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I have had some response concerning the printer problems experienced by Adrian Dixon, regarding his Silver Reed EX32 & +3. Both he, and Aidan Orton of Caterham, Surrey, have written advising of a 'fix' to the +3 which cures the problem.

The fix is POKE 23355,16: POKE 23354,62. This alters the +3 paging subroutine so that the Printer strobe signal is normally high, rather than normally low. My printer (an old Epson MX-80) works perfectly with or without the pokes, but obviously other printers are more strict (The Brother 1109 is another that needs the pokes). The signal is supposed to be high normally, so it would appear that yet another +3 bug has been unearthed.

Aidan Orton also asks about a replacement chip for his Multiface+3 (the smaller socketed one). This is a specialised chip, Aidan, designed by Romantic Robot. I therefore think that their repair price of #10.95 is quite reasonable. I cannot imagine what you were doing to damage it!?

On the subject of Romantic Robot, I have had a number of readers expressing interest in Genie for the Multiface+3. I have managed to patch my original 48K version of Genie to run quite well on the +3, but am still working on the 128K version. It is interesting to note, however, that Romantic Robot were at one time claiming to be developing Genie+3 (Mr.B.Walton of Whitley Bay sent me a copy of a note sent from them in April '88 assuring him that Genie+3 would be available - I was told much the same when I ordered my Multiface+3). Romantic Robots other Multiface program, Lifeguard, does run successfully on the +3. However, since the +3 MUST be active in order to re-load disk-saved games, these programs are less useful than for the other Spectrums. Perhaps users should have two Multiface+3's fitted.

Various readers are also voicing concern over Spectrum programs that will not run on the +3. Personally, I have not yet had any trouble (but I have a backlog of new software which I have not yet had time to load & play). If you write in with problem programs, Crash will try compiling a complete list of problem programs (and manufacturers, if some are worse culprits than others).

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Following on from the recent proliferation of tape-based magazines & newsletters, comes one on 'old-fashioned' paper, from Nicholas Lewis of 52 Kyle Crescent, Whitchurch, Cardiff CF4 1SU.

He has sent me issues 1 and 2 of the 'Advanced Z80 machine code' newsletter. Nicholas also produces a beginners guild (sic) for those who need more basic machine code programming details.

Issue 1 begins somehwat patronisingly ('... our friend the ROM chip ...') but settles into a quite useful two page discussion on calling ROM routines to plot/unplot a single point on screen, and to draw arcs.

Issue 2 expands on these routines, combining them into a complete program to draw shapes using a general point/line/curve table. Colour & sound is promised for future issues.

The issues are short (just two sides of A4 each) but not too expensive (50p per isse, including postage). Most of the assembly code written is quite well documented, line by line, though this will become less detailed as the programs increase in size.

If you are planning on getting serious on machine code, but don't know where to start, give these newsletters a try - please note, however, that you will need an assembler program to make use of the examples.