PROGRAM PITSTOP
Your Sinclair, August 1991

He's uplifting! He's uproarious! He's the uppermost, up-to-the-minute
JONATHAN DAVIES! (And his programs are a bit of alright too.)

Hello, and welcome to the most interesting page in YS by far. It's the
bit where you get to show everyone what a talented programmer you
really are; or (if you're a bit crap at that sort of thing) gawp at
the achievements of other readers.

And this month the atmosphere is quite literally electric. Pitstop's
been taken over by a chap called Mark Turner who's written not one
program but two! First of all there's Born Free, his entry into the
already crowded message scroller market, and second fiddle is played
by a strange sort of animation program called Screen Blender (which
you'd probably better have a look at for yourself).

Off we go then.

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BORN FREE
by Mark Turner

I'm sure you know what message scrollers do. They scroll a message
across the screen, and Mark Turner's is no exception. What's
important, though, is the way they do it. They might make the message
wibble about a bit, or print it in lots of colours, or possibly
provide some form of musical accompaniment. This one, however,
distinguishes itself by printing the message twice as big as usual and
surrounding it with dotted lines which scroll at different speeds.
You've got to see it to appreciate the effect, really. And what's the
point of it? Endless "practical" uses of course, like shop window
displays and suchlike, which no self- respecting Spec-chum would touch
with a barge pole. It's much more likely to be incorporated into a
larger program, or possibly used to impress those unaware of the
Spectrum's unrivalled message-scrolling abilities.

To get the program up and running you'll need to type in the Basic
section and save it onto a tape by typing SAVE "program" LINE 9999.
Next, root out a copy of the Hexloader from a previous Pitstop and use
it to enter the Hex part. Save that after the Basic. And that's it as
far as typing it in goes.

There's a built-in demo message, but it's not very interesting so
you'll probably want to insert your own. The easiest way to do this is
to delete the existing one and replace it with one of your own. It's
then copied into memory in lines 70-90, and the scroller is informed
of its location in line 50. Line 60 tells the scroller where on the
screen to put the message, and lines 120-170 add a splash of colour.

And that's about the size of it.

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SCREEN BLENDER
by Mark Turner

This one's a bit complicated to explain (but I'll do my best). What it
does is let you design two screens from coloured blocks and then, by
cunning use of the FLASH command, combines them into one animated
screen. And the fact that FLASH is used means that the animation
continues no matter what else the computer's doing, so it's ideal for
loading screens. It's an old idea, but one which you don't see used
much. (Erm, I wonder why.)

It's another Basic/Hex program, so type in the Basic, save it with
SAVE "blender" LINE 9998, and then use the Hexloader to enter the Hex
and save it after the Basic.

On reloading you'll be presented with a menu giving four options -
Make Screen 1, Make Screen 2, Blend Screens and Save Final Screen. The
first two take you into a simple screen designer, with a cursor moved
round by pressing Q, A, O and P. Space places a block on the screen, M
deletes one, I changes the block colour, C clears the screen and E
returns you to the menu. Once you've drawn two (rather chunky)
pictures, select Blend Screens and you'll be shown the resulting
combination. If it's what you're after, Save it, otherwise edit it
until it's right.

While the program works fine as it is there's plenty of room for
expansion, particularly in the area of making animation easier.
