The 2068 Library, Volumes 10 and 11

I’ll bet you thought John Riley had disappeared into a black hole in Sinclairland. Not so. He’s been fiddling with his Larken system and putting the finishing touches on Volumes 10 and 11 of the CATS library. Listed below are the programs in those volumes and John’s short summary of each.

VOLUME 10 Education And Demos

• FRENCH – a tutorial for students of French.
• QUIZZ MASTER – an adaptible Q/A format test, currently filled with general knowledge questions.
• Q&A TEST GENERATOR – allows you to easily form your own Q&A tests.
• READ & SPELL – correct spelling errors in sample sentences.
• MULTIDRILL – tests knowledge of the multiplication tables. Correct answers are rewarded with a video game.
• SPELLING – choose the correct spelling of a given word.
• OHM’S LAW – learn and use this “law” of electricity.
• INSIDE SPECTRUM – a graphic “guided tour” of the insides of a Spectrum, the kissing cousin of the 2068.
• GENETICS – a simulation of Mendel’s laws of inheritance.
• EQUATIONS – solve problems for x and y.
• SPELLBUG – unscramble the words. Uses joystick in the right port, has very nice graphics!
• WORDS – a primitive AI sentence generator.
• ELIZA – an implementation of the famous “computer psychologist” AI program.
• LIFE – a simulation of the development of a life form’s population, under the constraints of limits that you set.
• BEATLES – a demonstration of the musical capabilities of the 2068 onboard sound chip, using all three channels with a rather nice rendition of “And I Love Her”.
• MOZART – highbrow compu-music with Piano Sonata in C Major.
• PARAKEET – a bizzare little program that imitates several parakeets talking to one another.
• PIANO – creates a one-octave keyboard that you can play on.
• CHOPIN – another nice compu-music version of a classical piece.

VOLUME 11 Graphics And Character Sets

• BIG LETTERS – a thick, bold character set.
• ALTERNATE CHARS – a modernistic character set. List program for instructions.
• PRINT – a utility for generating multiple sizes of letters.
• BOLD – a striking and readable character set.
• CRAZYPRINT – a wild and “bouncing” character set.
• 3D WORDS – a program that makes titles using letters with a girder-like appearance.
• OLD ENGLISH – a very nice program that generates large Old English style characters.
• NEW CHARACTERS – another alternate character set.
• COWDEN – somehow this letter to a tape-based British Spectrum magazine managed to float over to the States. However it came to be here, it contains two nice character sets and a lot of interesting screen techniques that can be “mined” out of it.
• TITLESHOOT – an interesting way of “blasting” letters onto the screen from the bottom left-hand corner.
• BACKGROUND – creates a number of options for screen backgrounds that you can use in designing title screens for your programs.
• GOBLET – A 2068 version of the program that first appeared in the Spectrum-only Volume 4 of this library. You enter a number of co-ordinates to create a “slice” of a 3-D object. The computer then draws that object from five different angles, then pages them together to animate them. You must use the code “555” to signal the machine that you are through entering points and start the animation procedure.
• GREETINGS – a good “electronic bulletin board” program to use at meetings, displays, etc. to catch the eye and convey information. ALSO contains a sub-program “Spirographics”.
• GRAPHICS – a dazzling display of screen graphics on the 2068. After watching it awhile, break and list the program and be further amazed at how short it is!
• SOLID BANNER – prints large character letters on a 2040 printer.
• ART – more simple but beautiful graphic screens.
• COLORSLASH – schizophrenic screen graphics. Looks like something Jack the Ripper would think up.
• CLOVER – a demo of the possibilities of changing the stippling on an existing image to create an interesting new one.
• 128 COLORS – the complete 2068 color pallette.
• NETWORK – lacy and modernistic screen designs.
• SANTA – an electronic Christmas card.
• TWIRLER – an animated 3-D graphic.
• UDG DEMO – a “possibilities” program from the L.I.S.T. group.
• NEW SCRIPT – one more alternate character set for your 2068.