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Amstrad Action TYPE-IN PROJECT

Started by CPCIak, 09:56, 03 January 10

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robbarton

I recall a letter to AA pointing out possible plagiarism whereby an Australian magazine was reprinting programs - however it turns out they were printed under licence with permission so it was all legit. However I don't recall which issue the letter was in so I'll have to find it... bear with me!

AMSDOS

#251
Quote from: robbarton on 16:01, 29 October 16
I recall a letter to AA pointing out possible plagiarism whereby an Australian magazine was reprinting programs - however it turns out they were printed under licence with permission so it was all legit. However I don't recall which issue the letter was in so I'll have to find it... bear with me!


The Australian magazine The Amstrad User (TAU) started doing this Sept '86, unsure how long this continued on for. They had a section called Cheat Mode which was still going Jan '89, but it looked as if they were publishing stuff from Australian Readers. Aug '87 appears to be the last they had a section called "Gallimaufry" which had programs from AA, they also had Hot Tips around then as well.


EDIT: Prior to that they had some AA programs Nov '86 they had the Max Headroom GIGO program.
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Border_7

ahh yes, the plagiarism... it was an interesting time in Australia. There were several UK magazines to pilfer bits and pieces from - sure, yes some was published properly under license etc. (agreements with Future Publishing and Database Publications). But there was definitely things turning up from AA / CWTA / ACU into TAU. Just edit the REM lines at the beginning of a listing and presto! you have a brand new listing! Who's gonna notice!?
01000001 01101101 01110011 01110100 01110010
01100001 01100100
01000011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01110101
01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111

pelrun

That was hardly restricted to TAU, though. Even Bomber from the *CPC6128 manual* ended up in one of the UK mags, iirc.  :picard2:

Border_7

Quote from: pelrun on 12:40, 31 October 16
That was hardly restricted to TAU, though. Even Bomber from the *CPC6128 manual* ended up in one of the UK mags, iirc.  :picard2:

Good memory jog... I actually recall something like that...might have been a UK CWTA mag.... a 1987 issue...Blitz, maybe? 
01000001 01101101 01110011 01110100 01110010
01100001 01100100
01000011 01101111 01101101 01110000 01110101
01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111

AMSDOS

Quote from: pelrun on 12:40, 31 October 16
That was hardly restricted to TAU, though. Even Bomber from the *CPC6128 manual* ended up in one of the UK mags, iirc.  :picard2:


Dave Town was the author of Bomber, which was initially published in ACU (when it was known as CPC464 User), but the rip-off which made it into AA was most likely lifted from the 6128 Manual.
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robbarton

There was a run of AA issues which had programs lifted from the manual or plagiarised from earlier submissions:

AA70 - Bomber (manual)
AA71 - Thro' the Wall (manual)
AA72 - Picstore (Amstrad Computer User)

In addition AA68 featured Snake that required another file on the disk to be present, hence it won't work as-is. I guess that over these few months AA must have had staff turnover and the new people weren't as vigilant/knowledgeable which is why these errors crept in.

robbarton

Finally got the scatter plot program on AA95 to work (by fudging one data point to -1000 to force it to compute (!)) so I have uploaded it to the wiki.

ALL DONE!  ;D

Well, technically there are other tips and bits of code in many of the issues that could go on each page... I'll maybe take this up in 2017.

Thank you to everyone who has helped and supported me on this project with scans, corrections and suggestions - all very helpful and greatly appreciated.

robbarton

RE: Australian publications reprinting AA material

The letter I saw was in AA issue 27 on page 7, about The Amstrad User, which had permission to reprint sections from AA.

Zoe Robinson

I'm a little behind on the forum scene so I just noticed that you'd finished this mega project. I have to say well done, you did us all proud. Thank you. :)

AMSDOS

#260

Ironically I noticed this error the other day 


There was also another Dead Link in your signature, but I think you might of removed that one now.


Correction:It's the "My CPC on my Webpage" link, which is coming up as Page not found | Zoe Kirk-Robinson.
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AMSDOS

I made some small updates to the AA100 Type-ins page, after finding a little problem with the Wot program. With all the BASIC snippets I've put together over the years (and having a Disk Image almost full of files), it seemed like a good program to make a description file of all the files.
I have only updated the WOT.BAS file on the Disk Image to correct line 425 which had "425 INPUT#1,:"",a$(x):a=LEN(a$(x))" instead of "425 INPUT#1,;"",a$(x):a=LEN(a$(x))".
I made some updates to the original Wiki page, as I noticed the  Wot program is also BASIC 1.1 only and the full title of The Last Lark game is "Invaders of the Lost Lark", instead of "Raiders of the Last Lark", that was named under the screenshot. I hope the updated Disk Image has worked (I used the Drag and Drop onto the page), will check.

In addition, I made some of my own modifications to the Wot program, the original program was only storing 30 Files, so I extended it to allow for the full 64. The original program wasn't very 464 friendly at all even after I replaced the CLEAR INPUT with WHILE INKEY$<>"":WEND, something that occurs on the 6128 is if the file isn't found error 32 is returned and Line 30 takes you to Line 110 where you can start Describing the files. On a 464, if a file isn't found, it reports it without Issuing an Error 32, the program comes to a grinding halt. The only way around this was to:

openout"wotfile.":write#9,"":closeout


to create a file.

Another problem in the original program is the Window in the original program was obstructing some of the Filenames in the lower half of the screen. I've added a small routine to scroll the Filenames to the Top Corner of the Screen & have adjusted the Window in the lower half of the screen to display the descriptions of the files. It seems to work fine now, though it's a little weird that when a file has been setup, you need to use the Small Enter key to go through all the Descriptions of the Files, once you get through those you can continue adding new descriptions for the files!  :D
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AMSDOS

#262
I was flipping through some of those AA Type-ins on the CPCWiki, when I got reacquainted with DIHUNT (otherwise known as Diamond Hunt) from AA84









Unfortunately I found an Syntax Error in Line 300 I think (a number 1 was being used instead of a lowercase "L" in a FOR loop), I've made the necessary changes to the Disk Image, through haven't got the Disk Image on hand at the Moment to upload to the Wik!  :(  I also found another bug, though this one doesn't appear to be a typo. When the game asks if I want another game, pressing "n" I get a type mismatch error. This error seems to relate to the M/C Fade Routine at the end of the program. Another M/C routine is also within the program to generate a Sound Explosion, however that DATA uses the Ampersand ("&") in front of the Data to poke as Hexadecimal Data. The other Fading routine also uses Hexadecimal DATA, though I suspect the M/C loader tries to poke the data from the Sound Explosion Data hence generating the Type Mismatch error. For the Fade DATA routine I've added RESTORE 950 so the right DATA gets POKEd, though obviously this wasn't part of the published program in AA and I'm unsure what AA were testing it on, the program is listed as 6128 only and was using 6128 settings in Winape for this program.


Which brings me to my next point. When this program was originally published I was using a 464, I might of tried of emulating this game with the 6128 Emulator which was published in AA68, though didn't have a great understand of the COPYCHR$(#0) back then, so when I came across this program again, I decided to write it using 2D Array. The hardest part was rewriting lines 410-560 which work on printing the Diamonds and Bombs onscreen, 4 arrays are used and if a random value should fall in a position where where another Diamond or Bomb should be, it loops back until it finds an unused position. In my version the 4 arrays are removed as well as the 2 "w" FOR Loops, the arrays simply become single variables holding the random positions, that is then checked with the 2D array and if that holds either a Diamond or Bomb, it goes back to get another random position. The 2D Array simply holds the string positions for the Bombs and Diamonds, once I had that correct and could replace the COPYCHR$(#0) with checking the Array Positions with the positions of my character, it was simply a matter of replacing the "CLEAR INPUT" & "FRAME" with 464 equivalents. I also discovered I had to alter the Sound Explosion routine as each time I ran into a Bomb, the whole Sound Explosion routine was being POKEd into memory again and again!


I can attach a Disc Image or CDT of that if anyone is interested.
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AMSDOS

#263
Please find updated DSK Image of AA84 Type-ins, and my attached 464 Version of Diamond Hunt below (in CDT format).


EDIT: I got into playing both versions of the game which, seems to play better with the Cursor Keys as it lets you move Diagonally, for the Joystick, JOY is used which doesn't let you move those extra directions. I went back to the original 6128 version, in this game it offers a number of difficulty levels 1 is meant to be Difficult, while 15 is Easy. I got a feeling though that when I played the 464 version, moving from COPYCHR$ to an Array approach, the game is running slightly faster on Level 15 than it's 6128 counterpart. Though I think the original program is still drawing up the screen faster probably because I'm using Logical AND operators in my IF statements again which is slower than using IF <condition> THEN IF .... and so on.
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AMSDOS

#264


Quote from: robbarton on 13:49, 23 October 16
3) AA98 - 1 problem left: I've checked the Dinosaur type in and despite the checksums matching, the game seems to have very bad collision detection and very slow movement - I assume I have inverted some characters somewhere so the checksum calculates the same but the code itself doesn't execute properly. I'll go over it again before upload.


Quote from: Nich on 16:20, 23 October 16


I recall after typing Dinosaur when it was originally published that the game was very slow to play, so I don't think it's due to any mistakes in your typing.

Quote from: robbarton on 17:31, 23 October 16

Good to know it might not need any amendments.




I made amendments to that Dinosaur game, so it plays faster now & works on all CPCs, but....it's got one of those scary CHR(164) Copyrights stamped on it at the start of the program, don't know what to do!  ???  I don't stand to profit from this program which is nearly a quarter of a century old!  :-X


While playing the original, I found a bug/cheat, which still exists in the amended version. Hold down the Shift+Left Arrow or Shift+Right Arrow and your Man jumps across the screen further. If this is done in the original version, you can jump the man out of the playing field, in the amended version the man simply disappears. I can only presume this occurs due to the way the controls are checked in the program on Line 960:



posit=posit-((INKEY(+1) AND posit>=0)*4
posit=posit+((INKEY(1)+1) AND posit<612)*4



UPDATE: I've decided to upload the file now after reading and considering what Type-ins are, which is essentially a program free for people to improve or enhance or making it function for another system. If Paul Neave wishes to have their program removed, unfortunately we'll have to comply despite the circumstances it was published in.
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Skunkfish

Quote from: AMSDOS on 05:08, 18 March 18
If Paul Neave wishes to have their program removed, unfortunately we'll have to comply despite the circumstances it was published in.

He's very likely the Paul Neave of Neave Interactive - https://neave.com/

https://twitter.com/neave

You could always ask to be sure? :)
An expanding array of hardware available at www.cpcstore.co.uk (and issue 4 of CPC Fanzine!)

pelrun

It makes *absolutely no difference legally* whether a copyright line is present or not.


If someone asks for their personal work to be removed, do it out of basic courtesy... but why actively go looking for trouble?

tjohnson

Quote from: pelrun on 12:43, 19 March 18
It makes *absolutely no difference legally* whether a copyright line is present or not.


If someone asks for their personal work to be removed, do it out of basic courtesy... but why actively go looking for trouble?

Is there any suggestion that the program needs to be removed?  I can't imagine anyone would be interested in trying to protect an ancient type in program on a dead computer platform.

AMSDOS

#268
Hmmm, not sure we can call the Amstrad a dead computer platform with all the new Hardware/Software available.
The way I understand the concept of Type-ins programs submitted to magazines, is when an author submits/sends a program to a magazine, if the program gets published, the magazine gets the rights to the program and the author gets some exposure. I think I would be in more trouble if I was trying to profit from it or pass it off as my own program which, I haven't done. But if the author of the program should visit our site and tell me to remove it, then I'll respect their wishes.
There were a few things in the original program which had to be changed to work on the 464. The program had a FILL instruction in it which FILLed in a square box, I replaced this with a Graphics Window & CLG 11 which is a 464s way of doing GRAPHICS PAPER, the Graphics Window just needs to be extended back to the entire screen, so everything around it can be display. GRAPHICS PENs were also used which can be done on a 464 with PLOT -2,-2,col, CLEAR INPUT is just WHILE INKEY$<>"":WEND, though I also discovered this game had the same problem as what @Morri had when coding Coolbox. When the Dinosaur's are drawn, each one is build-up and uses CHR$(10) & STRING$(4,8) to move the cursor around to draw each bit of the Dinosaur. I ended up removing those control codes and settling with LOCATE, which seems to work just fine (and work on all systems).


I've been having a look at another game I remember typing in back in the day from AA88 called Smoulder (or Before-Smoulder), just downloaded it off the Wiki and found a problem with it, no controls.  :o Line 370 needs correcting unfortunately, which had something like "370 a$=INXey$" just needs correcting to read "370 a$=INKEY$". I typed the program myself the other night and found another fault with it, if the Red plane fires towards the top and the bullet goes past the top it's Improper Argument in 580. If the Green Plane fires towards the bottom, the screen rolls!  :D
I just made some simple checks which I could leave in the Notes section for that Type-ins page which prevent Aircraft firing in either case.


560 PEN 1:FOR n=1 TO 5:IF y>=6 THEN LOCATE x,y-n:PRINT"."
610 FOR n=1 TO 5:IF y>=6 THEN LOCATE x,y-n:PRINT" ":NEXT n
630 PEN 1:FOR n=1 TO 5:IF b<=20 THEN LOCATE a,b+n:PRINT"."
660 FOR n=1 TO 5:IF b<=19 THEN LOCATE a,b+n:PRINT" ":NEXT n


I just thought I'd mention this game as simple as it is, I made a few adjustments to make it a 1UP game against the computer, which wasn't all that hard to do and the funny thing about this game, is I've some other coding ideas into what to develop it into.


EDIT: Finally got around to updating AA88 Type-ins page with revised DSK image to correct some typo problems on Smoulder. I have also added Notes to with suggested corrections to prevent Planes in Smoulder from Firing at the Top and Bottom, which prevents any chance of screen rolling or Improper Argument Error. In order to preserve the original listing which was published in AA, I haven't added those suggested corrections to the program. Likewise I thought this is a good example of a 2 Player game, which could be easily modified into a 1 Player game, but haven't added any of those suggestions to the Notes column.
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tjohnson

#269
Commercially it is dead and has been for nearly 30 years, I don't walk into WHSmiths and see racks of game tapes for sale like a did as a kid, so while there are a still a few users like us lot, the tens of thousands/millions of mainstream users where all the money is made moved on, that's what I meant by my comment.  When I mention to a few people I'm still tinkering in Amstrad 8bits I get asked why I'm wasting my time like this!!!

EgoTrip

Why anyone would cause problems over a 30 year old type-in is beyond me. Only a massive dick would do such a thing.

AMSDOS

Quote from: EgoTrip on 19:27, 28 March 18Why anyone would cause problems over a 30 year old type-in is beyond me. Only a massive dick would do such a thing.



I haven't encountered anybody facing legal proceedings because they took someones program and made some alterations for the purpose of improvement, so perhaps the real enemy here is a fear of being prosecuted, though the author still has their program. If there was something to the lines of "Don't alter this program", I wouldn't dream of touching it. There's one such example in AA88 with a Word Processor Program which has got Copyright, Public Domain & Please Don't Alter this program, which is really confusing since Public Domain is what it is and people are normally welcome to improve that code.
The same applies within the nature of the type-ins, where people are more or less welcome to improve the code and I think at one stage AA were trying to outline what submitting programs to the Type-ins would mean in terms of making your code available to others. On the odd occasion improvements of Type-in programs were usually published on the Forum pages. After AA making the Covertape a monthly thing, if a person really wanted to protect their program, send it to the covertape as a Protected BASIC file.
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ComSoft6128

#272

The Final Word?
Letter from Amstrad Action issue 23.

"Copyright on type-ins

When I send you a listing and you pay me for it, are you buying the copyright from me? And if you are. what does this mean for my use of the program or further use of it by you? Say you wanted to use it on a cover cassette: do I get royalties?
Tommy Daffin South Brewham, Somerset

Yes, we are buying the copyright from you, and that means you should not then submit the program to other publications (although of course you can use it yourself)- If someone wanted to sell us only first publication rights, we'd consider it - but the someone would probably find subsequent publishers less interested anyway. The idea of royalties does not apply in the magazine world, where fees are one-off: with books or records or plays, royalties consist of a small fee for each copy sold or each performance, and could dribble on for 50 years."






Nich

Quote from: ComSoft6128 on 13:53, 02 April 18
The Final Word?
Letter from Amstrad Action issue 23.

That was in 1987, though. I'm fairly sure AA's policy on the copyright status of type-ins was amended over the years.

AMSDOS

So the information I was referring to from AA, appears to have only appeared in AA71,72 (August/September 1991) of the Type-ins pages, within a small oval box titled "ARE TYPE-INS PUBLIC DOMAIN?". The following reads as:

QuoteAll Type-Ins submitted to Amstrad Action automatically go into the public domain. If you don't want this to happen, make it clear when you send your program in.

This was printed at a time when AA were paying £20 per program, which resulted in a few dodgy programs being sent in.  :(

When I was hunting that down, I stumbled across AA saying something in another issue about them receiving quite a few Pacman clones, which came at a time when they were saying to keep your programs original! Still think it's a shame they never saw the light of day, guess if they were written well, it would of made for a nice BASIC tutorial.
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* I also like to problem solve code in BASIC :)   * And type-in Type-Ins! :D

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