Blockbuster 1984 Grisewood & Dempsey Ltd Written by Patricia Grady GAME NOTES Your computer can produce all kinds of exciting graphics simply using keyboard characters. With this program you can create many colourful displays. To plan your design, think of the screnn as a piece of squared paper with numbered rows and columns. (The Spectrum uses rows 0 to 21 and columns 0 to 31. The BBC/Electron: rows 0 to 29, columns 0 to 19. The Commodore: rows 0 to 21, columns 0 to 39.) To define the screen area in which you will be working, select top and bottom row numbers, then left and right column numbers. The computer will fill the chosen area by printing a repeating pattern up to 10 characters long. If you decide on a pattern length of 4 then the computer will ask you 4 times to enter a character. In each case you also choose the colours in which the character will be displayed. For example, an Electron user might begin by entering *(RETURN) followed by 3(RETURN) for blue and then 4(RETURN) for yellow to get a blue background and a yellow star. You can use all the colours and characters on your computer to build an endless variety of patterns. If you stop the program by accident, type GOTO 2000 to continue. The diagram on the right shows two designs on a Spectrum screen. A square of solid colour fills the area defined by columns 5 to 9 and rows 5 to 9. A band of colour fills column 25 from top to bottom (from rwo 0 to row 21). On Page 21 is a block pattern you could make. Remember you can print flashing colours, graphics symbols and letters on screen.