is the 
routine's load address]. The folowing Is a simple loader 
for a fee that has been relocated to load at 32000: 

10 lt*rt:3&KX) I teeth: 7*W: iut : 

»Url I 4433 

2C imi\ start -1 

JO LQ» "HSfCOMIH\iUrt 



40 CALL Init IE*, mi tit lilt the routine 
SO ISM." SPEECH! bu nM touted ' 

mm 

Just speak to me 

If only the SPEAK routine It loaded then there's no need 
to Initialise H. The SPEAK routine on Its own cant be 
called using the RSX commands I SAY, PITCH. ISPEAK. 
etc. To use the SPEAK routine alone it's necessary for 
tile main program to poke the required phonemes Into 
an area of memory at the start of the routine. This area 
occupies the first 255 bytes of Speech. The phonemes 
must be stored as upper case letters and digits and 
must be folowed by a newtine character CHRS{1 3). The 
routine b called at address START « 256 (where START 
is the address of the routine). 

100 m i mm version of SPEECH? hii 

dim loaded, it address sUrl 

110 phcrirntsJ : VKEKLWMS I» «2H At 

KOvHPWITIR" 

130 370H i = 1 TO LEHCphflinefltJl} 



140 POKE i*iUrt'l.*SC<«IDlfphoii*ritiJ,i,lJ) 
lSvHfXT 1 



160 POKE iHUrt,l3 
170 CALL start t £56 

Colling Speech 

In this section the address start hi the load address of 
the Speech routine. The pitch of the sounds can be 
altered by poking a number corresponding to the 
required pitch into the location START * 285. This 
number must be between 3 and 255, 3 being the 
highest pitch, 255 being very low, 

The sound channel through which Speech 
operates can be altered bom rti initial value, 
ie. through both channels, by poking one of 
die following values Into die location 
START ♦ 301. 

8 - sound through left channel. 

9 - both channels, 

10 • right channel only. dW J^ 
Oh yeah - and fume fun {as j§p 
Simon would say). Mm 




COVERTAPE 



iSyp^ii 




r J »-T 



the all 
nnhofjj ' ■ ■ ■ —» *» frankly haven't got a due. But somehow you've 

— •, to navigate your w«ry to the very top of no low than eight 



*> 



iTTHFTTV n? 



' ' 



/ i 



Uftf will nki yH 
«•> I* where y*w 

» la be, but b* 
careful - t»M« of 
them may b* trapf. 




•••"will 



been 

month when Wt 

any work does because them ._ 
been 10 many people crammed info the 
office Why' Nobulut, that's Why If* c 
at much of a ttir in the office m EH* 
The Nintendo and Sega f oati from the 
neighbouring offices have been 
popping round at regular 
vrtervsls to have a blast - 
then, we"va been popping 
round to Super Ptty 
recently to play ft/yo 
Puyo to I suppose "" 
only fair PufO Plr; 
in case you didn't . 
a Terns style game on 
SNES with a fentaaee i 
player mode, end It has < 
important thing in common i 
Nebutus - an adoptively simple . 
All you have to do tt guide your 
amputated frog-tike sprite to the top of a 
tower where a rochet ship wM be watting to 
whisk him off to another tower (its not a vary 
meamngfu! job for the poor tttbe chap, but 
you have to gat work where you can). Frog 
features can walk, jump or shoot. Notice the 



i' 1 : ' 'if ; 




■*- --■*■ ■ 
wMI I 



O 



I. 



Watery s*a>-fe»et» ewelt pee H yee're 
geedeewr^ 




that latt sentence 
cant wait and shoot at 
same time, because If 
. moving pressing Are wW 
mako hen jump - he has to be 
onary to use him weapon 
.i doesn't help th<ng$ much. 
*•■, because loads of the aliens you 
encounter ara co mp let el y Invincible The 
only way to get past em Is to avoid em. by 
running under, jumping over or just making 
sura you don'l go anywhere near em, 

There are eight towers to tackle. It may 
not sound like a lot. but behave me, unless 
you re some sort of Einstein it'll take you a 
fair while before you sol foot on the roof of 
the final tower But when you do, 
donl gtve up there - go back and 
| can do it all any qui 



lit Ian aut f«r Hi* b*«p whin Hi* wJbbly 
red lumpy HiJnga (iim oh i<r**n> 



COMPLETE 
CONTROL 



Left and 
right control 
your sprite 



: O 



C3 3 



up end down 

activate ma lifti 

|N he's standing en one). Rre button 1 makes 

htm jump H you rn moving and muhei him ftre 

his weapon if he's standing still 



tot 



I L 



I I I 






t T 



B 



Y 



i ii i 




i 



r 



I 




WAREHOUSE CLEARANCE! 



AMSTRAD GAMES CARTRIDGES 

FOR THE 6I28 + /464 + /GX4O0O 

WE ARE ABLE TD OFFER THE FOLLOWING GAMES 

CARTRIDGES AT 

A SPECIAL OFFER PRICE OF £9.99 

(WHILE STOCKS LAST):- 



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*PRD TENNIS TOOfl 
tBARBARIAH II 
♦ BATMAN 



* OPERATION THUNDERBOLT 

♦ SWITCH HADE 
frlLAX 

♦ ROB0C0P II 

• PANG 



AIL GAMES ARE UNBOXED AND WITHOUT INSTRUCTIONS 
DON'T DELAY ORDER TODAY? 

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ntcuAK PHAzm gun wmi sheet shoot cartkdoe 

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1]1I<»I 



(I V(Jt ttTHII) I IK| Kill) H I IIMUiH Rll.l ! VR MMI [Mi I 1ST I ll|< 
■SPECIAJ oil I KM It I'll v>l Wfelli wii \ihisi 1 1 s STATING WHICH 
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ALL ORDERS SENT BV RETURN: 

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«-M 1 IJ 




J 



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WINNERS... 



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Tel: 061 724 7572 




NEWS 



Wh 




ctt's hot and not what's not on the CPC news front. 



, 



off the 



Wall, 

Uf pawty t«fJUU Dm 
fi n H i r flu irllitM 1 

f e IWuiy got tits office 
cleared up after the 
massive issue 100 
celeb ra ti on s (and Simon finally 
rOCOVeroe irui|l «■• «W|gu*wil wnon 

roaliitien dawned thti year also 
marks the luth 

birthday of (he CPC _ 

*™onll* ThC •' 

Apr* 1994 at the « *__- 

¥fe sc i *«to r School 3»W** 

in London thatAUn TH« 3*w 

-"■ ■_ ■ ^i J JiAAA AUi 1 



Campursoft 
conveyor belt 
continues 

Campursoft have announced that 
their nert project* are a video tiding 
package and a revamped CAD 
(Computer Aided Design) program 

The company have acquired the 
rights id an old CAD package called 
PCfl Designer 
which they intend 
to update and 
improve. There 
are tew details on 
the video titling 
package at yet. 

Meanwhile. 
Ba sic f dea . 
Campursoffs 

advanced on-diic g£| 1 | } ( J J { | [ 
coding tutorial 

which wd were due to review this 
issue, hot been delayed but should 
ho out t eon. The company* new 
version of the DTP package 



Street crime? 

Mystery surrounds the origins of 
Street Refly. the game from CPC 
Now! we re v ia — d ei issue 101. 

First, we found a virtually 
identical game on the C64. 
identical apart from two major 
facton - die C64 version wai In 
rtalian and it was PO 

Then we had a phone all from a 



3-iiKh au»* 

« - .k rittc ha* fsMRr 

Th, 3-«wh *« "** ^^ 



ugar nrsi umeasnoo » w ~ «nv to 

IK. CPC and changed ^^U , 

horn* computing a* the *** *»• 

MknewlLtea the t*>** °" ** ,, 

thame ttwtsubsaquer, MM^-^^ 
rnacNrws havenl k*pt rea*" 1 - *• °"7 "V 
Bw CPC at the forefront ,* iknp*|f *■* * h ?* 
of micro technology but «jtkn* «« u « ,, 



M/croDesign Plus 
should alio be 
available in a few 
months 

Contact 

Campursoft on 

TJ041S54 

4735 



Ihe Colour Personal 
Computer has been a 
tenacious Httia boast, proving to be 
ihe most durable of the eighl -tuts, 
outlasting the Spectrum and the 
rapidly fading C64, When the major 

games, both these old statsssftj 
faded rapKty. but Ihe CPC has 
survived because It was more than 
kist a garnet machine; CPCers' 
Interest in the lenouf side of 
comp u t in g and coding has kept (ho 
CPC scene bulling long after the 
budget games flopped corning. 

Plot that there aren't sal games 
corning out for the CPC- fluff 
[though much delayed) looks set to 
be eicesent and the forthcoming 
Megabiasfers also looks set to 
came a storm. Pen 



Quantum 
relocate... again 

Leaving a trail of unhappy 
customers behind them. Quantum 
recently relocated for the second 



IMs ittfojM be I 



rumt ui.u. *i»*J outrun t. 

rWOPatftT Bw «».S ♦!!») Cupur 
HMMt ■'■ iiimllrr *I*B* *rn»r 

aetteos to xss i*eo, i*i,(«Bij) a*». 

Mr ills, bit Daw* iHitene Br+**mr 



Robot reopened 

Robot PD. run by AA's own Richard 
Fairfturft. is now back in operation, 
but with a slightly new look . It will 
only be dealing in software which ft 
produces Itself [stufl that Richard's 
written, basically I This includes 
things lika the DTP package 
PoweiPege and ChaFHeyrraCker. a 
new music package 

All discs cost £2.95. hut you need 
to include a stamped addressed 
envelope to cover the return postage. 

Richard * new limine. Setter 
Than Life, which includes a disc, is 
also available now from Robot, 
priced £2. 25 plus an SAE. 

Contact Robot at 2 Trent Road, 
Oakham. Rutland LE1S 6HF 



time within a few months. The 
company, which is the sole 
supplier of the PeraDOS utility, has 
run into trouble and had major 
delays in sending products out 
owing to. "a problem with our 
ROMs suppliers ," according to 
technical director Dan Heatiey. 

"I wotid hke to apologise 
to my customers," says 
Heattcy These ROsts wM 

Ullfl.i 



April 19 



AMSTRAD ACTION 




Mr David Gardener who was 
surprised to see ■ fame he had 
picked up a couple of years ago In 
Blackpool called Street Machine, 
being reviewed under the name 
Street Rally as ■ new game. Street 
Machine cam* from a software 
company called Powerhouse and 
was written by a Kevin Stone 

James Hackney of CPC Newf 
says that when he came the gam* 
Street Ratiy *rt didn't have any 
copyright notices on it" and to 
decided to market It here. 

tf anyone else can shed any 
light on this affair, please contact 
in here at A* Amstrad Action 
office But whatever you do. don t 
buy the game. 



Is N easy fjeW? 



Bong! come 
bouncing bode 

The pan-European coding group 
B*ngf. responsible for many of the 
best games on the PO ekrutt Is 
picking itself up and sulking out 
in new directions after losing a 
few key members (a* reported In 
last month's Amstrad Action) 

The group hat divided into two 
sections - One for Hie CPC the 
ether for the PC. This means that 
ns e inuoss tempted over to the PC 
can refrain m touch with the CPC 
Side o« mings -Now Sengl will nse 
■Sam as the best group on the 
CPC,* reckons Bend coder DSC 



tched at soon as possible . 
im is undergoing a few 
orgatvsatioiur changes jhopefulry for 
the better). Could anybody who is shB 
waiting tor Quantum stuff hold onto 
their pants and drop us a Bne just To 
remind us of their grievances " 

Quantum is now based ki 
Swansea and is being headed by 
Dan Heatiey and Matt Guflum of 
Presto PD tame The new address is 
UOTyn-Y-Ceo. 
A M wen, Pontardawe. 
Swansea. West 
Glamorgan SAB 3DN 
H 0792 830329 



NEWS 





l» WV WIT TO ftft fllKIUfl A d Ift flM 

Directory' or Y ov kiuw 
of any information that rteads to bo 
updated,, write to: AmMene 
Dlr*«tory, Amftrad Action, Future 
Publishing, 30 Monmouth Street, 
Both, Avon 8A1 26 W. 



i] hi 



iri< 



PD Lib i 

Amttt 

• UhwJt- Ci«r". 

MJMfafan, Iral—J 

large range of European stuff 
Sraysatt 

■ 1 *t M*>*.>«1 . N»4, Marling 4il««J. 

Haatt kiii «*r 
3- «ch disks only. 

Colrob PD 

* * 4*la***4 I 



Htw tape-only PD kbrary 

Dart* ma 

tr oa» ■■■ tt»o 

-4* mnMm ■ *•*, Hvautaaa. 

iHd« it i* rai. 

They have arso taken over Debbie 

How.vl! -, Adventure PO collection, 
uennon 



3 ^ifKh oi>i;t. jvaieble 
Oi*fc PO 



114 ruL 

OD PD 

i utai iw 



Imago PO 



It 

| Mm provides j ogiiiscig service 
Nta 



A pottcy of 'no serous vollware' 

Pa war PD 

* 13 L» p a l ul, ©■-»■ *»r. Fir m I n ■■ ■ m , 
Wait MkJUaaW *4 3. 

Protta PD 

* 33 liil Inn, laaaiway, > l .illnfl«li. 
ll...hir, f Wi lOO 



Signal Software 



" •> tanal»l. <liiil Burr. *< r *..n«h. *• 
Will aMalanrii l4j 

Shoopiatt 

IT 044* 73*11* 

Bused in Wales, of course, Bmsn 

Sleepwalker PD 

" ftiik laffwapwi J** M i ilW If r f> 

MaaHaa If**** t lW Ti lpi«ll Cti»n*fl. H, 

t i viB»vtvT rrx 

Specul otter to Afi readers - d you send 
Joe a d»k hel send you a tree selection of 
PO Orriy one sefethan per person, please 

Tha Vault 

-43 WlnaVlaM Oarakni. OfWn lahl, 
Oal-. Tl l>. la* J 
~ OIO 111(1 HJ04 

A new but >aptd)y expanding library with 
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Ultimate PD 

* 3* W«.4tt4» Ini, Ira*. Wind. 

Ne* PO library that specialises m 3cnch 
ind tapes ana has a wide selector 
of •mathematics' programs available 
(sfrtiatever that means] 



FanxinD* 

Amtxine 

• Owr***, U — lai M r *++4, *♦- **l«". 
Via HnkrM*, H13 41 u 

tt 0443 744*43 

The tliminolor 

• 14 tl_H.- >„a. *I.<*M. M, Mart* 

Tat4)»Mr* «« 4QJ 

CPC User 

a »» M*J*i 

TheUAUG'sfanane 

CPC Undercover 

• 3 r Walip ■■art—, 
■»—!■■> ■!■«, eta. !■ Iiln 

A tjxliȣa*yn*hded fanzine that's also on 
the look out for wntr- 
Ultra Ohm 

• 34 laHHHf Tarrwa, lH»i"«'-l» 
Ihi.l, Ca Sarhaai, 0*13 3HW 

Cassetlebased mult) formal fanzine from 
the man who used to produce Am-Com 



Amilrad Conlntt 

a *40» t»33*» 

Susseibased group that also runs a 
lechncat helpMie lor CPC users. 

UAUG [United 

Am lira tt Ultf Group) 

ft •«» 9»l»l 

An AA fecornrntnoed user group 

WACCI 

ft MQIJUIOI 

II you're seriously into the techy side of 
the CPC then you reaty slwulcri'l be 

missmg out on WACO They're lab 



Indepi 

S« 



■R»ci*>R*» 

re 

nies 



Avatar 

tr 0374 4O3140 



Suppliers oi Phi Craven products, and a 
few ot Ihe Borwo titles . 



Compwraott 
ft 041 S14 47 jj 

you name <i. they do it. realty - take a 
look at the interview n ish %, 

DMP Saftwara 

* 10 Wat»arhaip T an HaaV, tea***, 

WnU.rh.pl... wvi 1 n 

Over 30 home-programmed games and 
serious programs on both tape and disi 

Gary A Scott Kennedy 

ft 0*1 T»* 19<M 

Autbors ot rrotiers, a Iruty greal CPC 
game (don't argue) 



New Ago 

ft 61#4t-7n-41»1f» 

Responsible fw 2%>TBm. u» v*t4k& 
SoundtrarAer, and. hopefully, a few 
more lines prelty soon 

Radical Software 
a on at* m«i 

SW f eteasng topcjuaiiiv, rvjw sofrware 
lor the CPC, H you've written a program 
you trur* is worth rplea^rsg thts tol wouW 
love to hear from you, 

SD Micro iy* torn* 

ft OT*0 T30301 

Specialists « business software - take • 

look at the leature n AA93 

Sentinel Software 
ft e*i *re T033 

Suppkers d< veleded STS lines and a 
lew original products They doriT art 
chum 'em out 

airaa Saftwara 
o 0*1 ru rav 1 

rt d take a heJ of a brne 10 kst everytiwg 

(hey do - check out the* ad (if S the 

yellow half-page one) 

VerySoft 

• 4*0 •»,!.... I..d Wi.,l„:j 
l*t«*a, *»r**f*ia-i, *a«ra Varaahlra. 

The people who brought you The Owper 
and Comparitrjr TheyVe also on the look 
out tor new progr«hrnaht. 

Big Softies 

So you can ring them up and hassle 'em 
aboul releasing some ntw stufl 

AJtarnat Ivo Saftw ar a 

ft 0#T7 7*7777 

CodoMaitar* tr 0*34 414131 
Otemlln/OBH n 0743 t»j*i3 
Ocaan Hit Squad 

ft 0*1 *J» 4*33 

Tllui Fan Hit* • oti roo 911* 
TautfidowM 17 «]*■ HI 13* 



Virgin n on »oo tui 

US Cald/KlMM ft oil is* nil 

Xappalln Saftwara 

« 0*1 3*1 773S 

H ca r cl wes r o 

Data! ft trti raerer 

The place to go lor mee, ormjers, 

memoty expansions, atl that sort ol stislf 

Mkroforai hu«Ti faat a 1 

Dimes, upgrades, disks, al sorts Of 

lechy stuff kke ttiat 

Romantic Rabat 
IT oai 100 a*70 

Creators of the Mufhface 

WAV! v 01 1« »»io» 

Suppliers ot loadsa good stuff - ther ad 
« on the back cover. 

Software 
suppliers 

OJ Saftwara ft d»; *xi*ip 

Fait tnendlj' server. Ihe ad Says And 
it's right The/ve got an -npressrveiy 
wide variety ol software on alter as weU 

S aftw ar a Cavarn o **» H1 1*1 

Probatory the largest selechon of CPC 
Software For sale m the known unrverse. 
Saftwara txpro** 

V 044 3 34014* 

A new company m InverrM' 

Tronic* North 

ft 010*1*7 at» F*+ 

• WhlTllt, ll * . F) , Q l H 4 l l*t* 



4*14. 

The largest supplw of software and CPC j 
pieces *r the stwthern hernijphere 



ill 



hftDHIlMlIlt 

They're altering kuds of cut price 

^es at the moment 
Tra|*sa ft **»4 iir.ti 

The people to speak to lor cartridge and 

kghtguil stutf 

Wtierd •■■■! v ot33 ****** 

Games, games and yet more games, 
basicalry on every imagmable forma! 

Upgrades 
and repairs 

Avatar 

03 7 4 *03iao 

WTS llactraalc* 

O tHI 4*1*4* 

Amsirad autnor isrfd repavs speciakv | 



How to be sure you'll get 1 04 



Be prepared for anything Expect the unexpected 
You never know rt could happen You're local 
newsagent might (are you sitting down' I run out of 
coe*** of Amrtrad Acflonl 

You might think, if ■ one of thow thing* thai Only 
happem to other people But It could happen to you. 
What you need H soma insurance and wo tutv* the 
pottey to sun you. All you have to do it Ml In the pottcy 
document to the right and hand II to MM second party 
(your newsagent) and hall save a cosy of the third 
party lArnsFrad * 



iAG 




Dear Newsagent, 

Please save mn a copy of 

ACTION**? 

. ..every month. It comet out every third Thursday 
ot the month and it produced by those wonderful 
people at Future Publishing 

rYljjr* naUTMS HMfeMMM ■,*■■ ■■■■iiriaraiaiaii*i ri***l + tt*r+1 #■■•-■" 

j My address -„„.„.,,„. 

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MEET THE TEAM 



11 





Th« AA crew muscle in Hie the platform action in Fluff as Hie weirdest 
bunch of computer game baddies you're ever likely meet. 




Fluff 

The star of this month's AA rave 
meets tome mightily had nasties in 
th* real game, but their nothing 
compared to the horrors of facing 
the AA crew. It's a fate 
worse than dying 
three times a game. 



Simon Forrester, 

aka The Happy Hippy Hairy Monster 

'Yeah man, peace to the world. Except to those who try to get past 
me 'cause that'll mean bad vibes and you'll have to wear Hares for 
the rest of your life. (Look, do I really have to say trash? f 
Maying tip - Hack into the tree to get past the Happy Hippy 
Hairy Monster; he'll be so phased by the blatant damage 
you're doing to a beautiful ^^ 
Irving thing that hell taint. 






Clur, writer and general dogsbody, 

aka The Talk The Hind Legs Off A Donkey Monster 

Ifl Wie this, we. me and a mate were walking down the high street and we were pasting that hippy shop, you 
knew the one lhat sefls those pointy candles., me one where I saw Rob Newman buying some incense., you know 
be was in that Mary WMwhoiiu thing.., I law them Nve in Bristol, you know ... anyway what was I saying. ,r 
Playing lip - Deal with Clur like you'd deal with a nagging Aunt, She may sound scary tart her bark is 
definitely worse than her bite. As long as you're quiet she wont notice you sneak past, 



Lisa KeileH, art editor, 

aka The Shop Until You Drop Monster 

Lisa wW go to the ends oi the earth to protect her purchases. Hera's a 
woman who definitely doesn't claim on her Barclay card insurance. Go 
anywhere near her shopping and she'll whack and wattop y°u hlack and 
blue with a whole range of carrier bags (including a rather nifty paper one 
Irom Boulesf It doesn't hurt that much but you're left with a (ew natty 
hnawit and a hurt pride. 

Playing tip) - The only way to halt the shopaholic from hel is to take away 
her credit cards at which point she is rendered utterly powerless. Pop into the 
nearest shop, pretend to be a sales person and when she pays for the goods 
keep her card. Just keep on reminding yourself that it's for her own good 




Dave Colder, 
editor and 
boss (or should 
that be bossy?), 
aka The 
Fiendish Food 
Fllnaar 



The problem with Dew *s that he 
finds M hard to be threatening; 
t he's get such soft sweet nature 



just cant cope with being a 
baddie (is someone raamg the micfc' - Dave I So 
instead ot attacking you, Dave kisl nicks al your 
food and eats, thus draining an but a smidgen of 
your energy. To add to that, all the food makes him 
even fatter and ha blocks off the exit he's guarding 
completely Avoid him at ai costs 
Maying tip - The only way to get past Dave is to 
hire Mm away from his post with a trail of grub 
(tuna butties work really well} 



April 1994 AM5TRAO ACTION 




BACKING-UP 






















l - ^ 








JL 




C e 








Y< 


h 





To back up or to not back up? That is the question that Clur Hodgson puts to the 
CPC industry to find out whether software backing -up devices are the root of all 
piracy or essential utilities that are keeping the CPC scene alive. 



Backing-tip in progress 



Copying devices cum mi rhany shapes and 
form* but they're mainly distributed at 
program* on diic A lot of them are actually 
public domain, but for a realty good one you're 
going to have to pay R won't cost you a lot of 
money but at least youl have the support of the 
company you bought it off if you get stuck. 

What most copying devices do hi break the 
program up Into handy Itttte chunks neat 



chances are iffl feature a tape deck when 
you can use to record CDs, LPs and 
perhaps even other tapes. Odd mat. Wry.* 
Because home taping & ilegal. Setting stereos 
with equipment that enables home taping isn't, but 
home taptng is. Even rf you onfy want to record 
Uw stuff for personal use. tn the eyes of the law, rf 
you do rt, you're a criminal Home taping is killing 
the recording business, apparently, 

A similar slogan is famiar in The home 
computer market - software piracy is kiing the 
software industry. And there are programs 
available to CPC users that seem to parallel tape 
decks, m that they enabie you to make copies of 
software- they are known rather eupherrtsbcafty 
as "back-up devices', But the taw isn't quite as cut 
and dry when it comes to copying software as it is 
In matters concerning tapes and COs 

Making copies of games and giving them 
away or seffcng them is definitely illegal, there's 
no getting round that one. no matter how you try 
to explain it away. Bui what a lot of people don'i 
know is that it is now legal, thanks to a new EC 
taw. to make back-ups of your software. 

The law isn't very clear, though; a tot ol 
factors come m to ofay to decide whether you 



enough to store in memory and then transfer . 
the section* separately onto a new disk, so that 
you end up with an exact copy, track for trick, 
sector for sector, byte for byte* of the program 
you started with. 

Some backing -up programs also contain , 
'Cracking' elements which crack into software 
code in order to get around anti piracy 
protection Fie under controversial 



says that you are allowed as long as if s 
necessary for the smooth running of the software 
- what that actuaty means m real terms is 
anyone's guess. But whatever you do, remember 
lhat any back-up must be for your use and your 
use onfy - if you set the original second hand 
then you must dispose ol your backup. 

But is it piracy 4 ? 

The problem is that backings devices and 
piracy have become irrevocably linked m the 
mmds of many people. It's reafiy difficult lor a lot 
of people in the industry to took at the issue of 
backing up software without looking at the issue 
of piracy. For example, Roger Huftey from 
Alternative Software says; left face it, J?9 per 
cent of the back-up devices available, as we all 
know, are used for piracy." 

More and more back-up programs seem to 
be available tor the CPC, but is it legally or 
morally correct to use them? After all, many 
games have antt-ptracy code to stop you 
copying them, while many of these backing -up 
dewtes also include 'cracking' software tor 
getting around these ant i-piracy measures And 
what about the view, adhered to" by people hke 



Rob Scott of Avatar, that "how can it. be wrong 
to copy games when you can't actually buy 
them any more?* 

Paul MBer of Hit Squad, however, wouldn't 
agree with that: Usmg the excuse they can't buy 
them any more is totally unjustified because if s 
not true The tut Amstrad range from fkt Squad 
is available through branches of ToysRUs ft not 
through Ocean (Hit Squad's parent company - 
0*ve\ itself. There are 44 ToysTclls stores m the 
country so it shouldn't be mat much of a problem 
to get hold ol the games/ 

Hmm. this comes from a company mat, the 
very next day, told us thai aft me* CPC games 
were on me way to the monerator. There are 
very few CPC owners who agree that getting hold 
of games was that easy. 

And the vast majority of people using 
software back-up devices are not necessarily 
crooks. After at, even the producer of games 
late fluff, Rob Buckley of Radical Software, 
admits that: *i don't usually put any copy 
protection on my stuff anyway, because people 
wil want to make back-ups of their software'. 

Some people take an even more extreme 
view. One reliable source from within the 
computer industry reckons that: 'unphlciggy I 
don't thmk copying games is all that bad a 
thing. A large percentage of the circulation of 
games might be pirated copies but mat doesn't 
mean that if they didn't have that illegal copy 
they would have gone Out and bought the game 
A lot of the time they dont actually play them, 
the game just sits m a box somewhere. II 
someone copies a game from a certain 
producer, plays it and thinks that it's alright 
then the next time they have the money to buy 
stuff they? thmk. that producer's game was 
okay so fl give this one a go'" 









AMSTRAD ACTION 







Basicafly, there are a loi ol honest people out 
Ihere who iusl don't want to nsK toswg their 
favourite game or utility forever because ot the 
unrefcabnty of data storage systems. 

Is it a crime? 

So are backings devices a crime agamst 
humanity leading to hundreds of unemployed 
software company 



II W 4 



0, 



bods or are they a 
necessary part of any 
computer users' 
cofecbon? We 
thought the best thing 
to do was to ash the 
people m the 
software industry who 

COunl. No, not the 
accountants, the producers of the software that 
you want to bach up: no one has more of a stake 
m the debate than them. Some ot their views 
might surprise you. 

"They should put 
their intelligence to 
better use" 

PAUl MILLAR, HfT SQUAD 
1 don't have a problem with tegrbmate 
owners of your software making back- 
ups for their own use a! all But as for 
people copying our eld games using 
the excuse that they can't buy them any 
more, that's totaly unjustified If the 
pirates are that talented that they can 
hack into our old games to copy them 
then they should be putting their 
intelligence to belter use and gomg out 
and developing software themselves 



FAST It the Federation Again* Software Yhtft. * 
organisation tor the software industry 
We asked Robin Lawrence from FAST to explain 
what the organisation's eJ about. The f edoredon 
Agaawt Software Theft was set up in 1984 
following the c omputer industry lobbying 
Partt a ment to get the copyright law changed to 
include computer software The g ove r n m e n t 
agreed to changing the few on the condition that 

own watchdog 



If we ever came across anyone who was 
prating our garner we'd pass the information 
straight on to FASI and let them deal wHfti 

Blatant copyright 
infringement" 

CRAIG JOHNSON. KIXX 

1 think if back-ups are stnetty tor — 



•SMlM 

legitimate softw 
Tve no real reservati 
purefy because tapes 
nusty unreliable end 
gh continual wear arx 
tear they may wed give way. 
I don't object to an 
individual making one 
up copy of * part 
game for their own personal use but it a 
company is going out to market copying 
equipment for nonpersonal use then that's 
different story. As for the games not being 
available and that making copying okay, * 
got qurtt an extensive range of products 
CPC, somewhere m the region of 8CMJG titles 
~~i and 1 appreciate 
mere is a diffkul 
getting hold of f 
but they are all 
available Irom ■ 
that argument 
doesn't cut it \ 
us. Any copyr 
any product >. 
regardless of 
reason, Uej 

blatant cop,, 
infringement 
tantamount to the 



body to enforce me 
responsible tor doing 
marketing vie advertising to the general 
populous about c o pyright and things of Hurt sort 
of nature end also giving out tree materials I 
companies to make sun they can stay legal. 
Secondly, on the piracy tide, on behalf of thi 
members, we can prosecute anyone found to 
breaking the computer software lews * And ti 
mciuoes you. ti you are one of the thousands 
mtlon s of people in me world who own or us 
maybe umwningiy - a piece of pirated 




So where do 
you stand? 

You might be a bit confuted about what's 
strictly legal and what's not. Don! fowl belated 
■ me legal system n eve r seems designed to be 
comprehended by mere mortals. Anyway, 
here's Robin Lawrence, the operation* manager 
«| FAST to by and ctanfy matters: 

The taw regarding copying devices is 
baiicawy dial the use of any device but has 
been specincaity designed or adapted for 
infringing copyrighted work would constitute a 
criminal and ewe infringement depending en 
the circumstance*. Under the new EC software 
directive people now haw a right 1o make a 
back-up of their so f twa re as far as Is necessary 
for die legal use of that software. The new 
directive gives a limited right to decompilation 
and etso a imited right to back up. but it is a 
krmted right and tt if quite specific, you can 
only back up at far as necessary for legal use. 

Tor example you woutdnl need to have m 
back-up of cartridge-based softw a re, but It may 
be necessary to have a beck-up of some disc- 
or cassette- based software. So really It 
depend* on how you are using the beck -up 
devices and whether you're entitled to have a 
back-up in the Ant place. 

'Anyone who copies software without the 
permission of the owner breaches copyright 
and that is a criminal offence- You cant cross 
format, without permission ot the copyright 
Owner B.ivicalfy if s up to the software 
company as to whether they object to M or not. 
And it is dependent on the condnons whether 
they would be prosecuted or not 

'Any person who infringe* copyright risk* 
up to two years in prison and a substantial 
fine {up to £5,000 pet count) and indeed if 
there's any question of them copying trade 
marks in the process they can go to prison for 
up to tan years 

"Basically what FAST and the law are 
*aying about back-ups is that rf you went to 
back up your software, he It from tape to tape. 
tap* to disc or disc to disc, then iff best te get 
the permission ol the copyright holders before 
you do. And but means getting in contact with 
the software house that produces (ha software, 
or In tome cases contacting the programmer. 
The only time when il if perfectly legal to copy 
and distribute copies of software is if the 
program is public domain. As long as you're 
sure the program is PO you can give a copy to 
whoever you want. 

If someone i* concerned about the segtwey 
of theirs or anyone else's software then they 
should contact us on our piracy hot-line 
tT 0628 660377 

Er, I hope theft el clear now. 



A| >i 1 1 I'll 1 AM5TRAD ACTION 



' 



BACKING UP 



• ■ 



end piracy is a vicious circle because if 
publishers (ike us are unable to generate 
revenue from sales of these products then well 
end up by not publishing any more. It's wrung 
the market really.* 

"If s down to sheer greed 
at the end of the day" 

ROGER HULLEY, MO Alternative Software 
TWe donl thmk there's any reason to do a back- 
up We do a copy of the game on both sides of 
the tape m most instances, unless its a 

compdation in 
I which case there 
are different games 
on different sides, 
W the situation was 
one in which a 
person wanted to 
do a bach-up and 
we knew it was 
gang lobe 
gerune, it they 
wrote 10 us we 
would probably 
grve our permission to do SO. Lefs face it, 99 per 
cent of the back up devices available, as we al 
know, are used for piracy and genet aty as the 
user out there for £3 99 can buy a cassette with 
the game recorded on both sides there's no pomt 



ALTERNATIVE 

1 



SOFTWARE 



realty. For every one game we set about 1 9 are 

pirated. It's down to sheer greed at the of the day, 

nothing to do with price; most of our games are 

low in once so if s not a case of the products 

being: to highly priced so the curates cant use that 

excuse. Many of these people who are mto the 

piracy of software, are. shal we say, dealing m 

other things that are 

highly illegal - you 

only have to look at 

haH of them, to be WT 

honest, to know 

that* s the case. All 

they're dbmg is rhm mmm 

damaging this hk»H, 

industry, they don't 

care about the J#k,, "f. ■* 

industry, they donl 

care about the ^>an 

machete, an they want to do >s make a qwck buck. 

and then move on to the next thing that they can 

rip oft. Jf we came across anyone pealing our 

games we would report it directly to FAST via 

ELSPA We do have 

the ngtit to seue 

counterfeits of Our 

products, but the 

chances are that we 

would go through 

the official route " 



90 per cent of copies 
of our games in 
circulation are pirated"' 

DARREN JOB LING, 

Operations manager. Zeppelin 

■Ail of our cassette games earned a warning not 
to copy or back-up our 
games. The only good Ihtr 
that I could say concerning 
backup devices is the likes 
ourselves and other 
manufacturers unfortunately 
are no longer mass 
producing CPC games, we 
haven't got any CPC games in 
stock at the moment, we're 
only making up special 
orders Therefore rf someone 

who has a problem with a game they've bought 

legitimately contacts us we wouldn't be able to 

replace the game. In that case it would be a 

wise thing to backup your game. 

*We own the copyright 1o 
all our games and there r 
various legal obligations . 
we have to the 
programmers, so making 
the excuse that our games 
aren't available any more 



ontacting Bonzo's scrapyar 



MUGGERIOGE. Amrtrad Contact 
.e run In conjunction with Bonro' s 
Scrapyard, a service dovoted to cracking 
code) 
, say that people have "tf pe 

tttev c 

i software 



tantaet to d as the Bonn and Sottiock 

Ith Bonro s I Pve just been given permission 

o cracking to r • A which will back-up some of 

srare wnich other 
"If people know -s have not been able 

they can make a 




*■** •■■■ 
and see people with a 

es and masses of 3 «Kh and 
ail backeOop copies, and 
" them- 



it's not All the budget games are 
'We on disc. So there sboufd be 



go and buy those 



games 



programs: what I don t 
Uy those bebeve ui is people who 
es. " 8et hold of a tape-todtsc copter 
and go out and sell the tape. 
Keepmg die back-up lor themselves Tiv 

,-h software around as it is, so that if 
going to back-up a tape or disc and then 
sell the master on then you are in possession 
legal copy of that piece of software 
1 thwik the trouble is - the reason why 
Really left the CP 
» up with aH these 



excuses about software being too e«i 
produce, but the only real reason is that they 
can um to producing games on cartridge and 
making about 80 per cent profit on d and they 
can't be bothered to produce a budget game 
for £3 or thereabouts on a cassette simply 



things out on disc that were totairy uncopyabte, 
STS bought out uttoes and games that were 
urKOpyabie too. but they don't seem to have 
got anywhere 

1 ft™* thai if people know they can make a 
back-up lor their own use if software houses or 
somebody made it public that you could back 
them up. like we've done with die Boo/o 
Database (we've listed al the tapes that you 
can back-up), people tend to go and buy those 
games 61 28 owners are more likely to buy a 
tape knowing that they can back it up to n 



Af» AMSTRAD ACTION 



isn't an 

recently and we found that 90 per cent ol 
copies o\ our games in circulation are pirated 
copies. But. actually, i was quite surprised ir 
wasn't a lot bigger Hi an that. We wouldn't lake 
any action ourselves if wo wore to dnd a pirate 
dealing m our games, we'd simply inform the 
police and FAST, It's very drflic ulr to get Ihe 
proof vou see. If we had the proof, if they were 
making money from it them we'd certainly think 
about a private prosecution ' 

"Back-ups aren't 
really necessary wi 
our software." 

STEVE DARRAGH. THus 
To let you the truth if <t wasn t tor piracy we'd 
probably still be producing for die CPC 
Accot ring to some research we've done, for 
every one game we sen there's up to 10 illegal 
copies floating around It we were to actually sell 
just four ot those illegal copies then our profit 




15 



"We recommend that 
legitimate owners off oi> 
software make back-ups 
of our software*" 

PETER CAMPBELL, Campurioft 

*We recommen.1 thai legitimate owners ol our 

software make back-ups > 

problem rs that in this market vou never i 

how kwg you're going to be able to cairy on m 



wiimrm 




II yotf ' v« bought Of S on diii CompuripH 
ratORimnndi you make a back' up - 



II OUT BfUfll bllhlHP 

t"^ 7 -. if the c 






2 Mian If* your fault rhof Tltut won't do 
anything more for th* CPC. 

margin would! be big enough to allow us to carry 
on making CPC games. 

"As for badnjps, wen they're really nol 
necessary with any ol our software, H a 
customer has a problem then they can send 
the faulty tape or disc back to us and we'll 
reolace it for free." 



my 

piracy m a way by 
oubJtsrwig the Bortzo database. Indeed, I jusi got 
a mass of data from some hackers about games 
thai wont go to disc via the utilities, who 
publish individually So we are encouraging it but 
we always concentrate oo tape-todisc; I was 
going to publish a database about which 
copier i would cope with which discs, = 

I 
don't do it. thai would be pushing tl I 

too far. it would kilt the hade totally 
"Thetrouti the best disc 

copiers, and I say copiers because 
that's what they ant. aren't available in 
the UK There's a particularly good 
French one and there's an illegal German 
me that I have come across that will 
copy aH the b f s 



ess. if you haven't made a back-up of your 
am and something happens to the original, 
if the company's gone under m the meantime 
» you're left high and dry. 
'At the moment rm checking someone out 
i may be retailing something of ours that he 
-tdn't be but we'B see about that. 



back-ups and selling our products 
. hand as long as they don't keep the 
ial. If it eve* came to that point where 
seme of our programs are no km 
commercial value then we would •■ 
into the public domain/ 

"Piracy is rife in France 
and Germany, but I 
don't think the 
is as bad over here." 

ROB BUCKLEY, Radical 

*The issue of back up devices doesn't 
bother me, I don't usually put any copy 
protection on my stuff anyway, because 
people will want to make back-ups of 
their software, but obviously illegal 
copying ruins people. If it ever came .'■* 
a pewit where I wasn't selling a partic* 
product any more then I'd put the 
products out on PO. I've done tha' 
past wi 



commercially at first. 

itten about by the buying public arxi 
put it into the public domain 

"The reason why companies now aren't 
supporting the CPC is because... I don't know 
the exact figures but... a large per cent ol thai 



I people to 
: your machme and carry on churning 
software then they should have the i cspect i 
actually oil her pay font or not get it at aH. But 
then again there is the case thai people wouldn't 
buy it any. 

~ France and 
i situation is as bad 
: rve been told. Bui 
there are so many people that know other 
people, rt's a very ctose*nrt commurrty, where 
everybody is doing 1 ' suppose.* 



And so, m conclusion, at the eno oi the oay, we 
can determine that, er, well, ah, nobody realty 
* -hi anything, actually, and t lie whole area 
gup devices remains a subject ' 
a great deal of controw warn 

UtflUttCOA'- 

theCPCsci 
lenient attitude towards backing up and ■ 

~; t old softies 
regard backing-up devices as the thin end of the 
wedge as far as piracy is concerned. 

But when the remaining stocks of old CPC 
programs from the big software houses h 
pmed The Hit Squad.* « Vie incinerator . wffl 
be more tempted to do a bit of cross 
format backmg-up? Technically, 
remember, it's still illegal, 

WH*n Mvfi finally tamm* out yaw' II b* 
wit* io back «|» Ms* JUk - Rob Buck toy, 
oti'l mind. 




April 




16 



TECHY FORUM 




And new, for ftie first time In glorious tecfenice 
Amstrad Action presents o Richard 
Falrhurst production of Technical 

Forum (PG). Starring, your 
letters and your techy problems 

Co-starring, assorted techy hints. 
Special guest star... er... didn't turn up. 



Br... er... aian 
'* up, Doc? 




E^m What 1 
I'm a bit puzzled , I have 
acquired a fair amount of 
public domain software from 
ml I various PD libraries. Soma of 
the DOC files hold far more data than the 
6128 can hold. For example, a .DOC file for 
Scrivener requires 60k of available 
memory- My maximum, using Protest on 
disc, It about 24k. 

How has 60k been saved on one file, and 
how can I access the last 36k? 
Tom Walton, Manchester 



i trying 



a The tnck ti trying to read a 
large file like this is not to 
attempt to read it all m at once. 
Instead, if you read it m line-by- 
line, the CPC only needs to 
reserve 2k as an area to store blocks ol data 
from the disc. You can do this from CP/M u^ng 
the TYPE command, or in BASIC with a tk 
program as I olio* 

IBOPENIW "SCRIvHER.MC" 
2B mm NOT EOF 
JO LINT INPUT 19, U 
40 PRINT a! 

58 m 
68 CLOSE IN 
H you want to send Ihe file to the or inter, ch. i 
line 40 to PRINT I8 t *l 

Thfs is all very well, but the question remains 
- how do you create such ftes yourself* Well, it 
iv possible to use a wordprocessor that can 
cope with a larger amount of text Protest on 
ROM can manage around 39k. and the PD 
word processor VDE can handle up to a 
whopping 6Ck Alternatively, you could write a 
teit file m two for more} parts and stick 
them together with a 

program like 




decide u ' 
simple program v 
gOM twr^p mo iMppl [AA97 COMfUpt) 
but nothing happened. I was i 
confused at to why tuch a simple 
program didn t work. I then tried typing in 

n'a Breakout cJoi 
fn Assfl/r I typed org 14069 ft 

hut after * d Itmit I4FI 

ft beeped as if I had 
i! an error (wait, at least you got your 
beep - Richard! Ii there something 



10 0PEH0UT •BICFILEDOC" 

36 OPEHIH -SUBFlLEi.DOC- : CvSUB 50; CLOS 

EIN ^_^ij 

39 OPEHIH * SUBTILE2.DOC": QOSUB SB; CLOS 

EIN 

4Q CL05E0UT: END 

S8 IfHILE NOT EOF 

60 LINE INPUT 19, at: PRINT I9,af 

70 HEN*: RETURN 

Adding more lines tike 20 and 30 will let you 
use more than two sub-fifes, ft only copes with 
ASCII files, so make sure you save your Protext 
fries in program mode Richard 

Ex fro mo 
violence 
18 months ago, I bought a 
printer from a computer 
catalogue, ft worked fine 
until I lent it to my brother who wanted it for 
hi l PC I didn't see ft for months and 
when I got ft back (last January), it 
didn't work - I thought it had run out 
of ink, but I replaced the cartridge 
and it stifl didn't work. Then he told 
me he had been changing control 
codes or something, and it was not 
going to work on the CPC. Do you 
know what is going on? 
Anonymous, Maidstone 

This sounds like a case 
for extreme violence if ever I 
heard one. The best solution is 
to take your brother to the local 
rubbish dump and tip assorted 
garden rubbish down Ns shirt until he agrees 
either to fix your printer or to buy you a new one. 
Alternatively, you should be abte to reset the 
printer to its ordinal settings (but that isn'l as 
much furs). Somewhere an the printer (you don't 



ong with my tape or is ft your 
rograms? Could it be my 464? 
stair IrVhrte. no address 

c you sure you haven't made a mist 

* typing 

. . . 

ore obvious. In brief, 

embier not to put any code to 
pecrfted address, so you dont 
vi up overwriting important bits of code. 
I not a drecl ipp 

Kit It WOn 
R I chord 



say which model you have) will be a set of tiny 
switches which control various aspects Of rls 
operation; look m t^ manual if you can't find 
them. These are known as DIP switches 

Simply find out the default values from the 
printers manual, and flick the swiches 
accordingly. Now switch the printer on; if the 
manual mentions anything about resetting the 
printer to its default settings fotten by holding 
down a button when you turn it on) do this, ft 
should now work again Richard 

HRoy Walker 
fan club 
I am trying to program a 
game based on the TV show 
Catcnpbrase. I have asked 
the owners of the programme. Action Time 
TV, for permission and I'm awaiting their 
repfy, tf they say I can, will I need: 





1 A special art package? Could 1 use your 
excellent Screen Designer or will 1 need 
something more advanced, as I need to 
move things around the screen? 

2 tf I use Screen Designer, how do you add 
found or musk to the picture? 

3 What is the best sound software around? 

1 need to add music to the pictures, 

4 Can you use an art package and a music 
utility at the same time, and H you can, how 
do you go about it? 

5 Is my CPC 464 up to this or not? 
tvan Staines. Krrig's Lynn 

1 Screen Designer is an art 
package, not an animation 
utility. You can use it for 
drawing backgrounds, bu\ if you 
want to move things around (he 

screen, you'l need something else - check out 

Simon's animation special in AfllOl . 

2 You load the screen mlo BASIC or machine 
code, and then CALL the routine lo play music 
which your music package has generated. 

3 We gave away Boo Tracker on the covcrtape a 
while back Top dog is SoundtraAker (Sentinel 




April 1994 AMSTRAO ACTION 




TECHY FORUM 



17 





Software v 081 S/fS 7032). and there are a few 
PDpfogr.tm-, iifoufiH, .iimough nerther 
DifrtULhet or Protf acker will work on your 
machine, and they're pretty useless lor 
generating g-.ime music anyway. 
4 £r Wife question (WO again? 
^^Hovt question. Are you, though? A game 
like this will need to be written m machne code, 
Hfch is no cinch, and Action Time are unlikely 
n grant rights to someone who'll only be writing 
a version for a sadly ouKjMashion computer. 
Even big companies like Ocean have to pay 
thousands of pounds to licence concepts like 
this. Sorry Richard 

XL-ent 

I have o few questions 
which I hope you can 
answer for me (we're here 
to serve - Richard) 

1 Can I run the PCW program Money 
Manager on my CPC 6128 using CP M 
Plus, and It to, how? 

2 When is the brilliant Robot PD Library 
gorog to rsopen? (Creep - Richard.} 

3 In AA82. Jets Harpur wrote a listing for 
use with OCR Advanced Art Studio and 
ROMDOS It there any way this program 
COUld be modified to work with ROMDOS XL. 
because as it stands it will not work? 

4 When using a single socket ROM box, 
what is the number for the slot? I think it's. 1 
- am I right? 

5 Where can I get a cheap but decent 
photocopier, and how much will it cost? 

6 Can I transfer the ROM in a single-socket 
ROM box into a six socket ROM-box? I got 
the tingle-socket ROM-box from Siren 
Software with ROMD0S XL included 

7 Where can I get a 5. 25 inch disc drive 
horn, and how much will it cost? Will a 

5. 25 -inch disc drive be able to work with 
ROMDOS XL? 

8 How can t make backup copies of 
programs like Protest! and games like 
Afterburner. Chase HQ. Gun ship and ftfigef 
ManseH's World Champtonsfirp? 

9 Can PowcrFage 128 be used with an 
AMX mouse? 

1 Is PoworPage 128 compatible 
wtth ROMDOS XL for the B drive? 

1 1 And finally, I've got two 
printers and I was wondering 
rf (here is some kind of switch 
available which would plug 
into the printer port and which 
would then enable me to 





connect both printers simultaneously 
and switch between the two. 
Steven Ashbolt, Ross-shlre 

1 Possibly. The main 
difference beiween ihe CPC 
and the PCW running CP/M 
Plus is that the PCW has a 
RAM^isc (an area of 
ry that pretends to be a disc drive], 
which the CPC doesn't. H Money Manager 
depends on the RAM disc, you're stuck. 
You might also come a cropper il it uses 
any special features of the PCW or if it 
requires MaJtard BASIC. It will probably be 
Okay, though; phone the suppliers to 
check on these points (by the way, youll 
also need a PCW disc-reading program; 
plenty are available from PD libraries]. 
3 If s open again now 
3 1 haven't got a copy of ROMDOS XL to 
have a look, but at this very moment a 
RfoveJling fetter is on its way to Sroon 

it Siren. More info next month, hopefully. 
A It coukt be anything; A depends on what Ihe 
designer of the ROM-box chose. Type m and 
RUN this Isbng... 
10 FOR n/r-tem 10 4AH4: RIM if 

» poke M.vmrruih kext 

30 CALL MrBa.tn-/.: PRINT fix 

40 un M r oo,ec,cMS,B$,i«,w,eo,F6 

50 WIft PP.tf ,MUM6,01,?U3,3fi,Qe,C9 
The munbet prtnted is the first ROM slot used in 
your system And there you have it. 

5 There's no such thing as a cheap but decent 
photocopier, unless you buy secondhand, in 
which case it'll probably break down after a 
month (says a slightly bitter Richard speaking 
from experience), or it's fallen off the tiack of a 
lorry. II you do buy one, make sure you get a 
maintenance contract foe 

6 Yes. no problem. 

7 Not many places do them these days. 
Quantum or STS may be able to knock you one 
up specially (check out the Amstene Directory I 
or peruse the AA Reader Ads It shouH work fine 
with ROMDOS ML. but to gel 800k per disc, make 
w e trvtl the drrve is SOfrack and doublesirJed 

8 You need to use a specialist disc 
copter. Wave (« 0229 8700001 are 
selling off Qtscoiogy 3. 3 lor the very 

reasonable price of £5.99, or you 
could get the much better 
Henor for more dosh from 
Sentinel or Quantum. Note that 
some discs are simply uncopyable. 
although Quantum can modify 




r CPC to handle almost anything {remember 
loks, if s Uegal to copy games without the 
copyrighi holder's permission, although noone's 
gomg to lock you up for simpry backing up your 
originals - just make sure it stays like that.) 

9 No. 

1 Yes. 

1 1 PC supplies catalogues wtf sen you a 
junction box to do exactly what you want, but it'll 
cost you a fair whack. AH you really need are a 
couple of plugs and sockets, some wire, and a 
switch - if you don't want to make one yourself, 
try your local electronics shop, or one of the 
mdie CPC hardware people Richard 

H Blind data 
1 Does the Typechecfcer 
program come up with the 
same letters for a game or 
program that's been written 
for the 464 and not the 6129. or are they 
different? II so. which lino (nils the computer 
what letters to show? 

2 How come all of the tapes that you 
supply free wtth AA can be used on the 
6126 and 464 Plus as well as the 464, and 
yet the Typo Ins are separated lor use with 
464s and 6128s? 

3 What do the numbers and figures mean 
in the DATA section of any program? I 
would like this explained to me in detail, as 
I have read in my Min idle tio nary of 
Computing that 'data' covert a lot, like; 
'data: introduces a line of data values I am 

AMSTRAD ACTION 



tf 



TECHY FORUM 





•till none the wiier. Then I go on to road 
databank 1 , 'database', databate language' 
and so on, all of which I do not understand, 
Could you possibly explain It to me? 

4 Where do you and your pals on AA get 
your knowledge from? Did you go to college 
to learn all that you know about computers? 

5 Why are there to many Amstrad 
computers for sale in the Reader Ads? Are 
they all small bus messes? 

Mora loos, Birmingham 

1 Jypeefoeefcer corr^.i up wrlti 
'he same letters regardless of 
■what computer it's running on 

is long as rfs a CPO. 
Basically, for each program lion. 
Typechecker adds up all the tetters I with capital 
A bemg number 65, capital B being number 66 
n) you've typed m, converts the grand 
total and prints the result At AA the 

same thing happens with the original program. 
but Smce we knew there aren't any mistakes in 
"Mat (because the author sent us a copy on tape 
or disc), we can pnnl these correct codes m the 
magwine to check against your typing. 
% The commercial programs On the covertape 
work with all CPCs because no company « Its 
right mind would write a program for sate which 
used the FILL command, lor example. Since the 
464 doesn't understand this, they'd be cutting 
oul half (heir market, so they use their own fill 
routine which works on all machines, 

Type Ins authors, though, don t worry about 
such matters (although, budding coders out 
there, ifd be nice if you did! This means that 
sometimes they'll use the extra BASIC leatir 
of every machine since the 664. to the 
exclusion of 464 owners. 
3 The word 'data' means 'information', and 
nsfrs what DATA lines hold, Imagine you were 
writing a program which needed to contain the 
name of every capital city in the worfd, You 
could write a long succession of instructions 
along the line of: 

IB *l(l):-Undon p 
20 *l(2)-"hr)s' 
38 »i( 3 >- "Ouagadougou" 
...and so on, but it would be very tedious, instead, 
you type the names into DATA knes, separated by 
commas. You can then read 
them into an array using the 
companeon command, READ, 
which takes the next piece of 
information Irom a DATA tine 
and puts it m a variable. 



PRINT "First piece or 



PRINT "Second piece of 




IB READ at: 
BfiTA: ',ni 

EC REM hi: 

DAIr: ",bl 

30 foATft Steven Spielberg, orangoutang 

In the capital cites example, you'd u $e a 
FOR. . . NEXT loop to read in tr e data into an 
array, so the first piece o| data would go into 
aS(nJ where n is 1 - i.e. aS< 1 ) - then the next 
one into aSud where n is 2, le. gSft, and so on. 
this is the most common way in which READ 
end DATA are used, 

Tbe one remaining question 
about all this is, what do 
programmers use it for* Well, 
there are plenty of uses. If you 
ware writing a platform game, 
for example, you'd store the 
layout of each screen in DATA 
statements II you were writing 
an adventure, you would 
probably use them (o hoW your 
room descriptions, Possibly the 
most common use. though, is in 
a line lite this or 1 1' 

39 BATJKMIJC,21,QB,>Qj 11,00 

When you see a line like this, containing a 
sequence of hexadecimal numbers, they're 
almost certainly machine code instructions. 
These are POKEd into memory and then CALLed 
to run the machine code routine (see the tetter 
titled XL-wO. As a machine code program can 
do an infinity of different things, lis impossible 
to say what each routine will do However, 
unless the whole program's in machine code, 
there are two mam reasons for using it - the 
first is for speed (machine code programs are 
generally much faster), and Ihe second is for 
tasks that are almost impossible w BASIC; 
sprites and complex animations, for example 
# No - iiist fiddling around with them lor a long 
time (both Simon and I have had CPCs - and 
been reading AA - since the dawn of time, or 
thereabouts). The best way to leim to '(?ad 
lots and lots of magazines, but unfortunately 
there are very few indeed these days which don't 
focus on a particular type or area of computing. 
Even socalled multi format magazines, iikt* 
Personal Computer World, really only focus on 
the PC, with occasional Macintosh coverage 
5 Probably not, m fact. A CPC is just as 
good lor running a small business as it 
always has been. What it's not 
so good al any more is 
running the latest, super - 
acceferated, mulbmillmn 
colour games. Fluff 
proves that decent games 
can stil be written far ihe 
CPC but software houses 
don't give ft a chance and 
don't release any new stuff 
for it. This means that, sadly, 
scores of previously happy 
CPC users are buying Amigas 
and consoles, and Hogging 
their poor devoted Amstrad to 
pay for them. It's a tragedy 
(sniff, sniff). 



OC 

Ye*, fit *nolti«F . 

'I content 
you ■ fantastic cover-mounted 
cauette every Itwo, *w preeent a world Ant 
- d clock 

i of on the cow, ami you do need 
a CPC to be able 10 uie rt. but oworthsJett, It't 
* remurkebhr ttamty lml« irtiliry type in tin 
utting. and y<hi have a number of na 
command* to play ei!h tSET.ie.30 will 
0.30 In H» momfcng (n 
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van j hliv. firvt (c|; 

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clock keep* on 
" ia ISECON05.0 
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«rh«r» fl i< a number from 
int» you Milecl which window the 
clock u lo be dtapteyeti 
ID 101 n-ftflflM TO 111 {f 

30 M 

W bill 0UMMl.i5.»,CMUC,U,M 

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When rha MULT1FACE *aa launched In 1996, 
it was an ouinghi winner. No one has ever 
come up with such a powerful, useful add-on. 
Labeled tho essential CPC companion, this 
MULTIpurposs InterFACE proved to be an 
absolute Godsend lor tho Amstrad CPC users. 
Remember the first disk dnvo on the CPC 464? 
Suddenly the loading took seconds raihor then 
minules from tapes. Except that tho* o was not 
much to load - very liltle had originally bean 
released on disks end lhare was no facility to 
transfer programs from tapes to disks. 



THE SAVIOUR 



This Is one area where Ihe MULT1FACE saved 
everything - literally, Tho black magic box could 
slop nnylrung any lime and SAVE II to disk or 
tapa When the 6128 came wtlh a built-in drive, 
it was left again to the MULTIFACE to do all the 
transferring - and lo perform other miracles 
So, in case you |usl came from Mars, whai 
does a Mulwach do? First, ii sits al the back 
ol your CPC, ds magic button always ready 
Press H. and trio MULTIFACE lakes conlroll 



ACTION1 



Ont ' . j and 11 

displays lis own menu Bemg luHy monu-d riven 
and error*trapped. you'll probably never need 
the full manual lhal comes wiln the Multif a 
Mosl operahons are also entirely Automat ' 
so (o SAVE a game once you stopped II you 
lust name it. ms* 

You can then ietwn and continue itw program 
if you get beaten later on. just retoao from where 
you saved last and play |usi from mere eg? 
Mo need to go bock lo ihe start aN the time Or 
eupntwftPi 'hi MijIHfnce illoVntyOUt POKI 



INFINITE LIVES 



listed in lbs magajiine and you'll never loose. 
The MuiriFACt comes with a buill-m TOOLKIT 
lhal lets you inspecfartot/dump Ihe CPC RAM 
It also has its own BK RAM and 8K ROM 
Many top programs were wnilen rnih the aid 
of the TOOLKIT and ' UK RAM. And do 

you like the screen shots in this maga/me? 
They are an produced using the MULTIFACE! 



When we announced earlier that we were to 
pull out of the 0-bit market, the surge of Interest 
in the MULTIFACE was such, that we had lo 
make many more And not fusi the MULTIFACE ■ 
we also have Ihe one end only disassembler. 



THE INSIDER 



thai lets you see and a/ferwhat happens any 
nme anywhere Inside » RUNNING CPC program 
n comes on a dJflk. and loads inside a mu. timci 
Press the magic button and the INSIDER will di- 
sassemble, find loxt/code. dump Ihe cpc ram 
10 printer, etc. Get it at HALF-PHICE for £LiSI 



LAST CHANCE! 



As this goes to press, we still have enough 
stock of both Ihe MULTIFACE and INSIDER. 
This, however, is our final ctoarnncB and once 
these are sold, we will NOT make any more, 
The MULTIFACE is I em-tic value. In lad more 
for the customer than tor the manutacfi/'er,. 
We will only accept orders when we can supply 
Ihe goods and we give a ruff guarantee Plus 
we still offer up to £10 OFFJ mail orders! 



You MUST NOt uli our piwluetl to copy, rtprodUCW or iiiimm m »ny way wnil»*w tny COpyTIOhl ir I WW WUlOill rh*) pormiHWfi of mu 

tapyrighl mmii Wi Cle roiihgf coodOfl* nof mjthoriw Ditnit d! auf pioduds Id '■>■'<> lupiniUn i on ol COpytignt millilli ■ IQ (to »Q k> VULEQNJ \ 



An p'ic»i •■* Alr«*Kir dii£&uni*d ind 
apply lo Mill Ofltofi 10 a.B.fBM &i\f 



I order a MULTIFACE 2 lor CPC 484/6128 □ **+*- £90-93 or for CPC + P -w*»s £39.95 



PLUS PtP : UK and Europe £2 Overseas E3 



F0DOSa«**iE1*L?* BLANK DfSKS DtiHft £2.98 INSIDER Gt>wi* t7 .95 
I enclose a chaqua/PO/caih for f m or debit my Access/Viaa No. [ _ 1 [ ] Card Exp. 



Name/address. 



ROMANTIC ROBOT, 54 Deanscroft Ave, London NW9 8EN S 24 hrs J 



061-200 8870 S AA 




Beginners All -purpose Symbolic 
Instruction Code? BASIC more 
like. Red-headed, five foot 
nine genius? Clur Hodgson 
more like. Put 'em together 
and what hove you got? This... 






rl 




ow wotid you like So win rnrUions 
on she poob? Now you can with 
Out's Patented Poofs Predt 
Well, actually, you can't Its only a simple 
random number generator but it wil save 
you the bother of deciding which boxes on 
■job coupon to pick. Not only thai, but 
rl gives nw a great opportunity to eiplam 
at about using arrays in your BASIC 
programming Let v. have a toe* at what 
we're working toward**: 
10 REN Clur's fab little puts 
proggis 

ao FfiPO e 

JO IKK 3,1 

+9 PEN 3 

SO CLS 

60 INPUT "Hw naitli iMtcrtfsr.NliHBER 

76 INPUT "Ho* nani* ptSSM?",C 

30 IF OMQNBCR THEN PRINT -tai't be 

so blwuV stupid, you pHsarit. 

HUHBEJtS LESS THAN "jNlWiFJ;" 

WIV-VC0T0 70 

50 NUHBER-NUNBIR*! 

100 DIN NIG) 

Ufl FOR V-l 10 G 

120 2:INTiRN&*NUHBER> 

m IF Z:8 THEN GOTO l£0 

140 FDR Crl TO C 

150 IT N(C>-2 THEN GOTO 120 




Command 
performance 




A ronwtder of this month'* now cornmandt 

P APtO - Rtpfes-nti llw bMkfiiouiid colour of 

tfW CPC Mtoon. 

INK - Chang* the Ink U you wont to alter what 

colouri ara available for you to UW. 

f*f M - Chang* the ink m the pan to alter the 

cotour the taut aeooare in 

GOTO - Go back to the line number tUtod 
after mi* command 

MM A{ftt - Croat* an array tatted A of lire B 
IRASE A - F.f a«j at tho witnw 111 the array A 
IMT C - Round* the number roprftfomod by 
tha varlabla C to the nearest whole number 
•NO - Giwat a random number of value 
between and 1. 



Ac-rioni 



160 HEX! C 

179 N<¥)-2 

180 PRINT 2 

138 HEX! ¥ 

m ERASE N 

210 INPUT "Try again (y or „)?",TI 
388 IT «PPOI(ll)=*r THEN GOTO 188 
238 U WPBt<t§):"N- TKEH ENB 

Not only are arrays used m this 
program but. canrymg on from last month's 
graphics program, there's also a neat 
change from the normal CPC text and 
background colours m the first few lines 

Trunk of using colours on the 
Amstrad in the same way as you wotid 
ink pens on sheets of paper (yes, it's 
analogy time coming up). In total you 
have 27 colours of pen and paper to 
play with, but you can only use four 
of these colours on-screen at any 
one bme. Imagine that you have a 
very bny desk and there's onty 
room for four mfc pots and four 
piles of paper (alUhe cither ink pots and 
reems ol paper are stored in a cupboard in 
another room!. Each of the ink pots can be 
Nted with a different colour ink, numbered 
for convenience K>26), and the colours of 
the piles ol paper mus>( be the same as the 
colour', of the Ink. Say, tor 
example, number 3 ink pot has 
colour 21 m it; to draw n 
colour 21 you must hi your 
pen from pot 3. The BASIC 
command to do this is PEN 3. 
Changing fi>e colour of 










background 
colour) is |usl 
asy II ink 
pot 1 contains 
colour 9 ink, then 
to Change the 
background to that 
colour you just pick 
up the corTesoondrrig 
pile of paper. In BASIC you just use 
the command PAPER 1, 
But what if you want to use a colour of 
paper or write in a colour that your ongmat 
four pots dorit contain? You have to go into 
the next room with one of the ink pote. 
empty it out and replace wiih the colour you 
want. The BASIC command to do Has is INK 
(flurrtjer of ink pot, number ol new mkf For 
example, rl pot ■ ■ k u number 2 in ii 
and you want to change that to colour 
number 1 1 then you type INK 0, 11 

Unfortunately this » where the analogy 
breaks down, because if you change the 
mk in one of the pots, then everything you 
have prewjusiy drown with the ink horn 
thai pot will magically change to the new 
colour - shame, 




m rii 



Those all- 
important 
colour codes 

tf you're lucky enough to own a &1ZS then ai 
the colours you can use and their relevant 
numbers are listed on top of the disk drive. It not 
then you'll jutt have to consult this fantastic: list 



Black 

1 Blue 

2 Bright tokie 
I Red 

1 Magenta 

5 Mauve 

6 Bright red 

7 Purple 

8 Bright magenta 

9 Green 

10 Cyan 

11 SI? blue 

12 Yelks* 

13 White 



Paste) blue 
Orange 
Pink 

Pastel magenta 
Bright green 
Sea green 
Bright cyan 
Lime green 
Pastel green 
Pastel cyan 
Bright yellow 
Pastel yellow 
Bright White 





That's enough 

theory... 

Clur's Patented Pods 

Program (*> Hodgsnlt 
1994) uses lines 20. 30 1 
and 40 to alter the 
standard CPC colours to | 
pink teuton a tf at k blue 
background, On startup the ink pots are 
filled with dark blue, yellow, cyan and red 
in pots 0, 1 , 2 and 3 respectively. So the 
command m line 20, PAPER 0, turns the 
background colour to dark blue, Line 30 
changes the ink in pol 3 to the eok>ur 
represented by the number 8 (red 10 
bright magenta) And Ihen the command 
PEN 3 orders Arnold to change the cokxir 
of (he ink in tire pen to the ink in pot 3. 
which we previously defined as magenta. 

Input, output 

Mow you need to think 
about what you 
actually want (he 
program to do. As rt's a 
pools urogram you 
need to find out how 
many matches are 

included on the coupon this week (usually 
581 and how many guesses the user has 
paid tor (usually 1 1). That's what lines 60 
and 70 do, ihen assigning those 
numbers to the variables NUMBER and 
G. Cve covered inputting numbers and 
assigning them to variables before so l 
won't bother going over that ground 
agam lyou'fl just have to order AA J 0J 
from Bach Issues on page 40 - a 
back-on-farm Dave), 

Line 60 is what I like to call a 
common sense line, it looks at G (the 
number ol guesses) then at 
NUMBER (the number ol teamsL H 
the value of G is higher than the 
value o( the variable NUMBER, the 





program sends out a message 
saying (hat this situation is pretty 
stupid, Then the command GOTO 
70 orders Arnold to forget about 
going through the lines in order 
like usual and to go back to line 
number 70 to ask for another 
number to be inputted for the 
number ol guesses lime 90 is 
simply adding one on to the 
number of teams variable to make 
sure thai the computer does 
include the numbers of all the 
teams in its calculations and 
doesn'i miss olf the last one.) 

Randomise 
and rationalise 

So 0l 

really need to 
do now is to 
prtnt out a Ifcsl 

of numbers 
which is G long 
and not going above 
the value of NUMBER. But 1 2 3 4 b 6 7 
8 won't really do, we need the 
numbers to be randomly selected Irom 
the range available to us, For this I need 
to introduce you to a lovely litbe 
command: RND. 

Just typing PRINT RND into the 
computer and hitting return will instruct 
Arnold to print, on screen, a random 
number of a value between and 1 ((or 
example, 0,271940568), But you need a 
number between one and SB [inclusive) 
AH you have to do is multiply RND by the 
value NUMBER and the program will pick 
a number wrthm the range specified. 

The line 10 Print RNO'lO would print 
out a number between and 10, But that 
would print out a lumber with seven 
digits after the decimal point and you're 
after whole numbers (or integers as 
they're known in the trade). So change 
the tine to 10 PRINT INTfRND* 10). and 
you'll be rewarded with a whole number 
between 1 and 10, 

A pools program not only needs to 
prmi out a set of numbers but it also 
needs all those numbers to be different 
from one another. So you need to store 
all the numbers <n memory and check 
each number against the list h memory 
before it gets printed out. The way to do 
tins is to store all the numbers m whal is 
known as an array. 



Soaking up the 
arrays *" 

Online J DO of the 

program we arrive and 

a strange command, 

DIM N(G>. This tells 

Arnold that we want an 

array set up m memory lhat rs going to be 

caMed N and have the dimension G. m other 

words it will lie able to hold G amount of 




BASIC 



strings in the array (G bang the number of 
guesses as defined earlier in the program] 

The next line, 1 10 should look vaguely 
famidar, rfs just the start of a FOR NEXT 
loop as explained *i last month's BasicaHy 
Basic, Inside the loop are mstrucbons for 
a random number between and number 
to be assigned to the variable Z Then the 
program checks whether me Z is equal to 
0; if it is the prog/am goes back to line 
1 20 (o pick another number 

On Ine 1 40 something very weird 
happens -there's a FOR NEXT loop mside 
a FOR NEXT loop, this time using a 
variable called C. This loop checks 
through the numbers m the array N. from 
the first to the last, to check if the 
variable 1 is contained m the array. If it is 
then the program goes back to line 1 20 
to pick another integer to check. 

H the integer I is neither equal to 
nor contained m the array N then (hat 
number will be stored m array N (line 1 70) 
and then printed out lime 1 801. Then in 
line 1 90 the program loops round to l«w 
11 to go through it al again. The loop 
will only stop when Arnold has printed out 
the amount of numbers as specified m the 
variable G (the number of guesses). 

This is not the end 

Arrays are stored m the computer's 

memory until you tell it to 
wipe that secbon of its 
memory or switch the 
power ofl. The 
command for wiping 
the secbon or the 

memory which is storing the array rs 

ERASE. So line 200 erases the 

entries in the array N If you didn't do 

that then if you ran the random 

number generator again (see 

Ime 220) it would just give 

you the same numbers ovef ^ 

again. 

The Junction o1 me 210 

is to check whether the 

user is happy with the 

numbers they've been 

given, tt they answer yes 

(Yl Ihen the program goes 

back to line 1 20 and Arnold 

pnnis out another set of 

random integers. II ihey 

answer no (N) then (he 

program ends and you're fc?f t 

with a ready prompt. 

Well. 1 think that's about it 

Ours fab Patented Pools 

Predictor well and truly 

explatned. Tune m next month 

for more brilliant BASIC 

programs and 

more BASIC 

commands 

for you to get 

your head 

around, TTFN, 



Jf W * 



1~' 



>"*" 






J * 



i» 




I*, i 



j& 



HW4 AMS 




22 



HARDWARE REVIEW 



■I 



r 



r i \ 



The contender* for Hie light- 

weight colour 24-pin printer 

world title light both look 

fighting fit {though one's 

quite a few pounds moi 

than the other). The 

referee for this match Is 

Simon Forrester. 






0494 471 111 



" 



roken, i 

i si dud This wasn't a printer 
er for rawing away 
. it was i 
Anyway, we don't have (o sulfer them these 



t jny dttl 



ito 



\ 




I 



days. In last, we can use 
matrix printer going. Two 
been reused are Cituer 
LC24 30, both of which a 
Which one it 



BC 24 

fjtg in of: £1 80 

aimed at the iKMne^uta^' 



any years back, when Amstrad first 
released the CPC, they came up 
with a brilliant me thod ~' 
sureth , tie huge amount 
tomak- ' nachmei 
|ust abf : ■ ■ . fif y Other per mrtti * own 
meanin,, : .-,.: users had to bw, -.irythmg Irom 
Amshad at incredibly high prices - the dtscs 
were thfeennches wide, the formats were dee 
strange, the printer port was odd. and the tap 
L_ owed more to tile D 
I B fhsn thpv did ID 



1 Am^H^pJlcTftMP range was rubbish. 

2 They^eaiiy .-.ere completely and utterly 



^^Mn^Lr 



he term 
„ss thmgy was SOHO. 
Office, Home Office. Tha 
the printer that originally 
you've already been mhc 
Mar/s preview. And in tht 

4-31 



in their 
,..i for Sma. 
-, that is, TNtr~ 
1 for review. 



>\ issue sn 
"opposite corner 



teas- did l menbon thai isn't very g 
r 'a . ' , only nine pins (wf / as Oh*" •" 
:. ..' ■ rtMSh now), and UU'<« ,/obably the 
;■■ of ribbon imaginable which ran out after 
It was slow, noisy and shoddily put 
lots of irreplaceable flimsy plastic 



pons i 

say the 



mrtthe 
live froi. 



couldn 



.4 : l.Vii:Jir¥1 



.icronics tr»w ' 
jld to make 
Sly was. you'd 

.at you definitely 



common sense. 



d enough 



Colour? Prog ra mm in 



dwas 
..citronics, anditwas _ 

possible to buy printers that 
would cor* ^"^ other 
manufa is is a good job 

for two reason 



ri rfghl, colour, Though your CPC irtlt 
a standard ttUck and white output, a 

printout i« perfectty aotsrtii*. 
■ using Epson codas [technical finfcj 
from your own procnmi. or a colour 
dump pjckkf « tar printing out screen* in 
colour cavern! or which are readily 
available from PO Ubrarit* 



Jutl a quick note, because thn i» a 
ravtaw, not ■ tutorial - ft you wirn to 
uh your printer from BASIC. you can 
km the print command at usual, but 
whareai you used to have PRINTeTh 
Hairy Ona". you tuna to us* 
PrflMT»#8."Th« Hairy Ona" intlaad 
now you know 



£350 quickly enough for your 
own sanity. This r,\ur^^-^ 
to be their .lender with 



ABC Thin! 
good for 

Loo 

So you 



looking 
so far, are they' 



.jt .* gtar 
mpar 



Ap AMSTRAD ACTION 



HARDWARE REVIEW 



23 




W\tch?-$yto company ■ 
showing what each ha 
offer , Taking a too* at r ' 

tr tfear. It's a pi ry thai 
Star, whilst aiming to 
compete in a sim*lar market 
to the Citnen, didn'i produce 
~Nnd 



Max 
Speed 



Direction 



• single col 
•' Jtat about 
round, where w 
the ease of use i 
machines? I get 
may as well c 



win', but 

Ease Of Use 



ling we 
en will 



Drift 
NLQ 



240cpt 
OfiOcpt 



Bidirectional, with loglc- 
teefclng for character & 



Draft 
HLQ 



Courier 

SantSortf 
Prottigc 
Rom mi 
Courier 
Scrlpl 



Max 
Resolution 



■n particular a < 



■ ■■ * I > ■ 



before m Ibeir Me. This (act is 
reflected m the price, which is 
aimed toward someone who's 
never pax) for a punier in 
their Hi 

It you were a 
you'd say your i 



Buffer 






it cod uffle 



ii i ii 

ii idea, 



i"l exactl 



included in the p- 
tutorial to run 
raking you thrmrrri t>very 
asprtTol your printer m 
detail You've gol a CPC. 
though, so you won 1 have too 
much luck with the disk, but 
(he manual follows roughly 

ItHJI 

throi. 

;•*■" «s. TheS 
to have the i 
/ didn't e 
overboard on th 
Let's tace rt - they i 
diagrams full stor 
* (pointed 

manual away and^gfcgle though by land, 
Whai ajm. You se< mi lakes more t 
manual lo make soroi 
to use. If you've used -i iinMri : » lore, you'll want 
to get straight down b .< -i . and H this ts your frst 
time, you don't want |nvthiriR !u be too phyt 
dcey, and youflPiniieiy dor. I want to fiddle 
awkvmn! <t [! i:r, and the like the Citizen p 
bears this in mind, ami i ml out like a brick - a 



5hc el of liar, lor feed. 



At graphic t. 360 dpi (one 
way. you pick) by 360 dpi 
(the other way, II iaemi|. 



Bk, upgradable to 104k. 
Th* flit aloiin would b« 
perfectly aduqtiale lor Juit 
•bout any u», but If you 
warded lo print DTP pagot, 
you'd mod tfw upgrade. 



Th* whole thing is 3ft\6cm 
wide. 24,7cm deep and 
167cm high. 



200 milium dpi 



£1B0 



Draft 

NLQ 



240c pt 
080c p* 



Bidirectional, wrtti logic. 
tanking tot did radon 



Draft 

Roman 

San* Sarrl 

Connor 

Prettif* 

Script 



Sheet or tractor teed. 



Again. 360 dot* psr Inch Jn 
either direction. Do you 
realise WW* 2,000 dot* 
acroct one piece of paper 7 



By the time you've got it 
running on your CPC. 
you're looking at about 
256 byte*. Thafi 32 
time* lets, and wouldn't 
print (fiddly without 
holding your printer up 
for an Ice age or to. 



Thjt one it a chunkior 
38,6cm wide. 27.5cm 
and 19, 5cm high. 



100 million dpi 



£360 



'.'JSMAiUt 



And to. In this firtt round, 
they Hart off level pegging 



Both head* travel in both 
dlroctiont it what that meant. 



And * till the two contender* 
are head to head 



One of them hat got to pull 
away toon (I hop* | 



Wore importantly, can vou 
beliovo I actually got paid 
far wriling Itlm tluff ? 



Flnafty. tomethlng different 
If you plan to print text in a 
hurry (or even in a day}, the 
Crtiion printer win* thit 
category, at th* Start 
buffer tyttem wont b* much 
uto to your CPC. 



The Crllion it tmaller. The 

Km !■. btggai Hm eatagorj 

wrfii bought to you by the 
words big' and 'tmall', 



Wove all teen the battery 
adt - wouldn't they be better 
If a bunny got that de Jd by * 
frying rod hot printer pin* 



on the very easy lo use brick. There are no ma.oi laps, 

i Jirtal picture of a knobbly bits, ratchets, sockets or dang(y bi!s 

. holding a ream of paper is The whole thing just sits there, and work' 
it Mhink I'll throw «lio 5tgf un'f ikf " ■ - -u,: mil luvi> 

igle though by land, produceo somethrg a it e mc < ^mpte* A lot 



iiiniT'-ggT JlVV 



(jy ;ly complex the Stat ptmter 
is t but for now you can just take my won; ' ' 
and the word is 'complex'. 



erdicf 

Lia 'Citizen wm' Stttw»i. .Nuw, 1 wont heal 
around the bush here - Citizen win. and Siar 



I know, I just had to 
mention these price* again 
- £360 jo*t appear* to my 
sense of humour. 



don I. Whereas Citizen set out to produce a 
nnter powerful enough to satisfy artybooys 
ome office needs and easy to useease. Star 
have produced a slightly biKW prmler power lul 
enough tosaUsfyanybody's home office needs 
"i long as that body is preuared 10 spm 
vs working out where to phi u»e paper 
iar is a more refined and substantial printer, 
tl don't feel that the refinements art really 
jrthlhe extra !} 70 

Ifyoudf -Hi 1 , t.iy a printer , I hope yo 
~ <e loo much im^m* operating it - 1 It0i>e you 
/ the Citizen ABC 24. 



.Til 



AMSTRAD ACTION 




MACHINE CODE 



The Hairy 
firmware guide 

Unfortunately. Armtrad Hopped printing (he 
huja W*ck bw* CortaifHPit nil fh« ftrrnwsre 
I ever need tome time ago , Fear 
i the Hairy Firmware Experience 
you tiuougft ti tiunled tune* 





sic fifty the input version of 
so look <n that one. 

fa Hum closing thing, *itb no 
entry coodtnon*. corrupting 
flag* wd f egntef i and having 
l carry flig that sayi whether 
you nrt successful or not 



ThJK 



i c afl reed* the data kite 
memory. The onry entry condition it HL 
containing the address to put the data 
at, and you ran bet the carry flag doe* ftt 
thing and other brti and piece* corrupt. 




Have you ever thought about what this 
bit of the page is called? You know, 
the bit in Hie lettering that's smaller 
than the headline but bigger than the 
body copy and tells you things like, 
"Hits feature, which was written by 
Simon Forrester, Is a machine code 
tutorial." No? Ah welt, fust wondering. 
We like writing them, you see... 



This entry sets up an output stream Is be 
written to. On ontry, B must contain the 
length of lh« filename. HL mutt contain 
eddreti of the filename, and DE mutt 
contain the addreu of a 2k buffer. On exit, 
there Isn't much to »ay. apart from the fact 
thai the carry flag indicate* whether the 
operation era* successful Just about a* 
main rogltten end (left corrupt on cart 



r, 



a clow an output itroarn. use thru call with 
mi ontry condition* The carry flat indicate* 
success- Just about all majn register* and 
corrupt <im oxlt 






L 




it aefldi the data out to the tile prevteuiily 
opened. On entry, HL contain* the address at 
Hie data to be saved, DE contilnt the data 
lencth 1 andB€ contains tlw entry address (the 
address thatl be automatic ally lumped to If 
the code ht run from BASJC), and A contain* 
the Me typo. The carry flag indicate* 
the operation was tuccotshif. Just about ill 
main registers and flags comipt on exit 

After afl of this extended catalogue Muff, 
you might like to know that this call simp! 
perform* a normal catalogue of the disc or 
tape with no string* attached. All you need 
to do It enter the routine with 0€ containing 
the address of an available 2k buffer for the 
CPC to store its information. On exit, the 
carry nag iridic ate* tuccett and afl other 
registers and flags go doylay left* - Dave) . 



, 




This 



writes a pure chunk of data out to (ape- 
On entry, HL mutt contain the start addres* 
of the code. DE mutt hold the length, and A 
must contain a sytKhranitetJon (identity) 
byte. On evil, just about everything corrupts. 






In a chunk of data produced by Ca* 
Write. The parameters ara Identical, ae aro 
the exit conditions , with the carry nag 
success. 









:ki a chunk of data against a part of 
Entry condition* are identical to 
i. end on exit the carry flag 
the integrity of the We 



. nrviSTRAO Acrrioni 



■ 

MM 



ast month we took a look at 
writing a direct sector 
loader, which was a routine 

to read a block ol data directly from the disc 

without hassling around with files and things. 

Some people might jusi have wanted to be able 

to write out a normal file to disc, though. So for 

anyone who doesn't like wasting their time on 

trrvial and completely pointless 

exercises such as writing direct 

sector loaders that any disc copier 

could fomp through, here's a brwf 

jiuide lo writing normal files. 
First, then, you need to write 

out a file. For the sake of this 

exercise, use that standard 

binary file II iat I love so much; 
File CrUOIE.BIN 

Addr MOM 

Lnut mn 

Exec I9A97 

And without further ado, 
lefs get straight to the code: 

org I70M 
Unit *7fff 

Id li.i2 

Id MJilnm 

td dejswe 

call IbcSc 
Id hLleDeS 

id tt,mit 

Id be ,19*97 

id *,m 

call Abc96 

call ebcBf 

ret 
.filnan:db 'CHUCKIE JIN" 

But does any of thai 
mean anything lo you? (No i 
- Dave, I Probably not - 
knowing the firmware 
routines involved rrugtit help 
j little (I'm not going to go 
through i| line by line, because 
you should have got tjte hang ol the 
mechanics of machine code by now if 



you've been following this series, and if not, why 
not ?). so take a look at the Hairy Firmware Guide 
winch has ail Hie information you need. 

in case you're wondering {go on, admit it), 
the file type 2 indicates that the file is binary: 
its not all that important as far as machine 
code is concerned, but BASIC is likely to throw 
a bit of a wobbly on contact with I he file if you 
don't specify this, so if s best to include it. 
Anyway, lefs write a little loader for 





org A 7O0O 
halt 47fff 

Id U3 

Id Rjjfiittf 

Id de,ft*fjQG 
call *bc77 

Id hl.JeOQQ 
call «bc*3 
call *bc7a 

jp *3»97 
.ninanidb "CHUCKIE -BIN" 

Do all your normal bits and 
take a look at the firmware 
calls, so we can go on to 
something more (uicy 

Long felines 

i me for some extended 
CATs. The problem a tot ol 




people encounter with lunacy files is thai once 
they're on the disc, it a very difficult to get 
informal ion such as exact length or entry 
addresses on Ufoem. There is a way, though, as 
the firmware routine a! SBC 7 7 (Cas In Open) 
gives certain details about Ales when it's used 
The information itself is stored m the registers on 
exit if the command was successful: 

A File type 

DE Location 

BC Length 

The execution address is held at the memory 
address &l A bytes after HL , and so can be 
calculated using the following, placing the 
execution address in DE: 

id itmu 

add hl,d* 

Id (,<*!> 

itiC hi 

td d,<hl> 
And so we can discover the attributes of 
almost any file. One odd thing to remember is 
that binary files created by Maxam don't have a 
length as far as this routine is concerned. Thi 
because of the way the program writes the file 
out, but don't worry about it 

ItiDBO* 




MACHINE COOE 





«** 





Behead 
it instead 

I can hear you, lape-owmng 

readers - you're all reaching for 

the writing paper, planning to 

send a tetter >nto the mag 

threatening lo stop reading, sue. libel or 

bomb us if we dont cater for you 

sooner or later . Here are a lew bits and 

pieces that should keep you ticking 

over, m the form of headerless files, 
A headerless fie is exactly that - a 

file without a header, tn their raw form, BASIC cant 

read them, as they're not alt nice and structured 

(the/re just a leader tone and a mess of squeaks). 

but i( you want to write a tape loader that doesn't 
mess around with proper hies, 
here's how to do it. Wei start with 
saving our Cbuckm in file out in 
headerless form: 

V| 47800 
linit I7fff 

Id hi, 48000 
Id At,imt 
Id A.A80 
■til ftbe9e 

And to load it back in and run it again: 

■Tl 17006 
Iiiit47fff 



Leave my 
cat alone 

Now we've been 
through extended 
catalogues, you might 
want to know how to 
do a standard 
catalogue, hke the 
sort you'd get rf you 
typed CAT in BASIC. 
The firmware c an 
involved is listed in the H jiry Firmware Guide, but 
to save you the skjg Of shifting your eyes over to 
a chflerent part of this spread: 
Id de,bufftr 
call IbcSb 
I think we can just about leave it ai that. 



Id MA 
Id de,!233e 



Org 

minor change you'll have 
noticed to this month"* 
| column if Out every mini 
Kiting has a bam address 
These aren't meant to be concrete. 

it's jiist itiat Judging by tho 
^h tatters, ionw poople dont fool 
ga*~ quit* safe freely romping 
around memory, If you're utmg 
the actual example prof/am 
(CftutJUd Eft! that I am, the 
address given will work 
perfectly tor you It you're not, 
you might haves Id work out some 
now addresses lor your routines that 
ittof clear of existing program*. 







Id *,M 
call Ibcal 
JP M*97 

that was easy, wasn't it? The only part you 
may not liave understrxui was the figure held mi 
the A register. If s the synchronisation byte 
trunk of it as a trie name, as the read routine wi 
■gnore every file that doesn't have the 
synchronisation byte of 8.80 Like riding a brke or 
watching an episode of Twin Peaks, ifs simple 
once you get the hang i 

Can you verify that? 

I know - when I first started using headerless 
fries, i Bioughl ihey sounded pretty dodgy as 
well. There is a verify routine, however, and iff 
realty simple to use. All you have to do is rewind 
the tape once you've saved the file out, keeping 
the origin, mory, and then run the 

following routine: 

org 87808 
lit it «f#! 

id hi, MOOT 
Id de,*£33e 
Ld a, 480 
call Ibcri 

After itm routine, if the file was okay, the 
v flag will be set. If the We is dodgy, carry is 
Other way, you'll be able (o check and, rf 
■■ is a problem, re-save the file 
So now you know. Doesn't the world 
somehow seem a better place? 



© 



Next Month 

Dear Mr Campbell, 

As publisher cf the magazine Amstrao" Action, I 
f*«l you realty ought to do something about the 
situation regarding Simon Forrester's Assembly 
Lino series of articles. For a full two paragraphs, 
he was talking about tape firmware which didn't 
apply to me at all. 

It your writers continue to ignore large 
portions of their readership for what I fool to be 
far too great lengths Of time, 11 have lo think 



very carefully about buying your mag in future. 

Thanks for your valuable time. 

Roger Qbvioutlyrtiadaupname, Tunbrfdf e HWb 

Dear Roger 

In a nice public relation! sort el thing. If get 
Simon lo cover something next month that'll 
definitely apply to you - programming 
toolboxes, and what they can do for you. 

Thanks for taking the time to whinge to me, 
CeWn Pirbrisher 



Apnl 1991 AIWISTRAD ACTION 




26 



PUBLIC DOMAIN 




Pipeline vs 



Pipeline by ftalf Brotfodt 
Pipo Crazy by C Mod toe 




Most games place you in the role of a muscle- 
bound hero, an ace racing driver or a famous 
movie-star. These games, however, let you live 
the not-quiteso glamourous role of. a dumber 1 

Where have you heard that before? {Super 
Mara Eros' - Dave ) Probatory m a Pipemaoa 
review, as both Pipebne and ftp* Crazy are 
Pipemania clones. Uk« in the original, you re 
faced with 9 gnd that 
features <i leaky varve 
Within a few seconds 
the washer gives up 
the ghost and the 
vaive starts gushing 
forth water. It's your 
|Ob to connect 
various bits of piping 
to the valve to form 




»<K*^#-i-L 1 ™ tat ' month? W.J, ,. * K 



one long pipe that'll carry 
the water away. 

The piping comes in 
various different shapes and 
sizes,, but unfortunately you 
can't choose your pieces 
They're chosen randomly lor 
you, so you've got to make 
do with whatever piping 
you're given. You are, 
however, given the etiance to 
do some forward planning, 
because the next three available bits of piping 
are displayed lor you on ihe left of the screen. 
To place a section of pipe, you simply move 
your cursor to the position where you want the 
pipe and hit the fire button, To complete a level, 
you must construct a pipe of the required length 
before the water overflows out of the end, 
Ptpemanra is one of the most enjoyable 
games I've ever played. Unfortunately, neither of 
its PO clones come close to matching rts 
plumbing perfection. 

Pipeline, which boasts colourful graphics and 
levekfesign faithful to the original, is ruined by a 
Stow moving cursor. It was the frantic nature of 
Pipemania that made rt so good. The inability to 
speedily move the cursor around the screen 
_ destroys the gameplay. 

The completely 
opposite is the case 
with Pipe Crazy, While 
the cursor moves 
around the screen at 
an admirable speed, 
the levektesgn is 
dreadful The difficulty of 



every second level is based on the fact that you 
can't swap around sections of the pipe once 
you've lard them down - an idea which doesn't 
work at all wdl, The other levels are all too easy, 
no matter which of three difficulty levels you use. 

Neither of the games are desperately bad - 
they will keep you amused for a few minutes, but 
both could have been a whole lot better. 




l*#'» #*** 



■..-i l4 i-. 



yHT U-fc*wd 



Enter the 5; 

Public Domain! *% 

And now, especially for all new M roadert - dwmdl 

everything you'v* over wanted to know about TO, being 

hut have alway* been afraid lo itkt MM it 

So what If II ih*n? Pf) wttmatw H tottware that raid tl 
hn b**n donated by its authori to th* Public wri 

Domain Thii meant that It it fro* tor Anybody to comm 

copy, at long at nobody make* any profit out of It from c 

and It I* not ■Herod In any way Vet, thaTi right large i 

H't FffEE! tthati nwn th*r*'i abiolufely Icadt ol for a ■ 

It available for Hi* CPC cowing every ude ad 

Imaginable ut* tor your machine - game* uniitiet Image 

and application* Utted 1 

I bat you're thinking. It it 1 treo N can't be any an SAI 

good, con (tr Yti It can. ectuoftyf While there 11 catalo 

Inevitably a let of rubbiih to be round In the Public with lu 



Domain, there 11 alio plenty of Quality tonware 
availebta which it every bit at good at. If not 
bettor (ban. Ihe commercial equivalent And while 
commercial roktatot for ttt* CPC continue to 
dwindle, titer* li atony* ■ nearly *fre am of PD 
being relet ted To make ture thai you only get 
the vary bett PO available ill you need to do It to 
road th* review* in thlt column! 

When* eon you get hold of ft? The moot 
common way of obtaining PO in Britain li to got rt 
from on* of th* many PO libraries Theto have 
targe talrjctiont of PD which they win copy for you 
for a tmall copying charge (usually about 2Se pot 
tide of dttc) All the teftwira re v i ew ed in Pubic 
Image thc-uld be available from all tho Ubranei 
litted u> the Amteen* Directory Send any of them 
an SAE . and they'll be happy to Mod you a 
catalogue at th* loftwar* they dtitribut*. along 
with fun detail* of how to order It 



The French connection 

ti mti the only way of obtaining PD» No In 
Europe, where th* PD tceno hi meet active, dtere 
are virtually no PO libianot at all Why it thlt? 
Well, tnoit CPC uaan on the continent gel hold of 
PD lofrwaro from penpala. at home *n4 abroad 
The author* of Hi* loftware give their production* 
10 IS their contact* who In turn give cogiet lo 
their contact*, and to on. In thii way th* loftwat* 
gett around in no lime at all, If you wanted lo u*e 
thlt method youriatf, you could place a tmall *d 
in AA toying that you aro looking for contact! to 
twap PD toftwar* with, and you ihould gat a 
decern roaponto Oovtoutty, though you'll nood 
to have tome PD to neap in th* lirmt piac* to 
your* ttiW going to bav* to ut* th* tervlce 
offered by the PO tibrartet 

It tl from contact! abroad that th* Public 
Donum librarlot get mott of th*lr tottware Th* 



i " l 



ACTION 



I 



tooth's 
Ticket 




PUBLIC DOMAIN 




By Royer Sebastien 
Death's Ticket It a wtoway i scrolling shoot- 
em-up of the fl-Type variety The problem 
frith that comparison is that the makers of 
fl Typo will probably iu« for defamation of 
character, 0«#m'j. Ticket Jooks interesting 
enough when you first load ft up. but you 
won realise that there's Nfflle to n, and W* 
actually quite dull. 

There ore a number of thing* which work 
against this game, First, there are only three 
types of enemies, two of which just hang In 
the air, The other one files at you. but it only 
moves horizontally, so it might at well just 
hang (ike the others lor alt the difference 
that startling innovation makes. 



Oeth, titts loofcs 






itarflinijly original. 












eW *«*> 




■ • 


■ 


1 


f J ■* ^-L ^-* J^J ^f*. & '-» ** '» 






■ i>i:r : ni<i^ w l I 


rit n? 


i Hi, T if : -* 


TVIT I 


•. t nr-i i 






All the enemies can be dodged with ease 
because the game moves at a snail's pace. 
You can, if you want, shoot them, but there's 
imle fun in It, arid anyway, you'll find that you 
run out of bullets in no time at all 

Although the screenthott may 
look decent enough, don't be 
footed - while the graphics are 
colourful, the gameplay could 
hardly be lest interesting, 




By Laurent Vittecoq 
For any of you whose 
intellectual appetites still 
haven't been satisfied, or 
any Puttmc fans craving for a 
bit more action, here comes Zamn, yet another 
PD puzzler in the Puzmc mould, 

if you've ever played any Puzzmc clone, il wont 
take you long to get to gups with this one. As 
usual, you're laced with a screen Ml of patterned 
Mocks- You have to move the blocks around to 
position matching blocks next to each other, at 
winch point they vanish. When you've ehrrunated afl 
the WockSt you go on to the neat level. 

What makes <Taxon different is that when you 
move the blocks, they slide along as if they're on 



small fee you pay them *i rooty to cewsr the 
costs they Incur in ofat j snsn g software 

Shore and share alike 

Is shareware the tame at PD? Yes and no. 
Shareware , Ike PD, can be freely distributed 
■net la available from PD libraries The 
difference it that If you like the software and 
make use of rl, then you should pay a small 
shareware fee to the author of the software 
everyone has the decency to pay the tiny 
requested then the author is motivated to 
continue producing software for the CPC. and 
so ww aw ueiiem 

That should be al you need to know about 
the Puboc Domain However, If you've any 
further questions jutt put pen to paper and 
write to me at the usual AA address, and I'd ha 
happy to supply the answer 



ice, only coming to a halt when they 
hit a wait or another block, or when they faff off 
the end of a platform. The other major difference 
i Li that they won't disappear unless one crashes 
into another from the side, so unlike other 
Puiimc clones, you can't get away with landing 
them on top ol each other . 

As regards presentation, the graphics 
feature a strange choice of colours, and 
there's no music, no instructions and 
no level designer. The cursor is also 
slow to move and respond. However , 
owing to the nature of the game, these 



small deficiencies fad to impinge on what is most 
important - gameplay. which is available in 
abundance in this game owing to the clever 
design of the levels, 

Zaxon may not be as good as 
Puizmx, but it's not all that bad 
either For Puimtx fans 
looking for a new challenge, its 
worth checking out. 



Next Month*** 




Ai well as another collodion of PO paraphernalia, next 
month's pulsating Public Image will feature an in-depth 
interview with Fragile of tftdvtng Pixels, whom you'll 
know for being responsible for the likes of Jumpmanfa, 
Putinlx, Crazy Snake and many more. So what's ho 
up to at the moment? YeuH fust have to watt 
until next month to find ouff 



Disk re pa i 
onymous 



one with a disc-drive knows 
problem - your disc keeps ghring 
you rood errors, oven after reformatting 

Often only a part of the disc It corrupt, which is 
Hy irritating because 
is always the part 
computer trios 
onto Damn 
, eh? 
gets around 
problem by 

I tfw part of 
dHcthatks 



corrupted and 

: a dummy foe 



•I* 




tor ai intents and purpose*, what you're heft wttl b 
a perfect dfic. albeit with a erne lets storage 
capacity than you had before 

Using Diskrepatr +t sanpecHy itself, ai you've 
got to do it move lis* cursor over an option on the 
menu screen and press far*. H oweve r , for some 
strange reason mat I cant qui* understand 
control is fay joyttfcst only. 

The only other thsng I can say against Dtskrepatr 
Is that if* nothing new - the excetent 
Dfac olslagfc fay Joker of Bong) afso 
includes a repair facility, phis loads sssssr ssja as. 

7 ^% / 

donl want to pay Disco Magic* # ej# /I 



Sflial shareware foe, then you 1 
And DtsArppair very useful aid* 



April I99<1 



Simon really does get the easy IHe - he doesn't have to type any 
of these programs in himself, whereas you do. Ha! [But H*s worth 
tho effort, honest guv - says the diplomacy ed.) 

programming points that if d do you d hell of a lot 
of good to take some notice ol, Type ri in. Iften. 



r» r * » v 



SFAl 



Nrwiwllf I really hat* Mill 
graft colour uhemo... 



f i 




game, from 
John Strangeway of 
Kelso, is what you'd 
end up with if you 
got hold of a copy 
ol IVon Cyetes, took 
away the steering, 
■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■^ but gave one of the 
players the ability to suddenly warp to the other 
side of the arena, You play the part of the blue 
line on the rtghl hand side of the screen, and at 
any point you want, you can hit the space bar, to 
make your line scream over to the I alt m an 
attempt to Ml cell ol the white line, 

H you succeed In hitting the very first pixel ol 
that line, you'll score a point. If the line has 
atready passed by the tome you get to ft, you'll 
die. If, however, you fire too early, yoult simply 
make the white line bounce off your blue line, and 
it'll gradually make its way over to your side of 
the street!. When it gets (here, you'll die 

Okay, so this probably isn't the ultimate in 
home video entertainment, but its here for a very 
special reason - it contains quite a few little 



Lines 80- 1 40 

Ooh - reading this set of linos, I cant help 
feding it might have been enter it follows 
(I haven't Included ell the Ink value* a* 
thal'd ju»t be a watte of space) : 

FOR fzQ TO 3 

RE A? i 

INK p,i 

HOT p 
And later on In tho listing to have: 

DATA 8,3643, ( 
This It en all pur po jo routine that could bo 
inserted into any program, letting the 
programmer change the Ink values by 
simply altering (ho DATA statement 

When we got down to it, the same type 
of principle could have been used to save 
lime and effort with the window sot- up 
commands In lines 150 to 170. 



6AHC lfl-BEH kUrx 

HAH 28-JtEH ■Cspurnht ■1SJ3-B* John- Sir* nswij 

JIHC 30KEH 

iW 40 - h=0 

EACH £0 SYHECL AFTEI 12 

iAL? (8 HOJI 

J*J} 18 SYMBOLS, 8,1*18011801, iXllMUM.a, 

6,9,8 

Cfltt BO'lNK^n, 3 iBORDUl ^PAPER'S 

FAHO SO- tMJE-1, 1S:IKK-2,S: l«lt ■ 5 . B 

GSCf 30[]-|HK->.2B:IHX-G,ll;lHK-«.8 

TW 11v<lNI'lS,ll.lB:Iiat<7,l] 

Film ja-INK-14.21.l:IM(-l3.S.C 

E»F IJMriK-S.SiIHK 18, ( 

CM J4G-INK4, IB 

IMU Ufl>IIIrlKWl2.2,lSJ.2fl:FAFER12,5:CLSl2 

[MM ISO ilJ.nOOWll.2.lS,22,24:FAPEJMi,l:>:L$ll 

JACK 178 ■ UintOWl 3 , 2 , 13,21 ,21 :PftPEHB3 ,4:CLSI3 

lilWttMT 

LAOA iW.pieI.n.lTJ:PJtAU.J7,374:WW'E12 r J7 

4i»«(12.l7 
CUI 288 -l>L01< 27,173. 1 rNM £12,171 
CAFJ 218 PLOT' 27, Iff, 1 :DRAU 612 , 3(3 
JAIF 228. LOCATE 12, 8,2 ;PEH 12,11 iFIIKIK.'lllr 

JftOB 230'L0CATE'I2,S ( 3:PEH'I2 1 7:PBINTI2,'}») 

■ 

IAOO 248 LOCATEtZ , S,4 ;PEH ■ 12 r lfl ; PIIHTJ2, "In" 
JAM 258 LUC«TEI2 t !,S:?EH l2,lfl;PFIrlTI2."J*lir, 

■ 

NAIT 2S0 LOCATED, <,&:?EM 12,18 sFfllHIIJ. "Sir* 

HACO 278 L0CATIi2,3.7:FE11 12,18: FRIHT»£. "Cop« 

rnhtl3S3' 
DBFA 2SB LOCATE 12, 3 J2:FEfl ■ 42, 3 : PKIHTI2 ,*l(f 

:' :LOCATE l2 r S,12:FRIH1l2 > ttSIrK'llllllll 

Kil 

MDL 239 LOCATE Bl.l,2:FEPtll.I3}Mtl*Til.* 5 

FKEti-Plii* 
DAK 188 k):IH«VI 
EA1J 3IB4J (():■■' TKEH- 338 
CASH 32B-G0T0 388 

«.AEJ> 3MREH* »■»■* •Pill ■#■•■■■•■■ 
BiNO M'ttSU 
BAP* ISD-CL-StB 
FATN 3IB-tMj:«:j>lir:5S8 
CAM 17Q-tariui:50B:tctr»:fl 
RAFF 380 -r 
CBCK 3JB -LKA1E -II . t . 2 :PE« • 1 1 ,2: PKINTI I .CfflHC 

2S3 ) •* I " ; FEN II , 8 -LOCATE -II ,3, 2 :PRIHTI1 

.uSlrtC-'BMMiwiS 
M1XH 488-L«CAnil,l^iPFJ-ll,2:FRltlTBl,CKlM 

J85)*V;PEH ll,B:L0CArtAl,18,2:PllMll 

JSIHC 'llllltlll-ictrf 
PAW 418CLIAR1HPBT 
HAPJ «fl-rOR.dhn#:eB-l(>-]E«'S«F-3 
MAM 43B FLOrewip.a Mm, IsPLM'jilr, 447-41 jn 

t,t 
II IC iM-H-INKtyi 
EMI 4»-irhi:'-'-1k:EMI8 
IftOH 4(0-$ObnO-J J lBu'i.l.JB 
EftW 474 •Mf*I<4 Lint 
t«H 4S0RIH'*'* Sp#er»* 
JflKP 430 pUr^447-d||r<* 



Here's something you might like to try. 
When John wants (o display tho score, he 
makes sure there are a certain number of 
digits in the number, whether they're 
unused zee os or not. This I* Achieved with 
the USING command, that he can give a 
format for the number to use. So ff you 
were to use the command: 

PRIM US1HC 'II ll';3 4 
You would tee: 

-3.46 
Note the space before the number, at that 
was left behind because thore was no digit 
to fill that column. If the number was 53.4. 
the Ave would appear In the far left 
column, and tho space would be lost. 

For a detailed Hit of the various control 
characters (other than #} available to the 
command, take a look at your manual. 



MIA $W-PL«T'fUr,H*r*,*;MAM t«*p,ft«-a 

IAMJ 5ig-IF-0TiwH*r«»«-THttt-5tt 

Ifift SW IF «Uint-yl*Ts+] MM S« 

lACE 5»-tr'tli*t=flwH-THER-S1« 

MEO S4B IF -atin*>i|ir«>TUtt *3« 

MPH S».lMline(pjiru>TNllMila 

IACJ SWEtfD 

MCF 57fl-: 

EAOA S8fl-XEH>*-»'llil'P-« 

HAH SM 5torf--icar**h«nus 

FAtf filh1-F0R>lB»p-i-T4-15 

CACC ItO-SCllrtB-ljOB'Uap.t.lS 

OAKS (2TJ PLOT •e«p-ie,d1in#»lB.lS:»BAU-c«fil 

MliM-11 
OAEB t30 FLOlcw 10, dlinj- 18,15 DRAUewpM 

B.dlmtHB 
DfiW (48 -MEM-taor 
BAtt (50 CLSBZ 
LAM «8-rL«-M.17.1:IMM-H.3ni»IW-n8.37 

BlIW'tftM? 
DAHA (70 co*j>:4B 
DAttL (60 heTvui:S98 
CAM, (S8C0!0-3t8 
FACH 780 Altt-i ■ I«yRiit-a*f 
JAFC 710 F0R-c:dhnf IOp!*rsSIEP 3 
EAFL 728 'PLOT ■««, c. 3 
LAOJ 730'S0«H»'l,lB«i,l.ie 
C*NN 740-HEHT-c 
IAC0 7E>BetttpicMf»40 
EABL 7EO'DSAU-cn^,ie,7 
CAVA 778 -ir.C6Rp>S(S-THEN 368 
IAHN 7aO'IF'«on«i:SfllMHIrJ-lMwiui:21B 
TAJH 7S8rjfliViii:brjitul-lft 

MHJ B80'PL«-cimp-40,pl*rN,5:EBAM'pl*r,p]lr!i 
1«1L 810 PL0Tplir,3ES.Sill»kpljr.BB 
CMK 828 CO 10 388 
IAN 130 PErt- • Niil «■« 
HAFJ 840 F0R-eJlsn» T0 3SS StEF 3 
EAJL 8 SO PLOT CW.C.3 
IACK 8(0 S0WIJI.l(ei,l,!8 
CABI 870 HUT -c 

FALf •W^50UHJ>-|.a.l4M.l2.1..31 
MJO BW-PL0T t«ip-lfl,€tl8 ( 14!M««e«ytl8,(- 

18 
MB0 IW-PLOt cm ■ Jfl. t 10 , 14 :MftM< c«p* 18 , It 

IB 
CMC Si».F0R'i#=0 TO ^0:NEXT-« 
CACJ J2S-PLoraU,377,8:r>|lAK'£2fl.J77 



LISTINGS 



29 




mfj m'TW-a.mA-.wtt-m.m 

IMF 946 ir Micert- ?■»*:*««■# 

CMK JM «io isa 

FMI SM ID1 t • Fmuh ■■ • 

IUF STOHtlU 1.6, 188,12.1,. 31 

|«Jh m-c:M 

MKO 5» TiiT cw«,«UB.J*=»« <ceep<U,c- 

LU1 JJM-»LaI tM f -lfl,c-jB.H:H(W to*r*H,e 

MO 
CKF igjB<I0H-»:8<TO'2W:HUT<* 
IKI JflWlMfteorr TNJN J^twt 
CtW ItM-WW 1S« 

Spaghetti Worm 



hew, Pwrp/e 
Pmm Wvrm levndi 



*.*.*-* * 




f*t1 



The boiogn*** 
MHJ<» looks ■ 

IWtle vrf tie weft. 



wow 



Don't adjust your 

pa&e - this game 

is actually called 

Spaghetti Worm, a 

tite which is explained m the listing. If s basically 

a standard worm program-thing, the instructions 

tor which can be found on the title screen. AJI 

you have to do is colled the numbers to make 

your snake grow, with the aim of budding a 

snake that's over one hundred segments king. In 

a total disregard tot Jonathan Wilson's wishes. 

though, t/ye brotalty renumbered this progr jm 

(because Tm funny like that). 
ill] 19 ' 

IM 28 ' Sfi$h*tti -Mem-ll.O 

UK JO <-<<<) -JeMtkln HiUm ISM 



ScrfeSotVs Disc Archiver 

Odder and odder, thought Alice. It turns out 
that tome people ere h«vin| trouble uting 
tfiH fitting from issue 101, twuuu of odd 
thmgt lido buffw space taken by 
TypeChecker. et you run the program 
without typeChecfcef in memory everything 
will bo nne, but )u*r In case, you can replace 
the ttrst line) of th« original Utting with; 

CUE Mlftrttl! l7FTTuiir:«88e 
CUT 28 llll-hl 

IIW M-V-M^WTHfil-SilE-'UtJM'.b.lNN 
rON 

HIT f*V*Mr:a«aV»l 
CUI (8 «Ifl 20 

You don'l have to re type iM the date 
i letoments , )uit the first frit Knot (phew). 
This «rtt then uve out a binary Wo to dlic, 
To run thrt, you can uu the foflowing 
program (you cant Jmt run the ISI* that 
wat saved out): 

>«FK 18 MFttPtllFTT 

FILL 29 1,01} -ilJ.huMWU 

cui n cut «4*m 



IILF. 18' 

Ltit m ' (^mimHimiik! --sttihtui* 

Kill M<- Xira-atuuirer tht twrer 

ItW 78 < ' ■ p r b jnw nif-'trchmej at" ■ u%ti > , 

IIP* 88 ' 

Lltf S8- '-If-ytt'rt'Uiryiu-eiK-iliir-Mt 

Win 18* ■' tht titltiwtfn t*4 Unit** 

J»fJ ll»V Jut -i«i*t>«ltrr-tki-c«dfi 

*«H 1»<' 

lira m-'<im -bts) 
««m !«■' 
aim ise- j 

Kill Ite'^i-s-SmathcirCmir.,.* 
Mffl m-' 

OK.I Itt-JffllOL tfTIt 32 

XMF iSfliTWIvLiSCf'l 1 '). 126,122,122.122.122, 

122,122,126 
JUL M«'STHWL-MC{*f*,m, 66,12? Jtt. 16. M 

.66,121 
JHfft 218 irtllCLIKrj'), 126,66, 122, 66, 122.12 

2,66,126 
JIIH £28 S»»l- ISCC4*) . 126 , M,*4 ,16 .66 , 111, 

IU,Jfl 
JUL 218 SflHWL Iters 1 ),!*!, « M,EI, 122,122 

,tt,UI 
J«K 248 SiKBdL ■»SC<'S , ),J2(,H,H.« t « t ie r l 

i.llt 
Mil 2SQ •S1HML>«C(*T*) J 1lt l IMli.lM,]«,l 

tiju.ia 

J«K 218 SWIOL •«SCC-|'),iei.»,N,K < N.».t 

I,1M 
JKO 278 SW»L #SCrj*),12l.«,S8 ».le2 r l22 

.122,125 
JUT 2»-S«»L-»SCC8').12l,K,l8.».S8,».l 

MM 

IM* 24«>STHICL< ISC E'.'J, 8,H ( 68. te,S8,H.n, 
8 

tm Ne>snML-tsc c* a >, ut,u. itt,n,4t. si, 

aj.{| 
JOI Jlfl iTM0L-»SC<*IM.S6,St,llt,J38,l»,H 
.56 

UN 128 SHiBOL-ISCi-J'J, 8.55,124.124,12*, St.. 

8 
[UC 338 mWL !«<■>■), K,3MUS,}6,H, 36 

,16 
HUT 3«SWI0L ISCCCl,8,24,24,e,€ r 24 r 24,B 
MIFF 350 SWB0L«C(**>, 8,8,255, 8,^,255,8,8 
tm 360 ■SWBH'MCC,'), 8, 8, 8, 182,182,8,8,8 
tKH 378-5WSU «Ci'<->. 36, 36, 221,4. 4. 252,0, 

I 
Mil 3tB SWBOL lKf'»-).a.24 ( 24,«.«.8J,e 
1*CH 1S8 iffltOL *SCfx-J,8.8.«2,*.4.22l,3M 

6 
Il» 488 SVUML ■ISCI'ri.a.B.B .SS.S6.24. 24,8 
]NH 4iflS™»L»SCr/*l,8J. tU2, 36,35,36,3 

f 
IHJ 428 ^VNB«L »SCr, *), 8, B, 8, 1, 6. 24, 24,0 
USH 438 ■HrlHL-I.Kf- ), 36,36, 31. 31J2.I3.I. 

8 
MHilJ 440 -SnlOL-ISCf'ri. 8,24,24,6,6, 8, 8,8 
DIM 460 ' 

Utf 460 ■' --(nitUnt' -faTHlln 
■K« 478 ' 

F«F 4ifl MflHl j-h.a-*.«-i 
IMC 4» tU *U28l.M128) 
LMC 58en*tiCl(HU6HCNBI(2)»'. , *CIH<l>«lfll 

KUHcmcii 

r**jH 510 lp*nl:CHR*!22}iC«Ria):-tF»fn:C«llf 

22)tCai(9) 
Clir Stf.Hl:'i-:>rU:' , S'!'»li*)r: Jill:'"'!- 

i|dl:*SLCN''#ltbtr FlST'er-5L0tt 
IIJF 638.1 lwlil:"l"*tlUII III tCHmi5)*CHII(2)* 

•rtCUHlSKHKl): !iilhl:-r 
PIPJ S48 il«tl:C«M(15)+Cmt(fl)tCIII<14J)*CN 

liaSKIIHlh fiittlt 1 •' 

nrt sse ir *Hi=-st<*- tmm h*ijf3»io»hi: t* 

ill:ilwtl 
GftlH 568 IT iHf-*r»ST - tHlthMl«:f#stkl t* 

ill^fi^tll 
I BJ I 570- ir -Mini- INI ■»(«*■ : «0I ■ t«t«ri THEH 

lh( Pojif - li -i Trot n tint 
FW0 SW-tNT I, 4. 28.86. -4.28,86 
CUM 588- lb: 1 
MM 688' 



Typing listings 



u 



If you've never typed in a lltting 
From Aft before, then readtoif 
(hii t oftowirti blurb Ii a 
REALLY GOOD IOEA 
• Baikidy, al you need to do ht 
type in exactly what we print EXCEPT 
dw frit four tetter* ei each One. 

• The fir tt four letten v§ a code whfch erorii in 
conjunction with our unique and utterly 
excellent TypeCbecker program below. 

e> Only preti RETURN when you let to the end 
or * command line- If a command line goet on 
to two line* do not pre** RETURN at the break 
In the line. Your line* on tcreen ihoutd break In 
exactly the seme place at they do In the mag. 

TypeClwcker 

Thli it a program met enablei you to chock 
whether you have typed M tltbngt hi correctly. 
Type It in, then SAVE ft for future use. So, 
you want to type in an AA listing, and you 
to double check mat you get It right: 

• Load up TypeCbfCllir, 

• Type NEW. 

e> Type In the litting of your choice. 

• When you've finished type UST. 

• At the end of every line a highlighted code 
will appear. It should correspond with the code 
printed in front of the same line in AA If H 
doesn't you have typed in thai line Incorrectly 

PHIL 10' r 'lwrChechfr>vl.e--'ly'Stiiei'Firr«lt 

HWJ 20 ' Fflr *Jitlr4*'a<ti>ri.*.»«alie.|#ii*ia 
SANK 3fl'HPW»Y.J3Fn 

cm « ciu*=o 

C8HE Ml F0R'*d«r;*«MW Iv #»SB 

»ftKJ «8 HIU bytrl 

GUI 70 MnWrfbutu!) 

Clll S0'esun:cjue+li|t» 

tux mmi-Mt 

OKI llfi IF cii«OI2ftHTHroHIMT-"Ckeckiuii- 
Errs:" EW 

lihi iis-NK'iiwoi.pnX' (mm-.tmimirt 

Mm 120- POKE -aBISH.KSiPvXE -inSSJ^FOKE-II 

isc, lie 

MACK 138PIIHT"Twtf««ktr.?t.8>IesUJlfflVt 

m 

NIK 1«>DM* Cf,n,33 ( n P 0l ( CI,8l,il ( fS ( Cll 

s,r5,n,et7,c» P 2a 

e r r.i,n,cj.Fi,c3 
l«j i«e ■Hn-to.m t n.a t OM t m.n t u,a,t 

LAJI 178 DSU CI,45,« ( 7},CI,45,»,3E ( 1I,CP,0 

O,iW,ej,08,IM,a2 
LftCH l««-}|TA5* P a| ( a p ll,lt r »,«,8r,CMl,C 

KUC l»lATi-U,lF,ll P lF,CE P 41.CI,N J N,Cll 

Turning TvpeChecJcer off |tt h automaticaily 
initiali^pd when you RUN Hie program above) 
and back on again is quite simple: 
ftKI 1BI51.D To turn It off 
P0KI 11151,3 To turn It back on again 
TypeCheclier was an Amstrad Action 
pretention brought to you in auoclatton with 
Hairy Happening Production! Ltd, 



i AMbTHAD ACTION 




LISTINGS 



If i that t overlap* theft plagued my lift 
tine* It wit teltataped* to the front of 
the hundredth i«uo of AA. Normal 6128 
owner v (noi Plut own«n| who ace having 
problem* Batting the tape to woffc might 
find thit lining uteful, All you have to do 
it type It *n. end run H with your Efrte tap* 
In the drive; 

CAM 18 L0A1 -vlitr.bm-.IIEie 

im £0 poke urn.e 
ttJE »<rttMim« 

nit 40 roii- in je, i 

CM* 59 CiLL 11118 



0W1 iJfl ' [nitill «4 COPVCHSt (fc S ilwul Ci 

iceimt) 
W* (ffl 

Jlfl 138-pATleA.».li,fl,23.5f,23,5«.l2 t? 

BIMJ {4B-BISIC1ES38 

E*a s» «noif KiMH-ie 

rNU, «8 e»F»ekr.'AtHDM| 

Rill 171 1 FOB- et :et||thr ■ TO- eariehr *! 

llll (N-Htt<ri 

FHtO EM>-FQKE-c»,VILrl*ic*t) 

c«jo nj^mi-cp 

AAFN 718 ■' 

r«* m» f <mi«»Mriti 

AAIO 718- ' 

jaw 740 »i« "fwoeftieseetiieeuiMtniiiNii 
MUMtJ 

J*W 758 Mil -B««0«ieMMle1ilMlMiaeei8f|e 

muMU 

J*IJ 7M -llti -WW»l»lijeiWleeflWle«lMifl 
IWUMM 

J*W 770 MTl'fi«6Wl Ofij WlftO LOetietlll 1889 1Q 

•MIlMtl 

JeW ?tt « Mil « '88898 J IB 18 188 i DM 188 IBM 188 18 
MMtMfl 

jiii 7» tin *eeewneo8i ibboi ii888l8861Mlb 
•Mtr.iu 

mi 180 Hi TORE 748 

CAP I U0-H4K'l:-nmU^:-»K-M 

CAC1 lit-m l.fi: -rNV-2.R :-S*l>J,l 

CAD IM -Hint, -PRINT 'tF*nl 

rad m rod -n-ttTfl -w ma step ib 

RM? IS* -»liu*:B; HU nlf,*l«h 

1*11 1(8 fvl«:l-I0 35 

TOP 178- -<vtl:NtTrt<vLf ,*(,!) 

NiMt Itt IF est: 1 !* THEN PRINT *t»il;ILST 

-PIlHt-" V 
JAP* I* >e|iw:*liu**v*i<eel)e.e 
MCI SN--HEJlt'ec 
CIK 118- PI INT 
0A» 12* If .1 *«0»l cb TIEN PRINT 'Chtck I I 

CMP 138 NEXT el 

»W 148 PW-1: LOCATE 12. UPBINT'SP-RGH 

III-]* 
XMI !M -rjKin>IS,»:-niM' a »)mia- -0V 

iron in-LKin-iMir-nni^irJautbii-ttii 

till' 

EIME m PEN. 3; LOCATE 2.J4: PRINT 'Eat -thru 

iwbar i ■ U ■ art ■ tell ■ I aettl * 180" 
IMF )M 'L4CiTM.lt 
EJftK 138FRMT -'Tl-cli»tt -Ifli fro* Vlflj"- 

;rttj" ';f-l;*-';lel;'-tnd-tlMift* 
AlW ifl«e LOCiTt S.17: NIHT *i*t#e tttn'tif 

dl.'-ilWr ■ J mr-5370 p 
IAN! 1010 PIN 2; LOCATE I J, 25 ■f»lHT -"INI-' 
MRU 1B2Q SPED- tNX 2, 2 IHK- U(: -1NK-2, 15,8 

rIHB-3,25 
lllf 1«J8 FOR -e: 189 TO 1988 STEP 5 -501N8-I.* 

J,i8 r ,,29.»lta*l.l«$8-U.l5: NHT« 
NAKJ 1848 PEXl;WCHl!,i8: PIINUPIHS-A. 

Hi TO C0HUNOE* 
FUN 1856 (ALL 1I18J CILl-MIU 
l«A !«»•* 
EAFE 1878* .iNMl-IM 



S««B 1818 

CMP 1899 

CAPP UD8 

JAHE 1118 

JAKE H28 

FAFC 1138 

[All U40 

IAJF 1158 

BAP* 11(8 

[ARC 1179 

1AEE Hit 

[*KN 11*8 

FRJJ 1288 

ERIN 1219 

HAHH 12*8 

■ ~ 

MAFO 1238 

JRRA 1248 

ERJN 1256 

IAC" 12(8 



,*,«,) 



IAFB 1278 

,1,1 

JMN 1218 



JAlf U» 



jihj im 

.■33 

jrii nil 

JILI J3ZB 
EAJn 1 138 
IRFJ 1348 
1*1* 13(8 
) 

jipa nte 

E*W 1379 
J4LC 1319 



NOH I: UINMkl 1, 1,48,25,25 
IOMEAlfDfl-8.3: >INX-1,K 
s:lflliil:-i» 2,1! IF «:3 THEN 111! 
»:RN»«1*: IMJ.i: IF ti3THEN-112t 

piper ij-nmiu 
m \. twLt 

CLSi'CLftl 

' llUO-MeHi ^^ 

R 

'-—ttet-t-1 — 
tF-tk:l-THEM-fr-9 

' Sfctata-* 

JlTRll, 5,38, '.1,11,11.-, 21,18,20 

MTR-i.is.ifl.-.-sus.ie.-.-i.a.ii 

IF »h:2-TKENrtESTaRE1228fff:( 

'•---'ttftt-j* — 

MIl-t.lJ./.-I.f.lI.-.-n.A],!,]!,^ 



WTI-l.7j,/ < <l,7 1 H.-,-33.7.1.x,J 
5AT1 12. IB, ly.U, II. !«,.«, 18.1 



X-U.UJ.) 



WI'IMU, '.13,1*. IK. ,25,13,3 



.l,-H,l.J,t 



5ATt I.H,l/,) f H,i4.- r 03,18J.> 

»T* 4, 21.1, '.5,22,31, -,*«,?, It. J 

IF - ih:3 TIEN- IIST01I- 1118: -pr-24 
1 tfeftt •«.-- 

DAT* 1,7,11, J.ll.l.i,), ISJJ, It,) 
DAT* -14.1,14.). 24,11.1, 1, 32.1, IS, 



IF-iiUIHlNIISIOM 134t:-er:« 

-SewtS • — 
-MT*. 11,3.1, *. -)S.JJ ( *. 11,1,1, •,- 
tl,U,l,4 

JAEK 13S8 MT* 15, IZA//, 11, IS, 1,7, -11,11,1, 
K "If 21 1 X 

J»IC im<HU''M l LS,-,'t,t.lt,-<-l,t,ll r -,- 
1,11,1V 

H4CN HI9 ttTA- US. 21,-, 4, II. II, -,■!,!!, 15, 

JALF !429 -IAIA-11,1, 2, >, -IS.22,3,). 11,1,6,), 

1US, U 
JAIL 1439 IftTA -22.1,1,1, 22,16,1,1. -IS.l.il.l 

. ISJJ.tl.) 
JA1E 1449 BRIili.l.l.-.ttJ.t.-.JS.U. , 

tt.LtX- 

KALN 11S8MTA )f,LS,l,- t '31,ll.4,-,)!,2L.2. 

J«E 14S8-LF it-STHK'USTOBE UUspriBt 

CIPI 147B ■ -Brie Seftta — 

iftll, 1418 PIJflT lp»l : 

FUR 14S8-r8*-pr:l-n-fr 

WJI 1588 -»ltr*,H.pn,rf 

EMPI 1S1B L0CRTE-fx,fi 

raHl 1529 FORf»:l-10fl» 

CAPL 1538 -PEP) 3.-PIIHT FtCHIf'llf 

IAH1 154B -PEN l:-pt[NTCWl!»SC(jlM); 

JINX 1558 -IF r t:'l M TIEN-PUNT CHlUDCWK 

18); 

DAJI 1558 -NOT F" 

EAAP i57fl--50UNM.»,2.1fl,,l 

DAPC 15B8 HEXT-rr 

1AC1 1188- ' 

I*Cr 1S88 ■•■nt bit it the st*r-. 

IAP* 1118- ' 

AIFC 1128- 1 MfKll'ld! >it=|f li^i <lirl:rt 

I: Ftl-ll -rli=3t-ivt=* 

PR41 1(38 F0R-i:l T0-ll3i<a)il:btt):lLNEKT't 

:>tml: B lP}T B E>ai= B r 

JAIN lE4t-FrUNTli,%lm!°mi*-IrniU[* 

KAPI 1(58 • IF ■ iTd t : "FAST* ■ T WX PR INI t r »f f I , 

IA*C lt« CO^fl 1)88 itt-lil-roimt 

GACX U7St:TlNE 'itl -I tar 

Mi& uw call -me] 

RAMI If*-* 

CADE 1788- * fttnta-Het-L«»f 



IAA9 I71l<' 

IRPH I7rt LOCATE *,* 

CUH 1738 CALL -capychr.F'tM 

0AMA 1740 IF thtO- --TKEN C05KI-H88: IF e*t 

rlO'HOT' THEN 2I» 
EAU IT« PMNT hMdt. 
NASI l7«ri:rS-]*; IF rtd TMOf-rt =rt* 1J9 
;AIC 1778 LOCATE if rt),b!r It 
LAOC !7«-ir «t TRFJiUnt-ULSE PIW -taill 

LARF ilf«-lR:fPPDI(Ijri11l):>]J<llO H <Tllll-l 

irhii 
LRU 1188 IF olrlr« F MblN ■«:* I: IF »:8 TIEN 

1-14 
LAFI 1118 ]F-4trl:d n lTl(EN v^»hIF -»=Z5- THIN 

■U-l 
LAA1 1118 lfdtr»:Hi TIEN. *:»-Ur-»-fltltEN 

K9*J 
UFJ lt38-IF-4irf:rtl-ritN.>:>»l:IF^:4J^THM 

-a=l 
IIEJ 1M0 rh:fh'i:IF<r*-l28'rREN r>;l 
FeNN 1158 i<rli):i: b(rh>:» 
1ACJ ltt8>C0»-J7ee>'uie-|aH-1f<F 
IIH1 1178 ' 

LMI 11W' ^lASbCottr^-InJriU'Sttrifri* 
14J1 1198 ' 
UNI 1390 IT INSIRC 12345671!*', cVDtOTRIN- 1 

so-nnitTi 

E*IC HH<'« — • 8fff' — 

MM U28 .h:l|-l! L0CA1EIU.I: PSINTIUi; 

IAKL 1930 IF li:8 THIN- jml^'HAf 

FAW 1548 SOW! 1,389.15,15 ,1,1 

cue use 'nim>'i«>»itiF 

IAFC 11(9 ' Starel'— 

NlOt llTfl. IF i«:URlH a?wl:'l**tj* :-IIW1Bt-' 

tt-W-Liep 
FMC 1SI8S0W 1,198.18,18,,! 
lltl 1158 IfJlHFt*: "t="t'Fti 
NAIF 2888 L0CATI1U1J: PMNTIUf. 
Till 2818 PUNT liiiJ'tatnaejtr 
FAN! 2828 IT lr)53 ITfDI i«:l 
JACA 18»-tOCITE-lNT!JWII-33'li,]NT(RN^2J*n 
LAPl 2848-CALL ■capvchr.ftlil:-tF -eSlO" ■ - tuEPe 

•289 
EWb £851 IF ,(,;« TIEN pti :R«ttl*l : itllmet* 

NlIK!STPH'FltJ,2,ll-IL5E-i*tt:aB»*'»* 
CUE 29(8 IF -iHCFlST* -IH" PUNT tn.nl,ttl 

t?aflli<titE-n[NT-setl: 
IRON 2978 LOCATE a,| 
CAEC aW-IETIW 'l» « Iosf 
IACI 2958-' 

IACN Mrtt- -< *0fc -afar .--oa'rr -dial.* 
IALI 2118- ' 

FRBL 2I2e-|«»:(IlNE-t3/38B 
IAJL UM-UHIIE rtUrh 
BAME 2148--L0CRTE-a(tt).b{rl); PITNTUill; 
FRCP ilU--&0Ml-l t M,U8 l .l l l:-fOI-c:l-IO-2 

I: NEXT a 
IRIP 21(8 -rl:rl»l; IF rt:128 I«H rt:I 
CRII 2178 M»» 
NANI U8B-lOCATEIUI,l: PRIHTIl.lt:* Tint;'; 

AIPF 2 J58- IF cvtrt -'**«• l«*I PIWTI1 .CNlKl 

Ml). Fill ■PRINTIl,CliJtif 2251; 
ilfO 2288IF tvtrl:*F0W THEM -*lmh»l: IF ih 

:( TREH th:l 
CALI 21H FOR s:589 TO 1-5T1P-1 
EA1D 22»--tU«i«.B2StE.I 
Blfl 2238- -MINI -U.UUSOWit 2,588 -a.l.el 

C ACL 2248 -NEXT ■ 

FSLN 2258 -CAU'UI93:. CALL lllll 

CAIE 2218 -CATO'lIM-'nn -fie t 



© 



Send us your stuff 

Anyway, that' a ell we've got tpece tot thit 
month, Remember. *f you went to tee your 
handyworli in print, )u«t tend your tape* or 
disc » in af, envelope nwfted Type-lnt' to the 
utuat addrett , and twrtetnoer to tend an SSAE 
if you want your diic or tape back. 




REVIEW 



Ever wanted to reshape the world 
In your own image? Well, you 
can start with the UK thanks 
to these new maps designed 
to be used with 

MitroDesign. 
Dave Golder 
explores. 






ave you ever met one 

of those smart alecs 

who ask you what tne 
shortest distance between two 
points ori the earth's surtate is, 
and when you reply, 'a straight 
lne f " they go, 'no* rfs a curve, because the 
earth's surface is curved," Well, next time, |ust 
tell 'em to dig their way between the two points. 
Anyway, now I've go! that off my chest I can 
get around to what it was Itiat inspired the rant in 
the first place. Campursoft have released a 
series of UK maps tor use their rather splendid 
MtCfodestgn Pfus DTP package, wrm a set of 
world maps set due to lollow soon. 

The UK pack comes on two discs containing 
an impressive range of cartographical delights: 

1 Counties 

2 Major motorways 

3 Internal boundaries fie, 
Scotland, Wales) 

4 Major rivers 

5 A coastal outline of the 
UK m double thickness pixels 

6 A coastal outline in smgle- 
thickness pixels. 



T Major town and abes. 
8 A combined map ol 
towns, motorways and cities. 

Plus, there are a number of other 
outline maps of specific areas, such 
as Wale?,, the north of England. 
London and the Isle of Man along wilh 
a series ol weather symbols you can 
use on the maps. 

Each individual map is butt up 
from a series ol 
files; what you 
have to do is 
open up 
MooDesigrr, 
then load and 
print each 
section a piece 
at a time in 
order. At fui 
scale the maps 
are produced at 
a scale of 1 : 4,120 f OOQ ithars about 55 mites to 
every rnch) which fits on an A4 sheet of paper. 

As reference material the maps are extremely 
(united but presumably that's not their real 
purpose, Usmg MicroOesign'S facilrHes you can 
add your own information to the maps to 
annotate them to Show, say, the distribution of 
MGM cmemas around Ihe country (don't ask me 
why I decided to use MGM cinemas as an 
example) or draw on road routes. 

H's a shame that specific sections of 
the maps be, ones you want to use as 



■*,:r 








opposed to the sections they're already 
broken down mto) can't be imported mto 
MtroDewgn for use on a DTPed page. 
And a lew more detailed maps of major 
towns, cities and A roads would have 
been welcome. But as they stand they're 
still useful additions to 

i taa g«tJ_ your disc collection if 

you've got already 
MiuoDeSfgn and you need some 
basic maps ol the UK to adapt 
for your own uses, And if 
you're doing geography at 
school or college Ihen 
the forthcoming 
world maps are 
going to be a 
major labour 
saving way of 
sprucing up 
those dull /T\ 
essays. "*-*J 




Details 



PRODUCT: Maps for Micro Dnign 

PRICE; £12.99 [II 1 M on RONDOS format) 

Formats: 3-inch disc*, 3-S-inth dfeCt, 

ROM DOS discs. 

AVAILABLE FROM: Cwnpuriotl. ID Mcintosh 

Court. WtUpwfc, Glrtfow 631 2MW 

tr 041 554 47UI. 



Apul 199*1 AMSTRAD ACTION 



zi 



ADVENTURES 





And on the 3 2nd page Hie editor did soy, "let there be a text adventure column." And 
Debby Howard did oblige with words of wit and wisdom..- (who's writing this stuff?) 




i **• they've 

fwt Hie budget 
•i* t**QwBft, 




dyhaven 



Price; £1 cm disc {you need to send a 
3*tch or 3,&tnch disc with your or der). 
Available from: John Reify, 1 5 
North Green, fetches Estate, 
Barnstable. Devon. EX32 SEA 
Crossed cheques or postal orders 
should bo payable to: J, Reiliy. 



Sandy had a teddy bear that she adored. Unfortunately her parents; 
decided to throw her teddy bear into the rubbish bin, for the dustbin men 
to take away, which they <Jd the next day. 

Toyfuuen is where unwanted toys go when a child has outgrown them, 
But what Happens rf, bke Jacob, the toy is loved so much? Santa is the only 
person who can make Jacob the 
teddy as good as new. then return 
him to Sandy. The Questran is - can 
you get Jacob to the North Pole? 

This is a GACed adventure by 
John ReiHy, and if you hte pictures 
then you're m for a treat as every 
location is accompanied by a 
picture, with a compass showing r a 

the available exiis. The graphics I ^ 
are pretty good but you tend to the 
see the same ones over and over 
again ft has a nifty loading program 
which gives you the choice of either 
playing the game or checking out 
such thmgs as game info, 
vocabulary, dues and an 
address from where to get help. 
You can even decide whether 



Where to go 

If you're kicking for new and re- released 

adventures, then drop these people a in* 

I enclosing art SAE of course] for their 

latest nock luti 

• WoW Software, 78 RadipoJe Lam, 

Weymouth. Dorset DT4 9R5. 

S Adventure Workshop, 36 Grasemere Road 

Roylon, Oldham. Lancashire. OL2 6SR 

m Amstrad Adventure Solution Servke, 

10 Overton Road. Abbey Wood. 

London SE2 9SO. 



you want music while you c4ay {although turning it off 
actuary turns it on and vice versa). Er» and with mat 
f ve run out of good thugs to say about the game. 

Although I could not find any programming 
errors, there seems to he quite a lot missing from this adventure, and it's 
is a typical case of an adventure that is in desperate need of a ptaytest. 
There are only 27 locations in total, and you can only examine eight things 
- the ladder, star, hook, paper, angel, chest, noddy and the box. The text 
tor locations is poor and not very descriptive; lor example at the start 
nearly every location you come across has something like, Tm at the 
edge of a cloud,* and thats about it. No wonder it's on*y 37k. 

Even when you come across a character, like the Action Man who's 
quite a major rote, you cant to examine them, lath to them or do anytb 

much else to them. Okay, you can say 
T 'BANG* to the Act»on Man, but s*nce 
there was no indication that you were 
supposed to do anythng like that, how 
is the player to know? 
Toyhavw is nddted with such 
puzzles, and definitely not for the 
beginners which it is supposed ^ 
to have been written for. 
tore experienced 4 

players will just find rt too 
Small and boring. 



3 ■>> ' 



I 



Lords & Ladies of Adventure 




If you're stuck on one Of the games lilted below, the 
kind touts listed alongside are willing to help you out. 
Please remember to enclose an SAE with your 
enquiry end DONT ask for a fill solution, as you 
might be disappointed, tf you want to become ■ Lord 
or Lady please write in to us hero at The Examiner, 
Amstrad Action, Future Publishing, 30 Monmouth 
Street, Bath, Avon BA1 28W with your fun list 

*t Virtually every Amitrad adventure ever - Joan 
Parte ott H |0305} 764155 between 1 pin and 10pm, 

* Adutf 2. Boredom, Can j Cheat Death?. Powntordi 
(Hi. Dungeon, Firestone, Jason A The Argonauts, 
Hhttr, Spacy, Tuptn. WeHeday - Stuart Mainland, 2 
Oouglai Road. Coytton, Ayr, KA6 6JJ, 

• Fin On A Treasure island, Wtttmott Simulator - 
Samantfta Blair. 21 Obelisk Rise, King&thorpe. 
Northampton, MN2 8QT 



Cluepot 

Stephen Bosco, being the nice chap thai he 
is. has sent me a guide to Five On A 
Treasure Island which hopefully will answer 
the loads or tetters met I get every month 
from frustrated readers. 

1 First of all, wait until the game says that. 
"Vou feel the train stop*. 

2 Leave the train 

3 Follow aunt Fanny to the shop, 

4 Enter the shop by going west. 

5 Buy some ginger beers and ices and 
then leave the shop. 

6 Become George and go down to the shop. 

7 Become Julian and give George the ices, 

8 George is now your friend you can ask her 
about Jimmy, aunt Fanny, uncle Qucntin, 
Joanne, the cook and Kirren Island. 

9 Go to Kirren cottage 

1 O Open the door and go to the sifting room. 

1 1 Tell Dick to go north, 

1 2 Turn on wireless and Joanne wilt enter, 

1 3 Become Dick and go north anil west 

1 4 Enter store cupboard. 

1 5 Get the cake and the scones. 

1 H When you go out Joanne will be there. 

Repeat the process lo get beck in 

because you need the spade. 






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superstore. Or, In other words, here are the small ads... 




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ORDER FORM se«d to: small ads, amstrad action, » Mowwovm sttieet, bath, avow bai Jew 



Please place the following advertisement in the next available issue of Amstrad Action 



READER ADS! 

It's true - you can advertise In 
Amstrad Action for WOT HI JVC f ITS all 
of our continuing e fforts to provide you 
the best value mag 



Address 



Classification Tick box; Q For Sale 



W.mti'i) 



_] SlTVites 



J liter Group* LI Other 



Write your advertfMMMitt hero, one word ner box. Include your name and phone number If you want them printed. 




"WQ^k 







o rc> 



Codg* a rid* ait 
Hie lift* to elevat* 
yourwll to a 
higher Ipwol. 







M**t Fluff, Mm 

tvMIUit, plnb*«( 

litre to hit yeur CPt, £" 






Tin 



i 



i 



11 i . i.L 




L r u i 

Pick up the 
banana lor a 

■j hunt of oifrn 

L, energy. 



LL 
LL 




LL W^L 



-Wot* In 





I b*» yov'm thinking. "What 
In pripiii?' Tfcny 
no In n, §• r»vl»w thn thing." Wnll, 
of, not «• van only rovloi 
■r. W#m In* dnr nxofain. If. Ilk* Mi Y 

x you tost hate them' if few evete of the 1 2 levels it's 

you didn't before, you win after tits tate. TWte| y B^B to ton n an 

Because you were eapecoruj a review of ' rywhere near completed state 
fluff and. indeed, we were expecting to bring you 
a review of Ruff, but to be honest we couldn't We 
were promised a reviewable version of the game 
m time for this issue of AA but Bob Buckley- the A 
programmer, turned up one day before our 
deadline for the rssu* (this stuff is about as ur>to 
theminute news as youl ever get in Amstrad 
Action), with a version of the game that had only a 





^-.«. 



We eoukl have mocked up art. 
whal we'd seen - you wouldn't have km 
we hadn't seen the whole game. But that's hut 
the way we do things around here - out only 
our pose in life is to bring you the facts, 

Brit, we thought, we cant give the game ail 
lhi$bu>kl no I*. sticking it on the cover) without 
giving you somo'hmg in 




J ttta** #1t*ml 
•!»*• gat f* htf *n p«t* ' 



retut n. can we? So hen 
it fc$> Ihe full and up4o- 
thfrmsnute update on 
the development of 
what could be the 
brggest thmg to 
hit the CPC 
scene in a brig 
while And of 
course, if you 

can't be bothered wait tor the next issue 
of M to read our definitive view men you 
can draw your own conclusions from 
what you see here 

Radical stuff 

Vou might recognise the name Rob 
Buckley: he's been dealing m the Amstrad 
market for Quite a white now with programs like 




Ball Bemng and utiirhes 'ike 
Smart Rfus .ate last year he 
rang us up with a game he had 
in development that would 
ihe CPC Plus to »ls 
' ..itti a platformer like no- 
- • nd ever seen before on an 
j {and rfs obviously taking a 
.-' to realise h»s ambruon than he 
ting at what we've seen so far of 
the game, anyone who's ever played a console 
. find it very famiar 
lymous character is a bait of rather 
fern n.fir :-.,nk fluffy stuff with a beak who ha 
■" way through a number of colour! . 
levels - for example . there i' ■ 
. building sites and an underground tunnel 
level to crifif with. 
But getting to the end 
ofeachseveJ isn't just 
what the game's all 
about. You tiave to 
find a few items ^ 
order for the warp to 
the nexl level to 
appear. And these 
I aren't the common or 
garden coins of stars 
that you normally have in coHect in this sort of 
game - Fluffs searching for her k 

Fluff is a bit ol a bimbo - she's ever so cute 
but she is seriously lacking in the bran 
department If she was human she'd probably be 
called Sharon and have a boyfriend named Kevm 
who drives an old yellow Chevette - you know 
the type But I digress, the point I want in make 
is that she's thick and that's all you need to 






^^ Thii In l« pari* 
you la onoHtvr 
1 I I rt X P"1 •* **• toval 



pppj j p y j: i ; ^i;t;j' {p ; 



rirK'HrH.. 



E««k! Spike*, and ' [".ZlL. 



J t r*i*i jf J r^ 
• ^/ i/ *. 




April 195*1 AMSTRAD ACTION 



UPDATE 






T~T~ Tho llor 

doesn't da 

anything of 
« IN* moment, 

t I but I'm iuft 
■ ii I '* will iDDn 
1 -t ■ it 




C0I7 

aid 

m 



know. She's so dim-witted, in fact, that she's 
gone and io&t all her children. You know how it is. 
■one moment they're pulling on your apron 
Strings, next moment they're on the back of a 
lorry heading for the municipal re Fuse site. 

If the plot seems a bit skimpy trial's because 
we just made the last 
:; at .seraph up, i 
hasn't thought up a 
alert yet - but then 
nobody's ever played 
Some The Hedgehog 

i literary 
aspirations The 
sprogs haven't got 
names yet, either, 
because Rob just 
refers to them by their 
colours (we could have 
one of those Btua Peter type 'name the puppies 
competitions', ooi we won't - Dave). 

To reach all her kids she's going to have to do 
i lot of walknn: ^mpogj running and, believe i| Or 
spinning, f y iome obscure reason tots of 




programmers seem to have got it into their heads 
that doing realty speedy pirouettes should protect 
you from baddies (take a look at Zool on the 
Amiga or Aero The Acrobat on the SNE51. If £ a 
totally unnatural thing to do, even for an alien, but 
in the context of this game the idea seems to 
work realty well - the 
graphics took hke a glitch 
at first, but once you get 
used to it, the effect is 
pretty nifty. The 
difference between Fluffs 
spmning action and 
others I've seen, is that it 
drams her energy {but not 
as much as getting hit by 
a baddiel. An energy bar 
is displayed in the top left- 
hand corner of the 
screen; when you run out of energy you lose one 
of your three lives, it's as simple as ttut Run out 
of trves and you get thrown back fo level one. 

Working your way around the levels isn't as 
easy as it first looks Fluffs movement : s ed 



First opinion 



Okay, to hero we are wtih less (turn half a game 
to look it and I'm supposed to give tome tort of 
comment on it? I would normally reserve 
judgement until I've seen a finished version, but 
seeing at Oavo begged me... 

The Ant level, the only one mat* almost 
completely finiihod, play* well - apart from a 
few minor bugi which I'm wire Rob will iron out 
(there teems to be a wayward attitude toward* 
what i wild and what's not at the moment) I [ova 



the spin, that realty works, especially at you can 
do It In mid-air too. Dodgy cotillion detection, 
though; at times It does seem to be quite a way 
off - rl that lint tided up then that's a good ten 
per cant elf Ihe final mart. 

Fluff definitely Mi potential. It's got colourful 
backgroundi and cute characters (chock out the 
blinking ayes on the main sprite], but It needs a 
lot of work toll. If Rob Buckley puts ki enough 
effort he could be in with a winner, Ruff won" l 
change the CPC as we know ft but ft might welt 
cheer up many a Plus owner Clwr 



M«r« malty 
vet. 



, - -. Mor* ilia 

yi urn. *■ 



Oooh look, a 
tetret tunnel. 



PH^J^twrW- i«fJ 



, .-. . ■ <J t J <> U U w 1/ vJ Iv Iv 1/ L J (J L 



. -j ffi fr 



Aahh. arwn't her 
babim cute? 



LLLLLLLLL 




rgH5E3Br.g 



on an inertia system lit takes you a white to busk} 
up to fufl speed from a dead stop); she even 
jumps further the faster she's movmg at the point 
of takeoff Some of the jumps need to have Wi 
running before she jumps rf she's gomg to make 
it over the gap. which makes lor a last-moving 
game. Speed is of ihe essence m any decent 
platformer and Fluff can certainly shift. 

i can't make any promises but we should he 
able to review the finished game nexi month 
(that's if our very own Richard Fair hurst has 
finished the soundtrack), But, for now. 
lake a look at what we all think of 
what we've seen so far of Fluff, 



<5> 



Second opinion 

it's hard to know what to say at thli stage - 
Fluff it obviously well though out. with careful 
attention to detail, gemepiay and al the oilier 
bus and pieces that couM turn a reasonable 
platformer into the best CPC game ever, but 
There are mil quite a tew thingi that could do 
with more work than I think theyl receive: 

• The animation on some objects is too fast 
tnd way too jerky, such es Ihe wave* en the 
first level, which don't exactly strike you as 
hawing any amount of time spent on them 

• The Inertia system Is lovely neverything. but 
Fluff dees seem a tttJe heavy, and It does take 
quite a white to gel up 10 a reasonable speed 

• The gravity seems a 1Mb rotated - whorea* 
Fluff is heavy enough to take a wtsle opeodtag up, 
when she jumps up, she drifts sfcrwfy downwards. 

This could be a game that could essJry 
•core around DO pvt cent, but rot 90 per cent 
it needs qufte a lot of ttdymg up fiM«n 



Third opinion 

Look. I'm having severs problems taking Fluff 
seriously. Sure NTs fast. Sure there's lots going 
en. Sure the graphics are hrst rate. But ft 
stars a blob of candyfloss with purple Dec 
Martens. I'm not being facetious here - 1 really 
tad the character a turn-off. Why doe* the 
CPC need another cutesy platformer - Bubble 
Bobbie and Rainbow Wands sewed up that 
market yean ago at far as rm concerned. I 
wish that Rob's programming effort had gone 
into something wnh a be of a harder edge - 
maybe rf he'd been inspired by flashback 
instead of Sonic. 

But yes. rm being churlish, I suppose With 
a bit tidying up and some sensible 

ivefop mer rt In the levels to maintain variety 
and keep the gome constantly ctiatenging. it 
could turn out to be a truly great game, 
though probably not the beet ever. I think 
maybe It trtei a bit too hard and the gameptay 
gets bogged down by ihe snazzy ne h ii q e m , 
out then, we did say that N was bringing 
consoie achon to the CPC Dwvw 



AMSTRAD ACTION 



GAME ROUND-UP 








ARCADE 
CONVERSE 



In Mm bagtrwtwg tied laid Tal than 
t» arcade* and lot there bo huge 
game* machinal that will 
W up copioui jmounti af 
[on 1 money Bin then he not 
re home computer uier wai h 
decreed that ft* vary umt garnet 
: were Mi the arcade tttouid be bought 
the home on rtw nartonal computer 
1 tt came to p •*• that there war* arcax 
oni for the CPC - tome of them 
vary good, torn* of from were bad. 
ft of them wore nooting Nfca Ol 
vanioot at att Thtt want 
"V a bid thing - ft- Type barely 
J Ma arcade ancestor but wit ttiii 
d game, and there wara torn* gam*' 
wara aim o it perfect corwaralont but 
re ttlll. hope iett becaus* Ih* original 
mo wit 10 bad 

~©d: Smash TV (Ocean | 

i tahtttg into account inflation. I recfcoi 
money out 

m* in Ih* 

« cadet than 
' us Racing 
yat(and 
draft uytaf 

• tomadwig 
Ed), hi 
batwdon 
tame tort 
idea ii "" 
booh Tt 
Jhiiwung Man by 
Hichard Bechmen - in 
violent rvturtttic gamathow thai 
idn t loaa out of placa « • Mad M 
All you hava to do <* run around 
rthtag and ptdufrg up the prtxaa Tha 
version dootn t dhrergo much from If 
Se original, apart from tha fact thai t 
n ara a Kftta anuliar irtajttatc-* 
it it natty and Jutt at much run 

Bads NARC (Ocean) 

Tha problem with MARC it that tha arcade 
original ribed on tha kind of featur 
which you could not hopo to convert 
affectively to tha CPC - templed sound, 
stunning graphic* and amering spaer 
Once it had bean stripped of these 
gimmicks what w* were left with wae 
father amp arid confuted blitter tha 
moved at a trail'i pace Wli*ch jutt 
goat goat to prove that old adage 
'Gameptay before graphlct* 




Hie down of time, or at least the CPC, shoot-* em-ups 
m been thrilling gamesplayers. Clur discovers which Masters 
are more and which ones are lag* than the sum of their parts. 

1 Mf e gel loads ol letters from our readers 1e*ig us that we said a game was rubbish . but Ihey 
^ bought it anyway and iftou^ii ri was the best II wig seice sliced bread. Everyone judges Ihe 
quahty erf a game by dtfferern criteria, here m the office we ail like drflerent IhmRS about 
drfferem games. Dave fckes (ttck Dangerous 2 because of al the pwrfces, Simon toes EJfle because (here 
are to rules to the play as such, I «a Ikes Prehtstonc 2 cause if s pretty and I Jove Pang for if s samptoty. 
You see the problem is lhat you migril have diflerenl ideas completely about wtial makes a good game 
from us. So each month, we take a game genre and split the games up artlo various elements ol the 
gameplay and leU you what games are really good or bad at doing those particular things. Here in (he 
third of Our series we take a look at the good, bad and gawd damn ugly ol shool em-ups. 



Ol Ihtf. 





cockpit, rathar than watching 
nearby sofa* system 



ff what you're aftor 
1 It a bit of realism 
In your shoot -om- 
ups than the best 
tart to go tor *r*> 
game* m which 
your point of view 
1 It that of the 

protagonist's: for 
. oxflniplo. mimes in 
which you're piloting a 
spaceship from tha 
:hlng the action from a 



up that brlngt up a radar display of any thlpt bt 
your Immediate vicinity. 

Bad: Galaxy Force (AcrMstoa) 

Okay, you're not actually looking through the 
wind* «cen in mis one. but you're stuck to far up 
the thlp'i rear engine* rfe a near to getting ihe 
pilot'* point of view at damn tt it to iwoaring. And 
If t worth mentioning jutt to warn you away from It 
- wrth dircclional guiding arrow* that ^^^^ 

don't work and * loppy graphlct, 
tha rottneted view is hopeless 



Good: Academy (CRL) 

The tequcl lo r.ni Colt mm hghl yoart ahead of it* 
predoccMor. Academy take* you on 20 rmtiioni, 
on a multitude of planatt. Even though your view 
ft nettrkted by the Hrnftationt of the edge of the 
thipt windtcrean. thera't a icanner you can call 



On«e upon 

■ ttaa* tm 

far, far 
■way Hat 



other wai 
ajatnf on. 





1 



f.ol.d 
by what 






Right tirvce the 
dawn of thoQt- 
em-up*. with Sp.ir <* 
\t\vad#ts ind Defender. 
MnMraJ tha 
action from an 
independent 
viewpoint hat terved 
Its purpote juit fine, 
thank you very much. All this point- of* view 
itentenie. it frankly, a gimmick when it all belli 
down, and while, wnen it s dona wall it can ho 
very effective. It undenlahly hmltt the gameptay. 
From a diuance things can look very different: 
for ttarter i you gel to tee what you're 
thoollng at clearly, rather then Jutt . 

getting a glimpia of Itt tail before It C J 

blast* you with iff rear rockott. 



B a lie ally, thara't much more tcopa tor 
ipecteculir graphic* and moro complex 
gamepley whqn yau get the overall picture, think 
ibout trying to get all the element* of Tfirutf 
into a game Itiat't viewed through the cockpit - 
it could probably be done, but it d ba pretty dull 
having to keep your eyet on dlalt lolling you 
your altitude. And thera't a mora practical 
ronton for watching tha action horn a dlttance. 
H alio** for an element of strategy and puzzling 

Chick out Ip-lt month'* towor tap* If you 
don't b*ll»we what we're mylntj. 



R:n7^S^!PTM i 




GAME ROUND-UP 



the good, the bad and the ugly 



BODY COUNT 




'« no point in pussy-tooting around - •hoot- 
arc about kMing Mary Whitehall** 
_ not like it, and the "video |hm « a 

' cathartic experience for our modem 
society' might hold about as much 
h a tea (trainer, but it's the carnage that 
drawt people in for whatever reaton. And there's 
'e shoot- 'em -up sub genre in which the 
point it to kill as many of the enemy at 
Personally I dont get much satisfaction 



5CDBC . _. S UP 
lei, fab— 



00. 



Good: Ikori Warriors (Elite) 

The tattle guy* thai you have to kill in Jitarr 
Warriors ere to cute that it breaks your heart to 
blast 'em, but that's your Job. They're little bhie 
Mimas, with tanks and the great thing it that you 
can steel their tanks end squash em with their 
own armoury, Vou wont be able to find rWin the 
shops, but do make an effort to track it down 
somehow, you wont regret h. 

Bad: Operation 
Thunderbolt (Ocean) 

The only nice thing that you can say about 
ration Thunde/bett it that you can load rt 
ed quickly because it's on carl. Everything 
about (he game is total and utter pap. The 
hies are sad. the sound It buny and the 
eplay it virtually non exi stent. The chape 



Or Tfcundirwiff If ■ sequel Htat'a ave* 
wan* than the *rlf in*i {dew't believe 
Mm 89 pwr cent aw l it §*f erif iwwHy). 

thai you're blasting are rtght up at the front of 
the screen - you can see the whiles ot 
their eyes. But there are to 
many of the Irttie beggars 
and they're all took the 
bllmmln" same 



5TARSTRIKLII 



2 It like 
[lite with 
a let a i w 
theoling,. 





to be introduced Into the garrveplay, which 
handily leads in on to Cybetnord 

Good: Cybernoid 2 
(21st Century) 

Imagine, if you win, Cybernoid J or 2 vwwtd from 
the cockpit of the thip; not only would rt be 
frnpcttiblo 1o ptey because you wouldnl be able to 
work out the puzzley elements ot the game* [which 
*re what give them a lot of their character], but all 
those gorgeous graphics would be straight out the 
window (or should thai be through the cockpit 
window?) Cybernoid 2 is undoubtedly one of the 
genre's finest moments. 

Dragon Spirit \ 

(Hit Squad) 

If you're going to look *"\ 
at a game from a 
distance then for heavens 



Mfttetever • eamr ti about whatever 
it's trying to achieve, il needs to look 
good. But we're not just talking (lathy 
graphics here; most importantly the visuals need 
to serve the gameplay. Even serious, functional 
programs like spreadsheet! and word processors 
have to be designed so mat you c an tell what's 
going on and games are no different A shoot 'env 
up could have the best feel, the toughest enemies 
and the fabbest weapons, but if you can't tell if 
youVe shooting at a ttaddie or a bit of the 
background then you're really thick, Alternatively, 
you can't but help feel cheated by games like 
Bfaiierofds which play well but look drab, 



sake at least make the viewpoint realistic In 
what shuation, I ask you. would you ever be 
placed way above the flying object that you're 
controlling? Never, that's when. And guess where 
the viewpoint it m Dragon Spirit? Apart from that, 
it's a completely hopeless game in general 



fatts — (hit 

dragon' f got 

about at mutK 

spirit as an 

empty tattle of 

Jock Daniels. 






Good: Storstrike 2 
(Realtime Software) 

A brilliant example ot the use of 3D vector graphics 
in the world of CPC taming. Sfarstnke 2 plays very 
much like eTWe except that the emphasts rt on die 
shooting rather than the exploring, ffs also a gnat 
example of what a sequel should be - a Successful 
game improved on and expanded- 

Bctd: R-Type (Electric Dreams) 

fl-Type's dire graphics on the Ami trad stem from 
the fact that the game wat a Speccy port, rather 
than coded originally of the CPC. The result 1 are 
tacking in colour and detail, It plays okay, but If 
you want to imprest your mates with the stunning 
graphic capabilities of your CPC men dont Show 
them this one. 

Awyaaa 
know what 
the ■ stead 
far ia 

***♦ w ^ N ape, nee 

•. > da 




•**'* 



eV . I 



April 1994 







rrr 



Okay, so a great game won't be harmed that 
much by inappropriate or downright dire 
music, but a mediocre game can be 
helped atong, in the score stakes by a 
northing rune A theme tune need* to 
enhance the atmosphere of the game: 
catchy ditties alone are mora likely lo make 
I you turn the sound down after a few plays. 



T 



1W ilH ei **w almost el mti the gwwdiei 

and Zymmpg I* na exception. 




SOUND FX 




beg*. Dave without teeth 
and Hairy mthout the hatr 
Shoot envup* 



Surety one of the very few Barnes worth 
buying |ust to listen to the (heme music. 
Gameptay wise It's not to hot - the collision 
detection' t appalling, but lhc tune t lovely. A 
«m of tuppy laWback ipace Bight melody, fab. 
MM 

Bad: Dragon Spirit 
""I Squad) 

fat to be the silliest match between game and 
thai I've ever heard. Twee tunes do not ic with 
r . flying, fire-breathing dragon* Not that the 
;'• bad, 'cause it isn't If i hisi that n't how can 1 
Ifws ■ inappropriate IT* a bd like flavin e the Mickey 
Club theme tune accompanying the Charge of the Light Brigade. 



your 

HtlM 

games *nh wimpy (itfle sound effects Even If a 
n looks Nke a gun and kills like a gun. H still 
ecnl feel Hfc# * gun unlesi it sounds Mi* a gun 

mash TV (Hit Squad) 

Everything you kfll or pick up seems to have Hi 
own particular sound Darned useful because the 
game is so fast moving thai you need good sound 

lects to keep you up to date with what t going 

.around you 

Starfox (Ariolataff ) 

Remember the hoo-he when Nintendo released 
Star tMng7 Wfel. thfc game is what the hoo-ha v 
about Origtuey they were going to call me 
Nntondo game Starfu [cause ■ was about a fox in 
die stan, see?), but Jut* before ft* release, after 



Yetith, It's Brm§mm f p tri t - some an* gel 



r: 





game of the 

same name 

in the good old days So promptly Owy chang 

name of the game to Starving, the name by % 

we «l know and kwe* today The point of das 

whole thing was to tei you dud Ihe Starfox 1 * i 

effects are not worth talking about so I wont. 



Tee, rfstfc* 



not games at the ads and the previews m the venous 
computer mags had appeared someone 



mm 






IGHT GUN G 



41 



The fight gun 
has got to be 
one of the 
most under 
utilised 

accessories for 
t*V the CPC ever. 
And why* 
Because If s rubbish that's why. 
Iff a* light ft* a leather with a 
soggier trigger than the cap gun I had when I 
■was ten. Even worse is the pathetic selection of 
names available for it. Not only are there very 
few, hut none of them come up to scratch in the 
gameplay department. 

Goods Skeet Shoot (Trajan) 

The best of a had lot, SAeet Shoot takes you to 
the estate of a large country manor to practice 



your clay pigeon shooting. At least I suppose it 
won't have the Mary WhUehouse clan up m arms 
- shooting lumps of clay thrown into the sky can't 
entice you to go do a bit of joy riding, can to? 

Bad: The Enforcer (Trojan ) 

Oont whatever you do, watte your money on 
this atrocious excuse far a game. You lace a 
short row of buildings. People poke their heads 
out of the windows and doors and you have to 
Shoot the baddies before they shoot you, while 
taking care that you dent hit the non-baddies or 
the police 
Fun huh? 




nlr 



Lovely 

lubfaly 
Nomciri, 
what could 



relaxing? 



PICK-UPS 



A shoot-'envup, ike We, is an about getting hold of 
all you can before you die. In gfe rt can be money, 
love, a career or anything that you 



xiak 



Js. r 



^■«alri a 



■ 



April IWt 



TRAD ACTION 



fWLJ» 



In firm mud forget and 

jftV ntMfMwfl \ 1/fTJrt * DflVt|t 




- 1JI 

basically, 

I*' a -.LLI.L 

lr# rvMHKi 



MUST GO 



If you' vi> had a hard day at work, 
Micro's nothing like coming horn*, 
slipping Into something mora 
comfortable, cunning a relaxing Radox bam 
and indiscriminately destroying loads and 
loads of a ton spacecraft, buildings, ships, 
helicopters, anything, in fact, stupid enough to 
got In the way of your gurtf (but no l while 
you're in me bam, I hope - safety 
consciousness editor) These blast-anythlng- 
and- everything games don't Lax your mind. 
don't educate you in any way, {though they 
may arguably help you with your hand/eye 
coordination if you really need an excuse) but 
Hn'y definitely ire great fun 



Good: Fire And 
Forget (Titus) 

I know I mentioned Fire And Forget lasl month 
in the Good, Bad and Ugly of Driving Games 
feature, but I did say 
there that it was mere of 
a shoot-em-up with 
driving bits than a driving 
game with shooting bits. 
As a thoot-'em-up it fares 
well in the good and bad 
stakes, 'cause the further 

II you go. the more there is to shoe! 

" arid the tougher getting any further 

down the road gets, 

Bad: Copter 371 (Trojan) 

Copter 271 must of seemed like a good Idea 
at first, to have a vertically scrolling playing 
that's actually wide than the screen on your 
monitor But In reality ft just doesn't work The 
main problem Is that baddies can sneak up on 
you from the side without you having an 
Inkling that they were there just off screen but 
on the playing board if you know what I mean 
You can't go backwards to if something 
appears to the aide of you there's absolutely 
no way on earth of killing the darn thing 



CAME ROUND-UP 




Without baddies to shoot at. shoot -em-ups 
would bo pretty darned useless, wouldn't they? 
Enemies Can come in all shapes and sizes, 
from thick soldiers who seem to throw 
themselves tnto your fire to mammoth to 
spaceships that won't stop attacking until you 
blast mem into space dust. But the important 
thing in any particular game If variety. Whether 
you're piloting a spaceship of yomping through 
the jungle, a game will only keep your interest 
rl the foes you face dent all attack hi the 
same predictable way. 




, 



if! At' 



Commando (Elite) 

Baddies are Hca number 23 buses, 
you don't we one 'or ages and then 
ten come at once, and ail from the same 
direction. Thank goodness for Commando, one 
of the great exceptions to the rule. They keep on 
cumin' at ya from all directions and with loads of 
different weapons. You'll be attacked with 
bullets, grenades, tanks as well as a bit of hand 
to hand combat You don't get much of a chance 
to Sit back and catch a breather, but you'll be 
enjoying so much mat you wont want to. 

Bod: Mercs (Kixx) 

Okay, not all of the baddies In Mercs are the 
exactly the same - the occasional jeap or tank 
livens things up for a few nanoseconds. But for 
the vast majority of the game you keep 

fe coming up against the same 
old terminally dim soldiers 
who aren't particularly 
difficult or interesting to kill. 
£ There's more variety on 
■ Sunday afternoon television 
I (sport on alt sides). 



■g guns - more 
guns, bigger gum. automatic reloading gun* 
and more effective guns. But you dent get 
anything for free, you have to work hard to get 
what you want out of life and computer games, 

Good: Nemesis (Hit Squad) 

The pick-up is a strange Unto boast, it's not 
the pick-up itterl that makes the difference it's 
what the pick up does. In Hvmesit the pick- 
ups gin you such stonkwigty good extra 
weapons that you find yourself actively 
seeking mem out, not just meandering along 
and hoping one appears in front of you, And 
thaf i the way H should be. 



UtafC 



IfeVBQI I IW % 

ywt again. 



MQ 



Bod: Copter 271 
(Trojan) 

Yawn' This cart game has to In one of the 
most boring slices of software on earth, wf ' 
pickups to match. Okay, so they give you 
extra weapons, but the weapons you get 
ft teem to enhance your fire power that 
i Oh yeah, It shows up on screen 
alright, as two streams of bullets, but the 
baddies seem to take exactly the same 
— ount of time to kill as when you haven't 
the pick-up. Hopeless, 




e times you might have the urge to sir. 
- mind a little, but stiN release the tensi 
the day in a good old, no nonsense blast 
. That" s when you need a game with a 
i, a game with a mission (eight mis 
to be the norm). The best missions 
those In which you aren't automatically lea 
•—i objective (like you are in timvy SEALS), 
i have to search around a bit. 

ood: Starfojc (Ariolasoft) 

nous Starfrur rears if* beautiful head ' 
once again. Each level, as well as at 
to survive various onslaughts from oner., 
~, sets you a task, for example finding 
I storm and reporting its location. The 
is that the difficulty level of the mfstlon- 
■ at a sensible rate, unlike a lot of » 
first level is realty tough and the 
t offer any additional challenges (did 
"y mention Saint Dragon?). 

d: Operation Thunderl* 
it Squad) i 

from me to contradict 
AA crews but I 
on Ihcy must have *"> 
i mod giving this trash 
per cent (I agree - Srmon) 
i too - Oav*). hi dire. 
I the missions, some , J 
. die hod 




<A *5?<Lk <?u rt<> ^t^* •?♦ '.* 

>ry «JrV *V **V ^v 1 **< 



rating' 
jus enemy- 



about at 
;h to the 



pixel sired 
sights and 
sound f x 



s it or isn't it? 

The main argument that erupted over this feature 
was whether Pang, and consequently Z*pT&mU§ 
are shoot- em-ups t reckon they are. the rest of the 
crew reckon they aren't The one thing we dad 
agree en was that they're both darned fine games, 
they both wouldn't At Into any other category and 
so wo might as well mention them here 1 mean, just 
because your gun shoots cork-screws instead of 
bullets most of the time doesn't mean they arwit 
essentially shoot- em- tips, does it? And (let's not 
start all that again - Dave] 



.pril t«'M AMSTRAD 




40 



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GAMES TIPS 




Through the clean icy breeze of 

Hie Matlock mountains, an 
exasperated, muffled voice 
asks, "can someone get 
this damn sack off me?" 
Yep, the Matlock 
postal system (ie f 
ffie postman) has 
once again collapsed 
under the weight of your 
letters to the Cheatmaster 
supreme, Lee Rouane 



Zub 



Kicking off this month's plethora of particularly 
pertaining cheats is our poke-penner from Perth 
m Scotland. Neil Henderson Neil breathes life 
mto thai golden old* Zub by suggesting thai you 
press the CONTROL key during play for a map 
indicating the three teieports at the top and also 
a box showing the current area oi play should 
appear in the top f ightnand corner where the 
picture of Zub should be. 

This cheat can be easily reversed by pressmg 
the CONTROL key again to get things back to 
normal, f*ce one Neil, keep 'em com*ig mate. 








SOCCER PINBALL 

I ertfightrns us 



1 HUN 



Elite 



Bouncing back nto the fray of cheating comes that 
veteran meddler and hacker. Alex Cochrane from 
Lanarkshire way up in the highlands Tfcrc Tinuj AJex 
provides you kicky people $tf\ t*e uJtimaie cheat 
for M r s coveriape btodite stefCEItg/ ^^ mt ^ m 

You can delete the cheHQbat you don't 
from the listing, but obey the irwrwiions 
contained m lite programme. Chev AJex, W rfl 
love yer loads. 



GAJfl IB ' mmmwo i wim i hwi i h iiiiii wu ii mo iiiiii 
LUXf 28 '• ELITE CHE A! FOB Aft COVER TIPS 1SSII 

t 100 ■ 

Mil 38 't IV ALEX COCKflMtf FCl II • 

inn 40 ■• HI lit I 

L4PH » >• fEUTI HHftT FftGlLHIES W) PW'I 

mn t 

CftOH 68 ' M « i«"MWMM I | »I H Itlll HH I1l# #M I I I M« 

eaaa iti itartsisrit 

Cm 80 RIAD 4t.lt iti'Hi- THEN 4W 
kUhLh 38 fe^oU**'***):**! 4tart,b 
r«JI lift *tolr*t»rl*l 

CAP* 110 WTO B8 

F»F 120 INFINITE CRWITS 

EAHL 138 PftTI 31,21,12.12. 58 



lip for rtt* 
team - 'try 

• coring. 







.^ ^ 



^ Keeping up then 

Aiiai't tjombardmem of 

"l the Cheat Mode 
l offices. Tony and 
■ Domu Pari- 

IfomLowedges 

provide us with yet another encelent cuvertjpe 
poke, £ xoton is the victim this imte with mim-j# 
Ives, grenades and ammo provided lo lum you 

»*t0 a Super shoo'. 

IMflt 101 'Exdm Ctmtaff Hick 

!U6 110 'By T«nv I OOftiu Pirkrr 

CMS la 'Fit tl Of it Nit 

III J 130 4(4 Ottfl fttntvr Lin* S; 

MM* 148 ' 

1MUI 1H PITA tt,0],C».U.K,0!.tt r 01.CIJI.IC 

nut iwhti 31,00.01. n,n.c»,JMc.».n.ai 

IIK 170 HTI K t B6,C1.32,KJE,82,0L.12.12.CP 
Wt 1H HTI 32,8C,3f.O3,0UIUI,CP.32,PC.21 
TUT ISO HTI M l IF,CD < FI F lI,Cl,l( 1 ll,3i.CS.J2 

imp nt hti H.it^i.M.ir.u.n.n.ftt.n.iM 

[KIT 210 HTI CI,E5.IE.21,CE,IE,22.5J.41,C1,M 



IMF 
II IJ 
IICJ 
Jtfl 

TAW 
IMF 

I UN 

I I KM 
I AM 
IK J 
IKI 
Itft 
IftCM 



id* 
1«W 
C»l 
EACC 
Jill 
CMC 
HAMH 
Nil! 

tin 
■ ,*i 

CKF 

now. 
KttPE 



220 PIT* «,JI,3P,32,W,lL3r, 39, 32.25,21 

230 MTfi x.n,n,n,i!.itM,u t n.iz.a 

240 HTI 00,01 ,31,01, c|,f|,IC, 
250 HTI 7MC,El,CM),K/ft<' 
2W HTI FT.n.Cl.aSl.Oljjy 
270 HTI (1,14.(5,72. II ,08 Gl t' 

288 HTI w .», n,*,r 

i» IIII JS.»,3UP. 
380 HIA It.JlJI.JP 

310 PIT* 28,41,11,73 
320 PATl fi$.2ft,2t.2l. 
336 BATS 20,41,11,73, 
340 HTI »,J|,3l,3f, 



m HM 31.31,3*, J8, ft. 
3(0 HTI JlJD.JD.JPJI.M, 
370 Hll TIF 
it& chk:e:*U8FM 

330 REM *lilF Alr'IlT THEN 420 USE «' 
406 ■:V«.(*|-idl):rONF 1,1 
410 M^Ur<:Mi:ckkii:C47« III 
420 IF thkOHCSt INfN WTO $40 
430 CUilNPUl -InfiatLf Llm d 

440 CflSUI $99 

450 IT fcfST THttf MKE HEM. 10 

4(9 WUt -Infinit* lm« <t/*> '>«l 



01 02 OF 02 20 
.74,28,(4,(1,70 
.(5.73,73.28.41 
,83,6103 ,30 3D 






CUT 470 COS HI S» 

HIE 4M IF ||S*r THtH MW lOECf ,tt 

Itt EKflT 'Uhnllf Crm^H t?/H> ",*» 

C4T0 888 PW0I OH 

HOC S10 D jI T THEN HNI KBEBS.AO 

CAHF S28 I Tift 

H» 538 Clil «!-EM 

Ull S48 F1M 'OS pFir. Twim Errir <*:EM 

CJMI ES8 ttrOFFIMUJhHETnN 

C4U sa METOn 

MtlHHoc* Poke* 






» 



■ Whit rtling do you reckon , 
Imolon ii worth, than? \ 



I 



AIMS 



GAMES TIPS 




multipoke mania zone 



One* again twD br ave follow* delve deep into the ZBO bringing you greet 
power and knewtodfte to help you oft your queit lr>r gaminit itafdom. Peter 
Curgenvert and C8 Themai art thrt month'* heron Cheer* fofc* A* u««l 



Gam* 

F.lMmi Wtm« IPC) 

Spooked IPCl 
2s4di (CBl 



Format Poke, Addrow 



Eirtct 



BF46.QQ 
BSFo.OO 
26C3 0O 

Gf56.No 

6F5Q.No 
6F57.No 



6FU,Nb 



Arrow* donf do any harm 

Infinite Hvei 

Inftnlta hue* 

No a number of itileldi 

No ■ Number of magailrtei 

No ■ number of mlMilet 

No ■ number ot power colli 



me initials after the nam* tell you who loved your We thil time If yOuVa 
dracovered any poke* you want to *her» wMh (ha nation write to Cheat Mod*. 
Amitred Action, Future PufcriiihJni 30 Monmouth Street Both. Aran BAI 2BW- 



Garnt 

Knight Lore (PC) 

Spy VS Spy 2 (PC) 

Spy VS Spy III (PC) 

Sal Combat (PC) 
Short Fu*o (PC) 



Format Peka, Addreti 
Tap* 29C9.0O 1 
Tap* AB49.O0 J 

Afl5€.00 1 
Tapo B23B 00 J 

B22£,0O 
Tapo 8657AJ 

Tapa 9977.00 

91FOO0 



Effect 
tnftnite Irvot 

Stopt timer 

Stopt ttmof 

tnfinne Irvoi 
Infinite Uve» 
Stop* Timor 




CAftN 140 CONSTANT EMRCV BOW 

HMO ISO MTU 3E.3E, 32, 02, SUE, IF, 32,13,30 

CADI lte 'HO THERM BWB FLASH 

EACH 170 DATA 3E,C3,32.E3,38 

DABJ 188 ECH JAMNER 

LAA1 110 DAT* 3E,3E, 32,81, 99,3E,fF, 32, fiC.BJ, 
3E,A7.32,ll,6B 

m? m awiK peuki 

Mil 218 DATA 3E,H r )2,»JI,NF,32,n.5ii 

FAJL 220 IHTIMITE C*K» BAY " . 

EtPN 230 DfiTfl 3t,A7.32,ftr:,SI 

EACH 240 CONSTANT SPIKE POD 

EAFN 250 PAT* 3E,A7,32,2C,46 

JftlT 218 NO CUK4 LOSS 044 USING SPACE 

EACH 270 DATA 3£,*7,32,4fl,4& 

FAHO 288 'HO LASER TEHP. RISE 

EAPH 230 DATA 3LA7,32 r B6.87 

EACH 300 NO EKEKY LOSS 

EKO 310 DATA 3E,t9,32,BF,43 

FALL 320 INFINITE If ISSUES 

EftrK m DATA Af, 32, 11,46 

Kill 340 'RICH! ON, COrUAHUR EUERY SHIP SHOT 

EACD 350 DATA AF ,32,10,47 

MIL 368 'ONE HIT DESTROYS SHIP 

EKO 370 DATA 3I,A?,32,A9J7 ^^^^ 

IAtt 3« COHSTANT ■GALACTIC jMUtFiKt 

EASO 390 DATA 3I.AJ. iiJi.TQ 

CALC 400 J N» NVFlTUPACt LIMIT 

CAIH4I0 DATA 3E,«e, 32, BO, 7t, 32,17, 71 

CACF 428 'iHDESmirCTlBLE SHIP 

TAMP 438 DATA 3E,C3,32,2A,n,AF,32,ll,8S,32,0 

6,8ft 

JAPL 440 'STATIONS LAUNCH THAtCOIDS (SO If) 

EAJL 450 DATA 3E.00, 32,25.93 

1MB 468 '* DOH'T RDWVE THIS LINE OX ■ 

EAKB478 DAT* CD,60,M.*I» 

ll?K 488 'load \ntAtt *fld ■okri 

IABX 490 DAT* 3E.GI.CD.0I.8C,Ol r 88,r»,CS,3S,8C 

ISLE 500 DAT* SE.CO.&UOO, 00^,32,8*, 3E,01.01 

IALI SID DATA 1A.1A, CD, 32,BC,3I, 82,81, BS,86,Q 

IAFH 520 DATA 32,BC.3E.03,BU8,IS,C1,32,BC,2! 

IAJI 530 DATA 6A,48,C0,S8.*fl,CO,ie,BB.OB,B5.2l 

IAHL 140 DATA &S,40,CD,77,K,21,8ajE,Ci,83,B( 

IAFT4 550 DAT1 CMIJC.3E. lS,32,47,BF,3I,9r,32 

[AHL 560 DAT* 48.1F,21,2F,41,a5B,48,Cl,ll,BB 



L 



Are you 
befuddled 
by listings? 

Oon"t panic if you're new to Hfttngi. There'* a 
full explanation of how to typo in the domed 
ttuhgt and what ihr, four-tetter code* ot the 
beginning ot eoch line mean in the Type-tn* 
tcciion which itartt on page 30. 



JAN* 

[Air 

EALi 
IABA 

I*F1 
IflCD 
TAM 
IftFL 

pin 
mi 

TAME 
14EH 

t»af 

IAB1 
I AH I 
IAHD 
1AKD 
IUCH 
I ALE 
IA0J 
JAHD 
UK 
IAPF 
iuAH 

lAcr 

iau 
im 

IlK 

ifiJll 
IACG 
IKD 
lADt 
IAPD 
I«C 

HACF 



S78 IAEA C3,W,BE, 
580IAIA 18, Ft, 65, 
S9BDATA 28,20,20, 
60S DATA 20,41,41, 
618 DATA 28,43,41, 
620 DATA 20,20,20, 
638 DATA 3D, 2D, 31, 
648 DATA 22,31,21, 
GS8 DATA 02,50,41, 
660 MIA42,SS,2a\ 
670 WA4E, 45,20. 
I8S MTA 2MB, 21, 
698 DATA 20,tl,(E, 
700 DATA 61,64,6s, 
710 DATA 48,21, CD, 
728 DATA 65,72,74, 
730 DATA 74,68,11, 
740 DAIA 6F,6E,20, 
750 DATA 78.72.65, 
768 DATA 65,79,80, 
770 DATA M f $S,64, 
780 DATA 11,0,71, 
7S8 DATA 65,70. ES, 
808 DAIA 65.01,0*. 
tie UTA AltiO.SS, 
f» HTA 42,45,S«, 
S30 HI* 43,54,20, 
M0 MT* S?.».W 
mi DATA 4F.S4.2f. 
168 DAIA 54,3F,2E. 
J79 DATA 54,48,45, 
888 DATA 28,41, 4E 
198 DATA 54.48,45, 
908 DATA 4J, 41,44, 
118 DATA *K* 
928 ch^0:«^480e; 



7E,FE,H,Ct 
6C,6S.74,«S 
20,20,20,45 
20,54,41,50 
45,41,54,90 
28,20,20.80 
21,31,21,31 
30,21,31,21 
48,45, 20, -14 
41,41,43,41 
SS,6F,72,20 
QD,eA,4B,6S 
«,20,tJ,(C 
72,73,20,tf 
8A,0A,Ofl,DF 
20,64,63,73 
M,45,4C,4S 
53,74,21,54 
73,73,20,51 
0*,9A,TF.eF 
M. 20,50,72 
20,61,65,79 
£3,75,74,65 
0A,eA,0F,D3 
4F, 55,20,52 
20.S4,4F,20 
11,48. 45,20 
tft.tv'JMF 
44,4F.«,S4 
20,49,46,20 
41,2(1,52,15 
4426,41.4c 
20,42,41,53 
4S,S2,FF.OO 

RESIOHI 490 



,C(,5*.BB,23 
,0F ,01, 28.20 
,4C.49,54,45 
,45,28,33,34 
,0*.OF,03,20 
.30.21,31,21 
,20,31,21,31 
,00,0*, BA, OF 
,4F,4E,45,20 
,43,49,52,41 
,41,41,2T,41 
20, 4C, 65, 65 
,6C,20,72,6S 
,66,20,41,25 
,Ol,«,tt,73 
,63,20,77,63 
,54,45,20,18 
, 68,55, 6E, 20 
,EE, 79,28,61 
,02,4C6E,6) 
,65,73,73,20 
,20,74,6F,20 
,20,78.6F,6B 
4 2i,2*,44,43 
,45,41,45,41 
f Sl,4S,K,45 
,5f,4F,4B,45 
,55,20,57,41 
,20,57,41,41 
,4E,4F,S4,20 
,53,45,54,20 
,54,45,52,20 
,4S,4J,28,4C 
,00,08,08,00 



JAIF 138 READ itlTJ il:**ACa' TNIH 960 ELSE 940 

GAH1 940 ^VALCl-tiDiFOKE *,» 

HAFO 950 M:KM:chi:ehk>*:G0IO 930 

HAHI ISO IT CMO34096 THIN CCTO 388 

CACO S70 CALL 14080 

KACO 980 PBIHT *1iU Error Old Bun ...":EHD 




Sim City 



Darren Oodds from Ponteland, Newcastle, writes 

*;, nay, begging for Cheat Mode to reprint 
John Grrvin's AA65 Srfn Cify poke. Here's the 
poke Dazia. but as for your queries on how lo 
burid a metropoliSi and whai the gene code^ are 
for. we are at a loss. Perhaps some power- 
craving reader can enlighten us on these points? 




Nino! ManouaJI'oi 

World Championship 

For those of you struggling 
with your chicanes, or having 
problems with your pit stops. 
1 Chns 'Mansell Jones from 
Goosnargti (sounds painful) 
has supplied a complete set 
Of tips to take you through 
M^gef ManseW's Wprfd 
Championship. Up the 
walrus moustache. 
If you are an enpenenced 

Leek, none ©I vi atf* euro motor retting few*, ** H tW* player then don't begin the 
picture- hoi nothkof to 4m with Nigel Maniell, lough tuck. garne m ftomal because you 



April 1'i'< I AMSTRAO ACTION 



GAMES TIPS 



Poking the 
multiface way 

1 Make wrt you've gat a Multiface plugged into 
the back of your CPC - rt helps. 

2 toad the game as norma). 

3 Press the RED button on the Multifac*. 

4 Pre« T for tool, 

5 Pint ' * ' to wleck tho code. 

6 Pre** If for hexadecimal input. 

7 Frets SPACE for input 

S Type m the addrssi (I*. 3A7C] 

9 Type in the POKE Ete. A?J. 

lOPreti RETURN, 

I I K there If more than one poke then go back 

to stop t*v*n. 

1 2 Prets ESC to get back to the menu 

1 3 Press R to return to the time, 



GAIf 1 'SMCIIY lucks (disc) 

F«i J B» Mr. Cirvli 

EAL1 3 Octebtr 1338 

flftlH ' ' 

MHr 10 WM 1 

FKE 20 addr=*4g:SESI0RE 

DhV 30 READ bjpt*l 

I Aft I 40 IF bytt)='NETMFOL!$' THEN 70 

hah, SO POKE addr.MU "I" ♦■»*♦!; 

*ALI CO *ddr-uldfU:WT0 » 

Mr 70 PRINT' Infinite cash t¥/rl> ■»■ 

GftFH N MILE HOT AHD klO"N" 

CftCC 38 kl:UmRli|H](Hl>.UihD 

IflJO IIS IT H:T THE* POKE Jil,iC9:CALL 148 

IAHI 118 INPUT' Initial funds ! I*,* 

EAFT 128 g:lHT(N/(SS«) 

FAX J 138 zl=J!EXJ(x-tf*G5S3MJ 

mi 140 PCffi «S9,VftL(-r»IIIC«1l(il,2» 

HACJ 1S8 WKIaSE^fiLrrtLEFIIijt.J)) 

Fftltl ISO PAKE 163^-CflLL 440 

CA&H 178 '*» LEAVE AU LINES JH «• 

ttFJ 1S« DA1A 11,88.01^,75,88,11,88 

MftKJ J» DAIA to.cd, 75,90^3^1.00,68 

CAIP £88 DAT* ll,88.i8.8l,88 J 3i,ed.b8 

HAJI £10 Wik 3t,28,33 dUt,3e,4t.?2 

H8HH £28 DATA (tE,2t H 3e,0C r 32,d4 r it.3t 

MIA 238 DATA *7, 32.3*. 11. cJ.12.B4,a4 

HAFF 248 DATA 4M».tt.Ga,Sa,21J»,eu 

HAW 158 WW 0&.0?.«,ed. 77.1*. H.d 

HAM £68 DATA »3,be,cd,7*,fec>.48.32 

KAAC 270 DATA «,80,c9 ,41,44,4c, it, 42 

NA9C 288 DATA 4S,4r.rlEIAOP0US,4i 



Infodroi 



Some mside knowledge now, as we reveal all the 
codes for the junction rooms and garages lor all 
15 causeways (Eh? - £<fl m that maddening 
game. Jrifodroftfs (which must have had the 
purplest advert eve/ seen in the mag) 
Christopher Mariand in Swnton is the man to 
thai* for this little lot. No itiere's no excuse for 
not reaching the end of the road, 



Junction R 










Great Circular 


000 


<— > 


Zen Mendan 


010 


Great Circular 


032 


<— > 


Mandala Radial 


010 


Great Circular 


064 


<-> 


Tao Meridian 


136 


Great Circular 


128 


<— > 


Zen Meridian 


133 


Great Circular 


160 


<— > 


Tsang Radial 


010 


Zen Meridian 


046 


<— > 


Epsion Arc 


036 


Zen Meridian 


074 


<—> 


Tao Meridian 


074 


Tao Meridian 


110 


<— > 


OettaArc 


040 


Great Circular 


192 


<-> 


Tao Meridian 


0!0 


Great Circular 


224 


<-•> 


Tn Radial 


010 


Epsilion Arc 


010 


.:-.. 


Tn Radial 


055 


Epsilion Arc 


062 


<—> 


Mandala Radial 


055 


Mandate Radial 035 


«:— > 


Delta Arc 


010 


Mandate Radial 022 


<— > 


NE Quadrant 


033 


Sigma Arc 


062 


<—> 


Drum Radial 


055 


Delta Arc 


070 


<— > 


Drurb Radial 


035 


Drulti Radial 


022 


<-> 


SE Quadrant 


030 


Drutti Radial 


010 


<— > 


Great Circular 


096 


Tsang Radfal 


022 




SW Quadrant 


030 


Tsang Radial 


035 


<—> 


Gamma Arc 


070 


Tn Radial 


022 


<—> 


NW Quadrant 


033 


Tn Radial 


035 


<-> 


Gamma Arc 


010 


Gamma Arc 


(40 


<—> 


Tao Meridian 


038 


Garage Locations 






Great Circular 




013 






Great Circular 




150 






Tao Meridian 




031 






Great Circular 




041 






Great Circular 




230 






I'd si hon Arc 




055 






Great Circular 




080 






Sigma Arc 




031 






Noreast Quadrant 


010 






Souwesi Quadrant 


023 






Soueast Quadr 


020 







'5H rfWff^l i TV I *'j 



We featured a keypress cheat in issue 98 for 
that eggs-abound adventure Spellbound Dizzy, 

a couple of Queries about the cheat, 
noticeably hom David Cook « County Antrim, 
here it ts agam to dear up any contusion. 

Press SPACE to start the game then press Q 
to quit Type WANTArWMLITTE (don't be 
tempted to put m any spaces) very quickly on 
the title screen and the border should Rash to 
tell you that the cheat is active. 

While playing (he game, pressing C wdl brmg 
up a rather nifty cheat menu. Hope that has 
cleared the problems up, Sorry things got a b't 
scrambled the first time around (groan). 



* — tm 



rATumsEBtmi 



!>••■) In tfc* j**§ |«» of f awrti America 
Nmoo) ore tttidlMovered tribes art pnjrfjaeiM 
who have c •nvervfrtl em ■ ■ ■ *! whUli t» 
H»o wont Qttny gwnso onror roloojeod. 




Stuck on a gam«7 Or have you discovered a 
cneal or hint that Other people should know 
j bout? Tnen write to: Cheat Mode. Amstrad 
Action. Future Publishing. 30 Monmouth 
Street, Bath. Avon BA1 2BW 



-. * 






wi fnd 4 ncfcculousty easy. H tnts ts the case. 
start on the Professional levei 

• Before starbng the race you must r>ek the 
correct gear rate - tfus i$ very importanrj 

•i If you have never driven around the circuit you 
are about to race on, check what R looks hke 
bifore-hand by remembering your code men 
icadmg up agstn and racing on that circuit, 

• Otherwise, go to the circuit you require and 
you wll be shown a picture of it If there is a very 
long straight at the start then you should use a 
fitgh gear rabo because before you get to the 
end of the sfrarght your speed wil have reached 
Ihe mjoamum, which ts higher than any of the 
other ratios maximum speeds. 

e If the straight is a short one use a mid gear 



rabo as the acceleration is faster enabling you to 
get ahead of the other cars at the beginning. 
o Never use the low gear ratio as the speed is 
just too slow to be any use 

If you are not at the start of the grid try 
again as coming from behind is a dead loss, 
• Always write down the long code, and try 
not to lose the paper rt is written on. 
ft Always stop to change your tyres exactly 
half way through the race regardless of the 
condition of your tyres 

■ When you re pulling in to the pit lane, try to j 
be in front of the car behind you by at least 
lour or five seconds. 

With these tips you. should be a cenhpedeon- 
lip speed demon in nest to no time. 






i 



r*" 1 






If 



Ambling - 

the worfd-fomowi rating uomMi 

triplet* celebrate another victory. 




AM^trap Acrrioni 



INTERVIEW 




I 






1 







How did you become* interested in coding? 
>( l was 10. way bach in 1984. my father 
Dot . ' i a Tl 99/4A, but i io games w« avail ah e 
(of fi 5 machine, Other - Js really .v j ite^ * n 
pliy. "so I teamed to trav ,'w game\ ke 
I went on to 

-lOwtOGOde "MV 



ng conquered Hie CPC 
gomes scene In 1 993 witf 
" i c omme rcial releases 



and one off the me 
controversial PD games ever, 
Austria'* second moil famous 
son could well be Elmar 
Krleger, oka Elm toff, Kelt 
Woods braves the singing nuns 
to lot the man responsible for 
the notorious Zap'7'Boff* have 
the right to reply. 



ould you say learning ma* 
particularly difficult thing? 
Compared to CPC Basic . yes, 
if you look at *he recert C Coi 
conojters, w<th a few itiousand 
dot urrwmabo" machine code 



f 




ts - but 

rsonal 



aving codw v>z gn .„ 
'toper CauMrw and firehstv ik /, which 
.ere probabk * -: wee be" > ng 
h ol 1993,tt> AusMmcjW *negef 
I'l/daimtobr 'N'; noslsuf .-■. -fulCPC 
ider of '■':< r nt tjmes, > ■■►•' Jso got a '? g of 
POgame rj(-mosand it '^ status "«.tw, t wtmn 
ion;: " • mcrt pofmi.v doing th 'ound*. 
>t bad gO(nflW"a 20*year old, nsperjatfy 



" tur hmt commercial produu 
course, the game ZapT'Bntts What inspired 
you to write this game? 
I offered to concert 
Pwtt 'or Ocean 
Sol '.-..ire tot tie normji 
CPf . iPang was i 
eve "leased on 
PIum iqra verysr 
sum of money, . 
wfiw they sat* i iolhad 
afaady spent ioo mucli 
tint> vorkmg on rl *- 



Why was this, because H has to be admitted 
thai the review was not a bad one, and that 
85 per cent, which many people, yourself no 
doubt Included, felt could have been a bit 
L, f her, It not In Itself a bad mark? 
rrany magazines 85 ser cent is a really ^-od 
^r*, but rrt M SO many games which, in my 
rvon, were dreadhi. got over 85 per cer>: (f 
jitti fte had qualified this remart - Dave), that it 
~*med somehow ndicu.ous. 

The comment has also bean made that 
Zap f 'Satis lacked the in-game features that 
made Pang so playable. What t your 
response to this? 

Not t'ue! Okay. Pang did have some extra 
weapons, but ZapTBafls mote than made up for 
this by offering additional feature? such as many 
different types of bat. 
rnavemen's, snow and said 
storms, snow guns, spikes 
and elevators, which added 
much more to the gameplay 
than extra weapons, 



As 



ft wasn't, then. Just to accommodate all your 
"flashy special effects', as hat been 
suggested In tome Quarters?' 

No. [hafl sim i not bur' f here are lots ol 
speo.jl effect- ri the mtri. mil 'lie title screen. 
but Hie k il oil i om filiates on RarrK-play 



when you consider (hat rn between all this work 

he -.till manages to find time to study technical As you know, there was quite a bit of 

controversy over the review ZapTBaifs got 



You alto coded the 
brilliant Super Cauldron 
and Preftlstorffc 2, which 
both f cored a massive 
96 per cent when they 
were reviewed in AA They both came out 
last year. Have you or Titus got any new 
'~asef planned for the CPC this year? 

nt got anything on (he way lor the CPC, but 
will, however, launch Prtfnsiorik Man on P 
Gameboy n May th's year. It's a ccnve'sOn 
Prehistarik 2 on the CPC - even the muse has 
been transferred from the CPC! 



"eihemai ' >f unrver: !y, So we tnouftv iter 
iDOut box we spoke to this prolific CPC 
^ebrrly, |nd ssk him 'bout his life, his wwk, 
. just to : ■•■-■ .ve that AA is always wiin^ to 
it to reply, '« reelings on tti ■ AA 
/apTBafe re view, wh* :r? rx-nvofced a rmurfceble 

i nounl ol coi "oversy - 

:espitethef«i gar* - * jj^ 



■ ill Anyway, Jcf s 

net on witu the 



In Amstrad Action. Were you partic 
up set by this review? 
It v-J'.n't the actual Wutew of the g.jimj 
often led me, but rather ■.►■ntences I ke. 




, of the g .j ma 1 
•►■ntences Ike, Try to 
, i void wrilrij sometti ng 
d in like 2.j;>TBafls" 
which apj-i »ared in me 
I- xt lew issues, fhe 
review itself was 
s iripty a major 

it, and 
. that 
share 



do you t 
Issues, and what 



think of AA reach 
it future do you *e< 



CPC In general? 
ITs simply great what AA has achieved, ft means it 
is nuw the only high-street CPC mag left, flnc i 
urgf ill the readers to keep it alive. If s far rrwe 
■rte-estmg than the usua consols stuff As for the 
CPC, without doubt, t has no commercial future, 
but Hopefully it will co r '[untie as a comptrter that 
slows everyone to get n touch with coding eas L 
That's something conso'es cenl do. 



Thanks Elmar, and good luck with the 
launch of Prehi&torih Man. 






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,/■ 




Type-iit» 
on ttap«? 

Looking hack through the 
years I have seen the 
development of M and the 
demise of others in the CPC world (bad for 
us, you must agree, but not for you}. 

Your magazine has a fairly balanced 
mixture of serious and games articles, but 
(here are some points that leave a bad taste 
in my mouth, I have 
noticed over the last 
few months several 
changes for the 
worse, the worst of 
which is that the typo- 
ins have been taken 
off the covertape. 
I (eel most strongly 
about this, especially after I typed in the 
SafeSoft Disc Arcrwer from issue 101 and 
found that only the Hirst two lines of the main 
screen appear- I also typed in the 
Typectwcker and on using it found all the 
letters correct in the checksum. 

I feel this is the perfect example FOR 
having the type-in Ales on tape - at least we 
wouldn't spend hours wasting our bme on 
programs that do not work. 

I buy your sister magazines Amiga 
Format, Amiga Shopper, etc, for a few 
pence more and get many more pages and 
two packed disks, so you can't say that the 
cost is a reason for not putting type-ins on 
tape. Don't dictate to us through one 
person's decision, put it to your readers - 
let us decide if we want the type-ins on 
the tape {we keep the mag slive by 
forking out our £2:95 every month). Let's 
have a readers* poll on this issue to settle 
it once and for all. 

This Is not sent to you in bad faith, so 
let's have no coy remarks. 

tf you do not print this letter in the 
mag ai ine then I presume that you have 






There'* no question of t» trying to 
rip anybody off. anywhere in die 
world. Whit* I oouktnt try to 
our distribution 
t nought processes, I 
you dial a they 
thought dropping tht price would 
Increase sates they would- Tht 
reason It costs tot* to buy the 
mag hem your local newsagent 
is because he can ontar 
maf uirxii from the UK inbuilt 
For un to send Individual copies 
abroad costs a tot morn per 
issue. Sorry, but that'i tha 
harih economic tacts. 

Thanks for the info about 
down under, 
it arrived too 
for last month's WorW 
i in the pipeline. Dov* 




Send your tetters to: Reaction, Amstrad Action, 30 Monmouth 



no wish to listen to your readers nor care 
about their freedom of choice. 
Mr C Johnson. Eastbourne, 

The demise of anything CPC related. ansHKSf 
does include other magazines, is never good 
news for us. We woufd love for there lo 
be a buoyant CPC martin with loads of 
inendly competition between companies. 
Yes. we are proud to be ihe one surviving 
CPC magazine, but we would siill rather be 
the tresl and piggestsellmg CPC raga/irw. 
Regarding the tvpenns, tha reasons they 



were removed from Hid covertape were 
i omptot and not based on a whim 
Personally t efts' think that having them on 
IflTtovertape was an example of laziness on 
both the magazine's and ttie readers' behatf 
- they were an easy way to fill up the 
cover lace and meant you didn'l have to 
bother typing them m at ali, which ts a rather 
btzarre concept - typetes you don't type in? 
As for the cost of the magazine, that is a 
factor, Amiga magazines you mention sell s 
lot more copies than AA (sad facl of Use 
i 1 which means they bring in a lot 



Blasts from 
the past 



1 You're doing an 
unbelievably good job. And rt'i 
tha truth when I say AAIOO 

was by far the twit Amstrad Action yet, 

3 Wbatover happened to such 



**n 




trademark* as AA Have and AA Mastergama? 
And what about second opinions and the first 
day target scores? 

3 I agree with Afattair White (AAIOO) Yen 
should review older i*m*i such as Purple 
Saturn Oay and (iridium 

4 Does the tape poke chest tor lute (AA97) 

work on the Elire grven with the covfftape? 
3 in Ihe tittini Laundry Slues were there 
any faults? I typed it and ran it but 1 
couldn't pick up any objects. I have double 
and triple checked it but cant ftnd 
anything wrong 

6 What txactty is Public Domain? 

7 You could sell photocoptot of pages 
from the earty maguuie* hx reasonable 
prices and everyone would be able to lee 
earty AA in all rtt glory. Dave wouW have 
eodleit fun plugging (hem In other 

O* y*» wiMk see ttaeefs AA 



Da yaa wawt ■ 
petfee Ilk* th 



' I AMSTRAO ACTION 
\ 



LETTERS 




Net accountable 

Fint I «auld (ike 10 
congratutal* you on (be 
magazine When I bought 
AA83 (with /.smmiKgi on the 
eovertspe] I didni think thai much of rl But when 
I bought issue 100 and later ittu* 101 n had 
impr ovod dramatically. It H aUyi liko this I wM 
o*hnlt*ly aubtcribe. 

Secondly, and thii if n't to complementary, on 
your c overlap* In hmi* 101 you had ■ program 
celled Home Ac count J f have three things to aik 

1 Why the h*ck wot the program not in th* right 
order? Once In* ftrtt two taction* had loaded for 
the third to load ih* tap* had to b* rewound 
virtually back to Ih* beginning. 

2 What happened to tho sample Ma which you 
mentioned in the article on the program? 

3 Lastly - you t *kt what each of tho m«nu thief 
meant and what wai in each menu, but you didnt 
explain how to ute th* program, what to do and 



to what extant the program could be taken. 
Please explain and perhaps rectify. 
S*mu*tBytor<J, ThundersrV. 
PS Why not give away free subscriptions wnti all 
th* bott lettert (ptrtiap* starting with min*7|, 
PPS K**p up tho brWkant work - your* th* only 
r**l magulna the CPG hat got. 

1 Sorry about the problem whh Horn* 
Account* Wo did, In fact, ipol tho problem 
and atked told our duplicator* to twen the 
files, around, which, unfortunately, they 
failed to do. Luckily th* program did ttill 
work it you managed to figure out th* 
ilmple jif lime-consuming) solution. Wk* 
Sam hare did. Th* bett thing to da it to 
actually re- record the program 
onto another tape with the filet in > 
th* correct order, Alternatively / 
yon could order the ditk version [ 
which works fin*. 



2VMtti*fw*dldgo / 
missing (again our 
Creator* *«wm to 
hav*m*d*ai 

j , ■ r .1 1 1. i* ■ - - 

docihov* nt ieaw m vfrf, 
Lucidly It waanl an Important 
ftte and didnt off eel the 
running of th* program * 
in any way. / 

3 We hav* limited V 
space in th* magazine y 
to explain the \ 

program* on In* lap* - 
it It a pr o blem of which wt 
era acutely awar*. We try to b* at conchuj at 
potiiDM wfwe covering an me mon imponeni 
point* Perhwp* in tiut case we needed to 
go into more data* We are currerrtfy 
\ looking into provtolng torn* more In- 
depth Hduiuiabon on the program for 
/ peopJ* who want it. Stay tuned Dm 




Street, Bath BA1 2BW 

more money. This enables them to keep 
their priced down while having larger page 
count'i and more disks, The problem with 
putting type4rts on the tape is they mean we 
have to make the tapes longer which, makes 
Ihe tapes, and comsequenlty. the magarme 
more expensive to produce. Sorry, but I don't 
Ihmk the benefits Of putting in* 1 typhis back 
on Ihe tape balance out itw potential cost, 

By the way. see Type ins on page 26 for a 
possible explanation ol your SDA problem 

Arid I won't make any coy 
(Kof. adj, Basnfii, affectedly 




sections of the mag. I for one 

would Ilk* to tee what the 

early Issues were Ilka, 

B What do you mink of Hilt 

printer (clue: ft i a Star 

LC-100}? 

Ronen Lyons. Dublin 

I G«, Shucks, thanks, 

% Wei. til* AA 

Maitorgamet hav* 

been ravhrad (tort of} 

etthoMPatt 

Mastrrgames that we put on th* cuvenapet 

[pall mattert - geddrt?j. The fluff review in 

this vary Issue hni second opinion boxes At 

lor AA Revet and ftrsl day target tcorei, 

thoy have been pensioned off. 

3 Hopefully the current The Good, The Bad 

and Tho Ugly series of features larjifme your 

lutt for review* of old garnet. 



shy) remarks but how about an 
cfcsgryntjex) one? fm amaied by your final 
comment. The magazine is produced purely lor 
the readers. If we dtdrtl take their views into 
account we would have closed down years 
ago Okay, as ft commercial venture AA's ' 
aim is to be profitable, but to make it profitable 
tt has to give readers what they want- 




Equal and 
opposite 

I'd like to respond to PDJ 
Dennis' Violent Reaction In 
AA101. In contrast to PDJ I 
have made many purchases by mall order 
and received quick and courteous service. 
Yes, you do have to be careful who you 
order from, especially new companies 
(except mine, of course which is perfect in 
every way). Maybe rfs something to do with 
PDJ's attitude - you get much better results 
by being pleasant rather than having a rant 
at the poor person at the end of the phone 
(who - quite rightly in my opinion 






•**■*#• 



4 Unfortunately not. but chock 
out this month's Cheat Mode for 
on* that thouW 

S Our vertlon (which is exactly 
the tame at th* one published *i 
the magazine) work* no* 
6 By a strange quirk of fat* our 
PD man Keith Woods hat 
answered this very ouettion for 
you on page 26 
7 I Ilk* thlt idea in theory, but 
maybe If d be batter to rutt reprint a few 
clastic' pages from tarty issues in the mag 
inert How do*t that sound? A cop-oul page 
filler or something you tat would be really 
interested in' Let ut know 
8 I'V* never met a Star LC 100 printer I 
haven't liked Owv* 



- might have a rant back) The delay 
could be down to any number of reasons. 
The longest I have taken to fill an order it 
two weeks and that was due to the 
typesetters and printers laking ages to 
supply me with the instruction booklets 
needed to bo with Ihe game, The usual 
delivery time It more like a few days, 
depending on how long It takes the cheque 
to clear. Orders using postal orders will bs 
sent by return of pott. 

By the way I've got a lot of mags which I 
have to sell off so that I can actually got into 
the house (ACLf and CPC Attack, and some 
AAs - not issue 99 - guess why?) and I've gat 
the same problem with ctd lapo-ba&cd games, 

One fin at thing - buy Stellar Outpost, if i 
groat. £4,99 on tape and £6.99 on disk. 
Phone me on 0527 68419. Go on punk. 
Angela Swmbourne, Cryttalix Software. 




,\ 



I 



Hold on 

In response to Ala stair 
White's dilemma (AAlOOj I 
had the same problems with 
flickering screen whan I 
bought Rastan. I tried everything I could 
think of to stop the nickering, but nothing 
seemed to work. Eventually, in desperation. I 
twiddled about with the holds and. hey 
presto, no more flickering. So, Aiastair, you 
could try turning the vertical or horizontal 
hold depending on whether you have a 
monitor or TV modulator. 

Also, I have discovered an additional 
undocumented | undocumented in the 
magazine, at feast) Command lor the Zapp 
Assembler [supplied on Afl97). To erase a 
routine from memory type: 'NEW {funnily 
enough) and you'll be able to start afresh, I 
thought I'd point this out just in case anyone 
else hasn't discovered it yet 
Bob Davidson, Yeovif. 



When we gave away the 
program, we made the 






April 1 994 AMU 



ION 




LETTERS 



\ 






\ 




decision to just give you the very bastes as 
opposed to giving over most of the mag to 

•in There are quite a few more 
undocumented tin AAJ commands, SO ID 
probably devote Assembly Line to them 
next month linen 



VI v e la 

InWVINV 

f have bought AA for just 
over a year and 1 1 have a tew 
questions t would like to ask. 

1 I bought Elite Gold Edition for £2 from a 
local John Menxiet six months ago. When I 
load it up the Cobra ship rotates and the 
music plays, but no matter what I do I 
cannot access the next stage Have you 
got any ideas what I'm supposed to do? 

2 What is the difference between Elite Gold 
and standard Elite* 

3 I own a 464 Plus and bought OCP 
Advanced Art Studio with a mouse and 64k 
upgrade from Datel. t also bought me 
required widget from Wave. But when I set 
up the system, if I bang the table with my 
knee the program freezes J think it has 
something to do with the connections forcing 
tha mouse interface and 64k upgrade a few 
millimetres off the table which means that 
they're unsupported (design fault?), 

4 Through playing two-player games with 
my brother we constantly fought over who 
got the joystick instead of the keys. To be 
able to use two joysticks with games which 
allow you to redefine the keys for player two 
hut only allow one joystick, plug joysticks 
into both ports and select redefine keys. For 
player one go through the usual motions; tor 
playor two do the same on the second 
joystick and it will accept them as though 
you had pressed keys, Volta' Two joystick * 
ftfettard Grant, Argyll. 

PS Keep up the good work, 
PPS Either I am going blind or the words 
Dave and Cheatmode are missing from the 
wordsearch in AA101. 



1 We reckon you must 
have a Plus Machine of 
some sort, Ekie doesn't 
seem to work on some 
Pluses for some strange 
reason las we found out 
when we put the game 
on the covertape and 
had to spend ages 
getting the darned 
thing compatible). 

2 Not much, actually. 
Elite Gold is mare like a 
reftned version of the 
onginaf game rather than 
a sequel with loads ol 
extra features, 

3 I think the problem is 
[u$t some loose wires as 
opposed to a design 
lauft - your 'unsupported' 
theory sounds a lad 
unlikely, But if anyone 
else wants to write and 
and prove me wrong, feel tree. 

4 Er, have you ever thought of doing a spot 
on The Big Breakfasts Supernmls {"your 
guide to a better life") with that one? D«v* 
PS We'll try 

PPS Clur compiled the wordsearch and 
she's always trying lo gel rid of me. 

Don't bin it 

When I load up Elite the hie 
ELITE .BIN loads up but it 
accesses the disc drive (I 
have a 6128) and 

complains that there isn't a disc in the drive. 

How can I load Efjfre up? 

Paul Ralph, Malvern, 

Paul, and any other 61 28 owners who are 
having similar probtems with E Me from our 
AA1Q0 covertape should Iry using the listing 
mat Simon has knocked up for you m this 
month's lype^ms D*v* 






Don't knock it 

Oh no! Plot another 
covertape loading solution 1 
'Fraid so, This popular 
irritation just won't go away, 
will it? Covertapes fall to load on my machine 
without fail, but I've found that tweaking the 
pressure pad in the cassette at each comer 
of the copper strip does the trick. I have had 
100 per cent success with this. Don't ask me 
why it works, but it does. But be careful not 
to spring the pad right out because it takes a 
right Addle and as many expletives as you 
can think of to get it back in. Make sure the 
tape is rewound first to avoid damage. 

Another thing which has worked is to re- 
record the program on to another tape. 
Again, I don't know why, but it works. You'll 
need a twin deck for this, by the way. 
Paul Lovett, Birmingham. 



Sounds like something out of The 
Twrfighf lone. Deeply weird 



© 



Both sidles off the story 

A plea 3 I am a big fan of RPGs, Would you put 

pinna pliiH please don't Laser Squad, Bioodwych or Lords of Chaos 



Please, please, please don't 
put RPGs on the covertape. 
Martin Williams, Poole, Dortet 

kke RPGs then? Dave 



1 In EMf*. do you think it's 
cheating to write down all 
the market prices of the 
various planets so you 

know where you can make a profit? 

2 Whore can I get hold ol a good quality 

black and white printer and a three-inch 

disc drive for the CPC464? 



on the covertape when you have finished 
the Cecco games? 

4 A few months ago I purchased a copy of 
War in Middle Earth by Melbourne House 
from Wizard Games. I have, unfortunately, 
experienced problems with the game and I 
want to send the game back to the 
company and get a replacement copy. On 
the bach of the case it tells you that 
Melbourne House is a member of the 
Virgin/Mastertronic group of companies 
and it gave a phone number. Whilst look in | 
in the Amscene Directory I saw Virgin's 
phone number, but it was different to the 



one on the game case. Which number do 
you think I would be best contacting? 

Thanks tor a truly great magazine. 
Keep up the good work. 
Michael Hunfein, SaJtash, 

1 Mo, it's good busmess sense. 

2 Try Wave Electronics on 0229 870000. 

3 But Martin Williams told uS not to 

4 Virgin's current number is the one printed 
n Amscene - 06 1 960 2255, D« 



IMi |< 4lvU*«U 



April 1991 AMSTRAD 




i 



X 

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games mag, more a way o 




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■•at*, iai aaw 

T*lt 0135 44334 . 
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UHw Oivi Getter 

WtoMlug Artl« 9 Art MHw 

UmImtMI 

**■« Wriht Our ttodgaon 

M«p f i»f Simon Forrectar 

C«mr4a>«rt*«* Richard P airhuriL 

Dabhy Howard, Laa Houan* 

and Kaitti Woods 

Caver llfuilre/tiM by 
Paul Kidby 

it I K*ctrri «• Robart Barman 
Nat aivfta ■ pwWiafca* Jim Oouflu 
E ohl Uh ar Colin Campbal 
M aw ily ft* Inf. Graf Ingham 

ftipaWtliiu Craig Broadbrtdga 

Lin* *wt4 %t a«uti»g Simon < 

Jon Mum Chif* Stockt* Simon 

Jason Tltfay , Mart Gnw. Brian Hook 

lob x HatWow Chrtf&na Stacay 

Tat: 04&S 2740U 

Tol: 0239 442244 

Tr fiTi i rafrf-fr g If* 1Q04 Jhwaw/AvBin 

Ftar* fw h u mwi U4 - im m tv mt M tn to *- 
ate. W»**nnot piimawi In rrfwn meUilal ■ 

Ha w^^W t4T4i a^V ^ffaa^n aiawF (^^W4aaW™4jP tw^fa^^^aaja^aip 

mtpain u> «rhw flut etui «• pUAth a 
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■ H WJI1I No p*rl o» TAn pubkcalfan m*r b* r 
n illy twin ffttfwut out € ip li o vriBM pvmnailDA 




will be 



next issue off AA 
I be born under 
sign off Hie bull, 
»t's see what the 



let's 



^•r A conjunction of Man 



possibility off mm in-depth 
look at the current state off 
the Public Domain 



f»rln*««J In tha» UK 



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uiure 

rv blj sai ita 




• A lunar eclipse 
cusp guarantees Xy 



'Your guarantee of valu 

ThH maeanoe coma* from Future Putowirwig 
Mart • aha! w* can otfar you: 

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^jAr A conflict is brewing. Could 

it bo resolved in a Sffineef 

Ftgftfor j2 campaign update? 



-BniHpni ewey ov 



• With Hie 






taHaVMioa 
detv raaae* «ala«<atMa*k Wt 4na amgr* « 



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fume v aiibjai • aaart _ 
fawaf KW **■*■£ taar*PC 



• TOW 

Man* •«>«•** -can" 



•fiaaaarWaati 

Amatrad Action racognttat ai copyright* 
contained in tt»i nsue WRtar* potaMo ara 
have acknowledged tha copyright hoWar 
Pleaca leal fraa to comad u* If we ham 
fatted to credit your copyright aiwibe 
happy to correct 



On gags 1 967) 
a round-up of 

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