16/48 Tape Magazine 01 - November 1983

Y'know, other stuff, Sinclair related.
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Morkin
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16/48 Tape Magazine 01 - November 1983

Post by Morkin »

Had a few of these back in the day, so thought it's be a laugh to work my way through them all, starting with #01...! All I recall is that the quality ranged from quite good to fairly bad.

16/48 Tape Magazine 01, November 1983

The standard 16/48 menu loads first - showing a brief description of all the programs on the tape.

First up is Copter.

Image

You control a helicopter (no surprise there) and also a gun turret. You can switch between the two. Enemy helicopters descend from the top of the screen and home in on your copter. You can either lead the enemy copters into the floaty balloon things to destroy them, or try to shoot them.

You only have 10 shots so after exhausting your supply of shots, the rest of the time is spent controlling your copter, trying to avoid the smaller red copter homing in on you. You can apparently replenish ammo by flying to the other hangar, but I didn't bother doing that as I was fairly useless aiming the rockets and switching between the copter and the turret anyway.

Fortunately your copter moves twice as fast, so avoiding the little red copter is pretty easy - you could probably go on playing this game for hours without being hit with your score gradually increasing. I got bored after a few minutes and gave up.

Next up is a short Editorial. "Can you contribute??????" we're asked. I would have been fairly happy with £50 per submission back in 1983.

Then we have Stroke 4. Could be interes.... Aaaarghhh, an educational program..! :roll:

Image

I don't ever remember learning about how a 4 stroke engine works, but I successfully managed to identify the inlet, exhaust, power and compression 'bits'. I think. Fairly short and painless.

Continuing along the tape, we have a review of the DK'Tronics Light Pen and the RD Digital Tracer.

tl;dr - the Light Pen is a bit ropey when it comes to freehand drawing (I recall Paul saying this when he reviewed it in the Spectrum Show). The Digital Tracer is half decent:

Image

Right.. What next... Ah yes, it's Of Dungeons and Green Men..

Image

Fairly unexciting this month, with some hints for Planet of Death (Artic), and some Misty Mountain directions for The Hobbit. Well, not really hints, they're basically bits of the solution. I read them quickly and moved on... (Oh yeah - £5 if your contribution is published don'tya know..).

Chessfire - sounds... erm... potentially exciting, what is it going to... Oh. No. It's basically just chess. Without a computer opponent. And slightly unfathomable pieces:

Image

...I didn't quite grasp the 'fire' aspect to the game unfortunately - something to do with some of the pieces having 'lives' - that might add an extra dimension to the standard game. Or something. Not too sure.

Next up are some machine code sound effects which you can use in your own programs. A lot of ascending bleeps, whistles and sirens, nice idea if you were learning BASIC and wanted some 'snazzy' sound effects I s'pose. At one point a prompt came up on screen saying "When you get bored, press ENTER". Made me chuckle.

Image

Next on the tape is a nice feature enabling you to animate large graphics. You load 4 graphic frames as SCREEN$ files (well, the top bit of the screen at least) and can run animations on them.

An animation competition is also offered, with the winner appearing in a later issue, although the expected standard as spelled out on screen could potentially put a few amateurs off:

Image

Prize is a digital tracer (oooh..!) or a light pen (meh..!).

Finally there's a look forward to next month's edition. Not too bad a start, not particularly incredible either... Part of the nostalgia value for me was The Long Way Home adventure series, so I'm looking forward to giving those a go when they appear. :)
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Re: 16/48 Tape Magazine 01 - November 1983

Post by Nomad »

Morkin wrote: Sun Mar 18, 2018 1:13 am I recall is that the quality ranged from quite good to fairly bad.
I think a lot of the magazines did that to encourage people to contribute, but I can remember wishing that there was some sort of quality control with the tape magazines :lol: as a reader. Now I can see now that having section after section of amazing programs and techniques would severely limit the people sending stuff in. I figure in a round about way the letters section is dependent on errors and bad code as much as anything else. It's a sneaky way to encourage interaction & retention of readers.

You can kind of see that effect with the animation competition - a seeming chicken and egg situation where the animation shown was so good you would have needed some sort of drawing device to have come close in the first place... to potentially win another light pen. :lol:

Great idea for a review, look forward to issue #2.
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Re: 16/48 Tape Magazine 01 - November 1983

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

Yah, cool read! :)
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Re: 16/48 Tape Magazine 01 - November 1983

Post by PeterJ »

[mention]Morkin[/mention] What a great idea! Keep them.coming! I will start saving my pocket money for the next issue.

Do any of our Spanish friends fancy doing something similar for the MicroHobby tapes?
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Re: 16/48 Tape Magazine 01 - November 1983

Post by Ralf »

Thanks Morkin, that was a good read!

We shouldn't really expect some high quality, unknown gems in such magazines. There will be most often simple programs usually written in Basic as above. But I guess the authors were really proud when they got their work published ;) I would certainly be.

And like others I would really like to read more stories like this ;)
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Re: 16/48 Tape Magazine 01 - November 1983

Post by PaulJ »

I loved 16/48 - thanks for sharing.
There were some... odd things like the engine thing.. but overall I read it whenever I could get it.
I still have quite a few of the cardboard backers (or whatever you called them) that the tapes came stuck to!
I also liked playing "The Long Way Home" serialised adventure (that Bug Byte later sold!).
I was going to do something similar to your posts for the magazine, but you got there first ;-)
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Re: 16/48 Tape Magazine 01 - November 1983

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PaulJ wrote: Sun Mar 18, 2018 10:37 am I loved 16/48 - thanks for sharing.
There were some... odd things like the engine thing.. but overall I read it whenever I could get it.
I still have quite a few of the cardboard backers (or whatever you called them) that the tapes came stuck to!
I also liked playing "The Long Way Home" serialised adventure (that Bug Byte later sold!).
I was going to do something similar to your posts for the magazine, but you got there first ;-)
You could always do Outlet. That would be a big project though.
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Re: 16/48 Tape Magazine 01 - November 1983

Post by Morkin »

Nomad wrote: Sun Mar 18, 2018 3:44 amNow I can see now that having section after section of amazing programs and techniques would severely limit the people sending stuff in. I figure in a round about way the letters section is dependent on errors and bad code as much as anything else. It's a sneaky way to encourage interaction & retention of readers.
It seems a fair few of the programs were submitted by Barry C Thorne - not sure if he had a link to the magazine(?). Though it looks like he started off the Long Way Home games, which were a great addition to the tapes. I'm not sure how many submissions they may have had. I guess it would have to be a fairly small subset of their readership, so suspect it wasn't too many.
PeterJ wrote: Sun Mar 18, 2018 9:01 am Do any of our Spanish friends fancy doing something similar for the MicroHobby tapes?
Yeah that's be good..! I never tried any of those. It would be interesting to compare the content.
Ralf wrote: Sun Mar 18, 2018 10:17 amWe shouldn't really expect some high quality, unknown gems in such magazines. There will be most often simple programs usually written in Basic as above. But I guess the authors were really proud when they got their work published ;) I would certainly be.
Absolutely - and it encourages the 'hey, I could do that..!' attitude.
PaulJ wrote: Sun Mar 18, 2018 10:37 am I loved 16/48 - thanks for sharing.
There were some... odd things like the engine thing.. but overall I read it whenever I could get it.
I still have quite a few of the cardboard backers (or whatever you called them) that the tapes came stuck to!
I also liked playing "The Long Way Home" serialised adventure (that Bug Byte later sold!).
I was going to do something similar to your posts for the magazine, but you got there first ;-)
...Oh no..! Well TBH it's largely The Spectrum Show that inspired me to have a go at this, so in a way it's your own fault.. :lol: Do it anyway I reckon, I might not get too far with it, heheh. Also I didn't find out much about the magazine, who ran it, its history or anything.
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Re: 16/48 Tape Magazine 01 - November 1983

Post by PaulJ »

Morkin wrote: Sun Mar 18, 2018 10:44 am ...Oh no..! Well TBH it's largely The Spectrum Show that inspired me to have a go at this, so in a way it's your own fault.. :lol: Do it anyway I reckon, I might not get too far with it, heheh. Also I didn't find out much about the magazine, who ran it, its history or anything.
I see.. so it's all my fault then!

Pics of my backers.. forgot I had so many.
Image

Argus Press were the people behind it, at least according to the cardboard backers.
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Re: 16/48 Tape Magazine 01 - November 1983

Post by PeterJ »

If you get a chance to scan those [mention]PaulJ[/mention] they would be a great addition to the archives.
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Re: 16/48 Tape Magazine 01 - November 1983

Post by catventure »

Hi,

Probably not the mag you discuss above but I seem to remember playing an old quilled text adventure from the 80's (think it was on a Spectrum magazine coverdisk) text only and based on the "Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz"?? (an allegorical manuscript published in 1616) I don't know the correct title of the game. Probably a homebrew one put on as part of a compilation. Does anybody recollect it also? Is it available as a snapshot?

All I can remember is that you started off in a deep dark pit and had to somehow climb out by grasping a swinging rope or chain... I haven't seen or heard of this adventure in years - but sure I am not imagining it. Mid-eighties, I think.

Regards,
catventure.
TAB is a free offline, downloadable, parser-based, retro text adventure/interactive fiction creator program for Windows XP and above. (32;64bit)
It is similar to popular 80's adventure creators like QUILL, PAW, STAC or GAC.
http://tab.thinbasic.com/
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Re: 16/48 Tape Magazine 01 - November 1983

Post by RMartins »

PeterJ wrote: Sun Mar 18, 2018 12:16 pm If you get a chance to scan those @PaulJ they would be a great addition to the archives.
I second that.

Everytime you post one review, you could add the scan just after. :D
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Re: 16/48 Tape Magazine 01 - November 1983

Post by PaulJ »

PeterJ wrote: Sun Mar 18, 2018 12:16 pm If you get a chance to scan those @PaulJ they would be a great addition to the archives.
I checked a few years back and they were already 'available' so didn't bother.
Happy to scan them though.
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Re: 16/48 Tape Magazine 01 - November 1983

Post by PeterJ »

Thanks [mention]PaulJ[/mention] that would be very useful.
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Re: 16/48 Tape Magazine 01 - November 1983

Post by Juan F. Ramirez »

PeterJ wrote: Sun Mar 18, 2018 9:01 am Do any of our Spanish friends fancy doing something similar for the MicroHobby tapes?
That's a grest idea. I'll try it as soon as possible.
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Re: 16/48 Tape Magazine 01 - November 1983

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catventure wrote: Sun Mar 18, 2018 12:27 pm Hi,

Probably not the mag you discuss above but I seem to remember playing an old quilled text adventure from the 80's (think it was on a Spectrum magazine coverdisk) text only and based on the "Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz"?? (an allegorical manuscript published in 1616) I don't know the correct title of the game. Probably a homebrew one put on as part of a compilation. Does anybody recollect it also? Is it available as a snapshot?

All I can remember is that you started off in a deep dark pit and had to somehow climb out by grasping a swinging rope or chain... I haven't seen or heard of this adventure in years - but sure I am not imagining it. Mid-eighties, I think.

Regards,
catventure.
This one has been bothering me but I can't find it. There is a list of published Quill titles here but none of them leap out at me. It may not have been labelled with the quill as a feature of course, which opens up the opens somewhat...
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Re: 16/48 Tape Magazine 01 - November 1983

Post by Nomad »

There needs to be more Rosicrucian inspired spectrum titles :lol:

All joking aside, that would have been an excellent book to base a text adventure on. The imagery is great and there is a clear progression to the narrative. (The 7 towers & 7 stories)..

The more I think on it, it is a wonder why there was not a modern remake of such a game. Not so much as a text adventure but with modern methods. 8-)
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Re: 16/48 Tape Magazine 01 - November 1983

Post by catventure »

Thank you for trying to locate it anyway. I'm not giving up on it just yet. If I ever discover it I will return and let you know the details. :)
Yes- could make a great story/quest for a new text adventure, I agree ;)

There seems to have been a new version of the original book by John Crowley in 2016... See
https://www.tor.com/2016/11/29/book-rev ... l-wedding/

Thanks,
catventure.
TAB is a free offline, downloadable, parser-based, retro text adventure/interactive fiction creator program for Windows XP and above. (32;64bit)
It is similar to popular 80's adventure creators like QUILL, PAW, STAC or GAC.
http://tab.thinbasic.com/
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