INMC News

We know of other bits of software coming but haven’t yet been able to lay our ‘sticky mits’ on them, so we don’t know if they obey the rules or not. So if you are writing software with a view to selling it, DON’T FORGET THE RULES !! Better still, send us a copy, we’ll review it, and tell you if any changes are necessary.

All this comes about by failing to understand the manuals, and Nascom must accept some of the blame, there are times when a thorough knowledge of cryptography (and a magnifying glass) would be useful in deciphering some parts of them. Here are some genuine ‘howlers’ that we have heard uttered by users recently.

Nascom 1 & 2 with 8K Basic:

“Isn’t a pity that Nascom Basic always LISTs from one end to the other without being able to break it ‘mid-stream’.”
Answer:
Use the ‘ESC’ (shift newline) once to stop the list at any point (any other key will restart the LISTing), and ‘ESC’ again to break the list. The same applies whilst running a program.

NAS-SYS:

“How on earth did you open up that line and insert those extra characters?”
Answer:
Shift cursor right and shift cursor left keys will open and close a line.

“I didn’t realise that you could make the Tabulate command tab in blocks of say ten, nor that you could escape halfway through a tab.”
Answer:
Try T 0 FFFF A, newline, then hit any key a few times followed by an ‘ESC’.

Anything except Nasbug T2:

“I’m a typist, and I’m not used to computer keyboards. I find normal lower case is better for me, can I change my keyboard for a lower case one please?
Answer:
Type KI then carry on. That will cost you the 50.00 I’ve just saved you on a new keyboard, for the information please. Ta !!