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2022-08-26
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LETTER DROP WRITER
by Robert Markland
If you would like to create your
own Letter Drop puzzles, use this
easy-to-use utility.
The characters A-Z and SPACE are
available for text entry. The CRSR
keys allow you to move freely about
the edit box, and INSert, DELete, HOME
and CLR function as you would normally
expect.
Although the choice of puzzle
content is entirely up to you, there
are a few considerations to keep in
mind: Generally speaking, the longer
the quotation, the more difficult it
is to solve. If your quotation is
short, you can compensate for this by
breaking the quotation into a greater
number of shorter lines.
You may find it easiest to begin
each line at the left margin when you
first enter the text. Then go back and
INSERT preceding spaces to more or
less center the lines. The tic marks
above the edit box will help. Keep in
mind that you don't have to precisely
center each line. Your primary
objective is to balance the number of
characters in each column. A single
character is a dead giveaway, and with
two characters there is a 50/50 chance
that the letters will be in the proper
order, top to bottom, when the Letter
Drop program randomizes the puzzle.
When you are satisfied that the
text is complete, press F1 to exit
the edit screen. LETTER DROP WRITER
will take a few seconds to process
the text, then will reprint it in the
edit box as it will look when it is
solved. Review your work then press
A to accept the puzzle or R to reject
the text and try again.
You will be asked to enter a
filename for each puzzle. This can be
any legal filename of 1 to 12
characters. [OMIT] the "L/D." prefix;
it's entered automatically by the
utility. Save your puzzles to a disk
with at least one block free, which
means there's only room for a few on
the LOADSTAR disk.
[DAVE'S INTERJECTION:] By now you
all know to [always] copy a working
program like this to a work disk (or
image) before doing more than goof
around with it. You may want to copy
LETTER DROP, from LS 222, to the
disk also so you can see the results
of your efforts.
In the event of a filename conflict,
you may either overwrite the existing
puzzle or enter a new filename.
Jeff Jones' directory read routine
from his TOOLBOX allows you to scroll
through any number of puzzles, so make
a bunch for your friends to solve.
RM
[NOTE:] The version of Letter Drop
published here uses files with "LD.*"
prefixes. Therefore, after creating a
bunch of quotes of your own, you will
need to rename them. OR go into Letter
Drop and change the file parameter.
DMM