Coder's word

   Well,  as  you  can see the code of
this  mag  was  once  again  improved.
Current  version is V3.2.  There is no
big  changes,  like in the last issue,
just   some   minor   adjustments  and
improvements.
   The biggest innovation is the mouse
menu selecting. Seems that you totally
disliked  my  mouse  routine, so I was
forced  to make something new.  Now if
you  press the right mouse button, you
invoke  the  menu  in  which  you  can
directly  click on a  desired  article
(with the left button).  Happy?
   The  biggest trouble  with the last
issue was incompatibility.  Seems that
I  put  the  code  too  high up in the
memory so it crashed  very often.  Mea
culpa,  Mea  maxima  culpa!  (Issue #3
used  memory  upto  $7f800!)  That  is
changed  now, the code is on $68000 so
the  last 32K of standard Chip RAM are
now free.  This should work fine.
   Numeric  pad  article  selecting is
also  a  bit  enchanced.   Many people
complained that they got lost using it
so  I  rewrote the routine and now you
see what you're doing.  You don't need
to  enter  the first zeroes, just type
[1]+[2]+[RETURN], for example, to load
article no.12.
   Colors  are  also slightly changed,
but  that deed goes out to the soul of
our  resident 'color maniac', Lord.  I
was  fond  of previous colors, but did
my opinion ever stop him...
   I  also  incorporated  the  feature
until  now  never seen in a mag (to my
knowledge).   Now  you're  able to put
your  own  music into the mag!  Here's
how:   your  selected  module  must be
PT1.1   compatible,   long  less  than
$28000  (that's  160K,  or  163840  in
bytes)  and  packed  with TimeCruncher
V2.1  (offset  of about $200 gives the
best   results...).    When  you  have
packed  the  module of your choice you
just  save it in the TOL4ART directory
(abbreviation  for The Outer Limits #4
ARTicles,  explained  later) under the
name  mod.3.cr,  and when you start up
the  mag  select the music with F3 and
that's  it!   Crunched  module must be
less  then  $20000  long (128K, 131072
bytes)!!!   I hope that this isn't too
complicated for you, it shouldn't be!
You can find the cruncher on the disk.
   Also for all of you rich bastards I
coded  (?)  a  simple  DOS  proggy for
installing the mag on a hard disk, you
just  cd  into the hard disk directory
where  you  want the mag to be, insert
the  mag  disk  in  df0:   (it must be
df0:)      and      type      'Execute
TOL#4:HDInstall' and just sit back and
relax.   This  can  also  be  used  by
pack-disk  makers, with the difference
that  you  have  to  cd  onto a floppy
(this   requires   two  reliable  disk
drives  or  just one but then you have
to  play  DJ  for  a while).  When the
prog   is  done  you  will  have  this
particular issue on you hard, ready to
go!   When  you  feel like reading, cd
into  directory  you saved it and type
TOL#4  to  start the mag.  Articles of
each  issue  will  be  in  a  separate
subdirectory     created     by    the
installation  prog  (TOL4ART, TOL5ART,
TOL6ART...).  This enables you to have
a  whole  collection  of issues at the
same  place.  The installation program
will  ask  you if you want to copy the
intro  and  the  title  pic.   As  the
program is only a script file it needs
some  DOS  commands.  If you miss any,
you  can find them in the C dir of mag
disk.   As  far  as  I know, The Outer
Limits  is  the first mag to offer you
this  kind  of  help  (so show us your
appreciation by writing some articles,
how about that?).


           DR.J/PLS