CPC 464 Computing

[Zoe Robinson]

Hi everyone!


I recently (as in a couple of hours ago) learned of the existence of a cassette magazine from 1984 called CPC 464 Computing but I can't find a lot out about it. There were at least 20 editions, each published on cassette from what I can see, and all produced by Argus Press. That's pretty much the sum total of my knowledge about it but I'd like to find out more, so I was wondering if any of you know anything about this tape magazine?


In particular, does anyone know which month it launched, and whether it remained monthly as it claims it is or whether the schedule slipped.

[AMSDOS]

There's a Tape of it on CPC-Power Zoe.


EDIT: To reply to the others from above, I downloaded both Face A & B of the CDT from CPC-Power and was loading without issue using Winape 2.0 Alpha 18. I unsure when this came out in 1984, though it has an announcement about Hisoft being in the final stages of releasing their Pascal, which has a Date stamped on it of "26/9/84" for that version. Though unfortunately, I'm unsure when its release date was.

[Gryzor]

Oh, such a nice find!!! Downloading it now

[Gryzor]

Hmmm the tape ends but nothing has loaded... can someone else try the archive?

[Dagger]

Still have a few

[00WReX]

Hmmm the tape ends but nothing has loaded... can someone else try the archive?

I just tried both sides of the tape (separate downloads) using WinCPC and they worked fine.

Cheers,
Shane

[Gryzor]

Hm. Tried with WinAPE, will try WinCPC as well.


@Dagger : oh man! Please dump them!

[chinnyhill10]

Hi everyone!


I recently (as in a couple of hours ago) learned of the existence of a cassette magazine from 1984 called CPC 464 Computing but I can't find a lot out about it.

IIRC it's where that lovely Paratrooper game (the first game I ever played on our 6128) came from. So I assume the guy who gave us the games must have been buying it.

[Gryzor]

I managed to load it with WinCPC.


...what an awful production I didn't reach the games part, but articles in mode 1 being shown in typewriter mode, text only, and with surprisingly long loading times I guess it was only worth it for the games...

[Zoe Robinson]

Still have a few

Do you mind if I use those pictures in the next episode of CPCine (with a credit of course)?

[Dagger]

No problem, Help yourself

[Zoe Robinson]

Thanks. Much appreciated.

[ComSoft6128]

Can anyone put this on 3" or 3.5" disc for me?
I will send a disc and SAE.

Cheers,

Peter

[Zoe Robinson]

Once my work stops being so hectic, I'm planning on trying to convert all the issues from .CDT to .DSK format and making them available that way.

[Zoe Robinson]

The magazine now has a small entry on the CPC Wiki. http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Cpc_464_computing

[Zoe Robinson]

Issue 1 is now available from the Wiki in .DSK format. Enjoy.


Just as a quick point: you'll want to run "Title.bas" first if you want to see the first part of the magazine but if you want to skip the atrociously slow text crawl and actually read the magazine, you'll want to skip to "intro.bas".


Also yes, I'm aware that the magazine won't auto-load each section as you read the end; it'll stop with a "Bad Command" line. That's because I haven't had time to find where the original coders simply typed a RUN"" command for the tape to progress!

[Zoe Robinson]

Issue 2 is available on the Wiki but it really doesn't seem to like being on disk, so not all of it works.

[AMSDOS]

Issue 2 is available on the Wiki but it really doesn't seem to like being on disk, so not all of it works.

Sounds like it's being loaded over the top of the Operating System, unfortunately a common occurrence with those early programs.   

[Zoe Robinson]

Yes, I think that's what going on. The moment the MCPRINT program (the second on the cassette) is run, you can no longer access the |DISK command.

[AMSDOS]

Yes, I think that's what going on. The moment the MCPRINT program (the second on the cassette) is run, you can no longer access the |DISK command.

Yes, the MCPRINT program is the culprit. It has a start address at &A000 and is &900 bytes in Length. All the other programs appear to be fine for disk. I could take a look at the program and see if it can be relocated, though it probably wouldn't be until the weekend.

[Zoe Robinson]

If you could, that would be brilliant. No rush though, it's not the most important software in the world! 

[AMSDOS]

If you could, that would be brilliant. No rush though, it's not the most important software in the world! 

Ok, well I've adjusted the MCPRINT program, most of it was made up of Text, so it was a small bit of code at the beginning of the file, which I think it just used to print the text that needed adjusting. I loaded the code to &9000 and adjusted all the &A0 bytes to &90, problem solved. Too easy. 


I had to add the previous INTRO.BAS file which handles the MCPRINT routine too, though I've only made it to work in with the MCPRINT program (changing MEMORY, load at &9000 and call &A000), but didn't amend line 80 which has a RUN'" in it to include the filename for the following program.

[Zoe Robinson]

Brilliant! Thank you!