4 Database Publication
Volume 1
Number 2
July 1988
£1.95
Five super samplers
are put to the test
Bubble Bobbler's
aid, Firepower map
A guide to the
ultimate in
animation
• Zork
• Exodus
• Sentinel
• Footman
A new generation in Amiga
programming takes off . . .
R
• Barbarian
• Ferrari FI
• Star Fleet 1
The trilogy
Interactive fiction
from I mml A
T hree of Level 9's most acclaimed adven-
tures - Lords of Time, Red Moon and The
Price of Magik - come together in one
package. Each has been enhanced and enlarged
with more text than ever before - 60,000 mind-
expanding words creating magik and mystery
round every corner. There's a powerful new
parser, and most disc versions include stunning
digitised pictures that help to dramatically
heighten the atmosphere.
Screen shots from
Atari ST version
What the press have said:
LORDS OF TIME: "Destined to become a classic" —
Computing with the Amstrad.
RED MOON: Best Graphical Adventure or Best
Adventure of the Year — Zzap 64, Crash, Amtix, C&VG,
CCI and Amstrad Computer User.
THE PRICE OF MAGIK: " Another superb adventure . . .
their best yet" — Commodore User. Also a Crash
Smash.
Spectrum (cassette) Plus 3 (disc)
Commodore 64 (cassette or disc)
Amstrad CPC (cassette or disc)
Atari XL/XE (cassette Or disc)
Amstrad PCW (disc)
Apple II (disc) __ ^
Atari ST
Commodore Amiga
Macintosh
Amstrad PC, IBM PC
and compatibles
SOFTWARE
Europa House, Adlington Park,
Adlington, Macclesfield SK10 4NP,
ENQUIRIES: 0626 878888 ORDER HOTLINE: 0625 879920
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AT LEAST 30% OFF ALL 16 BIT SOFTWARE
30% OFF ALL CABLES AND ACCESSORIES
SPECIAL!!!
Premium Quality Mouse Mat Now only £3.49
HARDWARE
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AT LEAST 10% OFF ALL HARDWARE
Amiga A500 with Software
£429.99*
Citizen 120D NLQ Printer with parallel l/F
£149.99
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only £139.99
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NEC 1 Mb Amiga Disc Drive ............. .
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All prices include VAT
NEW
ELEPHONE:
NUMBER.
Z CO IU < I- < CQ _l LD Q. CC — O HI (0
Mmging kjiilar
Dtrek Mnakin
AMIGA SCENE
Group Editor
Alan NlcLathldii
Editor
Sifnnn km. km an
fWjjrfjoir Editor
Peter Glover
Aft Editors
Mark \nhn
Doug Sleele
Mtoria/ Assistant:
Elaine ftiwlins
Sews Editor
Mike Cowley
Adrertisemi'nt i Manager
(olio SoEmden
Adxertisini! Saks
Wendy tjoibourne
bfilncWk
(1277 234451
Admiriwlralimi:
o^ras
AHirEilltfnft
m* RTRBBfi
SufcstriplMins
Otli BTMM4U
Telecom (fold:
nmm]
Teles:
2H58TI MOSlRfTr
Quoting frf.TLMAGm
bU'Mm
Published by:
Dal^base Publiralaons Lid.
tumpa House. Adlinymo Park.
Adlimdun. Ma^rlesfiirfd SKlO 4VP.
ISSN <«>S2-;(EM4
Amiga (juipuimu wKk^mes articles Tot ptibli-
C jrlkin Mjii'ririi '.hau^d be lypeH nr iiimpuler-
primed tml pnlmblydaubl^spae^. Pribram tai-
stims [.hnuld bf jcj umpariind to di^ . Fkw eti: hise-
d -damped wir-iddnssrtl envelope, fllhafYrhe ihr
murn « nidleridl i>JHwri be «uirdi4rtd Cemlri-
Iwliulh m finli to- diXEpted for pflllkaliiin b 1 .
fubliiiaHium Ud ™ dr. all-Tfohls baH>
l 1981 OaubMPvblirJiiuiH Lid So m»flwvil mm
to itpnrfunpJ in whulr OT in pan w ilKnul written
pwmiswmn. While tier', rtf*? h lakm. Lto pub-
liduers umnrf be helrl leyllv napOisfiibte fur an\
prrnrs in driller litfw nr ddierli^rttfffK.
1 mr*d I'jim^iur.'ii! di? jn^fppfidtwf ptibk#\m
dnd E.iirrr.'iiiHf<ife- Rusmws \tmh\m H U if
."j.i| fo r dn i iW Jhf dil’Mi'o :ji jfri .5 ism \w
lur jnr nfJfrs ^Jfflknw FipmsH*.
Vns Iradi distritofrio-n hiraprBH Sd : eh dnd Uis-
IsiimSiun Lint'rtpd. I nit 1. Rnrijt\s Ki^d IvyMsh
U w Hdstini’s. tidsl SuikV TN|a 4\R. Tel: IH24
tmn
7 LATEST
NEWS
An update on Ihe new Amiga prices.
Plus hoi gossip from America, Canada
and Germany as the Amiga shows ii
can offer the world a challenge.
ADVENTURES
ANIMATION
TECHNICAL
THROUGH THE
PORTAL
Dave Eriksson looks at l wo classic
games which have proved thaf even
the ravages of lime cannot harm a
wall written computer fantasy.
SCULPT AND
ANIMATE 3D
A pair of programs which work
together to make the Amiga shine
brighter lhan any other computer
but are extremely easy to use.
THE PLAIN MAN’S
GUIDE TO CU
Phil South continues his explanation
of whal happens when you click on
the CLI icon and face AmigaDos
naked. This month ASSIGN.
DTP
GRAPHICS
§1 GOLD DISK
A Vr PACESETTER
Wilh a high resolution screen and a
fasl processor the Amiga is a great
machine for desktop publishing, but
it needs good software to do it.
F/A-18 Interceptor IS
Trip the Light fantastic wilh a great
new artists' package from Activision.
Something which will make MAM
mode far easier lo manage.
V| F.'A-m
JL lb# INTERCEPTOR
Electronic Arts' talest game release is
certainly its greatest. A military flight
simulator which breaks new
and is set to be a winner.
SIMULATION
PHOTON
PAINT
I AMIGA COMPUTING !uiy I HUH
PRINTERS
SYMPOSIUM
rs
tion
fln
> 19
STAR LC-lfl Vs
OKI MATE 20
When one printer costs half as much
m Lis nearest rival it looks like a
bargain but in (he printer stakes you
may often find less means more.
I DEVELOPERS
tl -A. FACE TO FACE
To eavesdrop on the Washington
conference Dave Parkinson baflles
Kennedy airport and wins, but loses
out to A u toh no | and a Copper.
HOUSE CALL
LANGUAGE
ELECTRONIC
ARTS
Electronic Arts has been an Amiga
fan since well before Commodore
launched the machine, John Minson
finds out more about the company.
Sn™
tf Vr basic
When the original authors of Basic get
together again to do things properly
they have the benefit uf hindsight -
and it really shows in the end result.
AWARDS
This month sees the launch of the Amigo
Computing Awards. Those are given to
culsta riding products reviewed in uur pages. In
Olympic tradition there are three typos; Gold.
Silver and! Bronze,
t he Silver award is given tn a product which
olfers outstanding value ior money. A Hronze
award goes to one which is particularly well
made nr a program which shines.
The supreme Gold award can only be won by
a product which is both exceptionally good
value and well made.
Very few products will win an award - fewer
.still an Amiga f’ompuling Gold. Don't expect a
Gold winner every month - they will be saved
for the cream of the Amiga crop.
SOUND
SAMPLE
BATTLE
Five of the lop Amiga sound samplers
are compared and put to I he lest for
three major criteria; Sound quality,
ease of use and value for money,
SOFTWARE
AMIGA
ARCADE
I hc joystick hotshots rate the ne ivies
in the shops, killing Barbarians and
avoiding the evil Sentinel; racing
Formula 1 and joining Star Fleet.
HINTS
GAME
KILLER
Join Max "The Hacks" Tennant as he
and his friends explain how fo win at
Bubble Bobble and find your way
round Ad [vision's FirePower,
ADVICE
QUESTIONS AND
ANSWERS
Whatever your problem we have a
panel of Amiga experts who are here
to help you solve it Ask and well do
our best to put you on the right track.
letters
FROM OUR
POSTBAG
Our readers write and we reply:
Views on piracy and first comments
on the first issue of Amiga Computing.
Plus prizes for your best letters.
END PIECE
66
GURU'S
HAUNT
We’ve all seen the Guru meditation
message, But who is the Guru and
why is he meditating? To find the
facts we delve back into historv.
Sample battle Page 39
ELECTRONIC ARTS
lectranic Arts
July imn AMIGA COMPUTING 5
n_:
Link your Amiga to the outside world with,
miaou
Electronic mail — The cheapest
and fastest form of
communication possible. It costs
the same to send a message to
one mailbox as to 500!
Telex - up with 96,000 telex
subscribers in the UK and 1.5
million worldwide. You can even
send and receive telexes after
office hours or while travelling.
Telemessages - Type in your
message before 8pm and
delivery is guaranteed by first
post the next day {except Sunday),
anywhere in the UK and USA.
Tele-booking - Reserve train and
theatre tickets, check flight details
worldwide, or order from a vast
range of products - from flowers
to floppy discs.
Advice - on a team of pro-
fessional, legal and financial
advisors as and when you need
them, for both business and
personal problems.
Company Obtain facts about any
British limited company in
seconds, and fully analysed
financial information on over
100,000 companies.
Translation - Access the biggest
and most up-to-date
multi-lingual dictionary
in the world, with
over 380,0.00 words.
News — Use the powerful search
commands to pinpoint vital
business information from the
world's leading news services,
newspapers and periodicals.
Radiopaging - If you also have a
pocket radiopager you'll be
alerted each time an urgent
message arrives in your mailbox.
So you're alwavs in touch.
Gateways - Get through to New
York in just five seconds - or key
into the EEC computer in
Luxembourg, which links you to
600 databases throughout Europe
When you join MicroLink you've got
the whole business world at your
fingertips — 24 hours a day. You'll
have immediate access to ALL the
facilities offered by Telecom Gold
... and a great deal more besides.
□
j
B3
3V
- 6 ::: .*.)
Typical comma packages
Pace.- Nightingale V21, V23
manual-dial modem +
Rubycomm Software + RS232
lead (£193 inc carriage & VAT)
Pace .■ Linnet V21, V23 autodial
modem + Rubycomm soft-
ware + RS232 lead (£252 inc
carriage and VAT)
Miracle: WS4000 V21, V23
autodial modem + Ruby-
comm software + RS232 lead
(£236 inc carriage & VAT)
All you need — apart from your Amiga - is a
modem, which plugs into your telephone wall
socket and suitable communications software.
We have provided a list of possible combin-
ations (left), ranging from the very cheapest to
ones which can automatically dial the Micro-
L in k telephone number and connect you
directly to the service - all you have to do is
type in your personal security password.
Whichever equipment you use, you will be
able to call MicroLink, open your mailbox,
save to disc any messages waiting for you,
and disconnect in as little as two minutes.
More than
90 par cant
of subscribers
can connect to
the Micro Unk
computer at
local call
rate*.
Pl&as* send me full details about MicroLink, and information
sheets about the following hardware and software options
-I pi ease circle I:
ABC
TO AND OUT MORE
Fill in the coupon and
send it to the address
below, Vqu will receive
full details of services
and costs, together with
an application form,
i Complete this and
within days you and
your Amiga will be
able to use all the
services of MicroLink
and Telecom Gold.
Name.
Address-
Postcode-
Send to: MicroLink, Europe House. Adlington Parfc,
Ad ling to rv Macclesfield SK10 4IMP.
■
AMIGA SCENE
PRICE CUT GIVES AMIGA
PARITY WITH ATARI ST
is a
wall
■are.
bin
it to
cra-
yon
0 is
1 be
>o*,
i'GU,
I N ii move thal hits sent
shock waves through the
computer industry. Commo-
dore has slashed £100 from
the price of the entry-level
Amiga.
This puts the Amiga 500 -
at £3 39,99 - into direct
competition with Atari's
5Z0STFM, which was only
recently on the receiving end
of a price hike, thanks to the
world shortage of dram chips.
And with the two
machines competing for
essentially the same market.
Commodore is confident the
Amiga's reputation will be
the deciding factor for end
users.
On the whole, dealers also
welcomed the news, “I was
delighted to see prices go up
on the Atari", said Steve
Kingston of Haiti Computer
Shade "And a reduction on
the Amiga will make even
further inroads for Com-
modore".
Hut he had reservations
about the long term benefits
of price cutting, “I can't see
Atari sitting hack and doing
nothing - there have already
been rumours of reductions.
Hut a Dutch auction between
the two will make things
very lively for the cus-
tomers".
A Northern dealer had no
reservations: 1 It’s just the
shot in the arm the machine
needs - sales so far have
been steady rather than
spectacular", he told Amiga
Computing.
“A new pricing policy,
taken with the rapidly
increasing software base,
makes the Amiga a very
tempting proposition -
especially when it’s meas-
ured against I lie ST".
Surprisingly, some dealers
are not particularly happy
with the idea. John Daniels
of Cut Price Software thinks
the Amiga sdls well enough
on ils own merits anyway
and that a price war is hardly
needed.
"It’s a slow seller at this
time of the year, but it was
ahead of the ST two months
ago and will be again", he
said, "The ST is a glorified
games machine - 1 have one
mygell but l wouldn't dream
of using it for business.
"There should be a price
distinction of al least £100 to
reded the difference in the
ca pa hi lilies of the two
machines".
Y ET another Amiga virus
has been identified - hul
finding it is another matter.
Christened I he HTvte
Bandit, the new virus makes
its presence felt - after an
apparently random length of
time - by freezing the
machine, corrupting the
Workbench and losing any
program running ill the time.
The net result is that users
are returning apparently
damaged machines to dealers,
and swamping them with
calls for reassurance and
Lurking
bandit
S CHOOLS in Canada are
'to benefit from a new
Commodore marketing exer-
cise which offers I hem
Amiga software at a quarter
of list price.
Project Software includes
more than 100 educational
software tilles worth
$ 10 , 000 ,
When a school hoard buys
between 4 and 50 Amiga
\TOW anyone with an
JL\I Amiga can enjoy the
thrill of becoming the man
who broke the bank at
Monte Carlo - and if I be
winnings aren't real money,
neither arc the losses.
Casino Roulette from CDS
Software (0302 21134) is an
invitation to the world of
high society gambling for up
to eight players at a time.
The program auto-
advice. Ail added cum pli-
cation is that the Byte Bandit
is undetectable by existing
Virus Killers, though it can
be tracked down with a
sector editor.
And users are compoun-
ding the problem by unwit-
tingly transferring the
hidden virus to uncorrupted
discs.
Soft sell
to schools
500s it can gel the entire lib-
rary lor $2,500. If an order
tops 1 00 machines then all
the software is free,
Canadian schools already
get one Free Amiga 500 for
every two I hey buy.
Break
the bank
matically calculates whal
each player has won and
how they stand, and gives a
statistical analysis of I lie
previous 370 spins of the
wheel .
It also includes si* est-
ablished roulette betting sys-
tems. Price £1 9,99,
MICROLINK HOLDS THE LINE ON EMAIL PRICE INCREASES
Stion
nt
MC.i
DESPITE this month's
surprise Micronet/Preslel
price increases, MicroLink
says it will not be forced by
BT into raising ils charges in
line.
From July 1 Micron et/
Prestel subscriptions will go
up from £66 to £79,95 a year
for home users, with busi-
ness users paying £119,95,
Peak time charges are to
rise from 6p a minute to 7p,
and free off-peak usage has
been scrapped - users will
now have to pay lp a
minute.
For the first time, full peak
time rates will also apply on
Saturdays between 8am and
6pm,
However, although some
communications industry
observers are predicting that
MicroLink will have to
follow suit, the company
says its annual subscription
will remain at £38 for home
and business users alike and
it will continue to operate
off-peak rates for the whole
of Saturday and Sunday.
Head of MicroLink Derek
Meakin said: “The increases
in the cost of using Prestel
slem from pressures that we
have been successfully
resisting since MicroLink
started over three years ago.
“We have rejected all
arguments to increase the
cost of our services - even
when Telecom Gold upped
its charges substantially last
year we were able to protect
our users from their effect.
“As a result MicroLink has
grown by leaps and bounds
and it is nut surprising (hat
our subscribers form by far
the largest single group on
Telecom Gold 11 .
Prnlests from corning
enthusiasts have been Hood-
ing in to Prestel following
the announcement of the
increases in charges.
Typical Micro net user
Dave Gilbert from Derby-
shire estimates his average
bill would rise by 121) per
cent.
He said: "Oil peak use of
Microuet - 5l)p an hour Brit-
ish Telecom and the new fWlp
an hour Prestel - means that
as my BT bill is presently
£100 from Net use this
would make a new cost of
£22 f). "This I could not afford
- I would have no other
choice hut to say goodbye".
■
futy lfMft AMftiA GOMIWTING 7
Germany’s software
slow to emerge
GREGOR NEUMANN
reporting from West Germany
C OMPARED to England,
the German software
scene is a rather unprofess-
ional organisation. The
industry consists mainly of
small software companies
founded by computer freaks
who try to sell products on
their own.
The whole German soft-
ware market is controlled by
two major distributors,
Ariolasoft and Rush ware,
who handle products for the
big British and American
software houses.
Given the lack of German
software houses, there has
been no strong competition -
no one has been able to
establish a successful label to
become an effective third
force.
The lack of German soft-
ware houses meant a dearth
of German software as local
programmers felt they had
no outlet for their products.
In 1963, for example, there
was only one small indepen-
dent company King soft,
ranged against the giants.
Kingsoft started with
hudget software, and has
since grown slowly to
become the leading label -
but not distributor - in Ger-
many, In fact, today the com-
pany employs many German
software developers.
With the rise of 1G bit com-
puters, notably the Amiga,
two more companies rapidly
established themselves in the
marketplace - Rainbow Arts
(Garrison, Bad Cat, Great
Giana Sisters) and Micro-
Partner (Western Games,
Pink Panther). The two com-
panies are backed by
Rushware and Ariolasoft,
which are now trying to acti-
vate German program devel-
opers.
Rainbow Arts especially is
growing rapidly and has its
sights set on hecoming the
biggest software house in
Germany. To this end the
company has enticed the
best team of programmers -
Magic Bytes - away from
Micro- Partner,
While this was the first
time a label had switched
companies, the move has its
echoes in Andy Braybrook's
decision to work for BT.
Two questions remain,
however: Who owns the pro-
grams still under develop-
ment, and who owns the
name of the label?
Micro-Partner bought the
licence to publish the official
Tom and ferry computer
game with the intention that
Magic Bytes should write the
game. But once Magic Bytes
joined Rainbow, no one
seemed to know who exactly
had the rights.
The confusion was
compounded by the welter
of contracts involving vari-
ous permutations between
Magic Bytes, Micro- Partner,
Ariolasoft, Rushware and
Rainbow Arts, and at one
stage it seemed that only a
court case could unravel the
tangle.
In the event, however, a
solution was worked out.
Both the Magic Bytes label
and the licence for Tom and
Jerry belong to Micro-
Partner - only the pro-
grammers switched to
Rainbow Arts.
We'll have to wait and see
whether Micro-Partner can
find new' developers to finish
Tom and Jerry for the Amiga.
The Microway (Europe} Flicker Fixer
Board far the Commodore Amiga
Easy on
the eyes
B E'ITER known for its PC
numerics and maths co-
processors, MicroWay has
entered the Amiga market
with the Flicker-Fixer board.
Managing director Simon
Shute said; "This is our first
ever product for the Amiga,
but it fits in very well with
our strategy of offering
upgrades that make genu-
inely useful improvements to
system performance,
"Previously, Amiga users
have had to contend with a
high resolution mode that is
so bad it almost hurts to look
at it. Most users have stuck
with the low' or medium
resolution modes.
“The Flicker-Fixer allows
the Amiga to achieve its true
potential for display of
superb graphics - something
it has never done before”. It
costs £345 from MicroWay
(01-541 5466),
Amiga to
the rescue
G rowing success of the
Amiga is the main factor
in Commodore Inter-
national's third quarter prof-
its of S9 million and sales of
$200 million.
In the same period last
year Commodore profit was
only Si million with sales of
Si 70 million.
Chief executive Irving
Gould said: “We're pleased
with the strong performance
of the Amiga product line
which accounted for 45 per
cent of our revenue in the
quarter".
Short of
TT would appear that Com-
modore can produce a prin-
ter - hut not the ribbons to
go w ith it. At least that seems
to be the case with its latest
offering for the Amiga, for
owners of the new' 150GC
machine have been having
great difficulty tracking
down extra cartridges.
In fact the situation proved
too problematic lor Commo-
dore - it recommended cus-
tomers to seek advice from
Meed mo re Distribution
(051 521 2202).
“We have had a number of
inquiries from irate 1500C
owners wanting printer
ribbons", said Meed mo re's
manager Geoff Hall. "After a
great deal of searching we
managed to secure supplies
from a European dealer.
"One of the reasons for the
delay in being able to fulfil
orders was that it was
extremely difficult 1o identify
the ribbon type”, he added,
"However, now that we
have supplies the only other
hurdle to overcome is the
price. At £24.97 each it may
seem a little high but we are
trying to have them manu-
factured on our behalf,
which should reduce the cost
considerably".
S AMIGA COMPUTING July IQftB
p
■AMIGA SCENE!
Activision
becomes
Mediagenic
A ctivision, one of the
best established Amiga
software houses, has
changed its name to
Mcdiagenic. The Activision
name will remain, as the
games label, with the re-
in trod net ion of the logo
which graced the company’s
early VCS cartridges.
New titles include
Afterburner, which is being
forecast as number 1 for next
Christmas, Time Scanner - a
pinball game, R-type - the
latest scrolling shoot-em-up
and a number of other
arcade conversions,
Mediagenic will explore
different markets - and not
necessarily computer based
ones - with an emphasis on
presentation tools and inter-
active video.
Teletext
for Amiga
A N international version
of Microtext's Teletext
Adapter is now available lor
the Amiga, The modified
product copes with the dif-
ferent television frequencies
and standards - which are
not compatible with those of
the UK - used by various
countries.
And in addition to hand-
ling these the adapter
provides access to teletext
plus pictures and sound in
any country using the PAL
coluiir system.
Other facilities, including
the ability to save or print
pages, allow the user to gel
more from Teletext. And
Microtext (0705 595694) has
also included a system to
speed up page availability
and allow instant recall of
the last 16 pages received.
Connected to the computer
via the parallel printer port,
the Teletext Adapter is
supplied as a fret? standing
case coloured to match I In;
Amiga. Price £169,5(1.
Take over
B ETTER Dead than Alien
is the name of a the first
Amiga game on the new
label Electra.
It is written by Oxford
Digital Enterprises — ODE -
which started the scrolling
shoot-’em-up as a spoof, but
according to ODE’s David
Pringle: “Tlio aliens just took
over". The game is described
as slime, so you might have
trouble bolding a copy, and
it will cost £19.95,
Bundled
software
S erious software at
sensible prices should be
on the way for Amiga users
with a promotion recently
launched by Precision Soft-
ware (01-330 7166).
The company is offering
discounted software bundles
for a variety of applications.
And while the promotion is
aimed al dealers, end users
too will feel the benefits.
Savings are considerable.
The Professional Image
Processing bundle — Dig) pic,
PIXmate and Paxull Video
Camera - now retails at
£499.95: Bought separately
the packages would add up
to more than £600.
An Introductory Graphics
pack - Express Paint, Page-
flipper and IntruCAD - is
available at £99.95, while
would-be sound samplers
can get started with Perfect
Sound and ECP Midi;
Interface for £124.95.
'The DTP bundle, Viza-
Wrile and Citydesk, is now
priced at £149.95. VizaWrite
also features in the £199.95
Business Pack, along with
Logistix and Superhasu Per-
sonal.
Precision's 250-plus
dealers will have I he option
to sell the bundles intact or
split them, and the promo-
tion will be backed by an
extensive advertising cam-
paign.
Picking software and
countering the virus
JIM BUTTERFIELD
reporting from Canada
T HE Amiga has acquired a
respectable number of
serious prugrams. In North
America, Commodore did its
bit to give the software
industry momentum by
sponsoring a promotional
dual for user groups.
The deal tied together new
users, user groups and soft-
ware houses by making a
bundle of programs - homo
or business - available at an
attractive price to system
purchasers, Thu offer put a
lot of professional level soft-
ware into user hands, And
since one of the most impor-
tant buying-decision ques-
tions is; "Who do I know
who has it?", a lot of good
programs developed a
credibility base.
Deluxe Paint II leads thu
field of drawing prog ranis,
WordPerfect is undoubtedly
the most revered word
processor SupcrBase* from
Precision Software in the
UK, is highly rated for data-
base applications.
There’s no clear winner in
the spreadsheet race, but
MaxiPlan was part of Ihc
Commodore promotion and
seems to be well regarded. In
other areas - sound, ani-
mation, communications -
the best package may he Ihu
one that fits your particular
needs, budget and hardware
configuration.
On the non-commercial
side, group librarians find
themselves swamped with
free programs. In the early
days of computers, the ques-
tions was: "Where can I find
ANY programs?" Today, the
Amiga question is: “How
can 1 pick my way through
the huge mass of free pro-
grams?^
Free + or almost free pro-
grams come in three classes.
The legal interpretations
vary. Public domain pro-
grams are common property:
you may give them away,
sell them, copy them, change
them, or feed them to your
budgie.
Free distribution ones may
be copied and given away,
but not sold or changed. The
author retains copyright for
legal purposes, and often
insists that a program may
be copied only if accom-
panied by full documen-
tation-
shareware programs are
those where the author
hopes that the user will send
money. The last have been of
only limited success
The free program distri-
bution system is one of
joyful turmoil. The telecom-
munication networks buzz
with new versions of
products, questions, boasts
and rumours. But there is
fear of the dreaded virus.
Commodore has a team -
CATS — whose task is, in
part, to track and counter
viruses. And a separate
group is developing a
reward fund to help locate
and prosecute virus-creators,
Fm not sure about the
prosecute part; apart from
the legal side, can you effec-
tively sue someone who has
the mental maturity of a four-
year-old?
{ufy rflflfl A MICA COMPUTING H
■ AMIGA SCENE
Deeper
into space
S TAR Wars the movie
eventually spawned Star
Wars the coin-op for Atari -
end Domark’s hestseliing
conversion for the Amiga.
Nfow Domark (01-947
J5G2 2 > is following up its
success with the release of
The Empire Strikes Back, a
one-player game which
bears more than a passing
resemblance to the movie.
The player controls both
Luke ykywalker’s snow-
speedm and Han Solo’s Mil-
lenium Falcon
After Star Wars Luke Sky walker takes to space again
courtesy of Do mark's The Empire Strikes Hack
Conversions
lining up
I N a determined bid to set
I Is stamp {in I he 16-hit
.market, Ocean Software
(061-032 6633) has more
than 2tt products due for
release over ihe next few
months — and a sizeable
proportion are destined lor
the Amiga,
Jackal and Gryzor are in
the pipeline, as ere Platoon,
Army Moves, Green Here!
and Combat School, all
established favourites in
other c formats with
armchair warriors.
Strong Amiga showing at Comdex
BY JOHN FOUST*
C OMMODORE made a
strong showing at the
recent Comdex show in the
USA when it unveiled a
number of Amiga add-ons.
The twice- yearly Comdex
presentation is aimed at
Commodore dealers and
value-added retailers, the
main attendees.
Commodore's presence is
as much for sales as lor
public relations - and does
wonders for boosting and
maintaining the company
name in the minds of profes-
sional computer buyers* An
appearance is an expensive
proposition, but it pays off in
many ways.
The show, held in Atlanta,
Georgia, drew a record
EILOUU visitors.
Much interest w r as shown
in ihe new Commodore
products, although no indi-
cation was given of prices,
nor when they will become
available.
The only surprise was a
20Mb SCSI hard disc for the
Amiga 50U, with sockets for
2Mb of additional memory
in the expansion box.
The other products had
been previously hinted at to
some extent - an expanded
Chip memory graphics chip
seb a 640 x 400 non-
interlaced display chip set, a
Commodore bi-sync monitor
to work with the non-
interlaced display, the new
Amiga DOS 1.3, and the
68020 coprocessor board,
with and without Unix
System V, release 3.2.
Aside from a modest booth
on the trade show floor.
Commodore held a press and
dealer event in two
ballrooms at a nearby hotel
One ballroom held about
125 Amiga 500s and 2000s
while the other boused a
large projection television
screen and several Amigas
for the various presentations.
After a series of enthusi-
astic speeches from Commo-
dore management, musician
and programmer Roger
Powell gave a performance
of Amiga Midi music, using
his Textures program.
Los Angeles artist Brumm-
bar was also ors hand!
shoiving the animations and
still images he makes with
VideoScape and paint pro-
grams, Commodore printed
a poster with a montage of
his images, which Brumm*
bar autographed.
Brunimbar works with
celebrity Timothy Leary -
now a figurehead in the sci-
ence fiction cyberpunk
movement - making ani-
mations and images for
promoting Leary's recent
books.
Pro Image
APART from the creative
and entertainment potential
of the Amiga, it was clear
that Commodore is hell-bent
on cultivating a professional
image for our machine. Most
Amigas in the Comdex stand
had FlickerFixer boards to
avoid the annoying inter
flicker, so the Amiga dis-
plays were indistinguishable
from the other EGA -style dis-
plays at the show.
Presentations
THE Amiga 20 GO can attract
IBM PC compatible buyers.
Many corporate purchasing
departments require an IBM
PC compatible machine, and
liie Amiga 2000 is a way to
get the IBM compatibility
along with the video pre-
sentation abilities of the
Amiga side. In this way,
Amigaphiles can sneak the
2000 into a company to do
presentation graphics, while
retaining the ever-popular
PC compatibility.
One example of a profes-
sional application was Coin-
moths re’s Professional Video
Adapter, or PVA. The PVA
includes a digitiser and two-
source switchable genlock. It
was shown connected to a
video camera attached to a
microscope. Microscopic
organisms swam on a slide,
and the PVA digitised and
ge ii locked their image.
On the tail of recent
announcement of the Amiga
2500 AT and UX machines,
another part of the Commo-
dore stand showed the 68020
coprocessor running Unix.
Several weeks ugu F a
debate ensued as to whether
the Amiga 2500 would ever
be released in the US.
In a Wall Street Journal
interview, CBM chairman of
the boa ini Irving Could said
that the machines would be
sold in the US. Within days
of this interview > several
other Commodore upper
management members
denied this.
While the 2500 machines
are actually composed of off-
the-shelf Commodore
boards, availability of the
Unix software is a key
problem,
Chances are, if the soft-
ware is available in the US at
all, it will be sold only
through a few .select
dealerships that can handle
the extra level of support
necessary for the complex
Unix operating system.
The 68020 hoard's Unix
was demonstrated running a
proprietary windowing
interface. Most probably, the
Unix will be shipped with
Commodore's version of the
X- Win do ws win do win g
interface.
One Commodore engineer
was willing to talk about a
recently developed G8U30
coprocessor board for Ihn
Amiga 2000. It runs at 25
Mhz, but it has not been of-
ficially acknowledged in any
way.
*John Foust is been an Amiga
writer and Amigaphile since
Day One. He hi is regular
columns in several US maga-
zines. .
to AMIGA COMPUTING fitly litRB
1 Aaargh
..£14.95
Pink Panther
,.£14.95
1 Air Rally
..£19.95
Rolling Thunder
.£14.95
1 Bubble Bobble El 4.95
Sidewinder
....£7.95
1 Beck Lash
..£14.95
Screaming Wings JMt+P Cl4 95 1
1 Crack + ..„. B .,.,£14 P 95
Star Wars
.£14.95 1
Ferrari Fl
..£1895
Soccer Supremo * El 2.00 1
Flintstonea
..£14.95
Terramex
£14.95
Garrison 2
.,£18.95
Th underbox
£14.95
Goldrjnner II
.....POA
Vyper..
£12.00
Jat
..£26.95
Wizball
£18.95
Leatherneck
..£14,95
Wall
.£14,95
ObJiterator
..£18.95
Xeno ft.
£15.50
ADVENTURES/SIMULATION
Adventure Con. Set .
..£12.00
Jet
,.£29 95
Bards Taie II
POA
King of Chicago
..£22.95
Battleships...
..£12,00
Return to Atlantis —
..£19.95
Beyond Zork
..£17,95
Shadowgate
..£19.95
1 Chessmaster 2000 ,. L £1 0,95
The Three Stooges .
..£23.95
Oark Castle
..£19.95
Strike Force Harrier .
..£19.95
Destroyer
..£19.95
Spitfire 40
POA
Hollywood Poker
....£995
Sherlock Holmes
..£24.95
Interceptor
POA
Time & Magik
,,£14.95
Flight Sim tl
..£29.95
XR35
....£7.50
1 European Scenery .,,,£15,50
ARCADE
UTILITIES
Analyze £127.95
BBS PC £79.95
Graphic Tablet ..£295,00
Lattice C £129.00
Lattice C PRO £275.00
LISP £1 25.00
Music Studio £1 8.00
Organise . £79.95
Publisher 1000 .,£175.00
Pascal £75.00
Scribble £75,00
TV Text, £75.00
Zurna Ponts
1-3 £29.00 each
WIDE RANGE OF
IMPORTS AVAILABLE
ACCESSORIES & HARDWARE
Pro 5000 Joystick £1 4.95 Disc Bex (80) £1 2,00
Speed King Joystick .. £1 2.00 Mouse Mat £4.95
Atari Joystick £6.95 Mouse Controller £22.95
PHONE FOR LOW PRICES ON A500
Phone orders are welcome
Please make cheques P/Orders payable to:
TIMESOFT
Phone 11 you don't see what you require
■ Amiga 02000 with 1 Mb RAM,
3.S" disk, mouse, software..,. £999
■ Amiga B200GM As above,
plug Ai0$4 hi-res colour monitor . Cl 245
■ Amiga 02GOQX TM At above,
plus PX XT bridge board & Hoppy Cl 725
■ Amg& A 500 eemptoto, now only .... £395
■ Anuga A5QQ with TV modulator £415 Press Incto* 15% VAT, a FREE copy of
■ Am^fl A50CI With 19CXJM Dslux# Palm, FREE dt*Hv*ry Eh yew Jr dodr,
nigh rust mono monitor .«» £475 one yea r wanamy. Overnight delivery Cl?.
■ Amiga A6G0M with AI0B4 Alt systems are reeled before deflpalch On -
high-raa colour manner , — .. £5S5 s*to maintonftnes option avajJabis.
FROM C34SI
AMIGA
/JJ PERIPHERALS
AMXGA
■ 51 2K plu-g-ln RAM/ctoek (A600) .,^£106
■ At 001 high-rast?t3loyr monitor „ ri „ P £225
■ Ai os4 h^h-iM ctAxir monitor £249
■ 19Q0M high-res mono monilor ....... , £09
■ Ai O iO 3 .5" asternal disk drtvs £10S
■ Cumana 3.5" exiema! d 5k drive .... Cl29
■ NEC imerrvaJ drive (2000 only) £120
■ A2010 internal dme (2000 only) .... £175
a Genlock &2Q0Q video oanroiler .... £225
fl A206& PG-XT bridge board
with 5 diok dr^vn £439
■ A2D92PC 20M& imernal hard
titik w*h MS DOS oonEroller £S2E
■ A2032A 20Mb internal hard
disk with Aniga DOS contrtrfier £625
■ Supra hflrd disks ftJMb - 250M6 .....Cal
■ A20522Mb internal HAM card _£3M
■ Citiz en 120D 120q», ¥fT r NLQ £175
■ Stl t LC 1 0 1 2D CpS, F/T P NLQ £2 1 5
■ Star LC10 he above, colour £24 5
■ Precision printer 400 cp«. NLQ . 0399
■ Canon PJ1O60A colour, 60 dpi ....,..£439
■ Xerox 4020 colour, 240 dpi £1125
» HP LaserJet laser. 300 dpi .£1995
CREATIVITY
amjga
■ OeLuw PaN l| (PAL) ...£59.95
a DrgiPajhl 4D96 colours £49.95
■ De Luxe Music (PAL)
■ Page Setler £94.95
■ Cily Desk CS9.95
■ Antmatof Apprenfiice £179.95
■ Th# Works
m PmWriia (VZ0)
■ V'izaWrrte Deskop
m Wend Parted
a Publisher Plug
9 L :jw
■ PixMaie
■ Prism Plus
a Calligrapher
■ De Luxe Video IF
■ Aegis VideoScape
■ Pro-Video CGI
« Aege Animator
■ TV Show
a DigiPc
■ Art 0* Chess
Analyze +- Organize * Scribble, Inlegraled deskdop £99.95
Wordproces&lng fully ImegratiKl wrth graphics £79.95
High performance desXIpp pUbiehing ■werdfKecfrssof .....£69,95
Amiga version at the No. 1 best selling wordprocessor , 1 199 95
Enhanced verstod d the original deskaco pufcfelMf £99.95
The Idea Processor Irpm New Hortffit $0 ftW3/e £49.95
Prciessional image enhancement straight Irom NASAI ... £44.95
4C96 HAM oolour paint pack 1024 X 1024 f needs 1Mb) „ £54.95
Prdetsibnal Pont edilor, Ionia up to 160 x pixeia ....... £74.36
Craaie air typos of video presemaiions W4h ease £59.95
Full 3D animations in atf rescX utkms with ovarscan .. P „_,, £l?4 9$
Prolog sianai video irtier with tom*. ertra rems available £159 95
Full tlOryboardir*g packaga . Includes Aegis Images £94 95
PAL Image prosenlaJten m IFF Qf HAM With Overscan .... £09.95
Fasi I rame-g rabber, 32 colours or g ray scale £?99.95
The beai Amiga ohwa yet, packed with Fea1ur« .............. £15.95
■ SAM Basic ESB.W
■ A/C Basic ....£154.95
■ A/C Fonran £229.95
■ Lam ice C 4.0 £124.-95
■ Latlico C Prol«filonal .............. £299,95
■ MCC Pascal £69.95
■ €4 Emulator Use your CS4 prograrrE. and Neel Includes cable £59.95
■ FC Enulalor The Transformer (MS-DOS not supplied) ,.£39.95
■ SuperBaw FVttfti Relationa.1 database power, wilheut programming! £69,^5
■ SuperRaw Pror. With Forms Edhor and DML program largyago ,,,.„, £224.95
■ Acquisition (Vi .3) Relational daf &bas o w hb programming language £i 99 .95
■ M axiplan 500 Uttimaie Amiga spreadsheet, + LexL-c raph s&.-speech ,„, .. £B5 95
■ Maxiplan Plus As Max plan 5W> above, plus powanul Macro language £*29.95
■ V IP P rof essiona) 1 -23 compatible spreadsheet + dal-sbas© ft graphs £99.95
■ Logstis 2040 x 1024 spreasheoi, database, grapha 5 calendar ... £99.95
■ Business ware Pk 1 (nvoicing, Sales Ledger, Stock Comiol, by Panmaad , 1P . £159.95
m Business ware Pk 2 Generariedqer, Purchase Ledger, by Pafimfrad £1 59.95
■ Inlro Cad Entry level CAD package, primer or plmtar output £W,95
■ Aeqa Draw Plus CorT^rohensNe CAD With 3441ple layers £ Window* £1 3&.95
■ X-Cad FYofessional CAD syslem (needs 2Mb) ,„„. P „„ P .„.„. P ,„ P1 £424,95
■ MCC A^serribler FVotessionaJ developrnenL system with Inker £ Ibraries .. £59.95
PROBUCTIVlTf
AMIGA
rn Oonrnodor# 12&D £399.00
fl ComnodorB* 126 £22^.00
— ■ ■ NEW 1&ei disk dnve 3.6" ......... £199.00
Vt M ■ Commodore 1 571 disk drive £ 1 99.00
m ■Corrmodore 154 1C diskdrive £125,00
■ 1 90GM 4Oi‘0o mono morrilof ........ EB9.00
5up#fSa*el2fl £29.95 ■ VizaWrite 120 Classic £59.96
Superflase 64 A PlursJ4 £24,95 W VizaWri3e64 (dsN £39.95
SuperSase: The 0ooh £1 1 .95 ■ VizaWrile 64 (caPridge) £49.96
SuperBase Starter 64 „ P1 £ 1 4,95 ■ VizaStar 1 29 £79.95
Superscript 1 26 £29.95 m VlzaStaj 64 XU £59.96
Superscript 54 S4.9& ■ VizaStar 64 XL4 £49.95
Pel Speeq Oxford Syslems' besl seHir^i Basic corryxier | Stats 64.1 2fi| £ 1 9.95
Oxlord Pascal Compteta JAW Pascal, wifri exlensiont mm 64i'1 2fl| E 1 9.95
Oilord p*«il 64 I'tapeJAS above, lor CS4 l^se u&ara , £19,95
Coopt Complete COBOL package rrom Abacue (uians $4/1 28} £29.95
Super G Complete C Lang yaga to K 4 R -standard . (slam 64/1 26; £39.95
Hack Pack AH-ie-one programmers Toolkit- Ram-disk . (suns $4.i ss} £ 1 9 96
Gxiord Basic 64 AJl-m-one Basic ecmpilw, Toolkit, COrnirfls&or £19.95
1750 Expanson RAM 512K Expansion FLAM cartridge For lha C130 £149.95
Ram Ohm 1^0 l ighflnlng-fasl RAM disk F&r 512K expansion RAM £29.95
1764 Ejtfianson RAM 256K Expansion RAM can ridge For ihe Q$* £99.96
Anaiomy oF ihe 126 The 5b0-pa^ge Infers gukJe to the 120 £9.95
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12 AMIGA COMPUTING luty 1988
■ADVENTURES!
■
r
ie
£ JfNt .
its
' L
\\
v.
^ 3U0K
!£m
>
&
, <te
T HES original Ad venture same
appeared in the mid-seventies
and was to bo Ion ml on many
mainframe computers. For all its
success, there were some who wanted
1o see an improved operating system „
as Adventure only accepted a simple
showing each character's status. This
In 1977 a group at the famous
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
developed a new parser Ihnl would
understand commands like: KILL
TROLL WITH SWORD. OPEN GREY
BOX and GET ALL BOOKS EXCEPT
THE RED ONE.
The lirst game to use this was Zork,
Originally developed on a Dec 19, it
was later converted lor other
computers but in each case required a
memory 7 of megabytes rather than
kilobytes. With the rise of the micro,
tiie operating system Ibr Zork was
rewritten in Z1L, Zork Implementation
Language. Thu saving in memory was
fantastic,
Presently Infonom has games for
most tastes hut recently discontinued
production of over half of the Amiga
titles- Some are real classics and
should he in everyone's collection. If
you act quickly, at least one mail
order house has many for only £12.
Buy now, Em sure you 11 not regret it
A PART from its parser, the main
feature id an Infueoro game is
the highly descriptive text. Although
complex commands are possible they
require the first six letters of a word
to he typed in. rather than the more
usual four, Infocom games are as
good as anything else mi die market,
hul I fee! dial vvu should not be
blinded by hype. I wonder how many
players actually Ivpu in TAKE
EVERYTHING EXCEFI 1 THE BLUE
BOOK, rather than TAKE ALL.
followed by DROP BLUE BOOK.
Underground Zork 1 is a great
adventure. Of all I he early Infacom
offerings. Ibis is the one lor the
beginner. It is not easy, hut is fun and
brings ri great sense of adiievemnrd
when you win through each puzzle
Also known as The Great
Underground Adventure, Zork ]
starts outside an apparently deserted
house in the middle of wooded
country. The entrance to the
underground domain is in the house,
hut the countryside iiround also has
hidden treasures. Your prime aim is
to gather treasures anti pul them in a
trophy case.
Drawing a map as you go is vital
but complications arise when
exploring the two mazes. The
standard method to map a maze is to
drop objects so you can identify a
location when you go back to it
However there is a thief roaming
around, so objects dropped may not
be there when you return. You will
meet other characters, some of whom
you will have to fight. This was a llrsl
i ot the original Zork,
DIAGNOSE will display your state
nl health and, if wounded, the
number of turns to full recovery. The
location descriptions are very
colourful and you may choose their
length with VERBOSE. BRIE! or
SUPER BRIEF,
There is the unusual option of
being able to ask questions with
commands such as WH AT IS XXX?
or WHERE IS XXX?. You may not
alvvavs get a useful answer.
Try asking WHAT IS A GRUK?
times arc? Infocom s own special
nasties that will grab yon if you stay
too long in the; dark. A battery
operated lantern is found in the
house. Use it Willi care, as ha Meries
will not last forever. There are
matches, candles and a torch so. keep
your eyes open for sources of light.
The underground system is nnl a
natural cave system as in the original
Adventure, hut is created 'Ey a
mixture of magic and really high
technology. You will mine across a
hi-tech dam. a coal mine and the
entrance to Hades. This game is
devious; watch your st ore close] v to
see how well you are doing.
Do not take too inueh underground
to start with: you will not be able lo
carry many treasures hack to dial
trophy case. You can find several
weapons, some of which are more
effective than others. Read hooks very
carefully* Remember thul they may
have more than one page, and SAVE
your game position before pressing
any buttons,
If Zork is a classic text adventure,
then Exodus: Ultima III has gol to
have a similar standing in the field of
compilin' role playing games
(CRPGsL Tt is produced by Origin
Systems and distributed in the UK by
Microprose.
tL OT surprisingly. Ultima III is
1 tI Mm third in a series of GRPGs, ]
and II are not available for the Amiga,
hut IV should he here any time, and
V is in the final stages of completion.
Several early CRPGs gave you I he
option of assuming the persona of
various different c: lasses of diameter -
fighter* cleric or magic user and so
on.
Ultima III was one of the first Bo
enable you lo venture forth with three
companions, each having attributes
and characteristic s of Miemi- own.
The underh ung plot of the Ultima
scenes us (he rise ul m il in the land ol
Sosaria. Called through time and
space by Lord British, your mission is
to gather a team of adventurers to
defoal its present manifestation.
Although I he soiling arid weapons are
North
North
North
North
South
South
Pass
Ztots for St
NEST HIMD
from monsters near a mice ft pc p*trt l s ship is r h iti*uUt^l in a n hirtptn)i
full ifliw amu;a (XiMPirriNC u
< 2 > < 6 >
‘ ■ ' - V*.
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■ ■ ' J v * ■ ■ m. * ■ ’ : ’
[ >SOUTH H IHP < I
Fighting goblins on hoard ship
Z> C 5 M 0 > -• ■■
1 t : i; . •
> i < ZZI
P T o R
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Fighting a group of wntigado wizards
mediaeval, there are hints that this
civilisation is on the downward spiral
from a past that knew much more*
The spawn of evil from the past
overshadows any other concern, as
you and your team struggle to unravel
the clues to its existence. Origin may
not produce the cheapest games on
the market hut its standards of quality
and presentation are of the highest.
Ultima III comes with a cloth map
of Sosaria and three manuals. One is
general and the other two descrihe
the various priestly or sorcerous
spells your characters may use. A
simple reference card covers all the
options open to the player.
Before wandering into the wilds of
Sosaria you must create your
characters - up to 2D - and form a
— > i c
Ft oft i
H HP 11130 L £52
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PLB*EB-i~ —
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ID IB-
party. You can go adventuring with
less than four hut this is not wise. In
creating each one, you must choose
I he name, sex and race (human, ell,
dwarf, hobbit or fuzzy). Each race has
different potentials - dwarves are
strong, elves are dexterous and so on.
Next comes choice of profession -
barbarian, thief, wizard or ranger.
There are 11 possibilities and care
must he taken to finish up with a
balanced parly. Finally you have 50
points to apportion for your
characters’ strength, dexterity,
wisdom and intelligence.
Fighting types need strength,
thieves dexterity, clerics wisdom, and
magic users intelligence, A table in
the manual lists the professions and
tells you what type of armour,
weapons anti spells each can use.
A good combination to start with
would he ranger, thief, druid and
wizard, providing good fighting
ability and characters who can cast
healing and offensive spells. You arc:
now ready lo journey into the
unknown lands of Sosaria. The wind
in your hair, open rolling plains
behind you and a small walled city
before you.
T HE display is a plan view, with
one character indicating your
party's position. Water is shown to
the right of the map anti two
buildings represent a castle and small
town. You can see some woods to the
west.
To the right of the map is a display
showing each character’s status, ’I his
provides such information as food
supplies, hit points, magic points
(spell casting ability) and their level
(all start at level 1), By typing Z, you
are told how much gold they have,
what they are carrying and their
present statistics.
Each character starts with a dagger
and cloth armour, but you must tell
them to R eady the dagger for use
and 'Wear the armour.They have a
limited amount of gold. The sensible
thing to do next is 'E'nter the town to
buy additional weapons and armour.
Visit the tavern w here gossip may be
heard, or bought for the price of a
few drinks.
Most towns have a grocers for food,
and some other interesting places,
Explore towns carefully and talk to
the people - you will pick up all sorts
of useful information. Purchase a
bow, even if this means pooling your
team's gold.
Out in the open, everything that
moves will attack you. If you can kill
some of them before they can get to
you, it will save some hit points.
Kitted out to the limit of your purses,
leave the safety of the town. Monsters
come in a variety of different guises,
from ores, trolls, ghouls, zombies and
giants, to daemons, dragons, devils,
ha Irons and even sea serpents.
When combat takes place, the
display shows a larger scale map,
with the four members of your party
towards the bottom and the foe
towards the top. Once conflict has
begun there is no retreat,
Battle at a distance is possible with
a bow. magic or by throwing daggers.
Your team may only swing or
throw weapons to the north, south,
14 AMIGA CVMPI!TI\G July fflflfl
■ADVENTURES*
ZORK
[nfocom 111-431 1101
l-ftss than £15
EXODLTSt ULTIMA III
Or i f> i n/M i<: ro p rusi!
£24.05
STORY USE MINIM
Archetypal fantasy with enigmatic
origins of underground empire only
apparent after quite some time.
STORYLINE 1111111 II lj .
Believable alternative universe in need
of help. You ’ll want to give it.
AURA .... | | | | j
Cood descriptive passages keep the
interest active however often you play .
AURA | | | | MjMEQI
Creating and believing in your team of
characters is a simple part of the fun.
STA VINO POWER | IE I If I If I I 1 I
Lots of puzzles maintain pressure to
keep you up until the small hours.
STAYING POWER I^^^UTiTI 1
Wifi take you many enjoyable weeks to
map and to learn its hidden secrets.
GAMEPLA Y.
Basic text adventure with many good
puzzles and mazes to tax the player.
VALUE .... MI NIM I | | | | |
Excellent. Just because [nfocom has
Stopped producing the game it is now
sold at bargain prices. Bov quickly,
DIFFICULTY... I | U U
All Infocom games involve some
devious thought. This is a good place
for the novice to learn the ropes.
GAMEPLA Y |^H]
Well balanced operating system that
makes the whole thing hang together.
VALUE ill I
Must work otti at fractions of pence
hour of pleasure, despite the high
American price on the shiny box.
DIFFICULTY Ml I I M I I I
Stamina needed to explore and map all
of its many levels. Worth the effort.
lives not show its age, A game with
heritage, which has sired many more
adventures , including /Corks H and III
Winner for role players , lots to get your
teeth into. Totally absorbing.
magical or clerical type it is wise to
allocate the maximum number of
points to the appropriate attribute.
As you explore coastal areas, you
may find yourself under attack from a
pirate ship, If you beat the pirates, the
ship is vours and you can explore
Sosaria more thoroughly. There are
many pirates at sea, so be prepared to
meet them either with cannon or a
boarding party.
Another means of travel is via
Moon Gates, ancient structures which
only appear at certain phases of
Sosiria’s twin moons. Entering one
w ill teleport you to another gate. To
help you to understand the working '
of these portals, I he phases of the
moons are included in the main
display.
Exodus: Ullima III presents a real
challenge and has much more to it
lhan jusl hashing monsters. There arc
26 commands issued with a single
letter input — the mouse duplicates
some ol them, There is an option to
type in additional commands such as
DIG or SEARCH. It is not ton difficult
lo learn to stay alive, but solving the
real puzzles behind your quest will
take a little longer.
diet us screen for one of the team
west or east, and the enemy may also
slrikc on a diagonal. Each time a
member of the learn is hit his hit
points decrease!
aamtiunaJ experience points.
Initially, for each 1 MO gained. Lord
British will increase your potential hit
points. Time licks away inexorably
but the game’s pace is quite
acceptable. You may pause to take
breath and consider your options by
selecting to use a weapon and then
delay in aiming it.
Having won, the vanquished toe
leaves behind a treasure chest. These
are often booby-trapped, but may he
opened safely using a priestly spell.
I hieves may be used as they are more?
likely to spot traps.
If it has been a costly battle do not
hurry to open the chest as a spot of
healing may In; worthwhile. You can
use chests as a barricade In protect
your flank. Hit points lost during
combat will come back as time
passes; the same goes for magic
points expended in casting spells.
Many towns are dotted around
Sosaria - explore them carefully lo
find out what and who they contain.
In some places injurerf or poisoned
characters may be healed - for a
price. Keep a pencil and paper handy.
Dungeons are 3D mazes. The four
keys that you’ve been using to move
N,$,W,E now refer to forward, retreat
and turn left or right. Dungeons are
dark. Spells will light your way hut
Iasi only a short time, so you are
better off with a torch. These and
other useful items may be purchased
from guild shops found in some
tow ns. Initially only a few spells are
available to you as (heir use depends
upon the number of magic points a
character has, When creatine a
U NCK past the initial stages, I
found the combat and magii
balance one of the best I have conn
across. Every lime a member of voi
party kills an attacker, he gets
Making the
headlines
John Walker looks at Gold
Disk's DTP package
P HF. Amiga lacks a top-class
JL desktop publishing program to
rival Aldus PageMaker on the
Macintosh or Xerox’s Ventura
Publisher on the IBM PC. But, a little
lower down ihe scale, it can compete
with othur computers.
Of the DTP programs available, ihe
deservedly dominant one is Gold
Disk’s PageSetter, This really shines
when used with PageSetter
LaserScript, a good PostScript driver
for an appropriate laser printer such
as Apple's LaserWriter.
PageSetter is capable of producing
work of a professional quality,
although this requires considerable
effort. It is used to produce the
American magazine Robo City News,
With it, I typeset and illustrated a
150-page book - The Desktop Guide
to Desktop Publishing.
You can create school magazines,
club bulletins, community newsletters
and flyers. For such productions, you
will hardly notice that it has no
automatic page-numbering or that it
lacks such typographic niceties as
automatic hyphenation (splitting
words at the correct point when they
are set in columns) and kerning
(altering the amount of space between
adjacent letters) .
PageSetter comes on a single
unprotected disc together with a small
and inadequate manual. This raves
ahout the joys of desktop publishing
but fails to tell you everything it
should about the program,
W HERE PageSetter differs From
many desktop publishing
programs is that it allows you 1o
switch between three screens - the
page layout screen, a text editor,
which provides many of the facilities
of a word processor, and a graphics
editor which doubles as a simple
drawing program.
The text editor allows you to copy,
cut and paste text, to search for words
or phrases, and replace them. But it is
line- rather than page-orientated,
which makes updating the screen
somewhat jerky. 1 found it too
uncomfortable to use as a word
processor.
The text editor's main purpose is to
Fine tune words created on another
word processor. You can load
documents saved in Ascii. PageSetter
is also compatible with Scribble! and
Textcraft. so it will preserve styles,
such as italics, from the original
document.
You set different lexl styles within
the editor by entering a backslash
followed by the appropriate letter
around words or phrases. Thus. \b
would put words that followed it in
bold and Yn would return them to
normal- Available styles are bold,
italic, normal t outline, reverse,
shadow and underline, which can be
mixed in any combination.
The graphics editor is used for
loading and altering illustrations. You
can draw' lines in various thicknesses.
airbrush, and produce filled or
outlined rectangles and circles, A
zoom gadget magnifies pari of a
picture so that you can add tine
detail.
You can clip part of a picture and
use it as a brush. The artwork can be
copied, re-sized and Hipped
horizontally and vertically- You can
also play around with text, changing
its size and shape to creale interesting
effects, something that the manna!
Fails to tell you,
PagcSelter converts colour graphics
to monochrome, adding grey scale
shading that is sometimes unpleasant.
Ti may also dislorl the original, since
A simple bar chart
can enhance (he
appearance of a page
GET IMPACT
INTO YOUR
HEADLINES
Get Impact
into your
Headlines
Get Impact
Into Your
Headlines
Get impact
into your
headlines
Four styles of headline
settings, Citmni practice
favours the tower case
approach
AMIGA COMPUTING fuly 198S
p
■ REVIEW*
its resolution of G40 x 2(10 pixels is
non-standard.
PageSetter's greatest limitation is
that graphics cannot be re-sized on
the layout page. A full-screen
illustration in the graphics editor
shrinks to something much smaller ,
less than a 4 X 3 inches, when
printed. It can be shifted, moved at a
pixel at a time and masked to show
only part of it bill it cannot be made
any bigger.
d
be
1
ing
its
ill.
:e
i
ke
I NCLUDED on the Page Setter disc
is a selection of clipart to provide
you with instant illustrations. It is
uninspired and uninspiring stuff, but
occasionally useful.
You can move text ami graphics
between the layout pages and the
editors at any time. Transfer from one
screen and another is almost
instantaneous even when there are a
lot or words in the system. Using a
512k Amiga I’ve worked on layouts
that ran to 1 7 pages, contained 6,000
words and half-a-dozen illustrations
without much slowing down. You
couldn't do that on an IHM PC
without a hard disc.
The page layout screen is the heart
of PageSetter. To create your layout
you use the mouse to access pull-
down menus at the top of the screen
and a toolbox at the righthunrf side.
The display initially shows a blank
page with on-screen rulers.
Measurements are in either inches
or picas, I hat peculiar printing
measure with six picas to the inch, in
order to make design easier, a grid
can be superimposed on the page.
W ORDS and pictures are held
in boxes which can he
drawn on the page or defined in a
page requester that allows you to
enter the size of the page and its
margins with the number and size of
the columns, after which they are
drawn automatically.
You can define a default box, in
which you specify how I he text is tri
be justified - either centered or set
ragged left or light, the tracking -
spacing between letters, and leading -
the spacing between lines.
You can choose a font and whether
the box is to have a border around it.
There is a choice of five borders, all
“F Publishing for the AMKM
explode SaftT' th t fl >du5try
b °Qlrs and even trad.' har *‘ r «rs,
"osl, ro 0n , e(]i to fflj
^ «, orM
'£t *V dv, nl S t he
* \ -'-III
f“>l*ter industry ffi! Ct
si
,J5»?S=Sf's
*w'3«a" n |" r "
po», rfu fl <J‘» •
Nlifon do
^°t sfnc
s preadih
a PPticatf
Wi the c
fonpanJes,
tndi vfdi ubIje
couu) uters in
Professional
^ and r
e **Uy, at a
Several
| lintraT j — —
tediiSs P t? 5 < f C of er f fiand ^ the
easily using an d
text editors » j„ ,n F*We
from your f Btn Wwl them
?»***» i nc jJd„ P'ocewors.
ft rar y of cjjpit „3
liow you f D a™ f 0nts to
ight away. U -P an *l nuuidj
*** at times,
** ® Wtt? Wt! tagp, I
Intuttlvi
sase of
nl «n indies «
rinter in
Hex YtT'j
combinations of straight lines. A
shadow can be added to the box.
One minor bug is that PugeSetter
will not print the righthand shadow
of a box unless there is another box
beneath and to the right of it.
Boxes can be linked so that text will
flow from one to another, over as
many pages as you like. Changes to
the lexi in one box will affect all of
I hem. This is useful because it means
you can produce a basic layout for a
regular newsletter, which can be
saved as a series of empty boxes.
Then, when occasion demands, you
load your text and pour il through the
pages.
Boxes can he overlaid, either so that
what is in one box will show through
another, or in an opaque form, so lhat
you can cover up mistakes. Using the
see-through option allows you to put
text over shaded boxes or graphics.
A box can be changed in size and
shape by simply pulling at its bottom
righthand corner. It can he shifted
around the page by putting the cursor
within it and moving ihe mouse.
'The page itself can be displayed at
three magnifications. At its smallest,
the whole page is shown on screen.
Al its second size, you can see half a
page on screen at a time. At full
magnification, which shows an eighth
of a page, what you see will he what
you get when you print.
PageSetter uses the Amiga's built-in
/u/y 193ft AMIGA COMPUTING 17
■ REVIEWS
<4
fonts, which are acceptable for the
main text but don’t make good
display types for headlines.
Headlines themselves nan either be
written in the text editor and then
added in their own boxes or written
on the page using a small pop-up
QuickText box in which you can type
up to 1 00 characters.
If you want more interesting
typefaces, you will need to invest
either in one or more of the three
volumes of Zuma Fonts or the
cheaper three volumes of Earthhound
P AGESETTER uses the Amiga’s
Preferences drivers for its
printed output. This is a pity since the
1.2 drivers are limited to 9-pin dot
matrix printers and some do not work
well, leaving thin white lines. The
improved Workbench 1,3 drivers cure
ibis, but I'd like to see some custom
printer drivers, incorporating the sort
of smoothing algorithms which are
available on DTP programs for other
micros.
Some problems may be solved by a
page-printing program included on
the PageSetter disc. To use it, von first
save your pages, quit PageSelter, load
the printing program and print them.
Because it occupies less memory, the
program holds a whole page at a time
in ram, which eliminates the white
line problem. A further program
included allows you to save a page as
an TFF file which you can then load
into Deluxe Paint or a similar
graphics package.
It takes about five minutes to print
a page using a dot matrix printer. The
results are good with a 9-pin printer,
but better with a 24-pin using a driver
from the 1.3 Workbench preferences
which is beginning to appear on the
updates to some programs - mine
came from ProWrite 2.0.
PageSetter LaserS cript, an extra
program that is an essential buy for
those who want the best possible
results, allows you to drive a
PostScript laser printer. It comes with
four PostScript type-faces — Courier,
Helvetica, Times Roman and Symbol
— which can he scaled to any size you
PostScript lets you
manipitiitlti images,
reducing mid
angling them
want. It also permits the manipulation
of finished pages, which can be
shrunk, rotated or laid one or top of
another to create unusual effects.
I FOUND the program robust and
unlikely to crash. However there is
one annoying little bug. Sometimes,
when dealing with long documents,
the first line on a page will not justify
to the left band margin but will be set
one character in and will resist ail
attempts to change it. I found the only
way to deal with it was to go to the
first page of the document, switch
from the layout screen to the text
editor and then return to the layout.
Otherwise Page Sutler is a good,
uncomplicated program suitable for
non -professional use, I prefer it to
such rivals as City Disk and Publisher
1000. although its supremacy may be
challenged soon.
The others are being updated, and
there are newer ones on the horizon
such as Publishing Partner
Professional and Gold Disk's own
Professional Page. In the meantime.
PageSetter provides excellent value
for money and will more than meet
the requirements of many users.
REPORT CARD
PageSetter
HR Marketing, Tel: UH95 444433.
USEFULNESS
Turns simple documents into
professional looking page# but token
some tii iie.
EASE UF USE-
(VA ihi the commands are not
immediately obvious they can be
picked up quickly
INTUITION .
Fully interpreted along Commodore
guidelines hut is ram ami processor
hungry.
SPEED
Profession,? i results ta ke a while but
with the Amiga's horsepower it should
not he quite as slow as it is.
VALVE
At only £80 this is priced much more
keenly than you would expect for ml
Amiga package which has a small
market.
OVERALL 66%
A full Desktop Publishing package
PageSetter takes some mastering but
produces creditable results.
19 AMIGA COMPUTING }uiy fitm
■ R E V r E w ■
Roger . . . Wilco . , . Simon Rockman
is cleared for take-off
ns j|
- ■-
sin
Supreme
O NLY the Amiga makes it
possible. It's Commodore's
slogan, and so often a true one. Hut
games software houses with an eye in
the quick buck so often let I he
machine down. Electronic Arts has
hung in there supporting our machine
since the days of prototypes, so it is
fitting. Ihnl the company should have
produced the greatest ever Amiga
program,
F/A 18 Interceptor is a flight
simulator - that's a bit like saying that
Buckingham Palace is a house. True,
but an understatement. You are given
a choice of the land-based FIB or
carrier borne F/A-iB jets to play with.
As soon as you unwrap the
program you know that you've
bought something special. The
documentation advises that you
disconnect a second drive on an 5 1 2k
machine, grabbing the precious ram
that it needs. The carrier icon
appears. Anticipate blast off. Double
click to load and a pilot launches into
the blue.
The Am igar drive does its stuff far
too slowly, the seconds stretched by
{illy 1988 AMIGA COMPUTING if)
HOfj DOM; IBB KT5 35C FT
Cnrtain twain as you Wig Ti hole in the deck
<
your impatience. The title screen
captures the atmosphere of the battle.
Two jets locked in a dogfight over a
crystal clear Californian sky which
contains the kinds of blues you only
see in real life and the Amiga palette.
You've plenty of time to appreciate
it as the game loads, but that period
would be better spent reading the
manual. Electronic Arts - EA to its
friends - is hardly known for
skimping on documentation. The
confront at ion on your retina is
complemented by similar aural
stimulation thanks to Dave Wahol's
sound.
F/A t8 Interceptor is a game of
missions, hut before you can take
those on you need to learn to fly the
crate. The game is its own trainer.
The demo mode shows what can he
done. Simple options to take off and
fly around familiarise you with the
controls.
A special mode tests your ability
at some set manoeuvres, An
instructor goes through a prescribed
set of loops, turns and rolls. You have
to follow in a chase plane. If you can
do this then the next stage should
seem easy. Take off from the carrier,
climb to at least 10,000 feet and then
land hack on the carrier.
You have an incredible amount of
power in your engines. Thrust can be
controlled in 10 per cent increments
hy using Fl to Fin. Pressing Fl when
the engines are at 10 per cent will
switch them off - something best
done when you have landed -
pressing F10 when you are at 100 per
cent turns on the afterburner, giving
you an unbelievable boost. More
gentle, 3 per cent, increments of
thrust can be selected by using the
equals and minus keys.
The best tactic for take-off seems to
be lucking I he brakes and switching
to at least 00 per cent thrust. Allow
the power to build, and then release
Ihe brakes. This ensures that you have
enough oomph to stay in the air when
you run out of carrier. Lift the
undercarriage as soon as you take off
-it reduces drag significantly. Resist
the temptation to bank.
Climb a little, say to 1 ,000. feet and
then level off. The crosshair in the
head up display (HUD) should he one
pixel below the horizon. Check the
altimeter to make sure you are
keeping a constant height. Then use
the rudder, the < and > keys, to turn.
If you are not climbing or diving the
horizon will remain level.
Keep an eye on the compass. From
an initial starting position of going
north it should rotate to pointing
south. If you flip to the map the
carrier looks to be lying east-west.
That is because it is too difficult to
draw it north-south and still look like
an aircraft carrier.
While you are travelling south pull
back on the joystick and climb to at
least 10,00(1 feet. Then push gently
forward, drop the nose a little way
below Ihe horizon. Reduce thrust so
that things will happen less rapidly
and descend to less than 4,000 feet.
Switch the radar from its 40 mile
limit to 10 or 2 miles, just enough to
keep the carrier in view. The further
you are the easier things w r ill be later.
Level off and use the rudder to
complete the circuit. Again it should
be possible to turn without hanking. ■
Once you are pointing north dip the
nose. The carrier lies ahead. Use the
zoom function to make sure that the
blob is the carrier and prepare a
steady glide path. Drop the thrust to
between 10 and 40 per cent.
/A s you approach the carrier an
XX enemy fighter may attack. It is
possible to pull up and spot it
w'ithout banking. Hit Return to select
a heat-seeking missile. Target the
bandit. The HUD will light up like
ft Lack pool Illuminations. Once the
commie is vignetted by a large
diamond, squeeze the trigger. This
will loose an air-to-air missile. Fire
and forget.
Bring the nose back down to point
20 AMIGA COMPUTING fuly 19&X
■ REVIEWS
/
I NTERCEPTOR was written by
Bob Dinnerman. It is his first
commercial home computer game
and the Amiga his first home
computer.
No one, not even a genius like
Bob D., picks up enough
programming experience to
produce a game of Interceptor
proportions in the year and a half
it took to write.
Boh used to be a programmer for
Bally - the arcade game
manufacturer. He wrote the arcade
smash Discs of Tron, which despite
hitting the arcade market in mid
nose-dive still took a lot of money.
Discs of Tron used a mere Z80
with 56k of rom, So it is not
surprising that Bob has worked
such wonders with a btiUUU and
half a megabyte. Some of the work,
mainly flight algorithms, for
Interceptor was a development on
a flying game which Bally planned
and scrapped.
Bob had not bought a home
computer before the Amiga
because he fell that nothing could
provide the speed and graphics he
wanted. Nigh on 90 per cent of the
program is written in assembler,
with menus ami set-up routines in
C, 'I 'he program was developed on
Electronic Arts' Artists Work
Station (AWS).
It is a shame that Bob's next
game is for the PC, but he hopes to
return to the Amiga after that. He
claims that Interceptor It would be
easy with new missions, locations
and different planes.
The existing planes were
carefully chosen. The F/A 18
because it is new, exciting and
carrier- based. It was also chosen
because it is a single pilot
aircraft.
The Flfi was chosen
“for variety, and hecausc
J have a couple of
F-10S in the game trying to defect 1
thought I’d let you tlv one”, says
Boh.
The Amiga needs more class
programmers like Bob Dirmerman.
Interceptor is the first of a new
generation of Amiga programs.
of Sa
it Fruiuusnii
an accurate map
at the carrier and lose any extra
height rapidly, 'The deck is 145 feet
off the sea. You want to be 100 feet
above this as you come in lo land.
While you are still some way off,
lower the arrestor hook. This catches
wires on the deck surface and hauls
you in to land.
Closer in, drop the undercarriage.
Then put on the brakes, '[‘his not only
locks the wheels hut engages the air
brakes. As you llv over the carrier
tiring the nose down and cut the
engines. You should plop on to the
deck. Bring the nose up in a
controlled stall to land on the rear
wheels.
Real carrier pilots come in at full
flying speed in case the arrestor hook
docs not catch. You shouldn't worry
about this. Overshooting is a much
greater danger. Your reward for the
task is a pair of sweaty palms and the
right to go on to a mission.
Now you have proved that you
have the right stuff you can take on
the world. The first mission is to fly
out, identify eo enemy plane and fly
back. Easy and boring, it is the kind
iuiy I me A MiG A COMPUTING 21
■REVIEWS
Pull up! Pull up! Pull . . .
of mission that Nato pitots do all the
lime. The temptation to blast the Foe
is dreadful. Don’t do il-
The first mission where you are
actually supposed to shoot something
down offers an enemy plane which is
after the President’s jet, Air Force
One. Succeed ami you are presented
with a great graphic sequence of AF- 1
landing.
O ther missions have you trying
to persuade two defecting
lM6s that they really love mom,
apple pic and the American way
enough to turn, around and not doled.
You have to fly in front of them -
failing that you can blast them. All
the while a couple of Migs are out to
get you.
It was while 1 was just about to talk
an F-lfi around that a Russian missile
homed in on me. ! pressed F for flare,
C for chaff' and E for electronic
counter measures. What 1 really
wan led was j for electronic jammer.
Instead 1 got E for eject. At least the
missile didn't get me.
The enemy gets harder to attack - a
cruise missile can only be shot down,
as I found out after Pd wasted a load
of missiles on it.
Interceptor is brilliantly designed. It
stretches your playing ability
progressively. It is also full of great
touches.
You can view the plane from inside
the cockpit, looking all the way
around 1o check for enemy johnnies
on your tail. You can watch the action
from a third person position at one of
the eight compass points outside the
plane, or you can watch from the
control tower, These views work just
as well when you are parachuting
down after a missile hit, A zoom
I NTERCEPTOR is protected with
a code wheel, something of
which I approve. Along with
Magnetic Scrolls-type novella
protection, this allows the honest
user to make disc back-ups. and
often allows the transfer to hard
disc, but it reduces the problems of
piracy.
Sure the crooks will rip apart the
code and produce an unprotected
version, but at least we don't have
to suffer if our discs get corrupted.
The Interceptor code wheel feels
like part of the game, not a bid to
prove your innocence.
I like the way you can run the
demo without using the wheel, a
taunt to the person who steals a
copy. He can see what he is
missing without playing.
gives a better feeing of dt
There are some bugs, t have
managed to fty over the carrier and
have the tving disappear under the
ship. It is common practice to land oi
the sea, but none of these matters
when you take into account the days
of fun you'll have when you take to
the air with Inte
REPORT CARP
F/A IB Interreplnr
Electronic Arts
Prire £24.9 5
SOUS'D.,
Wonderful sampled sounds which get
louder when you view from outside.
GRAPHICS.
Fast 3D solids with a surprising
amount of detail including the FA
offices in California and Alcatraz,
gamepla r — HWTI
A good range of missions. Spaced in
difficult}' gives sense of achievement,
USE OF THE
AMIGA.
A game only possible on the Amiga, ft
uses the blitter and sampled sound.
VALUE BL I I 1 I III
Hours o f fun packed flying lime. You
will wan# to go back for mure when
vou haw finished all the missions.
OVERALL
!Hi%
The greatest Amiga game ever. You will
belie ve a computer can make you fly.
Volt will learn to handle the controls
22 AMIGA COMPUTING July imtf
1 BrSdfl* Slrat* I
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liitv iittifi AMIGA COMPUTING 23
S INCE its inception the Amiga
has played host 1o many
stunning examples, either painted or
digitised, of its graphics capabilities.
More recent items have been
generated by the computer itself from
a description of a world, resulting in
a static or animated picture.
Until recently, there have been no
tools to explore the potential of the
Amiga to generate images and
animations. The first of the packages
was Videoscape 31), which does not
provide any means of easily
describing the world, but gives
animation,
Dr Eric Graham, the creator of the
Juggler program, continued his work
to produce Sculpt 3D from Bytc-by-
Byto. This has a user interface to help
create objects without graph paper
and typing lists of numbers. You
generate images with a technique
known as ray-tracing. This uses a
large amount of computer time to
generate realistic pictures including
shading, shadows and reflections.
The facility to animate a scene is
provided by Animate 3D. Used in
conjunction w r ith Sculpt 3D, Animate
Tour through
Sculpt and
Animate 3D
Since Being, other micros
have tried to emulate the
Amiga's demos, Sam
Littiewood tests a couple
o f programs which will
help it stay out front
it-.j.-O tOflt
Pain tins
Soap sltot
V Pint to
Hire fraM _
vwnr
tii-m
Ho-iTneHice
1/ Inter latf
HjlaKariftn
gHlar'S'et
■Lens
^Exposure
■Milhaflt size
™|Anti-Ji! tasin<
IlstaiU
24 AMIGA COMPUTING ]uh }Wi»
reviews
jer
J
e
a
(j
ing
i.
is
n
fiale
describes how objects move and
change with time. The resulting
sequence of images cun then he
compressed and played back in real
time or recorded frame-by-frame on
to a flying erase head video recorder.
In both Videoscape and Animate
31) the individual frames of an
animation are generated one by one,
taking between seconds and hours
apiece. To play the imaged at the
correct rate, they are compressed into
a special file format that can be
played back in real time. If a special
video recorder is available it is
possible to record each image directly
on to video tape as it is created. This
allows much longer animations, as
they are not limited by memory
needed for playback.
S CULPT 31) comes on a single
disc containing the main
program and a set of example objects
and images. It can be used on a 512k
machine, but it is limited, as without
a megabyte or more, complicated
objects and higher resolution pictures
cannot be generated.
Sculpt 30 does
not take over the machine, and can he
run from the Workbench or CL I and it
knows about PAL machines. The user
interface is through normal windows,
gadgets and menus.
E DITING objects involves three
windows, collectively known as
the Tri-View, representing a box in
the three dimensional space. The
three windows are views of the bit of
the world within the box from the
top, west and north. They are normal
Intuition windows that can be depth-
arranged and re-sized. Additional
gadgets move the box around in
space and zoom in and out,
A cursor within the box indicates
positions in space. Shown as a blue
cross in each of the windows this can
be moved by clicking the left mouse
button. As the windows arc only two-
dimensional, it may be necessary to
click in two windows 1o position the
cursor exactly where it is required,
A scene manipulated with Sculpt
3D consists of vertices - points in
space, edges - lines joining vertices,
and faces. Faces are the triangular
shapes implied when three vertices
are joined by ihree edges. The Tri-
View displays only the vertices and
edges.
To create a vertex, the cursor is
moved to the correct position inside
the Tri-View, and the right mouse
button is clicked while
the left is held
down. The edge' gadgets un the
windows create edges between
selected vertices. Ex i sting sets vertices
can be easily manipulated by using
various options to drag, rotate,
expand, contract or delete them. It is
easy to forget that there arc unseen
selected vertices outside the Tri-View,
and accidentally include these in a
manipulation.
It would he possible to build an
object by simply creating each vertex
and joining them together by hand,
Often objects or bits of objects are
themes on common elements like
cubes, spheres, discs and so on.
Sculpt 3D has a menu-driven way of
incorporating them inlo the scene
being made.
The new object is dumped in the
middle of the Tri-View box at a
sensible size, It can then be dragged,
scaled and rotated to the right place.
A NOTHER method Of building
up objects is to take an existing
set of vertices and do things with
them. Sculpt-3D can make a straight
copy - a copy connected to Ihe
original with edges and faces, a
“spun" object like a vase starting
from a silhouette of one edge, a
reflected copy and others.
With these tricks it is relatively easy
1o build up a complicated scene by
starting with a few simple objects and
then cutting, stretching, copying, and
rotating until the shapes are formed,
A useful last resort is that Sculpt 3D
can be driven by a script from a text
file. All the creation and editing
actions are available, so common
complicated command sequences can
be put in a script and a program
written that describes an object, for
example, lettering. This opens up the
possibility of converting other
systems data Files into Sculpt-3D
scripts.
To get a picture of a scene, there
musl be more than the objects; Things
like colour, lamps and an observer.
Faces can have colour, texture and
Smoothing, Colour is controlled by a
requester. It allows red-green-blue
control, as well as hue-saturation-
value, like Deluxe Paint. Texture can
be one of dull, shiny, luminous,
mirror or glass.'
II a face is smoothed it appears to
fnty iftSfl AMIGA COMPUTING 25
<
be curved in line with the faces
around it, A dodecahedron with
smoothed faces would look more like
a sphere.
Several parameters are associated
with the observer. There is the
posilion of the eye, the point being
looked at and the focal length of the
lens, or zoom, The two positions can
be set by selecting a point in the Tri-
View and then selecting a menu
Option, The zoom can either be
selected from three pro -defined values
or given an exact numeric value,
Lamps, with colour and brightness,
are created by selecting a position in
the Tri-View, and then a menu
option. A further option is the ground
and sky. The ground can he a solid
colour or checked, and the sky can be
graduated from one colour at the
zenith to another at the horizon.
W ITH the .scene set up, a
picture can be taken. There
are various options at this point. The
first is the method that will be used to
render the image. Choices are
Wireframe, Painting. Snapshot or
Photo. Wireframe is used for
previewing, and just draw's an outline
representation of the picture. This is
done in a second or so - good for
checking the positions of objects and
whether the observer is set up
correctly.
Painting renders each face in a
fixed colour. It doesn't do shadows,
reflections, smoothing or the more
complicated lighting. This technique
is also used hy VideoScape 31). It
takes maybe 1U seconds to generate
the image, and gives a better feel for
what the final ray-traced image will
be like.
Snapshot is a ray tracing mode,
giving correct shading and smoothing
without the shadows and reflections.
This may take an hour or more to
generate for a full size image and
finds a use in producing final images
where shadow's and reflections are
not important.
The most realistic mode is Photo,
which copes with shadows and
reflection, but takes several hours for
a full size image. By using the other
modes for previewing. Photo mode
can be avoided until the final image is
produced.
A way to cut rendering lime is to
make I he image smaller - useful for
checking out shadow's and the
lighting. The image size can. be full
screen - an overscan image that fills
the borders, or half, quarter and
eighth of full size.
The number of bit-planes and the
display mode used for the image can
be controlled: Low resolution, high
requirement up to a minimum of
1 Mb, with more needed for
complicated w'ork, There have been
no problems running it in 2Mb as
long as nothing else big is running as
resolution, interlace and HAM are all
possible,
A further option is not to render the
image lo the screen, but to three files,
each containing bytes for the red,
green and blue value of each pixel.
Although this cannot be displayed oil
the Amiga, it might be possible on a
colour printer or another computer. A
nice feature is that during image
generation Sculpt 31) will attempt to
show how much time is needed to
finish the picture.
The editing interface takes time to
master, but once understood, is
powerful and easy. It does allow
creation of objects, as opposed lo
fighting with numbers and bits of
folded paper. The choice of rendering
techniques is excellent, leading to the
time-consuming ones only being used
when it will be worthwhile. The
manual is well written, including
tutorial and reference sections. The
result is a useable tool, not a toy.
NIMATE 31) is supplied on
two discs - one for the
program, and the other containing
example animations. It requires
Sculpt 3D, pushing the memory
well.
The user interface is the same as
Sculpt 3D’s with additional menu
items to handle the animation. Some
features have been added to the bask
modelling commands, the main one
being splines. These extras are
extraordinarily useful, and should
have been in the original Sculpt 3D.
A line of vertices connected by
edges can be made a spline. A few of
the vertices become control points,
and the rest follow in a curve
between them. The ‘'stiffness" of the
spline and several other attributes can
be modified, giving a powerful tool.
A second new feature is that a
scene can be named in a hiorachical
fashion. So “fan" could have children
“base" and “head", "Head" could
then have children “motor” and
"hub”. "Hub" could then have four
blades as Us children. It is possible to
select/ cruse /load /save a named group
of vertices.
Animate 31) can be used for static
images in the same way as Sculpt 31).
When a "take” is selected, it becomes
an animator, A "take" is not a static
scene, but all the information
pertinent to a complete animation, It
consists of scenes describing how the
28 AMIGA COMPUTING July IMtfi
■REVIEWS*
n
$5
1C
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e
I.
of
ie
:an
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en
to
n.
68
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IE
world changes over time?, along with
how many frames the animation
consists of, if a ram animation is to be
used, if it is a loop animation ami so
on.
As more than one scene is used in a
lake, it is important to remember to
save the changes in one scene before
going on to edit another.
in between frames. Objects can change
shapes and si™ in any way,
A limitation when using this
technique is that two key frames with
frames in between must have the
same number of vertices and the?
vertices must have? been created hi the
same order. This is so Lhal Animate
30 can do the inbet weening. A good
way to create key frames is to erfil the
first one normally, then copy it to the
other key places. The vertices in these
other frames can now be dragged,
I T is not necessary to erfil a
complete scene for every frame of
the animation. Animate 3I> has two
ways of describing the changes with
time. The first is the global scene.
This is a single scene, as in Sculpt 31),
that is present for the whole
animation.
A new type of object is a path, a
set of vertices connected by edges,
possibly a spline, describing motion
over time. Parts of die named
hierachy can be attached to the path
by making them children of a path.
Paths can be attached to paths, A
plane could be attached to a straight
path, while its propeller spins on a
circular path relative to the plane. An
object can be rolled, pitched and
yawed as it travels. Objects, the eye,
the point being looked at and lamps
can all be attached to paths.
The second method of animating is
to edit scenes that describe how the
world looks at key points in time,
letling Animate 3D interpolate the
REPORT CARD
Sculpt 311
Arnica ferilre ScntlatuL Teh 031-357
4242.
£69+95
USEFULNESS.
Sculpt makes it possible for anyone
with patience to c .rente picture,
EASE OF mil"
Eases the comp Heated problem of
creating and editing shapes in If),
ISTllTfOS
Fully multi* task ing and runs from
Workbench. Uses masses of memory.
SPEED ■ I I I I 1 H M I M I
ft can take 20 hours to my -trace a
scene, A reflection of the processing
power not a programming fault
VALUE.
Xot exactly a bargain hut a sensible
price for an advanced graphics tool .
OVERALL 82%
A well thought out package with wider
appeal than most design programs,
scaled, and stretched as necessary.
The inbet weening process not only
covers vertices, but colours, lighting,
observer positions and zoom. A
global scene and inhetweening can be
mixed in the same animation as
appropriate.
T HE controls available tor
rendering an image are also
available for an animation. In
addition, them is a fast wire-frame
preview of the animation. Single
frames can be rendered for checking
- they will not be re-rendered when it
comes to the complete animation. As
ray-tracing is so time consuming, it
may he worth using painting mode.
Movemenl can distract from a
multitude of rendering sins.
Animate 3D gives access to all three
aspects of animation: Modelling,
animation and rendering. As with
Sculpt 3D, it is a tool thcit once
mastered, floes not get in the way of
creation.
The manual is harder work than
Sculpt 3D, not givi ng as much in I he
way of a tutorial. If the area of
computer generated images and
animation is til interest to you. then
both packages will be rewarding.
REPORT CARD
Animate 3D
Amiga Outre SrutlantL Tel: (131-537
4242
£69+95
IfSEFiUMKSS
Great for producing rolling demos hut
needs an A 500 to he expanded to lAfh .
EASE OF USE.
Splines make shape definition easier
than in Sculpt, Friendly interlace.
INTUITION HI! I I I I ' ! I
Written with the developer's guidelines
firmly in mind, A kosher program.
SPEED MIDI
Helped by not having to re- render
frames but still processor hungry.
VALUE
Needs Sculpt which firings up the
overall cost, but can produce un-
ci va / led g ra ph ica l results.
OVERALL 79%
Ideal for producing stunning demos
once you have made the investment in
money and time to master it.
Inly If MW AMIGA CXJMPUTING 2?
Printed using the Xerox 40/20
HH AXHCACOMPI TIXC fuiy IWW
■REVIEWS
Arty facts
Simon Rock man takes a look at the program which
could oust Deluxe Paint from the artists garret
A LL Amiga 500s cmne with
Electronic Arts' universally
praised Deluxe Faint, S o anyone who
wants to sell an art package needs to
make sure that it is exceptionally
good In persuade a Deluxe Faint-
owning Amiga 1st tn spend hard
earned shekels on another program.
Photon Faint is I he thing to do just
that.
Deluxe Faint can’t cope with the
4,09(> colour Hold And Modify
[HAM) mode. Photon Faint can. The
advertising claims that it will expand
your paint capabilities as never
before. No package is going to make
me a great artist, but what Photon
Paint will do is allow me to start with
some simple building h lucks and
produce a creditable result.
One look al the packaging reveals
that Photon Faint is truly
international, il is sold in Ihe UK by
Activision which has the rights to all
the products from the Calilurnian-
based Microillusions. It in turn has
bought the program from Bazboo
Soft, a company in Tel Aviv.
The program feels right from the
moment you load il. It has clearly
been designed by a programmer who
uses art packages. The menu can be
moved around the screen or toggled
lift An extended menu allows you tn
play with colours.
'The menu selection can bn a little
tedious sinc e many sections are stored
on disc, no doubt to leave room for
the pictures,
The pac kage supports NTSC and
FAl. TV standards, with overscan tor
the video production fraternity
Changing from NTSC to FAL means
that you can keep the menu no the
screen without obscuring the picture.
One stra nge problem is that I he
allernale screen has to he wiped to
change modes while the displayed
screen is sate.
At first i though! thill I his was a
ram limitation, but on a 3Mb machine
1 was able to save the alternate
semen, change modes and then
re- load- The ram management is very
good, with plenty of warnings if you
are about to run out of memory,
including the option to disable the
Undo command to release extra ram.
T ] IK standard option to cut a box
and turn it into a brush has ihe
extra, machine-taxing, facility which
allows you to cut around a shape
freehand and turn I hat inlo a brush,
Unlike DPainL you cannot draw with
a brush, only position il and plonk
the image on the page.
One of the greal features offered by
a brush is the blend option. This
makes it translucent so that the
background shows through. You can
control how much shows over
different areas of the brush, an effect
which would be almost impossible to
achieve by just drawing
Everyone who is familiar with
Deluxe Faint will I eel at home wilh
Photon. A good number of the
controls are Ihe same, things like ] to
swap screens, and a similar pen
control. There are lines, dots. arcs,
hollow and tilled rectangles. II often
", . if picture is worth a thousand words''
looks as though the authors have
looked at Dpainf and thought "How
can I improve on that".
The fonts menu has a wide number
of options, w ilh italic, bold,
underline, outline and reverse, 11 you
have shading on, the letters will be
stippled. Great effects can he achieved
by cutting the text as a brush, then
blending and creating a drop shadow.
There are many special effects
controls. Pictures can be pixelised - a
feature much enjoyed by pop videos -
which enlarges each pixel to produce
a chunky image. |us1 think, we've
spent years watching computer
graphics improve, getting less chunky
►
full amu;a u)\iPt v n\(i
■REVIEWS
Standard
brushes
Go to
Workbench
Switch off
menu
64
Directly
accessible
colours
....
ggm
Use
last
brush
Colour mixing controls
Arcs Ellipse draw / r
and fill I I
Freehand / Powerful
pixel draw f magnify
_ , / function
Current pen
and background
colours
Freehand
line draw
Line draw
Rectangle
draw
and fill
■ Circle draw
and fill
Fill area
Cut out
for brush
Undo last
operation
Pixoiisfs
Text
and now we have an option to do the
reverse.
The main special effects allow you
to play tricks with the brush, notably
the ability to wrap a shape around a
3D object. A cone, lube, ball and
block are defined as standard, but
you arc free to draw your own shape
and then wrap the brush around it.
Experience has taught me that you
need a picture with all the detail at
the centre and plenty of colours al the
edges to show that it has heen
wrapped around a shape. Lighting
effects can be used to really give the
impression of 3D,
Photon Paint's documentation is
clear; printed in a crisp, spiral bound
hook it is very easy to follow. It does
err on the “I don't know anything
about computers” side, and perhaps
fails to get technical enough,
1 thought the greatest failing was
the lack of pictures. Describing icons
is less effective than showing them,
and in the case of special effects a
picture is worth a thousand words.
Pictures apart, the manual is well
written. The tutorial takes you to a
stage where you really feel in control
of the package, although I kepi on
running before J could walk and
trying things too soon.
We are asked to believe that the
manual was written by one Heidi
Turnipseed. This num de plume
leaves me wondering if there really is
some poor woman in California, born
out of the flow r er power years, who
has to live with such a name on her
driving licence,
T HK outstanding features of
Photon Paint are the brush
controls, which are great fun, Even if
the package did not offer all its other
great features, speed and overall
slickness, Ld buy it lor the brush
menu alone.
Combine the features it does have
and the program is a winner. As ever,
the price is steep. Activision has it at
£69.95, which means that you have to
be pretty serious about artwork,
however good the package is.
I’m not saying that Phulon Paint
isn’t worth £70, just that there are an
awful lot of people who can’t afford
to spend that much on any piece of
software and who would get a great
deal of pleasure from using it.
REPORT CARD
Phuluii Pain!
M ic nil U usions/ K .1 rhim Su W Ad i v is 1 un
01 431-1101
£69-95
USEFl I:\LSS
A fully featured drawing program
which can nope with the HAM mode.
EASE OF USE;
A combination of intuitive and Deluxe
Faint type icons moan you do not need
the easy to follow manual supplied
INTUITION.
A proper multi-tasting program, but it
is necessa rdy ram hungry r Would not
always swap to Workbench.
SPEED
A movingly fast with good prompts to
keep you informed when performing
processordntensi ve operations.
Not that expensive when you took at
haw welt the program performs but it
is priced beyond many users' budgets.
OVERALL HH%
The best paint package the Amiga has
seen. A good example of how one
programmer learns from another.
30 AMIGA COMPUTING July
■INTERFACE
The plain man’s
guide to CLI
This month Phil South delves into
the little understood ASSIGN
function of AmigaDos
W E covered a fair amount of
ground in last month's
Amiga Computing, talking about
AmigaDos and its purpose in life.
This time I thought we'd dive right in
and cover a few common problem
areas, In particular well be talking
about the ASSIGN command.
ASSIGN is much misunderstood as
a command, and people* who only
know of its existence through altering
their s/startup-sequence to read Dos
words from RAM: rather than disc are
starting from a disadvantage, like as
not you find it lurking in a short
listing in a magazine, along with a
little discourse ahoul logical devices
1 and not much else, So Jet's take it one
step at a time.
To aid expansion the Amiga is an
open architecture machine. This
means nothing is ever in the seme
place in any two programs (a slight
generalisation, but bear with me),
Gn a hi mil tar R bit machine, like
the Cti4, every character in the default
font lies in its own location in
memory, accessible at any time. In
Amiga computers the fonts are
ASSIGNed to a directory (which
could be anywhere on the disc) as the
logical device FONTS;. Note the
trailing colon, the symbol that
denotes a logical device,
Whenever AmigaDos needs the
fonts directory, it knows where it
resides due to the ASSIGNment, and
so goes straight to it. There are other
logical devices, too. Here tire some of
the ones you need to know about:
SYS: System disc root directory
C: AmigaDos commands directory
1-: Library directory
S: Sequence library
LIBS: Library for Open Library culls
DEVS: Device for OpenLibrary calls
FONTS: Loadable fonts for OpenFonts
np
HE purpose of all this is that
A ANY program can refer to and
utilise an important function, library
or command, regardless of where it
actually is. Let’s look at each logical
device in turn, and see what we need
to know about them.
SYS: is the system root directory.
When you first boot the system,
AmigaDos automatically assigns SYS:
to the root directory disc in drive
IJFO:, So any programs on that disc
which need the bool disc know which
volume to ask for: “Please replace WB
A500 1.2 in drive 0“ sort of thing.
C: is a very important logical
device, as this is where AmigaDos
looks for all the commands in
AmigaDos. That sounds a little
contradictory, but we are talking two
different levels of AmigaDos here.
The system level looks for commands
for the Cf,I command level,
The C: directory can be assigned
anywhere, but a good place to assign
it is to the RAM; disc, after having
copied the c directory' there of course.
This means all your AmigaDos
commands will be in memory rather
than grinding off of disc every time
you type one,
L: is the place where all the
“overlays" for big commands and
non-resident parts of the operating
system are kept, in the library'
directory. Things like Ram-Handler,
Disc- Validator and Port-Handler are
hiding in here, and they are blipped
out whenever you need them. Hmm,
it does seem like there’s a lot to load
off of disc whenever you want to do
anything on the Amiga, doesn't it?
The operating system part of
AmigaDos needs this directory to
operate at all.
The S: logical device looks for all
the sequences in the Sequence
Library. These are used by the
EXECUTE AmigaDos command, and
the sequence - otherwise referred to
as batch files - runs them, Batch files
arc the rough equivalent of programs
in AmigaDos, but are perhaps best
looked at as mere lists of useful
commands. You can build more
powerful c directory commands using
batch files.
The remaining functions are just for
providing a pointer towards the more
complex library' functions of the
Amiga. To delve into those would
take a whole feature to themselves, so
let's drop them before I get carried
away.
ASSIGN itself is used to direct
program flow to the function,
command or library it wants in this
syntax;
A IS I GN< logical devi cexdi ractory>
So assigning your c directory' to the
ramdisc would take the form:
ASSIGN c: rs*:c
From then on all your AmigaDos
commands will be read Out of ram:.
The other main use of ASSIGN that
presents itself is when you need to
tell AmigaDos to read system
information from your new hard disc
or DHQ:, You would simply type a
simple sequence of events like:
ASSIGN SYS: &N0:
ASSIGN C; DH0:£
ASSIGN L: BH0U
ASSIGN S:
and so on,
S O there you have it. All you
really wanted to know' about
ASSIGN, but didn't know where to
look. As always, the best place to
look - besides Amiga Computing, of
course! - is in the AmigaDos
Reference Manual (Ban tarn J, where
you'll find more than you really W’tmt
to know about the operating system
of your computer.
Incidentally, if you get lost when
you're in AmigaDos, just type
ASSIGN LIST, or even just ASSIGN,
it you're feeling lazy. This will
present you with a little road map of
the current assignments and mounted
volumes, just to pul you in the
picture. By the way, this trick also
works for CD on it s own. which tells
you the pathname you're currently
CDed to. Happy Cl. Ting.
luly JSWff A Mil* A COMPUTING .?)
Hot impression or
major impact?
Two printers head-to-head. Who’ll he first
past the ribbon ? Rupert Goodwins looks at
their performance on paper ; and finds out
who’s hue suits him best
I T'S a touching scone. With
trembling hands, the new Amiga
owner opens the boxes, plugs in the
monitor, turns on the power and
loads npaint. In seconds, the
glistening duathmask of King Till is
illuminating the living room. The
silence is broken only by the gentle
sound of jaws dropping.
Hut dissatisfaction soon sots in. "If
only, ' thinks our new owner, “if only
I could print it out’ * 1 . But this is not to
be. A swift perusal of the prices of
colour printers has the same
mandihle marooning effect as
that first encounter with Tut.
The curse of the fair old price.
However, there has been a
more affordable alternative
around for a while - the
Okimate 20. This faintly
32 AMIGA COMPUTING July wad
■HARDWARE*
three-colour sequence on I lie ribbon
The first line's worth of characters -
and you have to print a complete line,
even if most of the characters an;
spaces - appears in yellow. the next
.line in red and the last in blue. All
three appear on the same line on the
paper, and I Inis you can mix colours
hy printing things at the same
position. Only when you've sent three
Complete lines should you tell the
printer to advance the paper, and
before you try and print any more
you should send the find-beginning
code again.
Of course, most people will just use
the Okimate-Ztl driver from the
Preferences printer setup. But spare a
thought for the poor programmer who
wrote it.
T HE Star is far more the old style
dot matrix printer. Although
considerable care has obviously been
taken in its design - the lines arc
smooth and curves take the place of
the usual angular edges on the case -
the principles of operation draw
heavily on Star's experience with
ordinary low' cost (OK. cheap)
printers.
That’s not to say that there's any
lack of refinement. Buttons on the
front allow you to select any one of
three near-letter quality typefaces or
fast draft (draht as the manual calls it,
►
background can reproduce
any hue.
Next time you pull apart a packet of
cornflakes examine the flaps of the
box. You'll find blobs in those three
colours where I he? printing process is
checked.
Away from the cereal parallel, let’s
look at the Qkimate first, It’s one of
Ihe smallest printers on offer, colour
or no, and i! sports a number of
interesting design features. Uniquely,
it has no form feed or line feed
buttons; all paper movements - apart
from normal printing — are achieved
hy twiddling a knurled knob.
There’s a five-position switch on
the front which sets the overall
darkness of the final output and a
Select red button which starts or
pauses printing. Those and an Open^
Close paper lever are all the controls
you get, The paper feeds in from the
hack, and both single sheet and
fanfold can he handled.
The wax-coated ribbon comes in a
large cassette with a marked
resemblance to the musical variety.
There arc two sorts, all-black and the
colour version where seven inches of
yellow' is followed by seven of red
and seven of cyan. Due to the nature
of the mechanism, where all of the
wax on the tape is transferred to the
paper at a hoi spot, any stretch of
ribbon can only be used once,
Printing in colour from Basic is a
complicated process. There is a
special command code which gets the
Ok i mate to find the beginning of a
odd printer has had ihe field to itself
for a year or so. but at last there’s
some competition. The Star LC-10
Colour; more conventional in its
technology but more than a little
exciting pricewi.se.
Why has it taken so long for Ihe
massed ranks of the Japanese printer
industry to come up with more than
one colour device? Asking a printer to
faithfully reproduce 4.UIIH colours is
one thing. Asking it to also print
dear, well-formed text in black and
while is a different kettle of
monochrome herring. And you want
it cheap, you demanding so-and-so.
The tw r o printers use different
technologies to harden vour copy.
The Okimale 2D is a hothead; a set of
minute heaters sweep past a wax-
cnated ribbon and melt a pattern on
to the paper. The Star prefers to make
an impact. A set of pins pushes an
inky ribbon into contact with the
wood pulp and builds up characters
and pictures, However, both produce
polychromatic output in a similar
manner; by overlaying Ihe primary
coloured red, cyan and yellow w r ax or
ink a wide range can be printed.
B ET you thought that red, green
and blue were the primary
colours, There’s a lot of confusion
over this and now's not the time to go
into the physics, but the famous RGB
triplet only works lor transmitted
light, as seen on your monitor.
Printed matter relies on dyes
absorbing light and mixing
yellow and cyan on a white
fuly 1986 AMIGA (^IMPUTING 93
douhle-draht) without fiddling wilh
control codes, and condensed, italic
and proportionally spaced output can
be invoked in the same way with just
a twinkle of the I'il finder.
Paper feeding is similarly sty lish. A
hEitch at the back of the printer lifts
off to reveal the tractor mechanism,
and a variety of slots allow lor some
imaginative configurations. There's a
massively clever scheme which feeds
single sheets of paper in from the lop
while unwinding the fanfold just
enough to prevent tangling. The idea
of this is that you can print a letter
without having to unthread your
listing paper, although in practice I
found it a smidgeon unreliable unless
the fanfold was hanging just so. That
was the only aspect of the paper
handling which even slightly
displeased; overall the tiling fed wilh
elegance and is the best in that
department of any printer I know,
The Star has an altogether more
straightforward approach to pointing
hy numbers than the Ok i mate. The
ribbon is ink -soaked fabric, with four
horizontal bands — black, red, cyan
and (you guessed it) yellow. II sits on
a plinth which can, in the manner ot
Thunderbird 2’s launch pad, binge up
and down. This brings one of the tour
bands in between the print head and
the paper, and printing continues in
’ the appropriate colour.
COURIER -
Ami
COURIER -
Ami
COURIER -
Ami
COURIER -
Ami
ga Computing
ga Computing
ga Computing
ga Computing
COURIER -
Ami
ga
Comput ing
COURIER -
Ami
ga
Comput i ng
SANSERIF
— Am
iga
Comput i
ng
SANSERIF
— Am
1 ga
Comput i
ng
SANSERIF
— Am
iga
Comput i
ng
SANSERIF
— Am
ig*
Comput i
ng
SANSERIF
SANSERIF
ORATOR -
ORATOR -
ORATOR -
ORATOR -
- Amiga Computing
— Amiga Computing
Amiga Computing
Amiga Computing
Amiga Computing
Amiga Computing
ORATOR
ORATOR
Amiga Computing
Amiga Computing
Samples nfthe colour output from the Star
I F you select a colour which is a
mix of two of the primaries, then
the printer overstrikes automatically.
During the time I had it, it worked
reliably but then; was the occasional
bleeding of colour where ink from
one colour got carried over (on (lie
head?) after the charge for a couple
of characters. Also, something
streaked the yellow band with a thin
lint; of black after a few pages of
screendump. but ill is was barely
noticeable on the page.
A nice extra with the Slar is its
ability to cope wilh embedded control
codes soul lo it in plain text. For
example, there’s no way with the
word processor that I’m using to
write this review' that f can make a
sentence or paragraph a different
colour on output with Ihe Qkimate.
Ifow'ever, by bunging in a little magic
along the lines of ((C))0 i can tell the
Star to swilch colour - and also
character size and other effects —
without having to worry about
esoteric escape codes or special
printer drivers.
T l IIS method docs have its
limitations though, as the word
processor will think of ((C) |0 as a
word and formal the rest of the text
around it, although it won’t be
printed. Also. I can t have the word
((Q)U in my printer output; this might
not matter to anyone else but when
the time comes to print the printer
review..,
I had a little fun playing guess-thtv
printer-driver with the Star; the
handbook lists a number of printers
which can reasonably be supposed lo
look like an l, CMO. and of course
none of them is in the Workbench 1.2
Preferences. However, an adequate
performance with screen dumps and
texl
)X-i
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ant
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34 AMIGA COMf'Vlim M imu
■HARDWARE!
is a
then
rally,
;cd
ional
1m
the
uple
. thin
f
i
:s
;oTitrol
e
f a
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lie.
liagic
the
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jrd
mig hi
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IT
-the-
BTS
erj to
h 1.2
its
and
lext was squeezed out of the Epson
JX-80 driver, colour and all.
The handbooks mailt; interesting
reading next to each other. The Star's
is better written, better organised and
altogether more professional in feel;
although the Oki male's was adequate
and free from the worst excesses of
Junglish, From a programmer's point
of view, there are more useful sample
code snippets in the Star and just
more information generally.
B OTH printers have broken away
from the Epson hahil of putting
power switches and cable sockets at
the hack where the paper gets in the
way. And both have the evil DIP
switches where the dipsomaniacs can
gel at them without resorting to tools.
The Star has them under the main
smoked-plastic cover, on a chunk of
bare printed circuit hoard (naughty) ,
whereas the Oki mate has them on the
Personality Module.
The Personality Module (great
name - do Sirius Cybernetics know?)
is a small printed circuit hoard with
the main cable plug on it. By
undipping a plastic shroud, the PM
can be removed and the switch
settings changed; alternatively the PM
can be changed and replaced with
one for a serial interface or even for a
different computer. Not that you're
likely 1u.
It's intriguing, but the PM is a
complete computer. There's a
microprocessor - the humble 8051;
not much to look at but a member of
the biggest selling family of
microprocessors in the world. There’s
proha bly one in your washing
machine, one in your microwave and
two in your HumgiWumgi VCR,
There's some ram, 1(Vk of rom and a
few lumps of chippery to provide
input output. Not long ago that would
have outgunned many a home
computer.
A LL this is fine, but how do they
print? The Star is a standard
NUJ printer: a year or so ago it
would have been classed as very
good, but ihese days we’re all used to
seeing miraculously good quality
from a printer. It’s probably as good
as you’ll get without going to 24-pin -
and incident!)' losing colour. The
colour performance is adequate - a
useful adjunct but the results are a
little dull. With a lot of care in
programming, however, I get the
feeling that the Star could shine.
The Oki male is a bit of a
conundrum. It's capable of excellent
pictures - the wax surface is
wonderfully glossy - which while no
photograph, is up to cheap colour
newspaper standard. Its lext
performance is definitely iffy (can
anything be definite and iffy?); the
blacks are really black, but the
characters are lumpy and not as good
as the Star. And the Okimate is
horrendously expensive to run.
Expect, paper and wax, to pay about
a £1 for every' full-size lull-colour
screen dump.
The Star is going to be between 5
and HI times as cheap to rim, and the
difference in cusls will bn even more
pronounced when used with black
ribbons and ordinary text, The
Okimate can use thermal paper as
well; although this obviates the need
fur a ribbon it isn't cheap.
Speed is another place where the
Star is a comfortable winner. It’s
almost twice as fast on dotty lext,
where it can manage about 120
characters per second, about the same
speed on NI,Q (but produces nicer
characters), and significantly faster on
screen dumps. This last is heavily
influenced by the software that's
driving the printer, of course, and
neither the Okimate nor the Star will
have finished Tutting by the time
you’ve drunk your coffee.
I COULD have the Star as my only
printer, end in fact I suspect it
would w'ork well in that role. The
wide selection of standard typefaces,
together with the simple way to
choose them and the extra little
touches in the design department
make this a printer to watch for. The
Okimate has the edge on the glossy
pictures, which might make it a good
buy if you’ve already gol a good
monochrome printer and just want
the occasional haul (hut not fast) copy
that looks rather nice.
But for both the best way to do
things is to have a black ribbon for
day-to-day work, leaving the colours
for Sunday bust.
REPORT CARD
Star LC-m
Star Micronicfi
£285
USEE l ILNESS HBTI 1 1 !
A good all tou ml printer which offers
colour as a bonus. Strong and looks
reliable.
EASE OF USE..
Sensible positioning of cables and
sockets, with good paper fern! and front
panel controls.
SOFTWARE ■
The Epson fX printer drivers from
Workbench produce acceptable results
but the Star might benefit from custom
drivers.
SPEED,.
Reasonable for a nine pin dot matrix
printer. hJ&eds up to eight passes in
colour mode but still fairly last.
VALUE
The cheapest colour printer to run and
not ton expensive to buy. Look out for
discounts.
REPORT CARD
Ukimale zu
X-Diila 0753 72331
£1 5!)
USEFULNESS ,
Really only designed for colour work
the Oki is too slow and expensive to
use as a print workhorse.
EASE OF USE.
Good paper feed and dean ribbons
make it simple to set up. Programming
for colour is complicated by the poor
manual.
SOFTWARE ,
With either IBM or Amiga rams
installed the preferences driver will
work, but the IBM mode leaves gaps
between lines.
OVERALL 78%
!
OVERALL 65%
A natural choice for Amiga owners
who want colour but don 't think they
can afford if.
speed
The Okimate s A chillies herd is the
need to print every iine three times.
VALUE.
While it is exceptionally cheap to huy\
tlte printer suffers badly from high
running costs, even when printing text.
Meat as a second printer hut very
limiting if this is to be a prime source
of hard copy.
futy If mi AMIGA COMPUTING
#
The Californian
coders
of many British companies, where, if
you want a drink of corporation pop,
you have to rely on staff loo.
Now, before you start sending
angry letters to the editor saying that
if you'd wanted this sort of thing
you'd have bought Water Cooler
Monthly, Jet me explain. Electronic
Arts believes in treating its staff
decently: It gives them what they
need to make life comfortable and in
return they give 101 per cent back to
the company - and that goes all the
way from programmers to warehouse
staff.
In addition, every employee of EA
is also a shareholder in the company,
giving them an added interest in its
success. The result is that everyone
makes a real effort to guarantee that
its product stands out from the crowd
- and as anyone who has ever
puzzled over The Bard's Tale, got
creative with lleluxe Music
Construction Set or been driven nuts
by Marble Madness will tell you, it
John Minson heads west to interview
the software house which
wears an Amiga on its heart
T HE small Berkshire town of
Langley may seem an unlikely
home for a selection of international
companies, but Honda's offices lie
across one road of the elegant,
modern Business Centre, while
Epson's logo can he seen from
another window. But I'm here to visit
American software giant and Amiga
specialist* Electronic Arts, whose
latest offering, Interceptor* is raved
about elsewhere in this issue.
i m sitting drinking coffee with PR
person Lesley Mansford and
photographer Tony Sleep, Rut despite
the fact that Lesley wants to tell us all
ahout EA and its thrilling new
products, Tony and I are more
interested in the water cooler.
It's a drinks fountain, just like you
see in all those Hollywood movies,
complete with three taps for hot,
warm and cold: Red. white and blue
like the Stars and Stripes.
This seems to symbolise EA s way
of working. After an initial period,
when the company's products were
licensed through Ariel asoft it set up
its own British operatipn, bringing
with it working practices which are
perhaps best described as Californian,
Certainly they're totally unlike those
Mark Lewis . head
of FA, UK and
Neufhail juggler
:tfi AMIGA COMPUTING July 1&SB
■HOUSE CALL!
works, EA is truly at the loading edge
of software,
ft's not just Stateside hyperbole that
came up with the Arts tag, EA firmly
believes that its programmers,
musicians and graphics specialists are
artists - and it treats them as such.
EALISING that creative minds
aren’t best served by nine-to-
five hours and impossible deadlines,
EA assigns each of its projects a
producer whose role, just like his
namesake in the film industry, is to
act as a buffer between the
commercial interests of the company
and the freedom of the programming
team.
It’s this sort of liberal attitude that
has helped EA attract — and keep -
some of the leading talents in
software development today.
Only a few months ago Rob
Hubbard, doyen of British computer
musicians, whose work was to be
heard on dozens of products from
almost every major publisher, decided
to give up his flourishing freelance
work for a contract with EA, It’s
hardly surprising when you consider
that contract meant the opportunity to
work both in the Slates and in Britain
and, perhaps mure importantly, the
opportunity to keep on top of all the
latest developments in the software
world.
d Can a computer
make you cry?J
(Electronic Arts* first advertisement)
d Electronic Arts
was the 136th firm
to enter the home
computing field when
its first products were
shipped in May 1983
. . , Today the Elec-
tronic Arts brand
name is the most
respected consumer
software brand > > J
The water cooler, imported from the US
photograph of the founding team
taking on this mighty task.
With this in mind, I started by
asking this enthusiastic American
about the company history. It all
■started in Silicon Valley with a
visionary by the name of William M
Hawkins, better known as Trip, who
was at that time working for Apple,
Mark picks up the story.
“Trip realised that it was software -
not hardware - that made people
want to buy computers. He had a
dream of a company that would bring
people a new depth of interactive
entertainment, so he brought together
a team of people, each with
experience in different areas’ 1 .
This group included Tim Mott, who
had previously been with Xerox, to
make sure thal people got the tools
that they needed to do the job (did
that include water coolers, 1 idly
wondered) and a guy called Dai'e
Evans for talent seeking.
Together Dave and the team drew
up a list of every name they could
think of in the Bay area who might be
interested in working for the
company, then they invited them all
to a big, glitzy party to test their
reactions. Somehow it seems fitting
that EA started with a parly.
All this was taking place in early
autumn, 1332. Eight months later, in
May 1UB3, the first product was ready
to be shipped. Now' one of the places
which chose to stock it was a shop in
Pennsylvania w'here Mark was
working, “These were the best games
I'd ever played. I wanted to work for
the company"
Coffee over, Lesley takes Tony and
me on a short tour of the offices.
There's the bustle of busy people, but
Ihough they're on Ihe phone or
poring over papers, there’s a relaxed
atmosphere, almost as if they were,,,
(gasp) enjoying themselves. Maybe
they are. 1 know from past experience
that it's not unusual to find people
still hard at work at seven in the
evening - nol because they have to
but because they want the best for the
company.
And when Eriday comes round
there’s none of the POETS day
mentality (Push off early -
tomorrow's Saturday), Instead, at five,
everyone gathers for an informal
meeting in which views can be freely
aired, they can sink a few cans of
Hud, and let off steam throwing
featherlight foam balls at each other.
But the biggest surprise is w hen
Lesley introduces us to the Director of
European Publishing (head honcho,
UK). Nol for Mark Lewis the heavily
fortified office with guard dog
secretary' and gold key to the
executive loo. Instead his “cube”, as
everyone calls the open-plan cubicles,
is just like anyone else’s, In fact, Mark
tells us, its smaller than some,
because he needs less desk space.
A ROUND the walls are various
pieces ofEA memorabilia,
including the "Can a computer make
you cry?” advertisement that first
brought the company to the public
eye. It set out the philosophy of
taking game design further, deeper
than ever before, so that it could start
to elicit the emotional responses we
take for granted in other media such
as the cinema. Next to it was a
T HE first Electronic Arts games to
reach the UK came via
Ariolasoft. "It w r as a good experience
for a couple of years but wc weren’t
in touch wdth the consumers”. Mark
recalls, "Also, w r hen you’re dealing
on a license, it’s difficult to attract
artistic talent. That’s one reason we
decided to sell direct”.
Bringing the Californian philosophy
to Britain appears to have paid
dividends. EA in I lie UK now has
three production staff, headed by
associate producer Joss Ellis, backed
by Kevin Shrapnel and Rupert
Easter brook. As well as overseeing
conversions for British formats, they
are also involved with the
development of home-produced
product.
The first British EA program is
►
Inly IftRA AMIGA COMPUTING 77
■HOUSE CALL*
whet you see is just what you'd see if
you were walking round- Our demo
has you walking round EA's
headquarters, solving a simple
mystery. It's hardly animated hut it
could quite easily be. In terms of
interactive entertainment we’re just
beginning to realise the possibilities".
Hu also lets slip that Rob Hubbard
is working on the sound-storage tools
- which has to be one reason he
deserted these shores. "With the
Amiga you currently have graphics to
match the Saturday morning cartoons
- but with compact discs you’ll have
the movies,” Mark enthuses.
Britain will play its part in that
revolution. Though Mark professes
himself extremely happy that the & bit
machines are going into a decline, he
believes that there have been many
advantages in their dominance of the
UK market for so long, “You’ve had
the development of really great
technical expertise, ” he said. Your
programmers have made the Ct34 do
things the rest of the world couldn't
believe".
Already Solar Systems, an associate
of Argonaut, has been commissioned
to produce an Amiga game. And
Mark is in fairly regular contact with
ace designer Mike Singleton; "lie’s
waiting fur a day when Ihere'll be a
machine great enough to catch up
with his ideas. The UK will surpass
America in terms of making the most
of the technical side. It's one of our
responsibilities as publishers to
develop it properly".
It seemed a good, optimistic note to
end on, and to leave Mark to get back
to work. As we go he consults his
desktop computer to check For
messages. Another of EA’s
revolutionary practices is to link
everyone by electronic mail, so that
communications for individuals or to
everybody on the staff, from Langley
or San Mateo, can reach their
destination immediately. It also
provides an Open forum to for the
germs of new ideas.
r
<4
likely to he Hyperdrive from
newcomer Michael Powell, Though
Mark Lewis says that only one in 3f10
speculative submissions makes the
grade, this one did impress them
enough to take it further. Nobody
wants to say too much about it, as
completion is still a couple ot months
away, but apparently it concerns
Futuristic, sophisticate bobsled type
machines. All should he revealed in
the early autumn though,
LA will back teams that it believes
in, even if the programs submitted
aren’t suitable but show talent And if
somebody comes to the company
with a great design but doesn't know
their assembler from their hex, they’ll
arrange for him or her to work for a
week with a programming team, to
see if they hit it off together. It all gets
the best from people.
dThe truth is that
Commodore hasn’t
built or sold as many
Amigas as we had all
originally hoped J
f Trip Hawkins, EA President)
Obviously one of the burning
questions for readers of this magazine
is Electronic Arts’ attitude to the
Amiga, In the past it’s supported it to
the full, with games like Ferrari ■
Formula One and the superb Deluxe
series of creative applications, some
of which, like Deluxe Video, are now
being used professionally by
advertising agencies and production
companies.
But there’s no denying that Amiga
sales have been slower than
everybody hoped, and that for various
reasons the machine has not vet had
the success that it deserves. Can EA
afford to continue to back it, I
wondered. Mark Lewis had no
hesitation in assuring me that it can
and will.
“The Amiga is a beautiful machine
- both an auditory and visual
experience, And you can do so much
with it. There’s Deluxe Paint at one
end and arcade games at the other".
He went on to explain that EA's
romance with micro goes back a long
way, "We worked closely with the
development team. They were based
within 20 miles of us and we caught
their enthusiasm.
“The popularity of the PC is kill ing
the market for the Amiga in the US",
he continues “but it’s doing much
better over here. When Atari raised
the price for the ST. that was a great
help. When the two are at the same
price the choice should he obvious to
potential purchasers, There are two
ways to make it take off — for
Commodore to push hard and for
Electronic Arts to develop leading
edge software".
A S if to demonstrate the faith
that EA has in the machine,
Mark hands me a copy of Deluxe
News, a glossy magazine which is
automatically sent to all registered
users of the Deluxe series, on both
sides of the Atlantic. The cover story
is about Deluxe PhotoLab, a package
which lets you take an existing image
or digilise one, manipulate it, then
print it at any size up to a ten foot
square poster.
But the thing which could really set
the Amiga soaring is Mark’s
confidence that it will load intn
optical disc media. He dislikes the
overused acronym GDI [Compact Disc
- Interactive), but loves its potential.
EA already has a demo of an
interactive adventure up and running,
"Your screen is like a cinema, and
Lesley Met ns ford - proud n/ Interceptor
O N the way back to the West
End Tony and I arc both
boggled by what we have seen. Can
the method nf working really be so
perfect? Nothing has suggested
otherwise — and the end product
suggests that it wurks too. If I had tn
bet on a company tn create a
computer game which will make you
laugh, think - yes, even cry - then I'd
become a patron of Electronic Arts.
38 AMIGA COMPUTING July IWJfl
■ MUSICS
Sample battle
Jez San casts a critical ear over a collection
of boxes all designed to get super sounds
into your Amiga
I N my quest as a games
programmer I've traversed the
audio wastelands in search of I he
ultimate sound sampler. Video games
need sampled title music and
digitised sound effects. Hack in (he
early flays — 1005 — none were
available. I rented an Knsoniq Mirage
synthesiser so that 1 could sample
some speech, the famous "Missile
launched” voice of Clare Edge ley at
Rainbird — and Iransfeired it via the
Midi port into the ST and Amiga for
playback.
Alas the Mirage proved In lie
unsuitable. Its playback filtering let it
get away with lousy sound quality
and background hiss - unacceptable
when transferred to the Amiga. A
Prophet 20(J() was hot on features and
much better sound quality, but it
didn't have any easy ways of getting
the samples into the Amiga, so all
these rental synthesisers turned out to
be less than prophetahle.
An Amiga sound sampler, the
Mimetics SoundScape, came along
just in time. This little black box
connected upright into the second
July JMJH AMIGA COMPUTING J!)
*
-4
mouse port on an AlUUQ, and
produced some very effective results.
It was way ahead of its time. Since
then. I've had mure than my fair
share of samplers - Mimetics,
Futuresoimd, Perfect Sound, The Jot.
I've bought, borrowed or stolen (/Vo,
we want the review one back - Ed)
every single one I could get my hands
on.
My criteria were simple: Sound
quality must be superb, money no
object. All very' well for a games
programmer to scoff at price but it
turned out there was no simple
solution. None of the units excelled in
a way that made them superior. They
all had their features and drawbacks.
The more expensive ones didn't
appear to be any better.
Some of the samplers under test are
little more than toys, others semi-
professional tools. Nothing currently
available for the Amiga is comparable
to true studio quality. It is unlikely
you could make a record with any of
these samplers, hut you can have a lot
of fun trying.
They are very similar in design,
made up of three stages. The input
stage which sometimes has an
amplifier, the filtering, and lastly the
digitising section. Samplers skimp on
some or all of these options, 1o the
detrimenl of versatility or sound
quality.
Mimetics’ Soundscape
T HIS has stereo inputs, hut
unfortunately the software
doesn’t take advantage of them, and
will only sample in mono. Mimetics
supplies sampling packages with its
unit for making musical instruments
for packages like Deluxe Music, hy
sampling and creating TFT files.
Samples are limited to ;tzk in
length - about three seconds at the
typical IOKHk sample rate - fine for
digitising instruments, bul useless for
long pieces of music or speech. The
program aiso has the ability to
interpolate sounds - to move them
around and alter their frequency
without having to re-sample.
The software runs from the
Workbench in little windows, and
pops up more windows as you select
diHercnl options. Fully icon-driven, it
tries to be friendly. No doubt reading
the manual would help,
A second program supplied is a
Profound has a friendly front end
demo for sampling long contiguous
pieces of speech or music. Its samples
cart only be replayed with their
proprietary software being specially
encoded. This is because Mimetics
does clever tricks to enhance the
quality of the sound by recording it
with IJ6X filters anil compounding
the master volume control over the
top of the sound sample. It gives the
samples an accuracy of 1 4 hits when
the Amiga can usually only do H hits
- the other 6 bits are the volume
control.
The Mimetics samples really are
impressive in quality, and suffer little,
if any background hiss. I got the
impression that the hardware
potential inside the Mimetics box was
being incredibly underused. The
sampler has a software controlled
gain facility that the accompanying
software barely utilises. A shame
really,
I was generally impressed with the
Mimetics box, but frustrated at the
lack of portability with the demo
program's data files to any other
program, including my own. but as a
sampler for creating musical
instruments there is nothing to fault
it. Obviously this sampler was
intended for musicians, not
programmers.
Applied Visions’
FutureSound
F UTIJRESOUND is a cream
coloured box that attaches via a
ribbon cable, to the parallel port at
the rear of the Amiga, like almost
every other box. It is a mono-only
digitiser, has a gain [volume) control
and two inputs, one for a microphone
and one for a phono line input,
The microphone supplied with the
package is junk. Throw it away.
Luckily only the mike was useless^
the sampler itself being quite good.
Why they don't drop the price a bit,
and discard the mike from the
package is beyond me. This is the
only sound sampler that has a switch
and passthrough connector to let you
use your printer while the sampler is
plugged in.
The software supplied with
FutureSound is reasonably graphical
and powerful. It presents your sound
sample information in a friendly
manner on the screen, showing the
applicable waveforms and allows you
to zoom in on any interesting
sections. You could also specify start
and stop points by clicking on the
waveforms with the mouse.
Full control of the sampling and
playback rates is supported, as are
various edit effects like reversing,
mixing and copying waveforms. Most
important feature is the ability to do
long samples that span the entire free
chip memory. This gives a maximum
sample length of about U7 seconds at
the usual Ifl KHz sample rate.
The sound quality is excellent, as is
its ability to show you a VU-meter
peaklevel to let you know the correct
volume at which to sample. Too loud,
and you get clicks and pops - known
as Clipping - too quiet, and the
background noise becomes
40 AMIGA COMPUTING July t9&8
■MUSIC!
—
unacceptable compart'd to the sound
signal level. I ended up using
lutureSound tr> sample StarGlider's
title music - the digitised version -
and most of the speech too.
Futuresound is a great package,
with good sound quality and nice
software. Unfortunately, it is
expensive - possibly because it
features a quality digitising circuit
incorporating an amplifier and filter
circuits that really show their effect in
the quality department. The software
is friendly and easy to use but I was
frustrated by its lack of capacity to
hold huge (larger than 38Uk) samples.
Various companies have promised
ability to use last memory in the
future - something that Futuresound
sorely needs.
SunRize Industries’
Perfect Sound
I FIRST saw the Perfect Sound
software on PeopleLink, the
American computer system renowned
for its Amiga software support. I
downloaded this free program and
was impressed by its capability and
friendliness. II rates on par with
FutureSound tor features, with the
added bon us I hat it supports stereo, ft
allows you to name each sample you
have loaded and click on them to
select Ihem - a more powerful
approach than FutureSound.
More importantly, it brought news
of a really cheap stereo sound
digitiser aval lab hr from the author’s
company. 1 phoned him up P and
within days 1 had. a prototype board.
II looked like two pieces of cardboard
held together by chewing gum and a
bit of circuitry.
It connects to the parallel port, but
this time without any ribbon cable, so
it stands precariously out of the hack
of the Amiga, ft has two phono inputs
and two gain controls.
I later received a final production of
PerfectSound in a smarter metal case,
with the two volume knobs poking
through holes in the top. This makes
it difficult to plug into an A2G00
because they stick out. It suffers the
same problem of nut having any
ribbon cable to connect it
conveniently to the back of the
Amiga. Hopefully they will make it
more accessible in the future.
I wasn’t particularly impressed with
the sound quality, but it scored very
highly in the ease-of-use department
Jt managed to sample everything I
asked of it but there was some
background hiss. This is because they
use an inferior analogue to digital
chip, the Hash converter variety,
rather than the more expensive
savnple-and-hold type.
PerfectSound represents the
cheapest reasonable entry into sound
sampling, but the sound quality
leaves a lot to be desired. For a little
extra cash there are other, far superior
alternatives.
The S5, by Soph us
Software and ASAP
I WAS eager to sec the 55, since it
is the most expensive sound
sampler available for the Amiga.
Glanc ing through the manual I soon
noticed it had some really
sophisticated features - last Fourier
transformations (FFTs) allow you lei
plot frequency graphs and there arc
some really useful fast ram modes.
The hardware is impressive stuff: A
full stereo sampler which connects to
the parallel port via a ribbon cable. It
has a gain control and a switchable
input with different impedances for
microphones or line inputs.
Unfortunately il is the software that
lets it down - it lacks some basic user
interface routines.
You can ask it to do something, like
play back your long sample, and il
would go In sleep for minutes without
even printing a message saying il was
busy, A simple “Please Wait" would
have gone down a treat, especially for
some of the more time consuming
functions like rescaling the sample, or
FFTs,
On the plus side, the S5 is the only
sampler I tested capable of really long
samples. It utilises Fast memory when
you request it This means if you have
3.5Mb you can sample an entire track
from your favourite CIJ. For that ITn
grateful to the guys at Sophus. They
►
■ MUSIC!
42 AMIGA COMPUTING futy 19B3
Pro-Sound is definitely a user's package
provide a useful and powerful library
of functions to allow programmars to
replay digitised sounds from the S3
Sampler. The software defaults to
sampling Deluxe Music instruments.
In terms of sound quality the S5
was probably the best. It came on par
with FulureSound, but has stereo
inputs. If you can grasp how to use it,
the software is much more
sophisticated i Definitely designed for
the professional programmer.
Pro-Sound Designer
from Eidersoft
T ift! Pro-Sound package is
unusual in that ils software
supports both the FutureSnund and
PerfactSound hardware, as well as
Eidersoft 's own. Pro-Sound is a stereo
sampler in a small self-contained
cartridge with no external controls.
Having no cable, it connects to the
parallel port, dinning upright to the
back of the Amiga. Since it's been
designed for I he A 1000 a gender
changer is supplied to allow you to
connect it to an A 2 000 or A5WI. The
box has its volume preset internally to
what Eidersoft thinks are line levels.
This means you must fiddle a little
with the volume on your source.
Pro-Sound is definitely a user's
package. The software has a cute,
friendly icon -based feel to it.
Allhough some of the icons were
unusual in function. VVhal struck me
was the attention to graphical detail.
it's supposed to be a sound sampler
and not a video game. Hut l had a lot
of fun, so maybe it was a game after
all.
It’s an amazing package with really
flexible controls, and so easy to use.
The waveform viewing anti analysis
tools were the most powerful I’ve
seen - the cute meter levels look like
an oscilloscope with true real-time
waveforms being displayed as you
adjust the volume control. The ability
to hold numerous samples in memory
while you edit them is a feature only
Perfect Sound is able to duplicate.
The flexibility wilh which you could
instantly call things up with function
keys is a joy. Eidersoft tells me that a
future version of Pro-Sound will cope
with Fast memory, but until then., the
maximum sample length is about 3n
seconds at 10 khz.
Sound quality is reasonable,
although not up to the S5’s standards.
However I certainly sound it better
than PerfectSound , The loss of art
external volume control was a bit
frustrating for me, since I hate having
to play with my Disc man’s volume to
stop the clipping problems caused by
high levels. Minor grumbles apart. I'd
class the Pro Sound Designer as an
above-average product, for a very
reasonable price. Excellent.
Summary
D ifferences between the
samplers an? really quite subtle.
Most support the same basic features,
and only offer minor improvements.
However. 1 would class the
PerfectSourld as little more than a toy.
The sound quality just isn’t up to
scratch, but then it is the cheapest
unit and so possibly a good entry
level box. Buy this only if you can’t
afford anything better.
In terms of home use, I would
definitely recommend Ihe Pro Sound
Designer. Being relatively cheap and
so easy to use, it has got to be the
most fun, and offers quite reasonable
results.
The best sampler was undoubtedly
the Sophus S5, but it’s a shame the
top-class hardware was let down by
poor software. It was technically the
most sophisticated both in terms of
sound quality and features, but it was
a pig 1o use. For professionals this
represents the bust you can buy at the
moment. Hopefully Sophus will take
another look at ils software. A few
minor changes will turn it into a
grumble-free package.
FulureSound and Mimetic® come
somewhere in between. Both are
badly priced in England, due to
importers slapping on huge penalties
for buying American. There is
nothing wrong with the samplers -
they are quite good but they just don’l
offer value for money.
Where to buy
PerfeclSound - £75
Amiga Centre, Scotland
l ei: 031-557 4242
Future Sound - £175
HJJ Marketing
Tel: 01-B44 12U2
Pm-Snund Designer - £79
Eidersoft
Tel: O2fi0 541212
Sophus S5 - £199
Applied Systems & Peripherals
Tel: 0724 2m222
thanks fw Monkey Bus fnitss T titi Victoria Ro&it
Romford. for the faun of I hr Karp keyboard-
Amiga Arcade
IfewHTg r?rrd? of the IQ.QflQ hi-ek
T owards ihe end of lsae that
rare si of rarities, an original
game, was released by Firehird.
(’ailed Sentinel, it was ihe latest mas-
terpiece by Geoff Crammond, who
earlier had proved that the BBC
Micro could support top class soft-
ware with such efforts as Aviator and
later Ihe excellent Revs, still regarded
by many as the definitive driving
game.
Sentinel consists of 10,0011 land-
scapes. each containing a Sentinel
and up to si it Guardians whose life
energy you must absorb before gain-
ing access to another landscape.
Kacli landscape is rather like a con-
toured open plan chess board with
valleys, mountains and plateaux on
which trees abound- The key to the
whole game is energy. The smallest
unit of energy is a tree; boulders an:
worth two trees arid Sentinels three.
Se i ilt riels are like gianl Oscars (hat
slowly rotate on their elevated plat-
forms. Whenever a Sentinel, or
Guardian, turns lo fare you, it begins
absorbing your energy, randomly
redistributing it throughout the land-
scape in the form of trees.
The only way you can absorb the
energy of the Sentinel, or its Guard-
ians. is by reaching an elevated pos-
ition in the landscape from which
you can look down on its platform.
You can only absorb an object's
energy when you can see the square
on which it stands. You start eadi
level in th[‘ 1 <i west poinl of the land-
scape, often only able to see the lops
of a few trees and the Sentinel tow-
ering above you.
Getting high enough lo be able to
absorb the Sentinel is in principle
simple, but far from easy in practice.
Imagine you're standing on the
ground with an empty square beside
vou. You can create a boulder on the
empty square. Then, on top of the
boulder, you can create a "copy" of
yourself into which you can
transport.
You're now standing on the Im ol-
der looking down on Ihe ‘old’ you
which you can absorb so as not to
have lost any net energy, except that
Lied up in the boulder.
From your new vantage point you
can see bits of the landscape visible
because of your extra elevation. You
may already be able to see the bases
of a few of the trees the tops of which
you saw earlier. If so, absorb their
energy, you’re bound to need it later
to create more boulders.
And you're not limited to just
building one boulder at a lime either.
Apart from the fad that each one
costs two units of energy to create,
there is nothing stopping you
building a tower of boulders before
placing yourself on top. but although
it allows you to make big jumps in
height, having so much energy lied
up in boulders offer proves to be loo
risky a strategy.
As soon as a Sentinel or Guardian
starts sapping your energy you have
lo transport to a safe pan of the land-
scape or risk premature death. This
means leaving behind all the boul-
ders, Although from your, hopefully,
now safe point on the landscape you
can begin reabsorbing the boulders,
you are now competing with the
Sentinel which, even though you’ve
moved, will still absorb any other
energy source it sees.
Frequently, a policy of little and
often is the key lo success. Move from
place to place, always staying one
step ahead of the Sentinel, without
ever having too much capital inves-
ted in boulders.
Compared with earlier it bit ver-
sions and the ST conversion released
late Iasi year, Amiga .Sentinel, pro-
grammed by Steve “Go id runner"
Bak, is faster and has been given a
complete sonic overhaul in the form
of an incredibly atmospheric set of
eerie, almost surrealistic, sound
effects and musical cameos courtesy
of David Whittaker.
Although the lack of effort put iuto
Amiga conversions is often disap-
pointing, Firebird has wisely derided
to slick closely to Crammond s
original g bit graphics, although they
are brighter and crisper than in
previous versions.
Any attempt at major modification
would have been a big mistake,
purely because the original was so
perfectly crafted.
IF you’ve never experienced
Sentinel, treat yourself lo the nearest
thing yet to the perfect game. Unless
you're an out and out death merchant
you won’t be disappointed.
David Bishop
Aftsnrfi the Imv for eiteryt
July HNtH AMHi.i aiMPtniNU 43
vnu from one end of the screen to the
ol her.
Game play, when you gel down to
it, is not particularly lasl Of start 1
lingly responsive.
So far, so standard, but She
redeeming feature of Footman is the
comprehensive Maze Editor. This lets
you design your own mazes in which
to weeble, providing all sorts of
opportunities to shock maiden aunts
and generally be terribly rude.
That apart. Footman at this price is
simply, well, adequate - but only
just.
John Maker
Fmtntsn
£UM
TtipDuti a Dpu-lopmentti
Somri TminTTTTI
cn^kic ■mitimiiu
(.ampplav JTI [I UTI [ 1 I I It
Overall - 28 %
W E all know the old joke about
the first program that is ever
released fora new computer: Reverse
If Ihal's true - and it is if you think
about it - then the main contender fur
I bo second has got lo be Pactnan. ur
in this rase Footman.
It's been a long time coming, and
the thing is, was it worth the wait?
Web, sort of.
What you get from Top Down, in
this case is a hog standard ripole
Patman clone with very few trills.
You use joystick ur cursor keys and,
troll off round a whole bunch of
mazes - you get Ml un the disc -
while being pursued by some
arthritic g hushes
Yup, there are dots, power pills
which give you the ability to pul I he
ghosties out of their misery, and
wraparound corridors that' 11 take
It's gfitM thimbnf!
BARBARIAN
P ICTURE yourself as a barbarian
fighting for the love of Maria
Whittaker (down buys), You are not
alone in ynur desires and have rival
Sun readers to fight off. They come at
you one by one in the forest tor a
“discussion", each with enormous
broadswords and very little on.
Prepare yourself before battle com-
mences, You spend the first half hoar
getting killed, very, very quickly,
After a while things get belter and
you begin lo enjoy hacking the foe in
bits, especially when a well aimed
Now decapitates him.
The head falls to the ground with a
spurt of blood from his severed neck
accompanied by a scream and satis*
fying thud as the torso tumbles.
Wholesome stuff.
The graphics on Barbarian area bit
of a lei down. It would seem that tbc
Atari ST graphics were simply-
dumped trorn one machine lo the
other. The figures are very basic, in
colouring and in form. Gne
I redeeming factor is that they move in
a very lifelike manner especially in
the sword fighting,
The game’s designer. Sieve Brown,
videotapes himsell wielding swords
and kicking, and then watches the
tape to produce the graphics.
The digitised sound is very good,
the gurgles, screams and thuds being
particularly realistic. All good blood
curdling stuff, forget your karate
games and get into this.
If there’s a digitised piu v of Maria
at the end. ] haven't gut there yet, hut
it gives you an incentive lo fight aver
onward.
All in all it's a good game and
somewhat addictive. A bit more
detail in the characters wouldn't have
gone amiss,
This must be the last in this series
of two guys beating each other up in
verv nice scenery. It's wearing a hit
thin, but no doubt someone will
come up with yet another scenario
with different graphics and surpris-
ingly familiar game play
A good one for all the hackers out
there, that s the violent ones, not the
quiet key tapping ty pes, or are you an
Arnold Schwarzenegger in Woody
Allen clothing?
Brian Chappell
Barh0r1.n1
£19.95
Palm e
A squelch as the head rolls
44 A MICA COMPi •TIN C July tms
Overall — 77%
■REVIEWS!
FERRARI FORMULA 1
A S the Formula. 1 season gets
into full swing, Electronic. Arts
has released its latest attack on the
Amiga games player in the shape of
Ferrari Formula 1.
Designed to bring the thrills and
spills of a Formula One racing team
to your screen, the game revolves
closely around the 19Bfi Ferrari team
uf Michele AJboreto and Stefan
Johansson - even though Johansson
has since hnen hooted out in favour
of the faster Gerhard Berger, who in
this game is raring for Benetton!
Apart from Acornsoffs Revs, most
software houses have been too
terrified to release a game which
actually involved the technicalities uf
driving a racing car. Games sut.ii as
Pole Position and Super Sprint an;
simply arcade games with a tar as the
theme, as opposed to a fish in a
banana.
Ferrari Formula 1 sets out to leclity
this situation, not only giving you
control of the machine as It hurtles
around the various world cham-
pionship tracks, but also allowing
you to act as team manager
Holding this post lor a high profile
car manufacturer like Ferrari must he
a terrifying proposition, and thank-
fully the game does not stretch to tile
reality of being fired although a her
losing a few race* resignation feels
close at hand,
You must not only get your car to
and from each race - allowing
enough time for testing, modifi-
cations and travel - but you must be
able to set your car up correctly tor
each different track.
A variety of alterations can be done
to your car - the Flfifi model, a 1.5
litre turbocharged jub producing
mon; Ilian 800 bhp. These range troiu
turbo and engine adjustments, with
the help of a d y no at Fiorano. right
through to choosing different tyres
for different wheels at Detroit.
In order not to make the game too
difficult to get into, a friendly
mechanic will help you with advice
when necessary.
The first few hours are spent at the
test track trying to learn how to con-
trol the car.
Thankfully, you cun choose
whether or not to operate the gears
manually, something which makes
driving a little simpler.
Using the mouse, the right button
accelerates, the Jett button brakes and
pressing both down engages the
clutch for drag starts.
Moving the mouse from loft to
right steers the car and it is this
which presents the most difficulty,
Unlike every other driving game I
have played, instead of the front of
the car pointing wherever you steer.
the screen scrolls left In right and you
control the driver's head.
This means that in hard comers
you can be turning full lock and yet
the car is in the comer of the screen,
Although it is not tou difficult to get
used lo, this small point is suf-
ficiently annoying lo make I he first
few attempts at driving around the
track both frustrating and very slow.
After about 20 Japs ol the test track,
you will find that cornering is nol too
big a problem. The real worry is
keeping up with everyone else. Du
average, f was running ubuul 15
seconds slower per lap than the
seven computer -con trolled cars -
those of Mansell. Piquet, Senna.
Frost, Berger and Aibureto.
This is when you should take the I
plunge and choose the Formula 1 car.
with its gears, turbo boost and mas-
sive oversteer.
Changing from a supposedly
Formula 3 car where the gears are
automatically selected In ,i Formula 1
car with manual gears is nut quite as
easy as 1 had imagined. Even with the
turbo-boost set at its lowest, the car
still goes into corners far loo fast, and
unless you have been methodic
enough lo learn the track, excursions
into the undergrowth are all too
frequent.
Thankfully, unless you are actually
in mid-race, these crashes do not
affect you loo adversely - apart from
the seconds lost.
tna race, however, you can lose up
to a couple of months if uni crash
i ,rn from Ml i rid ivftM
badly - and two months can, at
worst, mean four races - 36 possible
points,
The graphics are good, but by no
means exceptional. Attention In
detail - track dimensions, and so on -
were obviously considered more
important than artistic graphics.
On the other hand, the irstrumen!
panel is small and lacks an accurate
rev counter, which is a pity. The
animation, too, is good. But as the
game is written in C rather than
assembly language, it is still not as
smooth as perhaps it should be.
On the other hand, the sound -
both music and effects - is excellent.
A natty little tune plays while the
game Is loading. The sounds during
the game an; excellent ranging from
the roar of a turbocharged Ferrari
engine to the whirr of an air-powered
spanner.
Ferrari Formula 1 is, when
compared to everything else avail-
able for the Amiga, an excellent
driving simulation. It combines an
emotive subject with enough
substance to provide many days of
satisfaction that shoot-'em-ups or
flight simulations could never give.
That is not to say the game is not
flawed - it is. The most unfortunate
thing about Ferrari Formula 1 is that
11 could have been THE definitive
Amiga game. Unfortunately that
accolade will have lo go elsewhere.
Francis [ago
Frrrari f ttmwfo I
C24M
t'lvi fjviui l rh
Ferrari viewed /ram atone
July tit88 AMIGA COMPUTING 45
mm
STAR FLEET 1
Absorbing ail ihv information on Star Fleet takvs a while
W HEN you’re asked to review
a product which lias a quick
reference guide longer end more
detailed than many games' full
instructions, you know you’ve got a
problem. Star Fleet 1 is a case in
point.
Complete with a 68 -page Star Fleet
training manual, not to mention a
10(1 page officer’s training manual,
this is a combat simulation and role-
playing game of mammoth propor-
tions.
Set some time in the future. Star
Fleet is a strategic war game between
two opposing forces. Naturally
enough, you represent truth, democ-
racy, the American wav of life, the
universe and everything. The
baddies arc the evil and incredibly
hostile Krellans and /add runs,
empire builders cm a galactic scale.
You begin as a cadet, still wet
behind the ears, but hungry for every
scrap of knowledge you can gain
from the Star Fleet Officers' Acad-
emy. There, you will be given
command of the training ship UG AS
Republic. If you prove yourself a
worthy enough student, you will
have a choice of 3(5 starships to
command.
Missions are many and varied, but
all involve the location and destruc-
tion of enemy craft, A typical mission
briefing might go something like this:
/. Effective immediately, you arc to
assume command of the l 'SAC Duke
of York. After relieving Captain
Bertsch, vow will proceed directly to
the Antares III region.
II. Voir are hereby ordered to seek out
and engage the forces of the Krelkn
and Zaldran Empires which have
invaded the Alliance territory, in so
doing, you are to deplete the enemy
Heel sufficiently so that our main
battle fleet can be assembled and
defeat them before they can reach our
colonics.
Each briefing ends with the spe-
cific requirements of the mission
which include the number of enemy
warships you must destroy and the
time in which you have to do so.
Finally you are given the number of
star bases in the region.
If you can locale and dock with an
Alliance slarbase - providing they'll
drop their defence shields lung
enough to let you through - you’ll he
able to refuel and re-arm your ship,
as well as carry out repair work.
Your ship is controlled from 23 dif-
ferent command menus, which
embrace 13 separate computer sys-
tems, as well as other functions such
as emergency hyperspace, self-
Despite being mission-baaed Star fleet tmes much to early Star Trek games
48 AMIGA COMPUTING July 1988
destrucl sequencer and slarbase
status readouts.
Computer systems are used to con-
trol damage, navigation, shields,
torpedo*, phasers, trader beam,
transporter, internal security and
reconnaissance probe launches.
Within each of these systems are
various menus and sub-menus used
for controlling that part of the simu-
lation.
The amount of detail is almost
bewildering. Take security for
example: This ran be compromised
in one of three ways.
Enemy agents can get aboard,
hidden in the supplies you pick up at
starbases. Prisoners, captured during
battle, can escape and wreak havoc
throughout your ship. Finally, agents
can be beamed aboard if their ship is
w ithin two sectors of yours.
intern at security control gives you
the latest information and allows you
to start or stop searches to apprehend
intruders. You can also opt for a
maximum security deck situation, in
which one deck is given blanket
cover at the expense of all others.
Should you outguess the villain,
and be goes on to this deck, he will
almost certainly be caught, or at least
prevented from sabotaging any vul-
nerable systems,
The same attention to detail can be
seen throughout Star Fleet 1.
Whether such a mass of information,
documentation and displays
amounts to a great game, you could
only say after spending plenty of
hours on the bridge.
Certainly the package is impress-
ive, the depth of the game unques-
tionable, and the scenario one that
most gamesters hold dear to their
heart.
Although the lack of graphics may-
pul many off, this shouldn't necess-
arily deter Amiga owners from con-
sidering the package, especially if
(hey like pure simulations or role
playing games, but he prepared to
work hard al getting the most from
this game,
David Bishop
Star Fleet i
£24.ilS
Electmnit trh
Overall - 64%
■HINTS!
Max “ The Hacks ” Tennant is the master of
game play. Whatever the game he 11 win at it,
fair means or foul - often with a little help
from his friends. If you have a tip for a game
send it in. For every one we print we’ll send
you a game from our goodie drawer —
together with a Konix Speed King Joystick
T i ll] lirst friend of Max the Hacks
is Adrian Curry from Firebird,
An are games player, he has turned
his attention to Bubble Bobble, and
presents the advanced Hubble Bobble
Flayer's Guide. So if you have been
bitten by a Briuo, bounced on by a
Bonnie-hi) nr bowled over by a
Boa-boa you need some Amiga-type
help.
On almost every screen two special
items will appear. The first will be
worth loads of points and Ihe second
will be a magical object. Knowing
which object does what is ihe key to
points prowess.
You don't need u sweet tooth to
appreciate the candy stick. I'ick this
up and kill all the baddies. The huge
fruit which fails down the centre of
the screen is worth between 10 and
30.000 points. Any bubbles on the
screen will turn into Ihe same fruits
w r orth 5(H) points each, so make sure
you blow lots of bubbles before
killing the last haddie.
A similar magic item is the treasure
chest. The huge fruit is replaced by a
diamond worth 50.000 points.
The potions are tasly — upon
quaffing a bottle of the stuff the
screen will be decorated with a
special type of fruit, You have to
collect as many as possible within a
time limit. If you gel them all Ihe
player who gets the most scores a
1110.000 point bonus and the runner
up 50.0(l[), If the players get half each
they both get 1 ill), 000 points,
Your bubbles are your main
defence. Rubble up sweets come in
three flavours - yummy yellow,
perfect purple and bubbly blue. The
first allows you to blow bubbles at
twice the normal rate and the purple
sweets increase Ihe range of your
hubbies. Bubbly blues are useless, a
quick chomp to no effect. The best of
both worlds, dropping yellows and
purples is know n as ‘'Super Bubble
Up”.
U MBRELLAS are bella. Grab the
open brolly In allow Bub and
Bob to fall down either three, five or
seven screens. Very useful for
avoiding the nastier screens.
It helps lo get cross when the cross
in question is a magic one. The blue
water cross tills the screen with
water, killing all the baddies on that
level, the purple lighting cross calls
down several bolls of lightning to
smite the evil monsters. The red cross
sets either Bob or Bull breathing balls
of fire; unfortunately this ability
expires with the end of the level,
The lea pot can be the best drink of
the day. A red teapot bestows super
bubble up on whoever drinks its
contents dry. The next item is more
than a storm in a teacup. Get it to
release a storm to destroy all your
enemies. Last, and certainly leasl, the
blue teapot, in keeping with its
confectionery cousin, does now).
The secret levels are something
which only more experienced players
should look for. If either player
manages to survive more than 20
screens without losing a single life, a
secret duor will appear instead of a
magical item. Enter this portal to
travel to one of the secret screens.
Then if you manage to survive
another 10 screens without losing any
lives another door will appear. This
can happen up to four times, Ihe final
one being a teleport of 20 levels. The
writing at the bottom is more than
just a scrawl - try pausing the game
and decoding the secret message.
Two’s company, and Rubble
Bubble was designed as a two player
game, so although one player can just
about finish il is far. far easier with
two. To see the end and secret screens
most people use a kamikaze tactic.
One player must do all the work
while the other should save his skin
and hide from trouble. If Baron von
Hlubba should appear Ihe kamikaze
player should try and collide with Ihe
Baron to save his friend.
If you ever come across a monster
■
July W8& AMIGA COMPUTING 47
who won’t come out of his hiding
place stand on the platform directly
above his head. The haddie in
question will come out to find out
who is malting such a racket on bis
roof,
ISTEU below are some of the
screens which have proved to he
very difficult. The hints and tips here
should allow you to bounce where no
hrontie has bounced before.
Level 13: Fall through to the lop of
the heart and wait for the water
bubbles to come up. Pop these to
Hush the Buhhas out.
Level 32: You have two options on
this screen - either wait to see if a
magic item appears, or just time il so
that all the Boa-boas are moving away
From the centre when you fall down
the hole.
Level 42: A really great group, famed
for Mark King on bass guitar. Nothing
to do with Bubble Bobble-
Level 44: Stand on the far left or right
lodge and bubble the Grumpies,
jumping to avoid their fireballs.
Level f*3i, A tricky one. You have to
jump from your own bubble on to the
first lodge. Repeat this to got to the
second ledge, and again to get on to
the top one. Once up then? stand on
the ridge and bubble away.
Level 70: Fall through on to the torch
and work your way down to its
bottom ledge. Once there stand as
close as you can to the edge and head
butt the first fire bubble which comes
Catch the letters for an EXTEND
Overhead. Then it's chocks away
Ginger, Goodbye honnie-bos.
Level 71: To get to the monster
trapped in ihe pit, jump on your own
bubble and huhhle through the wall.
Level 72: To get out of the pit stand
with your back to the wall and jump
on vovir Own bubble, bubbling all the
way. You will probably have to try
this several times to escape.
Level Bfb You will need to help the
fire hubbies along when they get
stuck. To do this just blow loads of
bubbles around I Hem and gently
nudge them along - the fire bubbles
should resume their course. Once
over ihe heads of the baddies, just
pop them and on yon go.
Level 95: Bubble up the sides of the
screen and once you reach the top
stand on the ridge and bubble those
baddies.
Level 9fe Wait for the invaders from
apace to get stuck in the pits then just
free-fall close by ant! bubble them
one by one.
Level 99: Bnhble the Bluhhas through
Ihe walls and drop fire on the
honners. Then return to the bottom of
the screen anti jump on your own
bubble, up past the Boa- boa, When
you are near Ihe top. pop your own
bubble and move left. Free fall down
and bubble the Boa-boa as you pass.
Final level: The first thing you should
do once you reach this screen is grab
the lightning potion at either the top
left or righi corners of the screen. You
will then be able If* blow lighting
hubbies, Ihe only thing which can
harm Ihe King of the Bonners.
The best tactic to finish off the giant
Bonner is to jump on your own
huhhle which will float up the side of
the screen. While you rise up you
should blow' bubbles, then, once you
reach the lop, fall down and pop the
bubble chain which has been created.
You will have to do this a couple of
limes hut once the King turns blue he
is close to death. Then once the
Bornier is bubbled il is every
brontosaurus for itself and “pop that
bubble", because it is worth one
million points to whoever gets there
first.
T WO hints from Phil Sinclair are
the cheat modes for SlarGlider
and Gold runner. To become
invincible in your AGAV take the
velocity down to zero, press fl for a
BUBBLE
BOBBLE
Watch nut for the fireballs
40 AMIGA COMPUTING July 190ft
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One of/Afl sixi^/e pfav **r maps for Firepower
Used crosshair and press the
backspace to pause the game. Type
1 jsurg s", then press backspace again
and type “j s arg s" again. The
instruments will all go to fixed hovels
to indicate that you are in cheat
mode. Pressing Z will put you in the
shape editor w hile P tops up your
missile collection.
Finally a hint for ail Gold runner
players. You ran make your ship
invincible by running the first ship oft
the building and pressing f5. Then
press I lo pick up a special bonus.
Thanks Phil, your joystick is in the
post.
A NOTHER friend of Max the
Hacks is Sam Little wood. A
Unix hacker by day and Amigaphilc
by night, Sam is responsible for the
Firepower map you see here.
lie also offers some great advice for
Arkanoid fans. Pause the game and
type DSIMAG1C. A cylinder will roll
down the screen. Catch it. Now
getting I hi; cylinder you want is a
doddle, fust press Ihe appropriate
key. I , for lasers, c for catch and I ho
Vans will be freed. Really lazy players
can press F for final screen and get
straight to the end. Perhaps F stands
lor screen firfy free.
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517 AMIGA COMPUTING fair 1988
SYMPOSIUM
Face
Preliminary
Thursday
April 28 th
K
ENNEDY Airport NYC
is absolute murder.
Non-USA residents have to
queue lor ages al passport
control, then go into customs,
which is an absolute shamhles
and lakes even longer. I discuss
Kennedy later with an Amigaphile
professor from Utreoh University —
we agree to have one airport
somewhere in Europe, with one entry-
point marked "AMERICANS", with a
small notice under it saying
Remember Kennedy f". An American
Iriend later lulls me that he
sympathises, but not to holher
because Heathrow is pretty well like
that already.
C ONFERENCE registration starts
at 7am next morning - this is
about midday for me and Ihc others
Irom Europe, so we are the only ones
getting up at a sensible and rturmal
time for a programmer.
We stand in line while bleary-eyed
but willing Commodore people hand
Out J shirts, schedules and conference
notes - real Gail Wellington (General
Manager worldwide software and
product support) specials consisting
of an enormous binder stuffed with
technical information. 1 wonder about
paying excess baggage to cart it back.
Gail says hello to everyone and
introduces representatives from the
different countries who are attending
- in all there are more than 300 of us
there, of
whom a good
proportion
enme from
outside the USA,
which is all rather
encouraging. Keynote
speaker is Gail s boss
and the man who lead
the original A2UIJ0
design team, Dr Henri
Rubin. Henri previews
the new Amiga developments
to be discussed in detail later
in the conference,
I he main point he makes concerns
Amiga multi-tasking - this is
something which other computer
companies are (ailing over themselves
trying to get working, but which the
Amiga has had for years, Is current
Amiga software exploiting this
C-ipability properly? Henri clearly
feck that it isn't and I must say that f
agree with him.
The conference splils inlo three
concurrent sessions. The first three
are an introduction to Amiga tor new
programmers, something on the
hopper for more experienced
Washington Diary
IK 1988 Amiga developers conference was held in
Washington over bank holiday weekend April 29 to May 1 .
Dave Parkinson of Ariadne Software was there and reports
}uiy I'JfiH AMIGA COMPUTING 51
I
AMIGA
COMPUTING
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■ SYMPOSIUM ■
programmers, and something on
A5G0 peripheral design for the
hardware freaks, ) nan only report on
sessions I go to - my multi-tasking
isn’t all that wonderful, sorry - which
id this case is Ihc Copper talk by [ini
Mackraz,
If you ever make it to an Amiga
conference, take any chance you get
to listen to Jim Mackraz, Jim knows
the Amiga really well, having taken
over Intuition from K.J, Mical after
version 1.1; he is also a natural
speaker, informative and very
amusing.
O NI this occasion. Jim’s topic is
how to pull tricks with the
Copper without upsetting the rest of
the system, by setting up a “user
Copper list”, to be integrated with
what the graphics libraries want to do
with the Copper. This turns out to he
c]ui1e straightforward, hut not to agree
too well with the documentation
(sigh), Jim provides an example
program which does it right.
The 1 rouble is that tricks with user
Copper lisls can upset graphics co-
^5 9<W
fc, F to%L
V* face
existing with Intuition's idea of
multiple draggable screens, with the
result lhal dragging down the Iasi
Screen can produce garbage. This
seems to he non-fatal, and will be
tixed in version 1,4, In the meantime
il may lie better to reserve Copper
tricks for your own private non-
intuition ViewPort.
Jim goes on to talk more about the
system’s use of the Copper, and about
how' to use Copper lisls to implement
fillicient double-hulTcring on the
Amiga. This turns out to be trickier
than one might like - the optimum
solution presented involves setting up
two allornalive Copper lists for the
two screens and swapping between
Ihem on the vertical blank using a
low-level graphics library function
c;alh>d Load View(), plus setting up a
Copper list interrupt tn signal your
task when it’s safe to resume drawing.
T HE second talk starts with a
general presentation of recent
developments in IFF by Carolyn
Sheppnnr of CATS, w ho should be
known to UK Amiga developers from
the official IFF Fish discs. She runs
over the most recent developments,
and considers a few problem areas,
such as uncertainties remaining in
representations of overscan images,
and of colour cycling. She then hands
over to Lattice to discuss the new
PGTll (ProGram Trace Rack) form,
then to Sparta 1o discuss AN1M.
PGTB seems Jike a very' neat idea.
T O use PGTB you link with a
new startup module so that the
Amiga doesn’t just give a guru alert if
AmigaDoS: The Amiga’s operating
system, which apportions jobs for
the hardware to do when it receives
a command from a program. It looks
after the housekeeping of (he
system,
ANIM: A tile format which has
become accepted as the standard lor
showing animation frames. It allows
screens to he compacted and then
replayed at speed.
Autohoot: A process which allows
the computer to start-up (hoot)
without using a Workbench floppy
disc. The computer will autohoot
from ram, a hard disc or a network.
Barrel shifter: A type of register in
the computer which can multiply or
divide hy two. This can be used to
change the graphical results
produced by different numbers.
Binddrivers: A program which
checks which peripherals are
attached to an expanded Amiga. It is
necessary for connecting a hard disc
or network,
(.upper: I be Amiga's graphics co-
processor, which handles a good
number of the drawing and
colouring functions. It needs “its own
special machine code instructions.
Glossary of terms
Double buffering: Flicker can be
avoided by drawing a screen in
memory and then showing it
complete. While the complete
screen is being shown the next one
is drawn in memory. The two arc
then swapped and the process con-
tinued.
Fish discs: Fred Fish is a Texan who
compiles Public Domain (PD) discs.
These contain a variety of useful
programs and demos.
Guru: The error message system
used by the Amiga, A Guru Alert
provides system information when
the machine crashes.
IFF: Interchange File Format - Com-
modore’s standard format for
storing sound, graphic and text files
which aid compatibility between
programs. By keeping to Commo-
dore guidelines developers can
make sure that files produced with
their programs can be used by
future programs from other manu-
facturers,
HUM: Interleaved Bit Map the
screen format used by IFF, devel-
oped by Electronic Arts for Commo-
dore Amiga,
Intuition: The part of the operating
system the programmer uses. It
chops up the jobs it is given by the
programmer and sends them In
Amiga Dos. An instruction like
OwnBlitn is an intuition command,
Kickslart: The program which sits
inside the computer and comes to
life when you switch it on. This
loads Workbench.
Multi-tasking; A special feature of
the Amiga which allows it to run
more than one program at once. Not
all Amiga programs co-operate with
this.
Overscan: The standard Amiga
screen has a maximum resolution of
640 by 400 pixels (dots). This is all
you can see on a screen hut some
applications - notably Desktop
Video, need the pictures to go off the
edge of the screen. This is called
overscan.
Vertical Idank; A television picture
is not displayed all the time. The
vertical blank is the time between
frames being shown, If (be com-
puter tries to draw on the screen
during I he vertical blank the result
will not be seen until the next frame.
Frames are drawn at a rate of 50 per
second.
July IfHM AMIGA COMnmXG 53
4
something goes wrong, Instead it
writes out a file containing a PGTB
form, then gives a guru alert.
The PGTB form holds debug
information such as seglist addresses,
registers, parts of the stack, memory
status, and any special data obtained
by calling an application-specific
dump routine. The user can then send
this file back along with the usual
bug report ("Er, it keeps going
wrong”), so it can be attacked by a
variety of debug and trace back
Utilities, This could be a real help in
program testing - let’s hope it catches
on.
The situation as regards the ANTM
form is less satisfactory. ANIM is
really rather a mess. The problem is
that it has been allowed to evolve into
a de-facto standard, while in fact it
contains two major problems. Firstly,
it uses an ILBM form to contain what
is actually delta information, which is
nasty. Secondly, ANIM should not in
fact be a form at all - it is a
succession of IFF objects inheriting
common properties, which should be
dealt by seriously under-used IFF
structure called a LIST.
T HE afternoon starts with another
''all together 11 session, this one
on Commodore's new hardware and
software developments, presented by
left Porter and Andy Finkel. Since
these have been reported elsewhere, [
won't go into detail.
F ollowing the new
Commodore products
presentation we form an orderly
queue (ho ho) and shuffle out to pick
up copies of the official conference
disc pack. These include gamma test
versions of Workbench and Extras
1.3, plus three discs of sample
programs and so on from the
conference. We then split into three
groups again, and I settle for a session
on the new A2024 high-res
monochrome monitor.
This session is hosted by Medley
Davis, the Amiga hardware engineer
who developed the A2024, aided by
Jim Mackraz. Hedley starts by
showing off the A2I121. This is a
really nice-looking bit of hardware,
capable of producing a very sharp
display up to ItlflR x 1U24 PAL non-
interlaced four-level monochrome. It
looks great. Together with the new
fonts it should help a lot in areas like
desktop publishing.
The wav the monitor works is quite
simple. You set up an enormous
bitmap - say by opening a hig
Intuition screen — which you then
render into precisely as normal. The
system outputs this as four successive
frames — or six frames if you want to
avoid cycle stealing by the PAD, The
monitor then puts them hack together
in an internal frame store which it
outputs as a very high resolution non-
interlaced image.
Note that the effective full-screen
update-rate is reduced to a quarter (or
a sixth) of normal, so last animation
could be a problem. It appears quite
adequate, however, for normal
output. Note also that very high-res
screens take a lot of memory, so you
need at least a megabyte total on your
machine.
The monitor will really come into
its own when we gel the new
extended chip set which allows up to
a megabyte of chip memory.
Full software support for the A2U24
will be in Kickstart 1.4; meanwhile it
is possible to get it to work on 1 .3
with a Fair amount of patching. There
is an "emulation" mode where an
A2024 is faked on a current monitor,
with the display lurching violently
when you move the mouse out of the
current visible area. This looks
horrid, hut should be useful for
software developers who don't have
A2024S
A T this point I decide to go to
the session on new Kickstart
and Autobool - Amiga start-up and
-
expansion. library is something Tve
never really looked at, so perhaps 1
might learn something. In the event I
don't learn much, as the session is not
particularly successful. Still just one
dud. in a day isn't had.
The session starts well enough with
Bart Whitebook (autoboot software)
giving an overview of the boot
process, foe Augenbraun (hardware)
then takes over and gives a very hrief
description of how to set up a bool
rom, Bob "Kodiak” Burns
(recoverable ram disc software) then
manages to confuse me completely,
The ha sic idea seems reasonably
simple. First, expansion. library looks
at each board in turn, and if it
recognises a valid rom it copies it to
an "image 1 * somewhere in ram, and
calls a “romy diagnostic” vector which
allows the rom to patch itself to
reflect its current ram position if
necessary'.
Next a new' library is invoked,
called rom boot, library. This checks
though the expansion board mm
images looking lor Hags CONFIGME.
If found, it searches the rom image in
question for a valid "Resident” pi
structure; if found, it calls a routine
InitResident() allowing the board’s
driver software to initialise.
This allows the board to get its
Exec device or whatever sorted out, in
a neater way than loading off a boot
floppy using the old Binddrivers
program. It also gives it an
opportunity to say it wants to
autoboot. It does this hy linking a
structure called a BootNode into a
linked list maintained by
expansion, library.
Later on, the Dos is woken up by
something called strap, library, This
first of all checks for a boot disc in
DFO: - if so, it hoots off this, so that it
is possible to overide auto-boot to run
a game or something. Otherwise it
tries to boot by calling the routine
specified by the highest priority
BootNode. This is handled hy calling
a romboot. library routine called
RomBootf). If both fail - if it can’t
Find a floppy or a rom that wants to
hoot - it puts up the old "please give
me a Workbench" image. Note that
the Dos brought up by RomBootf )
will normally be AmigaDos. It doesn’t
have to be, so it would be possible to
use this to bring up an alternative
Dos, say if you were booting of! a
network.
As I said - the principals are
simple, but the details arc tricky,
particularly when it comes to how
54 AMIGA COMPUTING fuly
■
1
■SYMPOSIUM!
this process is gim irked by Kodiak's
recoverable ram disc*
F INAL session for the day is on
low-level blitter access,
presented by Tom Rokicki of Radical
Eye Software, author of Amiga TEX.
I Fitting the blitter hardware is very
easy on Amiga. The simplest - not
necessarily the best - method is to
call graphics library routines
OwnBlitterO then WaitHlit(), hit the
blitter to your hearth content, then
give it back using UisownBlitterl).
Note that this should he followed by
another WaitRlitQ if you are going to
examine the blitted data. This gives
you maximum blitter performance
without messing up the OS.
Getting access to the blitter is
simple; using it once you have it is
not so easy however. The problem is
partly that the documentation is
rather sparse, and to make life more
interesting, just a teeny bit wrong in
places. More fundamental^ the
problem is that the Amiga has a Word
blitter which blasts 16-hit words
around in chip memory very quickly.
Hut what you really want is a Bit
blitter, capable of transferring an a bit
pattern. The way to simulate a Hit
blitter using a word blitter is to make
use of the barrel shifters attached to
two of the inputs.
In order lo sort this out, Tom has
done a fair amount of blitter research
- including some graphicsJihrary
disassembly — and has written a really
nice PD program called HlitLah for
easy experimentation with the blitter.
Tom’s HlitLah demo is followed by
an interesting question session, A lot
of these involve use of the blitter hy
graphicsJihrary, which Toni passes
on to graphics author Dale Luck. One
question concerns the use nf
alternative blitter access mechanisms
QBlitO and QSRIitQ* These allow you
to queue blitter requests as BltNodes,
to be processed as soon as the blitter
can get round to them, optionally in a
beam synchronised manner.
A further question to Dale is why
the graphics, library doesn't offer
much in the way of multi-channel
blits such as AN Ding or ORing two
Rast Ports together. The answer is that
handling the "arbitrary move"
problem through the layers logic is so
complex that two blitter input
channels gel tied up doing it, using
only one left over to the application.
This discussion leads me to
understand the graphics library rather
better. The program doesn't have lo
tackle the usual problems of writing
lots of assembler to move stuff around
in memory as fast as possible, since
this is looked after by the hardware,
A further question Dale gets asked
concerning speed relates to the
function BltfiitMapRastPortO* This is
very useful since it allows you to set
things up using the blitter in your
own private off-screen BUMap
without worrying*
Dale admits that this was pul in late
and done by calling a load of
functions he already had written. It
could be made faster, and he hopes to
look at this for version 1.4.
By this time exhaustion is setting in
fast - the session comes to an end
around 6,30, 11 Vi hours after
registration. Phew.
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B ACIK in 19G3 at Dartmouth
College, two gentlemen along
with willing undergraduates designed
and implemented a language that
would be easily grasped by beginners
as an aid to learning Fortran. Those
gentlemen were John Kemeny and
Thomas Kurtz, and the language was
Basic, now the standard language
supplied with nearly every micro,
Over the years Basie evolved, and
due to memory restrictions on the
early home micros its authors took
short cuts to make it completely
bard ware-specific, A program written
in one dialect of Basic stood no
chance of running on a different
machine.
Kemeny and Kurtz watched this
process with some horror, and finally
decided to do something about it.
True Basic was the result, a portable
language that they hoped would he
the structured language system for the
future. It was already available on the
PC and Mac - the Amiga was Ihe next
in line to see the light. Adam Webber
was the actual author of this version,
though he has received little credit for
his work.
True Basic is certainly a big enough
package, consisting of a language
disc, a 307 page users guide, and a
331 page reference manual. The users
guide will doubtless come as
something of a shock to those
unfortunates who are used to Basic
manuals that Commodore normally
supplies with ils machines. It is both
dear and helpful for the beginner,
with many tutorials, and yet contains
vital machine-specific information
that all standards of programmer
require.
The reference manual is the same
for all versions of True Basic, and as
such has the irritating habit of
divulging juicy little secrets, only to
point out that your version may he
different. Thus it isn't as portable as
True Basic Inc would like you to
think it is.
A typical True Basic display
consists of a source code window, a
command window, and an output
window. The last two are optional
and can he opened or closed at will,
rf the output window is not defined
during output, or has been closed,
then output goes to a full screen, the
contents of which are lost when the
program is stopped or ends.
Once a program has been entered
the editor can be brought inlu play tn
cut, copy and paste sections which
are marked by clicking and dragging
with the mouse. Alternatively the
function keys can he used to mark
blocks, as well as perform other
useful editing tasks such as moving to
the command or output window's,
moving to the slai l or end of a
Basic strikes back
Mark Luckham finds that a grown up
computer merits an adult approach to
programming. Structure reduces the
bugs and the LET statement returns
program, and deleting characters nr
the line to the right of the cursor.
In a similar word processing vein,
it is possible to search and replace
specific words, or parts thereof, in the
program. This operates from the
cursor position onwards and will find
key words as well as variables*
An interesting feature is I lie ability
to mark a pari of the program, say
just a coy pie of lines, and delete the
rest - useful if you are trying to build
up a subroutine library, as the
selected lines can hr? saved to disc as
one.
When, entering a program it will
normally he displayed justified to the
left of the source node window* but
this can be changed to show the
structure of the program. Select the
Do Format option and watch as the
structures are indented, key words are
changed to upper case, and REM - or
as they are referred to here comment
- lines are straightened out-
As with any modern Basil:, True
Basic does not ordinarily use line
numbers, hul they can he added al
any stage in program development,
and full line renumbering is also
available The maximum number of
characters that can be used on one
Sfl AMIGA COMPUTING July tW/t
line is 32.000, which is a far cry from
I Ilf: 255 Oi4 days. The largest line
number as well is impressively hi^h
You can have line numbers running
up to 999.999.
Large scale numbers indeed, but il
doesn't slop there. Numbers have 14
digit accuracy, the maximum string
length is over a million characters,
variable names can he 31 characters
in length, I lie maximum record sine is
over 16 million bytes and, quite
astonishingly, the maximum file sine
is four trillion bytes. In theory. I
didn't have a file that could test that
claim. Roll on optical discs.
As far as general structure goes,
Kemeny and Kurt/ have attempted lo
make the language as structured and
orderly as possible.
Going back to the line numbers.
Go ii eaten at ion is not allowed in the
source code, and there can only be
one command statement lo each line.
So a program containing an
IF..TI IEN,,ELSE,.ENIJIF construct
would have to have IF..THEN.. on
one line, ELSE all by itself on another
and ENDIF again all alone.
SELECT CASE isn’t something that
many basics support, iml us you
might have guessed, it is here. This is
similar to IF . .THEN . . ELSEIF as it Jets
you try several tests anil execute a
block of statements, depending on
which lest fulfils the conditions
required. When assigning variables
the almost forgotten LET becomes
compulsory, It isn't optional.
Neither is using the variable name
in conjunction with a NEXT
statement. You must specify the
variable name. What is interesting is
the option to jump out of a loop
before it has Finished. There are lew
Basics indeed that will allow you to
do that.
Also in the field of loops can be
found DO.. LOOP, which simply
executes endlessly, unless il finds au
EXIT DO statement in [here
somewhere, DO WHILE.. LOOP, DO
UNTIL,, LOOP and combinations
thereof are far more flexible, and will
execute the loop while certain
conditions are met or until they are
not. And if no conditions are likely to
be met then there is always EXIT 1)0
to save you from the programme! ■>
nightmare - the endless loop.
Your friend and mine, the
procedure, lias of course not been
forgotten, though it has undergone a
name change. Functions can be
defined and then CALLed, as can
■REVIEW!
n?st
True
Basic
Amiga
Basic
i
O.Oti
0.04
2
0.22
1,94
3
0,08
3.94
4
1,02
4 04
5
1.1 Ii
5,04
6
1.7
8.86
7
2.0
3.76
ft
1 1,5
1 7,68
( sing standard Bj:
s/c benchtests vvu can
xet f that True Essie
1 is very
much faster
than Amiga Hash;
subroutines. Name them with SUB
name (paraml, parum2..) and end
i, hem with END SUB. Exactly the
same as PROC, especially when you
can pass variables to the subroutine.
A variable within a subroutine, or
w ithin any section of a program, is
I, real to that particular section. If you
want to share values around then you
have to pass parameters with your
subroutines.
What is particularly interesting is
that a subroutine can tie internal, or
external, saved on a disc. This allows
the programmer to build up libraries
of useful functions and procedures,
save them on disc, and only call upon
them when needed, by using a
LIBRARY command.
O K, so structured programmers
are doubtless feeling pretty
smug, having been served up wilh
virtually everything they could ask
tor. What about the graphics? This
after all, is what the Amiga is famous
for,
A language that claims to be truly
portable surely cannot fully exploit
i lie graphics hardware that is so
j L,achiiie dependent.
Well, True Basic certainly makes a
lair old stab at it. Graphics are not
related to on a pixel basis, they use a
coordinate system of your own
definition, Thus a program with
graphics on one computer will
, or res pond to the display on another
computer, even if the desired effect is
red need.
So before drawing or anything else,
you must define your window, in
whatever numerical terms you like.
For example, your Y coordinates
could range from 1945 to 19BB, and
the program would assign the
intermediate values, and the X
coordinate could range from 0 to 25.
After defining this window, all
subsequent graphics commands
would then be in terms of these
coordinates.
For your money, you can plot
points, draw lines, draw and fill a
complex shape, flood till and,
strangely, box. The BOX command is
used in con junction with LINES,
ELLIPSE, AREA, CLEAR. KEEP and
SHOW, and provides those functions
inside a rectangle, the size of which
you specify.
KEEP and SHOW are the two dark
horses of the collection as they are, in
fact, blitting commands, KEEP will
store part of the display in a string
variable white SHOW will splat il
back again. Crude animation can he
achieved this way.
R ATHER surprisingly, given that
the other graphic commands are
nothing special, there are five special
effects commands. With these you can
slide a picture, change the scale,
rotate it and shear it. When you can
call pictures that have been defined
just like subroutines, and call them in
conjunction with one of the effects
commands, you have a very powerful
lool indeed.
What it is possible to achieve is in
some wavs far more impressive than
that which The Director, which
purports to he a professional display
and animation language, can manage.
The system used by True Basic is
by no means as easy to get to grips
with and produce the desired results
without a lot of trial and error. But as
a language that makes no attempt to
he portable, what can be achieved is
far more than you would ex|>eut. Even
if sprites are not catered For at all.
Should the range of commands not
be powerful enough for your needs
then True Basic Inc will supply you
with a language extension dedicated
to just that task, The price is a heavy
one. As well as being expensive, hang
goes portability,
Sound is the other area that Amiga
owners love to crow about, but once
again portability and compromise are
the order of the day. Il is rather
disappointing this area, as all you are
allowed is FLAY musicS where the
htly limn AMIGA COMPUTING 59
■REVIEWS
string contains the musical notation
for a tune, and SQUNIJ frequency,
duration. No envelopes ur specific
channels to make your sound effects.
Never mind, string handling is
superbly done and file handling is
treated far more comprehensively
with the ability to question files tor
specific details, as well as the usual
byte, data, and program loading and
saving functions.
I don't know whether the authors of
True Basic anticipate that every
computer ihdr language will run on
will have a mouse and windows, bill
these are catered for on the Amiga
version. While windows can he made
to happen on systems which don't
normally use them, reading and using
the mouse may prove more difficult
to port across,
I asked the question at the
beginning of this review as to
whether a language whose primarily
aim was standardisation and
portability Won Id make good use of
the Amiga's powerful and individual
facilities- Well, the quick answer is:
"Not really’\ liul True Basic makes a
very valiant attempt in areas that you
would not have suspected. It is also
surprisingly Iasi al most things,
i ;ueit k ic nts ex c l uded.
It's worth noting that it is a good
idea to read the reference manual first
for the general situation regarding
available facilities. And then look
through the users guide, in which
s?xba commands, helpful tutorials,
and quirks native to the Amiga
version are detailed.
For the programmer who will only
use dn Amiga, True Basic cart he
as a structured, modular and
undeniably stylish language that
won’t help that person get the very
best from his computer. For anyone
who as interested in portability,
standardisation, and working on the
Mac and the l J (J n then True Basic can
be seen as a very fine piece of
software, and he heartily
recommended.
REPORT CARD
True Hfsic
Preriscin 01-330 71 OH
£mm
i sen iLNEss
A good compromise between slow
Amiga Ha sic amt difficult lo master L\
EASE OF USE
Looks and feels much the same as
Amiga Basic hut runs very much faster.
INTUITION
As Amigaized as a portable language
can he expected- Window# supported.
SPEED* .*.** ** .*« « .*
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OVERALL
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■ A D V l C E »
Amiga Answers
y Why don t some of my older
games work when I have
led extra memory ?
A Some early games will nut
work with a system which has
more than 512k installed- The way lu
overcome this pro b bin is lu select
SioviMemLast and No hast Ram from
the system drawer of your
Workbench disc before clicking on
the game icon.
If the game selfhoots yon will have
to remove the ram. Note that fitting a
second drive uses up a tiny bit ut
rani, so a really big game, such as
Firepower will only work on a 512k
machine if you unplug the second
drive.
Q t have seen some cheap
Amiga 1 000s advertised and
am tempted to buy {me in preference
to an Amiga 500 , / can't see what the
advantages of an Amiga 2000 are.
Which one should ! buy ?
A lt depends how much you
want to spend. There are some
real bargains to be picked up if you
shop around for a MIDI). Many of
these are “grey 11 imports from France
and so will have an a/erty keyboard
with stickers to turn it into an English
qwerty keyboard.
Diehard Amigaists feel that 1000$
are visually the nicest Amigas.
Commodore lias a declared intention
to support the machine, although it is
no longer made, t his means that new
Kickstarts will be made available on
disc.
But many of the add-ons you will
want to buy in the future will come
from third party companies. These are
unlikely to be readily available in the
future. A 1000 is very expensive to
expand beyond 512k, I he A500 is its
immediate successor and is easily
expandable to 1Mb. with plenty of
third party support and altogether a
rosier future.
The keyboard is not as nice as that
of the A1QD0* and Kickstart is in rom,
which is less flexible but easier to
use. Once you want to add more than
half a megabyte things start to get
expansive, as are hard discs.
Commodore lias an expansion unit
Solve your Amiga anxiety with a
letter to Amiga Answers. Our panel
of experts is ready to sort out tricky
Amiga problems. From machine
code to midi , communications to
compilers. Whatever your problem
our experts are here to help you
solye it.
We cannot deal with enquiries
personally so please don t send any
SAF's, Ike do need loads of ques-
tions, So write to Amiga Answers .
A m iga Com puling , North Ho use r
7&-&4 Ongar Road, lire Atwood.
Essex, CM 15 9& G.
planned, but it is still a way from
production.
The A2000 is aimed at businesses.
It can be made IBM -compatible, is
easily expandable to 0Mb and comes
with l Mb as standard An
miuxpanded 2uuu is no more useful
than an expanded 500.
Which you buy depends on what
you want to do. If you just want to
play games you could get away with
a 1 ntjti Remember that they come
with 25ftk as standard and you will
have to buy the ram pack If you
don't plan to expand your system
straightaway an A500 is the best all
round bet- A second disc drive and
the 512k ram pack are sensible
purchases, but can be left until your
bank account has recovered.
An A20QQ is only for the rich kid
who wants the better keyboard and to
add peripherals immediately, or for
the businessman who needs Ihe extra
ram.
Make sure you get the latest
version, which is known as a 112000
because this is taster than an A2000
and has an extra expansion slot.
y How can I drag mure than
one icon at a time? Whenever
ct a second icon the first is
deselected.
A Hold down Shift when you
click on subsequent icons.
You can then do anything with the
group of icons that you would
otherwise do with one icon. A really
useful application for this IS to select
Clean Up from the menu bar, select
all the icons in the window, being
careful not to double click* and then
select Snapshot.
o
and ns
How can I open a window
that covers the whole screen
andTtas no border?
The Ami*! Basic WINDOW
commend {iocs mil el low
windows without borders, but that
docs not mean that they arc not
possible. By using the Intuition
library routines OpenWindowf) and
ClaseWindowf) you can open a
window' to whatever specification.
'H#x He i gti t
POKEY Wmdg+46,15 £1
for WBench)
HPointS = OperWirdowS (lii no8)
CALL FreeHeir.&(WirdM«>
IF YPointi = 0 THEN
PRINT “Failed id open nindou"
SOTO Suit
END IF
Rast Portfi = PEEKL(YPointl*50)
GOSUB Openlnput
APfnS = 1
1MIl£ INKETt=“
CALL
JetAPeni(SjstP<?rtl,APenfi)
CALL RectFi l Li (R'astPor (4,0,0,
640,256)
APeni = APen4 COR 1
UEHO
fluit:
GlHUB Close Input
CALL CLoseUindov£(UPoint£)
Haiti:
SCREEN CLOSE 1
LIBRARY CLOSE
END
Open Input;
W]ND0U ?,'Input V indonV 0,200)
<320,2405,1+2,1 ■
RETURN
Close Input :
WINDOW CLOSE 2
RETURN
Jf you haven’t done so already, you
will need to create the intuition
\brnap’ file.
The input filename is:
■■Extras:FDl.2/mtuition-lib.fd"
The output filename is:
"Extras :BasicDcmos/intiii1 irm. bmap”
july iSBS AMIGA COMPUTING Gt
TRYBRIDGE SOFTWARE
DISTRIBUTION
Title Amiga
Alien Syndrome 195
Aa^gh 15.50
Auloduel _1740
Arcic Fwc 15.00
Adv Cans Sat 19.50
Army Moves 18.50
ArkanokJ .25 M
BubHe Bobble 12.50
0iOrtC Commando 1540
SeyOtvJ Zwk 1S_50
BlaiOMI. 7.00
Bactoa sh _ 1 340
Barbarian Psygnosis ^ 1640
Barbarian PaJaw 10-00
Batirakter 1340
Black Shadow.. .. ....1640
Biitesriipa 14.50
Balance of Power ......... 20.50
Bad cat T5.50
Boh Wtvm 15.50
BanSs Tale 1 Of 2 13.00
Carrier OssmwtS
Com ISM School 10 .50
Crash Ganett vB.50
Crazy Care ^^..,...,^13.50
Chesama-stfif 2000 10.00
Dark Caste . ...16.50
planter Of Crown 20.50
D*ja Yb 90 .50
Del loco Vkteo.^_ L ...45.00
GMuhi Print __17JW
DbIukb Pradudiwi 99 .00
Defy™ Pa*nt 2 IS .00
Datura Music Con 5e1..*5.00
Eari Weavef Basc^aJi ...10.50
1^1 Sin 2 2640
FauO _ 7.00
Tite
Amiga
FlwTtstorws
. 13.50
Ferrari Fcrniia One ...
.. 19.50
FngtoUtfit —
.1350
Gryzor
18 50
Gunshlp „
.. 16.50
Gotten Fiii„„ „
,, 13.50
GoidiW« 9 f
.10.00
||
,. 12.50
Guid ol Thwws
,. 16.50
Gw Bee Air Raly
,. 16.50
Garvbon u „„ w . u
,. 16.50
Garrison 1 !
.1650
Hiiehhiker
. 20.50
Hoi Fwlbal....
,. 16.50
Hoiywwd H^tk
..10.00
Hint for Red October
J 6.50
ihi&rceptef
,, 16.95
.... 9.50
insariy RifiTfl «***
-1S.SQ
Instant Music
-is so
inrtniftyfM
.21.00
toftralionai Soccer
„1340
Jet
26 - 5*0
jinks
.1550
Joe Blade
6 50
Jeixtar
. 15.50
Jewel? d DaftteS? ....
.. 13.50
Khg or Chicago — —
.. 20.50
Kickstart 2
,.. 7.00
Knight ore „
.J 3 50
iSSdSdMSrd
. 16.50
leader Goddess
..ao.50
LegvnC gl Swjrg
.. 15.50
MaitOe Madness
. 19.50
Mickey hfouw
.. 11,95
M** 3 -
.. 1350
Mean i« Gon —
.1940
UN
Amiga
f^nk Panther
,.13.50
RdCS Quest
,..20.50
Pandora
, .12,50
-16.50
Quiiar
,.21.50
FfogkeC Ranger. ...
1950
Road Blasters
1550
FWIng Tbtfxtef — ^ nn
,.16.50
RocklQfd
...12.50
Return to Atlantis ...
- 16.50
Roadway
,.13.50
Sherlock Kiddle ..
,.15.50
Shadowgale
,.19.50
Silent Service ... _____
,.16.50
Sinbad .._
.2040
Skyfos* ,
...11.00
Slarllwt .
.. 19.50
Strip Poker 2 .
9.00
Sawn Cites or Gold ...
„.11 00
Srar Gtder
,. 16-50
S to Glider 2.
..1550
S.D-I
..19.50
S. F, Harrier
...16.50
Sidewinder
...,7,00
Tetria .
1395
Tengrpods .............
. 1650
Tlwee Stooges
...19.50
Trinity
,..10.00
Tgsbdrive
,,17.50
Time A Magik
... 13-50
Umv Military Sim
...16.50
Untnyried
... 16.50
Vampke Empki
...12.50
Venminalor
... 15.50
WtotHf Olyinpiad *.
12 95
Xenon
... 16.50
Please send eh eque/p.GJ Access, Visa number and expiry dale to:
Try bridge Ltd, 72 North Street, Romford, Eswx RM1 1DA +
Please remember to state the make and model of your computer when
ordering, P&P inc. UK pat orders over £3, Under £5 alid Europe add £1
per item. Elsewhere add £2 per Item for AIR MAIL. Telephone orders:
0708 765271
Unfewttt Tefcrtewt Adaptor
*Hhu ferfr *ut*
K PI 081 NLQ:
ONLY
£159
Inc A500 toad
FREE SOFTWARE!
can bm downbadad by our
TELETEXT A TV ADAPTER
Gampulif Ittlatart, dupiaya. and collect*
CEEFAX, ORACLE **c ra**, eotowr TV
Y*d*e tfld *ouod outputs for Amiga and
Philip* m&nfton. Hdrmaf pries : £99.95.
Shew Oiler; £79.95 kic.
1 Mb FDD:
£79.95 ine.
UK Lowest
price everf
PHONE 0702-354674
SOLIDISK TECHNOLOGY LTD
17 SWEYNE AVENUE, SOUTHEND-ON-SEA,
ESSEX SS2 6JQ
Computers, disc drives end memory cards.
Trede & Export worldwide
•• . ::
Our Price only
✓ Offers full compatibility^
with A500 and A 1000
✓ Top quality Citizen
drive mechanism
!✓ 880K formatted capacity
I i/Very quiet
Slimline design
y/ Throughport
!✓ Long cable for location
either side of computer
[✓ Full 1 2 months guarantee
Includes VAT and delivery
63 BRIDGE STREET
H EVESHAM M~
WORCS. WR11 4SF M
Tel: (0386) '785500
AM prices VAT,delivery inclusive. Next day delivery £5.00 extra
Cov!.. educ. 1 PLC otfiti.l order* wHcomc
Sum? day d'CS-pilrh whrntm pa as r hit.- I Jl
ClIlfFI wtfeomt, 6 8iyi 9 M.5.3D
6i ! AMIGA COMPUTING July JflflU
■LETTERS*
Virus problems
I AM a member of a user group and
therefore get quite a bit of public
domain software. On almost every
occasion I find it has the virus. I have
two virus killers and a detector which
sits in memory and tells you if a virus
is present. This is useful because you
can find a virus before it spreads.
Is there a virus which can destroy
the Amiga's rom? I’ve been told there
is bv several sources, including a
computer shop. Other people have
told me that it is impossible to change
the rom, including Commodore repair
staff. I've been told that Commodore
won't fix the computer under
warranty because it said you can only
get the virus from pirated software.
This means an expensive repair bill.
Now, anybody who has an Amiga
will have some PD software and the
virus can easily come from this.
D, Cady wold,
Darlington.
You cannot damage the computer
with a virus. Turn the machine off
and on and it will recover. People
who claim that the virus nan damage
a rom do not understand how a rom
works — Pd.
Mistakes
1 ENJOYED reading issue 1. especially
the bit about Workbench 1.3. How
much is il anyway? There was an
error in the Plain Man’s Guide to CLI,
The author said that it is important to
use capita] letters. He is wrong, it
doesn't matter whether you use upper
or lower case. The Amiga treats it the
same.
Now on to the hidden messages.
For the last message you emitted to
mention that you must hold down the
function key while you ejecl the
Workbench disc and replace it with a
non- Workbench disc.
Also on the subject of hidden
messages do I qualify for a free game
with a hidden menu? Hope so. All
you have to do is enter the CLI and
type: LOADWB -DEBUG. When the
Workbench has loaded up the debug
menu go to the menu bar and hold
the right mouse button.
Move right from the “special"
menu and a previously hidden menu
will appear. This causes debugging
information to be sent down the serial
port at 9fp(10 baud. So if you have an
HS232 terminal you can tap into it. Tf
this does qualify me for a free game
can I have Photon Paint marketed by
Activision?
Leszek Wolnik-Kurjanowicz
Ealing, W5
Commodore hasn 't yet fixed a price
for Workbench 1.3. Sorry we don ’t
have any spare copies of Photon
Paint. Our review copy was one of the
first half dozen Activision had. PU
send you a copy of Jinks instead - Ed
Bare shelves
SOME of my friends hought a copy of
your magazine in London, but when I
tried to get it in my local shop I
couldn’t find it an the shelves, It has
loads of other computer magazines
but not yours. Why?
David Ohijrne,
Swansea
It is always possible that it has sold
out. If not it could he because it only
stocks magazines which have a record
Write to The Editor, Amiga
Computing. First Floor, North
House, 7B-34 Ongar Road, Rrent-
wood, Essex, CM 15 9BG. The best
letters each month will he sent a
game from our goodie drawer.
of selling well. Of course with a ne w
magazine there is no way' to prove
this, if you are in a shop which does
not have Amiga Computing on the
shelves you should ask why,
Jn a big shop you should ask to
speak to the news manager. He will
be able to tell you when he expects
the next delivery and if it is sold out
whether the shop will be getting some
more. - Ed.
Piracy problem
I WAS very interested to read in your
first issue about the sales of the
Amiga catching up with those of the
ST, I work in a shop in London
where we sell all kinds of computers,
and the Amiga runs second only to
Amstrad PCs. But ST software outsells
Amiga products. I attribute this to the
lack of really good Amiga games and
the huge amount of piracy on the
Amiga.
Most of the games are straight ST
conversions. If I wanted an ST I'd
have hought one, but the Amiga has
far better graphics and sound. Piracy
is a serious problem, and l implore
Amiga owners to buy their games and
not copy them.
If you have a stolen game which
you play a lot, go and buy the
original to show the software house
how much you appreciate the game.
This is the only way that software
houses can be persuaded to carry on
supporting the Amiga. One good
thing is the bundled software which
comes with the ST. Every Atari comes
with loads of games, which cuts
down the number of new games ST
owners will buy, and so makes the
Amiga sales look proportionately
better.
Your first issue was great, keep
rooting for world's best computer,
Alex Walsh,
Newbury
July tarn AMIGA COMPUTING r,.i
Mail Order Offers
Is Out - Take ^ j’^gest lor
ion boxers i V ete d
nd fortune ana «
m ' G ' jdmh- exper' ence
s”r4is"*»
USSSK" -
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sstf**ssawr
"Ca£^ wn '" dB *
ick Ma rket " 'London Stock
&t"^r mio " s °' ,ose
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m
*
To mark the launch of Amigo Computing here's a unique
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We want to send you one of Tynesoft's range of popular
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All you have to do is buy any one of these other
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Winter Olympiad '88 or Stock Market. Then take your
from the other two favourites.
To place your order turn to the coupon on Page 85
and select your free game.
Dust cover
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The Amiga Computing
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[ EHQUlpil iSOW-Y: 0625 979940 6 am- AMC 7
END PIECE
W HEN a computer crashes it
usually locks up, leaving (he
programmer or user to wonder why
that happened. The Amiga is no
ordinary computer, it doesn’t crash. It
Gurus. The black and red screen
contains magic information on the
state of the computer before it pointed
its Iocs skywards.
The name is due to a bit of Amiga
history. When, the company was set
up it made joysticks For the Atari VCS
and Commodore 64. Among these
was a tiny stick which you could use
with one hand and a huge stick
which you stood on. The big joystick
was called a joy board, ft was
designed for skiing and surfing
simulations.
A couple of games were written for
the VCS but nothing really came of
the joyboard- One program which
Amiga did put together was a
meditation package. You had to sit on
Guru’s
haunt
the joybourd and stay as still as
possible. The more relaxed, the
higher you scored. Although the
company has been bought by
Commodore and the joyboard is no
longer, it is touching to note that it is
commemorated by a magic number
on every Amiga screen,
# The Commodore logo, the C*
symbol, is well known to all Amiga
users.
W T hat is less well known is the
Commodore in-house name for the
logo. To Commodore the C K is the
“chicken head - ’.
ADVERTISERS’
INDEX
Amiga PD,.
...... 23
Calco Software
11
CBS
50
Centee
50
Cestrian Software
3
67
Cut Price Software,..,,,,.,,,....
55
Dale! Electronics
.56, 57
Evesham Micros
62
23
Kuma
Melton Computers ...
60
Metacomco
...... 23
Microlink...
6
Shacksoft
66
Solidisk.,
62
Timesuft.
11
Triangle Music/Television,.
66
Try Bridge
62
Worldwide Software
23
T T ■ L 1 T I 3 <
— w
THE AMIGA GRAPHICS
AND SOUND SPECIALISTS
■AAQNEh Amiga tadarthte tewm w ftwflh ifrM Amig* graphics, that aw BBCh 'M ot? Fite' Vtfte*
DW
tfVtO* LUAGW an Amiga teow T-ae gtvw- ont aiiaa itamcitBu'iifliiflj a™ nwi m«K5 an syswra wrcr&n
bawlhfl pfwnism IMAGINE in Amiga d*ater th* wi* Mrti oue giving *m aft ¥ youVthawted d
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HARDWARE
Amiga fflOffi. Amq* OTA. U*nafy Expansion, Nani One* Fitted. G*rAK*>. RGG - YbJm E ncodm
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On gr*y fiiminum]
CHGITlZEftS, TRAINING N AH MAHON AND GRA. 4HkC&, LEASING AND FINANCE
W STOCK
Mo* Flirt (U w*wV|, ISgPiirt 1*96 «* m), TNum Ww ZjfAL), *NW tail 30
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Enter, Digrvtew (PAL), CteAn* Flirt, Data* Music, Inal art Music, PagoHflnfLiMr Sciipi, Ct* D**k
P. frMT»-grtfjtatort«kp ttewCtefc0*prtl{bMi i , 14*aPhrt Ptert [PAL),H*w£WUw
Produaiona.*HM M Graph** tatM.
THE AMIGA MUSIC
AND MIDI SPECIALISTS
frill
music
NEW PRODUCT NEWS DR.T MUSIC SOFTWARE
np HUM* snwtbk »«*W* fcr tt» AHXrtOB TTwsi raw pnrtrtt IW» OBI K» Hi* mrt pow*(U
jtal rsccning system* kx lha Amiga lo d*te
THESE ARE mE TRUE DIGITAL WORKSTATIONS'
Dfl.T KCS 1 J
A«kadlti^naoidirwftllF.E-C*|^rfi«MI*pi*w*A*i»fel.pW*iiid<x9Tk*dOM. Trw,***.
and quantiM. Twiuo dwngai wd (IWA fften.
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Dfl.T.KCS 1.6^Lw^,^iiyW(lMftogrm™ Enwwimert. Ttite pI iftw Y«i to nm ^to4pH**fMWt
N cm and h) Kte *ocindrtpiy ^ phi Nth.
DfLT. Edtofi
E*i«wnd frvn yw rtftwmH *nd urn ihum. Yamal* RAind. Eiawwjua Me.
UW Hrttacn hr llte AHJWQW *r* ™ malMste.
■MORE _
Al puriud**/* ftwonotur muaie -rtae. Coda
E8-.VS.
TRIANGLE TELEVISION (Computers)
130 Brook wood Road, Sou thfl olds, London SW1B 5DD.
Tal: 01-874 3418. FAX; 01-877 1029
Mi a!i Order avsil4JD^
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SHACKSOFT
s&
If*'
Arc you tired of fumbling
under or behind your com-
puter to swap your mouse
and joystick cables ? Are
your cables and computer connectors worn out from all the
plugging and unplugging? Then Mouse Master is a must
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Mouse Master is an innovative switchbox that allows you
to instantly select either your mouse or joystick (or other
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make all the ports easily accessible. £24.95
MONITOR STANDS
Specifically designed for use with your AMIGA 5U0 with
a slot cut for the disk drive. Your Amiga fits iwatiy urater
your monitor with no untidy leads in view. £19.95
MOUSE MASTER
Quality
Mouse Mats
Orly £6.95
UNIT 11/17 While Hays South
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fifi A MICA COMPLETING fitly 1986
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*5f6
9519
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9507 |
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£5.95
9509 f 71
Add £2 for Europe (incl. Eire) per item, £5 for
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June 9700 I I
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9514
9515
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95 3 F
3537
Formula i Grand Frl* * FREE Pluto*
Formula 1 Grand Pn* # FREE Mouse Trap
£199$
£19.95
95 16
9519
Dust Cover
Amiga 500 Keytjoard
£4,94
350? | 1
Mouse Mat
£6.95
ssoe d
Binder
£5.95
9509
Add £2 for Europe {tncl, Eire) per item, £5 for
Overseas per item, unless otherwise Indicated
Payment: pteaso indicaie method {/) TOTAL
OUers subject
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[is
Software
Tin#
Arkanoid
Alien Spike
Arazoka Tomb ..
Artie Fo*
Adv Con Set .....
Back Gammon ,
Battleships
Blackshadow .
Borrowed Time .
Bubble Bobble .
Barbari ans
Blast Ball
Balance of Power .
Backlash
Ball Raider
Brainstorm.
BMX Simulator
Crack .
Chessmaster 2000 .
Chess Art of
Crazy Cars
Computer Hits ,
Cougans Ryn
Casino Roulette
Dark Castle
Defender of the Crown
Deja Vu ....„.-p„ WMWMWPlw „ BB
Destroyer „ P ,, P
Deep Space
Earl Weaver Baseball
ECO + > I ,
E Boles Most
Ey*,„
Enlightenment ,
Firepower
Flimstonei „ . * MWW1MWWMMI
Ferrari Formula One
Flight Simulator If
Fetid
Faery Tale Ad v
Football Fonunes
Frost Byte
Formula Grand Priss ....,.,
Footman ..„„,„„.,„ P ..„„„
Falcon Fl fl
Garrison
Gnd Start
Guild of Thieves „
Gotdfunnef „„ PP „,
Gnome Ranger
Galactic Invasion.
Golden Path
Hardball
Hollywood Poker .....
Hitchhikers Guide .
Indoor Sports
5.3.P
£2600
...£24 05
-£29.66
...£29 95
...£29.95
£9.99
...£1 9 95
..£24 95
..£24 99
... £19.66
.£24 99
£9.99
... £29.99
... £19 9S
... £19.95
£9 99
...Ei4.se
£19.95
...£24,95
.,£24.99
..£24.95
.,£29.95
.£14.95
...£19.99
...£24.99
...£29.95
..£2995
,£24,99
,£24.99
,£24.95
,£24 95
,£1995
£1495
..£24 99
£19 95
£24,95
.£09,35
, £9.99
£49.99
. £24.95
£14.95
,. £14.95
,,£14.95
,£24.95
.,.£9 99
,£24.99
,£24.95
.£14.95
,.£24.95
£19.35
.£24.95
£19.95
£29.99
£24.99
Impact
,,,£14.95
Insannv Fioht
£24 99
Jet
E39 95
Jinx ter
.,£24 96
Jigsaw Mania
£9 95
Joe Blade
£9,99
Kickslart II
£9,99
King of Chicago
.,,,.£29.99
Knight Ore .,,,
E24 95
Kamng Grand Prix
£9 95
Karate Kid II
Karate
Kampegruppe
Kwasimodo
.„"„„,£24.95
t £l 3.35
..." .£29.99
".,£3.95
Kings Quest Pack
.£24.35
Lurking Horror
Li toe Computer People ....
"..£24.95
£34.99
Leviathan
.....£19.36
Leaderboard
£24.95
Leaderboard Tournament
Leisure Suit Larry
,.,£3.33
"...,......£24,93
Leather Goddess
Marble Maddness
Mind Forever
Mei'C«nstfy
Moebius
£23.35
£19.95
,.£34.33
..........,£24.95
£24.95
Moon Mst
£29.35
Mouse Trap
,".,"..,.£14-95
Mean 18
,".,,..£24.95
Mission Elevator
Mac 3
,£19.33
£19 95
Ninja Mission
£3 33
Nakamoto
,£3-33
Nofd and Bert
Othello
",£25,00
£3.39
Our
Price
£20.50
CIS. 50
£21.50
£21 50
£21.50
£7 50
£16.50
£1S 50
£15 50
£16.50
£16.50
£7.50
£21.50
£ 1 6 .50
£16 50
£7,50
£1 1 .50
£1650
£16.50
£16.50
£1650
£21 .50
£11.50
£16.50
£18.50
£21.50
£21.50
£18 50
£10.50
£10.50
£10.50
£16 50
£1 1 .50
£1650
£1600
£16.50
£29.50
£7 50
£32.50
£18.50
£11.50
£11 50
£11.50
£18.50
£7.50
£16.50
£16.50
£11.50
£1850
£16 50
£16.50
£10.50
£21 .50
£16.50
£11.50
£10 50
£26.50
£16 50
AMIGA SPECIALISTS
Unit 1, Willowsea Farm , Spout Lane North,
Stan well Moor ; Staines, Middx TW19 6B W
Telephone: (0753) 682988
Till*
PlutoS *
Pori pf Call P ,„
Phantasie IN .... .
Power Ray
Pink Panther r .
Power Struggle
G Ball
Red October 1P ..,„
Rockey
Roadwars .... .
Roadwar 2000
Return to A clantis
Seven Cites of Gold
Starwars
Strike Force Harrier..,,
Surgeon p Bm .p, f+ * llw ** Bli * #ilB<4 *„^
S.D.I
Stnp Poker ^h*™*™***,,™™
Strip Poker II Plus
Sky fighter .
Swooper .
Seoontjg Out
Slaycon
Sidewinder
Space Quest . , PPP , PPP
Space Ranger
Scarway s
Star Glider TPP P „„ P
Silent Service
Silicon Dream a
Skyfojt
Shadow-gate
Space Port +
Sinbad A The Throne of Falcon
Shanghai
Scenery Disks 7 A 1 1 „, £24
Strange New Word ...
.£19 95
£24.95
£24.95
£14.96
£19.96
.£24.99
.£49.95
. £29.95
...E9.95
.£14,36
£14.35
.£19.95
£19 39
. £19.95
..£9.99
£29 99
,,.£939
. £19-95
£24 95
£24.95
.£19.95
.£14.95
£24.95
£19.99
£29.95
£24 99
£1 6,50
£10.50
£1 8,50
£11.50
£1 6.50
£18.50
£32.50
£21 .SO
£7.50
£11.50
£11.50
£16.50
£16.50
£16.50
£7.50
£21.50
£7.50
£10.50
£10.50
£18.50
£1 6,50
£11.50
£10.50
£1 6,50
£21 50
£10 50
Soccer Supremo
Terramen
Temple ol Apshai
Terwpods
Tetri*
Tim§ Bandits
Testdrive .............
Thunder Boy .......
Thunder Rolling
Ultima 111
Uninvited
Vyper
Vampire Empires
World Games _ ia+BB ,
Witness ...
Winter Olympiad .
Western Game*
Winter Games .....
The Wall
Xenon
Extensor
G.L.F. Football ...
95 Ee £18.50 ea
£19,33 £16.50
-B S
£14.35
£1995
£24.99
£24 99
£19 99
£19 99
£24 95
£14 96
£24,90
£24 99
£29 95
£1496
£19 99
£24.99
£23 33
£19.95
£19.95
£24.39
£14 36
£1333
..£3.33
£24 95
£11.50
£1650
£16.50
£16.50
£16.50
£16.50
£16.50
£11.50
£16.50
£1650
£21.50
£11.50
£16.50
£18.50
£21.50
£18.50
£16.50
£10.50
£11.50
£16.50
£750
£1 8 50
SPECIAL OFFERS AT LOW PRICES
Obliterates
Ogre
Pawn .
Portal .
.£24,35
.£24.99
. £24.95
£34 99
£7 50
Cruncher Factory
£9.9 9
£5.50
£7.50
Cutthroat
.£29.99
£12 00
£7.50
OnaUenger,.,
es.99
£5 50
£21.50
Demolition
..£9.99'
£5,50
£18.50
Dr. Fruit
£9.99
£5.50
£7.50
Deadline
£24.99
£12-00
£18.50
Final Trip
, £9.93
£5.50
£1650
Hacker
£29 95
£12.00
£21 SO
Hacker IU -
£29.99
£1200
£7.50
Infidel
£23 99
£12,00
£18.50
Las Vegas
£9.99
£5 50
£18.50
Mtndshadow
£1 2 00
£24.75
Phalanx
£9.99
£5.50
£16.50
Space Battle
£3,35
£5 50
£10.50
SpeUbreakar
,.£23.35
£12.00
£7.50
Suspended
,,"".£29.99
£1 2.00
£16.50
Suspect
£29.99
£1 2 00
£21 ,50
Station fall
....£29.99
£12 00
£16 50
Star cross
£29.99
£12.00
£24.76
Seas talker
£29 99
£12 00
£16.50
Trinity
£34 99
£12.00
£16.50
Thai Boxing
.£9.39
£5-50
£21.50
Tass TiiriM
£24.33
£t2.00
£t 1 .50
Vaders
-£9 99
£5.50
£10 50
Wishbringer ....
£29,39
£12 00
£16 50
Zorfc !
...£29.39
£12 00
£16.50
Zwk N
.£29.99
£1 2 0O
£7.50
Zork III
,£29.33
£1 2 00
£7.50
£19.00
NEW RELEASES NOW \H STOCK
£7.50
Amegas
£14.95
£11.50
£16.50
Flighl Pfllh 737
£3 35
£7,50
£18.50
WizbaJi
£24.35
£18.50
£18.50
Stock Market
£19.96
£18 50
£22-50
Siellet Conflict
. £
£
Our
Our
S.SP
Price
Title
S.SP
Price
.£14.95
£11 SO
The Jewels of Darkness
£19.35
Et550
£33 95
£26.50
Tima and Magic
P .£
£
£24.93
£16.50
Annals of Rome
£24,39
£18.50
£19 99
£16.50
Ge^Bee Air Rally
£19.95
£15.50
£1399
£16.50
Jump Jet
,",,,"£14.95
£11 50
£1495
£11.50
Sftadock
£24.95
£1850
£13 95
£16.50
Jinx
£24 93
£1850
£24 96
£1 0.50
Tho Armageddon Man
£19.93
£16 50
UTILITY LIST
Adrurn * limiiS * £39 95
AC Fortran ,„^.,^ +BBfc#+hr ,^. + „ H+Bt . M ..£295.00
Art Part* I -,+*«,,«,.™.™.p"E995
Art Paris II
Assembler Metacomco 4+i44++ „ £69.95
Animator/ Images ,.£103.50
Acquisition 1 J * .£243.00
Analyze II ,£149.95
Audiomasler .£46,00
Animate 3D £1 29.95
AC Bask; PPP . .£195 00
Butcher,,™ £2935
C64 Emulator _,^ hMh p P . H< „ M ^p MB p h p_B69.9B
City Desk £1 1 4.95
C Li Mate £39 95
Caltigrpaher „ £09.35
Dos to Dos ,...,,...,...£39.95
Delude Music Con Sat (Pal) £09.35
Deluxe Video _.E09.O5
Deluxe Print , 4 *. <44 *p MBH .".£24.95
Deluxe Paint II (Pal) .,,.£69.95
l>gi paint ( Pal) ... £59 .99
Digi view 2.0 ( Pal) £185.00
Ogiview Adpt , £29.95
Diga „ 1B „ iBB44 *p W « 1 .i**...™.4«« B «4*Hi*.CS7 B S0
Draw Plus , ,.,,£104.00
Express Paint —„™„„ £79.95
Future Sound £175.00
Gr&hbil £29.35
Horn' Cool }tt£Z £9.95
Hm Cak: £59 95
Intro Cad £59 95
InatanE Music £24.95
Lazerscript Driver £32 35
Lisp El 43-35
Lattice C 4.0 £i 72-50
Mcrofitfte Filer £73.95
Module IS Developer £ 143.95
Module Standard II..,.. £33.95
Modual M ..,...,£123.35
Maxiplan A500 £99 .35
Maxiplan Plus ...£149.95
Music Studio ..,....."..£34 33
Micro A PL £99 .95
Marauder II £39.95
MCC Pascal £69 SS
Ogantse £93 35
Publisher Plus £99.96
Pro-Board £475 .00
Pro-Net „„ £475.00
Pro - Video £ 1 59 95
Pixmate £49.95
RodrnT Roil .,.,...£935
Shakaspear „..„ rr „ P ..£i29-95
Superbase Professional £249.95
Superbase ....£63,35
Somx ......"...,...,£57-50
Softwood Write A Fite £33-95
Scribble II £33 95
Shell £49.96
Sega Assembler £49.96
Seasons A Holidays £9.95
Sculpt 3D (Par) ., £59.35
Sculpt 3D Animate (Pal) ... £129 95
Toolkit .....,.£39.95
TV Show (Pal) £99.95
TV Text (Pal) E«.fl6
Visa Write..,., £99.39
V I. P Professional £228 25
Videoscape 3D £143.75
Video Titier 1.1 ,£110,00
Word Perfect 4,1 £228.05
Works The,".."..,.....,. £149,35
X Cad £460.00
Zuma Fon ts 1^3 £34.95ea £24.75ea
Blank Disks 1 0 £27.75 13.50
£32 50
£202.50
£7.50
£7.50
£49.50
£75.50
£ias.oo
£102.50
£3200
£105.00
£132.50
£21-50
£50.50
£85.00
£29.50
£50 50
£23.50
£48.50
£48 50
£18 50
£48 50
£42 50
£142 50
£19.50
£42.50
£135.00
£62-50
£155.00
£23.50
£7,50
£45 50
£45.50
£18.50
£23.50
£102 50
E122-S0
£82,50
£110.50
£72,50
£95 00
£72.50
El 10.50
£24.75
£72 50
£29 50
£63 35
£7250
£72 50
£375.00
£375.00
£127,50
£39.50
£7.50
E1O5O0
£165.00
£89 50
£39 50
£72 50
£72 50
£34,50
£34.50
£7.50
£59-50
£105 00
£29 50
£72.50
£7250
£72.50
£165.00
£110 00
£85 50
E 175.00
£105.00
£32500
HEW RELEASES NOW \H STOCK
Silver .".£13395 Cl 15.00
Flipside £99 35 £72.50
On Line £i 1 0 46 £99.50
Prisim £ £
Intel lily pe £ £
I
High quality - Easy to use software -Fully supported
SPREAD2
£79.95
incl VAT
Intuition based spreadsheet with business
graphics combining a comprehensive
specification with exceptional ease of use.
+ Fast operation and data entry
* Over 60 functions incl Trig, Maths,
Conditionals. * Alpha/numeric Sort
+ Block Move/Copy/Delete * Macros
+ Comprehensive printer control.
DATA
£49.95
incl VAT
Intuition based flat card database, ideal for
mailing lists, library catalogues etc.
* Easy to use record layout design - no
programming language to learn.
* Number of records limited only by the disc
capacity
+ Fast Search, Sort and Report facilities.
SEKA
£49.95
incl VAT
A high speed 68000 assembler, operating at
30,000 lines of code per minute.
COMM 2
£29.95
ind VAT
Easy-to-use Communications package
Including Pres tel and terminal emulation.
ROGET
£49.95
mcl VAT
Based on Longmans Pocket Roget's Thesaurus.
Contains over 150,000 words and phrases.
Operates as a background accessory, making it
accessible from most word processing (and
other) programs.
GADGET
£29.95
me! VAT
A Gadget and Requester editor, generating C
Source Code for Gadgets and Requesters.
* Visual display of gadgets during editing
* Generates Boolean, Proportional and String
gadgets
+ Gadgets may have any numbers of pieces of
text in addition to images and borders for
both plain and selected forms
* Requesters may have text and borders
* Sizing and positioning of gadgets by mouse
* Programmer defined Source names,
GadgetID, MutualExclude and UserData
fields for all gadgets, also for text, borders,
images and requesters.
TEXT
£19.95
inef VAT
Text processor -Coming soon!
Phone or send for full details NO Wi-
ll, Horseshoe Park, Pangbourne, Berks RG8 7JW
07357-4335 Telex: 846741 KUMA G
Telecom Gold: 81:KUM 001
► PROFESSIONAL* SOFTWARE
