SPACE Newsletter - February 1995

February 1995

SPACE Newsletter Feburary 1995 Newz From The Prez

by Nathan Block Nathan has failed again to submit his article in time for this publication!

$122.00, and with only the December BBS phone bill and the January Newsletter expenses for the month our total gain in our account was about $87.00. This brings our balance up to $465.75 for the end of January 1995.

The Editor DOM Info by Terry Streeter Terry has failed to submit DOM info to me in time for the newsletter. The Editor

Treasurer's Report by Greg Leitner Although the January meeting got off to a slow start. by the time we set down to have our fornal meeting there were a good representation of our membership present. By the end of the meeting we even had a visit from the former President of MAST who offered his vast library of ST disks to our CLub which we gladly accepted. I hope we will see more material on the ST at future meetings as I would rather use my ST over my IBM any day. This January meeting was very interesting in that most of the discussion centered around the using of modems to connect to various services, especially the Internet. I can't wait for future meetings where we can see from current users just how these services work and how to negotiate them. I for one have never had the time to sit down and learn about my modem, so I welcome the help from anyone who knows the ropes. This is exactly the kind of help I was looking for when I joined the Ateri Club and now I plan on taking advantage of this opportunity. Thanks to the attending members who continue to support our Club. We had very good receipts for January which included four memberships (two new ones), disk box and blank disk sales along with our regular Dom sales. All together we had receipts of

Plan on attending the upcoming meetings and see what your Club has in store for you. With the addition of an ST d i sk library and tutorials on using your modems, Ateriwriter etc. exciting times are in store for all of us.

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Z WX E E R V T B T B Y N M U V P Q Q Z E A L O T V E E WX Q Z S Y N M P L MQ E T E O L J G B A E E B MR

Z D H E L WV E X R O V C Y Y B M R MN B V L X O D T O L T E B MWR A GCL P VP RDS OAXHR DRT E J X H E WQ I T A R V X V H J S W G L MWA F V E C I WF E F E I WL P WY T U M R X A S F O A D M M Y A R N T A D G P WO U I I I E E B M C V WO D T H L I B H A D R C V N D I I L G J P Q D WO T A T U N I U E D I

D I H O V U Y I N X WQ L X F H A R X B WR B V C WE B T C I D D A R E

X G Y Q J L D G T WP E ML U P A E Fanatic Extremist Disciple Nut

Enthusiast Radical Aficionado Booster

Bigot Sectarian Devotee Champion Fan Buff Addict

News From The Publisher: I tried to download the SPACE minutes from the New SPACE BBS, but it seems there is a upload/download ratio now? I havn't uploaded anything yet so I couldn't download the minutes from the last meeting or another article that was there waiting for me to get! This will have to be addressed at the next meeting.

+----------------------------------------+ Larry's ACTION! TUTORIAL +----------------------------------------+ 13 The First Mistake Let's begin with your computer on, and the HELLO WORLD program in the Editor. Add or type in the follow text; PROC stop() PrintE("End of program.") RETURN PROC hello() PrintE("Hello World") stop RETURN Now press <CNTRL> <SHIFT> 'M' to get to the Monitor. Enter ·c· to compile the • program. You will then be exposed to a compilation error. At this point, the program will not run. Note the error number and open your manual to the Error Code Appendix. You can try to guess what the error is if given the correct line, however, sometimes you are not given the correct line and you must decide what to look for by the description supplied in the Error Code explanation. If text was displayed in the Monitors· message area, the cursor would be moved to the start of that same line. If no text was displayed, the cursor is right where it was when you left the Editor. In my case, I had no text line displayed in the Monitors message area, only the error number. Your cartridge may be a different version, and act slightly differently. The manual explains this error as an Illegal assignment. It is also an Illegal function call, for which there is no other error number. In my manual I have added in the words "Jump should be Jump()" to remind me to look for this type of error too. Other than this ommission, I believe all the error code explanations are right. To correct the error, add the parenthesis after the word "stop" ("stop()") in the 'hello' procedure, then return to the Monitor to compile it again. It should compile correctly now, if it doesnt, recheck your text to find any mistakes. If everything is correct, go ahead and run it. Everybody makes mistakes, especially when first learning the language. Here

are the typos you should be aware of in the August 1983 Action! manual: = This is the line to look for. + = This is how it should be. > = Correct the notes for this line MONITOR/ RUN - Program Execution >RUN 11<filespec> 11 only works when used on programs saved from the Editor. (When it is still in text form.) -RUN PrintE() <RETURN> does not work. +XECUTE PrintE() <RETURN> is correct. LANGUAGE/ Arithmetic Expressions >TECH NOTE Using'*', ·/·, or 'MOD' will not work correctly on large CARD values. LANGUAGE/ Record Manipulations -TYPE idinfo=[BYTE level, +TYPE idinfo=[BYTE level (omit comma) LANGUAGE/ Advanced use of Extended Types >newrecord=idarray+(reccount*recordsize) The pointer will point to the next record not the end of the array. >In the main procedure; -"mode=InputBO" won't work correctly. +"mode=GetD(7)" works fine. LIBRARY/ The PUT Procedures -PROC PutDE(BYTE channel, CHAR character) +PROC PutDE(BYTE channel) will compile. LIBRARY/ BYTE color >For Graphics(O) and text windows: +Chr. luminance (color number= 1) +Background (color number= 2) LIBRARY/ PROC Fill >col and row must be the numbers of the lower LEFT corner of the box. LIBRARY/ PROC SCopy >The description is wrong, DEST should be dimensioned larger than source, or else identify an array with enough space. While in the Monitor, enter the line:

? $BOOO<RETURN> The ·7· requests the Monitor to display the contents of a memory address. My cartridge displays: 45056,$BOOO = 6 $0136 54 310 This means I have version 3.6 which is the last version I am aware of. If yours is 7 or greater, LET ME KNOW! Until next time!

+----------------------------------------+ Larry's ACTION! TUTORIAL

+----------------------------------------+ Sing-a-L angi

One more aid in correcti ng errors is the use of the List option during compila tion of your program . To use this option, you can go to the Monitor and enter ·o· for the Option Menu. Continu e pressing RETURN (4 times) until the prompt "List on?" is displaye d, then enter 'Y' <RETURN>. This option tells the compile r to list the program in the Monitor message area, as each line is being compile d. If it does encount er an error, the listing of the program stops in the approxim ate location of the error. Whateve r caused the error may be listed on the screen, plus all the precedin g lines that compile d before the error. This can narrow your search down to about 22 lines of text, instead of how ever many lines there are in your program . Using the List option does slow down the compila tion process . You can use it dynamic ally (you can turn it on and off) during the compile process by includin g a 'SET List=l' (on) and 'SET List=O' (off) in the text of your program . Try this out to see how it perform s. Here is a short program to finish off the section on the Action! Editor and Monitor ; MODULE PROC versel () PrintE(" You say good-by e,") RETURN PROC verse20 PrintE(" and I say ""hello !""") RETURN PROC song() PROC main() BYTE ch=764 Graphics (O) PrintE("P RESS ANY KEY;") song=ve rsel song() do until ch<255 od ch=255 song=ve rse2 song() do until ch<255 ad ch=255 RETURN This example gives an indicati on of why the parenth eses are needed in any call to a procedu re or function . (Remember Error

10 from the last lesson? ) Type·· i:"t tn just as it appears , compile , and ruri it. In this example , the word 'song' is used both as a procedu re name and as a va4~bl e. The only distinct ion between the ~wo uses are the parenth eses followin g the -variabl e name: :t ,_

song=ve rsel song() song()= versel()

., ;

as a variabl e as a procedu re will not compile

Here is another example program·: .· PROC main() BYTE ch=764, atachr=7 63,tmp PrintE("KEYBOARD TEST PROGRAM") PrintE(" Press any key; Esc=exi t") do while ch=255 do ad tmp=ch GetD(7) PrintF("c h=%U atachr=% U ("[%C)% E",tmp, atachr,a tachr) until tmp=28 od RETURN The above example illustra tes one method of testing for a keypres s. In the main procedu re, the BYTE variable 'ch' was used to test for a keypres s. The operatin g system from ATARI uses one address to hold the keyboard value of the most recent key pressed . From this location the compute r can tell when you have pressed a key, and will then transla te it to ATASCII. The address of this location is 764 or $2FC. Action! allows the assignm ent of addresse s to variabl es, arrays, and procedu re names. By declarin g the variabl e to be residing at address 764, the program can watch for any keypres ses, just as the compute r does. When no key has been entered , and after each translat ion the address will be set at a value of 255. Locatio n 763 holds the ATASCII ~alue of your keypres s, after it has been entered and translat ed. ~ Because the GetD(7) stateme nt will reset ch to 255, tmp was used to tempora rily store the value so that it may be used in the PrintF stateme nt. You can use this example to compare the ATASCII .values with the actual keyboard values. ? Next month, Vo-cabu-laryl

CLUB OFFICIALS DISCLAIMER President: Vice President: Secretary: DOM librarian: Paper librarian: Software Librarian: Membership Ghairman: SPACE 'Il'easurer SPACE Newsletter Editor:

Nathan Block Sherm Erickson Mike Fitzpatrick Joe Danko

9228012 434-5254 XXX-XXXX 777-9500 XXX-XXXX

Earline Fitzpatrick Glen Kirschenmann Greg Leitner Michael Schmidt

xx.x-xxxx

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786-4790 429-4909 757-4192

Published by the Saint Paul Atari Computer Enthusiasts (SPACE), an independent organization with no business affiliation with ATARI Corporation. Permission is granted to any similar organization with which SPACE exchanges newsletters to reprint material from this newsletter. We do however ask that credit be given to the authors and to SPACE.

Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of SPACE, the club officers,

Saint Paul Atari Computer Enthusiasts (SPACE)

club members or ATARI Coiporation.

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