80-Bus News

01, 05, 09, 0D, 11, 03, 07, 0B, 0F, 02, 06, 0A, 0E,
12, 04, 08, 0C, 10, 01, 05, 09, 0D, 11, 03, 07, 0B.

CAT.COM & CATUD.COM This cataloguing suite was one of the most useful features of this disk, and it refused to work! I found later by accident that it functioned perfectly if I first hit the RESET key to disable SYS, then ran on the skeletal CBIOS in ROM. The clue to the problem was in the documentation, the only two programs of the suite which would not function under SYS were those that DRH had “improved”.

The problem is calls to the BDOS to find the User code, with register C set to 20H. Replacing all these calls with three NOP’s (00H) was crude, but seems to work. Locations were, in CAT.COM – 016AH, 0182H and 01C1H and in CATUD.COM – 0325H, 033CH and 0A30H.

None of the above changes are guaranteed bug-free, but they work on my system. Together with the disk-repair utility, the squash-unsquash programs, the SUB replacement to SUBMIT and the 8080 to Z80 translation program, all of which seem to function quite satisfactorily, these programs are an essential feature of any disk system (no, I don’t get any commission!).

Yours truly, I P Forbes, Brighton.

Reply To Waldo

People of 80-BUS, greetings.

Being, as I am, an exceptionally cool person, and a lunatic of some years standing (piles, you know), I couldn’t let Waldo ‘D.R.” Dobbs” letter (80-BUS, Jan/​Feb 84) go without comment.

As can be plainly seen from Waldo Dobbs’ letter, the man is a genius! He has an insight into the ways of non-Nascom ‘computer” users which can only be described as prophetic, or at least, inspired.

I know the above to be true, for, know you, I have seen the ‘worthless diseased molluscs’ creeping around the magazine racks in W.H. Smiffs. More, I have seen these poor misguided non-Nascom fools salivating over the displays of Vic 20’s, ZX Spectrums, Orics and, may my larynx drop out for uttering it, BBC micros, in such shrines of capitalism as Dixon’s and Curry’s.

At the present time, I am in considering prosecuting B+tt’s The Chemist for breach of the Consumer’s Act. Do you know what they did? They opened a department in their Cardiff branch in which they sell the above-mentioned ’computers’, and they call it their Computer Department. Now, as we enlightened ones know, the definition of a computer department (in this context) is, and I now quote from Dai Pugh’s classic work ‘A Boyo’s Guide to Mysteries of the Universe’, “..a computer department, look you, is a section of a shop reserved for the sale of Nascoms, Geminis and 80-BUS-related products, look you, mun..”.

Going back to the subject of Waldo Dobbs, I knew a guy called Waldo, in, like, one of my previous lives, you know. I wonder if it’s the same Waldo? Do you know where Waldo Dobbs has his being? Wouldn’t it be a real downer if it turns out that Waldo is nothing more than an A.I. algorithm in a program called Dobbs, heavy!! If you hear from Waldo Dobbs again, tell him I know a guy who knows a guy who grows the greenest weed this side of ’frisco. This stuff is g’teed to be a ticket to Cloud 9.

Talking of getting high, I hear that there will definitely be 6 issues of 80-BUS this year. It’s already August and I’ve only had one issue so far, that means there are five issues to come between now and Xmas. Wouldn’t that be a trip!