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Inside Information The Doc dusts off his Multiface to check out an enhanced interface for closet hackers. Whether you agree with them or not, the world is full of Multiface II users, and what I call ‘Multi-Hackers'. Face it, many are the games that need some kind of poke to allow we mere mortals with less than pefect timing and hand-eye coordination to get to the end - the Hairy Hacker is testimony to the popularity of such things. Ergo, the MFII provides a good method of slipping the odd NOP into the code to let you carry on unhindered in your latest megagame (I hope I'm getting the street-cred terms right here!). Now, as a fairly ardent non-gamesy type, I have little real interest in playing all of the latest ones, although I do enjoy them. However, when our illustrious editor asked me to have a look at Tearaway, I readily agreed. You see it offers some very useful facilities - read on. First, whatyou need. Tearaway must have 128k RAM to play with, at least one 3" disc drive, and a Multiface II (preferably switched). Unexpanded 464 users need not apply. The whole thing is menu driven, from the moment you install it into your machine until you switch off at the end - no bad thing. You'll doubtless be able to see what it looks like from the screen shots. The code that does the dirty work loads itself into both the CPC (high banks) and the 16k inside the MFII, and when you hit the red button on your MFII, takes over where you would normally expect to see RoRo's software.
After that, you can do all sorts with the code you've got. Apart from a very useful search routine, which incorporates a sort of wildcard facility (a new and intuitive way of searching), there's a full Z80 disassembler, a decent memory editor, and access to information on the Z80 registers, CRTC registers, pallette, interrupt status, and so forth. In short, there's almost nothing you can'tfind out about what's going on inside your machine. Now, since you can also alter everything, this power doesn't come without a price. There's very little to stop you from wrecking discs and tying your CPC in a knot - but then life without risk is boring in the extreme. Now, to me, one of the most useful bits of the utility has to be the disassembler. I would never claim to be the kind of programming genius that Auntie John is, but I do like to see how the experts do it (and poke myself a few extra lives while I'm at it.) Tearaway won't only print to the screen, it also passes very good quality output to the printer - and hardcopy is very useful to learn from. In short, Tearaway makes the Multiface II very easy and simple to use - no more itty-bitty windows to confuse you, since you've got a full mode 2 screen to play with - and will, I feel, prove to be a useful tool. Pricing is also pretty good. £7.50 and a 3" disc will get you the package, or £10.50 if you don't send the floppy. Contact CPC Network, 3, the Cottons, Outwell, Wisbech, Cambs. PE14 8TL ACU |
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