            TasREAD.bas v1.02 - BETA TEST VERSION

By Simon N Goodwin, freely distributable (when it's finished!)

This is the second version of a program to display fixed length
line files on the Amiga. It was written to read Spectrum Tasword
and SAM SAMscratch files from MGT disks on the Amiga, via Frank
Swift's excelent SP-handler. It can easily be modifed for other
line widths (e.g. 32 column Tasword or 85 column MasterScratch)
if you have HiSoft BASIC or some other MBASIC/QBASIC compatible
compiler.

TasRead 1.02 tries to work out the line length from the total
file length but this may not always work, in which case you'll
need to 'hard-wire' a certain value for LENGTH% in the program
and re-compile it. The problem is that ZX files may not be an
exact multiple of the line length in size, and 32 column files
with an even number of lines may be misinterpreted as having
64 columns.

The main change in version 1.02 is to strip a PLUS3DOS file
header if present - this suits Dominic Morris's DISCDOS.DOC,
and Tasword 2 formatted files read from +3 media with Frank
Swift's XFS.

TasRead can also be used for other fixed-length formats, such
as FORTH (which often uses 'screens' of 16 or 24 fixed-length
lines).

The program should no longer stop with an error requester if
you specify a file with a length that is not a whole number
of full lines. In such cases the partial line at the end of
the file will be output, though it may be junk.

The program is very simple - most of the code is concerned with
the Amiga display not the conversion. It could be converted or
rewritten for other platforms. If you do this, please let me
know by email:

         simon@studio.woden.com

Oldbury, UK, 2nd July 1997 to 26th April 1999 (nearly ready?!)

