HOME TUTOR by Chris Somerville from Your Spectrum, June 1985 [The listing as printed in the magazine was full of errors. ] [It wouldn't even run because of undefined and incorrectly ] [defined variables, and it used an alternative character set] [which was also undefined, so most of the displays came out ] [blank. The supposed corrections printed on page 15 of the ] [July issue did little to rectify the situation. This may be] [why the article was attributed to a false name - although ] [the author's real name is given in the listing. ] [The program in MASTMIND.TAP is a corrected version. JimG] MASTERMIND The lights go down as you sink into the YS Mastermind chair - but the questions you answer are as tough as you want to make them. Chris Winterton has come up with a program that'll test you to the limits and make all your exam revision FUN! Oh, groan! It's exam time again. But even worse than the exams is the revision beforehand - trying to cram the cranium with more information than it was designed to hold. Everyone's got their own way of revising for exams. Perhaps you follow the most popular method - put it all off till the night before and hope that natural ability or divine intervention will see you through. Or if that's a bit slap-dash, do you start at the beginning and plough through to the end and still find that you're faced with blank paper and a blank mind on the big day? Either way, you're probably not having much fun at the moment, what with working or worrying about not working. But now all that's gonna change. This program lets you revise at your own pace and in your own way. And best of all, it won't be all slog any more. Even better, you don't just have to stick to chemical formula or French verbs. What about practising your pop knowledge or kicking your fave footie teams around. Even better you can now create your own Mastermind quiz questions to torment the whole family. EDUCATABASE All the information you could ever need can be stored on your Speccy - if only you were allowed to carry it into the examination room! So the problem is transferring all that info to your very own portable database, your brain. That's where this program comes in. Type in all your questions and their answers or better still get someone else to type them in for you. Short questions and answers are best though you can go up to two lines if necessary. And remember your computer is very precise so you must answer the questions in exactly the same form as they were typed in initially - if you did it in lower case first time, do it that way all the time. You'll soon find out how best to use the program by having a go at the demo. Now I've started, so away you go and finish! You may not have to be a mastermind to answer the questions but it's the best way of discovering just how flexible this program is. Line 15 This line sets up the variables. Lines 30-230 The 'Entry' subroutine, to accept your input. Lines 250-260 The 'Swap' subroutine. Lines 280-300 The 'Score' subroutine works out your score. Line 320 The 'Print' subroutine. Lines 340-360 The 'Rand' (randomise) subroutine. Line 510 The 'Wrong' subroutine that tells you when you've answered a question incorrectly. Lines 530-620 The 'Replay' subroutine that gives you another crack at a question when you've got it wrong. Lines 640-680 The 'Demo' subroutine. Lines 900-930 The 'Display' subroutine. Lines 950-1110 The 'end-the-game' routine. Lines 1130-1350 The main menu subroutine menu.