AmstradComputerUser18-0586.pdf

E1.00

May 1986

M-M-Max Headroom Game Preview

Teletext Adaptor on Test

Plus Spindizzy Pokes, Reviews,

Listings and Much More

Inside: PCW 8512 Full Review

CIRE5 IA,

OFFICIAL LICENCE

FROM NICHIBLITSU

THE CLASSIC MOON CRESTA MANUFACTURED

UNDER EXCLUSIVE LICENCE

AMSTRAD

DISC El 2.95 CASSETTE 0.95

TRADE AND CREDIT CARD ORDERS

TELEPHONE (0734) 591678

INCENTIVE

54 London Street, Reading RG1 4S0

CONTENTS II

—

_ 6

GULARS

5 News

9 Letters

12 Gallup Chart

The ofﬁcial Amstrad Top 20

98 Least Signiﬁcant Bit

Full list of Amstrad happenings

15 Prospell [REVIEWS

Magic spelling correction from Arnor

18 Max

Headroom

Preview of the

new Argus game

36 Teletext

adapter

Data through the

airwaves, free with

the Volex TTX 2000

FEATURES

23 Adventure

column

Hints and reviews from Bill Brock

Late"

39 Silicon disc

The Dk disc to upgrade your CPC

30 Homespread

A simple spreadsheet to

balance your expenses

68 It's a stick up

Joysticks compared stick against stick

77 Games reviews

The latest and the best expert opinion

44 Goin' Loco

Arrays explored in

three dimensions

IABC

Hairy Hacker Haunt

Winning at games through means fair or foul

III

Comment

CP/M software should

be installed with care

58 Herbert's Dummy Run

Your map to the department store

64 Ooops!

We made a mistake (or two) so here's

the record set straight

74 One liners

It's amazing what you can do in one line

PCW8512

The new Amstrad machine, Jeremy

Spencer takes a look

XI Poly programs

Cheap, but good business software

XVIII CPS 8256

The Amstrad serial interface for the

PCW 8256/851 2

rnmprimnryNT

aA aa a a a%o&I

XX I I Advanced locoscript

for beginners

Printing explained —from the

horse's mouth

XXVI I Boxing clever with

61 Firebird comet

Halley's comet has been and gone —

win a telescope to remember it by

GSX

Ken Clark shows you how to

program with GSX

90 ACU bargain

basement

AMSTRAD

COMPUTER USER

169 King's Road, Brentwood, Essex CM14 4EF.

Telephone 0277-234434 7elecom Gold 72 MAG012

Amstrad Computer User: No part of this

pubﬁcation may be reproduced without permission.

While every effort is made to ensure the accuracy of

all features and listings we cannot accept any liability

For any mistakes or misprints. The views and opinions

expressed are not necessarily those of Amstrad Or

Amsoft but represent the views of our many readers,

owner s, members and contributors. We regret that

Amstrad Computer User cannot enter into personal

correspondence.

Editor: Simon Bookman

Advertisement Meneger: Jane Nolan

The OFFICIAL magazine for users of Amstrad computers

News tra d e d istrib u tio n : Eu ro p re ss Sa le s & D istre b u tio n L td , U n it 1, B u to e ss

Road, 1 Liyhouse Lane, H a stirws, E I rv' Su sse x T N 3 5 4 N R . T e l: 0 4 2 4 4 3 0 4 2 2

Amstrad User May 86

Page 3

Communicating with the outside world can present its own special problems. Fortunately

help is at hand for Amstrad users in the form of Nightingale and Commstar.

The Nightingale modem has becomethe standard by which others

are judged. Combining simplicity of use with true multi-baud rate

operation, Nightingale can provide access to both Viewdata

(1200175 & 75/1200 baud) and full duplex (300/300 baud) systems.

Commstar isthe communications software and is now available for

the Amstrad micro. Commstar is a combination of powerful Viewdata

and Terminal communications programs providing full telesoftware

downloading facilities. It is fully approved by Viewfax and features

window menus, a full eight colours, it can be used under CiPM and

is fully compatible with the Amsoft RS232 standard.

Nightingale and Commstar for use on the Amstrad CPC 464.664, and

6128 are available direct from Pace or from good dealers everywhere.

APPROVED for use

wi th te le ctite inntinkailaue • ye llowst

oun by e ltilisk Te hte e inrsiortice tie wli

on ate oyda ne e wIth the eondoloon• in

the initissO O Me ts For use

b 2n!e2• 1 1

,:t

Nightingale Modem E119.00 Commstar on disc E29.57

Nightingale, Commstar (on ROM), plus Serial Interface E150.00

Also available separately are the Terminal (1-loneyterm), and Viewdata (Floneyview) programs

from Commstar at E19,95 each.

Please add carriage and VAT, to the above prices. P P(U.K.):0.75 with Nightingale E2.50.

Comprehens iv e tact sheets are available for these and other Pace products

PACE Micro Technology

PACE

Juniper View, Merton Road, Bradford, West Yorkshire.

Tel. 0274 488211 Telex No. 51338

Prestel Mailbox No. 274 729306

Telecom Gold Mailbox No. PCE 001

Int. Tel. No. 4-44 274 488211

NEWS

User News...

Cheap games

on disc

already some big names have joined the

scheme. They include Design Design,

Lothlorien, Gremlin Graphics, Kuma,

CCS, Britannia, Firebird, US Gold,

CRL, Mastertmnic, Mikro Gen, PSS,

Palace, Martech and Mirrorsoft.

For more details call Ambyte on 0277

220573. Why Ambyte? Well the com-

pany which was in the building before

was Ambit, so Ambyte is eight times

better.

Ambyte have a solution to constant

problems faced by 6128 owners, the lack

of games software on disc. Even if you

do ﬁnd the title you want it is bound to

be expensive, it costs a software house

more to copy a disc than it does to buy

and copy a tape. On top of that blank

discs are over 15 times the price of blank

tapes.

One solution is a compilation disc,

the excellent Working Backwards disc

from Design Design is the best example,

but you are likely to have already got

some of the games. No what you need is

a way to choose the games that appear

on a compilation disc.

Am byte will let you do just this. They

have a big hard disc with all the best

games sitting there just waiting to be

put on to a 3 inch disc. All you need to

do is decide which games you want,

send them the same amount of money

as you would for a tape, and they will

put all the games you want on as few

discs as are needed to hold all that data.

There is a catch - you must spend at

least ,E15, but then that is only the price

of two tape-based games.

When you get your Am byte disc it

will have a menu, telling you which

games are on the disc and your name, so

that if you manage to crack the very

tough protection you can be caught

when you dish out copies to your

friends. There may even be a code

hidden on the disc in case you get past

that one.

Software houses need to trust

Ambyte, and to produce the programs

within quite a tight speciﬁcation but

Amstrad adds

spice to Sagesoft's

markets

Samantha Fox with David Martin of

Martech, one of her greatest sup-

porters

Sam gets into

pixels

Sagesoft claim to be the leading

supplier of professional and accounting

software in the UK and it's all because

of Amstrad. Sage have made sales

worth almost 11 million in three

months, in the main packages for the

Amstrad.

They claim 7,333 accounting

modules shipped during February, of

which 6,755 were Amstrad accounting

software packages. Chit Chat, a corn me

package for the PCW 8256, sold 771

units in the ﬁrst three weeks after its

launch in February.

Sagesoft have repackaged their exis-

ting software to distinguish their

Amstrad range from other personal

computer business software and they

have found that interest in the Amstrad

software has been a good advertisement

for them. Managing director David

Goldman says: "Sales of our Amstrad

business software have had a knock-on

effect by boosting sales of our other

product lines".

Martech have announced a strip poker

game featuring digitised pictures of

Samantha Fox (19 approx). This news

item was a lot longer but we deleted all

the sexist remarks and double mean-

ings.

0o-ar-oo-ar-

oo-arrh

Turn te turn te turn. Computer owning

fans of the Archers, Radio 4's famous

farming soap opera, will be pleased to

hear that there is to be an adventure

game of the series. Due out in the

autumn, the game is being written by

Level 9 and William Smethurst, editor

of the Ambridge serial.

Also to be released in the late

summer, The Growing Pains of Adrian

Mole. This is the sequel to the

successful Secret Diaries. Both games

are published by Mosaic Publishing

who also promise two more titles for the

summer. These are the Snow Queen

and the Story of the Amulet.

First book for

the 8512

Mastering

the Amstrad

PCW 8256/8512:

MOOD PIRO CESSING AND Pr PSO NN. CO MPUTING

Citizen again

Sigma Press have been very quick off

the mark with what must be the ﬁrst

independent book available for users of

the PCW 8512 and 8256. Only a week

after the press announcement of Fat

Joyce, Sigma have announced "Mas-

tering the Amstrad PCW 8256/8512",

by John M. Hughes, a tutorial guide to

word processing and using LocoScript.

The book also goes into using CP/M and

a number of the classic software

packages. Price is £8.95 and it should

be available now,

Citizen have announced a new printer

called the LSP-10. This is a 120 cps dot

matrix printer similar in its features to

the MSP range (the MSP-10 was

previously reviewed in ACU January).

The LSP-10 has a 25 cps, letter

quality, mode, tractor feed and 4k

buffer as standard. It is compatible

with Epson and IBM and has an

optional cut sheet feeder. The LSP-10

will be available for £255 from appoin-

ted Citizen distributors and dealers in

May. Does this mean they are available

from your local jewellers?

Sigma have the 8512 covered

Amstrad User May 86

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