BREAKOUT

by David Robertson



Nothing's more annoying, I always think, than those people who find it

amusing to wait until you've finished your latest masterpiece and then

press Break and muck about with it. Well, apart from the teaspoon you

always find at the bottom of the washing-up bowl when you tip the

water out, maybe. And adverts on telly that start off looking as

though they're going to be really exciting, and then turn out to be

for some kind of investment savings insurance plan. But I can't think

of anything else.



David Robertson has come up with the solution this time, in the form

of a couple of lines of Basic that, once run, will generate a block of

code that can be saved out and incorporated into the program you want

to protect. Once you've got the code in memory, calling it with

RANDOMIZE USR 60000 (or wherever you've chosen to put the code - it's

relocatable) will lock out the Break key and cause any other error to

crash the computer. Be careful how you use it, though, and make sure

you RANDOMIZE USR whatever after using Load and Save.

tively. [In fact, because of the use

of IN rather than INKEY$, the cursor keys on the Spectrum+

and later models also work.]

  You will soon learn the derivation of the name of the

game. If you manage to break through one of the walls, the

ball will bounce around between that wall and the next one,

scoring many points with no danger of hitting the bottom.