Outlet issue 015

Crash

Ian Cull

TECH MAGS First reviewed in Issue 58, I'm glad to see that the fifth issue of Spectrum Programmer has responded to some of the comments made in CRASH. Kieran Wood has now made the tape magazine bi-monthly, and increased the price to £1.50. However, he does appear to have some assistance now... The latest issue offers more to the beginner, including an abbreviated course on binary and hexadecimal, including doing calculations in binary - well worth understanding, as that is how your Spectrum does it. There is also a list of Spectrum bugs (see +3 section), and a turbo loader program from Mr Goodman, which CRASH Tech Tape owners will find of little use. Now on to another disk-based magazine, Outlet from Chezron Software, [redacted]. They have been a little upset about not being reviewed by Crash - so I hope this pleases them... Outlet is a very well-presented magazine for all 48K/128K Spectrum owners. It is available on Opus or Disciple/Plus D disk, on two Microdrive cartridges, or on tape. The cost is £2 per issue, if you supply the disk/Microdrive media, or £3.50/£5.00 on supplied disk/Microdrive. The cassette version is £2.75. Outlet contains a wide variety of generally excellent content; including readers letter, hints/tips, medium length utility programs, mini-games (even the occasional adventure), reviews of commercial non-game software and hardware, and a monthly round-up of what the rival 'paper' magazines are printing. There are also adverts and a detailed section for less experienced Spectrum users. In the few issues sent for review I found many gems - a 42/51/64 column screen print routine (Issue 7), many new character fonts, a simple disassembler (Issue 13), details of connecting Microdrives from ICL's One-Per-Desk to a Spectrum's Interface One (Issue 14). There was also a Microdrive exerciser program (Seal Rescue, in Issue 10) which finds and locks out suspect sectors on a Microdrive - this program takes ages to run, but is almost bound to discover any faults! There is also a full back issue service from Chezron (in which I noticed a full assembler, Jacksoft, in Issue 10). Finally, a Fish Tank Simulation (The Amazing Arnold in Issue 10) would have kept, me amused for hours, it it didn't keep crashing! Currently, Issue 15 offers a proportional text print routine, a program to print aligned decimal numbers, a shopping list maker, an in-depth discussion of interrupts on the Spectrum, and Craldon's Creek (an adventure). One minor niggle - the Microdrive version comes on two cartridges, and you are always prompted for cartridge B, even if it is the one that was just used and so is still in the drive! Outlet is a good value disk-based magazine, well established and with a reasonable readership (150 or so at present, apparently). Serious users would do well to consider a discounted 6 or 12 month subscription (at £11 or £21, if you supply the media - once a month or all at once!).