Mega-Text

by Simon Hobbs

from Your Sinclair #21 (Sep.1987

[files MEGATEXT.*]





Routines which print text up on your screen in a variety of

different sizes are many, whereas programs which handle text

in a variety of special effects are few. One such program is

this small, but perfectly formed, cluster of routines from

Simon Hobbs. In this program, with its attendant demo, you

can print text onto the screen in a number of special styles

- right slant, left slant, fuzzy, bold, thick, faded, double

image and curved.





Method



Load in the Mega-Text Demo with LOAD "". This will load the

demo program, in Basic, which will auto-run and load the

machine code. You'll then be presented with an example of

each of the various styles available using the Mega text

code. You can break into the Basic and examine the listing,

which'll tell you most of the information you wish to know

about the program.



The code is specially sited at 64000 in memory to allow use

of UDGs in your programs which use Mega-text. To activate

the various functions, you must POKE the following

addresses:



	64394 = x co-ordinate of text

	64395 = y co-ordinate of text

	64396 = style of text

	64397 = height of text



and then you RANDOMIZE USR 64000. To work out the value you

have to POKE into the style of text address (64396) this is

what you do: Set the appropriate bit of the byte to activate

the associated function, and reset it to deactivate the

function. The bits for each function are:



BIT	FUNCTION

0	Right slant italics

1	Fuzzy text

2	Bold text

3	Thick text

4	Faded text

5	Left slant italics

6	Double image text

7	Curved text



Bits go from right to left. So if you wanted left slanting,

double image text (eur!) you must POKE 64396, BIN 01100000

or in decimal, 96. Or if you wanted fuzzy, curved text,

(hooargh!) you'd need to POKE 64396, BIN 10000010 or 130.

The text co-ordinate system is the same as a normal PRINT AT

statement. If you don't put in any co-ordinates, the

program, being foolproof and crash-proof, will simply start

where it left off.





Basic Program



Here's the Basic demo program. Type it in and save it with

SAVE "TEXT DEMO" LINE 10, saving it on the front end of a

blank tape.





Hex Loader



Type in this Hex Loader and save it to a separate tape for

future use, then run it and type the following Hex Dumps

into it. Just type in the figures between the ":" sign and

the "=" sign. The figure after the "=" sign is the Checksum.

At the beginning you'll be asked for the Start Address and

Length. This is the address in memory where the code will be

loaded, and the length is how many addresses after that the

program takes up. These figures are given at the beginning

of the dumps. To stop typing input an 'S'.





Hex Dump



Here's the machine code, listed here as a hex dump. The

start address = 64000 and the length = 398. Save it as SAVE

"TEXTCODE" CODE 64000, 398, making sure it follows the Basic

program on tape.