★ APPLICATIONS ★ DIVERS ★ Big Characters ★ |
| Big Characters (Computing with the Amstrad) | Applications Divers |
KEVIN YOUNG introduces two new commands to provide double height characters THIS short machine code routine adds two new commands to your Amstrad's Basic using resident system extensions (RSXs). The new commands provide double height characters like those found on the BBC Micro. Type in Program I and run it. After you've corrected any typing errors the Basic loader will be saved as bigchars.bas along with copy of the machine code bigchars.bin. The two new commands are: |TOP |BOT These should be followed by a string constant which is not an empty string otherwise an error will occur. For example, to print the top half of the word Amstrad in double height you would type: A$="Amstard" |TOP,@A$ To ensure that the screen display is not corrupted '.TOP must be followed by a PRINT or LOCATE statement. This is so that when !BOT is used it will appear on the next line. The following example shows the idea: A$="Amstard" |TOP,@A$:PRINT:|BOT,@A$ These double height characters can be printed in any mode. To use ITOP and |BOT in your own programs you must include a: SYMBOL AFTER 32 statement at the beginning of the program, before any statements which change the value of HIMEM. To see these commands in action once you've run Program I and hence have the machine code in memory type in Program II and run it. If you just want to load the machine code in simply type: MEMORY 25999 LOAD "bigchars.bin",26000 CALL 26000 Also if you create any user-defined characters make sure that you don't use characters 248 or 249, as they are used by the utility.
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