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ARTICLES_SOURCE.DOC
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1993-05-31
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THE PROBLEMS WITH STOS SOURCE
Have you ever done that? Gone through the LANGUAGES section of the
latest PD catalogue and found some STOS source with a review like:
"Some excellent programs here that really show off the talent of the
programmer. I am sure that these will be useful to both the amateur
and professional STOS programmers!"
So, you send off a cheque for 1.50 or 2.50 or whatever to this library,
and wait for the reply. Finally, this jiffy bag drops through the door,
so you slap STOS in the drive, waiting impatiently for it to load, then
shove this STOS source disk in, hit F4 (if you still use it for
FLOAD!), select a file, run it, and find it to be absolute and utter
crap! Select the next file, load it, run it, crap, select next file,
load it, run it, crap, select next file...and by the time you have
finished the disk, you are weeping with despair!
I spent probably ten to twelve quid buying these so-called 'useful'
source disks, which then turn out to be the 'MY BEST PROGRAMS' disks of
an absolute amateur who doesn't even know how to spell STOS let alone
program in it!
It only just happened to me a couple of days ago. All I got was a
horse-racing program, a program which kept your videos in a database, a
program which zoomed letters, a program which put some dodgy sprites
on the screen and moved them around a bit, a program which adds two
numbers together, and a program which reckons that I am 97.25% fully-
grown (I am still only bloody 16!)
I wish that these people would state in their letter to the PD
libraries something like this:
"Dear so-and-so, please find enclosed one of my worst disks that I
knocked up one Sunday afternoon in one of my programming moods. Please
could you include in your review that it is complete crap so all those
professional and semi-professional STOSers out there don't waste half
their income buying it. Best wishes, a crap STOS user."
It would make life so much easier and enjoyable being able to avoid
these rather poor-quality source disks, I mean, people are trying to
promote STOS, not make it look like ST Basic or something!
A word of warning. Avoid a certain STOS disk from Canada which
allegedly has these wonderful packers on. It contains a semi-crap
sliding puzzle game with STOS sprites and STOS music.
It's not all bad, though. There are plenty of good sources out there,
especially from authors like MARTIN CUBITT and DAVID HENNIKER (and of
course, COLIN WATT and BILLY ALLAN!)
My advice? Read the review THOROUGHLY before deciding to fork out...on
the other hand, so what if it's a dodgy disk? You need all the blankies
you can get!
Article: BLACK EAGLE 31/5/93