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^4                 Y O U R   L E T T E R S   P A G E .

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^5 Congratulations  on your disk based magazine "Totally AMOS".  I am a
^5fledgling programmer with a little experience in Amiga Basic and have
^5recently  bought  a copy of AMOS after hearing rave reviews about how
^5good it is.  I have ploughed through the Amos user manual and studied
^5some  of  the example programs supplied on the disk but must admit on
^5still being confused as to how to get started - I am hoping that your
^5magazine  will  be  able  to  point  me  in the right direction!  I I
^5particularly  liked  the  "AMOS for Beginners" section (Issue 4) as I
^5was  actually  able  to understand what was being said - more of this
^5please!  Please continue with this as I am sure that there are others
^5out  there  as  anxious to get started yet equally confused as I am -
^5keep up the good work!

^5 I  would  also  like  to  thank  Paul  Townsend  from Technical Fred
^5Software  for his "Trig screen effects contribution.  It is not often
^5that  a  professional  programmer  takes the time out to explain such
^5things  in  easy  to  follow layman's language - more of this as well
^5please!   That said I would like to point out that there are a lot of
^5"Nervous Novices" out there who, like me, have acute paranoia attacks
^5etc  whenever  a  printed  program  fails to work even though we have
^5copied  it  in  character by character but still get that frustrating
^5"syntex  error"  message  flashing across the screen!  I am of course
^5refering to the Trig screen effects program which was printed as:

^6Screen Open 0,320,256,32,lores
^6Flash Off
^6Degree
^6For F=0 to 360
^6Add RGB 1,1 to 31
^6X160+(100*Sin(F))     ***NB this line
^6Y128+(100*Cos(F))     ***and this one
^6Plot XYRGB
^6Next F
^6Shift Up 2,1,31,1
^6Direct
 
^5This  seems  OK  at  first  glance  but  after  much hair pulling and
^5gnashing of teeth, I painfully discovered that the program would only
^5work if it was amended to look like:

^6X = 160+(100*Sin(F))
^6Y = 128+(100*Sin(F))

^2(Note the '=')

^5 This  seems pretty petty to point out, but it is small setbacks like
^5this  that  leave  the  nervous  novice feeling lonely, depressed and
^5downright  suicidal!  Please bear in mind when printing listings that
^5to  us  novices,  you  programmers  are  like  God - it MUST be right
^5because  YOU  SAID  SO!!  We need a lot of encouragement, please make
^5sure the listings are accurate.

^5One  further thing, the following listing was given in the June issue
^5of Amiga Shopper as part of an AMAL tutorial:

^6A$=A$+"If J1&1 Jump Up"
^6A$=A$+"If J1&2 Jump Down"

^5On  checking  of  J1  in  the user guide I am told that this function
^5tests  the  left  joystick and "returns a bit pattern in the standard
^5format"  -  I  am  still  none  the  wiser!   Could  you explain this
^5function,  particularly  the  use  of the `&' as it must do something
^5important but it seems to be gobbledegook to me at the moment!

^1 Regards,  Eddie O'Neill.
^1 An original Nervous Novice.

^2 Thanks  for  your letter Eddie, it's good to hear from a new reader.
^2Paul T.  sends his regards and will remember you in his next demo!

^7 As to the errors, here's my excuse....

^7 When  TA  started  way  back  in  September 1991, we did all our own
^7articles,  therefore  we  knew  which characters were used as control
^7codes  in the magazine driver ie what we put in to change the colours
^7etc.  so we knew what couldn't be used.  Since then, however, we have
^7had  input  from  others  complete  with  listings for you to type in
^7yourselves.   This has made us realise that several of our characters
^7are  used  in Amos and so when the TA driver does its job it tries to
^7act  on what it sees as control characters.  Unfortunately this seems
^7to  have different effects on different setups - if the text suddenly
^7turns  bold,  then  this  is  easily spotted on proof reading TA, but
^7sometimes it just skips a character as seems to have happened here.

^7 The actual working listing is included in the source_progs directory
^7on this disk. The character that fouled it up was the sharp sign `#' 

^7It should have read:

^2Screen Open 0,320,256,32,Lowres
^2Flash off            
^2Degree               
^2For F=0 To 360       
^2Add rgb,1,1 to 31
^2X#=160+(100*Sin(F))  
^2Y#=128+(100*Cos(F))  
^2Plot X#,Y#,RGB       
^2Next F               
^2Shift Up 2,1,31,1    
^2Direct

^4 The  `#'  allows  the  use of decimal places, leaving this out means
^4that the number is rounded up to the next whole number.

^4 That's  enough  of  the  excuses,  but it is true,we shall alter the
^4driver program to take this into account.

^2 As to the J1&1 Jump Up etc

^2 All  this  means is that its an Amal routine saying `If the joystick
^2is  pushed up, then jump to the subroutine called Up.  Similarly with
^2Down, left and right.  The subroutines would include the instructions
^2as  to what should happen in the program if the joystick is pushed in
^2that direction.  Hope that's now clearer than mud!
 
^4 It goes to prove that programmers are human - not gods!

^6 Thanks for understanding my Beginners article, I'm not a programmer,
^6so I work on the philosophy that if I can understand it, it should be
^6OK!

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^6 Dear Anne & Len,

^6 Thank you for Issue 4 or TA, it is always nice and prompt!

^6 I  have  recently purchased EASY AMOS so will give the competition a
^6miss  this  time.   The  Easy  AMOS user guide is well presented with
^6plenty  of  examples  to  help, but I did think that the disk copying
^6procedure  required  before  you could use the program might be a bit
^6daunting for newcomers to the Amiga.

^6 The  master  disk  supplied  first  has  to be write enabled for the
^6user's  name  to  be  inserted,  it  gives  the disk an unique number
^6including  the  first 3 letters of the user's surname, the users name
^6will  also  be displayed on the Easy AMOS Edit screen each time it is
^6booted  up.   When copying commences, the Master disk de-crunches its
^6files  and produces 3 working disks ie Programs Disk, Tutorials Disk,
^6Examples  Disk,  it  will  also format a My Programs disk.  Europress
^6have thoughtfully provided special labels for the disks.

^6 Anyway,  back  to  TA  Issue  4.   Thankyou for the extra REMS on my
^6kaleidescope  program  the music was a nice surprise.  Programs which
^6we   especially   liked   were   Bouncybob  very  well  drawn:   War9
^6spectacular:  Stars, a very good twinkle effect:  Amind and Scoreline
^6both  showed  how  very simple games can be quite addictive:  Pix had
^6some beautifully drawn sprites and maps; Scrolly also had very nicelt
^6drawn  fonts,  shame  about the spelling mistake.  I have printed out
^6your  Basic  Tutor,  with  your  help  and Easy Amos I will get there
^6eventually.  I seem to have started in the middle.

^6 Two  queries:   First  Simon  Nicoll  warned  about  turning off the
^6keyboard  and said the only wat out might be to use a 3 key reset.  I
^6am  too  inexperienced  to  try  it but logically wouldn't a reset be
^6impossible if the keyboard was turned off?

^6 The  second point is regarding the Sam player in TA, when I tried to
^6reverse the samples, the screen went back to Amiga Dos.

^6 I hope that this letter is not too long but I thought you might like
^6some feedback from all the work you put into the magazine.

^6Yours Sincerely, Len & Betty Boyns.

^7Thanks for the feedback, we really like to hear what you think and we
^7are  sure  that  the  other  contributors will be pleased to see your
^7comments, it is encouraging to read that other users like your work.

^7 The  3  key  reset  does seem illogical, but this combination of key
^7presses has direct access to the Amiga's system and NOTHING will stop
^7it!

^7 As  regards  the Sam Player, we'll take a look at it as it worked OK
^7when we tested the sams before releasing TA.

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