Novelty Software to Download

Novelty programs

Allegro	Tune
Big Message	Displays a message in a large font
Biorhythms
Electronic Pianola	Turn your computer into a keyboard!
Fortune Cookie	Wise words from the Far East!
Fractal Pack	Fractal patterns
Lift Simulator	A lift simulation with 12 floors
Magic 8 Ball
Mystify	Similar to the Windows screen-saver
Pattern Generator	More patterns!
Quiz Master	Test your knowledge of a subject
Spring Piano	Turns the NC keyboard into a simple piano keyboard
Squares	A pattern

Programs marked 'From ANUW' are taken from Mark Ray's Amstrad Notepad Users Web.

ALLEGRO.TXT ... 3.4kb

This plays Allegro from Sonata No. 3 by Antonio Vivaldi.
You could change the data lines to play any tune that you want -- the first number is the note, the second the length.

Big Message

Written by: Mark Ray

For: NC100 NC200

BIGMESS1.TXT ... NC100 Version ... 1kb
BIGMESS2.TXT ... NC200 Version ... 1kb

This program asks for a message to be typed in and then displays it in large block writing.

BIORHY1.TXT ... NC100 Version ... 4kb
BIORHY2.TXT ... NC200 Version ... 4kb

Enter your birth date to see a prediction for your physical, emotional and intellectual constitution for today!

Electronic Pianola

Written by: Mark Ray

For: NC100 NC200

PIANOLA.TXT ... 1kb

Allows a tune to be played from a series of note stored in a WP file.

Mark Ray's Note: I can't quite remember the format for the music documents. I think the scale is CDEFGABcdefgabT, and you prefix the letter with a @ for a flat and a # for a sharp. The first line of the document should contain the length of each character in 100ths of a second (e.g. 50 for each character to last a half-second).

COOKIE1.TXT ... 8kb
COOKIE2.TXT ... 8kb

Run this program for some wise words of guidance!

FRACPACK.TXT ... Program ... 4kb
FRACPACK.PDF ... Read-Me file ... 41kb

I decided to make a fractal set because, well, they look good, darn it!  I am looking around for some fractal algorithms to convert to an NC version.  I think they are just great to look at after working hard all day.  I tried to make the program as graphically pleasing as possible on a small screen.  I think it's pretty good.

I am not an assembler programmer so my programs are very basic, but they work!  Please give feedback on how I could improve the code, or maybe even how to use Machine Language to plot the fractals so it's even faster and you could thus do a longer loop with more detail in the picture.

The following screenshots come from Russell Marks' NC100 emulator for MS-DOS running ZCN 1.3.  ZCN would be the better way to view them as it can get more use out of the CPU and thus creates the fractals faster than under the NC's OS.

LIFT.TXT ... 1.8kb

Simple lift simulator with 12 floors.

MAG8BALL.ZIP ... 3kb

This is a 100% ASM program for the NC100 Notepad Computer.  It is a port from the Magic 8 Ball program by John Wyrwas for the ion shell on the ti83/83+ graphing calculators.

How to Run

Copy the 8BALL.BIN file from the zip file to your Notepad.  Go into BBC BASIC and type the following:

*LOAD 8BALL.BIN 6000
CALL &6000

Ask the 8 ball a question and then shake it.

At the moment keys <STOP>, <FUNCTION>, <ARROW KEYS> quit, alphanumeric keys and enter shake the ball.

MYSTIFY2.TXT ... 1.1kb

This simple pattern is similar to the 'Mystify' screensaver in Windows.

PATGEN.TXT ... 2.3kb

Produces geometric patterns, polygon patterns and Lissajous figures.

Visit Robin's homepage at www.robinnixon.com

Quiz Master

Written by: Mark Ray

For: NC100 NC200

QUIZ.TXT ... 2kb

Write a series of questions and answers in a WP document and then test your memory of the correct answers using this program.

Mark Ray's Note: Once again, I can't quite remember the document format. I think it's:

Quiz Title
Question 1
Correct answer
Wrong answer
Wrong answer
Question 2, etc, etc.

PATTERN1.TXT ... NC100 version ... 839 bytes
PATTERN2.TXT ... NC200 version ... 839 bytes

This small program produces a pretty pattern of squares in the centre of the screen.

SPRPIANO.ZIP ... 3kb

This is a little music program written completely in assembler. The program should be self-explaining. Just play a melody with the keys shown on the screen and change octave for the lower manual with the cursor keys, for the upper manual with the two delete keys. The program uses both sound channels of the NC and produces very strange sounds, if you press two keys at once. If you don't want that behavior, switch to monophonic mode by pressing the MENU key.

The program is written for the NC100 but does also run on the NC200 with some limitations: It uses only half of the screen and the upper key row doesn't work, because the NC200 uses a different keyboard matrix.

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