| ★ APPLICATIONS ★ DISQUE ★ SUPER POWER - DISC POWER ROM ★ |
Disc Power (Computing with the Amstrad) | Discpower (Popular Computing Weekly) |
Out of the very many Rom software releases for the BBC one of the most respected must be Disc Doctor. Discpower, although by a different company, is an attempt to provide a similar utility for Amstrad owners and it offers features that could make it an important buy. Amongst other things it allows you to read the information held on disc, either on a track and sector basis or by automatically tracking through a selected file. The data is loaded in and held in a buffer and can be viewed in a hex, ascii or disassembled form - ideal for those programs that are too long to be held in memory at the same time as a disassembler.
You can also display the contents of Rom software in the same way and although of course the Roms can't be altered you can tinker and save the changes to disc. You are given an introduction to the way that CP/M and Amsdos save files and an illustration of how the directory tracks can be altered directly to recover deleted or corrupted files, as long as they hadn't already been overwritten - a facility worth the cost of the Rom itself to some people. There are also utilities such as a binary-decimal-hex calculator and the ability to get information about load addresses of files. This can also be edited. There are also disc backup and format routines that work without having to use your CP/M systems disc -it would be invaluable if you were half way through using Arms word or something and ran out of disc space if it wasn't for the lunatic feature that once Discpower has been called up there is no way of returning to Basic with the memory intact. Despite that, it's a powerful release, but not for beginners. Tony Kendle, PCW |
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