I have a copy of OS9 Level II(with a copy of level I ver.2) for 25.00 plus
3.00 shipping; if you are still interested.
Don

Michael,

I going to defer to Don Hutchison . . .

. . . for answers to your five-part question. Don (username DONHUTCHISON) is
our database manager and is much more conversant with the material in our
databases — including Rainbow On Tape files.

— Jim Reed

Do you know if the CoCoCad program from the October 1985 issue is available for
download? I looked for it and only found SOME of the programs from the Oct ’85
issue.

–=>Jon RUHNOW

I’ so I need some help please. I do. I do not know what this means, execpt that
it’s t
ASCII OR BASIC. Any help would beappriciated. THANKS!!
-MIKE SHEETS

HI CRAY. I D/L THE AUTO MANTENANCE PROGRAM FROM 2 OR 3 MONTHS AGO.
WHEN I RUN IT, I CAN’T GET IT TO
GIVE THE TOTAL AMOUNT OF THE REPAIRS. AM I DOING SOMETHING
WRONG, OR DOES IT NEED A FIX?
I’M TRYING TO KEEP TRACK OF 2 OLD CARS, & THE CORRECT PROGRAM
WOULD REALLY BE A HELP.
THANX IN ADVANCE FOR ANY HELP. PLEASE LEAVE REPLY AT THE
COCO SIG.
BYE –
MICHAEL

I HAVE BEEN GETTING RAINBOW ON TAPE AND RAINBOW ON DISK AND WOULD LIKE TO KNOW
IF AND HOW TO GET THE CORRECTIONS THAT I UNDERSTAND ARE POSTED ON THIS SIG.
THANX JIM BROWN

IS THERES A FILE THAT WILL L
ME LEARN PASCAL…AND DO IT.LIKE
AN ASSEMBLER

Aaron,

Thanks for the info on the problem . . .

. . . in Shopping here in the Sig. I have reported it and I think it is a
matter of reposting the advertiser profiles.

Hopefully, we’ll have it fixed right away.

— Jim Reed

Anyone know whats wrong with the shoping. I have tried at least 10 times to
order
a Rainbow on disk. But I allways get a
Advertizer profile is unavalabe try again
later message. What gives???????????
Aaron Wadkins…

sorry bout that.
i’m having trouble getting the error message program from the January 84
Rainbow p. 169 to work.
i’m using a coco 2 64k with R.S. DOS 1.1 and the disk error message program
loadm’s but won’t exec right.
I did a CLEAR779,31988 as the author stated to do before loadming,
however, after execing, the machine hangs right up.
could it be this program is for the 1.0 ROMs?
(it doesn’t state that in the article)
BTW… the cassette version works fine (even with the disk plugged in,
but all disk errors are reported as “?error”, with no descriptor)
Any comments/help would be greatly appreciated!

I’ve been having a problem wi

I TRIED TO DOWNLOAD COCO CAT HEAD (11/87 113) THIS EVENING TWICE. I AM USING
MIKEYTERM 4.3 ON A COCO 3 (512K). ALL I AM GETTING AFTER A SUCCESSFUL DOWNLOAD
IS GARBAGE. THERE ARE NO LINE NUMBERS IN THE PROGRAM AND THERE ARE A LOT OF
GRAPHICS CHARACTERS IM
BEDDED THAT DON’T BELONG. I DON’T KNOW WHAT IS WRONG. I USUALLY DON’T HAVE THIS
PROBLEM WITH DOWNLOADING PROGRAMS. PLEASE HELP!!!!
THANKYOU. FREDBERG.

JIM, I AM VERY HAPPY ABOUT THIS. I REALLY LIKE TO HAVE YOU AND MARTY AS PEOPLE
TO WHOM
I MAY WRITE TO FOR ADVICE AND FOR FRIENDSHIP. MY HIGHLIGHT WAS AT THE RAINBOW
FEST WAS TO MEET YOU COCO GREATS. IT IS NICE TO TALK TO YOU EACH YEAR.

Actually, Erol . . .

. . . nothing “happened” to the July Rainbow. I have one right here beside
me.
You
should get yours any day.

Sorry you don’t already have it, but it is somewhere in the mail.

— Jim Reed

THE PROGRAM WAS FROM MAY 87; HOWEVE DON’T THINK IT HAS ANYTHNYTHING TO DO WITH
THE PROGRAM.
I AM NEW TO THE SYSTEM. I THINK I NEED TO LEAROGRAMS DOWNLOADED FROM DELP# THE
PROGRAM IS LISTED ON IS PAGE # 63, “ARCHIE” & “ARC”.
ANY HELP IN EXPLAINING HOW TO D SAVE AND RUR RUN PROGRAMS DOWNLOADEDOULD
HELP.

—–THANKS
———PLANE

You do not have to make a timing notch tool. I use a paper punch. The
timing hole should be in a corresponding spot on the other side of the disk.
You will have to have two holes on each side of the disk. One on the front and
one on the back for bo
th. You will also need to notch the disk in the corresponding spot on the
other end of the disk. I do this all the time with no problems. Good luck.
Dave

DON, WHERE DOES ONE BUY THE KITS TO COVERT THOSE DISKS –
IVE SEEN THOS THAT THEY SELL TO MAKE A “PERFECT” SQUARE NOTCH — WHAT A JOKE!!
BUT NEVER ANYTHING LIKE WHAT YOU DESCRIBE

DAVE // COCOBOSS

I agree… if the disk isn’t in the drive, it’s inside the Tyvek sleeve
inside a closed diskette case!

Don

FROM RICHROY
I WOULD LIKE TO USE SAME
METHOD AS USED BY RAINBOW.
DO THEY BUY FLIPPYS OR
MAKE FLIPPYS?
THANKS AGAIN,
RICHROY

The RS232 pack contains its own terminal program, but it is virtually
useless for downloading from anything except another CoCo, and it doesn’t
even do that very well.

However, you can use your RS232 pack and tape system with Mikeyterm,
which is a very respectable terminal program that will make full use
of your pack. The quickest way for you to get Mikeyterm is to send $10 to:

Mike Ward
1807 Cortez
Coral Gables, FL 33134

and specify that you need the *tape* version.

I should also mention that many of the programs in the Rainbow On Tape
database are stored as “compressed” BASIC files. (Tokenized.) The
tape version of Mikeyterm will not save compressed BASIC programs to tape, so
you might keep that in mind also.

Don

MARTY,
I WAS GOING TO RENEW MY R.B. SUBSCRIPTION ON-LINE WHEN I WAS PRESNETED WITH THE
REQUIREMENT TOHAVE MAY SUBSCRIPTION LABEL AVAILABLE. SINCE THE MAGAZINE HAS
GONE TO THE WRAPPER (A CHANGE I STRONGLY SUPPORT), THE SUBSCRIPTION INFO HAS
NECESSARILY GONE T
O THE OUTSIDE OF THE WRAPPER. GUESS WHAT THE FIRST PIECE OF “TRASH” MY BETTER
HALF THROWS AWAY?!? IS IT POSSIBLE TO ADD SOMEWHERE WITHIN THE SIG A LISTING
OF SUBSCRIPTION EXPIRATION DATES/CODES THAT CAN BE ACCESSED BY THE INDIVIDUAL?
OR DOES THIS
ALREADY EXIST AND I DON’T KNW WHERE TO FIND IT?
THIS BIT (NO PUN INTENDED ) OF INFO WOULD HELP THOSE OF US WITH SHORT
MEMMORIES AND FASTIDIOUS WIVES.
THANKS —> FRED

Rich,
I really hate to say this, but I think you should pretty much give that
up. Tape downloading is a pain (Part of the problem, is that all of the
ML files, compressed BASIC, etc. – are all in DISK FILE FORMAT – which
means that the terminal program has to RECODE THE ENTIRE FILE before it can
save it to tape – all VERY messy)…
Keep in mind that Tape TeleTerm wasn’t designed for loading files in from
tape, and then resaving them as a different type – this can cause nasty
problems, as it has to CONVERT the files into a totally different format,
and I have no idea of the havoc it could cause.
– Greg

All programs from SRB Software (at Radio Shack Stores) works fine on the Color
Computer 3. Ghana Bwana does need a small, one time patch to get it to boot.

Steve Bjork

Why would he want to when you can do a CoCo Max type program under Basic09 on
the color computer 3? Most of Tim’s code for Coco Max is already part of the
screen drivers under OS-9 Level two. Anyone who knows how a Graphics program
works can write one under Basic09!

Steve Bjork

It is nearly certain that Tim has left the CoCo world entirely
for the more impressive capabilities of the Amiga.
If the Amiga dies, he will probably go to the Atari ST,
if rumors are to be belived.

He seems to have, in any case, gone over to the 16 bit 68000 series.

—marty

I WASN’T THINKING OF ME SO MUCH AS ANY NEWCOMERS — THEY MIGHT BE MORE WILLING
TO SHELL OUT $20 FOR A HARDWARE TUTORIAL BOOK THAN TO BY BACK ISSUES COVERING
SIMILAR MATERIAL IN A SPORADIC WAY. PARDON THE EXAMPLE, BUT I BELIEVE
APPLE SELLS (FOR $80) A BOOK ALL ABOUT THE MAC, DESIGNED AS A REFERENCE FOR
DEVELPERS. A PACKAGE FOR THE COCO — FOR THE GENERAL PUBLIC — WOULD HELP
“CATALYZE” THE COMMUNITY. ANYWAY, JUST AN IDEA…

I HOPE I’M NOT OVRKILLING ON SUGGESTIONS. HOW ABOUT A BOOK FOR THE BOOKSHELF OF
ALL OF THE HARDWARE COLUMNS? ALTERNATIVELY, HOW ABOUT TONY DI AND MARTY PUTTING
TOGETHER SOME ESSAYS, SOME BEGINNER, SOME INTERMEDIATE, ON COCO HARDWARE? LIKE
AN
“OFFICIAL RAINBOW COCO ANATOMY LESSON”? BYE.

Normally I would have said to do a “dat dat” from the CoCo Sig prompt, then
do a “read remote” to skip right to remote 2. But I looked, it doesn’t seem
to be there. Somebody cleaned up the database by removing it, perhaps? Or
perhaps it never was there? I’m sure someone else will provide more help, but
in the meantime it looks like you can stop looking… Take heart, the system
takes a while to get used to– but I think it’s worth the effort…!

Well…
the binary executeable version of the program to format
single sided MS DOS disks on the CoCo is in the group
with the CO2MS article. Note you are only charged ONE
$3.50 surcharge for downloading the ENTIRE group.
But you must do all your downloading of that group
in that one session!
The SOURCE code for the formatter is in the Source Code
for 6809 assembers section… and is available to hackers
free of any surcharge.

—marty

For example, …

To find my MS
2COCO package, go to the Rainbow on tape data base,
and type READ 6/86
185

That will look for the program that is in the June 1986 Rainbow
whose start of the article is page 185.

Similarly you can look up CO2MS in your July rainbow and then,
when you have its page number, find it using READ 7/86 nnn.

Hope THAT helps!

—marty

I have little doubt the new CoCo is on the way, and NO doubt
that production of the old CoCo has ceased and all stocks
of it are being sold out. As for the manager’s guess about the
specs on the new machine…

I would be suprised if it had a parallel port,
tho one could be cheaply provided (two extra 50 cent chips and
an edge card connector on the mother PC board) if tandy had
wanted to add one. As for the 128K RAM figure, that sounds
about right, in that it would mean two rows of 64K by 1 DRAMs,
which could later be replaced by two rows of 256K by 1 DRAMs,
to yield a total memory of 512K, the figure we have been hearing
most often these days.

I fully agree the new machine will feature 80 column text support
of some kind as part of teh base unit.

—marty

Frankly, I agree with you that the syste software here is
primative at best. I have to contend with it provisions
for sysop functions, and be assurred they are even MORE user
hostile than the ones you see! On the other hand, the system
here is, especially in the data base, a tad BETTER organized
than that on other competing services. Our conference software
is superior to that of other competing national services too.
Our EMAIL is considerably more powerful and flexible than that
of Compuserve, tho unfortunately its user interface is more
cryptic and poorly thought out.

All in all, it has long been my position that the system
software on all national, general public info systems
is mediocre at best… and has a LONG way to go.
Changes are being made very gradually. New Delphi system
software may soon be introduced.

—marty Data Base Manager of CoCo SIG

Well, not too many months ago I too was in the position of having
been a longtime CIS user and a newcomer to Delphi. Some things
here did strike me as not entirely
user-friendly (and some still do). The databases, however, are actually, I
think, one area
in which Delphi excels. I particularly like having related files grouped
together,
and allowing a more-detailed description of the group as a whole.
Certainly there is room for improvement….you obviously missed
the ability to search for a particular filename WITHIN a group.
That would certainly be a nice feature to have. But things are (slowly) getting
better here.

I just checked, and sure enough, MS2COCO **is** now available
in the Rainbow on Tape section of the data base. Just type
(at the Coco SIG prompt) DATA, then hit enter, then type RAIN,
and hit enter again. They type DIR. MS2COCO will appear among the first
20 or so files displayed in the collection of stuff from the JUNE
rainbow. Note that downloading it will incurr a $3.50 surcharge,
as is the case with ALL Rainbow On Tape groups.
This $3.50 is in addition to what ever you spend on connect
time for the down load.

—marty

The download module in CCE Version 3.0 is not so bug-ridden
that it should present a Catch-22
problem to anyone wanting to use it to download my patches.

Help. I can’t figure out how to download anything fPlease give me directions. I
have VIP terminal, and Colorcom/e 2.0. Thank you.

RAINBOWMAG is responsible or uplaoding te Rainbow on Tape stuff. He (Cray) may
beP{
just a little behind right now in that job…
tho the probem in question should be here soon.

—marty

Unfortunately, we are a little behind in getting the back issues into the
databases. We are trying and they will be there soon!

Cray Augsburg – RAINBOWMAG

Cray, many thanks for enabling the May Rainbow on tape. Two questions
1). Where is Banner and 2). where is the May Kissable os-9. I am
particularly interested in the Malaney ‘printform’ prog in ‘C
CUL….Ric

I don’t understand, it is now April 30, 1986. When is soon.
(grin grin chuckel chuckle etc…) Ric

Every month I use my TPTDISK to transfer
the whole tape to disk. then i browse
through it using disk. Count me in.
RONBY

ALL RIGHT ! , WHAT HAPPENED !
A WHILE BACK KITSZ STARTED A SERIES ON PRINTER BUFFER THEN NOTHING
NOT EVEN AN END TO THAT ONE ,
HAS MY MAILMAN BEEN RIPPING OFF PAGES OFF MY RAINBOW OR WHAT ?

Cray, please take a look at Dan Eckart’s msg 6908 regarding a problem with Coco
Zone.

I will get to it ASAP, Phil.

Cray Augsburg – RAINBOWMAG

HEY PHIL, WHERE DO YOU LIVE EXACTLY, WE LIVE IN ROCHESTER HILLS.

Cray ole buddy… do me a favor and please take a look at msg #
6480
from Crossman regarding a request for a particular Rainbow on Tape
from June of 1984. OK? Thanks!

Phil,

It is our desire to have all rainbow on tape programs available here.
Cray Ausburg (RAINBOWMAG) is responsible for that massive and
ongoing task. I will call his attention to your request.
Thanks for pointing out we apparantly don’t have it up yet
(I assume you checked for that carefully?).

—marty

As far as I know, it should continue to perform perfectly indefinitly..
or at least its performance will NOT be affected negatively by the 7406′s.
Indeed, they might just be MORE resistant to blowing if and when
you wriggle your controller and subject them to the same insult
taht you obviously subjected their late predecssors, the two
7416′s, to.

—marty

Thanks for the message…that is exactly what I ended up doing
and it works just fine. It isn’t the nicest looking thing sticking out
of the controller, but it works…and it’s inexpensive.
Th
anks again.
-Tim-

Your suggestion that te MONTH that teh program appearred
(and te year also) should be used a skey words is
an OUTSTANDING one. IF I had been the data base
manager when those file were put there I would have
seen to it that something like that were done.
We may yet try to go back and fix it,…
but it is NOT fun to separately go thru and edit teh key words for
a hundred or more files!!!

But thank you VERY much for your excellent suggestion!

—Marty

When in the Rainbow on tape area, type DIR to see all the entries available.
To download a particular entry, just type READ and then a space and then the
name of the particular program you want (you’ll note its name when you
saw it in te Directory LIsting you caused displayed with te
DIR command). You need only type the first three or four letters of teh name of
tthe program you want in most cases, tho it is safest to type in
the full name.
You will then see a description of teh file you have selected.

Also, check your Delphi manual forfurther detils.

OK…YOU WILL SEE IT OUTLINED
IN THE MAY ISSUE AND IT IS ALSO
POSTED IN A DIFFERENT MESSAGE
IN THIS FORUM BUT HERE IT IS
AGAIN:

TO FIND A SPECIFIC FILE IN THE
RAINBOW ON TAPE DATABASE, YOU
CAN DO A DIR (THE LONG WAY) OR
YOU CAN OPEN YOUR MAGAZINE AND
FIND THE APPROPRIATE ARTICLE.
ONCE IN THE MAGAZINE WRITE DOWN
THE DATE OF THE ISSUE AND THEN
THE EXACT PAGE NUMBER OF THE
ACTUAL LISTING OF THE PROGRAM.
THEN GO INTO THE DATABASE AND
TYPE:

READ MM/YY XXX

WHERE MM=MONTH, YY=YEAR AND
XXX=PAGE NUMBER.

THIS WILL TAKE YOU STRAIGHT TO
THE PROGRAM YOU WANT. SOME
HINTS ABOUT USING THIS METHOD:

1) IF THERE IS MORE THAN ONE
LISTING IN A GIVEN ARTICLE,
THEN XXX = PAGE NUMBER OF THE
FIRST LISTING.

2) IF THE MONTH HAS ONLY ONE
DIGIT IN IT (SUCH AS 1 FOR
JANUARY) THEN ** DO NOT ** USE
A LEADING ZERO OR SPACE. YOU DO
NEED TO INCLUDE THE ORIGINAL
SPACE BETWEEN THE READ COMMAND
AND THE START OF THE DATE.

3) THE YEAR IS EXPECTED IN THE
TWO-DIGIT FORMAT SUCH AS
1986=86.

4) IF THE PAGE NUMBER HAS ONLY
TWO DIGITS INSTEAD OF THREE,
THEN ** DO ** USE A LEADING
SPACE IN ADDITION TO THE
REQUIRED SPACE BETWEEN THE DATE
AND THE PAGE NUMBER.

AN EXAMPLE SHOULD HELP:

SUPPOSE YOU WANTED TO FIND THE
BUBBLE WARS PROGRAM IN THE
FEBRUARY ISSUE. YOU WOULD TYPE

READ 2/86 60

THAT’S IT! NOTICE THE TWO
SPACES BETWEEN THE DATE AND THE
PAGE NUMBER. THIS IS DUE TO
THE RULE NUMBER 4 ABOVE.

HOPE THIS HELPS!!

CRAY AUGSBURG – RAINBOWMAG

Easy mistake to make; here’s the fix:

type the following line including all spaces but without the quotation marks

“READ 12/85 118″

and that should do the trick. Reply and I’ll direct you to an explanation.

Cray Augsburg – RAINBOWMAG

Well, you can go the RAINBOW ON TAPE topic area of the database and download
the programs there if you wish. All Rainbow on Tape files are uploaded in
tokenized (comressed) format. Therefore, you will need a terminal program
with XMODEM capability to download the programs. Once there, just “read” the
file you wish to download and at the “ACTION” prompt just type “xm” for
XMODEM download. Hope this helps ya out!!

Cray Augsburg – RAINBOWMAG

John;
Is there any place on the SIG where users can post errors found
in RAINBOW programs? For example, I downloaded HORSE (November
’85 issue) which, by the way, is one of the better COCO games I
have seen, but it has two errors which prevent the program from
operating properly. I can’t fault the person who typed it
because it is printed incorrectly in the magazine (doesn’t
anybody try them out after typing?). The errors are: in line
1040 SC(1) should equal 0, and in line 1280 PK=253, not 353.
It took me a while to find these errors and I wonder how many
others gave up in frustration. I have not seen them published
in the “Corrections” in the RAINBOW either. Point is, how
about place in the data library just for corrections to
programs?

Dick Pratt

ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS ENTER THE DATE AND STARTING PAGE NUMBER
OF THE ACTUAL LISTING IN THE
MAGAZINE (NOT THE STARTING PAGE
NUMBER OF THE ARTICLE ITSELF,
THOUGH). ENTER IT IN THE
FOLLOWING FORMAT:

READ MM/YY XXX

WHERE, IF THE MONTH ONLY HAS
ONE DIGIT, YOU DON’T ENTER A
LEADING ZERO. XXX = PAGE # OF
LISTING >>> IF THE PAGE NUMBER
ONLY HAS TWO DIGITS THEN DO NOT
ENTER A LEADING ZERO BUT USE A
INSTEAD.

THIS SHOULD TAKE YOU STRAIGHT
TO ANY PROGRAM IN THE R.O.T.
DATABASE.

CRAY AUGSBURG – RAINBOWMAG

Not so long ago, it was very unusual to come across a CoCo owner who did
not also have a tape recorder, but I see more and more of you now who do not
even have a tape recorder at all.
We have no immediate plans to put Rainbow On Tape on disk, but it is something
we should be considering.
— Your input may help convince us of its need
— Jim Reed

WHEN DOWNLOADING FROM THIS SIG, BE VERY CAREFUL TO TYPE IN THE CORRECT NUMBER OF
SPACES BETWEEN THE DATE AND THE PAGE NUMBER.
FAILURE TO DO SO WILL RESULT IN READING THE WRONG FILE AND COST YOU MONEY IN
ADDED CONNECT TIME . TAKE YOUR TIME AND DO IT RIGHT.

DEAR RAINBOW:
WHEN DO YOU PLAN TO UPDATE
THE RAINBOW ON TAPE DATABASE??
I HAVE THE DECEMBER ISSUE AND
I CAN’T GET THE NOVEMBER PGMS.
IF IT IS GOING TO TAKE THIS
LONG TO GET THE PROGRAMS UP
THERE PLEASE MAKE A SECTION WHERE
I CAN ORDER A WHOLE RAINBOW ON
TAPE!!!
THEN I CAN ONLY BUY THE MONTHS
I FIND THE MOST PROGRAMS I LIKE
AND FOR MONTHS THAT OLNY HAVE
2 OR 3 INTERESTING PROGRAMS I
CAN D/L THEM WHENEVER THEY GET
ON THE DATA BASE.

–BABA

HELLO, I’D LIKE TO RECOMEND THE HJL-57. I’TS A GREAT
KEYBOARD WITH FUNCTION KEYS AND GREAT RESPONCE. JUST DROPS IN AND PLUGS IN TO
THE OLD KEYBOARD CONECTOR. CALL THEM GIVE THEM THE DATE YOU PURCHASED IT AND
THEY WILL SEND YOU THE RIGHT ONE. GOOD LUCK. ==> MIKE WIGGINS

I am still looking for someone to come up with a
printer routine for the program CO-CO CAD found
in the Oct. issue of Rainbow Mag. written for
the Radio Shack DMP (105) printers. Any Help??
GMCC

A flat rate surcharge of $3.50 is added to your connect time charges for
downloading a single program from Rainbow On Tape collection.
Yes, a bit expensive, but I think of it much as Express Mail. That is, a
letter costs only 22 cents to mail, unless you want it there overnight, in which
case it is $10+ You can get the entire month’s Rainbow On Ta
pe for $10 (or less if subscribing) but if you want one in a matter of minutes,
then $3.50 for right-now delivery seems to be a bargain.
–Jim Reed