Help!

TROUBLE WITH TYPO

Your article "TYPO" (ANTIC, page 35, August 1982; reprinted in April 1983, page 116) explains how the program works, but it doesn't go quite far enough. For example, what do CODE and LENGTH mean, and how do they correspond to each other? Computer magazines sometimes take it for granted that their readers understand everything about the inner workings of a program -- and that's just not so. An explanation in layman's terms should accompany each article. This would be a great help to the beginning programmer.

David Stroup
Marietta, PA

We probably do sometimes take too much for granted. Please keep in mind, though, that it's diffictrlt to produce a magazine that will be of interest to a wide variety of readers with very different levels of computing experience. However, we do try to explain our terms and concepts in language that the beginner can understand.

Typo is a very valuable program, but it has confused a number of our readers. Careful reading of the text reveals that "length" is "the number of bytes encountered by TYPO within the line number range shown." The "code" is "a checksum of the 'length' bytes in that same range." A new monospaced version of TYPO should make its appearance in the February 1984 issue. - ANTIC ED

LIST-ASSISTER ASSISTER

I'm very pleased with the "List Assister" pragram that ran in your July 1983 issue (ANTIC, Systems Guide, page 93) and its September 1983 upgrade (ANTIC, HELP!, page 10). Now I can use my daisywheel printer to list programs including all the necessary characters. John Shreffler, a friend of mine, has made some additional enhancements that I think are worthwhile. They ensure that the right-hand margin is consistent (John and I noticed that some programs, such as AMODEM4, did not print out consistently all the way across the page). The rewritten lines are as follows (as written by List Assister, of course):

365 IF (II + DL-1)>(LL + 7) THEN ?#4; CHR$(155);B$(5);:II =LL + 7:L = L + 1:LL = LL + 65* (T = 18)+120*(T = 15)
370 ? #4;"[";L$;"]";:II = II + DL-1:NEXT I
430 IF A=128 THEN ? #4;"<,>";:II = II + 2:NEXT I
460 IF A=0 THEN ? #4;"[,]";:II=II+2:NEXT I
490 IF A= 253 THEN ? #4"<;>":II = II + 2:NEXT I
500 A = A-128:? #4;"<;>";CHR$(A);:II= II+1
540 TRAP 730:? #4;"I";:? #4: GOTO 590

Keep up the good work!
Richard Reaser
Los Angeles, CA

WRONG NOTE!

There is an error in the listing that accompanies "Pick A Chord" in ANTIC Volume 2 Number 8 (November 1983) that prevents the program from functioning correctly. In the second line of line 80, in which the string MENU2$ is defined, an extra space should be inserted after the first character, which is the numeral 7. This will move the first m in min7b5dim7 to directly beneath the M in MENU2$ in the line above.

AIR RAID 2000

In the program Air Raid 2000 (ANTIC, November 1983), line 980 lists out to four lines. By using the abbreviation SE. for SETCOLOR, however, this line can be entered within the Atari BASIC limit of 114 characters (120) if you POKE 82,0).

Also, characters that appear to be inverse periods in lines 850 and 860 are actually inverse commas.