Dear Sirs,
Firstly, congratulations on the magazine and good luck for the
future. I have a question which I hope you can answer. I recently had to
break off in the middle of a long program and CSAVEd what I had onto two
different cassettes. When I attempted to re-enter however, both showed
an error of the Serial Bus type, one immediately and the other after
about a minute of normal sounding operation. Is there any way I can
salvage the section of the program prior to the error or must I re-do
the whole thing?
T.C. Mayers, Leicester
** There is no easy way to recover a program which won't load. it
should be possible to write a program that can read data as it is
received and perhaps one of our readers can come up with one. A program
is recorded on tape in three separate steps. Firstly a 20 second leader
of mark tone followed by any number of data records and finally and End-of-File
record. If the computer does not get to the End-of-File record you will
end up with an error. There seem to be many problems with CSAVEing and
CLOADing programs so a few hints may be helpful. Firstly, clean the tape
heads REGULARLY with any proprietary tape head cleaner. Before CSAVEing
any program, type LPRINT followed by RETURN. Ignore the error message
and then CSAVE. This helps initialise the cassette handler properly. If
you have problems in loading, try starting the tape a little further on
or back. Try also moving the tape past the point which will not load by
just turning on the cassette motor by POKEing 54018,52. Press SYSTEM
RESET and try again. if readers know of any other hints let us know.
________
Dear Page 6,
I received issue 1 of PAGE 6 and was suitably impressed. I enclose my
subscription. I am a relatively in-experienced computer freak and any
short programs like 'line lister' I find a great help. A few thoughts on
items I am sure your readers will find useful - a conversion to Atari
Basic of commands used by other computers to allow programs to be
converted - useful parts of memory maps for the same purpose an
explanation of machine code - listings of other machines which use the
6502 processor - a list of User Groups in the U.K. - a list of useful
addresses in the U.S.A - a possible breakdown in variables used in
programs to help in understanding what's going on - a suggested reading
list of books for novices - fault finding in your programs - and a
simple adventure game. I realise I am expecting quite a lot but these
are some of things that are not covered in the books I have read and are
the sort of things which most people would like to be able to find
easily.
J. Dimmer, Elgin
**Wow! We will start work on some of these but this is a Users
Magazine so there are a few ideas for readers to submit articles on.
Lets hear from you for the benefit of other readers.
________
Dear PAGE 6,
Thank you for the first: issue of the magazine, its just what we
Atari owners need in this country. If you live somewhere like I do where
the availability of software and accessories is virtually non-existent,
a magazine such as yours that keeps you up to date with the latest
developments is most welcome. Having to buy programs mail-order without
seeing them first can sometimes be quite frustrating! Considering the
wealth of software available is it possible for you to squeeze in a few
more reviews? ... Please!
D. Beech Hull
**Thanks for your kind remarks. We will try to review all kinds of
programs both old and new and if any readers feel they can write reviews
of programs that they have and are very familiar with please let me
know. It is difficult to give in-depth reviews on programs which you
only have a couple of spare hours to look at!
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