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 Microreview for January/February 1998 Micropendium
by Charles Good

TI BINGO by Bruce Harrison

A first class commercial bingo game requires lots of preprinted bingo cards as well as a
ping pong ball blower machine to randomly mix the balls with bingo numbers printed on
them and pop these balls up one at a tine.  You have probably seen such machines on state
lottery ôlive drawingö television shows.  Well now anyone can operate a bingo game for
fun or profit without any of this hardware.  All you need is a 99/4A system and the TI
BINGO software.

When you first run TI BINGO you get three menu options; print some bingo cards, play a
game, and exit.  The bingo card option works with any printer, but was specifically
designed for 24 pin dot matrix or bubble jet printers.  You get your choice of large or small
cards.  The preferred option is small cards because this will normally print 4 different
bingo cards on one 8.5 x 11 inch sheet of paper.  After selecting large or small cards you
next pick the number of paper sheets you want to print.  Press <enter> and your printer
grinds out the selected number of bingo cards.  Numbers printed in the 5 rows under the
ôBö column are a random combination of  numbers 1-15.  Under the ôIö column you get a
random selection of numbers 16-30, etc.  Each bingo card will show different
combinations 24 numbers from with the range 1-75.  There is a ôfreeö space in the middle
of the card.  Bruce reports that on his Gemini 10X printer  cards are printed but the box
borders appear as strange characters.  With my own ancient 9 pin ôIBM Graphics Printerö
I was unable to print multiple bingo cards on a sheet of paper.  I could only get this 9 pin
printer to produce one card per sheet.  The bingo cards thus printed are nicely formatted.

When you choose the play a game option just press a key to announce the next bingo
number.  The randomly chosen letter/number combination is displayed at the top center of
the screen and then verbally spoken, if you have the speech synthesizer.  The letter/number
combination is also stored at the bottom of the screen.  As each additional letter/number is
announced it remains displayed at the bottom of the screen.  These called combinations
accumulate at the bottom of the screen in numerical order in columns corresponding to B I
N G and O.    When someone claims to have bingo, the game host can verify the winning
card against the called numbers displayed on the bottom of the screen.

One of the features I really like is the verbalization of letter/number combinations.
Unfortunately the speech of TI BINGO doesnÆt work on my Geneve.  I have a Rave speech
card in my Geneve which is normally the only way to add speech to the Geneve.  TI
BINGO is the only software I have found in which speech works on a 99/4A system but not
on my Rave speech card equipped Geneve.

TI BINGO is written in assembly and comes on a SSSD disk.  You can load it from any
assembly loader or from extended basic.  On disk documentation and source code are
included.  Unlike much of Bruce HarrisonÆs software, TI BINGO is not public domain.  It
is commercial and costs $5 including shipping.  Send your money directly to Bruce at the
address below.
...............................................
INTEREST CALCULATION for MDOS by Martin Zeddies

These two programs are for Geneve owners.  They have an 80 column display, run directly
out of MDOS, and have been tested with MDOS 6.  There are lots of interest calculation
programs for the 99/4A.  Many of these execute slowly because they are written in basic.
MartinÆs programs are they only interest calculation I know of for the Geneve, and they
execute very rapidly.

The first program asks for a starting balance, interest rate in percent, starting year, and
number of years.  You get a yearly table showing interest earned each year and balance at
the end of each year, calculated as interest compounded yearly.  This program lets you
enter interest as a decimal percent, such as 5.8 percent.

The second progrm asks for starting balance and a minimum percent interest rate.  You get
tables showing the ending balance for each of 20 years, interest compounded yearly.  The
tables show you data for the minimum interest rate you entered and the next five interest
rate percents.  If you entered a minimum rate of 3% then you get 20 year tables for 3, 4, 5,
6, 7, and 8 percent so that you can compare possible yields at all these percents side by
side.  This program does not calculate decimal interest percent rates.

These programs are public domain.  Send me $1 and I will mail them to you on a SSSD
disk complete with source code and on disk documentation.
.........................................
TI SOFTWARE FROM EUROPE by TI Club Errorfree and TI Gebruikersgroep

This DSSD disk was given to those attending the 1998 Chicago TI Faire.  It has mostly new
software, all of which is free.  Copying is encouraged.  Many of the programs on the disk
have extensive documentation.  Unfortunately all documentation is in German or Dutch.  I
found my German dictionary useful in figuring out how to use some of the software.

DM2K, or Diskmanager 2000 v1.2 is the most significant software on the disk, in my
opinion.  This was described in Berry HarmsenÆs article in the Nov/Dec 1998 issue of
Micropendium.  It is a must have for 40 column SCSI and HFDC hard drive systems
because it is the best software available in 40 columns for creating, deleting, and viewing
the contents of directories and subdirectories.  You can easily move up and down the
directory structure of your hard drive.  You can also copy  move and view in ascii or hex
individual files.  For Geneve users Clint PulleyÆs 80 column Directory Manager v1.2 is a
better product.  This can do everything DM2K can do plus format disks and execute MDOS
and EA5 software.  DM2K loads using either the EA module or FunnelwebÆs loader #3
(Program E/A).  Be aware that DM2K seems to crash frequently with some non TI
equipment.  It doesnÆt recognize the Myarc ramdisk on my PC99 system and I have reports
that it has trouble with horizon and corcomp ramdisks.

CELLGROW is an xb programs that resembles a fractal image maker.  It also resembles a
computer simulation generally known as the ôgame of lifeö.  Continuously changing
patterns are generated on screen.  You can, before you run the program, change the ôrulesö
which govern these patterns so that you get different sorts of patterns each time you run the
program.

BMP converter v1.2.  This lets you manipulate bitmap images as large as 480x792 pixels
that are normally stored as *.bmp files on a PC.  No 80 column device is needed to do this.
The software works on a basic 40 column 99/4A and it also works with a Geneve in GPL
mode.  After loading an image you can view it on screen.  You can also save the bmp
image as a TI Artist 16 color disk file or a black and white large Page Pro image.  No
other software lets you use PC bmp images on a TI system.  There are lots and lots of  such
images available.  For example, a standard installation of Windows 95 or 98 includes over
100 of these graphics.  This is the standard format for the Windows ôPaintö program.  The
main problem is how to get bmp files onto a TI disk.  Image files can be downloaded with
terminal programs and they can also be transferred from a PC disk to a TI disk using the
software PC Transfer and its df128 option.  Unfortunately not all PC *.bmp files can be
viewed.  I put several Windows 95 bmp files on a TI disk.  Some gave me a file too large
error.  Others gave other error messages including ôno hires allowedö.  Others viewed and
saved just fine.

Backup-Biteremover v1.01.  This program is updated in 1998 from an original written in
1993 by Tim Tesch.  It removes the backup bit placed in floppy disks by the Myarc HFDC.
This bit has caused problems accessing files on Horizon ramdisks.  I donÆt own an HFDC,
so I havenÆt been able to test this software.

Bacteria v1.0.  This is a two player game written in xb.  You use the joysticks or arrow
and ôQö key.  Each player starts with one bacterium at opposite corners of a grid.  Players
alternately add a new bacterium to the matrix immediately adjacent to an existing
bacterium.   The object is to fill the matrix and prevent your opponent from doing so.
There is a law in ecology I teach to my biology students which states that no two species of
organisms can successfully live in the same physical area while competing for the same
energy or food source.  This game resembles a laboratory simulation of this ecological
law.

Copy-C v1.8a.  This disk copy program will fast copy regular and many funny sector
protected TI disks, and it will also copy a 360k PC disk onto another 360k PC disk if you
have a DSDD disk controller.  This version has been altered so that it will work on a
horizon ramdisk.

Hardware tests v1.2.  There are two programs in this group.  One tests keyboard and
joystick functions.  This is handy if you have an IBM keyboard interfaced to your 99/4a and
it is also useful in calibrating the key delay setting (k value) when using PC99.  Many of us
already have this keyboard/joystick test program.  The second hardware test program
checks the functioning of the 9901 chip.  Various register addresses are displayed and you
are told if the byte is set for 1 or 0.  Pressing some keyboard keys will alter some of these
settings.

On the TI Software from Europe disk are several interesting sounding 80 column utilities.
Unfortunately none of them work on my Geneve so I canÆt test them.  Apparently you need
one of the various 99/4A 80 column cards to make them work.  These 80 column utilities
include a SCSI sector editor, an updated GIF-99 gif file viewer now with mouse support,
and a SCSI disk manager.  The disk manager is supposed to show a split screen with
information about the source and destination directories.

If you want the TI Software from Europe disk, send me $1 and I will send it to you.  I can
also, for free, email it as an attached file in PC99 format.
................................
Access:

Bruce Harrison (for TI Bingo)
5705 40th Place
Hyattsville MD 29781
Phone [phone]
email [e-mail]

Charles Good (Interest calculation for MDOS, disk of european software)
P.O. Box 647
Venedocia OH 45894
Phone [phone]
email [e-mail]