Label: Companion,193 Brampton Rd, Carlisle, Cumbria CA3 9AX
Author: Jonathan Edgar
Price: £9.15
Memory: 48K/128K with Interface 1
Joystick: N/A
Reviewer: Chris Jenkins

IMBOS is a useful adjunct to the Spectrum and Microdrive operating system. It requires the use of Interface 1 (both versions are catered for), and is supplied on cassette which can be transferred to microdrive.

IMBOS 1.1 adds no fewer than 53 commands to Spectrum Basic The twelve page manual explains each new instruction in turn, and there's a ten minute demo program which runs through some of the possibilities. IMBOS itself occupies 8117 bytes of memory. The new commands cover the whole range of programming and interfacing. There are ten for microdrive operations, including simple and complex file cataloguing, a simplified RUN command, and even a command to change the border colour during microdrive operations. There's a decimal/hex converter a PAUSE command, and a selection of useful ink/border/paper commands.

You can store screen strings in a reserved area of memory then call them back for very fast serial display. It's also possible to move any chunk of code very quickly.

Additional features include sound effects, scrolling text routines, a header reader, a mini-monitor and a series of error messages Good value for money, a pity it's limited to IF1 owners.

RAGE HARD!

More Rage Soft this month, as Phil South delves again into the wealth of independent utility software.

More hardware-related software out of the bag this month, Imbos from Companion Software, and ZipZap from Omega Software. There's still a surprising amount of high-quality utility software being made for the Spectrum, even now when the machine is edging on for six-seven years old! So let's cut the waffle, and get into the reviews.

Omega Software
£10.95
Contact: Omega Software, Dept YSR, PO BOX 21, Shepperton, Middlesex TW17 8BY
(+3 Disk £10.95 + £1 postage and packing)
Tel: 0932 228649

As there has been no disk tradition on the Spectrum, there's been no need for a disk toolkit. Until now that is. Omega Software has been calling me up and telling me how brilliant its program is, a thing called ZipZap. I asked for a copy, I got one and I thought, this is more like it.

This is the program that every +3 user needs in his disk box, at the front, for those tasks which otherwise would be impossible except for the most accomplished programmers. It features the ability to recover lost files, lets you read protected and nonstandard disks, display, modify, print and search any sector or group of sectors on a disk. You can format individual tracks, and even lock damaged and unreadable sectors out, so your programs won't access them by mistake. It's the ideal hacker's tool, but any disk user should find a use for one or all of the features supported. One of the most interesting things you can do with the search facility is to scan a program for a certain sequence, letting you seek and destroy bits of code, either for inserting POKEs in games, or de-bugging your own programs.

The manual is an excellent document, covering many aspects of Spectrum +3DOS. Including an amazing bit on DFCBs (or Directory File Control Blocks), disk headers, XDPBs and logical sectors. All this is wicked technical stuff, and covered much better in this manual than it is in the +3 manual, which is not at all.

Using ZipZap is a treat, and I don't mean one of those sweeties that don't melt in your pocket, either. You're presented on loading with a display depicting a location on the disk by track and sector, with a bank of ASCII characters to the right, to let you search for strings in programs, and a bank of hex showing the actual bytes on the disk. Below the impressive numerical barrage, is an area called the Status Field which tells you which byte, sector and track you're looking at on the Hex field, and the buffer states, and also which drive you're addressing.

This is a rock solid utility, and invaluable to any serious user. It helps inexperienced users perform like the pros, and helps pros get the job done. Recommended.

IMBOS

Companion Software
£8.65
Contact: Companion Software and Hardware, 193 Brampton Road, Carlisle, Cumbria CA3 9AX.
(Cassette £8.95 + 30p postage and packing)
Tel: 0228 35208

Imbos is a set of extended commands which bolt directly onto the set already m your Spectrum Interface 1. You install them in your Interface 1 and they stretch the amount of things you can do with your microdrive system, or presumably any other peripheral which uses the microdrive syntax. The new words you can use are as follows:

*
*AFTER x$
*CAPS,x
*CAT
*CODE x
*DATA a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h
*DOKE x,y
*ERASE x$
*FILL x,y
*GAPS (x)
*HALT x
*MIRROR
*MIRROR,x
*MOVE x,y TO 2
*PRINT X
*STORE x
*VERIFY X$
.ENDRAM
.RAMTOP
?ENDRAM
?RAMPTOP
?FRE
?LCLS x
?PROG
?RAMTOP
?SCROLL x
?VAR
BEEP #x,y
BORDER #
BORDER PAPER
BRIGHT OVER x
CLOSE # x TO y
FLASH OVER x
GOTO LINE x,y
INPUT *s,l,h
INVERSE SCREEN$
LINE ERASE x,y
LINEx
LIST %x$
LIST CAT x
LIST £x
OUT !x$
OUT *s,l,,m
PAPER ATTR x,y TO u,v
PAPER TO x,y
PAUSE x$
PRINT !x$
PRINT $x
PRINT &x
PRINT %x
PRINT /x$;k$;sp, AT a,b TO c
PRINT @x$
PRINT ATTR x
PRINT SCREEN $x TO y
READ #x
READ iN #
RUN x$

An impressive array of new commands there, you must agree. Where possible, original Spectrum keywords have been used, and where this wasn't possible an asterisk (*) has been placed in front of the word to disable the 'K' cursor keyword mode in the computer.

The new commands cover a wide range of powerful functions. Let's look at a few of the more interesting examples:

?PROG Displays the length of a Basic program in bytes to give some indication of memory being taken up by the program. A useful trick for Basic programmers who want to keep an eye on their use of the available RAM.

LIST £x Displays a monitor listing of memory from the decimal number x, with a choice of hexadecimal or ASCII to find text.

RAMTOP Tells you where Ramtop is!

PRINT @x$ Prints text centred on the screen. Saves all that counting up the columns and printing spaces or TABs.

*MIRROR flips the screen!

OUT *s,l,h,m Saves a file as a headerless piece of code, reloadable with another new command, INPUT *s,l;h.

?SCROLL x does precisely that, scrolls x number of lines up the screen. And so on.

Installing the new commands in your Interface 1 is a piece of cake. A special program is on the tape to allow you to copy the Imbos programs onto a microdrrve or disk, five programs in all, plus a demo program to demonstrate the power of the new commands. Depending on the issue ROM you have (one or two) the program will load one of two main programs containing the new commands. This is necessary to make the new words work in either ROM, as Issue 1 and 2 ROMs are different enough to cause problems.

After you've installed Imbos the loading screen will pull down, and on the press of a key, you'll be handed over to Imbos Basic. When NEW is typed and entered, you are returned to the usual prompt, but with Imbos Basic intact in the Interface 1 protected by RAMTOP. To invoke the program you need to type RANDOMISE USR 57250, and the new operating system is switched in. Then the Imbos 'test card' pops up. The RAND USR address only has to be used to invoke the system, but if you're a programmer and want to get around this, you can follow instructions in the manual to do this. If you write a program using Imbos, you need to save the Imbos code to your program tape in order to run it on someone else's computer.

This is an excellent package, and as you can see it does have some very interesting possibilities. It even has its own error codes to tell you if anything goes wrong with your Imbos programs it's actually worth more than £8.65, but I reckon that Companion will sell many more units that way. Every Speccy owner should have one.