Scor­pio News

buffer for data “printed” by the Galaxy. In, addition, the Galaxy loads the Nascom with an output print routine for selecting the magnets on my very ancient Golfball watch, touch wood, has got through some; 350 Letters without probobobobeboboblems in the last 9 months [Ed. – sorry, I just had to insert that, you’ll see why in the next paragraph!!]

Please keep up the good work and my thanks to the enthusiastic contributors and witty editor that make the journal such good read.

Yours faithfully, J.T Clarks, West Hampstead, London.

BDOSZ Bug

Dear Sir,

The last (first) issue of this magazine featured an article by Mr C Bowden on improving the user interface to CP/M. In this article Mr Bowden stated that he had found s bug in BDOSZ. As co-author of BDOSZ I feel duty bound to mention the following facts and throw users a lifeline.

Mr Bowden was correct in what he said when referring to the switching between 8 and 16 bit directory entries under BDOSZ. However, this bug was fixed in Version 1.3 and I suspect that Mr Bowden has an old copy of BDOSZ. Users of BDOSZ with a version number of less than 1.7 should also note that there were a couple of bugs in the Read and Write Random routines. Admittedly, these were somewhat obscure and haven’t been reported to me through the dealer chain but I feel duty bound to mention them. As far as I’m aware, there are few programs that are affected by the last two bugs, but I do know that the Library Utility (LU.COM) can come to grief as it uses random reads and writes. The current version of BDOSZ is 1.8 and features special handling of the IX sad IY registers, for users who have BIOSs that use these registers, and a totally re-written error handler to improve compatibility with the DRI BDOS.

Armed with a copy of this magazine I am hopeful that users wishing to upgrade will be able to take their distribution disk to their friendly 80-BUS dealer and obtain version 1.8 for nothing more than a nominal copying fee. Failing this I should be pleased to provide this service. All I would require is the original BDISZ distribution disk, together with either UK postage stamps to cover postage or a cheque made out to me to cover the cost of postage (you should know how much to enclose since you are sending the disk to me). Don’t forget to enclose your name and address and please allow 28 days for delivery (I may need it if there is a rush).

My thanks co the Editor for publishing this letter and, of course, thanks for providing us 80-BUS addicts with an excellent magazine. There are some of us, at least, who would pay almost any price for a quality 80-BUS magazine like this, and there were those of us who would have attempted to start our own (Chris “Dr Dark” Blackmore for instance) if Paul had not done so.

Yours faithfully, M.W.T Waters, _ _________ _____, Stanmore, Middx. ___ ___

Tail-piece

Dear sir,

What can I say? I’m glad to see your arrival on the scene.

Yours, Caerwyn Pearce, London EC1.