¢FUTURA ISSUE 7 - MAY/JUNE 1993¢(Release date = 21/6/93)¢¢INTRODUCTION¢by Stuart J. Murray¢¢14th June, 1993.¢¢¢ Welcome to a new Futura year! I'd like to begin this introduction by thanking all of you who have supported my efforts with Futura over the past six issues. To all Futura subscribers throughout the world... THANK-YOU! I hope you will continue to support Futura over the next six issues.¢¢ Well, I'm late again. Sacked! Everything has been EXTREMELY hectic over the past couple of months! As some of you may know, I am in my final year at the University of Aberdeen and the essays have been coming thick and fast recently. After completing these essays I had to prepare for my final exams which ran from 5th-10th June. Needless to say, by the end of all this I was ready for a break! My girlfriend and I therefor decided to visit my gran in Inverness for the week-end. I returned home late last night (Sunday).¢¢ Unfortunatley, I will not be able to dedicate all my time this week to completing Futura issue 7. I have to make up all the hours I took off work (at B&Q) over the past two months to complete my essays and exams. I'm hopeful that this issue will be complete by Friday night and posted on Saturday morning. (fingers crossed!)¢¢ I've been attempting to keep up with all the recent letters and orders whilst completing my final course essays and exams. I'm sorry if you experienced a delay in receiving a reply - given the choice I would have prefered to have concentrated on Futura. However, the essays and exams had to come first as they contribute toward my final mark. I also experienced lengthy delays from my disk supplier, Creative Media Store (see Editorial). THANK-YOU ALL FOR BEING SO PATIENT. Everything will be back to normal from Futura issue 8 onwards.¢¢¢ Right, onto issue 7...¢¢Side A¢¢ The text within this issue includes reviews of Dark Chambers and Operation Blood, an overview of Oasis Design, the latest 8-Bit news, the story of the Atari Force, etc. Many thanks to John McIntyre, Alan Hitchen, Simon Roe, Charley Kormos and Daniel Baverstock for submitting articles or programs for inclusion in this issue. Without your support this issue might not have been completed until next month. I look forward to further articles and programs from Futura subscribers. The 8-Bit is indeed alive and well!¢¢ The programs on Side A are as follows:¢¢FIVE UP¢¢ Five Up is a great version of yachtzee poker dice. Full documentation can be found within FIVEUP.DOC. Five Up was submitted by Futura subscriber, Charley Kormos. Thanks Charley! Please let me know which NOSAUG PD disks you would like to receive free-of-charge.¢¢HUMOUR¢¢ Also on Side A is a program simply entitled 'Humour'. This is a fun little program which I have updated from a program called 'Humor' (on Ol'Hackers PD Disk 36). I hope you like Humour - I thought it was funny!¢¢¢Side B¢¢ Flip the disk and boot WITHOUT BASIC for the main selection of programs:¢¢NUMBER BUSTER¢¢ The star of the show! Number Buster is a great new game submitted by Futura subscriber, Simon Roe. It will also test your mathematical skills. Full docs and an article on how it was programmed are included on Side A. Many thanks Simon - I look forward to Countdown, XO, etc. I hope you enjoy your free NOSAUG PD disks.¢¢CHECKERS¢¢ This is a great PD version of the classic board-game, draughts. It plays really well with varying difficulty levels, quick response time, no illegal moves, etc. I knew I'd find a good version of draughts eventually. Checkers is from a recent M.A.G.I.C. disk of the month.¢¢KAL¢¢ There aren't many kaleidoscope programs for the Atari 8-Bit. I found Kal on an Australian PD disk. It is very fast! Switch of the lights, blast some music and sit back and enjoy the power of Kal! You can also create your own patterns by hitting the spacebar when Kal is running. Just experiment with various figures and you'll soon create some wonderful patterns.¢¢BOWLING¢¢ This PD sports game is great fun! Bowling allows 1-4 players to battle it out for the Futura Ten-Pin Bowling Championship. Let me know about your scores. Can you get a clean sweep of strikes?¢¢SYNTRON¢¢ Syntron is a simple but very entertaining Robotron clone which I've been playing quite a lot recently (it's great for getting rid of frustration!). How do you play Syntron? It's simple! Blast eveything in sight!!! Oh, before I forget, there is a two-player option which allows one player to move and one to shoot. Great fun! Get blasting! Syntron hint: run for an empty corner and blast for your life!¢¢VTEX¢¢ VTEX is a wonderful text-viewing utility program which is packed with options. These include page forward or backward (single or 10 pages), go to end or start, set screen colours, disk directory, help screen, etc., etc. This really is a cracker! The only major option it misses is a printer option. The author plans new versions, so please consider writing to him to request the printer option (and perhaps a font-loader and a true word-wrap). I'm currently considering using VTEX for future issues of Futura. However, I've included VIEWDOCS with this issue to give you a chance to experiment with VTEX. If you have a spare moment, please let me know what you think of it. Should I use it instead of VIEWDOCS.BAS or are you happy with things as they are? Both text-viewers have their advantages and disadvantages, e.g.¢¢- VTEX has lots more options but would mean one less article per issue (it's about 40 sectors larger than VIEWDOCS).¢¢- VIEWDOCS is a smaller program but cannot page backward.¢¢- VIEWDOCS has a true word wrap. VTEX does not (long words occassionally wrap around the screen).¢¢- VTEX is a lot faster than VIEWDOCS.¢¢- VIEWDOCS has a printer option. VTEX does not (although you could use a word processor).¢¢...and so the list goes on. I think the best idea is to read the first few text files on this issue with VIEWDOCS and the rest with VTEX. Afterwards, mess about with both of them and decide which one you prefer. I'd be most grateful if you could let me know of your decision. If a substantial number of you would like a change to VTEX, I will switch text-viewers from Futura issue 9 (Sep/Oct93) onwards. (Please remember that the extra options of VTEX must be balanced with one less article per issue.)¢¢ Full documentation for VTEX can be found on SIDE B (VTEX.DOC). If you wish to read this with VTEX then simply enter "VTEX.DOC" at the filename prompt after loading VTEX. To read VTEX.DOC with VIEWDOCS simply load VIEWDOCS.BAS, flip the disk and follow the on-screen prompts.¢¢¢ There we are once again. I hope you find the selection of text and programs within this issue to be both interesting and enjoyable. Futura Feedback and the Atari 8-Bit Bookshelf will return in the next issue. Many, many thanks again to all of you who submitted articles and programs for inclusion on Futura - your efforts are very much appreciated! Until the next issue...¢¢See-ya!¢¢Stu.¢¢¢P.S. Thanx and greetinx to all new Futura subscribers! Thanx also to the Ol'Hackers A.U.G. in New York for their continued support of Futura in the USA. (Look out for an article about OHAUG very soon!)¢
