About
The three type in listings from the first issue of Alternative Micro News, the UK Einstein User Group's magazine of 1990, on one bootable Xtal BASIC disc.
Connect 4, by D. R. Rose, converted from the Spectrum for the Einstein by S. Jeffery in 1987: you against the computer, two levels, with sprites dropping the pieces into the board.
Frame, by Ted Cawkwell, draws a frame of any character in 40 columns, the example from his article on 40 column graphics.
KSIZE, by Walter Delekat, reads the directory tracks and prints the free space on the disc in drive 0.
The listings were printed on pages 9 to 15 of the magazine. The issue can be read on Einstein Reborn; our own scan will return to this library once the private addresses printed in it have been removed. This disc saves you typing the programs in.
Running Them
Boot the disc, type XBAS, then LOAD "CONNECT4", LOAD "FRAME" or LOAD "KSIZE", and RUN.
What Is in the Download
A zip holding the disc image as a DSK, the same disc as an MFI for MAME to write to, the listings as BASIC text and as tokenised Xtal BASIC, a README, and the screen captures and MAME scripts used to test them.
Verified
Transcribed from the scan and run on the Einstein in MAME 0.289 with Xtal BASIC 4.2. Connect 4 was played against the computer, which opened, took three moves and won with four in a column. Frame drew its frame, and KSIZE printed 78k free on a disc that DOS reports as 78k free. Not run on real hardware.
Kept as Printed
All three are as printed, with one thing done as the magazine's own note asks: line 140 of Connect 4 is printed as ten letter f's with the note to use GRAPH and F between the quotes. GRAPH and F on the Einstein gives character 230, so the line here builds that string with MUL$(CHR$(230),10), which is the same thing.
The programs are their authors', published in Alternative Micro News in 1990.
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