Nascom News­let­ter

best known of these is the UCSD system, a particular feature of which is to maximise the portability of software between different computers. UCSD can be run on a number of much larger computer systems as well as on 16 and 8 bit microcomputers, which illustrates its flexibility.

UCSD is most frequently referred to with its implementation of the Pascal programming language, but in fact other languages such as BASIC and Fortran are also available. A certain amount of applications software is also available.

UCSD has been implemented on the Nascom by Mike York, and we have recently taken delivery of a copy. UCSD is completely new to me, and the previously mentioned shortage of time has prevented any serious usage yet. However, it looks very interesting and I look forward to using it and commenting again in the future. Initial reactions are that it is very different from the other operating systems on the Nascom, and requires rather a lot of disc grinding to get started! It is quite easy to install – replace NAS-SYS (or the CP/M boot EPROM) with Mike’s ingenious Allboot EPROM, fit a CP/M MD PROM and header (if not already fitted) and away you go. You can also run it in a switchable system with NAS-DOS using the switch unit described above. A drawback tor some users will be the price – typically several hundred pounds tor the operating system and a language.

For further details contact Mike York on __-___-____.

The Manor Database Management Program

MANOR is a versatile, low cost data management program designed to run with computers fitted with the NAS-DOS operating system. In the 18 months or so of its use it has proved one of the most popular of the NAS-DOS applications programs – perhaps because there are so many uses for a program of this type. The current release is Rev 6, and all registered owners should have a copy of this version, since a free update service is included covering a 12 month period. If you have not received the update, and you have registered the product, please write in giving the serial number, date and place of purchase. Although our system should catch those who register the earlier versions after the release of the new one, it does occasionally fail to do so.

One bug has been reported in the HINTON initialisation program of the current Rev 6 of MANOR. This only affects the CHange option when this is used to swap the fields round so that the first (or key) field is changed. The fix for this bug has the rather nice feature that not only does it now work (I hope!) but it is shorter and faster than the original. To make the corrections type the following:

]L:HINTON
Z
6260GOSUB30:A$(I)=A$(0)
6276FORI=1TONC-1
6274
6275
6277
]B