SAPPRO

A two player inter-planetary strategy game
by G. Harris from the planet Leicester.

Sappro is a planetary system consisting of ten planets. You are the
ruler of one of the planets and your opponent the ruler of another.
The object of the game is to capture your opponent's home planet
before he captures yours.

Somewhere in the system there is a third planet which is inhabited by
pacifists; this planet is protected by an impenetrable defence screen
making it impossible to capture. In order to capture your opponent's
home planet you must be able to reduce the number of enemy space ships
protecting their home planet to zero for two consecutive turns.

Space ships are produced by your home planet, your enemy's home planet
and the neutral planet, at the end of each time phase. Ships can be
transferred from your home planet and the neutral planet to your
fleet. Transferring ships from fleets to planets is not possible.

Players should enter their moves individually while their opponent
turns away from the screen, or leaves the room. Unless this secrecy is
maintained there is little point in playing the game. Prompts for the
change of player / end of turn are given to allow this to take place.


Playing the Game

The first screen is an introductory page and from now on all moves
should be made in secret. The second screen displays the names of the
ten planets in the system. Each player should now enter his choice of
home planet without the other player seeing. When the home planets
have been chosen the main display is drawn and the prompt "Player 1
Press Enter" is shown. Player two should now make his exit.


LOOP

When the player has pressed ENTER, his personal information is
displayed with the number of ships in his fleet shown at the top and
his planet and the number of guarding ships at the bottom.

Player one now chooses which planet he wants to send his fleet to,
types the planet number and presses ENTER. The chosen planet is now
drawn in the centre of the screen, its name displayed and any
information regarding enemy ships given. If there are enemy ships then
combat takes place; this is totally computerised as human decisions
are too slow in this age of high technology warfare. The results are
displayed at the top of the screen.

Transfer of ships can take place from either your home planet or the
neutral planet, to your fleet. If it is possible to transfer ships
then you will be prompted for an input of the number you wish to
transfer. The sequence is now repeated for player two. Player one
should depart and player two should follow the instructions from the
label LOOP.


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PLUTO ADVENTURE

David Knight may not have shining armour, but the quest he sets
from the safety of Didcot would challenge King Arthur's best!

In this adventure, which runs on a 48K ZX Spectrum, you play the part
of Ferdo, a scientist researching into atomic energy.

The year is 2066, and a new civilisation has been discovered below the
surface of the planet Pluto. The small community appears to be devoid
of life. The Mekon, most wanted criminal on Earth, is known to have
transported to the underground village in his deluxe spaceship. You
and your fellow Earthman, Bill, have gone to the planet to trap him.
You must find and pilot home the Mekon's ship, leaving him stranded on
the planet. Other beings known to have transported in their ships to
Pluto are: Gasher, an android from planet Mars; Pharto, a Noxian;
Ilko, a subterranean from Mercury (he is used to being underground);
and finally, Toronto, a Korzaxian from Korsak.

Bill, Pharto and Toronto, being friends of yours, will collect
information to help you. The Mekon, Gasher and Ilko, however, are very
likely to attack on sight. You can only control the Mekon's ship, the
others being beyond your comprehension. Unfortunately, you cannot
yourself take a ship with you. You use the matter-transporter which
you developed. It cannot get you back!


Entering the Program

First, type in program 2. Save it at the beginning of a tape with:
SAVE "Pluto Load" LINE 10. Next, type in program 3. Save this after
the other program, with: SAVE "Pluto" LINE 1. Now, type in program 1 ,
run it, and SAVE the data from it after Program 3 with:
SAVE "Data     " DATA a()
SAVE "Data     1" DATA o()
SAVE "Data     2" DATA c()
SAVE "Data     3" DATA c$()
SAVE "Data     4" DATA d$()
SAVE "Data     5" DATA h$()
SAVE "Data     6" DATA o$()
Now, if all of the data and program is correct, you can LOAD it from
tape by typing LOAD "" or LOAD "Pluto Load" and playing the tape from
the beginning. Instructions and vocabulary are given in the program.


Variables

Arrays
a	contains the data for the map.
o	contains the data for the objects.
c	contains data for the characters.
c$	contains names of objects and characters.
d$	contains 53 descriptions of positions.
o$	contains object descriptions.
h$	contains character descriptions.

Strings
s$	name for Saving and Loading.
z$	the string the user types in.

Variables
bill1, gasher1, toronto1, pharto1, mekon1, ilko1
	Variables used by the computer to check
	whether a character is in the same place as Ferdo.
Ferdo, bill, gasher, toronto, pharto, mekon, ilko
	Variables which point to subroutines.
x	multipurpose variable
p,q	co-ords of characters (consistently change)
yy	a check for whether there are any objects
k	a number for different objects
r,r1	random numbers for fight sequence.


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SPECTRUM DISASSEMBLER

S.H. Man from Tottenham presents a program for taking apart
the ROM or any machine code program all in 16K.

[The program in DISASSEM.TAP includes the enhancements by]
[W.E. Thomson from ZXC Feb/Mar'86.                  JimG ]

This BASIC program allows the budding machine code programmer to
disassemble any section of memory. The clever part is that it fits
into 16K!

All 694 of the Z80 instruction set are catered for and the program
will PEEK at the addresses and convert the numbers to the correct
mnemonic form. The program achieves this by storing all the mnemonics
in DATA statements and only reading them as required, and not, as is
usual, allocating them to an array.


Using the Program

When first RUN, the screen displays a request for the start address of
the disassembly. This can be in either hex or decimal form and should
be preceded by either H or D as appropriate. For example, H0010
(address 16 in ROM) is a possible hex input, or D16 is the decimal
version.

Note that leading zeros to make a four figure number MUST be added
when entering in hex. Most invalid inputs have been trapped with an
appropriate message.

The program will now disassemble from that address, displaying in hex
and mnemonic form the contents of that and subsequent memory
locations. The screen format shows the address in hex, the machine
code and the mnemonic. When the screen is full you are given the
message "MORE? (Y/N/C/E)":

Pressing Y clears the screen and disassembly continues.
Pressing N restarts the program.
Pressing C produces a COPY (provided that a printer is attached).
Pressing E ends the program.

You must press ENTER after selecting one of the above options. If you
are using a 48K Spectrum then change 32767 to 65535 in line 980.
[I changed it to check P-RAMT instead. JimG]


---


Spectrum Disassembler

Dear ZX Computing,
S.H. Man's useful program (Oct/Nov 1985 pp.96-99)
needs two improvements.
  The first is to allow for the Definition Byte that always
follows RST 0008 in a Spectrum machine code program.
The simplest way is to alter the "RST 0008" of line 2210
to "RST 0008,#".
  The second is to work out and print the absolute address
for relative jumps, for no one wants to have to bother with
Hex arithmetic to find out where relative jumps go to. This
can be done by adding the following lines:
[see lines 145 and 3950-4060 in DISASSEM.TAP]
W.E. Thomson
Aldeburgh, Suffolk


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FISH!

There's something fishy about Ken Rylett's Mancunian card game.

This simulation of the well known card game, which resembles "Happy
Families", is played between you and the Spectrum, and the computer
has obviously been tutored well.

Both you and the Spectrum are dealt a hand of cards and you then take
turns to ask each other for cards of the same value, but you must hold
at least one of those cards in your hand. For instance, if it is your
turn and you have one or more Kings then you may ask the Spectrum for
any Kings it has. When asked for any cards you must hand over all you
have of that value. If the player asked does not have any cards of the
value required, then the message "GOOD FISHING" is displayed and the
cards are added to the asker's total. [That sentence is wrong. "GOOD
FISHING" is displayed when the other player DOES have matching cards.
JimG] When the total of any card value is four then that player has a
made a "book". The first player to reach seven books wins the game.

If a player asks for a card value which the opponent does not have
then the message "GO FISH" is displayed and the player draws another
card from the pack and play passes to the other player - unless the
value of the card drawn happens to be the same as the card asked for
originally, in this case the player continues his turn.

A fascinating game which has caused us much frustration in the office!


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ATTACK OF THE MUTANT WALLIES!

Ever wondered what it's like to be a teacher?
A. Haslam gives us a taste of life in a Walsall school!

Teachers are fighting for a pay rise, but have you ever wondered what
they are doing to deserve one? Well here's your chance to try out a
typical day in a typical school.

Problems? You can't expect to succeed at the first attempt, so you had
better report your problems to the Head, he's sure to help! But of
course you have to get there and the pupils are not exactly helpful.
The first screen sees you trapped behind a pile of desks by the school
Idiot. Using keys 5 and 8 to move left and right, get into a position
where you can throw a book at him by pressing key 0. Hit him and you
will escape into ...

The corridor, where lurks the school Burk. He immediately locks you in
the cupboard where you must hit him with a pellet in order to escape
to ...

The entrance hall, and here life becomes difficult. For here you meet
the Super Wally who is throwing sweets across the hall in a straight
line; you have to find a gap and get across to reach the Super Wally
alarm bell. Reach it and the Head will come out to remove Super Wally
and punish him as he deserves.

Oh, one last thing, as it is very near the end of the day you only
have a limited time to do each of these things before school ends.


Structure

Lines 3 to 60 give the instructions, these are "comprehensive".
Lines 70 to 490 are the first level, the classroom.
Lines 495 to 820 are the corridor.
Lines 830 to 1070 are the entrance hall routines.
Lines 1080 to 81 30 Winning routines and High score.
Lines 9000 to 9400 graphics and tune.

A special point of interest is the use of the UDGs. These are
redefined no less than FOUR times throughout the run of the program.
So, Mr. Chips, take cane in hand and NUT insurance in the other and do
your duty!


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DICEY DICEY (16K ZX-81)
by Timothy Simpson
from ZX Computing (October/November 1985), pages 114-115

Full instructions are included in the game which is based on the card game
pontoon. Four dice are thrown and the player then has the option to Twist -
throw another dice, or Stick.

The aim of the game is to get a total closer to twenty one than the computer
without going over - going bust. Should you or the computer go bust then the
opponent wins, also should you make twenty one then you automatically win.
You have an advantage because you always go first.

OK. Roll up your sleeves, breathe on the keyboard for luck, and throw them
bones.

[There is a bug in line 404 - it should be GOTO 200 and not GOTO 201]