CATS Library Tape 11

Date: 1988
Type: Cassette
Platform(s): TS 2068

Volume 11 of the Capital Area Timex Sinclair Users Group (CATS) 2068 software library, a tape of graphics programs: colour tests and colour patterns, PLOT and DRAW pictures, a lathe-style 3D solid drawer, character-set and UDG utilities, and two Christmas cards. Most are short BASIC programs; Goblet, Greeting and UDG Demo use some machine code.

The download has a TAP of each program, with a text listing for each, 14 programs in all.

Programs on the Tape

  • 128 colors: shows every INK, PAPER and BRIGHT combination using a checkerboard UDG that mixes the ink and paper colours (Mark Miller) (also #56227 128 Colors)
  • Background: fills the whole screen with a word you type, repeated in random colours (also #56229 Background)
  • Clover: draws a clover-leaf pattern petal by petal in random colours, in three drawing modes, then fills the screen with lines and starts again (Bernard Bush) (also #56231 Clover)
  • color: “Color Slash”: random coloured lines burst from the lower-left corner and then from the upper-right, cycling through the eight ink colours without end
  • Doorway: a doorway drawn in perspective with PLOT and DRAW, then animated with random colour flashes (S. Robert Speel) (also #56233 Doorway)
  • Goblet: draw a profile and the program turns it into a 3D wire-frame solid of revolution, with machine code help (also #56235 Goblet)
  • Graphics: six mathematical drawing routines: spirographs, spirals, sine waves and circle patterns (Cedric Bastiaans) (also #56237 Graphics)
  • Greeting: a user-group demo with machine-code speech, animated text and a spirograph plotter driven by numbers you enter (also #56240 Greeting)
  • Network: a burst of lines from a single point, redrawn over and over in random colour combinations (also #56242 Network)
  • New Chars: a short loader that sets the character-set and UDG pointers to a custom character set loaded as a code block (also #56244 New Chars)
  • Newscript: copies the ROM character set into RAM, makes it bolder and switches to it, then deletes itself (also #56246 Newscript)
  • Santa: an animated Christmas card with music, a UDG sleigh crossing the sky and a flashing greeting (Warren Fricke) (also #56247 Santa-C)
  • Title Shoot: reads a signature from the bottom of the screen and redraws it enlarged in two colours, with sound (Algis Gedris) (also #56249 Title Shoot)
  • UDG Demo: demonstrates three ways of printing UDG characters through machine code kept in a REM line, with parameters passed by POKE (also #56251 UDG Demo)

Content

128 Colors

Program

A complete 128-color display test cycles every ink, paper, and bright combination using a clever checkerboard UDG that visually blends foreground and background hues.

2068 Art

Program

Two bouncing points trace 200 lines across the screen in an ever-changing geometric art display, then clear and restart with a new pattern.

Background

Program

Enter any word and watch it instantly tile across the entire screen in random colors — a surprisingly effective background generator built from one clever string-doubling trick.

Banner

Program

Discover how a BASIC banner printer reads ROM font data directly, rotates character bitmaps 90 degrees, and scales letters up to four times their normal size for hardcopy output.

Clover

Program

A mesmerizing geometric "Clover" pattern grows petal by petal with randomized colors and three distinct drawing modes, then floods the screen with fill lines before restarting.

Doorway

Program

A perspective doorway scene built entirely from PLOT and DRAW geometry — then brought to life with a hypnotic random-colour flash animation.

Goblet

Program

Draw a 2D profile, press Enter, and watch it spin into a shaded 3D wire-frame solid — powered by rotation matrices and embedded machine code.

Graphics

Program

Six mathematical graphics routines — spirographs, parametric spirals, sine waves, and circle arrays — each driven by user input or looped parameters, all in one program.

Greeting

Program

A user-group demo combining machine code speech synthesis, animated text routines, and a parametric spirograph plotter driven by user-supplied "magic numbers."

Network

Program

A mesmerising line-burst pattern redraws itself endlessly in randomly chosen colour combinations — watch a geometric network bloom from a single screen point.

New Chars

Program

A compact loader patches two system variables to install a custom character set from a saved code block — here's how it redirects the UDG pointer at runtime.

Newscript

Program

A self-destructing font generator that rewrites the ROM character set byte-by-byte into RAM, then hands you a bolder typeface and vanishes.

Santa-C

Program

A self-contained animated Christmas card plays holiday music, scrolls a UDG-drawn sleigh across the sky, and flashes a greeting — all in one compact BASIC program.

Title Shoot

Program

A clever pixel-scaling routine reads a signature from the screen's bottom edge and redraws it enlarged with a two-tone colour effect and audio feedback.

UDG Demo

Program

A machine-code-powered demo explores all three UDG character rendering modes, passing parameters via POKEs before each call to embedded code hiding in a REM statement.

Related Articles

I’ll bet you thought John Riley had disappeared into a black hole in Sinclairland. Not so.

Note: Type-in program listings on this website use ZMAKEBAS notation for graphics characters.

Tags

Capital Area Timex Sinclair Users Group Downloadable TS 2068 Collection