INMC 80 News |
September 1980 – January 1981 · Issue 2 |
| Page 18 of 59 |
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Line 100 should read as follows:
100 IF A(I)<X THEN I=I+1:G0T0 100.
I can think of no reason why it should not be possible to connect a Nascom to one of the soon-to-be-legal Open Channel radios. If there is no reason (experts, please advise!) which channel shall we grab (sorry, allocate) to ourselves?
Before poor Marvin became ill, I managed, with the talent I so often display, to produce an error message from the BASIC that doesn’t appear anywhere in the documentation; it was an MO error. (Ed. Missing Operand.) There’s a whole new field here, which goes far beyond unknown opcodes – FS error, for instance, is Forgot to Switch on error.
My younger brother, who has an M*14 for sale (Richard Beal could make a Nascom 1-2-14; or any offers ?) whilst writing the ultimate starship simulation, used an amazing array, which at one point in the program was accessed as follows:
X9=A(A(1,2,A(1,2,3)),A(1,3,4),F(I,O,2))
No error message whatsoever was produced, and I am told that it is obvious what this does, but I didn’t understand his explanation at all. He tells me that any M*14 owner would immediately understand the full implications of such a thing with no trouble at all....
I propose a competition for users of ROM BASIC, to see who can enter the longest line of BASIC using single (i.e. three at a time !) key entry of reserved words. The line must make sense, should preferably do something useful, and must produce no error messages when run. A hint – Restore is the longest word you have available, so you’ll need to use it a lot to win.
I bought myself (or rather, Marvin !) an 8 amp power supply, and haven’t seen our usual postman since he carried it up the hill. Any offers for the now redundant 3 amp unit? The 8 amp PSU is so heavy, it makes the Blue Oyster Cult look like Tiny Tim (not a programming language). I suspect that if you put two of these power supplies together, a black hole would form instantly.
Something to watch out for, which I spotted in time, when you get yours (not if, when. Computing is the most serious addiction known to mankind and Heloise Fortran). If the post office drop it on the end with the huge heat sink, the connections to the power transistors can bend until they touch the casing. The casing will spring back into shape, but if the thing is switched on in this state, I fear it is more likely to form a super-nova then a black hole. Look before you plug it in and save money!
Another recent purchase is an EPROM board from the Merseyside Nascom Users Group. This has eight sockets for 2708’s and one for the BASIC ROM. It works perfectly at 2 MHz, is delivered fast, and costa 46.00. My only criticism is that it doesn’t have the connections required between lines 16 and 17, 19 and 20 for the Nasbus, that form the interrupt daisy chain, but you can easily connect them yourself, or put it at the far end of the motherboard. I admit it is not as wonderful as the Interface Components board, which has bells and whistles, but that one does cost more....
I have not been able to test my other new board, an I/O board, due to the ongoing negative hardware situation. More in another episode, perhaps. In the meantime, would someone please send me a copy of any pages there may be in their documentation for the board, with a page number higher than 8.
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