Missing In Action Software

[Zoe Robinson]

Hi everyone,


I've noticed a lot of software from the dawn of the CPC era was announced in the computer magazines of the time, sometimes even advertised and put into compilations, but has not managed to get archived. I thought I would start a page on the Wiki to collate all this missing software, in the hopes that it can be found and put into preservation along with all the other titles from the 8-bit days.


The page is at http://www.cpcwiki.eu/index.php/Missing_software. Please feel free to expand on it. If you have any of the software, we could really do with getting it shared online!

[Skunkfish]

Fantastic idea Zoe, I think that this list will grow quickly! Hopefully some of the titles can be tracked down...

[robcfg]

Definitely a great idea!


Having a list of MIA software makes it easier to look for it.

[VincentGR]

Fantastic!!!

[VincentGR]

Here my two cents.

[Zoe Robinson]

Thanks Vincent. Sadly that's the WACCI Pontoon from 1986, not the 1984 one that's missing.


It's a good version of Pontoon though,  I was enjoying playing that earlier today!

[VincentGR]

Oh, so sorry.
Just found it in my directories 

[Zoe Robinson]

No worries, hon. I thought the same thing as you when I found my copy.

[ComSoft6128]

Hi Zoe,

Mastercomposer is no longer missing. I sent a copy off to Gryzor a few weeks ago and hopefully he has managed to have a look at it, so maybe he will let us know what he thinks about it soon.

Cheers,

Peter

[Gryzor]

Excellent idea, hope the page expands in the future...

[AMSDOS]

Great news, after asking for years (in my signature) about Hisoft's Art in Pascal or Hisoft Art, a DSK image appeared a couple of weeks ago on CPC-RULEZ which includes Binary File and the Pascal Source Code for Art in Pascal!

The Pascal source file (written in Hisoft Pascal 4t/4d/4), itself I found is too big to compile to memory and is even too big to translate to object file, but was able to load the large file into the compiler and save it into smaller manageable files, I then made a small pascal file which can then load these in using a compiler directive. It worked, so now I know how Chris Pink was able to create such a large program.

Interesting enough this Pascal program Saves & Loads standard screen files and not though the use of TIN or TOUT which that Pascal has, so screens can be loaded through BASIC as well. On the DSK are PICTURE1->4.BIN files, the one displayed in CPC-RULEZ is PICTURE1.BIN. When the 22k program is loaded it will ask for a filename followed by Screen Mode (a CATalog of the DSK is performed as well), enter this information in and then the editor will appear (without loading the screen). To Load the Screen [CTRL+L] will load the filename you supplied. To exit that and to load another screen [CTRL]+[CLR] will momentary Pause the screen, until [y] or [n] is carried out. This takes you back to that initial screen where you can enter another filename and once that's done, your back in the editor where [CTRL+L] is used again to load that screen. To exit the program [ESC]+[DEL] will reset the computer.

While the program was already compiled, I took the liberty of splitting up the large file just to understand how Hisoft Pascal could compile such a large program. Fortunately, the code doesn't have to rely on any external MC routines, though the source does provide some small amount of inline machine code. Screens appear to be stored at &6000 if the Main Screen needs to have something else on it, Chris has also been able to make a more friendlier Keyboard Handling routine using KM TEST KEY, which for some reason I never got around to making one after writing one with Inline Machine Code.

The other thing I should point out is the DSK on CPC-Rulez has a number of files, RUN"ART will take you to the Hisoft Art part of the package, which gives a list of options for Screen Dumping. To get to the Hisoft Art in Pascal, RUN"ART.BIN