Alchemist News

For those who haven't come across it before, Alchemist News was the foremost disk/tape-based magazine in the Sinclair world. Running since 1986, Z88 coverage and support was introduced in mid-1997 with issue 24, continuing right up until the final issue, #32 (April 2000).

The magazine viewer is now available for the Z88 itself (written by Dominic Morris with compression code by Garry Lancaster), and below you can download all issues from 22 onwards (issues 22 and 23 have little or no Z88 content, though).

Earlier issues were available from the Alchemist News website ( http://website.lineone.net/~alchemistresearch/) , although this unfortunately now seems to be defunct; you'll need a Spectrum or an emulator that can read .TAP files to view them.


Each issue of the magazine is provided in a ZIP file for ease of download. To view the magazine, unzip the file and transfer its contents to your Z88 (or use my Unzip utility on the Z88 itself).

Now, enter BASIC and type the command: RUN "AN30" to run issue 30, for example.

When viewing the magazine, use the up and down arrows to scroll the text, and the left and right arrows to move to the previous or next page. Press SPACE to bring up a menu allowing you to choose a new part to read.


Note that if you have limited memory available on your Z88, there may not be enough room to hold the entire issue at once. This is not a problem; just make sure that you transfer the BASIC and machine-code files (AN30 and AN30.COD for issue 30) and the index (this is the lowest part, AN30.01 for example). Whenever you need to access a new part, you can transfer it to the Z88 before choosing the part from the AlchNews menu.


Alchemist News Z88 Downloads


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