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Kind Words - 
word processing 
at a budget price 


How to make 
your A500 think 
it's almost an 
Amiga 2000 


High speed ray w 
tracing and animation 
with Turbo Silver 


# Giganoid 

# Stir Crazy 

# Sky Chase 

# Thundercats 
9 Starglider 2 

# World Tour Golf 


The ultimate in CAL? 


...and more! 

AMIGAMAPS 


An investigation begins into using 
interactive video with the Amiga 


Exclusive detailed 
guides to playing 
Firepower and Pandora 


1 



We won't mention the super-smooth parallax scrolling. ..the stunning backdrops... 
the amazing hi-res graphics. ..the never heard before sounds... the gameplay that turns 
humans into jelly. ..the aliens that just get wierder...the unique Last Game Option... 


We'll just say " Quite possibly the best arcade action yet written for any micro" 


Am It; A St ARRAY CONTAINS 2 DISKS AND AN At 1)10 CASSETTE: FOR £24.95. COMING SOON FOR THE ATARI ST AND COMMODORE 64 

at £19.95 and PC FOR £24.95 



This game is so hot it will leave burnmarks 
on the most adept joysticks 

Amiga User International 


Phone your order now on our 
credit card hotline for prompt 
delivery 
(09331 228953 



UxotroN MASTERWORKS FOR THE MILLENIUM 


RECREATION 


T nmn?nM T th Dai Rrfwfry. Gwydir STREET, Cambridge, CB1 2L1 


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©DQOs 

HARDWARE PRICE UST Our 

Title SaP Pries 

A 500 Compuler [BuHt in 3, 5” Disk Drive) 

{Amiga Dos. Kick Sian. Work Bench. 

-The very Flmr £399.89 


AMIGA SPECIALISTS 

Unit 1, Willowsea Farm, Spout Lane North, 
Stanwell Moor, Staines, Middx TW19 6BW 
Telephone: (0753) 682988 


A 500 {as above) with Ihg 1 064 

catour monitor £699.99 

A&eo (as sixm) with primer £604.99 

1004 Colour Mentor £349.99 

citizen iaoD Printer ..£226.65 

A520T.V Modulalor ,. r r ,„™ £24.99 

A 501 51 ZK flam Expansion. 

Pack Plus battery backed clot*. £l 19.96 

02000 Computet ........ E1269 25 

B200CLC with 1DS4 Cblbur Monitor £1%1.S3 

2nd ExlernaJ Disc Drive lor A500..„. m „_.„. H ,. H - 

Diac Boxes {Hqlda 40 Discs) „..., 

Disc Boxes (Holds BO Discs) - 

Mouse Mat* - 

Pro 5000 Joystick* - 

Ram Delta Joystick* .... „ 

Aisop Universal Printer Slam) ......... .......... 

Citizen 1Z0D Primer RDbons «~„- 

Bqx rt 10 Blank Discs in Box ....- 

Disc Drive Head Cleaners 

SOFTWARE 

Aaa/gh .. .... ..... £19.99 

Ad. Con. Set £29.95 

Alen Sir ike .„»«**, £24 95 

Amegat .£14.95 

Annals of Rome JW,W 

Arazoks Ton* £29.95 

Arcade Classics £19.99 

Arkan&id E20.QO 

Armacgeddon Man £18.99 

Ad PC Fdk £29.99 

Backgammon £9 99 

Bkk&eh „ £19.99 

Bad Cat £19 .99 

Balance qf Power £29 99 

Barbarian £24.99 

Bards TsJe I £24.95 

Battleships £1 9.99 

Beyond Zork £24.99 

Black Lamp .....,..£19.99 

Blackjack Aw49rrry £ 1 9.99 

BMX Sanulanr El 4.99 

Bubble Bobble £19.99 

BuggytoOV ... — £24,99 

Chess. The Art of ...... £24 as 

Chess maaler 2000 „ £24.99 


£350.00 

£620.50 

£750.00 

£325,00 

£210.50 

£22-50 

£112.60 
£1150.50 
£1256.50 
£1D5jQ0 
CIO. 50 
£12.50 
£5.00 
£14,99 
£9.99 
£10,99 
£3.50 
£13.50 
£9,95 

£13.50 
£20,50 
216-50 
El 0.25 
£10-50 
£19.50 
£13.50 
£16,00 
£14.50 
£20.50 
£7.00 
£13.50 
£16.00 
£19.50 
£16.50 
£17.50 
£13.50 
£16.50 
£13.50 
£13,50 
£10.25 
£13.50 
£16,50 
£16.50 
£17.50 


TUI* S.S.P 

One on One 

Othello £9.99 

Passengers on Ihe-Wind ,,.,£24.99 

Pawn _ £24 99 

PbIbt Beardsiey's FqotbaJ £19.95 

Pharrtasia III £24.09 

Pinball Wizard ..£9.99 

Pink Panther C19.08 

Pluto* £14.95 

Pool...,. £9.99 

Port Of Call £39.99 

Power Struggle £14.98 

Protector .....£i,99 

fled October £24.99 

Reiurnto Atlantia ..£24.99 

R«*ford £19,99 

Remanlie Erwseuniera £24.99 

3.D.1 £29 99 

Scenery Dec 7 £24.99 

Scenery Disc 1 1 .£24.99 

Scenery Dec Europe £19.99 

Scrabble II 

Senfinel £19.99 

Sevan Glia* of Odd £14,99 

Shadowraate £34 .99 

Shanghai ....... £24 .99 

Sherlock £24,99 

Sidewinder £9.99 

Silent Serve® £24,99 

Sinbad and Thrww/Faloon £29.99 

Soccer Supremo „ £19.99 

Space P<*t,.,,. r ,,,, r ,,., ,,,,,,,,,, £19,99 

Space Duett EZ9.9§ 

* " £9.99 


Space Rai 
Space Station .. 


Siar Glider ,..£24.99 

Siar War* ,£19 90 

Slarfieet 1 E24.96 

Slellar Conflks £26, 60 

&1* Crazy (Bobo) £18.99 

Slqok M a. r ket £19.99 

Strike Force Harrier £24.99 

Strip Poker I ESLB9 

Strip Poker II £14,99 

Surgeon £49.99 


Swmpaf 
Temple of Apehai 
Terramot 
Tern 


Terrap&fe 
Teat Drive 


£24.99 

£19.99 

£24.99 


Out 

Pries 

Cl 9.50 
£7.00 
£16.50 
£16.50 
£16.50 
£19.50 
£7 00 
£13.50 
£10.25 
£7.00 
£25.50 
£10.26 
£7.00 
£16.50 
£17.50 
£13.50 
£16.50 
£19.50 
£16,50 
£16.50 
£13.50 
£13-50 
£13.50 
El 0.25 
£16,50 
£16.50 
El 6.50 
£7-90 
£16.50 
£19,50 
£13.50 
£13,50 
£19.50 
£7.00 
£7.00 
£16.50 
£13.50 
£17.50 
£19.50 
£1350 
£16.50 
£16.50 

£7.00 

£10.25 

£31-50 

£13.50 

£19.50 

£13,50 

£16-50 


Tlth 

Si range New Wmld 

s.ap 

£19.88 

Tass Times 

£29.98 

Tetri* 

£19 99 

The Wall 

..,.,....,.,.£14.98 

Thundemoy , 

£14 98 

Vadare 

. ..C9.98 

■wV&er .CU.M 

Wiahbringar 

,£28,98 

Zork 1..— 

wh , 4 ^-£29 98 


Zork II ,..£29.98 

Zork III ...... £20,99 

Thl* qfler applies only while prwent *tock* 1 
Please check availabtiily 

NEW RELEASES 

Better Dead Than AHen ,....^.£19 99 

Fire and FrwgBl £24,98 

M Ike the Magic Dragron C 1 9 90 


Our 

Price 

£12.50 

£12-00 

£12.50 

£8,50 

£9.50 

£5.50 

£9.50 

£12.00 

£12-00 

£12.00 

£12-00 


hridqn 

Barts Tale II 

..£19.98 

.,£24.88 

Phantasm 

J apenese Scenery Disc 

Crash Garrer 

..£19.89 

.,£19,99 

.,£24,88 

Thundercst* 

£1889 

Mortville Manor 

£24 86 

Siraet Ftghier 

.. £24.99 

Pandora 

£18.99 

Tracer* 

..£24 99 

Craps Academy 

.. £24.99 

Ikari Warrior* 

Vl*en 

UTILITY LIST 

A C. 'Basic 

.,£24.89 
. £24.99 

£185-00 

Adrgm 

£39 99 

Analyse II 

..£69-95 

An tmadtorflmage* 

£103.60 

Art* Part 1 

Arts Part ? 

..... £9.98 
£9,90 

Audlomasler 

E46 00 

Butcher 

... £29.95 

G. Lbrary 

... £79.89 

Caligrcpher 

.,£69.96 

CLl Male 

... £39-95 

City Desk 

.£1 14.95 


Deluxe Music Den Sel £68.99 

Deluxe Pairrt II £69-96 

Defuse# Prim £24.96 

Deluxe Productwne £138.95 

Deluxe Video (PAL) £69.95 


Compuier Hta!!™!""™"™!™"™!! 

..... £28.89 

£19.50 

The Jewels Pi Darkness 

£19.99 

£13,50 

Qtgjpalnt 

....,,£59,95 

Crack 

£19,95 

£13.50 

Three Stooges 

£29.98 

£19.50 

Dtgtview 20 

£149.95 

Crazy Car* 

£24.95 

£15-50 

Tim® and Liege - 

£19.85 

£13.60 

ffeglvlMW Aiipl 

f»ax 

□ark Castle ... 

£24.99 

£15.60 

Time Bandits" 

£19.99 

£13-50 

Director 

£59 95 

Deep Spapa 

....... 624.99 

£16.50 

Ultima III 

£24.99 

£16,60 

Doe 2 Doe 

iiH _ r £3-9.95 

Delender er me Crown 

£28.99 

£19.60 

Univrled 

£28.89 

£19.50 

Express Pent 

£69.95 

Oeja Vu 

£28 99 

£19.60 

Vampi'e Empre 

£19.89 

£13.60 

h u Srtn 

fJ4QS 

Division One 

£18.99 

£13.50 

Warzqn® 

£8.88 

£7.00 

Futurn fi.ck.jnrt 

£1 75 00 

Eagles Neel 

£18.99 

£13 60 

Western Games 

£19,89 

£13.50 

Grabbrl 

raj as 

£an Weaver Baseball 

£24,99 

£17,60 

WMer Ofynoad 

£18.89 

£13.60 

Hal Gain 

fM qfi 

Eborslar 

£214.95 

£16.50 

Witnaea 

,£29.99 

£19.60 

Mqt A Cod Jazz ...... 

fu on 

E« 

£24.99 

£16.60 

WtezftaH 

£24.99 

£16.50 

I-PJF-. Library x 

______ £79,89 

Elf 

£14.9 9 

£10.25 

World Darts 

£14.89 

£10.25 

nslam M uslc 

LZZ&bjs 

Emerald Mines 

£19.98 

£13.50 

W arid Qarrw* 

E24.99 

£19.50 

intellltw* — — 

£29.95 

Ernghtepmeni (Druid II] 

£19.99 

£13.60 

World Tour Golf 

£24.95 

£17.50 

Inrt nq Gad 

as 


...... £14.95 

£10.25 

Xenon 

£18.95 

£ 1 3.50 

K Sega A&sarnbiar 

£49 95 

Faery Tale Advenlure 

£49.99 

£32.50 

SPECIAL OFFERS WHILE STOCKS LAST 

Kara Forts 

£59.95 

Ferrari Fqrmylfl One 

£24.95 

£17.50 

B lacks had qw, 

E24.95 

£16.60 

Lattice C 4,0. 

£172.50 


Feud 
Frreblaatar 

Fire Powbt 

Fljflhf Simulaior 

Fllrtttone* 

Fdqlball Fqrtune* 

Football Manner II 

Formula Grand Prlx 

Frotlbyta 
G.F.L.fcx 


,.,..,-£9.99 

„. u ,...£9.99 

£24,95 

£39.99 

£19.95 

£24.95 

£19.99 

...... £14,95 

. £14.95 


ortball (D.S.Fball) £24.95 

Garrieoo I £24.95 

Gafritonll £24,95 

Gee Bee Air Rally ............. E19.B9 

Gettysburg £29.89 

Giganoid „.„X14,W 

Gnome Ranger £14.95 

Golden Path £19,99 

Grand SlamTennl* - £14,99 

Guild or Thieve* HfH . H , M ,.., WWH , w .C24.99 

Hardball £24.95 

Hitchhiker* GuktoGaJaxy £29.98 

InpaCJ £14 95 

Indoor Sports ..,..,..£24.99 

interceptor £24-95 

Jet £39.95 

Jin* „ £24,98 

JkUdjgf , r £24.95 

K drrpf g repp* I! “1“ 1" "Z" I ! ' (29- 95 

Karate ...... £19.89 

KartinB Grand Prw £0.99 

Klck&iart 11 £9.99 

Kings QumI III E24.89 

Kings Quasi Pack {Inc MU) £24.89 

Leader board £24.99 

Leal her Nun of Phciua £28-89 


Learner neck 

1 eatherneck 4 Player Adpt 

£19.99 

£5.85 

Leisure Suit Larry — 

— C24.9& 

Marble Madnec* 

£19.98 

Mean 16 

£24.99 

Mercenary Compendium 

M indlighIBf 

£24.98 

£24.98 

Mission Elevator 

. , , £19,99 

Mqon Mi*t ...... 

,£29.98 

Ninja Mtaian 

£8L98 

Ownerator 

£24.99 


£7,00 
£7 00 
£16.50 
£26.50 
£13.50 
£16.50 
£13.50 
£10.25 
£10,25 
£16.50 
£19.50 
£19-50 
£13.50 
SEZ2.60 
£10.25 
£10.25 
£13.50 
£10J» 
£16.50 
£17.50 
£19,50 
£10.25 
£16.50 
£17.50 
£26,50 
£19.50 
£16.50 
£7,00 
£22.50 
£13.50 
£7.00 
£7.00 
£16.50 
£16,50 
£19.50 
£19-50 
£13.50 
£4.50 
£16.50 
£14.50 
£17 50 
£16.50 
£10.50 
£13.50 
£19,50 
£7 00 
£16.50 


BlartwH £9.99 

Borrowed Time—.. £24.09 

Brainstorm £8.99 

Casino Roulette £18.89 

Coutgan* Run .... £14.99 

Cutthroats .....£20.89 

Demrtttbn £8-90 

Deetroyer .£24 99 

Di^lo £18.89 

Extenaor — ES.88 

Ewe £14,99 

Hnaf Tr%3 £9.89 


Fort mar 

£24,95 

Galactic Invasion 

Gowrunner 

Grkf Start 

£24,89 

£24 95 

£9 99 

H«*er 

Hacker II 

Heflywood Poker 

Insanity Might 

Jigsaw Mania 

— £29.99 

£29 99 

£19.98 

£24 93 

£8 99 

Jump Jet 

Karale Kid II 

King rt Chicago 

..... £14.99 

£24-99 

£28.99 

Knight 0^9 

£24.89 

Kwa&imDdo 

£9 09 

Levuthert 

£l9,99 

Mach 3 

£18.89 


Minds hadbw.,,.. ,£24,99 

Mpepius ,...,.£ 24.65 

Nbfd and B41 — :E24.99 


Ogre 

Phalanx .. 


OB all £19.99 

Bwrifcar £19.88 

Rockey 

Belling Thunder,,, 

SMWHJi OsA 
Silicon Dre*m* .„, 

SkyHohter 

Slaygcn 

Space Battle..,. 

SpelCreakei 1 .. 

Stonraea... 

Slarwayt ... 
siadonfai .. 


StU 


^S, 


::g?S 


£5.50' 
£15.50 
£5.50 
£12 50 
£9.50 
£12.00 
£550 
£16,50 
£12.50 
CS.50 
£9.50 
£5.50 
£5.60 
£15.50 
£15,50 
£15.50 
£5.50 
E12-M 
£ 12.00 
£12.50 
£12-50 

£5.50 

£9.50 

£15.50 

£18,50 

£12,50 

£5.50 

£12.50 

£12.50 

£12.00 

£15.50 

£1560 

£15.50 

CS.50 

£12,50 

£12-50 

£5.50 

£15-50 

£12.50 

£15,50 

£9.50 

£12.50 

£5-50 

£12.00 

£ 12.00 

£12.50 

£12.00 


IS 


.□.Pascal .. 


..£140,95 

£09.86 

Mscto Aewmbtor ,,, £69.99 

Marauder II £30.89 

Maxiplan A500 £99.95 

Maxiplan, Plui ....£149,96 

Microlicfw Filer £78-85 

Moduli II £139.95 

Mu*lc Studio ,£34,99 

On Una ,.,,£110.85 

Organize || £69 JIB 


Priam,,,,. 

Pro Board 

£59.95 

£475.00 

Pro Net 

Pm Sound Designer 

£476.00 
£79.99 

Pro Video 

£159.95 

Professional Page 

£249 00 

Publisher Plui 

£99.95 

Rock N" Roll 

C9.98 

Senbtne II 

.M-H-HM-H-,,... £49.95 

Scu-lpl 3D 

£35,00 

SCufcrt 3D Anlrrale 

Seasons A Holiday* 

£138.95 

£8 99 

ShakBepeara 

Sltdl 

£128.96 

no os 

TurbqSilvBr 

£ 138.96 

Skm Lb MTV £78.86 

SorJ* 

Superbase 

Superbase Prolesscnai 

£67.50 

C98.85 

£249 96 

T ,V. Show 

£68.88 

T.V. Taxi 

Th» Work* 

£69.99 

£149.88 

TocHWl 

£39 95 

Video Titter 1,1 

£110.00 

Videoscape 3D 

£143,75 

Word Ported 4.10 

E22S.B6 

X Cad 

— £400 00 

£34 95 

Zuma Fonls II 

£34 95 

Zuma FonlS lil^. m „. m .„.„ 

£34.95 

Lattice Cqrrpi lar Conpanlon 

I.... 'V.. tm.vs 

Excellentw 

C 189.95 

Kind Word* 

£49.99 


£13.50 
£16.50 
£13-50 
£13.50 
£17,50 
£13.50 
£13 50 
£16.50 
£13 50 
£16.50 
£19.50 
£13.50 
£16.50 
£16,50 
£16.50 
£17, SO 

£132 50 
£32.50 
£48,50 
£75,50 
£7.50 
£7,50 
£32.00 
£21 ,50 
£60 50 
£50.50 
£29.50 
£06.00 
£50.50 
£50.50 
£18.50 
£1 15.00 
£50,50 
£42.50 
£42.50 
£105.00 
£19.50 
£45,50 
£29.50 
£50.50 
£21,50 
£155.00 
£21.50 
£42.50 
£7.50 
£60.60 
£21.50 
£21 .60 
£4550 
£32,50 
£45.50 
£122 60 
£102.50 
£68,60 
E50.50 
£29.50 
£72.50 
£102 60 
£62.50 
£102.60 
£24.50 
£99.50 
£50 60 
£50.50 
£39,50 
£46.60 
£37500 
£375.00 
£60.50 
£127.50 
£175.00 
£72.50 
£7,50 
£38.50 
£65.50 
£105.00 
£7.50 
£96.00 
£34.50 
£115.00 
£60.60 
£39.50 
£72,50 
£105.00 
£50.50 
£50.50 
£106.00 
£28.50 
£85.50 
£1 10-00 
E175.50 
£325.00 
£24.50 
£24.50 
£24,50 
£205.00 
£67.50 
£135.00 
£32.50 


M 



Managing Editor 

Derek Sica km 


AMIGA SCENE 


Group Editor 

Alan McLarftlan 

Editor 

ftimon Rocicman 

Production Editor 
Peter Glover 

Alt Editors 

Mark Nolan 
Doug Steel 

Editorial Assistant: 

Elaine Rawlins 

News Editor 
Mike Cow ley 

Advertisement Manager 
John Snowden 

Advertising Saks 
Wendy Colboume 


Editorial: 0277 23U5? 

Adninlmabon D625 BTBfiflfl 

Adwerlisang; D625 B7BBBH 

Svbscriptons 0625 879340 

TElerflm Cold: 72:MAGM3 

Telei. imSlUffitffl 

Fbjl 0625 I7M66 

Pr^Oei Mailbux: 6115663$} 


Published by: 

Dalabjsf* PufaliuOuns Ltd. 

Europa House. Adlineton Park. 
Aldington. Macclesfield SK1U 4NP. 

ISSN U052-504B 

*mi$» Computing wEknnws articlis for publi- 
atim, MaiErul should hu typed or LuanputE-r* 
prinlRd, dTiri preferably auitfe! e-spatti. Pruflrsm Iwl- 
lugs should be *ruifi[iaaifii by dist Piets* encase 
i skoiped. wltaddressed envelope. olberwiw tfe 
rdura tif malarial cannot be giMranleed Conlri- 
IpjlioJis tin only be accepted for publolran bv 
Database PUblkatKOli lid cm jo all-rigibls basis. 

■gi IW* Database Publitotwns UJ. No material may- 
be reproduced in wlinfe or in pari wirhuul written 
wnn&siDn. While nerr care is taken, ihe pub- 
falters taanot be bid legally respunsibk for any 
errors in artir.fes, Sistin^s ur advertueraeflU 
tmifa it air jwJj/jaCWJl 

and fjirTTflioriun-' fflUHS UtfiSM fLUfJ ltd is 
nor 1 respodsiiWf form of tit arftfe irrflirs issw or 
far m of tfte fl^Mons esjmssrf. 

Sew Irade distribution: Impm Seles end Dis- 
tribution Limited, Unil 1, Burgess Rwd, Ityhnwe 
[d». Hastings, Usi Sussw TKW 4NR. Tel: 0424 
43BUZ. 


7 LATEST 

NEWS 

A Ml report from AmiExpo in 
Chicago. A500 IlickcrFbucr ram ours 
lambasted. Commodore to provide 
MicroChannel bus for A2000, and more. 



ADVENTURES 


GRAPHICS 


ACTIVE 
ADVENTURING 

Pass through the Shadowgale - a 
classic game from Icom Simulations, 
and join Dave Ericsson for a trip into 
Phantasie 111 lo hatlle and plunder. 


/. /. TURBO 
mm mm silver 

High speed ray-tracing is what has 
put the Turbo into Impulse's Turbo 
Silver 3D graphics package.. Faster 
and cheaper than all its rivals. 


PACIFIC PERIPERALS’ 
A50C SUB-SYSTEM 

Expansion for your little Amiga. Nut a 
binary bull worker, but it will give 
your machine the guts to handle nine 
megabytes or a cheap hard disc. 




EDUCATION 


PROGRAMMING 




INTERACTIVE 

VIDEO 


The Amiga is the machine that many 
Interactive Video fans have lusted 
after. Rex Last explains what can he 
done with computers and silver discs. 



PLAIN MAN S 
GUIDE TO CL1 


By understanding how the standard 
Amiga direcloiy structure works you 
can speed up floppy disc access times 
and get more data stored to boot. 


WORDS 

A full word processor for £40 may 
seem unlikely. Bill Tomlins finds 
there is much more to advanced text 
handling than just spell checking. 



Continuing the battle against Egron 
attack in the best game yet with high 
speed solids and a bonus painting 
package thrown in for good measure, 

fnttmdive video 
Page IS 


RAINBIRITS 
STARGLIDER 1 


4 AMIGA COMPUTING September 198& 












■CONTENTS* 



p28 


1ALS 1 

H 

Not a 
c 

nine 


i 


D 

gh 


I 


| SOFTWARE 

I PROGRAMMING 

§1 AMIGA 
ARCADE 

Skychase for the pilots, World Tour 
Golf for those “with funny strides, Stir 
Crazy for convicts, Giganoid, Better 
Dead Than Alien, and Thundercats. 

/ METACOMOO 
tr M PASCAL 

If you want to produce structured 
programs which will he easy to 
maintain, this tool from the company 
which wrote AmigaDos is for you. 

| HINTS 1 

EKaHHHl 

£L h GAME 
JL Vf KILLER 

Mas The Hacks’ Tennant compiles 
the best hints for zappers through the 
cosmos, and gels by in Pandora with 
just a little help from Adrian Curry, 

|) 1 FROM OUR 

U -M- POSTBAG 
Hard drive problems. When is an 
Amiga not an Amiga? When it's a PC. 
Or when it is a Unix box. Purchasing 
problems and assemblers assessed. 

| HARDWARE | 


J INTO THE SILICON 
KJ MM UNDERWORLD 

Listen with P^ula, Rupert Goodwins 
scans the PCB to find out why the 
Amiga sounds so good, continuing 
his look at custom chippeiy. 

|| . 1 AMIGA 
VF ANSWERS 

If you need help with getting your 
computer to behave call A A. If we 
can’t help we know a man who can 
... e nice man, a very nice man. 


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into tne silicon underworld rage 52 





Active Adventuring Page 12 


Turbo Silver Page 21 


Sterglider 2 Page 34 


September 1983 AMIGA COMPUTING 5 





OPEN MONDitY'SATURDAY 9 AM-6 PM 



TherLondon 


AMIGA A500 


All Amiga ABOO's Include Wsrk Bench, Basic, Utilities, 
Manuals, Tutorial and deluxe paint. 


A500 £329 

BUSINESS SYSTEM 500 

£679 


irrrarfrct 

WJJAKLU. 

^ V 4^ \ £ i j£ 


Including Amiga A50D, A10B4 
Colour Monitor MPS1200 Pri nter, 
PC Emulator [transformer). 

The works integrated package, 



SPECIAL OFFER 

AMIGA A5DQ + 1084 Cokwr £AQQ 


Monitor v FREEfilOOSOFTWHE 


A 5 00 Accessories 

Amiga Printer Cable E12.50 A501 51 ZK Expansion £95 Dust Cover Ejl,BD TV Mod Ja wr 

Amiga 1004 £179 Cumana CAX354 E3S Philips BB33 Monitor £23S 1C kD&DD 


£21 5. 25" Drive 

£ 13.00 


£145.00 



AMIGA B2000 


B2Q00 Includes Wtork Bench, 
Basic. Utilities, Manuals and 


B2000 £995 



Pack 1 62000. Colour Monitor ^ Q 

Pack 2 aaooo * 2010 . intwnni n ft 

Drwa. Colour Monitor IwCU 


Pack 3 B3000. Colour Maxtor 

KT Bndge Board. QCC 

aJMbharddn* t l003 

Pack 4 pack 3 and p rr 

ASHPlOOnve tcU13 


NEC 3. 5" Int, Drive 
5.25 J 'Drive 
Cumana CAX354 
Philips B833 Monitor 
Amiga 1DS4 Monitor 

FUjiteu Multi-scan Monitor — 

Taxan 770+ M/Sync Monitor £485.00 
A2D1D Internal 3 W Drive £149.00 
A2G52 2Mb Ram Expansion £347,00 


£80.00 

£145.00 

£85.00 

£239.00 

£179.00 

£379,00 


A208B XT Bridge 
Board £435.00 

A2094 Amiga 20Mb Hard 
Disk £539.00 

30Mb MS DOS XT Hard 
Disk £25900 

10 x DS/DD Disks £13-00 


SOFTWARE 


Analyze 2 

£59 

Digivnew V.2 

£130 

Pro-write 2 

£75 

1 Deluxe Video 1.2 

£57 

Deluxe Paint II PAL 

£57 

Deluxe Music 

£57 

Prof. Page VI 1 

£215 

Sculpt 3D 

£72 

Shakespeare 

£125 

Word Perfect 4.1 

£175 

Over 1 00 Armga titles off the shelf . 
We will match any UK dealers price 
fcr Amiga Suftwa'e thBt is in stock. 



PRINTERS 


Star LC10 

Star NB-2410 24 pm 
Epson LXBOQ 
Epson FXB5G 
Epson EXBOO 
Epson L0500 24 pin 
Epson L085Q 24 pin 
NEC P22QD 24 pn 
Colour Printers 
Xerox 4020 
Epson EXBOO 
CBM MRS 1500c 
H.P. PaintJet 


£141 

£178 

£398 

£184 

POA 

£449 

£238 

£428 

£278 


8 i 8 


£1100 

£499 

£215 

£399 


THE WORKS INTEGRATED PACKAGE 

including Scribble II, Analyze II and Organize £54 


Mail Order + Export Hot Line Phone 01-686 6362 


Delivery by Securicnr (4 day) please add £5^75jier item. E 3 


Delivery by Securicar 54 hoar please add £9.95 per item, 
[software postage free) 

Send off or order by 'phone quoting your Access. Visa No. 

’Phone 01-606 6362. Immediate- despatch on receipt of order or 
cheque clearance. Dr Telex your order on: 946240 Attn 1 9001335. 


EXPORT CUSTOMERS SUPPLIED TAX FREE. 

Contact our specialist export department on 01-686 6362 


ALL PRICES EXCLUDE VAT. 


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ALSO A VAST RANGE OF DISK DRIVES. JOYSTICKS, DISK BOXES, INTERFACES. SHEETFEEOERS, ETt 

Dept. AUI, 53-59 High Street, Croydon, Surrey CR01QD. Fax:01-681 8939. Tel: 01-681 3 



on 

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Prices correct at copy date. Subject to change without notice due to currency fluctuations etc. £. fi. O. E. 


AMIGA SCENE ■ 


AMERICA WAVES THE FLAG 
AT WINDY CITY SHOW 



The name of the game its shoot Capone 

AmiExpo is the top US show for 
Amiga owners. SIMON ROCKMAN 
reports direct from Chicago 


Hard sell— 
for Amiga 

T HE Amiga will feature 
strongly in Commo- 
dore's multi-million pound 
aulumn advertising cam- 
paign, 

Although a large slice of 
the £5 million spend will go 
on promoting a restructured 
PC range, the Amiga has 
been picked out for special 
attention. 

According to Commodore 
spokesman Tim Rafferty 
there will be a "very aggress- 
ive advertising campaign in 
newspapers and magazines, 
with TV exposure nearer 
Christmas, 

‘The Amiga presentations 
will focus on Us Tales as a 
home and business machine 
- and also the solutions it 
offers vertical markets, par- 
ticularly CAD, with its 
graphics", he said. 

Marketing manager Dean 
Barratt adds: ‘The machines' 
music, speech and colour 
capabilities lend themselves 
well to television, 

"Once the Amiga has been 
on TV there will be a greater 
acceptance of its ease of 
use". 

Hart leaves 
Commodore 

A FTER in years with 
Commodore, operations 
director Toni Hart has left to 
work for the Unisys Corpor- 
ation. 

"It's sad to leave a com- 
pany such as Commodore, 
yet I’m looking forward to a 
new challenge ", said Hart. 

"I find myself able to take 
this career decision at this 
time because of, not despite, 
Commodore’s strong current 
position. 

"Present strength of the 
senior and middle manage- 
ment in the UK ^and 
elsewhere leaves me con- 
fident of Commodore’s 
success", 

Jim Housego will now 
head the operations division, 
with managing director 
Steve Franklin taking on 
responsibility for sales. 


A merica’s windy city 
stayed calm for Ami- 
Expo, a mecca for Amiga 
enthusiasts throughout the 
Mid- West. 

Commodore had a good- 
sized exhibit but kept things 
quite low key. 

The only new product 
shown was the A2Q24 moni- 
tor with its 1UUB by BOO four 
level grey resolution: British 
A2l}24s will offer lOOB by 
1024, It looked great. There 
was no sign of the A590 hard 
drive. It might just appear 
before Christmas, 

Few new releases then, but 
Commodore’s Jeff Parker did 
talk about the possibility of 
building an Amiga-based 
games console. And RJ Mical 
was on hand to clear 
up one point: "Everyone at 
Amiga knows that the 
machine w r as really designed 
by Michy - Jay Miner’s dog”, 
he said. “And the paw print 
inside an Amiga 1000 goes to 
prove it”. 

Infinity was showing 
Shakespeare on an A2024 
and Dale I.uck had one on a 
borrowed area of the Byte by 
Byte stand, showing X- 
windows for the AmigaDos. 
X-windows is an inter- 
national standard environ- 
ment agreed on by all 
the major manufacturers, 
including IBM. 

Another new product on 
the Byte by Byte stand was 
Fancy Fonts 3D, which will 
be reviewed in Amiga 
Computing shortly. Karl 
Kxammer is enthusiastic 
about the product's 
capabilities: "The new Fancy 
Fonts 3D designs for Sculpt 
are intended for maximum 
rendering speed ", he said, 
A-Squared had news of a 
PAL version for Live! its 
popular A 500 digitiser. 
Arthur Abraham of A- 
Squared is keen to produce 
an A2Q00 card, but feels that 
the UK market would not 
merit a full blown produc- 
tion run. 

Action ware was waving the 
flag - or more accurately the 
gun - for funsters. Two titles, 


POW and Capone, both work 
with light guns and the result 
is games much like tlie cur- 
rent arcade smash Operation 
Wolf. 

Most of the games on dis- 
play were German, with 
Readysoft showing Gany- 
mede - an Attack of the 
Mutant Camels clone - and 
Bomb Busters, a game which 
loolcs a lot like Bomb Jack 
and a very early version of 
Dragon’s W. Based on the 
coin-op, it has a Gauntlet- 
like scene running from 
room to room. The final pro- 
gram will occupy six discs - 
that's more than 5Mb — and 
cost S40. 

Comma was much better 
represented, with both 
ArniNet and PeopleLink 
having stands. 

Unapproved modems 



fay Miner r "Father of the Amiga " 


were incredibly cheap. 
Standalone 2400 baud 
models were being sold for 
$143 (£B3) - a third of the 
UK price. More expensive 
modems were on sale at the 
Amic developments stand, 
hundled with AMIC Term 
l.l), a communications pro- 
gram intended to make 
online time more efficient. 

It’s always good to see a 
friendly face when you’re 
away from home, so 
bumping into Anil Gupta 
from Anco and Ken 
Browning from Eidersoft 
was a pleasure, Ken was 
demonstrating the Gold ver- 
sion of Eidersoft 1 s programs 
for Us sound sampler, while 
Anco showed its selection of 
European games. 

Many serious users will 
know ahout ASDG. a com- 
pany which produces a wide 
range of peripherals. Its first 
software product - a pow- 
erful text processor called 
CygnusEd Professional - 
was released at the show and 
critics described it as stun- 
ningly good. 

The latest hardware gizmo 
from ASDG was also 
unveiled. The Twin-X board, 
especially designed for con- 
trol applications, has an IEEE 

► 


September ifWK AMIGA COMPUTING 7 






Ban on software 
hits trade hard 


GREGOR NEUMANN 
Reporting from West Germany 


A T the moment the most 
controversial topic in 
Germany - and certainly the 
one most frequently dis- 
cussed by computer users - 
is the banning of software. 

The German government 
can ban any media - books, 
films, videos or whatever - if 
they appear to be unsuitable 
for Children, The laws are 
intended to protect German 
youth from the effects of por- 
nography and violence, 
Adults may buy such 
material but only in shops 
that have a special area set 
aside that children under 18 
aren't allowed to enter. 

No one objected to the 
banning of pornographic or 
horror videos. But emotions 
were aroused when f about 
two years ago, the govern- 
ment started banning soft- 
ware. It was hard to 
understand why software 
should be treated in the same 
way as videos or books. 

The Office for the Protec- 
tion of the Young is 
responsible for the vetting of 
all media. And despite no 
experience of computer 
games, it has so far banned 
70 games. The black list con- 
tains simulations such as 
Gunship and even normal 
shoot- 'em-ups like 1942. 

The problem is that 
nobody - neither teachers 
nor programmers - knows 
what makes a computer 
game harmful for children* Is 
every action game a danger 
for the young? Gan you ban a 
simulation for being too real- 
istic? There don’t seem to be 
any exact guidelines for the 
treatment of software. 

The banning has impor- 


tant effects on the German 
software scene. Dealers, for 
example, are confused 
because they don't know 
whether they arc allowed to 
sell banned games. In 
Munich there is not a single 
shop which offers a special 
room for banned software - 
they simply stop selling it. 

To complete the chaos, 
computer magazines are not 
allowed to tell their readers 
w r hich new programs are 
banned. The government 
says that would be adver- 
tising for these games, and 
advertising is strongly for- 
bidden, As you can Imagine, 
there is a lot of confusion 
over here. 

Besides the banning issue, 
German Amiga users are 
talking about GFA-Basic for 
the Amiga, which was first 
shown at the CeBIT at 
Hanover in March . The small 
German software house 
called GFA set the standard 
for Basic on the Atari ST, 
and GFA-Basic is very 
popular because it is amaz- 
ingly fast. 

Many commands are 
reminiscent of Pascal others 
of assembler language , With 
GFA-Basic it is easy to work 
with windows and pull- 
down menus. The Amiga 
version will have the same 
advantages and extra abili- 
ties, such as better graphics 
and more commands for 
sound programming. 

ft will also be compatible 
with the ST version, so most 
of the many ST programs, 
written in GFA-Basic, will 
run on the Amiga. That is 
just one of the reasons why 
so many people are waiting 
for it, 



Flickering 

facts 


M ICROWAY has de- 
scribed reports that its 
popular FlickerFixer board 
(reviewed last month) will be 
made available for the 
Amiga 500 as “a trifle early". 

The company does have a 
bench prototype of such a 
device, hut no decision has 
been made regarding 
whether to go into produc- 
tion, The indiscretion which 
revealed the A500 Flick- 
erFixer w r as committed by a 
company accountant. A 


Ingrid’s 

Back 

A SEQUEL to its hit 
adventure Gnome 
Ranger will he released next 
month by Level 9 Computing 
(0344 487597), 

Gnome II sees Ingrid 
Bottomlow return to Little 
Moaning in order to prevent 
Jasper Quickbuck from 
turning the village into a 
yuppie paradise. 

Price £19.95. 


Enter 

Hewson 


A NOTHER major pub- 
lisher has entered the 
Amiga market. Hewson 
(0235 832939) has released 


four titles - tw r o brand new 
and the others conversions 
of recent 8 bit hits. 

Netherworld, Planet of 
Purgatory is locked in eter- 
nal conflict between the 
forces of good and evil. 
Diamonds are the key to 


I 
i 

r 

Even if the decision is | 
made to go ahead with the l 

A5UI) board it will be expen- [ 

sive and require a full Multi- (> 

Sync monitor: Even cut 
down monitors like those v 

supplied with the Amstrad [ 

PC will not work, t; 

Meanwhile the A2D0Q c 

FlickerFixer is going from l 

strength to strength: Com mo- t 

dore US now uses the boards 
in all its demonstration 
machines. I 1 




source within the company 
said "If he keeps his nose out 
of R and D IT! keep mine out 
of his books", 


survival, but before they can 
he obtained the player must 
defeat the denizens of Neth- 
erworld, 

Cybernoid II features 
attack weapons including 
yo-yo bombs* terrain- 
fo 11 owing missiles and a Fire 
and retrieve boomerang 
blaster. 

Hew r son has also rewritten 
and converted the original 
Cybernoid space pirates hit, 
and the 1987 sboot-'em-up 
Zynaps. Price £19,99 each. 




European 
discs deal 

S pecialist distributor 

SJB Disks has won 
exclusive UK distribution 
rights for the new Commo- 
dore brand of 5,25in and 
3. Sin discs. 

The discs - already obtain- 
able in West Germany - are 
now available in the UK 
following an agreement 
between Commodore and 
RP5, one of only tw r o fully 
integrated magnetic media 


manufacturers in Europe. 
RP$ now supplies the whole 
of Commodore's European 
operation. 

Commodore has extended 
the agreement as a result of 
the proof of product quality: 
“The evidence from our 
involvement in West Ger- 
many is impressive", said 
Dean Barratt, Commodore's 
UK marketing manager. 

"And we are convinced 
that this agreement will 
guarantee the highest quality 
product for our users". 






- 


8 AMIGA COMPUTING September 1988 




■AMIGA SCENE! 


:ompany 
nose out 
mine out 

ision is 
with the 
e ex pen- 
JJ Multi- 
r en cut 
e those 
\mstrad 

A 2000 
\g From 
]ommo- 
s boards 
(ration 



ey can 
r must 
Nfith- 


itures 

tiding 
rrain- 
a fire 
Rfang 

rrltten 
iginal 
is hit, 

UTl-Up 

ach 


:npc. 

irhule 

pean 

nded 
lit of 
fility: 
our 
Ger- 
said 
ore's 

iced 

win 

ality 


Dragonlance 

derivative 

T HE product would-be 
role playing Amiga users 
have been waiting for is on 
Its way from US Gold 
(021-356 3388), 

Heroes of the Lance - a 
version of the legendary 
Dragonlance epic - will he 
the first Amiga offering to 
emerge from a collaboration 
between US Gold and Stra- 
tegic Simulations, 

The partnership has prom- 
ised a range of products over 
the next five years based on 
the popular advanced 
dungeons and dragons 
games system. 

^ Heroes of the Lance is a 
first computer action game 
recreating the epic battle 

Into the wide 
blue yonder 

A CADEMY has arrived 
on the Amiga, courtesy 
of CRL (01-533 291 BJ. 

Would-be aviators have 20 
missions to complete to 

More colour 
on the 
desktop 

QHAKESPEARE, a colour 
ODTP package for the 
Amiga family, from US- 
based Infinity, is now avail- 
able in the UK from Cloud- 
hall (0604 231211). 

Recently upgraded to ver- 
sion l.l t it allows integrated 
text and graphics, and 
supports a mix of mul- 
tiple full colour BeluxeFaint 
images and multiple colour 
palettes on a single page, 
Shakespeare will output to 
PostScript devices, including 


Commodore 
to go PS/2 

E NGINEERS at Commo- 
dore in Germany have 
decided that the IBM PS/2 
MicroChannel architecture is 
close enough to that of an 
Amiga 2600 to be simply 
implemented. 

This means that in addi- 


between good and evil on 
the world of Krynn. 

The player controls eight 
companions, each with dif- 
ferent specialised attributes 
and skills, and guides them 
deep into the treacherous 
ruins of the temple Xak 
Tsaroth to retrieve the pre- 
cious Discs of Mishakal. 

Descending into the 
Abyss, the companions must 
defeat the hordes of mon- 
strous Draconians in hand- 
to-hand combat, deal with 
powerful magic and survive 
the onslaught of giant 
spiders, skeletal undead and 
other terrors. 

Finally Kisanth, the 
fearsome black dragon must 
be confronted and destroyed 
if the quest is not to end in 
failure. 


prove they are worthy of 
being a pilot. 

Blurbed as “Incredibly 
addictive and playable 1 ', 
Academy does have a major 
saving grace in that players 
can save a game in progress. 
Price £19.95, 



the Apple LaserWriter Plus 
and Linotronic Imagesetters 
and will print on all 
graphics-capable Preferen- 
ces supported printers. 

Price £14B,35, 


tion to the PC Brid ge board 
and the forthcoming AT 
Rridgeboard there may well 
be a PS/2 board with VGA 
and MicroChannel. 

While the A250UUX is still 
not in production, a number 
of Commodore engineers are 
now using the Unix 
machines in preference to 
their much more expensive 
Sun workstations. 


New at AmiExpo 





959 bus and has already 
been put to use with the 
Sharp JX 450 scanner. 

ASDG is working on some 
compaction, while Gold Disk 
is collaborating to produce 
desktop publishing software 
which will make the most of 
the hardware. 

Gold Disk itself had a 
number of new products on 
display including Profes- 




X- Windows 

sional Draw, a resolution 
independent art program. 

Movie Magic is a superb 
looking cartoon program, 
designed to be used by 
young children who want to 
make their own TV-style 
cartoons. 

Gold Disk was a little more 
secretive about a third new 
program. It is as yet 
unnamed, but company 
president Kaiiash Ambwani 
revealed that it is a 3D design 
program which will be avail- 
able before the end of 
September. He also pro- 
mised that the long-awaited 
Comic Setter would he fin- 
ished shortly. 

Brown-Wagh (pronounced 
Brown-Way) Publishing had 
its full range of software on 


fessional demonstrators 
using the company's produc- 
tivity programs on a big 
screen and answering ques- 
tions, 

Brown-Wagh's stand 
dwarfed that of the neigh- 
bouring WordPerfect Cor- 
poration showing Word- 
Perfect Library. 

Creative Microsystems was 
selling a full Midi interface 
and - best of all - a 14Mhz 
board which doubles the 
clock speed of the Amiga, 
C-Ltd, famed for hard discs, 
was showing its new laser 
printer and selling its 
unpopulated ram expansion 
boards with a clock for $40, 
Great Valley products offers 
a wide range of peripherals, 
including a hard disc with 
up to 2Mb ram. 

Marauder might be no 
more, but Discovery was 
showing Arkanoid, Zoom 


This shows why (he A 2024 
is stiii a prototype 


The 14Mhz upgrade from 
CMl - A 1000 model 

and the VIP virus checker. 
Discovery's Nancy Picard 
said she was "really pleased 
with the way Arkenoid is 
selling in Europe", and more 
titles should be on the way 
soon. 

Even "utility" collectors 
were catered for: Fuller had 
Project D available for 
anyone hell bent on 
“backing up" software, but 
on the whole the Americans 
seem to be much more 
civilised about piracy. 

My favourite toy at the 
show - a pair of 3D glasses - 
was supplied by Haitex, 

All in all an exciting show. 
But the real thrill of 
AmiExpo was seeing 15,000 
people w r ho enjoy their 
Amigas learning about and 
buying gear to make using 
their computers more fun. 




September 1986 AMIGA COMPUTING 9 




THE AMIGA CENTRE 

77/79 Rochester Row, London SW1 


01-931 7161 

SELECTED ITEMS 


Professional Page v.1.1 249.00 

Maxiplan Plus 149.00 

A/C Fortran 239.00 

Graphics Studio 45.00 

Animator Apprentice 189.00 

De Luxe Photolab 69.00 

Homebuilders Cad 149.00 

Easyl Graphic Tablet (A500) 329.00 

Silver 3D Turbo 139.00 

Studio Magic 79.00 

Escort 2MB (A100) 589.00 

Wordmaster 36.00 

Math Talk 36.00 

Bridge 5 29.00 

Sub Battle 29.00 

Bards Tale II 39.00 

Phantasie III 29.00 

Sentinel 19.00 


All prices include VAT. Add £2.00 for postage 
UK/Europe 


Monday-Saturday 1 0.00am/6.00pm 
Access/Visa/Eurocheques accepted 


10 AMIGA COMPUTING September 1988 





■AMIGA SCENES 


The games scene worldwide 


France 


INDIAN Mission is a clone of 
Indiana Junes featuring each 
of the different stages of the 
original game, The graphics, 
as you would expect from a 
French release, are really 
excellently shaded. 

The title tune and game 
effects are of an equally high 
standard and I’m sure it will 
prove a worthy successor to 
the popular ST version of 
Indiana Jones from US Gold, 

The only other French 
release this month was 
20,000 Leagues Sous La Mei\ 
It features some of the most 
boring digitised sound 1 have 
ever heard. It goes on and 
on and on and the rest of the 
game does little to save face. 


Britain 


In Britain things are hotting 
up. Exocet will soon be 
releasing Phantasm. Bizarre 
3 t Star Burner and Hyper- 
drome, Bizarre 3 is an inter- 
esting twist on the platform 
theme, with almost 800 
screens of slapstick action 
and strategic elements. 
Hyperdrome is a horizontal 
scrolling shoot-’em-up in the 
Nemesis mould. 

Prism Software will be 
releasing Terroforce, Hot 
Shot, Ad dicta ball, Who 
□ares Wins II, Zed, Rocket 
Roger, Battleatations and 
Artificial Dreams. Some of 
these are old Alligata hits 
from the 0 bit days. 

Our editor spent many 
nights playing Rocket Roger, 
one of the most underrated 
games to grace the Commo- 
dore 64. Who Dares Wins 11 
is an Ikari Warriors style 
game, while Terroforce is a 
scrolling shoot-’em-up on 
land, sea and air. The sound 
in was digitised using the 
i Ediersoft Pro-Sound package 
recently reviewed in Amiga 
Computing. 

Terroforce was written by 
Justin Gavinovic, who is 
now working on an Amiga 
version of The Krystal, a 
game which won't be ready 
for preview, let alone review, 
for a couple of months. 

Be prepared for 1943 and 


Thunder Blade from US 
Gold and Operation Wolf 
from Ocean, Afterburner is 
being converted by the solid 
specialists, Argonaut Soft- 
ware. The game is set to be 
released around Christmas, 
although at the time of 
writing the project has only 
just started. 

Argonaut's last offering, 
StarGlider 11 - reviewed this 
month — has been on sale in 
the US for a short while, with 
the European launch due 
soon, But there is no point in 
ordering a copy from the 
States to beat your friends as 
the American version won't 
work on British machines. 

Palace Software, the com- 
pany that used Maria 
Whittaker's considerable 
assets to advertise the hit 
game Barbarian, has been 
overwhelmed by the interest 
shown in an Amiga version — 
and has promised to support 
the Amiga with Barbarian 11. 

The game is bound to be 
banned in Germany, so 
Palace is gearing up to sell as 
many copies as possible 
before the axe desends. 

Also in the pipeline are 
Starship - an ambitious 
vector graphic and spritey 
game - and Rimrunner, 
which appeared on the C64 a 
while ago. This will be 
jazzed up on all other 
formats by the addition of 
smart bombs, mines and a 
jumping dinosaur. 

D1Y games freaks should 
not miss Shoot-’em-up Con- 
struction Kit, now being 
Amigaised. Judging by Pal- 
ace's previous track record, 
all titles should be excellent 
- and late. 

Electronic Arts, another 
company usually associated 
with premium computer 
software, has not as yet made 
a significant impact in the 
European market However 
that could all change very 
soon as the company unveils 
its latest American creations, 
which include SkyFox Tl and 
Skate or Die, 

As well as relying on hot 
American games, EAs affili- 
ated label Martech is also 
looking towards conversions 
of The Armageddon Man 
and Nigel Mansel's Grand 
Prix. From the US we will 
see a Crazy Golf game by 


Will "Marble Madness” 
Harvey. Written in his own 
games language, it promises 
to be something special. 

The latest EA signing is 
Interplay, currently working 
on a Cyberpunk game called 
Battle Chess which is based 
on the award winning Neu- 
roman ceT novel. Interplay is 
being helped with the 
project by Dt Timothy Leary, 
a spiritual leader of the 
sixties. 

On the subject of original 
Amiga games, A qua ventura 
is the working title for Psyg- 
nosis’ next release, A spokes- 
man from the company 
suggested that this game was 
Iheir best yet and made 
extensive use of the blitter 
for all the 3D routines. 


Germany 


There hasn't been much 
activity on the German front 
this month apart from the 
excellent Future Tank from 
Time Warp, the people who 
brought you Great Giana 
Sisters, The first loading 
screen is one of the best l 
have seen on any home 
micro and the rest of the 
graphics are also very good. 

Future Tank is a Fire 
Power clone, but this time 
the two players work as a 
team fighting an enemy of 
tanks, boats and planes. 

The game features some 
new twists including new 
levels and extra weapons, 

If you like a fun game this 
is the one for you, especially 
if you have a friend to help 
you in your fight against evil. 


America 


The only new American 
release which springs to 
mind is P.Q.W from 
Actionware, a clone of the 
arcade game Operation Wolf 
from Taito, 

I liked Operation Wolf and 
I like P.G.W, My only 
complaint is the slow and 
slightly jerky scrolling, from 
which the company’s 
previous release Capone also 
suffered, 

Simon Rockman 


ICPUG’s 

new 

chairman 

T HE Independent Com- 
modore Products Users 
Group - ICPUG - is celeb- 
rating in successful years. 

Membership of more than 
20 regional ICPUG groups 
tops the 4,000 mark. 

But there were regrets as 
well as celebrations during 
the annual general meeting 
in London - the group’s 
energetic American-born 
leader Lt Col Jim Kennedy 
said his farewells a Her two 
years as chairman. 

He is retiring and taking 
his family to live on the Isle 
of Wight. But his vast experi- 
ence won t be lost to ICPUG 
completely, as he'll continue 
to serve on the committee as 
the assistant exhibitions 
organiser. 

Electrical engineer John 
Bickerstaff, vice-chairman 
and secretary for the past 
two years, takes Jim Ken- 
nedy’s place as chairman, 

He has been a member of 
ICPUG since 19fltl when he 
became a founder member of 
the Canterbury Group, and 
chairman of the South East 
Group since 1985. 

The ICPUG chief librarian, 
joe Griffin, was elected vice- 
chairman, and optician Peter 
Reeve becomes the new 
secretary. 

Ocean trio 

T HREE new titles for the 
Amiga have been 
announced by Ocean Soft- 
ware (061-032 6633). They 
are Army Moves, Platoon 
and Daly Thompson’s 
Olympic Challenge. Price 
will be £24.99 each. 

New links 
for Email 

M ICROLINK has just 
announced that Spain 
and Malta can now be 
accessed directly by its sub- 
scribers. 

Compania Telefonica 
Nacional de Espana and 
Alpha Communications of 
Malta bring to 20 the number 
of Email systems available 
through the international 
Dialcom network. 


September whs AMIGA COMPUTING fl 





A m you handy with a mouse 
but a slow ami painful typist? 

If so, then Mirrorsofl has all sorts of 

adventures for you. One set in the 
classic mould of dungeons and 

dragons is Shadow gale. 

You may have to type in a few 
words when speaking to something or 
when naming a saved game, but for 
the rest it is all mouse controlled, 
dragging and clicking on a wide 
range of well drawn icons that enable 
you to do almost anything. 

You start with very little useful 
information about the task “ahead. A II 
you know is that you are the last of a 
Jong line of ancient kings, and a 
prophecy foretells that the fate of the 
world is in your hands. 

You must overcome the dreaded 
Warlock. Lord and slop him from 
fulfilling his plan to destroy the world 
with his dark magic! The good wizard 
Lakmir is not able to give you any 
assistance other than transport you to 
the doors of Shadow gate. 

Once a shining fortress, standing 
for all that was good and pure in the 
realm, Shadowgate has fallen under 
the Warlock s power. Here he will 
attempt his evil deeds. This is 
humanity's last chance; are you 
strong enough in mind and body to 
challenge his might? 

A H [though distributed by 

Mirrorsofl, Shadow gate is a 
Minds cape production programmed 
bv ICGM Simulations. Originally 
written for the Apple, its 
implementation on the Amiga realises 
the full potential of the system. 

The screen display consists of a 
number of windows, the largest heing 


a representation of vour present 
location. Alongside Is an inventory 
window displaying ail you are 
carrying as graphic icons. A smaller 
window to the right shows any visible 
exits. 

A scrolling text display lies across 
the bottom of the screen and at the 
top is a box w r ith the eight main 
commands; Examine, open, Close, 
speak, operate, go-, hit and consume. 

A pull-down menu enables you to 
select save, /load game positions, 
together with quit or the option to 
begin the game again 

The main location pictures are often 
quite detailed, and moving the mouse 
pointer across them and clicking on 
interesting areas will reveal all sorts 
of things. Any items Found may be 
picked up by clicking on the object 
and dragging it into the inventory 


window. To drop them simply drag 
them back into the main picture. 

Clicking on one of the command 
words and then on an object in either ] 
the location or inventory' windows 
will cause that command to be 
actioned on the item chosen. Most of 
the commands are obvious but 
“operate" has many uses. Select a key 1 
in the inventory, then operate, then a 
door, and the door will be unlocked. 

Take care in which order you 
■operate objects. The right way and 
you may well have your sword at the 
ready, the wrong way and you have 
just committed suicide with it. Use 
the save game option regularly as it is 
easy to get killed, Torches burn away 
with monotonous regularity and it is 
easy to use them up as you explore all 
the possibilities of a location, A saved j 




tZ AMIGA COMPUTING September JSflff 



■ADVENTURES! 



Dave Erricson, with his mighty 
sword in one hand and Amiga 
mouse in the other, follows the 
golden rule: Observe and act 






September 1 388 AMIGA COMPUTING 13 





I *v 


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*■ ' ‘-v V-' ■ • ■'• i'- - ^ rj '-' : '-' '■ '■ 


l-C-P-U-G 


the Independent 

Commodore Products Users Group 
is the largest and most helpful 
computer club in the country 


* Many local groups with regular meetings 

► Superb group magazine included in subscription. 

1 QO plus pages of reviews, news and information 
every two months 

* 1 987 Back issues available to all - El .50 per issue 

» AMIGA specialists 

I FREE Software library of public domain programs 
contains over 200 disks 

► Help and advice • Discount scheme 

* Subscription £1 0 per year (UK) plus £1 joining fee 

* Please wait for membership details before applying 
for software 

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Send SAE for an application form to: 


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1CPUG Membership Secretary, Jack J. Cohen, 
30, Brancaster Road, Newbury Park, 

Ilford, Essex, IG2 7EP 

01 -590 8849 Day 01 -346 0050 Ev. & W’ends 


A 


TRI COMPUTER 
SOFTWARE LTD. 


Come and see us at the Computer Graphic 88 show 
on stands 142-144 and stands 134 & 135 or at the 
DTP show on stands E9 & E10 


The AMIGA Specialists 

Complete DTP Systems Supplied 
With FREE Telephone Support. 

Graphic Hardware & Software on DEMO 
Genlocks & Video Tilting Equipment 
Stocked 

Professional Page & Genlock 
Demonstrations By Appointment 
Only. 

All major credit cards accepted & Leasing 
Facilities available to Business Customers. 

Call 01-840 6136 
161-169 Uxbridge Road 
Ealing W13 9AU. 


14 AMIGA COMPUTING September tmi 









■ADVENTURES! 


< 

game will help here too. 

Apart from getting past the first two 
locations - took in the skull - your 
initial problem is to get enough light 
to see by. There are plenty of torches 
and you must light a new one before 
the old one has gone out as you do 
not have any matches. Once over 
these basics, examine everything you 
can think of, including the torches. 

The graphics are very good and 
some of the animated scenes use 
plenty of the Amiga's potential. The 
sound effects are also well up to 
present standards. The game itself is 
one of finding and using the right 
object at the right time. There are 
usually some clues around but they 
are often more obvious after the event 
than before. Plenty of experimentation 
is called For; learn from your 
sometimes painful mistakes. 

Although not cheap. Shadow gate 
will provide days of puzzlement, The 
operating system works well and at 
least you will not have to search for 
the right command words - just try 
everything. But above all keep your 
eyes open for anything that is the 
slightest bit unusual. 

Those who like to fed the wind in 
their hair and the weight of a trusty 
sword by their sides will find 
Phan taste III. The Wrath of 
Nikademus, moderately addictive. It 
is definitely an active game requiring 
skill at arms and the ability to solve a 
number of puzzles. It Is the third in 


REPORT CARD 


SI] ADO WG ATE 

Mirroraufi 

£ 24.99 


STOK Y LINE HHMH ITU] 

Thin on any background detail 


AURA,, 

Graphics and sound set the scene i veil 

STAYING POWER., I 
Plenty of puzzles to sol it? to win 


UAMEPLAY ... 

Operating system tends tn make 
puzzles seem a little repetitive 

VALUE MOTHT 

Many hours to solve in depth 

DIFFICULTY IM^HT 

Good challenge, hut not too difficult 


OVERALL 73% 


A neat game that verges on addictive 


the series of Pftantasie games. The 
other two are not at the moment 
available for the Amiga and were in 
any case nowhere near so well 
presented. Both were good games but 
a little stew and to play compared 
with Phantasm III. 

In each the evil Nikademus Ls 
encroaching on the lands of the good 
and your team of adventurers has to 
thwart his plans. This could well be 
the last of the series, as the final battle 
is with Nikademus himself and I 
think he is truly dead if you win 
through. 

Your team consists of six 
characters, and your first task is to 
create and name them. There is a 
choice of race: Human, dwarvem, 
elven, gnome, halting or a random 
creature chosen from the list of ogre, 
minotaur, lizard man, pixie, sprite, 
troll, gnoll, ore, goblin or koboldL 
You may then select their class: 
Fighter, thief, priest, ranger, monk or 
wizard. Random creatures may only 
bo thieves or fighters. 

H aving made your choices, the 
character's statistics will be 
shown in full. These are generated 
randomly and occupy the entire 
screen, giving you information on 
everything from social class and 
home country to figures for their 
adventuring abilities - fighting, 
swimming, thieving - and basic 
characteristics: Strength, intelligence, 
dexterity, constitution, charisma and 
luck. 

It is these latter six statistics that 


you should concentrate on, as many 
of the others may be modified as the 
character gains experience. You may 
accept and name the character and or 
reject and “roll the dice again”. 

Higher values - up to 20 in some 
cases - produce a more powerful 
character. Reading the instructions 
will tell you that both race and class 
have modifying effects on these 
figures. Further reading will reveal 
that the values for strength and 
dexterity affect which weapons, 
shields and armour may be used. The 
higher the values, the more effective 
the weapon. 

There is a large range of weapons 
and armour to be found and it is 
worth having one or two characters 
capable of using the ultimate 
equipment should you he lucky 
enough to Find it. 

The make-up of your party is very 
important you must have one or two 
tough fighters for the front line, a 
priest is vital to tend to their wounds, 
a ranger can fight and use a number 
of useful spells, wizards give you 
magical offensive ability and thieves 
and monks have Uieir uses too. 

You may create a number of 
characters and then choose the six 
you think are the best to make up 
your team. Characters may be created, 
renamed, dropped or added to the 
team whenever you visit a town. 

When in town, you may visit the 
bank, guild, armoury, inn or the 
mystic, who gives you an Idea of your 
party's score hut very little else. A 
visit to the inn is vital, as resting will 

► 



September 1988 AMIGA COMPUTING 15 









< 

replenish lost hit points and cure 
minor wounds. 

The guild offers training in 
adventuring ab ilities and will 
determine their experience level. The 
higher the level, the greater the hit 
points and the greater the range of 
spells that may be learned. There are 
56 different spells and priests and 
wizards have the greatest access to 
them, but even then will have to get 
to pretty high levels to learn the most 
potent ones. 

Y ou start in the town of 

Pen dragon and initially will not 
have much money and only pretty 
poor weapons and armour, "View 
character", to check what they have 
got and then visit the armoury to see 
if you can improve their chances a 
little. For sale are scrolls w hich give 
you more knowledge of what is 
happening, but l would concentrate 
on the armour at this stage, as you 
can afford! little. 

It can be very, very dangerous to 
wander far from town; initially do not 
go more than a few steps away from 
safety. As soon as you have beaten a 
few monsters return to the inn and 
rest, Then save the game position. If 
the worst happens, and it will sooner 
or later, you can always load hack 
that last save. 

There are several options to choose 
from when encountering other 
creatures, ranging from dashing 
straight into battle to offering friendly 
greetings. You may also beg for 
mercy or try to ran away. If there are 
a lot of potential enemies and if they 
are not of a hostile nature - read the 
instructions - greetings. may he the 
order of the day. 

Having chosen to Fight, you must 
decide the tactics for each member of 
your team. Depending upon their 
level and class, they may thrust, 
attack or slash, lunge, use a bow, cast 
a spell or parry. You may move them 
forwards or backwards a pace or two, 
well armoured Fighters to the front, 
weak wizards to the rear. 

Several rounds of melee Fighting 
will probably be needed to determine 
the outcome. Offensive spells can be 
very useful, especially on tough 
opponents, but spell points are used 
up each time. If you are deep in a 
dungeon, try to leave yourself w ith a 



few points in hand for emergences on 
the way out. A Sleep spell can put 
some creatures to shut eye, giving you 
a chance to either hammer the 
daylights out of them or run away. 

Another useful spell is awaken - 
especially if your party is asleep when 
attacked. Spell points are regained on 
a visit to an inn. There are also 
healing and magic potions that give 
you those few extra points, making 
the difference between life ami death. 

Each successful battle will give you 
experience points and possibly some 
gold - perhaps even a useful weapon 
or valuable treasure. Your priest will 
need to gain several levels before he 
can cast a healing spell that will 
replace a missing limb. So take care 
and be patient and meticulous in 
these brief early forays into the great 
wide yonder. 

Just south of Pendragon are the 
town archives, These and many other 
special locations are classed as 
dungeons. Unlike the open country 
where you can plainly see where you 
are going, dungeons have to be 
explored a step at a time. 

Prepare to meet locked doors and 
secret passages, traps and all manner 
of special locations, some good, some 
bad. These special places offer you 
the chance of great gains in 
experience and wealth, let alone all 
sorts of excellent weaponry. They also 
house some of the meanest monsters 
around. 

Exploring the town archives, you 
w r ill meet the old sage Filmon, He will 
give you your first quest, and having 
succeeded in It, will tell you what to 
do next. Each task will be more 
difficult than the last and will take 


you. into more inhospitable dungeons. 

The graphics sire good, especially 
some. uf the larger monsters, but the 
limited sound effects can be a little 
wearing. Everything can he controlled 
using the mouse, and the speed of 
combat rounds can be speeded up 
once you have learnt to recognise the 
brief captions that appear during 
battle. 

Phantasie III from SSh distributed 
by US Gold, is one of the classic 
active adventures and is to be 
recommended to those who like this 
genre. If taken steadily at the start it is 
easier than many others and would 
make a good initiation for the 
newcomer to this type of adventure. 


REPORT CARD 


PHAMTAS1E III 
SSI US Gold 
£24.95 


STORYLINE ., 

Well developed background history 


AURA. 

Sweaty palms are the order of the day 
STA YING 

Level of difficulty increases at the right 
rate to encourage persistence 


GA MEPLA Y 

Only limited variation to puzzles 


VALUE.. 

Hours versus pounds gives value 

DIFFICULTY.. 

Patience and care pay off 


OVERALL 


A classic for the role player 


16 AMIGA COMPUTING September liim 





LOOKING FOR SOMETHING 
OUT OF THIS WORLD? 



You’ll find it at 


o 


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computer show 



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Traditionally the liveliest Commodore event of the 
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Car parking facilities available at the Novotel. 


DATABASE EXHIBITIONS 


V* # 



V 




Rex Last introduces the 
fascinating world of 
interactive video 
and spells out what 
it could mean for 
Amiga owners 


W HEN the Philips Lasorvlsion 
videodisc first burst on the 
scene,, it was hailed as the new 
revolution in video technology, and 
soon - so it was predicted - every 
home would have a machine and a 
collection of films on disc just as they 
already had audio turntables and long 
playing discs. 

Unfortunately, it didn’t quite turn 
out that way, VHS w r as winning the 
video cassette war, and videodisc had 
the distinct disadvantage of being a 
read-only system, You couldn't just 
record your favourite TV programmes 
as you could with cassettes, and so 
the videodisc flopped in the home 
consumer market. 

The spin-off, though, went into 
audio compact disc technology, and 
videodisc itself became specialised in 
the computer-assisted learning sphere, 
in the guise oflV, or interactive 


video. And now r CD is also beginning 
to go interactive - and, ironically, 
with video images, too. 

You can store upwards of 50,000 
images on a videodisc, as well as 
data, computer programs, and sound 
— if you're prepared to fork out a few r 
thousand pounds to have your disc 


Overlaying text on video using Microtext 


mastered, that is. However, imagine 
the potential at your fingertips if you 
could directly control a videodisc 
player from your Amiga - and, if on 
top of that, you could superimpose 
questions, answers and other material 
on to the video image. Add sound to 
that, and you have a springboard for 
a mind-boggling leap forward in 
computer learning technology. 

Now Ariadne has taken up the 
challenge for the Amiga with AAAE, 
which - take a deep breath - stands 
for Ariadne Amiga Application 
Environment. This serves as a shell 
for applying the Amiga to a range of 
different applications. In the present 
case, it offers a framework for 
Microtext and IV, together with a 
video player driver. 

Microtcxt is a specialised 
programming language which was 
first designed by the National 
Physical Laboratory to facilitate the 
design of computer-assisted learning 
material. It turned out to be 
particularly suited to IV work, and in 
the early days of IV it was the BBC 
Micro which was the target machine 
for such systems. Using the BBC to 
control a videodisc system was rather 
like getting a donkey to pull a double 
decker bus - hut now, the Amiga 


J8 AMIGA COMPUTING September 1988 



with its stunning power and video 
potential is poised to grab a piece of 
the action. 

The Amiga already comes with the 
capability to mix graphics and video 
which can then be recorded on tape* 
so it seems but a small step further 
forward to add to that the ability to 
drive a videodisc machine. 

It can be done - but it all comes at 
a heavy price: Mol just a cost in 
pounds, but also in the lead time 
required for design and development 
of the master disc, and then there 
comes the program design on top of 
that. 

After a rather shaky start, IV has 
now really begun to capture the 
imagination of people in all areas of 
education - and there's a National 
Interactive Video Centre which serves 
as a focal point for information 
dissemination and which produces 
documentation for the IV enthusiast. 
More details on NIVC overleaf 

It's all very much constrained by 
the large amount of Financial input 
required to get a system off the 
ground and working, so it’s not 
surprising that business and industry 
are playing a major role in the 
development of IV. CRT (computer- 
based training) is taking a clear lead 


in IV techniques. 

The Alliance and i^icester Building 
Society, for example, put together an 
IV system for teaching staff positive 
attitudes towards potential and 
existing customers* and accounts sales 
rocketed in branches where the 
system was tried out to the point at 


which the initial investment was 
recovered in just seven months, 

On the education front, the most 
widely publicised videodisc project 
has been the Domesday videodiscs 
produced by the BBC, but many other 
less well-know r n projects have been 


V „ ‘ ■ - : ! .• [..• J & free m-MGi'V 




a 


O 


m 




Install Mi 


IMSM1 Ins tall. Player 

Xcons Flayer 

□ □ 


Play erfrm frol FlawSe lector wii.N* 


The Micro text and interactive video workbench 


September t986 AMIGA COMPUTING 19 














interactive video 



m PLAYER CMUMUER 

^ sms- ***■ — mx- yt 

t B-m Tjn!issncE--I^n 

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under way in subjects right across the 
curriculum, from science and 
medicine to modern languages. 

One early project in Spanish comes 
from Brigham Young University in 


the USA , where an interactive 
question-and-answer stroll round a 
fictional town is given the awful title 
Montevid isco. 

What emerges from all these varied 
undertakings is the bald fact that, 


Why videodisc? 


The world is full of video cassette 
recorder Why go to all the 
trouble of using expensive 
videodisc systems when your 
friendly VHS and Beta machines 
are sitting waiting in the majority 
of homes in the country? 

Well, just think of the access 
time from one end of a cassette to 
another. Consider too the tape wear 
caused by freeze framing, and then 
there's tape stretch and less-than- 
pin point accuracy in targeting a 
particular frame. 

That's where videodisc scores: 
Very fast access time, freeze 
framing without picture distortion 
or wear, and absolute accuracy in 
getting spot on the right frame 
every time. 

On top of that, videodisc is a 
digital recording system, which 
offers greater picture and sound 
quality, as well as the ability to 
record computer programs and 
data. 

So video cassette is a strictly 
analogue and linear medium - you 
have to wind physically from one 
end to the other of a long, long 
tape, whereas the read head on the 
videodisc can be positioned swiftly 
on just the right frame by a simple 
computer command. 

But there’s always a black cloud 
with every silver lining. The snag 
in this case is that you can T t just 


press the record button on the 
videodisc like you can on a 
cassette. Recording, is more than a 
little bit on the expensive side. 

So now imagine a situation 
where there is a videodisc 
containing architect’s drawings 
and stills of buildings from all 
round the world. 

A trainee could summon up a 
program to test his knowledge of 
Norman or Perpendicular style - or 
he could be asked to move a 
pointer using the mouse to home 
in on a flying buttress or a 
gargoyle. 

If he gets the answers right, he 
moves on to associate buildings 
with individual architects, like 
Christopher Wren or Frank Lloyd 
Wright - if he doesn't, he Is 
branched off to a revision exercise. 

You can hegin to see that, given 
the appropriate software, you can 
design hundreds if not thousands 
of different exercises based on just 
one videodisc full of still frames - 
and the possibilities of mixing 
moving pictures, music, sound, 
computer-generated text and 
graphics, and on-disc programs 
and data all add up to an exciting 
treasure house of almost limitless 
potential . 

The only limit is on your 
ingenuity as a designer of the 
appropriate software. 


while the technology has certainly 
arrived and is here sitting on our 
desks, the necessary skills for 
designing appropriate course material 
are lagging quite a long way behind, 
It's a bit galling to see all that 
technology and expense going into 
something as old hat as a simple 
multiple choice question and answer 
session, when the potential is so 
huge. 

And, of all the micros currently on 
the market, there's none to heat the 
Amiga's computing and video power 
to exploit this new wave in 
educational technology to the full. IV 
is particularly well suited to the 
Workbench environment and mouse 
control through the various icons and 
windows of the IV control package. 

Next month we'll be looking at the 
AAAE in some detail and revealing 
how it can help Amiga owners to 
become interactive videopersons. 

• NIVC is supported by the DTI, by 
its corporate sponsors , and through 
earnings from courses , publications* 
counselling, special interest groups 
and project management It has an 
unrivalled collection of IV hardware 
and software, produces a number of 
specialist publications, mounts IV 
courses of all kinds, and otters a free 
introduction to IV for visitors, who 
should ring for an appointment 
The centre produces a magazine 
called Interactive Update five times a 
year , The annual UK subscription is 
£45, 

For further information about 
Interactive Video * contact (he 
National Interactive Video Centre, 
24-32 Stephenson Way, London 
\'W1 2HD. Tel: Ot 387 2233 


20 A MICA COMPUTING September 19M 








ATARI ST PC COMPATIBLES CPC AMIGA 


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1 



Ray tracing for 
the impatient 



Turbo Silver is the fastest ray tracing 
package for the Amiga. Sam Littlewood 
shines a little light on the subject 


R AY tracing on the Amiga has 
produced remarkable pictures 
and animations in the past. 
Unfortunately, these spectacular 
creations took inordinate lengths of 
time to produce, A moderately 
complicated animation might take 10 
hours per frame, so producing a 50 
frame animation at this speed will 
give your Amiga something to think 
about for the best part of a month, 

A smooth animation needs to run at 
a minimum of 15 frames per second. ■ 
My patience is limited to slightly less 
than two days, about a tenth to a hall 
of a second of animation. 

The original version of the Silver 
package was in the same time- 
consumption league as other ray 
tracers. The latest version. Turbo 
Silver, lives up to its name however 
and is typically five to 10 times faster. 
This means it is now possible to start 
the program last thing at night, and 
hope that something useful has 
happened by the time I get back from 
work the next day. 

The time taken to produce a single 
frame is reduced to a Lmg coffee 
break, letting me go through three or 
four iterations of trying to get a 
picture right in one evening. 

The review copy of Turbo Silver 
came in a three ring binder 
containing a manual, two discs and 
several bits of paper. So far so good? 
No, the manual in the binder was for 
Silver 1.0, The first disc was Silver 
1.1, a few sheets of paper described 
the differences between 1.0 and 1.1. 
The second disc is Silver 2.Q, or 
Turbo Silver. 

Another piece of preliminary 
documentation describes 
how Turbo Silver differs 
from 1.1. This meant 
chewing through 
documentation for 
each version to find out how 


22 AMIGA 





REVIEW* 





Stringing the frames together to produce 

to cope with the latest version - a 
distinctly confusing task. 

To get owners to return the 
registration card, the last chapter of 
the manual, ‘ Hints, Tips and Magic" 
is only supplied when Impulse 
receives the card. 

While reading, I started to wonder 
if the manual's authors had let anyone 
else read it before printing, or indeed 
read it themselves, The original 
manual has some good sections, but 
parts of it are totally confused. The 
addenda describing the new versions 
read as if they were produced on a 
dictation machine minutes before the 
printing deadline. 

Fortunately p the software is 


animation 

somewhat better than the paperwork. 
Some excellent features make it 
unique. The package requires at least 
I Mb, a feature of animation systems 
in general. It is not protected, and the 
user is advised lo make backups. 

The disc contains some example 
pictures produced with the package, 
an IFF picture displaycr and an 
animation player. Turbo Silver is 
moderately PAL compatible, there are 
some glitches. The program does not 
take over the machine and uses 
Intuition for its interface. 

Turbo's start up screen looks like a 
strip of Him across the centre of the 
screen. Each shot represents a frame 
of animation for editing. Frames can 


Sample output 


be cut, copied and pasted around the 
animation. 

Once a new animation has been 
opened a frame can be selected by 
double clicking moving you into the 
object or cell, editing part of Turbo 
Silver. This is similar to a CAD 
package, with controls for colour, 
texture and reflection. Dnce all of the 
frames have been described, you can 
generate the animation. There are 
facilities for generating individual 
frames and doing a last preview - a 
pencil test - using just wireframes. 

There are three distinct tasks on the 
road to producing an animation, 
Modelling, describing the objects in 
the world, animation - how the 
objects move and change over time - 
and rendering that is producing the 
sequence of pictures. 


T URBO Silver’s cell editor is used 
for modelling. Objects can be 
made up of triangular facets, stencils, 
a surface or perfect spheres - the 
easiest objects to ray trace. In addition 
lo the objects, there is a camera and a 
single light source. One of Turbo 
Silver's greatest limitations is that you 
can only have one light source. 

The celt editor provides a view into 
the world being created from either 
the top, the front, or the right, These 

► 


Fast Slow 

r ar ~ ~1 

DeUy/Frane r 5 


"Trane Posit ion 


September 198ft AMIGA COMPUTING 23 





'{'he cell editor 


can be zoomed or panned, 
the views taking tip the 
whole screen, only one 
being visible at a time. 

The core of all objects is 
the axis. This is invisible 
as far as any picture of 
the scene goes, but appears 
in the cell editor as a point 
with little X T Y and Z axes 
attached to it showing 
the orientation and position 
relative to the rest of the 
world. 

To make a visible object, points are 
added around the axis followed by 
facets between the points, tt is these 
facets that make the object visible in a 
final picture. This conglomeration of 
hits can be moved and rotated by 
using the central axis. 


O bjects can be grouped together 
- one object is the parent, and 
one or more others are children. 

These children could well be the 
parents of yet more groups. This is an 
excellent system , allowing complex 
forms to be built up and then treated 
as a whole. 

The cell editor works in several 
modes. These modes correspond to 
the things that you are currently 
working with - groups, objects within 
a group, facets of an object or points. 
At each level there are keys and menu 
items for selecting, cutting, copying 
and pasting as well as means of 


positioning, scaling and rotating. This 
manipulation can be controlled with 
the mouse or the keyboard, a theme 
running throughout the package. 
Objects can be named, allowing them 
to be easily found later. 

There are facilities for adding useful 
ready-made objects, such as cylinders, 
toruses, cones and spheres. These are 
all made of facets, and can be a good 
starting point lor cutting, stretching 
and chopping to a give a desired 
shape. 

A further pair of tools can be used 
to take an existing set of points and 
either extrude them, making an object 
like a pastry cutter, or spin them, 
making something like a wine glass 
starting from half the outline. 

Stencils are one of the features that 
make Turbo Silver really interesting. 

A stencil is a flat rectangular plate 
with an associated IFF file. This is 
scaled to fit the stencil, and wherever 
the IFF tile has the background 
colour the stencil will be transparent. 


The rest of the stencil does not have 
the colour from the IFF file, but that 
associated with an object. 

Some examples of things that could 
be done are a complicated glass logo, 
the leading for a glass window, or a 
stencil off stage to project an 
interesting shadow on to the scene. 

The possibilities are endless. 

By default Turbo Silver shapes are 
smooth matte white objects. There is 
a plethora of ways of describing the 
colour and texture of objects, To start 
the parade, a whole object, or 
Individual facet, has a colour. The 
object can have specular highlights - 
the effect where a bright light is 
reflected off a shiny object giving a 
spot that is the colour of the light, not 
the colour of the object. 

An object might have mirror-like 
qualities, t he level of this reflection 
can be controlled separately for the 
red, green and blue components of 
the light. This can be used to create a 
Christmas tree ball 

O bjects might be refractive - 
light is bent at the surface 
leading to distortions when looking 
through, say, a glass vase. This can 
add realism to a scene, but to be 
effective, there must be something 
that can be seen to be distorted, such 
as a checkered floor. 

The final colour aspect of an object 
is how much it filters light. This is 
used to work out the shadows and 
arises from a short cut that has to be 
taken when writing a ray tracer to 
operate In timescales less than the 
geological. 

Textures arc easier to w r ork out. The 
Hat facets of an object can be made to 
appear a continuous smooth surface, 
rough or just plain flat. 

A final, and very powerful, feature 
is the ability to take an IFF file and 
map it on to an object or group of 
objects. Examples might be a cylinder 
with an appropriate soft drinks label 
wrapped around it. or a model of the 
Amiga with a screen dump mapped 
on to the monitor screen. This is a 
speciality of Turbo Silver, and it 
makes for some interesting 
possibilities. 

The level of control that Silver 
provides over colour and texture is 
incredible, albeit somewhat 
confusing. Tt is helped by menu 
options to set up common levels. I 
found that the easiest way to explore 


24 AMIGA COMPUTING September im& 





this area was to use a sphere and 
checkered landscape, giving very fast 
rendering and a good feel for what 
the combination might look like on. a 
more complex object. 

The cell editor is somewhat 
obstructive. A bug means that 
although the windows occupy the full 
256 PAL lines, the lines representing 
the edges of facets are stiil clipped to 
the 200 line limit. 

W hen controlling rotation and 
position of an object, a new 
window pops up obscuring the view 
ot the world. These adjustments have 
to be made blind with no feedback as 
to what is going on. The tools for 
creating objects, although plentiful, 
do not provide quite enough to make 
me feel confident that I could 
visualise an object and then build it, 
something I do feel when using 
Scuiph3D. 

There is no facility to import 
objects from other programs, or 
generate scripts - a small aspect of 
the whole program, hut 1 often want 
to grab an object that I built on 
another system or write programs to 
generate complex objects and control 
animation. 

The hard way to generate the 
sequence of cells for an animation is 
to edit each cell separately. However 
Turbo Silver does go some of the way 
towards easing this task. A special 
object is created that is just a set of 
points. This set of points can then he 
used to describe the path of other 
objects, A limited amount of control 
is available over the rotation and 
scale as the object travels along the 
path. A hierarchy is possible, 
allowing complex motions. 

T urbo Silver calls paths “stories 1 ', 
and once a cell with stories in it 
has been made, the effect over lime 
can be propagated over several cells 
of the animation. A useful feature is 
that the same cell can be used in 
more than one of the final frames. 

Although an animation system is 
present, it is somewhat limited. To 
produce interesting motions with an 
object pitching and rolling still needs 
work on each individual frame. The 
ways in which the stories are 
propagated are not remembered, so if 
a story is changed in the original cell, 
it has 1o be re propagated by hand to 



the associated cells. This is hard work 
it a complicated set of stories is being 
used. 

Wireframe pictures can be used for 
previewing, giving a generation time 
of a lew seconds per frame. To 
generate the final pictures, the ray 
tracer is used. This is the hest part of 
the package, and is head and 
shoulders above other products on 
the Amiga, The performance is 
excellent, beating other ray-tracers on 
the same hardware by an order of 
magnitude. 

It is possible to use any of the 
Amiga's graphics modes, generating 
overscan images. It successfully takes 
a PAL system into account. The 
flexibility of the Tenderer has already 
been alluded to by the attributes that 
can he given to objects, In this area 
also, the Tenderer beats other 
packages hands down, I only wish 1 
could use this Tenderer to produce 
animations modelled on other 
systems. 

Overall Turbo Silver has its 
good and bad points. The good is 
mainly associated with the rendering 
portion of the package. The editor 
and animator have not quite reached 
the same maturity. The 
documentation is not up to scratch, 
although it appears that it will be 
properly produced in the near future. 
Until that time, I would not 
recommend the package to anyone 
making their first foray into this area. 

It you are already comfortable with 
similar packages the powerful 


rendering techniques of Turbo Silver 
will provide new avenues for 
exploration. Other aspects may well 
be frustrating. Now that l have both 
packages 1 am looking forward to 
getting hold of a version of 
Interchange which wit) allow me to 
edit with Sculpt and render with 
Turbo Silver. 


REPORT CARD 


Turbo Silver 

Impulse. JIB Marketing oana 444433 
£139. as 


USEFULNESS 

A complete ray-tracing and animation 
package, you don't need to buy any 
extra software to produce cartoons. 


EASE OF USE . . 

A better front end than the atrocious 
Videoscape but tags behind Sculpt 3D. 

INTUITION 

Written to Commodore guidelines hut 
the high processing overhead needed 
for ray tracing makes multi-tasking 
slow , 


SPEED.. 


Excellent, beating other Amiga ray- 
tracers by an order of magnitude' 


VALUE 


Cheaper than the Sculpt/ Animate 
comho but still expensive if you just 
want to experiment with pro-style 
graphics , 


OVERALL 72% 


Cheaper and faster than the direct 
competitor - Sculpt Animate hut not as 
flexible or as friendly. 


September i9&8 AMIGA COMPUTING 25 






Link your Amiga to the outside world with... 


mktoUok 


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 - Link 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 
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seconds, and fully analysed 
financial information on over 
100,000 companies. 


Translation - Access the biggest 
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multi lingual dictionary 
in the world, with 
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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 always in touch. 


Gateways - Get through to Mew 
York in just five seconds - or key 
into the EEC computer in 
Luxembourg, which links you to 
GOO 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. 



Typical comms packages 


Pace: Nightingale V21 r V23 
manual-dial modem + 
Ruby comm Software -f RS232 
lead {£199 inc carriage & VAT} 


Pace: Linnet V21, V23 autodial 
modem + Rubycomm soft- 
ware + RS232 lead {£257 inc 
carriage and VAT} 


Miracle: WS4000 V21, V 23 
autodial modem -f Ruby 
comm software + RS232 lead 
{£ 286 inc carriage & VAT) 


AH 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- 1 
Link 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 cent 
of subscribers 
can connect to 
the MicroLink 
computer at 
local cell 
rates. 


TO FIND OUT MORE 
Fill In the coupon and 
sand it lo the address 
below. You will receive 
Ml details of services 
and casts, together with 
art application form. 
Complete this and 
within days yem and 
your Amiga will be 
able to use all the 
services of MicroLink 
and Telecom Gold- 


Please send me full details about MicroLink, and information 
sheets about the following hardware and software options 
(please circle): 

ABC 


Name- 


Postcode- 


Send to: MicroLink, Europa House, Adlington Perk, 
Adlington, Macclesfield 5K1Q4NP. 


AMC9 



■INTERFACE! 


The plain man’s 
guide to CLI 

Phil South is the lumberjack you've 
been looking for if you can’t 
see the wood for the directrees 


I T'S funny, but after the piece I did 
on ASSIGN a couple of issues ago, 
it occurred to me to consider why it is 
that we need to ASSIGN all these 
logical devices to various directories - 
and what are they supposed to be? 
This set me thinking. What is the 
minimum structure of an AmigaDos 
disc? 

To find out more 1 did a quick 
ASSIGN command on its own in a 
CLJ which yielded the following 
interesling information about the 
currently mounted disc, which at the 
time was my copy of WordPerfect; 

tRAMd 

Swp:s 

Lwp:l 

Cwp:c 

FONTSw’p: fonts 
DEVSwprdevs 
LIBS wp dibs 
SYSwp: 

Devices; 

DF1 DFt) PRT PAR SER 
RAW CON RAM 

It seemed that all the logical devices 
were ASSlGNed as [ expected. So 
what was in these directories, s t 1, and 
devs? 

The directory s contains sequences 
- batch files of AmigaDos commands, 
the must important being the startup- 
sequence file which sets up your 
computer the way you (or the 
programmer of the disc you’re 
running) wants it. This special batch 
file is executed on startup, 
configuring the system, setting 
key maps, and most importantly, 
Loading Workbench and quitting out 
of AmigaDos CLI. 

I only mention startup-sequence in 
passing, because all of you should 
know r about it by now, especially if 
you’ve got a memory upgrade with a 
clock, where you have to SETCLQCK 
OPT LOAD the time into your 
Workbench. Good, let's move on 
then. 

A batch file is a sequence, almost a 
sort of program, of AmigaDos 
commands, which is executed from a 
CLI. When the Dos word EXECUTE is 
typed, the computer looks for a batch 
file in the current (CDed) directory. If 
it doesn't find one there, it searches 
for the directory that you ASSlGNed 
to the logical device S:, which in most 
cases is s as Fve said. 

The 1 directory holds all the large 


commands in AmigaDos and the 
overlays for the system which can't 
for various reasons be resident in 
memory, and need to be loaded each 
time. In most cases, this dir will 
contain the Disc-Validator, Port- 
Handler and Ram-Handler overlays, 

Incidentally, if you ever get a disc 
w’hich the computer can t validate, get 
a good disc, let the computer load the 
validator off of that disc, and then 
reinsert your disc to salvage the files 
on it. Neat trick, and a very useful 
one. 

The most important directory’ has to 
be c. It’s w’ithin this innocuous 
looking dir thal all the AmigaDos 
command set lies. If you've invented 
some new commands, or have loaded 
the SHELL from Metacomco, this is 
where you’d store them. Then 
AmigaDos (the EXEC level) knows 
where to look lor them. 

Any command word or program 
entered here can be executed simply 
by typing it. fust think of each 
command as a little program in it’s 
own right, then you'll get the picture. 

The fonts directory is self 
explanatory’ really, holding all the 
fonts info, and this is where 
w’ordpros, notepad and Deluxe Paint 
look for the fonts they need. If you 
nab any new fonts from anywhere 
this is w’here they go. The Amiga 
scheme of things means that 
programs can use fonts that the 
programmer doesn’t know about. 

The two remaining directories are 
very interesling. The libs directory 
contains all the libraries and overlays, 
like translator. library and info. library . 
These are called when a C or machine 
code program uses the OpenLibrary 
command. 


One of the great strengths of the 
Amiga is this use of libraries. It 
means that not only can commands 
not resident in the system be 
implimented and used in programs, 
but they need not be resident in the 
computer hardware, taking up 
valuable rom space with basically 
menial tasks. 

The only other directory’ is the devs, 
and this deals with the Mountlist file 
and all the physical devices, as 
mentioned in the ASSIGN listing I got 
in the beginning, plus assorted 
keyboard maps (key maps), printer 
drivers, clipboards and the system 
configuration file. Mountlist contains 
a list of Mounted devices, 
unsurprisingly, and the system 
configuration file contains all the info 
about the disc icon, pointer and 
Workbench default colours. 

The devices are files for the 
computer to look at the configuration 
of the printer, to check the narrator 
and keep tabs on the serial and 
parallel ports. Without a serial device 
on your disc, you can forget going 
any w’here by modem. 

The printers is interesting though. 
You can prune some of these off a 
disc if you want to make space. If you 
only use a HP LaserJet and an Epson, 
w r hy carry 14 other drivers around? 
The same goes for keymaps. If you 
only use keymap gb. then why keep 
usaO, usa2. n, i, f, dk and edn? 

There's no point. 

So, there you have it, the short 
guided tour around the directory trees 
of AmigaDos. Knowing what needs to 
be there on your discs is useful 
knowledge, especially if ifs your aim 
to trim down your W’orking YVE/CL1 
disc to make for faster access. 


September J98ft AMIGA CUMI’l 'TING 27 




W HEN people ask why they 

should buy an A20D0 instead 
of an A 500 it is often difficult to 
justify the price difference, After all, 
you could gel two A500s tor the price 
of one 2DD0, 

The main difference of course is 
expandability, or as the computer- 
techie ad speak men would have it, 
open architecture. This means that the 
Azonn is designed to have bits added 
on to it. Most of the computers which 
have proved be success fuJ among the 
business community offer open 
architecture, including the Apple TT 
and IBM PC. 

Back in the days before 


dock can be added by fitting an A501 
expansion. 

So the difference between an 
expanded 500 and a threadbare 2GGU 
is a bunch of slots. It’s bard to justify 
£400 for just that. Most people faced 
with forking out the difference or 
opting to lake the money and run will 
decide that they could do with the 
exercise. 

So armed with an A500 the owner 
trots off happily. Happy that is until 
the time comes to expand the system, 
add a hard disc, or some more ram - 
when he'll run into the hrick wall of 
closed architecture. 

As always there is someone 
prepared to make some money from 
the situation - enter Pacific 
Peripherals. It is a Californian 
company - hence Pacific - which 
makes add-ons - hence Peripherals. 

Its solution to our jogger's aching 
nose is called the Sub -system. Which 
in a bid to wreck the logic of this 
paragraph has nothing to do with 
allied U-boats. 

This contains two 100 pin slots and 
fits underneath an Amiga 5QG. Signals 
are fed into the box through the edge 
connector on the side of the A500. 

The result is a system halfway 
between an A500 and an A2000 h call 
it an A 1250 if you like. 

Just as it is not worth buying an 
A20Q0 unless you are going to pul 


The Pacific Peripherals 
A 500 Sub system 


the A500 and A2GGG were launched 
Com mo do re- Amiga laid down a 
standard for an 86 pin expansion 
system, known as the Zorro bus. 
When the A2000 was designed it was 
decided to incorporate some extra 
routes for expansion. So if you look 
inside an Amiga 2000 you will find 
five 100 pin slots, two IBM PC/AT 
compatible slots, two IBM PC/XT 
slots and one video slot. 

The 100 pin connectors are called 
the Amiga bus, and they an; the 
successor to Zorro. The other things 
which the Amiga 2000 has and the 
500 does not are 1Mb of ram and a 
battery backed-up clock. The ram and 


ZB AMIGA COMPLETING Sepferahfir t9BS 





] 


Hugo Learner looks at a peripheral 
which takes your A500 up in the world 


anything in it, you need to have a use 
for the Sub-system before paying out 
good money for it. The most likely 
set-up is a hard disc controller arid a 
2Mb ram card. This mimics the 
A 2000 set-up which the Ed has in the 
office and loves so much that he 
doesn't go home at night. 

Most of the cards you will want to 
fit will be expensive, and there aren't 
that many different types - yet. 
Commodore offers two goodies - the 
A2U90 hard disc controller card and 
the A2052 ram expansion. Bear in 
mind that the A2GG(J, and for that 
matter any hard drive controller, is 
designed to sit with the Winnie inside 
the box. There just isn’t the space in 
the Sub -system, so you will have to 
find a case and a power supply for 
the drive. It is not electrically sensible 
to use a shoebox, but this hasn't 
stopped more than one Amiga user 
from risking 240 volts. 

Real soon now - it usually means 
"we are still working on the 
specification” - they should have the 
A2058, an 8Mb board. Just think... a 
0Mb Amiga; makes your friend's 
1G4QSTFM look pretty sad, 

Other people sell disc drive 
controller cards and ram expansions 
but there the highway of choice 
becomes complicated. For the well 
connected, Taurus sells an Ethernet 
networking card. This allows you to 


communicate at 10 megabits, or more 
than 32,000 times faster than loading 
a program on a C&4 cassette deck. 

There are more goodies on the 
horizon. Many companies are 
working on second serial and parallel 
hoards. With four phone lines, 
modems and RS232 ports you could 
multi-task your eomms software to 
log into Prestel, Compunet, MicroLink 
and Cix all at once. You’d soon find a 
penny a minute was the least of your 
worries. 

More than one Centronics port 
would offer the joy of being able to 
digitise a screen and print it out, 
without doing battle with more wires. 

What won't fit into the Sub-system 
is the pack of cards which uses the 
other slots. This includes the PC 
Bridgehoard because it needs the PC 
slots and the CSA GfiOZO boards 
because they need the 86 pin 
processor slot. Oh well l suppose 
someone might bring out a G8CI2U 
card for the 1UU pin bus. Just think 
Unix on your 500, l can hear my 
overdraft going to Defcon 2 as 1 w r rite. 

Many of the telly addons are 
strangers to the Sub -system; they 
w r ant the video slot. FUckerFixer? No 
w r ay, Jose. Video Toaster? Not cooking. 

So, provided you only want the 100 
pin busses the Sub-system could 
provide slots of fun. It looks prelty, 
painted the same off-cream as the 


A5IW, and well made in sheet steel. 

There is space for a second disc 
drive, but not for a pow T er supply 
which hangs Commodore-like on the 
lead. Inside, is pretty simple, designed 
as though printed circuit boards are 
made of Welsh gold, but it w r orks and 
the connections are firm. Screw it all 
back together, plonk the computer on 
top and it looks most professional. It 
won't give you all the scope of a 
2000, but you get close. 


REPORT CARD 


Sub- system 

Pacific Peripherals' Argonaut Hardware 
01-2UH 0072. 

£230 


USEFULNESS.. 


What makes the Sub system useful is 
the flexibility in offers not what it does 


on its own. 


EASE OF USE 

Plug in and go , A bit fiddly to open an 
internal power supply would have been 
neater but increased the height. 


VALUE 


Cheaper than upgrading to a 2000 but 
does not offer the other connectors. 


OVERALL 76 % 


The best way to expand an A500 until 
Commodores A 590 arrives at either the 
end of this year or early 1989. 


September 19HH AMIGA COMPUTING 29 








Bill Tomlins runs 
some letters through 
a budget word 
processing program 
to see if you can 
expect professional 
software at quite 
low prices 

1^ IND Words is a new American 
-Lx. package described as a fully 
featured word processing program. 
One feature in particular makes it 
stand out on the Amiga. At £49,95 it 
is considerably cheaper than most. 

The program comes on two discs 
with a 60 page A5 manual. The 
documentation is well produced, very 
readable and, on the whole, 
adequately describes the program's 
operation. More tutorial sections 
would have been helpful, Compared 
with the 69(1 plus pages of the 
WordPerfect manual, it makes very 
light reading. 

Installation is very simple, as the 
program is not copy protected and for 
floppy disc installation the manual 
tells you to make copies of the discs, 
Details of how to install it on a hard 
disc are provided. 

Kind Words will work with only 
512k of memory and a single drive, 
but the manual recommends that the 
memory is upgraded so that the 
spelling checker can be loaded into 
memory. When used with only 512k 
there are a number of restrictions - 
the CLI, Preferences and external 
drives should not be used. The 
number of font and style 
combinations should also be 
restricted when printing with the 
SuperFonts. 

T tested the package on a 1 Mb 
Amiga 5 DO, with two drives. No 
initial configuration is required, and 
getting it running consisted of putting 
the program disc into the internal 
drive when asked for a Workbench 
disc and the Superfont disc into the 
other drive. 

The upper pari of the screen is 
laken up with a deep ruler containing 
a number of large icons as well as 
ruler graduations. Two of the icons 
pictorially represent single and 
double spaced text and the remaining 
four cover left, right, centered and 
fully justified text. You select the line 


30 AMIGA COMPUTING September 1986 


■ REVIEW! 


*1 


n 


t 


y 


jr 


f 



spacing and justification by 
highlighting the appropriate icons. 

Text is shown appropriately 
justified on screen and this can lead 
to some very confusing effects during 
the course of editing, as words shuffle 
around all the time. 

Left and right margins may be 
dragged to the positions you want on 
the ruler. Normal and decimal tabs 
are supported - up to 10 can be 
dragged on to the ruler. Ruler settings 
and justification may be changed as 
often as required and the settings for 
the variuus parts of a document are 
remembered. There is no form of 
style sheet or standard layout so you 
must set them up each time you want 
to change them. 

K IND Words uses IFF format 
files, which may be loaded, 
saved or merged by selecting from a 
pull dnwn menu. Documents may be 
saved as plain Ascii files for use by 
other programs, and Ascii files may 
also be merged into documents. 

Scroll bars are used to move 
around a document and operation is 
reasonably fast. Alternatively you 
may use the cursor keys or 
combinations of Alt or Ctrl and 
the cursor or numeric pad keys. The 
cursor may be re-positioned on the 
screen by placing the pointer where 
required and clicking. 

Many of the editing features 
available from the menus may also be 
selected by keystrokes, using an 
Amiga and letter key combination, 
though in some cases the letters 
chosen seem to have little relevance 
to the task required. Brief Help, listing 
the keystroke shortcuts, is available. 
Block functions are an important 
part of any word processor and this 
one provides several ways to mark 
blocks. One may be marked by 
clicking once, dragging the cursor 
over the text and releasing. 


Alternatively, double clicking when 
the cursor is on a word will mark just 
that word, Treble clicking will 
highlight a complete sentence. 

Marked blocks may be cut — 
deleted and stored in the clipboard - 
copied - a copy stored in the 
clipboard - pasted - restores the last 
block stored in the clipboard at the 
current cursor position - or cleared. 
This is done by selecting from the* 

Edit Menu, 

There is also an undo feature that 
allows you to countermand the last 
256 key strokes, or to restore cleared 
text. This works as long as the cursor 
has not been moved since deletion. 
Useful if you change your mind after 
minor alterations. 

Header and footer text up to 15 
lines long may be specified. When 
this option is selected, separate 
windows open to allow you to enter 
the text. Date, time and page numbers 
may bo specified. 

There are no facilities for using 
different header and footer text on 
odd and even numbered pages, nor is 
there any provision for turning them 
on and offal different Stages in a 
document, although it is possible to 
suppress the header and footer on the 
first page. For a lot of purposes, this 
is barely adequate. 

A find and replace option is 
provided, but it is not particularly fast 
and has only limited selection 


options, namely match case and 
whole word exchanges. I found the 
need to leave the search option to re^ 
position the cursor after a search if [ 
wanted to carry out another search of 
the some part of the text very 
frustrating. Backwards and global 
options would make life easier. 

Once a match is found you may 
replace just the one item or all 
subsequent matches. Replace then 5 
find is the same as replace except that 
it automatically looks for the next 
occurrence. Find next leaves the 
current find unchanged and looks for 
the next match. 

L OW, medium or high resolution 
IFF graphics may be inserted 
into documents, high resolution 
chunks being reduced to medium 
resolution. Graphics are displayed on 
screen and may be moved around 
and re-sized. You cannot insert text in 
the same areas. Being able to load 
graphics into documents is one of 
those features that I wonder how 
many people really use? 

On occasions I found editing a 
document containing graphics caused 
odd things to happen. For no obvious 
reason, after carrying out some 
editing task in one part of a document 
the cursor would suddenly jump to a 

► 


September AMIGA COMPUTING 31 



dictionary into memory. If you have 
expanded memory, the answer is a 
resounding yes, otherwise checking is 
painfully slow, 

A message tells you that checking is 
in progress „ but otherwise there is no 
indication of what is happening, or 
how far the check has progressed. 

If a word isn't recognised, another 
window opens and you can cither 
edit the word to correct it or click on 
one of several options to ignore, add 
word to dictionary, replace or ask For 
suggestions. This lists alternative 
words that Kind Words thinks you 
might have intended. You can select a 
word from the list, and this will then 
appear in the editing box. Finally you 
insert it into the document by clicking 
on the Replace box. 


completely different place and on a 
couple of occasions the screen was 
slightly corrupted. This prohlem 
could he minimised by inserting the 
graphics when the remainder of the 
editing was complete. 

Text may be underlined, 
emboldened or italicised. You can 
either select the style and then enter 
the text, or you can mark a block of 
existing text and select the style 
required for that block. 

I found that several of the 
combinations of these styles made the 
text almost unreadable on screen and 
would recommend that styles and 
fonts are selected at the end. 


A SPECIAL feature of Kind 

Words is SuperFonts, which 
may be used with a suitable printer. 
Only a small range of printers is 
currently supported, but the manual 
says that further drivers will be 
included in the future, SuperFonts are 
also displayed on screen, but if you 
try using them with italic style the 
effect is sometimes almost unreadable 
in the 12 and 14 point sizes, the 
characters tending to overlap. 

Deleting a character often takes a bit 
off the next character as well. 

Three point sizes (heights) of 
Roman typeface text are supported „ 8, 
12 and 14 point, with 12 being the 
default Super and subscript arc 
always ft pitch characters positioned 
above or below normal text positions. 

There is a prohlem with SuperFonls 
in that if you change font sizes in the 
middle of a Line the text aligns along 


the tops of the fonts and the bottom is 
out of line - not the effect you would 
normally require. 

The print option lets you specify 
the start and finishing page numbers 
plus the number of copies required. 
You must also specify the type of 
paper being used. There are a number 
of default settings to select, such as 
A4 single sheet or continuous 
standard stationery, and also a special 
size option. 

The options are not as flexible as I 
would have liked. Final draft or 
SuperFont quality output may be 
selected. Depending on the choice 
made. Kind Words will substitute the 
specified fonts for the printer's built- 
in fonts. If final quality is selected, for 
example, the printer's NLQ font will 
he used. 

Draft quality uses fast, low 
resolution fljnts and all the font sizes 
will appear as 12 point. There is no ■ 
provision for fully juslified 
proportional printing, While you 
could perhaps select proportional on 
the printer's DIP switches, it would be 
printed with a ragged right margin. 

When printing using SuperFonts, 
the speed is very much reduced, 
although the result is very acceptable 
from even a 0 pin dot matrix printer. 

If the document contains any 
graphics and you have a suitable 
colour printer, these will be 
reproduced in colour. 

The spelling checker is not really 
one of the best features of the 
program for a number of reasons. The 
dictionary contains about 90,000 
words, so we are told. 

The first time the checker is called, 
ii asks whether you want to load the 


HP 

HE dictionary is American. 

JL complete with “color", “center" 
and all those other americanisms and 
words ending in “ize". You can add 
your own words to a custom 
dictionary, so there is no problem 
wilh leaching it English, but there are 
no facilities for removing incorrect, nr 
unwanted, words, 1 think an English 
dictionary should be one of the 
priorities together with some 
dictionary maintenance options, 

There appears to be no facility for 
checking with, or creating, alternative 
language dictionaries, 

Basic mail merging facilities are 
provided. Wherever you wish data to 
be inserted you use a merge word - 
their terminology, not mine. This is a 
word wrapped in double opening and 
closing angle brackets. For example, 
you might use <<name>> and 
<*<address>> wherever you wanted 
the name and address inserted. 

You also need a merge list file, 
containing the names and addresses, 
or whatever you wish to merge into 
the main text. The first data record in 
this tile must take the form of a 
template containing the merge words 
that were used in the main merging 
document. These must be in the same 
order and all subsequent records 
must consist of the same number of 
entries. 

The disadvantage of this approach 
is that you cannot use data files 
exported from a database without first 
loading them and altering them to 
suit the required format. There are no 
facilities to manipulate the data in any 
way, nor to carry out any 
mathematical calculations. You wilt 


32 AMIGA COMPUTING September 1968 





review 


8 is 

Ig is 

no 


get exactly the text that is in the 
merge list. 

Most of the problems ! encountered 
seemed to be connected with the use 
of graphics in a document and the 
display of different styles and fonts on 
screen, but they weren't generally 
dangerous, merely inconvenient, 
though I did encounter Guru 
Meditations on two occasions. 

Sometimes 1 found that numbers 
didn’t line up correctly with decimal 
labs, but as soon as you deleted 
something they all jumped into line. 

One feature of the program that 
needs some attention is the speed of 
operation. There appears to be an 
unnecessary amount of re drawing of 
the screen. 

Ihis can be very long- winded as 
nnl only does the program draw the 
box and its contents, it also 
completely re-draws the remainder of 
the screen underneath the box, but 
twice sometimes. That, combined 
with Ihe sloth-like screen update, 
leaves you waiting and wanting. 

I found it very difficult to categorise 
Kind Words as while it contains a 


number of quite advanced features it 
also has some more hasic limitations. 
11 ail depends on what you require 
from a word processor, If you want to 
carry out what almost amounts tn 
very basic desktop publishing (sorrv, 
not multi-column), then Kind Words 
may be ideal. 

for my purpose, which is primarily 
creating large quantities of text, 1 
would willingly do without the 
graphic and SuperFont features in 
exchange for the ability to have more 
than one document open at a time, 
column as well as block mode 
editing, more flexible headers and 
footers, not to mention a bit more 
speed. 

To call Kind Words a fully featured 
or professional word processor is 
stretching things a bit and T would 
describe it as a fairly standard word 
processor containing a number of 
more advanced graphics facilities. 

If your text editing needs arc not 
too complex, or you have to 
incorporate graphics into your 
documents, at the price it may be 
considered good value for money. 


REPORT CARD 


Turbo Sliver 

Impulse HB Marketing (ID 95 44443a 
Impact Animation 010 4969419971 
(Germany! Cl 49 

USEFULNESS ■^■nnux] 

Every one needs a word processor, but 
ihis is a hit short of real features, 

EA SE OF USE... 

Easy to use, but ihe lack of permanent 
configuration changes makes work. 
Intuition If A proper multitasking 
program, probably written using a C 
compiler. 

INTUITION 

A proper multitask in# program, 
probably written using a C compiler. 

Editing speed is mediocre due to screen 
handling and fancy ' printing is slaw, 

^^■Ennn 

Cheap enough, but lacking in features 
and flexibility. 


OVERALL 


Has potential, but needs further 
development. 


J 


eaZypriinit 


One of the Souths largest retailers of the 
amazing Amiga range 

A5QQ Computer ... £330 00 

A5Q0 + A 1084 Monitor + free 24 hr delivery £530 00 

A500 + A 1084 + A.F680 Drive !!"""""£S7 4 !do 

A1084 Colour Monitor ^£200 00 

AF880 Disk D rive ^ 00 

A501 Ram 512k ... SEto 00 

A520 TV Modulator £19 98 

A 1 0 1 0 3.5 CBM Disk Drive £]■ 13 45 

MPS 1 200 P Printer £1 83 W 

MPS 1500 P Printer oo 

007:40 

Open 6 days a week Monday to Saturday 
B-30om - 6 .30pm 

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Please feeJ tree to visit our s howroom 

m and Trade Enquiries welcome 

Ail prices Subject to change without notice and ore plus 15% VAT 


SHACKSOFT 



MOUSE MASTER 



_ 

Arc you tircii 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 
tor you! 

Mouse Master is an innovative switchbox that allows you 
o instantly select cither your mouse or joystick (or other 
controller ) m port 1. A switch on the top does the 
swapping for you! Additionally, port 2 is brought out to 
make all the ports easily accessible. £24 95 F^" " 



u „ f monitor STANDS 

Specifically designed for use with your AMIGA 500 with 
3 slot cut for the disk drive. Your Amiga fits neatly under 
raur monitor with no untidy leads in view. £19.95 



Quality 
Mouie Matt 
Only £6.96 


UNIT tim While Hays South 
West Wills Trading Kstale 
Weslbury, Wiltshire 
(0373) 858031 (2 lines) 


September 1988 AMIGA COMPUTING 33 





A FI'ER being routed in 

Starglider the Egrons retired to 
licit their wounds and prepare for a 
second onslaught against Novenia. 

The second attack involves them 
building bases on the seven moons of 
Millway, a gas giant in the solar 
system o f Sol ice. 

The bases arc a staging post for a 
huge space station, built in orbit 
around Q-Iteta, the moon of Ihe 
outermost planet in the Sol ice system 
- Aldus. Your mission is to destroy 
the space station along with its 
cannon, a weapon which is capable 
of firing through the vacuum of space 
and penetrating the ionosphere of 
Novenia to wreak havoc on your 
home planet. 

Jaysan, Katra and Agro have the 
task of defeating the Kgrons. You 
again take on the role of the space 
samurai, it is a feat which requires 
skill, courage, dexterity anil |aysan to 
gel out of the bath. 

The AGAV from Starglider was an 
old ship when you used it years ago. 
For this mission Draggon Industries - 
designers of fine spacecraft - have 
prepared the prototype of their 
Interplanetary Combat And 


The most awaited 
sequel in Amiga 
history is finished. 
Simon Rockman 
takes his Emma 2 
scout car to Mi 11 way 
in final pursuit of 
Egron destruction 

Reconnaissance Universal Scout 
Icarus for short 

For this mission “prepared" means 
that the engine, designed by 
specialists on the planet Cos worth, 
has been tuned and the craft stripped 
of all armaments save a simple gas 
plasma laser. With its PicoChannel 
expansion bus the Icarus is capable 
of taking more advanced weapons, 
but Solice is a long way from 
Novenia and the fuel load precludes 
the fitment of more advanced 
weaponry. 

There are four bigger and better 
types of whizzbang which can be 
mounted on the Icarus. Time-warp 


cuboids take twice the power of a 
standard laser, but pack a much 
more significant punch. They flip 
parts of the target into a different 
time. Fire and Flee missiles are the 
Teams' answer to heat -seekers. They 
rely on a sophisticated Target 
Identify Mode (TIM), because relying 
on heat would he fickle when you 
have to cope with the temperature 
extremes on the hot planet of Dante 
and the ice wastes of Aldus. 

TIM relies on determination as 
much as intelligence. The missiles are 
often led a merry dance before they 
destroy the target, something which 
can be quite amusing to watch and 
makes you trigger happy. 

Barnes Wallis wouldn't recognise 
the Humbug as his sort of bouncing 
bomb - for a start they spin the 
wrong way, They are humbug 
coloured and can destroy virtually all 
armour. 

The most powerful weapon is the 
neutron bomb, which hangs Dark 
Star-like below the Icarus. As the 
mission briefing tells yom "This is 
the only weapon in existence with 
enough force to destroy the Egron 
space station and safeguard the 






diamond and Professor Taymar, who 
will build the bomh. 

Finding nut where to get the parts 
of the bomb is the strategic element 
of the game, and a good reason for 
reading all the documentation. Some 
things seem obvious, A case of Vislun 
wine comes from the planet Vista, 
asteroids can he found in the asteroid 
hell between Midway and Apogee. 

Castro liars come from Caslron - the 
sugar moon around Apogee. They are 
Professor Taymar’s favourite nosh 
and the reason he is prepared to 
build the bomb. But you will run into 
trouble if you have the Castrobars on 
board when you pick him up, Castron 


slardrive for planetfall. Hitting the 
surface too hard will damage your 
shields. 

Enos is a violent jilace + so find a 
tree as soon as possible. Grab it with 
your tractor beam and suck it into 
the craft. The hold is large enough to 
take three objects, so a hit of juggling 
may be needed to decide what to take 
and when. With the tree inside leave 
the planet and head for Castron - 
home of the dentists. 

Back in space you are Likely to find 
marauding pirates. Depending on the 
state of your energy reserves you 
might choose to tangle with them. 
Their catamaran craft are agile but 


future of Novenia**, 

Before you can mount your assault 
on ihe space station you need to build 
the bomb. This is where your flying 
skills are called into play. The Icarus 1 
initial planetfall is on the geosphere 
of Apogee. This planet is the place 
where the neutron bomb will be built. 

Dive into a tunnel entrance - tbe 
planet has holes drilled through it to 
spend journeys from place to place - 
as the tunnels are the safest place to 
be. The Egrorts have not invaded 
them and they are the hiding place of 
Ihe rebel forces. You have to enlist 
the help of the rebels to build the 
bomb. They will be expecting you. 

The tunnels are twisty. You will 
learn your way around after a while, 
but getting lost can be really 
frustrating. Black panels on what for 
the sake of convenience we shall call 
the floor, indicate a depot nearby. 


Doesrt t spare took friendly 


will not give you the food, you need 
to trade a petrified tree. This is a 
good place to start. Cast ron 1 s twin - 
Enos - is a dark place, famed for its 
petrified forests. 

When the game starts lift the nose 
of your Icarus and apply full thrust. 
This will take you out of Apogee's 
atmosphere and into space. Watch 
out for space pirates; assuming the 
coast is clear reduce thrust to zero — 
there is no point in wasting fuel 
cruising around. 

Use the identification computer to 
find Enos - it is the dark grey moon. 
You will learn your way around with 
some practice. Point your nose at 
Enos and engage stardrive. When the 
moon fills the screen pop out of 


fall to your laser lire. The blue 
spaceships weave, and are the 
hardest thing in the game to hold in 
your sights, A missile works, but is a 
waste of ammo. Ridding the 
spacelanes of pirates not only 
performs a judiciary function, the 
wrecked bounty hunters might drop 
some cargo, providing a short-cut to 
your goal. Retrieve the goodies by 
flying towards and capturing them in 
your tractor beam. 

Dicing with death Like this is bound 
to have brought your defences down 
a notch or two. Time to refuel. By far 
the easiest way to do this is by 
sucking energy out of the asteroids. 

Fly between Mil I way and Apogee 


1 0 get to the first depot go left at 
the first two forks in the tunnel. 
Then when a tunnel merges from the 
right turn around and fly tn the left 
down the merging tunnel. This will 
bring you to the depot. 

The manager, Trem, will give you a 
shopping list - things to get from 
other planets to help make the bomh. 
This consists of a case of Vislan 
wine, a crate of nuclear fuel, a crate 
of castrobars, a lump of mineral 
rock, an Egrun mini-rocket, an 
asteroid, a cluster of noduies, a flat 


Giant steps are what you take walking nn the moon 


September 1988 AMIGA COMPUTING 35 




and look for the lumps of blue ruck. 
Bring the Icarus to a halt close by 
and grab with the tractor beam. As 
you watch the control panel the 
readings will rise* 

Asteroids are unstable, as anyone 
who has played SiniStar in the 
arcades will know, and oiler a while 
the rock starts to shimmer and will 
explode. You may have to find 


on a space train or dice with pirates, 
but whatever you do be careful. The 
Icarus* computer can “listen" to alien 
noises and identify craft - so if you 
hear a strange noise the computer 
will determine for you whether it is 
friend or foe, 

Novenia will send messages which 
appear on vour microscreen telling 
you what is going on in the rest of the 
system. Messages like “Egrnn station 
constructed on Apex" ate useful — 



tour (raft vasts a shadow on the alien sail 


several asteroids before you are fully 
re-fueled. 

Refuelling is an important pari of 
the game. There are powerlines, 
similar to those in Starglider, held 
aloft by pylons, Ely along them hi 
suck in the power. You can refuel 
EUte-slyle by scooping energy from 
the sun - but beware, remember what 
happened to the original Icarus. You 
too will melt - quite spectacularly - 
if you fly too close to the sun. 

haute - the hoi planet, is a good 
source of power. Volcanic activity 
means you can suck energy by 
hovering over the mountain of tire, or 
look out for geoplasmic emissions 
from the planet surface. Catch one 
fust right to refuel. Take thrust up to 
maximum and leave Dante, E quindi 
uscimma n riveder le stelfe (Thence 
we came forth In rebehvdd the stars.) 
Find a tunnel entrance as soon as 
possible - you don't really want to do 
battle with the Kgron might. Flying 
through the maze of tunnels can be 
frustrating, but w r hen you find the 
right depot you may well come across 
a supply of Humbug bouncing bombs. 
Great for taking out phi net-bound 
Egron hardware. 


L EAVING Castron you may well 
decide to investigate the Space 
Whales in the gas atmosphere of 
Mill way, or look lor Professor 
Taytnar who is driving an Emma 2 on 
Broad way. You might decide to take 


take a humbug and see to it. 

Whatever you do, be careiul oul 
there. If your Valium Dynamics luel 
cells deplete to zero the Icarus w ill 
explode, leaving the pilot's chair to 
bounce on through space. The chair 
is the same shape as the one Alister 
Perrol programs in at Argonaut 
Software, and was designed to check 
out the graphic routines. 

What we want to know r is t if the 
chair can withstand Egron rockets 
and the destruction of the Icarus - 
why don't they make the spacecraft 
out of the same stuff as the chair? 

Starglider 2 mixes plot with the 
gameplay in a way no one else has 
yet achieved. Interceptor and Carrier 
Command have come close, 

Starglider 2 excels. You really feel as 
though you are on a mission from 
Novenia. 

Argonaut has produced 
astonishingly fast graphics, with a 
checkerboard planet surface. Your 
craft casts a shadow on the alien soil. 
The colours are bold and Ihe action 
furious. When a spaceship explodes it 
does so spectacularly* 

You can select Interceptor style 
external views of your craft - only 
really useful in tunnels — and look at 
the ship frum any angle. You can 
view the outside world from any 
angle and lock Ihe axis through 
which you till. AH this can get 
confusing, but hilling B on the 
numeric keypad restores normality. 
Richard Clucas is justifiably proud 


of his work which has produced the 
Argonaul Disc Loading Scheme 
(ADLS), This allows Ihe same disc: to 
be used in both an Amiga and Atari 
ST. The program does not have to lie 
cut down in size, because much of 
the information is shared by both 
machines. 

The save game option works in 
ADLS t specially formatting a disc to 
hold up to five games. If you have a 
particularly good saved position you 
can give the save-game disc to a 
friend who can load it into his ST. 

While the Amiga version is a mile 
slower than the ST it sounds a 
million limes better - the Atari does 
not have the sound facilities to 
compete, although both machines 
have Dave Lowe's stunning 
soundtrack. 

The munochrome ST version looks 
good, and a PC version is under 
development w r ith C64 and Macintosh 
versions planned* 

I N addition to the game, Starglider 
2 offers a futuristic painting 
package. Arcade addicts who saw Ihe 
I Robot machine will remember it 
offered a painting option* Starglider 
2’s option tt - Paint with Rolf - 
allows you to use any of the 3D 
shapes from the game as a paint 
brush. It was incorporated after a bug 
caused the shapes to freeze on the 
screen. While it is fun no one would 
accuse “Painting with Rolf* of being 
art* 

Whether you are painting or 
shooting Starglider 2 is the kind of 
game the Amiga deserves. You 
deserve to play it* 


REPORT CARO 


StaTglider 2 
Rainbird/ Argonaut 
£24.ft5 

Sound 

Whizzes and crashes which on/i ihe 
Amiga makes possible. 

Graphics 

Truly slate of the art 3D. Nobody does 
it faster. 

j Gameplay..^.. 

Shows how shallow the original 
Starglider was. 

Ya/uc 

The highest score yet in Amiga 
Computing. 


OVERALL 


Give yourself a treat - bnv it! 


36 AMIGA COMPUTING September 19RB 



TRYBRIDGE SOFTWARE DISTRIBUTION 


Till# 

l$.$5 

Ann Syndrome 

13.95 

16.G5 

to mag addon Man 

16.95 

Autcrju e . . . 

17.50 

ArclicFox 

16.95 

Advanced Construction Set . 1 1 .95 

4rrr-y Moves 

16.95 

Arhanc.-z 

19.95 

Seller Deed then A er 

13.95 

evjfsy Boy 

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Bubble Stable 

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aurve Commando 

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Beyond 2tyk 

16.95 


, 6 95 

Backlash . 

13 95 

Ba/fcaf an 3 5ygrm& s . 

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BMX &mulaiw 

10.45 

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Ballraider 

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tfi.95 

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19.96 

Bad Cai 

tfi.96 

Bob Winner 

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Corruption 

16 96 

Ca I'ornio 

16.96 

Capkain Blood 

16.96 

Carnet Conwiand 

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15.96 

Combat School 

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Crack 

13.95 

Crash Gaireb 

16.95 

Crazy Ca« ..... 

13.95 

Chessmasler 2000 

16.95 

Destroyer 

. . 16 45 

Dicto Special 

15.95 

Dark Castle 

16 50 

Delandsr ol Crown. 

19.95 


AmiQifr 

19 95 


VU 

Deluxe Video 39.95 

Dwluxe Prim 1S.95 

Deluxe Prodycfron 79.95 

Deluxe Pami 39.95 

Dungeon Masle r 15.95 

Delu Music Car- Set . 39.95 

Eagles Nest 13.95 

Ebonstar 15.95 

Echo on 15.95 

Emerald Mines 13.95 

Enlighten mam 15.95 

Exobn 15.95 

EPT - 15.95 

Earl Weaver Baseba I 15.50 

ECO 16,95 

Flight Sim 2 26.95 

ScaneryGisc 7 or 11 15.95 

Scenery Oise Europe 15.95 

Faery Tale Adventure ....... .29.95 

Flighlpath 737 S.95 

Feud 6.95 

Flintstanes 13.95 

Football Manager 2 .... . .13.96 

Ferrari Formula On* 16.95 

Foundations Waste 16 95 

Frightni^it .......13.95 

Fusion ,,...,,16.95 

Garfiaid 13.96 

Gryzor 16.95 

Gunahip _... 16.95 

GT Sana Sisters 15.95 

Golden Path 13.05 

GokJmnnsr ...„„ „ 17.95 

GokJnunner £ 13.95 

Guild ol Thieves 1 6.95 

Gee Bee Air Ralty 16-95 

Garrison 16.50 

Garrison 2. , 16, $5 

Kelter Shelter 13.95 

Hitchhiker 19.95 


Titte 


Hdt Football 

16.95 

Hollywood Hi t mx 

to. 00 

Hollywood Poker 

13.95 

Hunt tor Red October .... 

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ImorceptBr 

16.95 

IndOO* Sporls 

16.45 


Impacl 10.45 

In* anity Flight 16.95 

Irwlanl Music 19,95 

in/mwype ... 21 .00 

IrUemetional S«X*r 13.95 

Jei - 24.95 

Jinks .... .. 16.95 


Jimder 

16.95 

Jewels Ol Darkness ........ 

iCar&le Kid E 

tongs Quest 3 Pack 

Kang qd Chicago 

K>cfcsEarT 2 

13.95 

16.45 

19.96 

19.96 

7.00 

ftnighl Ore 

Land 0! Legends 

Le&darb&ard 

13.96 

16,96 

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13.95 

Leather Goddess, 

cegend of (he Sword 

Leathernecks .. .. 

19.96 

16.96 

13 46 

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Mar* Ceps 

1395 

13.&5 

Mercenary Comp 

Mickey Mouse 

Mintftightar ... , 

Mnctl 3 

16 45 

13.96 

.....15 95 
13.96 

Mean 19 Golf 

Nebulus 

Nlghlraider 

17 96 

15.96 

1395 

Nord A Bert 

1 5.96 

Obkteralor 

Peler Beardstey Soccer .. 
Phantasm 

16.45 

13-96 
13.95 

Power Struggle 

1045 


Title Am iga 

Photon Paint ._ 49.95 

Plundered Hearts 16 45 

Pool i 6.96 

Platoon 1 5.95 

Pink Panlhst 13.95 

Police Quest _ 13.95 

Pandora 13-95 

Pawn 15.95 

Quadroon 17.45 

Q Ball 13.95 

Quuan 2 1 .50 

Rocket Ranger 17.45 

Ftoad Blasters 13.95 

Rolling Thundsr 16.95 

Flodtlord 13.95 

Return to Genesis 13.95 

Return ra Atlantis 16.95 

Roadways 13.95 

Sargon III Chess 14.95 

Slar Ray 17.45 

SoocBr Supremo ..... 10.45 

SlMfcmarket 13.95 

Slormtfoopar 13.95 

Slrtp Poker 2 10.45 

Summer Olympiad 13.95 

Snertock Riddle .,,,. 16.95 

Sbattewgale 16.95 

Senlinel 13,95 

Scrabble Deluxe ...., 13,95 

Silem Service .... ....... 18.95 

Stnbad 19.95 

Sfcyfox,. 11.95 

SlarflBel ,.,. 16.95 

Sevan Cities ol Go*d 1 1 .95 

Star Glitter 5 95 

Slax Glider 2 15.95 

SCI 19,95 

Star Were 13.95 


Title Amig* 

Space Quest II 14.95 

S,F. Hamer is. 9* 

Sidewinder 7. 00 

TerramBX „ 13.95 

Thexder 15.96 

Time Bandils 13.95 

Tracer* 16.95 

Tetos 13.96 

Tenorpods 16 .96 

Three Slooge* 19.50 

Trmiiy 10.00 

Tesldrive 16 95 

Time* Mag* 13.95 

Unix Miktary Sim 16.96 

Uninvited 16 95 

Virus 13.95 

Vampire Empire.,,, 13.95 

Vyp#r - 10 95 

Verm aim 15.&S 

Wrath ol Nikademus , 17.45 

Whirligig 13.95 

Wmt*r Olympiad 13.95 

WizbaJI 13.95 

Xenon ,...16.95 

ZorkS 1£. 95 

Zynaps...^ 16.95 


SPECIAL: 


ELECTRONIC ARTS 
MEGAGAMES 
INTERCEPTOR 
AND FUSION 
ONLY £16.95 EACH 


Please send cheque/P.O./Access, Visa number and expiry date to: 

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Please remember to state the make and model of your computer when ordering. P&P Inc. UK on orders over £3, 
Under £5 and Europe add El per item. Elsewhere add £2 per item for AIR MAIL Telephone orders: 0708 765271 


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We at M.D, Office Supplies would like to take this opportunity to apologise to all our 
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BOXES, ETC, AT INCREDIBLE PRICES, 


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OUR SPECIAL OFFER PRICES 
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25 Double Sided 96 TP! with 50 Capacity Oise Box ..E 11.49 

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September 1988 AMIGA COMPUTING 37 




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38 AMIGA COMPUTING Stt plumber 1988 











Amiga Arcade 



I NTOGRAMES has made a slow 
start in Ihe Amiga market having 
only released the Passengers On The 
Wind series, but now with its latest 
game, Stir Crazy, which features the 
hilarious Bnbo, has finally emerged 
as a real force in Amiga enter- 
tainment. 

The game is set in the peculiar 
prison Inzeesla miner which makes 
the inmates behave childishly. Bohn, 
the star of the game, is the oddest 
inmate, having been lacked up for 17 
years. He tries everything to escape 
and sometimes manages to do so, hut 
his new found freedom never lasts 
very long. 

A comprehensive menu allows for 
up to 10 players with each protagon- 
ist selecting the events they wish to 
play. 

Stir Crazy is very similar in con- 
cept to the classic sports series from 
Epyx, based on the antics of a prison 
inmate rather than sporting achieve- 
ments, The program is divided into 
six separate sub games which can be 
played individually or collectively. 

The first event takes place in the 
canteen and like all prison inmates, 
Bobo has to take his turn at table 
duty, Ensuring that all the hungry 
prisoners are fed. They arrive one 
after another in a state of starvation, 
which means that most require a 
second helping. If you do not serve 
the convicts immediately be 
prepared fur a quite hysterical scene 
as (hey plaster poor Bobo with the 
soup of the day. 

The second even! finds Bobo 
pealing a pile of potatoes which grad- 
ually gets bigger as he goes along. If 
you are silly enough to try and throw 
a half-peeled potato into the pile you 
are instantly accused of shoddy 
workmanship and the half pee led 
potato is thrown back. This touch of 
humour is well illustrated and J guar- 


STIR CRAZY 



HILLY ■!>■ 

ttri feiflh 


Feed your Mow convicts or there'll he tmohfe 


anlee that after a while you will be 
deliberately sending half peeled 
potatoes into the pile just to see Bobo 
punished. 

Having prepared the potatoes, the 
nest event lakes Bobo to his third 
chore - washing the floor, the job he 
likes least. The other prisoners walk 
on the floor and leave nasty 
footprints for Bobo to clean, Oc- 
casionally a dog will run past leaving 
a muddy trail of footsteps which 
must be cleaned before the prison 
warden inspects the floor. 

The fourth event is my favourite as 
Bobo tries to help his fellow inmates 
escape. The prisoners take advantage 
of the warden’s lea break and try and 


get free by jumping from their cell 
windows, Bobo must move a 
trampoline and catch them at the 
right angle so they can fly to freedom. 
If the angle is not right then the pri- 
soners smash into In zees la miner's 
walls and see stars. 

Event five features Bobo, having 
escaped, running across three elec- 
trical wires where he must avoid the 
sparks and collect green cylinders. 
The action is fast - perhaps a little too 
fast - and most of the time Boho is 
electrocuted in spectacular fashion. 
Being electrocuted has never been 
such fun, The destructive nature of 
the game is put aside as the humor- 
ous touches make you see the light- 



A spot of spud hashing always provides a laugh 


hearted side of 240 volts. 

Stunned and eventually recaptured 
from his live wire trip, Bobo's filial 
task is to make sure that the other live 
prisoners with whom he shares the 
dormitory, stop snoring and allow 
him to get some sleep. The only way 
to silence them is to give them a 
gentle nudge so as not to wake them. 

Stir Crazy is a thoroughly enjoy- 
able game packed with humorous 
touches. The graphics are top notch 
cartoon quality and the sound and 
music some of the best to be heard on 
an Amiga. 

If that's not a good enough recom- 
mendation then you shouldn't forget 
that the game also features the zany 
Bobo, who could just become one of 
the mega stars of computer enter^ 
lainmenl, 

Gary Wilson 


Stir Crazv 
mM 
In fog fames 



September 1388 AMIGA COMPUTING 19 








REVIEWS* 


THUNDERCATS 



Tab Lion-0 to your mall screen in this excellent conversion 


i 





F ROM the BBC TV series of the 
same name comes this tough 
hack-and-run game from Elite, The 
background story is that during an 
attack on the Cats-Lair by the mal- 
icious Mu lumen, servants of the evil 
Mumm-Ra kidnapped a handful of 
members from the Thundercats team. 

Even worse, the kidnappers also 
stole the Eye of Thundera and, es we 
all know' (don't we?), this charmed 
jewel holds the magical power of the 
Sword of Omens. Note the prevalent 
use of capital letters, essential for 
tales such as this. 

The hero. Lion-O, was out to lunch 
when the raid took place, but has 
vowed to go to Castle Plundar to 
rescue the Eye and free his mates. 
Your job is to steer Lion^O safely 
through forests and underground 
caverns, duff up the baddies, rescue 
the lads and recapture the jewel. 
Thunderpeals is a little like Payg- 
nosis 5 Barbarian, a horizontal 
running, jumping, slashing and grab- 
bing arcade adventure with enemy 
attackers coming non-slop out of Ihe 
woodwork. Unlike Barbarian, it has 
continuous scrolling which makes 
for fast and furious action. 

Whenever Lion-0 is touched by an 
attacker - they come at him Irom 

40 AMIGA COMPUTING Sepfemb&r 198B 


The foes come in different sixes 

both sides in what sometimes seems 
like a never-ending stream - he falls 
over, disintegrates and so losses one of 
his several lives. Fortunately for the 
gameptay. he is not placed right back 
at the beginning, but just past the 
spot where he was hit. Once all of his 
Lives are used up Lion-0 has it all to 
do again. 

The foes come in different sizes, 
The tall eagle-beaked ones can walk 
over any large object and from them 
there is no hiding place, The titchy 
Molemen who arc blocked by ob- 
stacles such as huge rocks, can be 
jumped over or sliced with the sword 
if Lion-0 goes down on one knee. 

There are numerous other hazards 


such as gaping, water-filled pits, 
Leaping over one of these and land- 
ing slap-bang on an enemy on the 
other side happens all too frequently, 
so lightning reflexes are essential. 

Bonus lives and points can be 
earned by leaping up and sword- 
swatting various containers dotted 
around the landscape, usually high 
up in frees. Even better, some con- 
tainers hold a weapon which, when 
the vessel is clouted, replaces the one 
Lion-0 currently wields. 

Weapons which are effective at 
long range are dearly very welcome 
in a game when the enemy has an 
inexhaustible supply of troo ps. 

The signature tune is first rate. 


catching the mood of the game jusl 
right; other spot effects add to the 
pleasure. 

The graphics are colourful and 
fairly detailed, collision detection Is 
excellent and the animation impress- 
ively smooth and realistic. 

The pace very fast and the whole 
game a very tough challenge - per- 
haps just a shade too tough for those 
who are not so nimble with the joy- 
stick. 

Anyone who likes fast- moving and 
testing leap-and-slash games should 
certainly enjoy this one, Thimdercats 
is an impressive conversion, the best 
of this particular game for any home 
computer, and bodes well for further 
Elite products for the Amiga. 

Bob Chappell 





■ REVIEWS! 


SKY CHASE 



A fast, furious amJ pretty «ijvy»bh chase through the tky 
until one player runs out of fuel, the 


I S there life after Interceptor, the 
game which apparently has it all? 
Surprisingly the answer is yes, That 
erstwhile Electronic Arts program 
(reads the middle ground between 
flight simulation and airborne 
combat game, with Flight Simulation 
11 cleaning up on the straight simu- 
lation front. 

Sky Chase is one of I he first 
releases from Image Works, the new 
Mirrursofl label and is very much in 
the Top Gun mould of airborne con- 
flict. “Never mind the realism,, count 
the bullets"' is the order of the day 
here. 

Never mind the plot or objective 
either, in this game the action starts 
with Iwo opponents - any combin- 
ation of human against computer 
simulated players - hurtling towards 
each other, As soon as the planes 
cross control is handed over to Ihe 
pilots and may the best Tom Cruise 
looblike win, 

Each player has an independent 
three dimensional view, with fast 
moving wire frame graphics. Well 
they are fast if you don't select the 
complex terrain grid from the host of 
options, and let's face it. there isn’t 
much of the screen being manipu- 
lated. There is no hidden line 
removal, so the graphics should be 
feist, 

Alt the parameters are variable, 
and range from giving you a choice 
of fighters, FM 18 Hornet F-14 
Tomcat, F-15 Eagle, F-16 Falcon on 
the American side or MIG-31 
Foxhound and MIG-27 F logger on 
the USSR side, to tinkering with 
weapons supplies, timings and Ihe 
elects of G force. 

The action continues, with a brief 
pause every time a player gets nailed. 


winner being whoever has scored 
most points. This means that if you 
shoot your opponent more limes that 
he shoots you you’re laughing. 

But Ihere is the problem of the 
ground. It's hard, Hitting it full speed 
is not only painful, it hands over 
points on a plate. Equally cli m bing to 
over 50,000 feel nr flying beyond the 
terrain boundaries have a similar 
result. 

A quick peek at the weapons 
supplied for this modem duel in the 
sky lend to support the assertion that 
this is simply a fun hying game. Your 
super advanced piece of Air Force 
real estate has twin cannon and the 


ability to launch missiles. The witty 
chaps who coded Sky Chase have 
made these look like Amiga boun- 
cing balls. 

Your only defence against these 
twin threats is speed and xnunoeuver- 
ability, Either use them or find 
broken bits of plane showered across 
the screen. Even on the easy level the 
computer flyboys are a tough bunch. 

The appeal of downing faceless 
opponents, especially when the 
explosions - unlike the rest of the 
effects - are so wimpish, tends to pale 
before long. Drag a comrade into the 
fray though, and the fight becomes 
that bit more personal, that much 
more fun. On this level the slightly 


dated look to the graphics doesn't 
detract from the East, furious, and 
pretty enjoyable, chase through the 
sky. 

Mark Luckham 




Each player has 4a independent 3D view w/lft fast moving wire frame graphics 


September 198& AMIGA COMPUTING 41 






WORLD TOUR GOLF 





T IME lo don the brightly- 
coloured jumper, snazzy slacks 
and sure-grip glove, give a quick 
shunt of "Fore! 11 and drive off the 
first lee with this new and eminently 
playable golf game from Electronic 
Arts. 

Until now only three si mu bile ns 
of Oils great sport have been avail- 
able to satisfy the appetites of Amiga - 
links addicts, Accolade's Mean IS 
was a worthy attempt but was lei 
down by rather weedy graphics, 
while Gameslar's Championship 
Golf, although technically a clever 
simulation, featured only one course 
and was far too complicated and 
fussy for its own good, leaderboard, 
is perhaps the best; a massive selling 
golf game on other micros, it hasn't 
quite made the same impact on the 
Amiga. 

Electronic Arts’ World Tour Golf 
seems to have got the mix just about 
right. The game is a pretty fair reflec- 
tion of the intricacies and challenges 
of golf yet at the same time manages 
to be addictively playable. 

It can be played using either mouse 
or keyboard, by up to four players. 
The main playing screen is divided 
vertically. The left half gives vnu a 
detailed overhead view of (be entire 
hole while the right is from just 
behind and a few feet above the 
golfer, starting from a point where 
the player’s ball currently rests and 
looking towards the green, or bole, if 


on the green, The line of aim can be 
adjusted and any dub selected for the 
shot - on request and as a guide, the 
club's range is indicated by a circle 
radiating out from your ball on the 
overhead view. 

A small dial - the swing meter - 
allows you to gauge the strength of 
the shot and whether it will go 
straight or otherwise, 

it p s simply a matter uf being quick 
with your trigger finger to slop the 
two hands of the dial at the right 
points (well, maybe nut so simple 
judging by some of my violently 
sliced shots). 

Displayed in a continuously 
updated panel at the lop of the right- 



,.4 drive in the country 


hand picture are such relevant items 
of information as the name of the 
course, the number of the hole and its 
par, and your name and score for the 
round so far. 

Some of the panel data is particu- 
larly vital - distance to the green, 
strength and direction of (he wind, 
and the lie of your ball, ranging from 
perfect to plugged, All these factors 
must be taken into account when 
deciding what club- to choose and in 
playing your shot. 

The game has generous customis- 
ation options, allowing you to tailor 
players’ skills - tendency to hook or 
slice, driving distance and accuracy, 
and recovery from bad lies - amend 
names and adjust handicaps. 

There are over a dozen courses to 
play on, some simulating the real 
thing tike SI Andrews and Augusta, 
some imaginary like the devilish Par 
3 course. World Tour Golf has its 
own easy-to-use conduction kit 
which lets you edit, design and save 
as many courses as you wish for 
future play. 

The animation of the small golfer 
as he swings and hits the ball for you 
is realistic, although the (light of the 
ball is less so, particularly when 
! chipping from near the edge of a 
I green. 3 know my ability to put 
backspin on the ball is world re- 
| nowned, but even I couldn't make 
the ball stop as suddenly as this one 
i does at times. 


The graphics are slightly more 
stylised than I would have hoped, 
given the Amiga’s capability, but are 
certainly effective enough. Digitised 
sound effects - swish arid thwack of 
club, splat or splash of ball in bunker 
or water, cries of congratulation or 
commiseration as your ball finally 
disappears into the cup - all enhance 
one's enjoyment. Small, novel 
touches like the spurt of saud as your 
hall buries itself in the bunker or bal- 
loon messages coming from the gol- 
fer’s mouth add to the fun. 

This is a first rate golf simulation. 
Even compared against the standard' 
bearer Leaderboard, World Tour 
wins by several strokes, And no 
matter if you donl know one end of s 
four iron from the other - you’ll find 
this game easy to get into yet 
providing ail the addictivity and 
challenge of the best of games. 

Bob Chappell 



42 AMIGA COMPUTING September J BBS 







■REVIEWS* 



E LECTRA is a new name in soft' 
ware developmenl and if its first 
release, Better Dead Than Alien, is 
anything to go hy the company could 
have a very prosperous future in 
Amiga entertainment. The game is 
anything but sane, just take one took 
at the name and you know that the 
people who designed this game have 
an interesting sense of humour. 

This is a weird yet wonderful 


shoot-em-up ls based on the daring 
antics of lone space hern Brad Zoom 
in his quest to save civilization (as we 
know it). 

You must join Brad and armed 
with his super-zipper wage total war 
against alien hoards, As you may 
have already guessed. Better Dead 
Than Alien is a vertical scroll- 
ing shoot-em-up, And what isn't 
these days? But there are enough 


touches of humour and innovation to 
make it stand out. 

When I first loaded the game 1 in- 
stantly thought to myself "Oh no. not 
Space Invaders revamped". The 
game starts slowly but as you pro- 
gress through the 25 levels it throws 
new twists into the action. It will 
succeed in hooking you to .such an 
extent you'll he playing for hours, 

Enhancements are included which 


provide a little more variety than 
most shooi-’cm-ups, Check out the 
cool super-bolts that obliterate 
everything in their vicinity - totally 
rad, 

The graphics, adequate at best, are 
well animated and are more than suf- 
ficient for this type of game. Audio 
effects - like the graphics - are 
mediocre with some nice touches like 
the digitised grunts and groans when 
Brad gets hit by an alien, 

The game was developed as a 
spoof and as a result the pro- 
gram me fs may have neglected the 
important aspect of testability, 

Gary Wilson 


Better Demi Than Alien 

£2435 

hleclra 


Sound ^■lUEim 



GIGANOID 


F IRST there was Pong, then there 
was Arkanoid and now there is 
Giganoid from Swiss Computer Arts. 
This lime it is set in the year 2758 
when the galaxy is ruled hy a pow- 
erful masterdemon. You must battle 
your way through 50 mazes to the 
final confrontation with I he grand- 
master of power. When he is de- 
stroyed. peace can once again be res- 
tored to the universe. 

The 50 mazes are composed of a 
variety of multicoloured bricks 
which must he hit with your ball 
until they are knocked out, After de- 
stroying all (he bricks you continue 
to the next level where you are either 
faced with another level or a battle 
with the demons. 

The demons form a bonus level in 
which you must return the balls they 
fire at you. Success in this rather dif- 
ficult task is rewarded with I he 
chance to skip up to four levels, 
depending upon bow many balls you 
managed to return. 

At various intervals you are also 
required to fight larger demons simi- 
lar to the one at the end of Arkanoid 
and, of course, on the final level you 
must destroy the master of power, 


who is very similar to earlier demons 
but much, much harder to defeat. 

As in the original, we are blessed 
with a variety of tokens which give 
the player different powers, 
including twin balls, lasers, slow 
ball, level skips and bonus lives. 
These tokens are much harder to 


obtain than in Arkanoid,. because 
they fall to the bottom, of the screen 
very slowly, And at exactly the 
moment you need to catch the token 
the ball is also speeding towards the 
ground and oblivion. 

The Giganoid graphics are better 
than in the Arkanoid. Both the 


backgrounds and the sprites are 
excellently shaded and the animation 
is of a very high standard, if a little 
slow, Sound effects during the game 
are sampled and reflect the general 
happy atmosphere. 

The programming is good and hug 
free, Even the hi-score table is 
innovative and stylish. If you were 
one of the few who didn't buy the 
popular and famous Arkanoid 1 can 
strongly recommend that you should 
go for Giganoid instead as it offers 
much more long term interest and a 
higher standard of game play, 
graphics and programming, 

Mike George 


Giganoid 

£M35 

Shinn Computer Arte M cnnk^l 



Graphics 




September ims AMIGA COMPUTING 









■ REVIEWS! 



PANDORA 


A good staii - in the brig of spaceship Pandora 


T HE spaceship Pandora - a 
generation ship in which 
colonies grow and produce 
everything they need - has 
completed its 200 year mission. Slilt, 
after all this time the ship is bound to 
be empty. Someone has to< board it 
and strip it of the alien artefacts it has 
collected on its voyage through the 
galaxies. 

That someone is you, but as soon 
as you beam aboard you realise that 
something has gone wrong: The 200 
year old defence system is still active 
- move and you will die instantly. 
But move you must - the ship is 
going to release poison spores on the 
earth unless you can set the self 
destruct. 

This gives you a set of objectives: 
Find as many alien artefacts as pos- 
sible and drop them into the eject 


chute, Find the self destruct and set 
it. and Had the escape ID and get off 
the ship before it blows, 

No-one. including you, can move 
on the ship without an ID. 
Fortunately, an entry officer runs up 
to you and hands you hers, though 
this means instant death for her. A 
touching sacrifice. For the record, the 
entry officer was called Annie in ear- 
lier versions but in deference to the 
Commodore 16 blitter she i$ likely to 
be renamed Amy, 

Wandering around the 2D game 
you will encounter a host of aliens, 
not all of them u nfriendiy. How you 
react to one will affect how others 
will react to you, For example, you 
may trade with characters, hut not 
veiy successfully if you have killed 
other popular characters. If you have 
w iped out evil creatures - such as the 


bank manager - then you are more 
likely to be trusted. There are dues to 
how popular the aliens might be in 
the locations where you meet them. 

In your quest to collect artifacts 
you need to learn how to deal with 
individual characters. This may 
mean picking up the right ID. There 
are four levels of clearance. Alpha, 
delta, pi and omega. They work in 
ascending order, so you can go 
everywhere with an omega pass. 
However, the exit pass has no 
clearance. 

If you have made yourself 
unpopular you will have to fight the 
other characters. With a gun you can 
attack them from afar, and indeed 
you have to use this to attack the thief 
- he will steal your weapon in hand 
to hand combat. 

The fight scenes are great, a cross 
between a scrap in Tom and Jem,' 
and an old Batman programme, 
complete with BIFF! and WHACK! 
captions. To fight: a character you 
need to be holding a weapon and 
advancing. A power meter helps you 
lime each strike. 

Weapons have different strengths 
and speeds, while the characters also 
have varying stamina and swiftness. 
Choosing the right weapon helps, as 
does having the krypt unite which 
weakens all foes, though the mom 
scraps you get into the weaker von 
become. You can recover your 
strength using the brain, but this only 
w r orks once. 

When the ship reaches Earth you, 
can elect to play on,. Your home is 


destroyed but you can keep on 
collecting artifacts and picking up 
points. 

Pandora is the first major program 
from Shahid Ahmad, with wonderful 
graphics by Terry Greer and games 
consultancy by David Eastman. 

The game's design draws on many 
sources: Wandering around the ship 
owes much to Hewson's Faradroid. 
the fighting owes something to 
Gauntlet and the scoring to Atari Star 
Raiders, Film huffs will spot referen- 
ces to Silent Running and the cult 
film Dark Star. Watch out for the 
Wacko bra in which looks like Ihe 
Dark Star alien and will tap its toes, 

The Amiga conversion is bound to 
he the hast Shahid uses the blitter 
extensively, the music is by David 
Whittaker and the whole thing runs 
very much faster than on the ST, This 
will allow Shahid to give some more 
of the characters shadows and tweak 
the gameplay. 

Oh, and make sure you check out 
what the musician is carrying. 

Simon Kockman 


Pandora 

Firebird 

£19Mi 


Sound 


Graphics 








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16.95 

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13*5 

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13 06 

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Peter Dewdstey Fastefl 

1J J5 

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13 J5 

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32.50 

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Air stock items are despatched by RETURN OF POST! 

TELEPHONE (0636) 79007 FOR 24 HOUR CREDIT CARD HOTLINE! 
or send Chaque/Pwtftl Order/Credit Card Details to: 


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Sftptemhvf iflftfl AMIGA COMPUTING 4f, 





A VERY handy tip for all the 
owners of ECO comes from 
Gordon Keenan, of Glasgow. If you 
press Alt + S simultaneously it will 
allow you to change the genetic code 
at any time and saves you having to 
run about finding food and a mate. 
The only fault with the tip is that it 
shows what an empty game this 
really is. 

Andrew Retmanski, of Bulkington 
near Coventry, has a load of tips to 
offer for Psygnosis’s Barbarian. He 
says that the bow behind the tinman 
is a fake, hut you can still get the 
arrows, To kill the dragon, just fire 
two arrows at it, 

To skip on to the next screen in 
Insanity Fight from Micro deal hold 
down both of the mouse buttons, the 
L key and press the Tire button. 
Andrew was one of several people 



to point out that in Electronic Art's 
Test Drive you can easily improve 
cornering* by holding down the fire 
button* when your car will effortlessly 
glide around the mountainside. 

For those players too busy to play 
cardis in Hollywood Poker he offers 
advice to get a sneak preview. Insert 
Workbench disc and press Ctrl+D to 
enter the CLI then type the following 
commands; 

MAKEDIR RAM: 

COPY C/CD RAM:C 
COPY C/DIR RAM:C 
COPY C/RENAME RAM:C 
ASSIGN C: RAM:C 

Insert Holly wood Poker disc and type: 
DIR 

RENAME ISA.l TEMP 

Now choose a picture file to preview. 
The files have a three letter name 



Max “The Hacks" Tennant is the master of 
game play. Whatever the game he’ll 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 Speedking joystick 


followed by an extension of 1-5 such 
as ‘LOR,5\ Make a note of which one 
you chose, then type: 

RENAME LGR.5 ISA.l 

Reboot, then press fire lo see the 
screen, 

Regular readers, who tune into the 
Max the Hacks column will know that 
the joystick master who really knows 
his Konix, is Adrian Curry. This 
month he has turned his attention to 
Pandora. 

The mysterious spaceship is 
nearing Earth, its long lost home. 

Why has it been away so long? Why 
have there been no communications 
with her? Why are you stuck with 


that certain puzzle? Why don’t you 
read on? 

Pandora is a multi-scenario game, 
so depending on how you play the 
game dictates the rank which will be 
given for finishing it. You can* if you 
like, just go around killing anyone 
who gets in the way and obtain the 
rank of Assassin. 

On the other hand you could trade 
with the various characters to obtain 
the items you need, depositing any 
relics you find down the chute to you 
own ship. This will yield the rank of 
Priceless. 

Interaction with the other characters 
is a very important factor in Pandora, 
if you help the characters you come 




46 AMIGA COMPUTING September 198S 




HINTS 


Omega 


Engineering 

level 



Joined to R beluw 


^ Security zone 


/V77 


22 


I 

±J 


c 



1 


Main deck 




PANDORA 


across - rather than killing them - 
and kill people who are not too 
popular with the rest of the crew - 
such as the hank manager - other 
crew members. are more likely to 
trade objects with you. 

If, on the other hand 1 you do decide 
to play a more violent character brute 
force will often be the only solution 
to gain the items you need. 

You will find various weapons as 
you explore the decks of Pandora. 
These deal out different amounts of 
damage, the best of them being the 


phutosabre. Many weapons can he 
found on security droids, others may 
just he lying around. 

Some, like the electro truncheon, 
can he used as many times as you 
like, but others like the laser rifle 
have only a limited number of shots. 
To get on aboard the Generation 
Ship Pandora it is useful to know 
who you are likely to meet, 

Amy is the girl who gives her life to 
save yours. There is nothing you can 
do to save her. The hooligan is a yob 


Garden 


Joined to A iibeve 

“Aogenic’s I mjM 
Level 
22 


21 
3 1 
41 
Si 
61 
71 
81 

p, User 

addictive Same *^d * 


Password 

Gold 

Fish 

Wall 

Plus 

Head 
Fork 
Road 
User 


September isos AMIGA COMPUTING 47 



< 

lo watch out for. He is not the first 
person you would like to meet when 
you board because he will always 
beat you if you are not armed with a 
weapon. 

The engineer is less hostile. His ID 
card will get you past the force field 
on the engineering level; it may also 
give you some clues lo the uses of the 
sonic screwdriver. 

You can make friends with the 
security officer by shooting the thief 
who has stolen a sonic blaster - the 
officer will give you some insulin for 


the blaster's safe return. 

Be careful the kleptomaniac is 
likely to steal any weapons you have. 
The Alien egg may not be all it is 
cracked up to be, but is sure to reach 
a fair price back on Earth. That 
insulin is just the tonic for the 
diabetic. He also wants a hypodermic 
to take it. 

The bank manager may be 
interested in the money that this trade 
yields. His destruction will please the 
rest of the crew - that is until they 
want a loan. 

Search the rescue officer for the 


Delatan Icon which is well worth 
taking back to earth. The Science 
officer hides three secrets, the dead 
chemist will show you all you need to 
know. Remember Toupee or not 
toupee, that is the question - and 
don't mess with drugs kids. 

How does your garden grow? With 
driffids, death flies and of course a 
gardener - his favourite phrase is 
spray it with flowers. 

Meanwhile at the medical centre 
the medic thinks that no crime should 
go unavenged. His companion the 
doctor claims that good old-fashioned 
violence is the only solution. 

Metal Mickey would have been 
more Like Menial Mickey if his father 
had been the menial droid, a little 
chap who would help polish up your 
act. If your act is really good you 
might put it to music. The pianist 
should just leave it to Sam to play il 
again. Or the musician where a 
technical solution is the answer to 
(his well read genius' hlues. 

The smell of fish will lead you to 
the wackobrain, so dodge him and 
see if the squash player can help to 
boost your moral. 

Try to thaw relations with the ice 
lord - ask the computer for some 
help. He is carrying an item which 



46 AMIGA (COMPUTING Svplvmber 











■HINTS! 



I to 


Eh 


ild 

ed 


sr 


ir 


you might find useful in some heated 
arguments but don't depend on the 
wrong item, valuable as it might be. 

Your prayers may well be answered 
by the priest. Pictures are powerful 
weapons, if placed in the right hands. 
The commander will show you which 
three codes you need to operate the 
5DJ disc. 

You'll need the help of the captain 
to take the self destruct initiation disc 
along with the codes to the main 
computer, located on the engineering 
dock. While the AWOL officer has the 
right IDea, you should do the same 
ASAP. To get the last code the rnbu 
mechanic will help if you drive the 
point home and fix the problem. 

Look out for some special alien 
artifacts such as the Ostron egg, the 
Vulcan vase and the Mobian brain. 
This last item has the beneficial effect. 
When taken unto your hands it will 
regenerate vour life force. 

Max the Hacks is always on the 
look-out for help in game playing, 
send you hints to him at 7£LU4 
Ongar Road, Brentwood, Essex, 
CM 15 DBCi. A game from the goodie 
drawer and a Konix Speedking joy- 
stick for all he prints. 



Single Player - Map 2 


Map 1 was published in the July 
issue of Amiga Computing , 


September 1988 AMIGA COMPUTING 4ft 











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M USIC might be the food of 
love, but good sound efforts 
ere the Big Macs of synthesised 
warfare. The Amiga has the best 
sound of any home computer doing 
the rounds- ft speaks. It sings. II can 
reproduce the last gurgle of alien 
blood bailing away into the vacuum 
of interstellar space as accurately as 
lesser computers imitate an electronic 
watch going beep on the hour. And it 
can do all this because of a little 
sliver of silicon called Paula. 

Paula (Peripheral AUdio Logic 
Array], together with a few 
supporting chips, is the Amiga’s 
sound system. It s more than that. The 
designers took the opportunity to 
sneak in some control signals for the 
floppy disc interface, as well as some 
of the RS232 interface. And why they 
did this shows a lot of the thinking 
behind modern digital design, 

It might seem odd, this Lumping 
together of different functions in one 
chipt but there is - as always - 
method in a digital design engineer's 
madness. All of the things Paula does 
are peripheral activities; the computer 
might want to make a noise, read 
some data from a floppy or a modem, 
hut most of the time it won’t, So it 
has to he able to select which 
peripheral it wants to use, and send it 
data or control signals independently 


of the others . 

A lot of computer design is 
concerned with synchronising 
peripherals like this, and a lot of the 
circuitry - alsu called logic - in a 
reasonably complex computer like 
Amy is devoted to this end, And 
much of it is replicated - for example 
most peripherals provide or need 
data, so, as those of you who \vere 
paying attention last month will 
know, the data bus connects them all 
to the central processor and the 
memory circuits. 

Rut as the data bus is the only way 
lu transfer the data for anything, it 
can only hold one particular set of 
information for a short time before 
being needed for something else. 

Since most peripherals need to hold 
data for quite a long time, they need 
to have some way of remembering the 
information while they use it, and 
long after the data bus has changed. 

Looking at Paula's innards on page 
A-22 of the Amiga aOO handbook - 
A- 20 for the 2000 - you'll see that the 
data bus is connected to a set of data 
registers, These are specialised 
memory circuits which slore small 
amounts of information and let the 
rest of the chip act on it. 

Although each separate block of 
circuitry - audio, disc, U ART, pot - 
within Paula has its own registers, 


Into the 
silicon 
underworld 

Rupert Goodwins dons the cans and 
plays Pluto to Paula's Eurydice 


they all link on to this internal data 
bus and share a common buffer. 

A buffer is a form of amplifier, 
w r hich takes the signals from the chip 
and beefs them up before they hit the 
outside world. They have a chance of 
surviving the long wires on the 
printed circuit board, the pulses of 
interference and electronic noise that 
infest a computer circuit. The buffer 
also cleans up signals that come in 
from the cold before passing them on 
to the rest of the silicon. 

As all the circuits inside Paula 
share the buffer, only one set of pins 
is needed on the chip to connect to 
the data bus outside. Pins are a 
perennial problem for the engineers 
who build chips: even the biggest 
physical package can only have about 
1U0 pins on it. 


T he bigger the package, the more 
expensive it is to produce, so 
the tendency is towards smaller 
packages with fewer pins. But the 
more complex a circuit, the more 
signals it needs to communicate with 
the outside world, so the more pins it 
needs. Anything that reduces the pin 
count, therefore, is regarded w r ith 
relief. 

You could, of course, split 



52 A MIC A COMPUTING September 1988 



■HARDWARE* 


p 


e 

if 


i 


n 


Jt 


e 


t 

t 



everything into separate packages, But 
this costs a lot and makes the circuit 
board difficult to design. So lots of 
different functions get stuffed into one 
chip. Like Paula. 

Control is what it's all about. As 
well as the common data bus buffer, 
Paula’s disparate bits share register 
address. DMA and interrupt logic. 
Register address is the stuff that 
selects which bit gets the data bus 
when. It comes from Fat Agnus; it 
works like the main address bus 
which determines which bit of 
memory connects to the databus at 
what time, Fat Agnus is the memory 
controller - amongst others - and it 
sometimes needs to he able to tell 
Paula and Denise, the video chip, 
who some data is intended for. 

That's where DMA, Direct Memory 
Access, comes in. In earlieT computer 
systems - some more recent ones, too 
- the only thing that could get at the 
ram was the central processor. It. and 
it alone, could transfer data from the 
peripherals to memory and out again. 

This meant that performance was 
limited and that the processor spent 
most of its time doing nothing 
cleverer than, imitating several pieces 
of wire. By letting the peripherals 
read and write directly to memory 
(DMA. ..all make sense, really], the 
theory goes, the processor can spend 


more time working out sums and the 
speed of information ladled out to 
screens, speakers and discs increased. 

However, when there are lots of 
peripherals with DMA capabilities, 
there needs to he some clever 
circuitry' to decide who gets 
precedence. At the bottom of it all, 
there's only one set of ram chips and 
only one device can get at them a| 
once. 


Y/\/ ^ al h a PP fins w hen Paula 

V V decides that it’s time for 
some sound data. Denise wants to 
read some sprite data and the 68000 — 
probably miffed at not having a name 

- demands another instruction, all at 
the same time? 

If they all put the address of their 
data on to the address bus 
simultaneously the only output will 
be olfactory as the delicate fragrance 
of fried package competes with that of 
cold pizza in the design Jab, A 
distinctive mix, known as Crie du 
Despair in the trade, 

Fat Agnus considers all the requests 

— Paula’s comes from the DMA 
request logic in the top left hand 
corner of the block diagram - and 
provides data for one lucky chip. 
While Paula or Denise are receiving 


data, the processor can’t get at the 
memory', as the control signal which 
says M OK. come and get your data 1 ' is 
kept waiting, so in practice some of 
the advantages of DMA are lost. 

However, by clever design the 512k 
nf expansion memory can be accessed 
by the fiflOOO while the rest of the 
gang arc troughing away at the lower 
chip or display memory, so programs 
run faster and owners are smugger. 

Also, the display memory can 
accept or produce information twice 
as fast as the processor requests it. 
which means the custom chips can 
often slip in a quick transfer behind 
the fiflOtJO’s back. And it’s not always 
possible to interleave everything, 
which is why sound sometimes gets 
held up while the disc drive is being 
used. Such intrigue; worthy of Dallas 
at its steamiest. 

The last common block in Paula is 
the tersely named Int Control Logic 
and its associated registers. Interrupts 
are signals which tell the processor to 
stop what it’s doing and attend to an 
urgent request. 

For example, the UART section in 
Paula is often hooked up to a modem, 
and the RFC block collects the 
incoming stream of bits in a buffer. 
After nine or ten hits, the UART has a 

► 




Sttfitnmher t9W AMIGA COMPUTING 53 





me. Thank you. Now imagine that 
you've got 16 bits of data which, if all 
ones, will represent one volt and, if 
all zeros* represent zilcho, 

Take the First bit, Connect it to a 
potential divider which produces one 
tenth of the input voltage, and you'll 
get 0.5 volts if the bit is at a one (5 
volts}, and nowt if the bit is zero (0 
volts). Connect the second bit to a 
potential divider that produces one 
twentieth of the input voltage “0,25 
volts and 0 volts. Third bit goes to a 
one fourtieth divider - 0.125v and 0, 
and so on. 

If you add all the voltages up for all 
bits being one, you 1 !! get one volt. 

And as the number represented by 
the 16 bits is decremented 
(compuspeak for "has one subtracted 
from it”), the sum of all the voltages 
from the 16 potential dividers falls 
towards zero. So, add up all the 
voltages and you can have any 
voltage you like. That’s an analogue 
voltage; analogue means smoothly 
changeable, In an analogue w r alch the 


complete byte of information, and the 
next byte starts coming in 
immediately. So the CART raises an 
interrupt, which the 60000 gels. This 
tells it that it has to retrieve the new 
byte from Paula and do something 
with it. so that the receive data buffer 
can be cleared ready for the next 
time. 

Of course, the 68000 could spend 
all its time checking the buffer, but 
then it wouldn't be able to do 
anything else. As the audio circuitry, 
the disc interface and other bits can 
all generate interrupts, Paula also 
gives each type an individual 
interrupt number. This lets the HBtKJO 
know who needs attention, and react 
accordingly. 

Remember the sound? Now Paula 
has the data, the control signals and 
the connections, it can make whoopie, 
Sound is a series of changing air 
pressure levels, like the weather but 
about a hundred million times faster, 

A loudspeaker has a cone or sheet 
of material, and uses an 
electromagnet to convert a voltage to 
the position of that material. If the 
voltage changes fast enough, the 
movement of the cone produces 
waves of air pressure changes that we 
perceive as sound. So all the 
computer has to do is produce a 
changing voltage that matches sound 


waves, and we have liftoff. 

The Amiga, and all digital 
computers, are happiest when dealing 
with numbers in binary form. And 
those are what Paula will get from the 
data bus - a set of voltages which will 
either be 5 volts or zero. It’s 
surprisingly easy to turn these into a 
single, fully variable voltage. 
Remember resistors? These are 
electronic components which, among 
other functions, reduce voltages. If 
you take two resistors of the same 
size, connect them together in a series 
configuration and put the w r hole lot 
across a voltage then the point 
between the two resistors will end up 
at half the main voltage. This is called 
a potential divider, as the two 
resistors divide the voltage between 
them, 

I f you make the top one bigger, 
then the voltage in the middle 
drops, and if you make the bottom 
one bigger the reverse happens. So by 
judicious choice of resistor values, 
you can make a potential divider 
which, given 5 volts at the top, 
produces any voltage helnw r 5 volts, 
naturally* al the junction of the two 
voltages. 

Now imagine you want to produce 
an audio signal with a peak value of 1 
volt, No, I don't know r w r hy you'd 
want to either, but imagine, just for 


hands don’t skip from 3 to 4* they 
smoothly sweep out the space 
between. 

That’s the principle of operation of 
a digital-to-analogue converter. Look 
at page A-22 (A-20 if you have a 
2000) again. Two boxes* marked D to 
A Conv, arc connected to Left and 
Right Audio Output. Each box 
contains two digital-to-analogue 
converters, and together make up the 
four channels of audio the Amiga 
boasts. 

But if the processor had to provide 
every value for all four channels at 
the rates that music demands - over 
twenty thousand times a second - it 
wouldn't have much time to check for 
keypresses, work out what to do next, 
or any of the tasks that a good game 
nr utility demands, 

Repetition is the name of the game 
wrilh audio signals. Most musical 
noises are a single waveshape 
repeated hundreds or thousands times 
a second. This rate of repetition gives 
the note - thousands of times a 
second is a high frequency, and 
hundreds a low one. 

Different sounds have different 
shapes: a flute's waveshape is a sine 
wave (as seen in a thousand science- 
fiction films on the screens of the 
decomfibulalory machine), an oboe 
tends towards a triangle shape, and 
violins and pianos have a complex 
waveshape w r hich defies description 


54 AMIGA COMPUTING September 1988 




■HARDWARE* 


but bears repetition. And the Amiga, 
with its sophisticated DMA and 
interrupt structure, helps to do this. 

Write a set of numbers into the 
display ram which correspond to Ihe 
amplitude of the waveshape at a 
particular time - starting out as zero, 
rising to a maximum in a straight Jinc 
and dropping back to zero again, in 
the case of an oboeish note. 

Then tell Paula and Fat Agnus (look 
at page A-17 — Fat Agnus has some 
audio control registers too) where the 


than basic repetition going for it 
{scratch devotees take note). But mosl 
of the frilly bits — the dynamics as 
music gets louder and softer, the 
changes in the sound of the note as 
the note goes on - take place over 
appreciable fractions of a second. The 
processor can load in new bits of 
wav et able as it likes, because the 
difficult business of shovelling out the 
information is automated it’s got 
loads of time to work out the niceties. 


rid of high frequencies, because the 
process of generating sounds by 
rapidly changing digital values can 
also generate some unwanted and 
unsightly side noises. These are, by 
and large, much higher in frequency 
than the desired notes, and can easily 
be disposed of by the sort of simple 
circuits on page F-5. 

Inside Paula there remain the two 
blocks called disc and pot. Disc can 
safely he left for another day. And 
pot? True, these Californians are 


wave starts, where it finishes and how 
many times a second it is to be 
repealed. Voila. A note will play, and 
the processor can go away and worry 
about intergalactic megadeath again. 

Every time Paula has to read some 
more data from memory to continue 
the note it can make a DMA request, 
and Fat Agnus can grant access. 

When the time comes to start the 
wave again, the circuitry recalls the 
beginning of the area of ram with the 
data in it and carries on. 

Of course, music has a lot more 


UTSTDE Paula, there's not 
much to worry about. Page F-5 
shows the attendant circuitry that 
lives between the audio output lines 
and the chip itself. The triangles, U14 
to a man, are amplifiers in a chip. 

The resistors and capacitors that 
surround them form a rather simple 
form of tone control. 

It’s much like the gubbins that hang 
off your graphic equaliser, except that 
the controls are fixed. Mostly, it gets 


amazingly laid hack, but in fact pot is 
short for potentiometer, a form of 
potential divider with a knob on so 
that the ratio of the two resistors can 
be changed at will by the user. 
Analogue joysticks use these, and the 
pot circuitry detects the changes in 
the voltage and turns them into digital 
numbers that the computer can read, 
And that's (most of) Paula. All this, 
just to say Game Over and play a 
little tune while you type in your high 
score, Wait until you see how they do 
the video . . . 



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June tm issue 


News gossip end an informed view with first details, on the 
Amiga 2500 *nd Amiga 3000 from |h$ Stevenage conferee, 
a speech by Commodore's President Max Toy and World 
exclusive preview of Workbench 1.3. 

Games tested exhaustively with a full review of Bard's 
Tele, the Electronic Art's ctassie rote playing game, Test 
Drive test driven by a professional motor tester. Argonaut 
software - the men behind the micros who created 
SlarGHder IL 

Business taken seriously with WordPerfect, it's the 
favourite word processor For IBM owner s but is if good 
enough for you? Suparbasa Personal. Precision Software's 
easy to use database under test. 

Hardware looked at in detail when JCL's digipic realtime 
video digihser takes a bow and Rupert Goodwins looks at 
the 24 pin Epson LQ-5QQ It's a perfect partner for tee A500, 
with a clear face, goad graphics and speedy carriage. 

Comprehensive 12 page buyers guide to hundreds of 
Amiga goodies. 

Plus programming advice, users hints and Christopher 
Humphries explains why the Amiga sounds better than any 
other micro. 


July IMS issue 


Interceptor, (lying hints and full appraisal. Plus a full 
interview with the people who brought it to your screens. 
Activision's Photon Paint Gold Disc's DTP. Give your ears a 
treat with a selection of sound samplers. Colour Printer 
compatison: The Star LC-lQ makes an impact, but the 
Okimate -20 is hot stuff. Programming in Basic cured of its 
spaghetti tenancies with a little help from the people who 
wrote it the first time. Game Kilter shows how 1o win at 
Bubble Bobble, StarGlidar and FiraPowsr. 

Beautiful graphics with the computer doing all the hard 
work thanks to Sculpt 3D. Make them move with Animate 
3D. 

Plus hints end tips, gossip from America, hot games 
reviews and reader's views 


August I9SS issue 


The Amiga #l the Edinburgh international festival Exclusive 
review of Alternative Reality, plus reviews of Mindshadow 
and Tima and Magik. In-depth review of Excellence! from 
Grown & Wagh. 

The latest news on telecommunications. Second part of 
the senes on creeling music on your Amiga. Full evaluation 
Of F-Basic. Xerox 4030 colour printer put to the test, Focus 
on Videoscape from Aegis. Rupel Goodwins totes the top 
off the Amiga and lakes a silicon stroll. 

Scrabble Deluxe, Star Ray. Thextter, Garrison li, Aaarghl, 
Leathernecks, Buggy Boy and fletumto Genesis reviewed. 
Game playing hints from Max Tennant. POwarWindows S.fr 
assessed How to beef up your Amiga with a 69020 board. A 
plain man's guide to CLI. RlicterFixer put to the test 

Plus all ypur letters, questions andl answers about the 
Amiga. 


TO ORDER PLEASE USE THE FORM ON PAGE 65 


56 AMIGA COMPUTING September 1986 




■PROGRAMMING! 


R EAL Programmers (RPs) do not 

use Pascal - it is too easy for 
mere users to comprehend. A Real 
Programmer produces code that 
cannot be understood by users, and 
preferably cannot be understood by 
other Real Programmers, or even the 
same Real Programmer at a later date. 
To this end, techniques such as block 
structure, variable names longer than 
one character, comments and local 
variables are useless. 

Real Programs should not be 
indented, and indeed should not have 
a structure that could ever be 
indented. Loops, if such are ever 
used, should be either five to a line, 
or span at least five pages. Concepts 
like types are only used to impart 
confusion, as all a Real Programmer 
cares about is the bits. 

Those of us who are not keen to 
enter the ranks of Real Programmers 
could do well to use Metaoomco's 
Pascal for the Amiga, This is now in 
its second version, having had hugs 
removed and functionality added. 

The compiler is provided on one 
disc, along with the linker, files for 
interfacing to the Amiga systems 


software and comprehensive 
examples. An added bonus, not 
documented in the manual, is the 
inclusion of the "make” utility from 
the Metacomco Toolkit, This tool is 
not specific to Pascal or the Amiga, 
hut originated on the Unix operating 
system as a general aid to compiling 
large programs of several modules. 

It could be the subject of many 
words, but 1 will limit myself to 
saying that it is a welcome sight, 
reducing the mental energy involved 
in keeping track of what needs 
recompiling in a large project. The 
compiler will quite happily run on a 
512k double drive system, and with a 
little perseverance could be used on a 
single drive system. 


A t this point it should be 

mentioned that this compiler is 
not an integrated environment. It 
comprises a program that takes Pascal 
source code in one end, and passes 
object code out the other. The source 
must be created using your favourite 
text editor, such as that on the 


Workbench. The compiler is not 
aware of the Workbench 
environment, the CLI must be used to 
drive it. Whether this is a good 
approach or not is a religious issue - 
given a number of programmers, 
there wifi be the same number or 
more opinions on the subject, 

I prefer this approach as 1 am 
happy with the editor I use and do 
my work from the CLI anyway, but 
others have different views, 

The 300 odd page manual is 
impressive. Not only does it explicitly 
document the details of Metacomco’s 
implementation of Pascal, but it gives 
a good description of the language in 
general. 

It would he possible, given a 
knowledge of other programming 
languages, to learn Pascal from this 
manual. It has sensible examples of 
the individual points, as well as some 
more heav weight examples of 
complete programs that make use of 
the Amiga’s features. Other sections 
cover the internal workings of the 
compiled code such that C or 
assembler could he combined with 

► 



Real Programmers 
turn the page 

Sam Littlewood compiles 
his opinions on Metacomco 
Pascal Version 2 



September 1988 AMIGA COMPUTING 57 



■PROGRAMMING! 


A 

Pascal and the differences from 
Borland's Turbo Pascal 
Metacomco Pascal conforms to the 
ISO Standard 71B5 - Specification for 
Computer Language Pascal, with 
extensions. The adherence has been 
validated, so code from other 
validated systems should be relatively 
easy to import. Any problems are 
going to come in the area of 
extensions to the Language. 

Just about every Pascal compiler 
provides extensions to make life 
easier for programmers. Those 
provided by Metacomco are good, 
bringing the system up to scratch as a 
serious development language. They 
must be explicitly turned on when 
compiling, otherwise the compiler 
will only accept standard Pascal In a 
similar vein, extensions are noted as 
such in the manual. 

The Lack of variable-steed strings 
has always been a much criticised 
mis-feature of Pascal. Metacomco 
Pascal has been extended with a new 
basic type for dynamic strings - 
‘STRING'. To supplement this, an 
appropriate set of string manipulation 
functions are included akin to those 
provided in Basic, 

An excellent set of extensions arc 
provided for using multiple source 
files, The first of these is the 
'INCLUDE* statement, other files can 
be included in the source as it is 
compiled. This allows constants and 
record definitions to he moved out 
into separate files, possibly for 
sharing by several source modules. 

T o call functions and procedures 
between modules there is an 
import and export mechanism, 
allowing one module to export a 
procedure and another to import it for 
use. This separation of a program into 
several Fdes not only allows better 
management of the code, but means 
that only the files that have been 
changed need be recompiled - the 
linking of the separate objects into 
one is done separately. 

These features are exploited by the 
example programs and by the set of 
‘include 1 files that define the interface 
to the Amiga systems routines. In 
these files, the names of constants, 
records, and record members are the 
same as those used in the C include 
fdes provided by Commodore. This 


allows sensible use of the existing 
Amiga documentation and books t as 
well as easing conversion of language 
code, 

A common extension of Pascal 
compilers is in the area of file- 
handling. Metacomco has addressed 
this area: a useful set of routines exist 
for manipulating named files, 
possibly in a random access manner. 

Another common area of expansion 
is to use ‘compiler directives'. These 
are special commands that tell the 
compiler what to do. This gives 
control of where the compiler will put 
error checking in your program, 
allowing working code to he speeded 
up, while still keeping suspect 
sections under scrutiny, 

Metacomco Pascal provides 
conditional compilation. This allows 
sections of code to be included or 
excluded from compilation. A 
common use of this is to allow 
debugging statements to be applied as 
necessary without editing them out. 

One of the features of Pascal is that 
it includes code in the compiled 
output to perform error checking. 

This can be in areas such as bad 
array subscripts, misuse of pointers 
and I/O, 

Other useful extensions include: 

The ‘OTHERWISE' keyword for use 
in CASE statements, specification of 
integer constants in binary, octal 
decimal or hexadecimal and bit 
twiddling operators similar to those in 
C vital for using the Amiga’s in-built 
routines. 

There is a comprehensive set of 
maths functions, the ability to use 
either single or double precision IEEE 
floating point, a miscellaneous 
collection of routines for interfacing 
to the system and other Languages for 
finding the memory address of an 
object, or its size and so on. 

The compiler was excellent in use. 

It produces a good range of 
meaningful errors, accompanied by 
the offending line. I! will stop at each 
error, the compilation can then be 
continued or aborted. This pausing 
can be disabled if you want, l had no 
unexpected problems bringing up 
code from another Pascal system. 

It was surprisingly fast - 
compilations tended to be limited by 
the speed of the disc rather than the 
compiler, However, the linker 
supplied* ALink, is not as spry. It 
would be advisable to obtain the 


shareware linker BLink as this is 
much faster. 

The size of the code produced by 
the compiler is not stunning, although 
this seems to be a combination of the 
error checking, which can be turned 
off, and Pascals inability to pre- 
inititalise variables, 

I n conclusion, Metacomco Pascal is 
a well documented, serious 
development tool It provides access 
to the features of the Amiga in a way 
that is consistent with existing 
documentation and programs. 

If you are experienced in Pascal or 
Amiga programming, you will have 
no problems with it. However, as it Is 
purely a Pascal compiler, nothing 
more, those of you starting from 
scratch will need documentation for 
the Amiga, and other tools to support 
your programming. A Real 
Programmer would not buy this 
product, as it makes programming too 
easy. He or she would tend to view 
compilers and assemblers - with the 
possible exception of Fortran - as 
crutches for those too weak to write 
machine code in hex. 


REPORT CARD 


Pascal Vnr&iun 2 
Metacomco ©272 4287R1 
£89.95 


USEFULNESS 


A great Pascal, but the Amiga is seen 
as a C engine and Pascal as antiquated. 


EASE OF USE., 


Programmer friendly interface, good 
error message handling, comprehensive 
documentation, generally good . 


INTUITION HHhTT 

Runs from CLI not Workbench but 
obeys the rules and is as Amigarised as 
you would expec t from the people who 
wrote AmigaDos . 


SPEED.. 

Impressively swift, only time for instant 
coffee while waiting fur a compile. The 
resultant code is no slouch 


VALVE. 

A professional piece of programming at 
a sub- professional price , but still a bit 
steep on the hobby user's plastic. 


OVERALL 


The best Pascal a callable for the 
Amiga. However the industry's move to 
C devalues this accolade. 


58 AMIGA COMPlfllNG September 1988 









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M 

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A 

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T he Commodore Amiga family of systems has revitalised the 
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standard Amiga user interface 
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Versions ofAPL.68000 are available for moat 68000-based computers . 








■LETTERS* 



RTFM? 

CONGRATULATIONS on the maga- 
zinc, which J find enjoyable, informa- 
tive and much the best of the British 
Amiga mags. I do, however, have one 
complaint concerning Amiga Answers, 
vour problem page. In the July edition 
this section contained tour queries, the 
answers to two of which can be found 
in the manuals supplied with the 
equipment. 

The memory expansion question is 
answered on page 1 of Introduction to 
the 501 which comes with the expan- 
sion, and the question about dragging 
multiple icons is answered on page 
4-34 of Introduction to the Amiga SOD, 
also supplied with the machine. 

Given the amount of space - far too 
little - allocated to this important sec- 
tion of your magazine T feel that it 
should be devoted to the solution of 
genuine problems and not to giving a 
free ride to people who can't be both- 
ered to read manuals properly. 

P. Kenton, 

Liverpool. 

General Assembly 

1 HAVE recently bought an Amiga 500. 
Gould you tell me which is the best 
commercial assembler available at the 
present time? 

S. Winstantey, 
Colchester, 

For a fully featured assembler you 
should look at the Metacomco ( 0272 - 
42871} offering. This tends to be 
favoured by programmers who arc 
used to mini and mainframe com- 
puters . Devpac from Hi so ft (0525 
718181} runs very' much faster, but has 
fewer enhancements. The cheapest 
offering is K-Seka from Kuma (07357- 
4335 ), - Ed. 

Upgrade problems 

1 AM upgrading to an Amiga from an 
Amstrad PCW so 1 know very little 
about the Amiga and the software 
available for it, I will be wanting to 
purchase software for graphics and 


sound editing hut T am unsure as to 
which packages are most suitable. 

As I am a hobbyist. I only want to 
pay about £60 for each package but 
also expect good quality output from 
them. The graphics package needs to 
be suitable for cartoon style frame 
work, 

J. Graham, 
Norfolk, 

(deafly you should look at the manuals 
for any product you are considering. 
Although 1 can't recommend any 
dealers in Norfolk readers in London 
would be well advised to visit Pilot 
Software City. 

Your sound problems could be 
solved with Studio Magic, which costs 
£65 and is available from The Amiga 
Centre Scotland (081-557 4242). Your 
price limit rules out the Electronic Arts 
Deluxe series, so take a look at The 
Director, which is sold in the UK by I IB 
Marketing (0895 444433). 

Expansion possibilities 

I OWN an Amiga A500 with modulator 
and two external drives, and a few 
things T have read are giving me cause 
for concern. One of the reasons I 
bought the Amiga was because I was 
told that with the PC Bridgeboard - or 
is it Sidecar? - you can get TOO per cent 
compatibility with an IBM, Reading 
your magazine I get the impression that 
100 per cent compatibility can only be 
achieved on the A200Q, Is this true? 

I know you can get a PC transformer 
for the A500, but it doesn't offer full 
compatibility. Is there a bridgehoard 
foT the AnOO? Is the Pacific Peripherals 


Write to: The Editor, Amiga 
Computing, 78-84 On gar Road, 
Brentwood. Essex, CM 15 9BG. 
We'll send the writer of the best 
letter each month u program from 
our goodie drawer , 


Sub -system 500 a bridgeboard for the 
A5Q0? 

Reading July's Amiga Answers 1 got 
the impression that the A500 is not 
easily expandable past 1Mb. Is this 
true? Arc the two new Amigas aimed at 
the business market and will they be 
compatible with all existing Amiga 
software? What is a genlock? 

Instead of a monitor 1 use a Min CTV 
which causes unbearable flicker in 
interlace mode. Is there an anti-flicker 
screen for such situations? Can the new 
processor (68030) and maths 
coprocessor (68802) be fitted to my 
A500? 

Which 20Mb hard drive would best 
suit my computer? 

W, Andrew, 
Did ham. 

Let r s take yo ur problems step by step. If 
you have two external drives we hope 
that you are using a second power 
supply for the thin 1 drive (DF2.) as the 
A 500 power supply can't cope with 
three. 

Sidecar is the PC add-on for the 
Amiga 1000. Bridgeboard offers the 
same thing for the Amiga 2000 , It 
might he possible to rig up a Sidecar 
fora 500, hut Commodore advises that 
attaching the two would make Sidecar 
unreliable. Most of your questions 
about the Pacific Peripherals Sub- 
system are answered in our review ; ft is 
not a bridgeboard. just an expansion 
cage. It does not have PC slots, so there 
is nowhere for the bridge to go to. 

Expanding an A 500 to 1 Mb is easy - 
fust fit the ASU1 expansion pack. 
Beyond that you cither need something 
like the Subsystem or the Spirit 
Inboard. The Inboard slots into the 
same hole as the A501 but contains up 
to 2Mb . 

Unfortunately, due to the world 
Dram {memory chip } shortage, these 
have become very difficult to get and 
arc very expensive. If you can End one 

► 


September isaa AMIGA COMPUTING 61 




■LETTERS* 


expect to pay around £1,000 for it 

The A 2500 machines are A 2000s 
with special expansion cards fitted , 
While they will he very expensive - 
don't expect too much change from 
£10,000 for the 100Mb Unix system - 
they will be A 2 000s under the gloss. 
Switch on an A2500UX with the left 
mouse button held down and it will 
run Interceptor as easily as your 500 , 

Video equipment is very fussy about 
when it should receive its signals, Send 
an image at the wrong time and 
everything goes haywire. A genlock is 
an interface between the video output 
of a computer and the video input of a 
recorder, mixing desk , Quantel Harry 
whatever other digital effects generator 
you happen to own. It sorts out the 
timing and makes sure the signals are 
there when the video wants them.. 

The flicker is caused by the Amiga 
sending more information than Can be 
displayed on a norniai screen. To 
eliminate it you need a monitor with a 
higher scan rate. Then your computer 
needs to send the signals in a form that 
the high scan rate monitor can use. 

The Microway FfickerFixer only 
works in a t 12000: there are no video 


slots in the Sub system. Commodore's 
Enhanced Chip Set (ECS) will offer 
non-in ter laced high resolution modes, 
but no release date has been set - our 
guess is early summer 1989 - and will 
still require £400 worth of monitor. A 
here and now option would be a long 
persistence monitor which would 
smear when anything moved. 

There are companies which build 
mini-computers based on a 68020 so 
unless you have some huge number 
crunching tasks to do - astrophysics, 
ray tracing, that kind of thing — putting 
a 68030 in an A500 is a bit like fitting a 
Jet engine to a C5. 

The Supra hard drive from Precision 
Distribution (01-336 7166 } is the 
neatest hard disc. 

Sound sampler 

I AM a young Amiga 500 owner and 
I'm writing for various reasons. Which 
is the best value sampler around? 
Would you recommend a head- 
cleaning disc, as I have heard that they 
can damage the heads* and if you 
would, how much and where from? 

Peter White, 
Sheffield. 

Our survey in the July issue of Amiga 


Computing found the Eidersoff (0708 
856468) Pro-Sound sampler to offer the 
best value for money. Rumour has it 
that Y2 Computers (0923 50161) is 
planning a cheaper , mono, rival. If you 
brushed your teeth every half hour you 
would damage them. Disc drive heads 
also need cleaning t but overdoing it 
can damage them. Once every 18 
months should be about right , 

Game creator 

PLEASE could you tell me what I need 
to be able to program games on the 
Amiga 500. I wish to be able to pro- 
gram games which are like bought 
ones in terms of quality. Will I only 
need a language such as C ot will I 
need an assembler or compiler lan- 
guage as well? 

Reuben Wilkinson, 
Herts. 

first you need to learn to program. 
Amiga Basic is a good place to start 
because you have a free copy with your 
machine. Top notch games are written 
in assembler, hut C is a good stepping 
stone. For a quick so hit ion to your 
problem look out for Shoot-em-up 
Construction Kit - Ed, 


fc 


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CASTLE COMPUTERS THE COMPETENT MAIL ORDER COMPANY 


63 AMIGA COMPUTING September 19M 



■ A D V I C E ■ 


Amiga Answers 


Infected 

Q 'Vmv that the Amiga A 500 has 
dropped so sharply in price r it 
is quite likely that 1 will upgrade from 
my humble Commodore 04. However, 
the one thing that worries me is the 
virus. Also, with the arrival of the Byte 
Bandit if seems that it is becoming 
harder to track down these armoring 
programs . 

How do you use the disc sector 
editor to find the virus and how do you 
recognise it? Once you have found it, 
how do you get rid of it? What editors 
are on the market , which one i you id 
you recommend and how much is it? 

B Moffat, 
Fife. 

i\ If you look at track 0 sectors 0. 

A 1 and 2 you should find the 
boot sector. Unfortunately the way the 
Amiga creates the boot sector means 
that while only the first few bytes are 
used, the rest is junk from memory. 
You would need to disassemble the 
code to find out what it does. 

Getting rid of a virus is easy^ just pop 
into CL1, and INSTALL the disc. Secto- 
rama is a public domain sector editor. 
You will be able to get a copy from 
ICPUG, the Amiga User Group, George 
I hompson Associates or your fave 
source of PD software. While you are at 
it get a copy of VirusX, the Pll virus 
killer. 


Solve your Amiga anxiety with a 
letter to Amiga Answers, Our 
panel of experts is ready to sort 
out ail kinds of tricky problems. 
From machine code to midi, 
communications to compilers. 
Whatever your question our 
team will find the answer , 

We cannot deaf with enquiries 
personally so phase don't send 
an SAE But we do need loads of 
questions. So write to Amiga 
Answers. Amiga Computing, 
North House, 78-84 On gar Road, 
Brentwood, Essex, CM 15 9BG. 

escape codes and sending the file direct 
to the parallel port to bypass the Pref- 
erences but ah I get is part of the escape 
code printed in the text 
Please could you tell me if there is 
any way that I could get the printer to 
carry out all of its features while using 
it with an Amiga 500 ? I was told that 
the Star LC-10 is compatible with the 
Amiga, but, is the Amiga compatible 
with the Star LC-10? 

Steve Walker, 
Eastbourne, 

l You can use the ((C)) com- 
mand which won’t do quad 
sized text but does all the useful things 
like colour and font settings. 

Star colour 


Bright Star 

Q / have fust purchased a Star 
LC-10 printer , an amazing 
piece of hardware, and it definitely 
shines brighter than the competition in 
the price range, However I have a prob- 
iem with some of the printer escape 
codes , 

While going through the LC-UTs 
printing features the Star manual gives 
the escape codes for expanded, double 
height and quad-sized characters for 
example, but there is no equivalent 
escape codes within the Amiga pref- 
erences. I use Scribble t for word 
processing and find the same problem . 

1 have tried embedding the Star 


Those readers who have, or are 
thinking of purchasing a colour printer 
similar to the Star LC-10 reviewed in 
your July issue, may be interested in 
the way in which the printer can be 
toid to print colour without affecting 
the format. 

I use a Citizen HQ P-40 printer fitted 
with the coiour option and the Scribble! 
word processor. The Epson fX -80 prin- 
ter option is used from Preferences, 
with colour chosen from the graphics 
page of course. 

Firstly, define the control codes at 
the start of your document with the dot 
commands like this: 

,#0/Q=%2?f30m (sets the foreground 
colour to BLACK) 

.#l/0—%27[31m ( sets the foreground 
coiour to ORANGE) 


,#2/Q—%27{32m (sets the foreground 
colour to GREEN) 

■ #3/0= 9b 2 7 [3 3 m (sets the foreground 
colour to YELLOW) 

<#4/0=%27[34m (sets the foreground 
colour to PURPLE) 

.#5//?= %27f35m (sets the fores; ro und 
coiour to RED) 

#6/0= % 27 [36m (sets the foreground 
colour to CYAN) 

When you want to change the colour 
of your test fust press LEFT AMIGA + 
G and you will get a little box with a c 
in it. Follow this with a number for the 
colour you want O to G , The printer will 
keep printing in the colour of the last 
command until you tell it otherwise. 

If you have a different word 
processor to Scribble! you mav have to 
set the escape code differently, but you 
should be able to work out what vou 
need , 

John Farrar t 
Cornwall. 

Musical muses 

/ bought my A500 some six 
months ago , along with a moni- 
tor, second drive, and printer, which of 
course made a considerable hole in my 
hank balance. I had intentions at the 
time of adding a Midi in ter face once 
the finances had a chance to right 
themselves , 

That time has now happily arrived, 
but I find myself increasingly confused 
as to how to go about building a system 
which will interface a fairly cheap 
(under' £300) synth to the Amiga, 
enable the Amiga to be used as a digital 
“tape” recorder for keyboarded music 
in real time, and store music con- 
structed with a 'construction set’ tvpe 
program. 

f also want to be able to edit this data, 
in a reasonably user-friendly way for 
storage and playback. 

MJ Elliot, 
Lowestoft. 

Date! (0782 744707) offers the 
best value Midi box, while 
Triangle Television (01-887 1726) has 
the best selection of music programs. 
We think you will he surprised to find 
that the software is more expensive 
than the hardware, 


September 19SS AMIGA COMPUTING 63 


\£^eo M P U T 1 N 

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94 AMIGA COMPUTING September was 





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.September iffffS AMIGA COMPUTING 65 



S ITTING next to the processor 
inside your Amiga is a 256k 
rom, In the days of yore when there 
were eight bits to a bus this was a 
iotta lotta memory. Now things are a 
shade bigger and fitting an operating 
system - or at least most of an 
operating system, because much of 
the Amiga's code is in the libraries on 
the Workbench disc - into such an 
area is a squeeze. The programmers 
got so tight on space that they waited 
until the beginning of the next month 
to save a hyte in the date string. 

* * * 

P IRACY is a problem. The demise 
of one large team of hackers 
may reduce the number of pirated 
copies but it is really a moral 
judgement. A bit like saying that your 


Guru’s 

haunt 

town would be easier to drive 
through if no one parked on yellow 
lines, yet everyone does it. 

We’ve never seen the effects of 
actually getting people to stop 
parking on yellow lines! but the 
benefits of killing piracy were made 
clear when Electronic Art’s 
Interceptor was launched in June. The 
week before Interceptor came out the 
Amiga had 1.6 per cent of the 
Gallup's chart. (The ST had 4.4 per 
cent.] 

When Interceptor hit the shelves it 
grew to 2.5 per cent. This remarkable 
increase promoted the Amiga from 


being the market number eight to 
number five. 

Interceptor was not pirated, The 
code wheel and good security at 
Electronic Arts helped, and the result 
was that a lot of copies were sold. 

The more often this happens the more 
likely software houses are to put the 
effort into producing really good 
programs. 

It is no good saying that people 
bought Interceptor because it was 
good. If they could have pirated a 
copy they would have done so. As it 
is, games players ordered the game 
when the local shop ran out of copies. 

This Christmas is going to be very 
important for the Amiga. If we buy a 
lot of games, more will be written for 
the machine in the future. Rip off the 
software houses, and we kill our 
Amigo, 


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GG AMIGA COMPUTING September 19IW 



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^ Phone 0244 312666 ^ 


C/5 m O — do "D mroj>H>miDZ 






The trilogy 


Interactive fiction 

from Level Q 


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. 

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 - Ziap 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. 



Europa House, Adlingtoti Park, 

Adlington, Macclesfield SKI 0 4NP 

ENQUIRIES: 0625 878888 ORDER HOTLINE: 0625 879920 



Spectrum (cassette) Plus 3 (disc) 
Commodore 64 (cassette or disc) 
Amstrad CPC (cassette or disc) 
Atari XL/XE (cassette or disc) 
Amstrad PCW (disc) 

‘ ppl, """“’ £ 14.95 


Atari ST 

Commodore Amiga 
Macintosh 
Amstrad PC, IBM PC 
and compatibles 


£ 13.95 


Available from all good stockists or order direct by sending a 
cheque or postal order made payable to Mandarin, together with 
your name and address. Price includes P&P. Access/Vise owners: 
Phone our hotline or send your card number with your order.