COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS

LOOKING FOR A DUTCH TREAT

Dear Paul
I’m a new CRASH subscriber, and my first subscription issue featured your new column about Micronetting. I still have my 48K Spectrum, but I also have a 128K machine.

Encouraged by a colleague, I purchased a VTX 5000 for 95 guilders (less than £30) including user-to-user software, only to find that my 128K Spectrum would not initialise as they are not compatible. I got my money back without any trouble and set about finding a modem that would work. I was able to find a shop that sold a modem that plugs into the built-in RS232 socket on the Spectrum and Prestel-type software to go with it.

It’s a Miracle systems autodial modem with 1200/75 and 1200/1200 options. It can also be plugged into a QL with which it does autodial. It should be possible to autodial by toggling DTR at 10Hz to simulate the pulses of a telephone dialling, but the software does not provide for this facility.

Do you have a routine for doing this, and could you give more information about the Spectre Comms ROM for the VTX? What does it do that the VTX ROM doesn’t?

As it happens I wrote to Ceefax’s NEXT department last week asking for tips on making my modem autodial, but I don’t know whether they’ll be able to publish a solution.

I subscribe to Viditel, the Dutch equivalent of Prestel, and regularly log-in to a number of other data banks which work with the Prestel protocol. As yet I have not been able to communicate user-to-user for lack of a suitable program.

I am reluctant to go out and buy one at my local shop (Spectrum software stockists are few and far between over here) as the programs are too expensive to experiment with. My Prestel software cost me £20! And I’m sure there must be better programs available with off-line editing of pages etc. Can you publish a list of programs, facilities, prices and suppliers?

One interesting data bank is run by a schoolboy in Rotterdam, who turned his VTX 5000 into an autoanswer modem and runs the bank on a microdnve cartridge! The online times are rather erratic but are pubhshed in another databank in Rotterdam.
Philip Green

TELEX TALK

Dear Paul

Can I use telex numbers on a VTX 5000 modem or do I need add-ons, where can I get them from and how much will they cost me?

And can you please give me a few addresses so I can get more information about modems, telexes and networks. Also, is there a mail-order company I can get them from?

It would be nice to know a few things about programming techniques, but all the manuals and books I’ve seen are all far too technical for me. They just go on about all these weird things and ask you to do exercises that they don’t tell you how to do or how it works and I’m usually completely lost after ten or 15 pages.

Is there a clear programming guide you know of that even a complete moron (me?) could follow easily?
Tony Redmond