PROGRAM PITSTOP Your Sinclair, July 1992 Dashing young gent CRAIG BROADBENT (hey, that rhymes!) is very happy this month. Why? Cos he received so many programs of course. (Small things ...) I've been trying to come to terms with my new Amiga this month. My advice to you lot is to stick with your Speccies! There! That's my contribution to the Save Our Speccy campaign. I had tonnes of Pitstop programs this month, in fact there were so many that I could only fit in two halves. This means that next month 5 Pitstop is already completely sorted, which means I can go about more important business. Like sun worshipping! First! I'll go and dig out that old Mr Frosty and make up some ice lollies. Ta-ra! - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MANIC MINER EDITOR part one by Richard Swann [Including corrections from Oct&Dec'92 issues. JimG] Now, this is class! After years of constant helping-out in Dr Hugo's Clinic, Dicky (or Rich, as I believe he prefers to be called) of sunny Camberley, has decided that Pitstop could also benefit from his magic touch. And this is what all Manic Miner fans have been longing for for years - it enables you tb customise each of the original 20 screens, and also lets you change the sprites, so that you can have a completely new set of baddies. The editor is split into two distinct parts - this is the screen editor, and the sprite editor will follow next month [Actually September. JimG]. However, the clever thing is, each program is self-supporting, so you can run the screen editor, and play your new screens, without waiting until next month for the next bit! I'm just so considerate! How to Do It Type in the delicious BASIC listing and save it to auto-run with SAVE "filename" LINE 1. When run, the editor asks you to play the Manic Miner tape. The actual bit it's looking for is the main chunk of code called "MM2", which is the bit that comes after the "title screen" loader. Once loaded, you will be asked which level to edit, and then you'll see a representation of the level, and, hiding down there at the bottom ... * The Main Menu. 1: This option enters the actual editor itself - study the symbols closely (a knowledge of the actual level will help here) and decide whether you want to add floor, wall, poison pansy or whatever. * Press o, and enter the character corresponding to the bit you want to add, eg. $ for a conveyor, or a blank space for nothing. You can then move the cursor around the screen using 5, 6, 7 and 8, pressing 0 to insert your chosen feature, be it a poison pansy, a collapsing floor, or whatever.There are three other features which make up the editor. * Pressing l lets you type in a new name for the level; however, be wary - as the name is poked into memory rather than assigned to a string, you'll need to type in enough characters (and spaces if necessary) to take it up to at least the length of the original name. * Pressing k lets you change the position of the keys (shown as red stars on the screen). You're asked for new X,Y co-ordinates, but be careful here, as when I gave a Y value of 8 the program stopped with an error message. If this happens to you, just type GOTO 15 to try again (what do you want, perfection?). * Finally, pressing s lets you change Willy's start position (shown by two cyan arrows) - enter new X,Y co-ordinates as before. When you've finished editing, press SPACE to get back to the main menu. 2: This option lets you swap between levels - note that you don't have to save before you swap. 3: The File-handling menu. From this you can save your levels, load ones you made earlier, or print the current level out. There is also a Test Game option, but bear in mind that you can't get back to the editor after selecting this, so save your levels first, eh? To play your levels simply start loading Manic Miner as normal, and when the horrible flashing loading screen comes up, swap the game tape for your saved levels, and play that instead. One thing I noticed when having a brief trial run, was that my repositioned key in Central Cavern was made invisible. Is this a one-off or does it happen all the time? (I don't know). And if it is a regular occurrence, does anyone know how to get round it? All suggestions gratefully received. Of course, some people might see invisible keys as a good challenge; other, more cynical people might call it dodgy programming. I, obviously, wouldn't dream of such a thing. = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = PROGRAM PITSTOP Your Sinclair, September 1992 There's a whole world at your fingertips. Sit back and listen to CRAIG BROADBENT as he tells you how to manipulate the Universe. Sort of. Express 3 sin x + 2 cos x in the form r sin (x + y), where r and y are constants, r > 0 and 0 < y < 90 ... Er um ... Oh, well, it's only worth seven marks, I'll do the next one instead! Right, enough of that - there may only be six days left until my first Maths A Level exam (as I write this), but I know where my priorities lie - while my friends are busy revising I'll be sitting here compiling this month's Pitstop and facing the fact that in all probability, I will almost certainly fail Maths. Ho hum. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - MANIC MINER EDITOR part two by Richard Swann [The Sprite Editor as listed in the magazine crashed with a "4 Out of memory"] [error at the start, so I changed the grid routines to use loops rather than ] [specifying every PLOT&DRAW individually. In MMEDITOR.TAP, "M.M.S.edit" is ] [the original and "M.M.S.modf" is the alteration. JimG] Given that z = 3 + 4i, find the argument of 1 / z, giving your answer in degrees to one decimal place ... Oh, this one's easy - you just realise the denominator, er, then find the arctan er, or something ... I know, let's have a look at the second instalment of the Manic Miner editor instead! Infinitely preferable, I think. This here is the Sprite Editor, which follows on directly from last month's instalment [July's instalment, actually. JimG], but runs independently, giving you a perfectly customised version of the ancient classic. As usual, type it in and save it with SAVE "filename" LINE 1. Run it, and you can either load in the new levels you created last month, or you can start from scratch by loading the original tape in, and do the levels later. The instructions, I'm sure you'll be pleased to know, are much less complicated than last month's, so here they are in their entirety ... * 1/Z: Move memory pointer up/down by 8 bytes. This is equivalent to a "coarse tuning" control, and you use it to scan through the memory looking for sprites. * Q/A : The "Fine Tune" control - this moves the memory pointer up or down by just one byte, for if you come across an incomplete sprite. * X : Switches between viewing sprites as 8x8 or 16x16 types. There are some of each, and generally speaking, the 8x8 sprites tend to come before the 16x16 sprites every level. * E : Edit the sprite at current location. Use the cursors (5,6,7,8) to move around the grid, 0 to set a pixel, and 9 to reset it. Space stops the editing and writes the new sprite into memory, but BE WARNED - editing data that isn't an actual sprite may well corrupt the game, so make sure you recognise the sprite first! * L/S : Load/Save your creations, the same as last month's. * 2 - Lets you select an address at which to look for sprites. And it's as simple as that! Have fun, and I'll expect to see Manic Miner 2 in the shops before Christmas! (Somehow, I think not. Ed) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ROTATE by Pedros Davakis Foreign correspondence this month comes courtesy of Mr Davakis of sunny Greece, who sends me this nice little routine which flips a pre-defined window about its horizontal axis. The effect is instantaneous, so it'll be of more use as a programming aid rather than as a fancy display. There's absolutely no BASIC to worry about, so just POKE the following parameters ... * 62346, column of top-left square of window. * 62347, line of top-left square of window * 62348, length of window in attribute squares. * 62349, height of window in attribute squares. Then type RANDOMIZE USR 62350 to rotate.