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Volume 1 
Number 12 
May 1989 
£1.95 


A Database Publication 




Boogie to functions 


FUNKYBASIC CARTOON 

CAPERS 

-•“M Animation goes Wysiwyg 


MACHINE CODE 

Subroutine safari 





COMMODORE 


Pack Includes; 

A50Q CPU . Mouse, P,S,U.,T.V. Modulator, Very 
Fits! Tutorial , Workbench 1-3, Basic, Extras and 
Manuals. 

PLUS POSTRONIX BONUS PACK 
WORTH OVER £250 which includes 10 Blank 

Disks, Disk Storage Box, 111 Excellent Games, Mouse Mat, 
Mouse Bracket (Mouse Holder) Deluxe Paint. 


£ 399.00 


f £5 .00 post and packing 


AMIGA 500 plus DISK DRIVE AMIGA 500 + 1084S 

Instruction Manuals, Extra Disk, Workbench L3, CT’C’DITO/ 

The Very First Tutorial, T V. Modulator, Photon S I ISKIIjxJ/ 

Paint, Mouse PLUS additional Amiga Compatible f^/Vr Af TI> \/IO\JT l TOl? 
Disk Drive and 10 Blank Disks. 1 WIV 


£ 449.00 


+ £5 oo post 

and oackinc;. 


(including the 
Arnica 500 deal) 


£ 649.00 


eking 


1084 HIGH RESOL UTION 


COLOUR MONITOR 


AMI GA 

1010 DISK DRIVE 


THE AMAZING AMIGA . . . 


1084$ STEREO/COLOUR 
MONITOR £2CQ 00 

Compatible with PC, toHOJ iVV 


mps 1200 P £229.99 

+ £5.U0 post and packing 

Hie Commodore MPS1200P printer presents the stale of the an in dox matrix printers, with all Ik features erf a printer that 
would cost much more. The MPS12Q0P rs designed to be like three primers in one. ll can act just like an Epson FX printe r. nr 
with the flip of a switch, il can art just like an IBM Graphics Printer with IBM Group ll-l character set (Danrah'TCurwegian 
character set) support. (i can also prim all the characters available with the A miga in the Amiga ccmfiguraiiori.The MPS 12XIP 
is capable of all the printing functions ynu would expert, as well as- some additional features you may not expert. 

MPS 1500C COLOUR PRINTER £199,99 

A. TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS + tf .QOpwl and packing 

PRINTING TECHNIQUE Impact dal matrix (9-nuxile print head). 

DRAFT MODE - matrix 9 vertical dots x (5 + 4) horizontal dots: - print speed : 120 chads, at IQMiar in 

TABULATION SPEED 2 charts 

PRINTING DIRECTION bi-drrcctiunal, with optimised head movement 

PRINT PITHES .. lOdharrti to 24charfin programmable from line, and in SET-UP mode 

LINEFEED * - U6in (4.23 mm), UB(3. 17 mm) and 1W. in (2.4 mm); -n/21(>inandjV?2in. 

CHARACTER SET ASCI I characters and special characters. 

MAX. PRINT LINE LENGTH ,,,...,40 top 192 characters, according to print pilch selected- 


AMIGA 1010 DISK DRIVE 


Amiga 3.5" external drive. Capacity 
PLUS FREE DISK 
STORAGE BOX & 

10 BLANK DISKS +£5.00 post aid puling 


. Capacity 880K 

£ 149.99 


A501 RAM 
PACK 

51ZK for the Amiga 


£ 149.99 

+ £5 .00 post and packing 








1 





... AND MORE BESIDES! 


THIS TOHCAL GAMES 
COMPENDIUM OFFERS A TRUE 
SPORTING CHALLENGE 

Flack smtairs; CWc Compoter L53CF 
Datastne . Quick short toystxfc, Maidipdiui 
rTcrintsj.Saooket. Wofid Char 
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DW^Tliomps 


m 


FAMILY 

ENTERTAINMENT 


diiw, Dafcv Thompsons Supericst. 
Hypeniwrt, Basketball. March, lay II 
llifcy Thompsons Decathlon . Basket 
Mi^cr, Trad ami Field. 


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PLUS POSTRONR BONIS PACK 
OF £10#OF FREE SOFTWARE 

£ 149.99 

4 ft.ltlpsi and packinz 


1541 II DISK DRIVE PACK 

Pack includes 

] 541 [I PLsk Drive. 90 Excelfknt Did Gam**, M Blank 
Bids. J&' Diskette Storage Box. AND GEffil 

£169.99 

+ C.IUpirtirdpaeki^ 


ICONTROLLER 

IconmoBcris semi pertnanently 
mounted cm jio«r computer console, 
lamtfoller kave hands on tbe 
keyboard whik cxrcutinfc Icon 
commands wills your fin^itips. 


wnsm 


A CHEAT DOUBLE THEME PACK 
OHIRING THEBESTOE HOLLYWOOD 
PLUS A COMPENDIUM OET.Y. GAME 


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. the family 

ran indudes: CMc Computer 1530 pma Casaette, Qwfatot It Joptiti. 
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5HS1 0 FM Digtfal Keyboard with Mid. GbcHthusier. Rrflaiwmd. TaiCeu . 
Agenfl X1L Sairpnse Game. 

Plus: K1S1RON1X BONUS PACK OF £100 OF 
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only £199.99 

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Park includes: CMc 1530 Data Cassette, Otiklulwt II Joystick, The Grwrt 
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Bkx±b«stefs. Bellseyc, Trivial Ptanuii. Krypton Factor. 


d Counts. 


Escape . Miami Vis, Pfuocn, Rambo. Top Gw, Every s 

only £149.99 

4 £5.00 post and pacimp: 


Plus: POSTRON1X BONUS PACK 
OF £1(10 OF FREE SOFTWARE 

mnsm 


A) (ISO RAM EXPANSION MODULE FOR CBM 12S 

Simply plug (I into chf expansion port do sour CBM L2S awl 5I2KL Bytes ol 
addilmnal lam are ivaiiiH; 


STARFIGHTER 

Compatible wiih Sinclair 
Spectrum, Commodore. Atari 
Computers. Atari 2600 Video 
Games Systems, 


CHALLENGER DELUXE 

Compatible willi Spectrum < with, 
optional interface). Commodore. 
Atari 1608 Vide* System. Atari 
Computers. Amstrad compotcm. 


0] 1351 COMMODORE MOUSE 

H. (Vimnwdrt US] Muuk i, MNpUaUnwKd far UK .lU Use rBM IWI28. 

C) I'M RAM EXPANSION MODL1EFOR COMMODOIIM 

Un. do you p: a Mlul (rfm Ram on vrw M. jufl ?lu| in tlK UM Module. 

a £149.99 b £19.99 c £99.99 

All pro* * fUHpM ind pickinj. 


CHEETAH 125+ 

Compatible with Spectrum, 
Commodore. Atari 2600 Video 
System. Atari- Amsind PC. 
Antral 


S EIKOSH A 

PRINTER 


SEIKOSHA 
PRINTER 

Compatible with mmi 
makes of Commodore 
compulm.- Features 
variety of fonts including. 

Graphics and neaj letter quality, reverse priming, italics. P | r Q rtA 
tractor feed and paper seperator. Cornes-complete with serial % ± J “ * Uv 
a bk, tLSKipaUandpidPC 


£8.95 


TAGS 

CONTROLLER 

JOYSTICK 

Compatible with Alari. 
Commodore. 

£13.99 


SLIKSTIK JOYSTICK 
CONTROLLER 

Compatible with Atari Comporeis. 
Atari Games System. Comnwdare. 


COMPETITION PRO 5000 

Compatible with Commodore tut and 
Vfc 20 L SinclaLrZXSpKmim (interface 
required). 


£14.95 


RAM DELTA DELUXE 
MICROSWITCH JOYSTICK 

Com partible mlb Atari computers and 
Video Games Machines. Amstrid PCW 1 
f with adaptor). Spectrum 
(iM adaptor) £Q QQ 

Commodore *7»77 


TAG 2 CONTROLLER 
JOYSTICK 

Compatible with Commodore^ 
and Vie 20 . Atari Computer*. 
Atari Game Systems. 


£10.99 


MICRO HANDLER MULTI 
FUNCTION JOYSTICK 

GompaliMt sMrth Commodore . Commodore 

Cifw -t-4 (adapter required j. 


£24.95 


ONLY AVAILABLE FRO 


m LTD 


A whole new range of innovative 
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only safe from dust but also all 
forms of accidental damage . 

LARGE STOCKS OF SOFTWARE & ACCESSORIES FOR A LI 16 BIT, 8 BIT COMPUTERS - ALSO 
ALL MAJOR GAME CONSOLES - PHONE (MM) 791771 NOW WITH YOUR REQUIREMENTS. 


€64 OLD STYLE 

£ 6.99 

C64C NEW STYLE 

£ 7.99 

AMIGA 500 

£ 9.99 

ATARI Sim 

£ 9.99 

ATARI mst 

£ 9.99 


33 


LEASfc neK H 


OKKlk APPLIES TOIK ONLY- OVERSEAS ORDERS CHARCEP AT OVERSEAS RATE. 




Managing Editor 

Derek Meakin 


AMIGA scene 


LANGUAGES 


Group Editor 
Alan McLachlan 

Editor 

Simim Rnckman 

Assistant Editor 

[eff Walker 

Production Editor 

Peter Glaver 


7 LATEST 

NEWS 

What goes down al Commodore? 
AmiExpn, looks pretty as a picture. 
Power Computing drives hard bargain. 
The smallest floppy, arid much more. 


ADVENTURES 



Libni'i'V ' 


/ V\ BASICALLY 
md FLAWED 

Why spend £60 when you get a Basic 
for free with your Amiga? Whatever 
Microsoft did wrong at least it look 
out most of the irritating hugs. 


SHOW REPORT 


Art Editors 
Mark Nolan 
Doug Steel 

News Editor 

Don Lewis 

Advertisemejif Manager 

Tohn Snowden 

Advertising Saks 

Wendy Colboune 


Edilurial: 0277 IU4M 

Admihidfialinn: 0122 BTBffiB 

Adl.'fftiainfl: 062-5 B7B m 

Subsirriptkins, OK-i B7R8+B 

Ttfcmn Gold: TONAGM1 

TdteJ: 

Fu: 0625 BftttG 

Pwri M»Hhuc: 6I45683K) 


Wstied bv: 

natihase Publications Ltd, 

Europa Houso. Arlington Park, 
Adlington. Vtatdesfidd SKID IMP, 

ISSN 0052 -E*EMa 

Amiga Diapotini welcMas irUdu far publi- 
utint. Utlerirl dboeld (m typed or cumpuLsr- 

peiMfd.iDd i^rdtlTdMhle-spKed. Program |j*. 

»F should be Hrampfiy by disc. Phase enclose 
a stamped; H>ltiiddr*s*d envelope, Oftennw He 
W tum Of malmal cainut be (jimraitisd. Coirfli- 
hvbiw on only \t accepted, for publiutin try 
hbbase P^jdlinjffinns, Lid on on i ll righrts beis. 
ig ina Deli base Pnhliraticms Ltd, No mulrnat may 
be leproductd u wkle or in pari withsul wristc 
permission. While tmf cue is (dm, ike pub- 
iisbn caimol W held bg?lhf responsible Par iny 
ffTwi d aikiei, lilting or advstnement 

Osmputtnf j I an m&pradrar pubfcstrafl 
md Com/aadire business Maciliw JIUCJ itf is 
MtMpotisriWr for any of Jfte urtrdes in Ab issue or 
for iny of Che tpnttiis e^pnssBd'. 

Sews trade distribution: turopress Saks and Cfe, 
tn button Limited. 1 >n« l, Hutjss, Rwd. EiyhouH 
Line. Kjsrincs. hs\ Susses TN35 4NR. Tel: M24 
■<30*K. 



MOUSE CONTROL 
IS THE FUTURE 


Enter Galdragon's Domain with Dave 
Eriksson in the latest point and click 
adventure. Plus Dungeon Master - 
vital hints to keep your team alive. 



WORDPERFECT 

LIBRARY 


Five programs which come from a 
top developer. You H d expect more 
than a manual to make it better than 
PD. You would be disappointed. 



AMIEXPO 
NEW YORK 


Simon Rockman visits the Big Apple 
to see what the majority of American 
Amigaphiles get up to wiih lots of 
memory and expensive hard discs, 


I 1 11 fi 



r >all 

tJL 1 r / /W--' 

■iJ'T'Ai ! ' ' 1 / t \ 

1 

\ 

\ 

Y 



> 

7 



t- 

i 


. 


Adventures Page 12 


GRAPHICS 


^ 7 ICON 

U m PAINT 

Four colours good, sixteen better, 
Give your Workbench the Joseph 
dreamcoat much with a graphics 
busting utility from Hi-Tension. 


COYER FEATURE 



GOLD DISK S 
MOVIESETTER 


John Kennedy wants to be the next 
Walt Disney. So he lays down some 
tracks with a great animation program 
from Canada 5 ? premier software house. 


MUSIC 



THE FIRST 
OPUS 


Music may be the only international 
language, bul getting your Amiga to 
go peep sometimes requires you to 
master reverse Polish notation. 


4 AMIGA COMPUTING Mty 1909 

















BASIC SERIES 


PRODUCTIVITY 


GAMES REVIEWS 



FUNKY 

KM JL FUNCTIONS 
Yould probably think that function 
definition in Basic is hard and boring. 
Well you are wrong, as Jeff Walker 
proves, with ease in his tutorial. 


PROGRAMMING 



ASSEMBLER 

TUTOR 


Rupert Goodwins gives up fruit in 
favour of subroutines, stacks and 
small furry animals in his MDVE.L 
from mangos to marmoset. 



Meddle with music Page 47 


IT "C MAKING 
KM KM MOVIES 

To ray trace or render? Does quality 
mean much more than speed? Sam 
Littlewood looks at some of the many 
problems faced by animators. 


GAMES REVIEWS 


fl A M1GA 

KM KM ARCADE 

New look games reviews, nol a punch 
pulled. Plus the hottest gossip on the 
new ones. Plus the exclusive Amiga 
Computing chart produced by GaJlup. 


MINTS 


f\ lL game 
KM JL KILLER 

Add a machine gun to your bike in 
Super Bang-On. Win with Sndan and 
get a touch of the infinite ammo from 
Activision's addictive Afterburner. 


GRAPHICS 



TRASHY 
TR SKETCH 


Australian software needs 1o smarten 
up its image. Alistair Scott draws his 
conclusions on a program which is a 
failure and would shame a Spectrum. 


LETTERS 


I FROM OUR 
KM ± POSTBAG 

Someone called Mark knows lots of 
long words. A Dutch ST owner dares 
to write, and colour printers cause 
many readers more driving problems. 



P/0. 

The very best reviews of beezer games. 

^ m Populous solves ommipotenoe problems. 

• Prospector is out of the Xordinary, 

• Afterburner takes to the skies. 

• Hostages doesn't hang around. 

• Cosmic Pirate plunders an Excellent 92%. 

• Captain Fizz gives the Blasterons what's coming to them. 

• Zany Golf proves greens arc good fur you as the top game. 

• Dcnaris breathes new life inlo the shoofem up. 
m The desolation of Prison gets depressing, 

• Chase proves some software is too expensive even at £10, 

• AH this, and more, starling on Page G£. 


May 1939 AMIGA COMPUTING 5 
















NOW DELUXEPAINT 
HAS ANIMATION 



Presenting AnimPalnt 

□elaKePaint 111 makes animation easy. With ihe AnimPaint feature, you 
tan create animation just by pressing one key to record your paint 
strokes, and another key to ploy them back. You con also use any multl- 
cd animation os a brush 
and paint with it, even in 
full 3-D, 


S Hew Paint Features 

DeluxePaint II I alsoadds sophisticated features to the number one Amiga 
point software: Extra-balfbrite support for 64 colours; direct overscan 
painting for desktop videb; wrap and tint brush modes for special effects; 

better font support; im- 
proved compression; and 
many performance en- 
hancements, including 
foster perspective. Product 
requires 1MB of RAM. 


SPECIAL UPGRADE OFFER; 

Upgrade new end save £50. (Recommended Relail Price £79.99 Ere. VAI) 
Send DeluxePaint II manual cover and £35 (£30 upgrade + £5 carriage) to 
Electronic Arts Ltd., 11/49 Station Road, Langley SL3 8YN r England. 
Allow 2-4 weeks delivery. DPoint I owners can upgrade far £55. 



ELECTRONIC ARTS* 




AMIGA SCENE 




Dr Rubin, a popular promotion 

Commodore 

regroups 

H AVING grown accus- 
tomed to renewed prof- 
itability, Commodore is 
restructuring its chain of 
command. We reported the 
appointment of Medhi Ali 
from Pepsi last month. 

He has been joined on the 
Board of Directors by Dr 
Henri Rubin who has headed 
up Commodore research and 
development for several 
years, This is part of the 
renewed vigour with which 
the company is attacking 
both development and mar- 
keting, 

Europe used to be treated 
as a whole, with all 12 
divisions reporting to Ger- 
many, but they will be re- 
structured into groups of 
three nr four countries which 
then report to Medhi Ali, It 
looks as though the UK will 
not fit into a European group 
and so the boss of Commo- 
dore UK t Steve Franklin, will 
report direct to Medhi at 
West Chester, Philadelphia. 

Marketing in the UK has 
seen an emphasis on 
bundles, with a number of 
distributors putting packs 
together. Commodore has 
new announced the official 
bundle, which will include a 
modulator, Nebulus, Star- 
Ray, Roger Rahbit and the 
Spritz paint program. 

What makes the deal really 
special is the inclusion of 
500 Air Miles. This means 
you can fly to Paris, Amster- 
dam or Brussels for free. The 
A5 00 bundle costs £499, but 
you will still be able to get 
ASOOs without the gubbins 
for £399. 


More power to 
your Amiga 


P OWER Computing is to 
release a range of Amiga 
upgrades for everyone from 
the impecunious A500 
owner to the richest A2000 
tycoon. The cheapest device 
is an add-on 3. Sin floppy 
drive which uses a multi- 
purpose printed circuit 
board. It will work with a 
number of drive mechan- 
isms, so even when your 
drive wears out you won't 
have to junk the whole unit. 

The company has more 
exciting, and expensive, 
add-ons which live up to the 
company name - modified 
versions of the Great Valley 
Products hard drives. 

GVP has a great reputation 
in America for building high 
quality Amiga drives, 
ranging from a 20 meg unit 
for the A500 at £499 to a 100 
meg Quantum drive for the 
A2DOO at £949. 

Quantum hard discs are 
very fast, with an 11 milli- 
second access time thanks to 
a cache controller. They 
have proved very popular 
with professional Amiga 
users in the US, 

All the A500 drives have 
special slots which can take 
up to 2 meg ram and 
autoboot roms. 

GVP's newest product is a 
6&030 card running at 
25Mhz which should he at 


least 10 times faster than a 
standard Amiga. It is only 
available for the A200Q and 
costs between £700 
unpopulated without the 
maths co-processor and 
£3,000 for a board with 8 
megs in simm modules. 

The Power/GVP 68030 
card is not tied to the Amiga 
bus speed which makes it 
very much faster than other 
speed-up boards. 

A new program from 
Power Computing is Video 
Magic, a desktop video pro- 
gram aimed at people who 
have to give presentations. 
This is a big market in the US 
and one which is rapidly 
growing in the boardrooms 
of Britain, 

The name belies the pro- 
gram’s audio capabilities, 
which allow pictures to be 
syncronised with sound, 
either using colour cycling, 
PASE animation files or by 
flipping static IFF pictures. 

When a presentation is 
complete it can be saved 
easily to an autoboot disc 
with a run-time module. The 
speaker can set up a script to 
run or trigger individual 
events using a remote con- 
trol which is included in the 
price of £79.95, 

For more details contact 
Power Computing 0234 
273000. 



An easy way to get mono 
art into the Amiga 

Scanner 

interface 

D esktop publishing is 
growing in importance 
on the Amiga. Gold Disk, 
which does the Professional 
Page DTP program, saw the 
need for a scanner so that 
users can get pictures into 
their documents and has 
produced an interface for the 
Canon 1X12 scanner. 

Citizen's 
micro drive 

L OVERS of small drives 
will be impressed by Citi- 
zen Europe’s OU disc drives. 
The new 3. Sin units are the 
world’s smallest measuring 
19.5 x 101.6 x 130 milli- 
metres, and weighing 320 
grams. This has been made 
possible by a side mounted 
disc head and specially 
designed carriage. This is 
about two thirds of the 
height of most Amiga drives 
without the outer casing. 


Colour DTP 
on show 

N EW developments due 
in the shops soon 
include the AT bridgeboard 
and the A590 haid drive. The 
Bridgeboard is now avail- 
able in the US and the A59D 
hard drive which has 
completed a pilot production 
run of 400 units and is in 
production in the Far East, 

A whole bunch of new 
toys were put on display at 
the CeBIT trade show in 
Hanover, There was a colour 
DTP package consisting of 



Coming . . . A590 hard drive 

an A2000 with 3 meg ram, 40 
meg hard disc, a flicker fixer, 
ProPage, Pro Draw and NEC 
Silentwriter LC890 Post- 
script compatible printer. 
The system will produce 
colour separations and can 
scan colour pictures using a 


Sharp scanner and the ASDG 
interface. A desktop video 
package for the A500 which 
includes an RGB splitter, 
digitiser and genlock was 
described as being attrac- 
tively priced. 

A high resolution board 
with 1,024 by 1,024 by 256 
colours - from a palette of 16 
million - was shown. This is 
still in the prototype stage 
and will only be available for 
the A2000. 

Commodore seems set to 
build on its success - Amiga 
software already outsells ST 
titles in the Gallup chart. IPs 
looking good. 


May 1 989 AMIGA COMPUTING 7 





Ami EXPO art was 
major attraction 



Louis Markova won the category for images created using 
three dimensional rendering and ray-tracing packages on the 
Amiga with Woodland 2 using an Amiga 2000 with 6 megs 
ram f Hurricane card , and Turbo Silver. He had to borrow 3 
megs for the picture. Louis is something of an Amiga celeb - 
rity. He must have spent hours defining the shapes. 


T HE first A mi EXPO Art 
and Video contest was a 
huge success with more than 
200 entrants and over 350 
images and videos totalling 
two hours of viewing time. 
Entries came from Canada, 
the continental US and 
Hawaii, The entrants were of 
all ages and a third of 
submissions came from 
female artists. Judges came 
from the Amiga and com- 
puter graphics communities. 



Giorgio Gomelsky won the 
Mixed Media award for 
works that combined com- 
puter generated video with 
live or prerecorded video 
with his “CIA” rock video , 
This has been shown on US 
TV. Giorgio is known as the 
Mad Russian and worked 
with a number of groups in 
the 1960s including the 
Beaties and the Rolling 
Stones , 

He used an Amiga 1000, 
Amiga 2000, Live , Sup- 
erGert, In vision. Deluxe 
Faint II, Page Flipper Plus 
Effects, Digi-View, Digi- 
Paint „ video switcher. A still 
shot really does not do the 
hard-hitting video justice. 



Jim Schanz was the winner 
in the 2D category for 
artworks created using paint 
programs with Burmese Pen- 
guin Hunt. This was the only 
winner with a normal Amiga 
500 and 1 meg. He used 
Deluxe Paint IT. It is a sure 
bet he’ll be first in the queue 
to buy a copy ofDpaint III. 


Commodore 
ups service 

C USTOMERS who have 
hit prohlems when 
claiming under warranty can 
take heart from a new system 
installed at Commodore, 
Using bar codes, it tracks 
every product through qual- 
ity control and distribution, 
recording each stage on a 
database, in the event of 
warranty claims, Commo- 
dore can obtain test and sales 
history on each item. 
Industrial software spe- 
cialist SystemBuild (0778 
344388) produced the pack- 
age in three weeks. It has 
been installed at Commo- 
dore's distribution centre in 
Peterborough and at a pack- 
ing depot in Gamlingay near 
Cambridge by QCD, the 
company responsible for 
quality control on all Com- 
modore products sold in the 
UK, 

Each product coming into 
the warehouse from Commo- 
dore’s various manufac- 
turing plants is unpacked for 
testing by QCD. The unique 
serial number marked on the 
product at the manufac- 
turing stage is logged into 
the System Build package 
which then produces its set 
of bar codes. 

As each product is 
checked, its progress 
through the system is 
recorded on the database. 


Innovation on an Amiga can win £500 


A NATIONWIDE search 
./Ids being launched by 
Commodore UK to find the 
most innovative use of an 
Amiga in the field of 
hobbies. 

The winner, who will 
collect equipment worth 
£5Q0, will be named at the 
Commodore Show organ- 


ised by Database Exhibitions 
and to be held from June 2 to 
4 at London's Novotel in 
Hammersmith. 

The Amiga is recognised 
as the leading computer in 
the leisure area, but most 
people tend to think of lei- 
sure computing only in 
terms of playing games'", 


said Dean Barra tt. Commo- 
dore's UK marketing 
manager. 

To reality the Amiga is 
being used for all sorts of 
leisure activities from bird 
watchers logging their latest 
sightings to horse racing 
enthusiasts keying in data to 
try and pick the winners. 

M We even heard of one 
reptile collector who keeps 
his pets in trim by working 
out their menus on the 
Amiga, The potential uses of 
the computer for leisure 
aervities is endless. We want 
to find out more about the 
diverse uses of the Amiga in 
the home”. 

All you need to do to enter 
the competition is to write a 


brief description of how the 
Amiga helps your hobby — 
no more than 500 words - 
and send it along with any 
support material on disc and 
the entry form to Amiga 
Computing. 

In turn, the editor will 
nominate the most outstan- 
ding entry received by the 
publication to go forward to 
the grand final which will be 
held at the Commodore 
Show, 

All finalists will be invited 
to demonstrate their innov- 
ations in a specially designed 
Leisures mu feature area. 

During the event, editors 
from the leading Commo- 
dore magazines will form a 
panel to select the winner. 


ENTRY FORM 


Name— 

Address. 


Daytime telephone— 

Send your entry Id Amiga Computing, Europa House, 
Adlington Park, Adlington, Macclesfield, Cheshire SKM 4NP. 


AMIGA COMPUTING May 1939 


- 


■AMIGA SCENE* 


Amiga v ST battle 
at Menzies stores 


T HE Amiga is set to take 
oti its main rival in a 
High Street bailie. Its 
protagonist is the Atari ST. 
the battlefront is spread 
throughout Menzies stores 
and to the victor could go the 
lion's share of Menzies' sales 
next Christmas. 

Menzies cut the number its 
shops stocking the S'f after 
disappointing sales last year 
and for the first time has 
brought in the Amiga as a 
serious challenger to the 
Atari mac h me- 
lt is a case of sussing out 
what the customers want", 
Menzies' merchandising 
manager Bob Shingleton 


told Amiga Computing, "The 
volume of Atari ST sales 
certainly did not come up to 
our expectations". 

Starting from March, Men- 
zies has cut back the number 
of stores stocking the ST 
from the Christmas figure of 
45 to 20, Fur a trial period, it 
has pul the Amiga into 14 
stores and will be moni- 
toring sales of both through* 
out spring and summer. 

The ai m of this exercise is 
to established which 1H hit 
hardware will be stocked in 
readiness for the next Christ- 
mas boom. It is thought 
unlikely that Menzies will 
opt for both machines. 


Accent on 
presentation 

T HE prestigious Desktop 
Publishing Show organ- 
ised by Database Exhibitions 
[0625 879970) will take on a 
new look this year with Pres- 
entations 'ttU, described as a 
unique “show within a 
show", highlighting the art 
of professional presentation. 

It will be held at the 
London Arena in the city's 
fast developing Docklands 
from October 4 to fi. 

PIRA, the leading inde- 
pendent advisory service, 


will combine with a team of 
recognised authorities to run 
a series of seminars covering 
the full range of communi- 
cation skills. 

Database Exhibitions man- 
aging director Michael 
Meakin said: " The new pro- 
fessionals in computer 
graphics and the more tradi- 
tionally based audio-visual 
specialists both have much 
to offer the marketplace 
individually, and even more 
to offer when they can come 
together in a single forum. 

"Converging technologies 
is the way forward, and this 
is what Presentations '89 is 
all about". 


Video via 
the Amiga 

Q uality video output 

for the Amiga has 
caused problems in the past 
but Fa rnham -based G2 Sys- 
tems believes it has now 
cracked them. 

G2 (0252 737151) has just 
launched its Amiga 
VideoCenter which it claims 
gives quality output at a 
reasonable price. 

II combines the facilities of 
a video mixer, genlock and 
PAL encoder, mixing incom- 
ing video signals with com- 
puter output either using 
sliding faders or under soft- 



ware control. G2 has not 
finalised pricing but pro- 
mised it would be under 
£600. 



PageStream joins 
the DTP battle 


JIM BUTTERFIELD 
reporting from Canada 


D esktop publishing sys- 

tems and PostScript 
interfaces are proliferating. 
PostScript is a proprietary 
system that allows text and 
drawings to be rendered to 
almost any level of detail. 
Using PostScript languages, 
a draft copy might he 
generated cm a suitably- 
equipped laser printer, 
followed by final output to a 
co m pati ble ty pesetter. 

Traditionally, the logic - 
and lots of supporting 
memory - has been built into 
the printer or typesetting 
device. This can be costly. 

New systems put the logic 
into the Amiga, This allows 
for PostScript drafts output 
to much less expensive prin- 
ters, but calls for a good deal 
of ram within the computer. 

Professional Page, a 
desktop publishing system 
by Gold Disk, started as a 
PostScript device only, but 
has been upgraded to allow 
output to dot matrix printers. 
Its output is essentially a 
screen pixel dump 

PrinlScript is a PostScript 
interpreter now shipping. 
This program acts as a Post- 
Script print driver and is 
usable with a variety of 
desktop publishing pro- 
grams that think they sire 
working directly with a Post- 
Script printer, 

PageStream is a desktop 
publishing system. It was 
formerly announced as Pub- 
lishing Partner, hut the soft- 
ware house apparently 
decided that there were too 
many PP names in the 
Amiga market. 

PageStream is long- 
awaited, partly because 


SoftLogic advertised it for 
almost a year before recently 
starting to ship; 

The print quality of this 
package is widely praised, 
but the initial release is 
reported to have a number of 
operating anomalies - bugs, 
or perhaps complex usage 
rules, 

Users on many networks 
are grouching because the 
Amiga doesn’t get the 
amount of attention in the 
press that they Feel it 
deserves. There is talk of 
campaigns to give the Amiga 
more visibility, especially in 
business applications. 

On one board employees 
of a Wall Street public rela- 
tion firm are outlining meth- 
ods to approach the media 
for better “Amiga con- 
sciousness". 

The Lattice C Compiler, 
version 5.0, has been slated 
for an upgrade for some time 
in fix problems on the initial 
release. After a number of 
production delays, the 
upgrade disc — identified as 
5.02 - has been shipped to 
ail registered users, 

The upgrade contains 
extensive replacement Hies 
and patches for the five-disc 
Lattice C system. You need 
only trigger the script file 
and ail upgrades will take 
place automatically, with 
requesters calling for inser- 
tion of the proper discs as 
needed. 

The modifications are 
extensive and the upgrade 
activity runs for about an 
hour on a Floppy disc system. 
Users' with a hard disc will 
see the time reduced to 15 
minutes. 


r 


May 1909 AMIGA COMPUTING 9 









D ATE L ELECTi^Op S < 




DAZ 




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AMIGA PRO SAMPLER STUDIO + DATEL JAMMER 


A tap qiilltf HUSH sampling 
system at a rcaUsfic prltt. 


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Q Realtime frequency display. 
Q Realtime Ltrel meter*. 

Q File# M^ed la fft format. 

Q Adjust able man Wl/— O—ttl 
record trl| hnl . 


J Variable sample rate A playback 
__ speed. 

~l Septette tertll line ware form 

windows A loom Function with Edit 
windows far flue accurate editing- 
Qj 3D shat of sound waveform. Ware 
editor to design your own 
waveform* Or adjust existing one* 
fj, Microphone A line Input 1/4*' Jed 
A pin connection*, 
y Software file* can be iiaed'withln 
other mu 


ONLY £69.99 fleam state asoom 000,2000 


To complement the Sample Studio the 
Date! Jsjttniet gives you a 6 octave 
keyboard to play A record pour sampled 

FEATURES:- 

4 track sequencer up to 9999 event*. 
^ Tempo A Beat controls. 

0 Mixer Cantrell on Instrument*. 

# Lead A Save sequence. 

9 Works on standard IFF Ole sounds. 


DEEP SCAN BURST 

Qj Copy an entire disk in under 60 

second*. 

|J Works with one drive or tWO- 
□ Multiple copy option allows you to 
make many copies from one 
original- 
ly Copy 1 Or 3 disk sides - up to SO 
tracks. 

Q Full verify Option 


NIBBLER 

□ Compatible with ANXJ/ 1000/3000. 

Q Easy to use Icon driven programme 
take* the mystery Out of disk 
backup. 

Q Special format parameter* for non- 
standard formats. 

ONLY £29.99 


NOTICE IBM COTTRIOHTACT 

DATEL EUSCTRGN1C5 Ltd. neither authorizes or condones the n* of Lt‘a 
products to reproduce copyright material It Is iUegflJ to make cople* of such 
material without the expressed consent of the copyright owners or thler 
beenceea. 


MIDI MUSIC 
MANAGER 

A TRULY PROFESSIONAL 

MIDI PACKAGE AT A 

REALISTIC PRICE 

Q Play sampled sound# on Amiga from 
any Midi track 

Q Full dubbing - listen to one track 
while recording another. 

Q Worka with many Midi Interfaces 
Including Date! Midi Master (Kt Ad) 

i_| 6 realtime Midi tracks for record/ 
playback. 

fj Adjustable track length - limited 
only by available memory. 

J Works with standard IFF file*. 

O NLY £39.99 

MIDI CABLES 

Q Tap quality. 

(_| 3 metre length. 

ONLY £6.99 pair 

UNBEATABLE VALUE 


LOGIC ANALYZER 

Q At last ■ logic analyser at a 
realistic price fur the Amiga 
computer. 

J The Datel Logie Analyzer give* 
yon many of the feature* found in 
Instruments coating thousands of 
pound*. 

Q Data In Hex, Decimal. Binary. 

Octal A Ascii 

Q Buffered Input*. CMOS A TTL 
compatible 

Q Specification* include a channel 
Input. 6K. memory, external trig. 
Internal iQMhi crystal clock, A 
ranges from 20-6 to 100-0. #*arch 
fncUltle* A word trigger. 

□ Load A save facilities. 

□ Complete with pod. 

only £99.99 


ACQUISITION UNIT 

|_J Turn your Amiga Into a sophist!' 
rated measuring Instrument 
capable of measuring « wide range 
«f data input*. 

Q Sample A display events from 
microseconds to hour* with 
amplitude* from mlUvnlt* to 60 
volts- 

Q A Hardware /Software package with 
very high spec, including: - 

DIGITAL 6COPG DISPLAY 3 channel 

Impute. Manual or continue* display. 

Tlxnebaae SOOmi / dir to 2Dtu/div 

accurate tc 8%, 

Q 6 bit flash conversion give* 2 
milli on samplea/aec. 

FLOTTFB DISPLAY 

Q Tfeaebu* range 1 sec to IDhr* per 
plot. 

All taaiura* found on unit* costing 

thousand! of pounds. 

ONLY £99.99 

PLEASE STATE A MOM 000/2000 


DATA 


MIDIMASTER 

□ Full Midi interface for A5O0/ l WO/ 

2000 [ptea** State model). 

□ Compatible with moat leading Midi 
package* [Including D/Mtuie). 

□ Midi In Midi Out x3 - Midi Thru. 

□ Fully Opto lariated. 

Q wo need to pay more - Full Midi 
standard. 

ONLY £34*99 

/*' SPECIAL OFFER!* \ 
BUY THE MIDIMASTER A 
THE MIDI MUSIC 
MANAGER TOGETHER FOR 

^ ONLY £59.99 J 


PRINTER LEADS 

Q 26 pin 'D‘ to 36 way Centronics 
parallel lead- l.2m length. 

□ AMO nr 1 000. please state. 

ONLY £8.99 


AMO 2 


iiin no a non 










dAtel 



EXTERNAL 3.5" DISC DRIVE 

Q Sllmllu 


r pro flic unit ■ 

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Top quality drive DiKbMtIUB- 


Q A npertdr styled eim finished In 


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1 meg unformatted cIpMltf- 
Good length cable far positioning 
on your leak etc , 


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£ 79.99 

SINGLE DRIVE 


ONLY £1 49.99 twin drive 

ADD €9 FOR COURIER DELIVERY IF REQUIRED 


EXTERNAL DRIVE SWITCH 

□ Switch In /out of external drive*. J DFl A DP2 controlled. 

Q ft* to Ob memory allocated for drive* jJ 

not cwnatly In u*S- ON L T 


between compute! A dxiverfa). 

£9.99 




| J nigh quality direct replacement fur 
mouK on the Amiga. 

Q Teflon glide* for smoother 

Q Rubber coated ball for minimum slip. 
_J Optical ayatem counting ■ SW/fitt 


ONLY £ 29.99 

COMPLETE 


c 


Spoclat off or - 

■I + i 

(worth £7.99/. 


y High quality miniature 3 way 
tpttk.tr unit* In dle-caat 
aluminium shelf cnelOSureS- 


U 30 watt* g ohm each. 

ONLY £39.99 Min 




EXTENSION CARD 

Q Available with /without calender/ 
clack option. 

Q Simply plug* internally into ABM 



GENISCAN GS4000 AMIGA 



ALL ORDERS NORMALLY DESPATCHED WITHIN 48 HRS 


HOW TO ORDER ... 


BY PHONE 

BY POST 

FAX 

CS'S 1 S 

[XX] 

0762 744292 

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Send chcqun/POs made 

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24hr Credit 

payable to 

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Card Line 

"Betel Electronics" 

OVERSEAS ADD £2 


PRICES AND SPECIFICATIONS CORRECT AT TIME OF PRESS 
AND SUBJECT TO CHANCE WITHOUT NOTICE 


LOW COST BAR 
CODE READER 

y Low price Bar Coda Reader. 

□ Model 430. high performance, low 
coat Bar Cade Reader. 

work* with any Amlga/sr computet 
ayatem {please state which] via the 
RS232 Interface 

Qj Feature* a hullt-ln aelf-testlng 
function. 

Q Features a diagnostic Indicator. 

□ Can read code* HAN UPC , Enter 
leaved 2 of H, Code 39, CODARAR, 

□ Come* complete with wand, ready 
to go. 

□ Easy to Install. 

ONLY £189.99 


y Switch In/out with switch supplied. 
J Fitted in minnte* - no soldering etc, 
□ Accept* 41358 DRams (»» K 
fitted]. 

Q With calendar/ clock onboard time/ 
date automatically hooted. 

_J Battery tucked to retain tlme/date- 

ONLY £19.99 

FOR STANDAHO CARD TO 
ACCEPT 91 2K 


ONLY £34.99 

FOR VERSION WITH CLOCK/ 

CALENDAR 

NH THESE PRICES ARE FOR BOARDS 
WITHOUT RAM CULPS, PHONE 0783 
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PHONE FOR LATEST FULLY 
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CALLERS WELCOME - Please reserve good* by telephone prior to visit. 



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GOVAN ROAD. FENTON, STOKE-ON-TRENT, ENGLAND. 



SALES ONLY 

TECHNICAL ONLY 


0782 744707 

0782 744824 




AMO 2 






Into a new 
domain 


> '' T- - - 


ft I \ 
4r ( %: x 






Dave Eriksson explores the 
generation of adventure games 
where point and click 
has replaced type and spell 


u''. - ■' 




12 AMIGA COMPUTING May 1939 



■ADVENTURES* 




the evil priests of Shoo I, 

The priests have resurrected the 
long dead wizard Azazael, who 
intends to seek vengeance on all 
mankind. His aim is to find the five 
lost power gems of Zafor and use 
them to control and enslave all who 
stand against him. 


Y OUR quest is to find the gems 
and return with them to the 
king. The Location of only one gem is 
known - it is in the hands of an evil 
Lich, an undead wizard, who rules 
the catacombs under the city. You 
stand no chance at all against the Lich 
and his minions unless you can 
retrieve the other gems, gaining 
experience, weapons and armour in 
the process. 

Leaving the castle you will meet 
many creatures, not all evil. Question 
them. Some will provide useful clues. 


A dventures are changing. 

Once there were only text 
games, anything graphic was ail in 
the mind. Then we had what we 
glibly called graphic adventures, 
similar types of games but with some 
pretty crude pictures that, if anything, 
destroyed the pictures your mind 
built up from the text. 

With the coming of the Amiga, 
these graphics took a healthy step 
forward. Some can actually improve 
our mental simulations of places far 
away in space and time. Mouse 
control is a logical roll forward. Apart 
from suiting us lazy types, it is an 
excellent way to keep a good flow of 
play, especially in role playing 
adventures. In the jargon Dungeon 
Master is "third generation". 

A new adventure in this category is 
GaJdregons Domain from Pandora 
Software - good graphics, a smooth 
mouse and icon command structure, 
and a role playing game that will tax 
those Little grey cells. 

Had Galdregons Domain appeared 
before Dungeon Master it would have 
received better reviews. Dungeon 
Master has slick graphics with 
animation and you are prompted to 
tackle it in a very definite, systematic 
order, Galdregon is free ranging, has 
no animation, and although to win 
through you must solve some sections 
in a strict order, there are few hints as 
to that order. 

You play the part of a barbarian, a 
northlander skilled in the use of arms. 
Seeking fame and fortune you visit 
the city of Secnar. There you are 
enlisted by its king in the fight against 


Inventory, showing the number of gems end gold coins found plus whet you are wearing 


Resting at an inn. Mine host is the fat one r and a cleric stands by to sell you heating 


some will merely pass the time of 
day. 

There are mysterious cottages, inns, 
forests and towers to visit, Rangers, 
elves, gnomes and hobgoblins wander 
the countryside. You must be careful 
not to enter into battle too readily. 

Kill the wrong opponent and you 
could bring down the righteous wrath 
of his companions - 

Leaving the castle you have only 
food, a lantern, a dagger and a 
healing potion. A visit to nearby 
cottages will provide you with a 
magic sword and a few magical 
scrolls. You are now equipped for the 
first stage. 

Any weapon you find will sooner 
or later break in the heat of battle, so 
make certain you have a back-up 
weapon ready. Once you have 
overcome enemies you can take 
whatever they were carrying. Various 
small flasks will contain potions. 

Watch out for poison. 

Scrolls are once~only magic spells 
written on human skin. They range 
from a simple spell to give light to 
useful offensive ones to summon up 
fireballs or poison clouds. 

Half of the screen shows your view, 
beneath which is a line of sideways 
scrolling text. The lower part of the 
screen is the command area accessed 
with the mouse, icons and menus. 

Food and drink affects stamina, 
healing potions or clerical cures. 
Strength can be won with potions or 
spells, and also appears to increase as 
you progress through the game and 
acquire better armour. 

Click on the right mouse button and 
the display changes to the inventory 
screen, a picture of you on the left, 
and two pull-down menus showing 
you what you are carrying and what 
is on the ground. 

Clicking on a dead body shows 
what the creature was carrying; click 
on a chest or bag to see what is 

► 


May 1969 AMIGA COMPUTING 13 



inside. Items may be dragged from 
one menu to the other, although there 
is a weight limit to what you nan 
carry around with you. Armour you 
want to wear should be dragged 
directly on to your body. 

When out in the open, clicking 
twice on the right button displays a 
map of the countryside with a cross 
showing your location. It shows all 
except one of the major places of 
interest, although you may not realise 
their importance just from the map. 


M ovement controls seem 

slightly strange. If you see a 
door in a building, but not exactly in 
the centre of the screen, you must go 
past the building and then turn 
towards it before you can enter. 

Cottages are simple one-mo med or 
two-roomed buildings, towers arc two 
storeys high and have a few more 
rooms. 



Forests, the Caves of Doom, the 
Temple of Set, the Labyrynth and the 
Castle all have a number of locations 
and must be mapped very carefully. 
Note that walls, whether made of 
trees or brick, may not have any 
thickness, so watch what you draw 
on squared paper. 

When you are in forests or 
underground caves there i$ an 
indication of when a path leads off to 
the left or right. In other locations 
what appears to be a continuous wall 
to one side may contain a doorway 
which is not visible unless you look 
directly at the wall. 

Before you start make sure you 
have several formatted discs ready to 


save your game position. It is very 
easy to die in Galdregons Domain — 
most of the special Locations have 
hordes of unpleasant creatures just 
itching to spill your blood. 

It is easy to buy ale to increase your 
stamina, or a cure to improve your 
health. Unfortunately it b not as easy 
to find the money with which to pay 
for them. 

Scrolls and potions have to he used 
to the best effect for the supply isn't 
inexhaustible. 

My review copy seemed to have a 
few bugs that scattered the lower half 
of the screen with coloured pixels, a 
situation that grew worse as I 



J * 



« 


H 

iV 

♦ 

. ' - ' 



* 

M 1 



m 

' » ► J 

♦ 

■ * 

# 


’ ■ ~ r 

* 

m 

• 



* 

r 

Double dick on the right mouse 

button to get a map of Mesron 



progressed. Still, Galdregons Domain 
is a welcome addition for the role 
playing gamer. Let's hope there are 
some more like this in the pipeline. 


REPORT CARD 


Galdregons Domain 
Pandora Software 
£1 9,99 

STORYLINE 

Standard fantasy adventure in the true 
D&D tradition. 


AURA. 

Come face to face with an ogre or 
monster snake and realise how puny 
the human form really is. Sound effects 
add to the atmosphere. 

STA YING PO WER , I 

Frustrating until you find the order in 
which to approach your goal. 

GAMEPLAY . „ 

Mouse and icon commands work well 
Magic potions and scrolls feasible. 

i.ALUE ................ 

Plenty of game for your money. 

DIFFICULTY 

Write down all the dues and don 't be 
afraid to kill one of the good guys to 
get what you need. 


OVERALL 


A cracking role playing game for the 
bloodthirsty. But lives in Dungeon 
Master's shadow . 


14 AMIGA COMPUTING May 1989 







ADVENTURES! 


rs 

inth 


E 


CTIVISION has always been a 
strong supporter of our 
computer addiction, Infocom, Sierra, 
MicroIHusions and Abstract Concepts 
are ah names associated with 
computer adventures, and 1989 looks 
like being a bumper year for Amiga 
conversions. 

The King's Quest series (I t II and 
III] has taxed more than 750 ,000 
adventurers. Tens of thousands of 
words have been written in the USA 
on how to play these adventures, so 
they have got to have something 
going For them. 

King’s Quest IV will appear shortly 
on the Amiga. It is going to be a big 
program, which means there is going 
to be a fair amount of disc swapping 
as you progress. One IBM version has 
nine discs... 

If medieval type fantasy is not your 
thing then Sierra may still have 
something to interest you. There is 
Leisure Suit Larry II - Looking for 
Love. It’s an outrageous parody where 
Larry, still intent on finding his dream 
girl, gets involved with everything 
from foreign agents to Hairy Krishnas. 

For something a little more serious 


you could try Manhunter, a science 
fiction epic set in New York a couple 
of years after an alien invasion. You 
play a detective hired by the aliens to 
keep track of their human underlings 
with the option to play either the 
good guy or the bad. 


M illenium z.z r is also set in 
the future. It is a strategy 
adventure set on the Moon shortly 
after an asteroid collides with Earth, 
making it uninhabitable. Your task is 
to transform the planet back into a 
habitable condition for the future. 

It Looks fascinating; you must 
initiate research into various forms of 
transport, weapons and power 
sources, send out probes and mining 
expeditions around the solar system 
and generally develop the technology 
required to achieve your aims. 

Not only is Millenium 2.2 a first 
class game but for those interested Jn 
astronomy it is an education to view 
the correct orbits and relationships 
between the planets and their moons. 


STUCK? 

• DUNGEON 
MASTER 

• Got characters that have no 
magic? The wand found on level 
three will give them some starting 
mana - then practise like mad. 

0 Only attack Beholders when 
their eyes are closed. 

• Top food calories go to dragon 
steaks, then rat drumsticks, then 
bread. Least nutritious are the 
worm rounds. 

• Want extra strength ? Cast Priest 
spell LO (to MON) FUL BRQ KU 
into a flask. 

• Cars 7 get into level six? The 
answers to the riddles am blue 
gem, bow, gold coin and nothing. 
Put these items in the recesses and 
the door will open. You can pick 
them up afterwards. 

• To get the sword protected by 
poison darts on level 1 1 break 
down the door so that you can get 
out again quickly. Strip off heavy 
armour before you run into the 
room, 

• Before you kill the dragon on 
level 13 make sum you pick up 
some copper coins and drop them 
by the door to the Altar of Rebirth. 
Then if you have dead companions 
you can pay to open this door 
quickly when necessary. 

• If you are having trouble killing 
the dragon, keep dodging to his 
side or behind him, HU him 
quickly before he has time to 
attack you. 

• Can r t get the Power Gem ? ZQ 
KATH RA creates a ball of force 
that will replace the Gem when 
placed on it, 

• Remember that you can only 
defeat the Dark Lord by trapping 
him within a flux cage using the 
Firestaff plus Power Gem. Create 
flux cages around him, not on him. 

Let us know if you have any 
interesting solutions to puzzles 
in adventure games on the 
Amiga . They may well be where 
other people have got stuck and 
are just waiting for your hints 
and tips. Send them to: 

Adventure Tips, Amiga 
Computing; First floor, North 
House, 78-84 Ongar Road, 
Brentwood, CM15 9BG. 



May Jflflff AMIGA COMPUTING 15 






W ORDPERFECT Library is a 
group of programs covering 
a range of uses. It is not a single 
program or an integrated suite. They 
are not connected with WordPerfect , 
although the Notebook may he used 
to share data with it. 

In typical WordPerfect fashion, the 
package consists of a Large box 
containing a ring binder manual, two 
discs, keyboard templates and sticky 
labels for Amiga lOOD owners to 
mark their numeric pad keys. The 
program is not copy protected. 

1 sometimes wonder whether 
manufacturers price their products 
according to the size of the manuals. 
The WP Library one is more than 660 
pages long and describes the 
programs in the most minute detail It 
is divided into sections for each 
program and an overall section on 
installation and getting started. 

No one could possibly criticise 
WordPerfect Corp for skimping the 
documentation. The whole thing is 
over-facing. In the tutorial sections, 
virtually every keystroke is described, 
mouse options being relegated to a 
brief mention on the right of each 
page. 

Some of the programs make 
extensive use of the function keys 


Poor relation 


When a program shares its name with the world’s best selling word 
processor you’d expect something special. David Foster did 


with combinations of normal, Shift, 
Control and Alt, in much the same 
way as WordPerfect. This is 
something I have never really liked. I 
find it far from easy to remember all 
the different key strokes and had to 
refer constantly to the keyboard 
template. 

Even though the manual gives full 
instructions for installation on 
everything from a single drive model 
to one with a hard disc, 1 think it is 
best suited to a computer with lots of 
memory and a hard disc. And if you 
have the sort of money WordPerfect 
Corp thinks you have you'll also have 
a hard drive. 


The suite consists of five different 
programs - a File Manager, Text 
Editor, Notebook, Calculator and 
Calendar, All may be run from 
Workbench or CLi, 

Guru meditation struck three or 
four times. One is repeatable and 
happens when using the Zoom gadget 
in the Calendar program. I was 
unable to repeat the others, which is a 
little disturbing with programs that 
might contain quite a lot of important 
information. The moral must be to 
save data regularly. 

Each program is good, the Editor 
being the weakest. Deciding whether 
WordPerfect Library is worth the 


money is tricky. If you were to go out 
and buy individual programs to do 
the same jobs they would probably 
cost you a lot more than WP Library. 
But would you? This is a very 
expensive way to buy a flash 
calculator and file manager. 

Even if you wanted them, have you 
got enough memory to load several 
programs at the same time? The 
whole point of programs like these is 
that to be of much use they must be 
to hand at ail times. If they aren’t they 
won't be used on a regular basis. I 
think you need about 2 meg of 
memory if you want to take full 
advantage of Library, 


16 AMIGA COMPUTING May 1939 


- 


■REVIEWS 



F ILE Manager is a program to 
help with disc housekeeping, 
Its biggest advantage is that it lets 
Workbench see all the files on a 
disc* not just those with icons 
attached. 

On the screen is a window 
which contains details of the first 
14 files in the current drawer* The 
name, size, time and date last 
modified are shown. Three buttons 
let you choose between display in 
name, size or date order* The 
amount of free space and the 
number of files are indicated. 

The right-hand side is filled with 
buttons. They provide options to 
change directories to Root, Parent 
or Previously used as well as Look 
at text Files, Delete, Rename ot 
Copy a file or group of files. The 
only omission is the option to view 
a screen. 

You can create and delete 
directories. Files can be marked, 
moved, copied or deleted as a 
group* 

There are three different types of 
search - find file, find date and 
find word. Find file will scan the 
disc for any filename matching a 
pattern. The program betrays a 


little of its PC origins here, as the 
wildcards used to indicate are the 
MSdos ? and *. 

Date and word searches only 
work on the current directory. All 
files which match the specified 
range of dates are marked. In the 
latter, the search finds all files 
which contain occurrences of the 
specified word pattern and 
highlights them. The slow search 
can be restricted to marked files, 


which reduces the time taken. 

Double click on a directory to 
move down the tree. Clicking on 
the Previous button returns you to 
the original directory. Another 
useful feature is an extra gadget on 
the right of the status line. Clicking 
on it closes the window, but leaves 
a small Status line at the top of the 
screen. Clicking on the gadget 
again will redisplay the File 
Manager screen as it was before. 



C alculator is a much 

more extensive product than 
the one provided with Workbench. 
Like File Manager, it can be 
shrunk to a single line on the 
status line when not needed. 

Three different modes, Scientific, 
Programmer and Financial are 
available and just about every 
function you could possibly want 
is provided in each mode, 
including some that I never 
managed to get the hang of at 
college and others l have never 
even heard of. 

Programmer interested me in 
particular, with its ability to work 
in hex, binary, octal form as well 
as decimal* Many other features, 
such as Shift, Rotate, AND, NOT 
and OR functions are available* 

For the masochists of this world. 
Reverse Polish Notation can be 
used* 


May 1989 AMIGA COMPUTING 17 










REVIEW* 


P ROGRAM Editor is the one 
used by WordPerfect when 
developing its software* In view of 
this I was expecting something 
special, but ended up being a little 
disappointed. 

Multiple files can be loaded and 
windows resized. If windows 
overlap, or you are editing more 
than one file with full sized 
windows, mouse control becomes 
very jerky. 

Unnecessary screen redrawing 
sometimes slows things down. The 
editor makes heavy use of the 
function keys. Wherever possible, 
they are given the same functions 
as WordPerfect* 

The editor offers several special 
functions apart from all the usual 
Cut, Paste and Copy* Marked 
blocks can be converted to upper 
or lower case and the Duplicate 
command reproduces the line 
above the cursor. Auto-indenting is 
supported, as is the facility to 
indent or un-indent lines, or blocks 
of text - particularly useful when 
re-arranging source code. 

It is possible to disable the scroll 
bar to speed up scrolling while a 
special Rewrite command is 
provided to redraw the screen and 
update the scroll bar at the same 
time. 

There are complex macros with 
one macro being chained to the 
next as well as repeating or 
conditional macros. Macros may 
be replayed either by name, or by 
using a designated Amiga/key 
combination. Delays and pauses 
for keyboard input can be inserted 
into them and macros may be 
saved. 

In spite of all its features, 1 did 
not feel at home with the editor, 
largely due to the inability to 
redefine the keyboard 
configuration* 



N otebook is really a 

database. You can create a 
number of Notebooks which can 
contain different types of data* A 
list display shows data for a record 
on one line, with several records 
visible at the same time* When 
only some fields are visible they 
form an index of records which 
may be viewed in a separate 
display by pressing Return. A 
configurable record display can be 
created, 

Facilities are provided for 
rearranging data. Sorting can be 
carried out on any fields displayed 
in the list, if identical entries are 
found further fields may be 
specified for ordering. 

Specified text can be searched 
for throughout the database or 


C ALENDAR is more than it 
sounds. It integrates an 
Appointment List, a To Do list and 
a Memo Pad with the calendar, in 
such a way that when you select a 
date it will display all the 
appointments for that day in their 
respective windows. 

You do not need to display all 
the windows, and Calendar may be 
configured so that only the 
windows you use are opened when 
it is loaded- 


restricted to certain fields or 
marked records. It is possible to 
mark dccurrences automatically or 
manually in list view by double 
clicking on them. 

Function keys are used, although 
options can be selected from pull 
down menus* Online help is 
available* Macros are supported 
and are implemented and used in 
the same way as in the Editor. 

A Dialler option uses a modem 
to dial numbers stored in a phone 
field in records. 

Printing facilities are 
comprehensive. Either the whole 
Notebook or marked records can 
be printed. Not surprisingly, full 
facilities are also provided to 
import and export WordPerfect 
Merge files. 


Dates can be marked so that you 
are warned when an appointment 
is approaching. This feature is only 
implemented if you load an alarm 
program specifying the name of 
the Calendar file with the 
Appointments List. At the 
appropriate time a requester opens 
over your current program, 
displaying details of the 
appointment. 

You can have priorities attached 

► 



IS AMIGA COMPUTING May 19119 



5.25" FLOPPY 
DISK DRIVE 


3.5"/ 5.25" 

MULTI DRIVE 


3.5" FLOPPY 
DISK DRIVE 


1 High Quality Japanese Disk Drive 

* On, Off Switch * Track Counter 

* Full Manual * 12 Month Guarantee 

* Through Port for daisy chaining 


* High Quality Japanese Disk Drive 

* 40/80 Track Switch • On/Off Switch 

* Built in 220 240v PSU * Full Manual 

* IBM Compatibility with Optional S/W 


- Superb 3.575. 25" Combined unit 

* Features as single drives 

* Built in 220. 240v PSU * Full Manual 

* IBM Compatibility with Optional S/W 



gle turbo?* * 


AMIGA TURBO 3 HARD DRIVES TOP QUALITY 
SCSI, 1 .3 AUTO BOOT, + 2MB MADE IN UK?; 


Superior Triangle Drive 


Always aili y«Uf ler TRIANGLE 

Conieeiniv& Product* quality product* byname! 


AMIGA 500 Turbo 3 with 2MB RAM AMIGA 2000 Hard Card 40MB 

SCSI Drive with 20, 40 or 80 MB Capacity and Lightning fast Access (28ms/18ms) 
Autoboot with 1.-3 Kickstart, Software includes 1.3 workbench - Full Manual 
Very Easy Instalation, 2-8 partitions, auto boot disk configuration (1 .2 KS only) 

A 500 Optional 2MB Ram Board - AMIGA 2000 Hard Card or 2MB SCSI Board 
A500 U/L approved built in PSU and Wisper Fan * A500 & 2000 SCSI Port 


Available HE Good Cflm- 
puib* Dvalefs Trade eniy 
call D23J 27324fl 


Mail Order Hotline ROO SSI 7A2 


All Trade Marks Acknowledged Triangle pro ducls are prwfuuuO bi 






r 


REVIEW 


to any entry in the To Do list and 
they are automatically rearranged 
if priorities are changed. When a 
job has been completed it can be 


marked as such and is 
automatically moved to the bottom 
of the list. Powerful search options 
can be used to look for any 
occurrences of text in the Calendar 
file with wildcards. 



riiwi 

HO 

00 


Sun Non fu# 

Med Thu F*1 fit 


t rrr m tiTmumiumimz “ 


fflM gKl WIi 1 " 11 K 





it, ww iiii 


taffi Corvutiiti rt. Cm 



REPORT CARD 


Library 

Ward Perfect UK OT32 231164 
£99 


EASE OF USE I 

The Fite Manager is ideal for hard 
discs , Other programs are useful if you 
can load them permanently. Function 
keys are far from memorable. Crashes. 


SPEED.. 

Nothing exceptional here, the screen 
redraws are a little sluggish 


VALUE * 

Good value if you want all the 
programs but if you only want one or 
two. expensive. 


OVERALL 


A good selection of programs, well 
implemented on the whole, but not the 
sort of package to buy unless you need 
most of the functions 




At last an inexpensive and very easy-to-use spreadsheet that's simple enough for 
beginners, yet sophisticated enough for professionals. 

Digicalc is both menu and command driven, it is fast, with all calculations being 
performed instantly, and the spreadsheet is constantly updated. 

The manual- has been carefully designed to cater for ail types of user, from the novice 
to the expert. It includes a tutorial with step-by-step instructions, a glossary of 
computer terms, a quick reference card, a full reference section and a comprehensive 
index. 

"I realty tiked the package to begin with , and first impressions are important... Digits 
deserves full marks for the way in which the menus and command driven operations 
have been implemented... ft's a no nonsense spreadsheet... I'd certainly recommend it 
for general purpose spreadsheet work". -Flex Last, Amiga Computing, December 19S8. 


RRP 

£39.95 


OUR PRICE 

£29.95 


TO ORDER PLEASE USE 
THE FORM ON PAGE 97 


Reviewed in the December 
issue of Amiga Computing 


TYPICAL APPLICATIONS 


• Home budgeting 

• Investment project appraisal 

• Comparing rent/lease/buy options 

• Processing results of experiments 

• Engineering calculation models 

• Education 


SMALL BUSINESS APPLICATIONS 


• Cash flows 

• Profit and loss statements 

• Balance sheets 

• Purchase orders 

• Invoices 

• Costings 

• Stock control 

• Sales/purchase/norninal ledgers 

• Payrolls 
+ Price lists 











1 Hrklg* Slrwt 
Galnahltli 
TOl 1SW 
T*I:MM STM4 
(24 h«jnJ 


SOFT W A R E 


KMC A LEISUflE 

SO Pad 

4*4011 ffeadFUar? .. 

4 111 md Inches 
AflefcJffl# 

.14 95 
.17 94 
.14 95 

14.46 

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Lid Dud 

Lemoarf FWC Fully . .. . 

. 16+5 

.14.35 
16 46 
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17.95 

M<rOproH- Soccor 

.1*75 

1675 

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a+ancaol Paw»r 19 M ... 

16.75 

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14 35 

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14 95 
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.14.36 

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BttTto Ch™ 

19.95 

1795 

17 95 
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. 17.95 


.14.95 

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Butcher Hill 

. U.35 

Pnp+rfcOy 

GB>tom&GdTKtt . 

C+pl#n Fio 

17 95 
.11-20 

Pnwnd r^ilmi 

Phanlmto- lit 

. 16.74 

Can-KH -iun-nanrl 

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19.45 

19.75 

PWftir Ptdgo* . 

PiUoon ... 

1645 
. 1645 

CohiiIc P*iW 

.15+6 

Pmdoui Ms Ini 

. ia 75 

D*k Fuator 

14 95 


14 95 

D*fia«. 

DNAWwnw _.... 

DcUbla Dragon 

14 95 
,14 96 
. m 45 

(=*14914 Saiifl 0*7 

PvritosOuacI 

Pd^ukd- 

17 96 
.16.75 
19.75 


i06 A cimtwt ir Ro*d 

Bnanlon 
Noll Ingham 

NOB 1ES 
T*l: 0602 252113 

AhfeGA LEISURE. 

TwrimoCop 14.35 

T«a Qumh I adults only) ... 14.95 

Tha Chin^ 19.45 

TO* CAmp 1 7 95 

Tha Kroial 21.95 

The Pi*n _.. . 1B+4 

Thumidblwd .15.45 

TV™* often* 17.95 

Tiro Scamw ii.75 

Tltpn 17.95 

Tradauil Uaiugof 1335 

Triad Vorf I 32,95 

TV Sport foatufl 21.95 

Urw. Ml SHi. 1540 

'Jlbnufc God 11 35 

V4Iwh 11.99 

Vru* Inrlecton Protection 2295 
war In Wattle E«h 1794 

Woind Diaar* .,1045 

Wortd TwrOei _1*£* 

Zany God 19.95 


Fas! dBlirary on all slock n*rns by 1st Class Mail in UK. Sp*ei*l Owmas service by Air 
Mari worldwide. Credit Card orders accepted by Phono or Mail. 

Credit Card Order Telephone Lines: North. &Ofl*nd. N. Ireland, Overseas -0696 57WHI 
[ 2 * hours). 5oUh, Midlands. Wates - MM2 +60779 hourt] 


Dragon $cj(« 

Dv^ftX, U+star 1 1 Mogj 


F+*i 

F.0.F7 

Fl6Gam£ofl Rlol ... . 

F*6 Ftricral 

FrghsHtgm 

Fun School 2 

Fioicn 

Gah*fe06M Dotnan 
GoryLnoMt Hm SIM ... 
Gonm II 

Choof and GotriVia 

Hi Ss* rol 1 or? 
H Mftm d P4|.ar Pro 


Kan QaghwOi Manage . 


.14 94 
.1945 
. 14 30 
19 45 
.1490 
19 45 
.24 90 
.15.95 
29.95 
U95 
1AM 
.17.95 
14 35 
. 14 U 
. 19.95- 
.16 75 
19 75 
.1B.7S 

.19.45 
. 16.75 
.19.95 
1 7 95 
. 14,95 


Poerer CVorFie .. 
O&orntnwi Nepluns 



Fluo 

nynrn)g J4+n 

S. Vnona, from CUM* Spec* 

Savage 

•Sn«4 ’em up can. 3 m 

Spaiai Marne* 


Slw* Dm World £naoh«r 

Superman 

Swonl of Sodnn 


Torrii 


1494 

1445 

15.90 

1975 

14.74 

1975 

17.96 

2195 

1325 

1474 

1494 

1445 

1+95 

1644 

14.95 
16.46 
1325 
16 44 
14 95 
16+6 

19.95 
2294 

17.95 


GRAPHICS 

Dal uu Ail 1 or 2 „..7.W 

PdW6 P+iffl II 64 95 

DoJuu Print ...-..^..^.^1995 

Dehic* PwAirikpn ii+ai 

Dslin* Vdoo 1 2 .,, 54 95 

Otgi Point 4+95 

Digi View 159.99 

.JOYSTICKS 

CIWIEAh 12*4 0 95 

C*«tah Mart 1 10.95 

Comp Pro 5000 ,.12.95 

Ctm^ Pm EVlr+ ,., ..... ... 14.95- 


24 IPril DOI Maul* P.mtor 

Model LGaSOO 29996 

A5D6 Duel cower 5.M 

Mouse- MaL 4 99 

EnernilDfeADrwi... 96 96 

Cs^JEroi+tor »M 


PUlttJHkA cheques and paslal orders p^bi? 1e WOHJDWIOf SOFTWARE. All include postage 
and pKNirig m UK. Credit card ardei s accepted by jihone or mail. Europe alher Ihs+i LJK slupp 159 costs 
ire Cl .50 pw disk lor norm*) airmail. E2.5G pwdisk far enpress biccflbiI QutsidAturpgo 
dipping casls an C2.KJ p»f dish lor normal aiimail . £3.00 per d iU lor dprm airmail ^..^ | 
=^l AdvOrlised prices are far Mil 4 Teiepharc Qrd&is l~ . J 




IELEIEKT 


A world ot information 
at your fingertips 



The Mkrofcxt Adaptor turns your Amiga inlo an advanced Teletext TV 
giving you fast access to any of the free pages from Ceefax or Oracle, 

I lundieds of pages constantly updated to- give you the very latest 
information, at the touch of a button. 


The mouse may by used to select any page then print it or save it to disc, 
Saves may be compact or IFF, it car read out the news and is easily 
programmed to do all these things automatically. With Ime TastToxl; the 
system knows what pages are likely to be selected next and gets them in 
advance making Lh<?m available instantly. Many more facilities arc also 
provided. The Adaptor connects to the Parallel por^ your printer is then 
reconnected to a socket on the Adaptor and when the computer is not in use 
you can watch TV on the monitor? 

"'A highly recommended purchase* 1 

Arnica Computing -Feb '89 

At only £124.90 + VAT for an advanced Teletext TY, its excellent value for 
money, VHF/UHF International version: £16950 


HMICROTEXT® 

Dept AG t 7 Birdlip Close, Horndean, Hants POS 9PW 
Telephone: fQ7G5) 595694 



i^<ktfMXZjd 2&bk£op PwAwtotum 

Until now putting together a professional presentation with the 
AMIGA has been a job tor programmers and "hackers" Even 
with the current programs available a simple presentation often 
takes hours or days instead of minutes! ENTER VIDEO MAGIC 
powerful desktop presentations in minutes rather than hours! 
Using Video Magic’s advanced user interface and features, 
even a complete novice can produce a sharp presentation 
using only the mouse and imagination ! Not only that, with Video 
Magic be can combine all types of IFF image, digitised sound 
and animations onto one or several stand alone diskettes. For 
live work Video Magic features a handy remote control unit as 
well as external synchronisation . 



VIDEO MAGIC 

* All IFF images are sup- 
ported ire HAM, Halfbrite 
and Overscan modes 

* IFF 8SVX Sound Samples 

* RASE Pro Animation Se- 
quences 

* Multiple Prolessional tran 
srtiona! effects including 
wipes, fades and swipes. 

* 4 channel Hi-Fi Sound 
-WYSIWYG Automatic 
scripting 


BLSH SFflHD !*ȣ* 
|l- , H ’ DUS 


■ Automatic generation of 
standalone boot diskft 

* Hard Disks Supported 

* All Amiga Resolutions 

■ Preview pictures, anima- 
tions, special effects and 
sound sequences 

* Colour cycle Control 

* Multitasking 

* Full Event Editing 

* PD player program sup 
plied 

* Cable Remote Control Unit 


The Video Magic System costs £79 95 
and comes complete with example 
disks, manual and remote control unit. 
Available direct by telephoning the 
hotline below or from better dealers, 

MAIL ORDER HOTLINE 800 581 742 (ACCESS & VISA) 


FIDFRSCFT nroducts are produced bv POWER COMPUTING 0234 273000 







iFumr 

micro 


HARDWARE & SOFTWARE 
SPECIALISTS 
2 EAST STREET, SOUTHAMPTON 
6 FOREST CLOSE 
EBBLAKE IND EST. 
VERWOOD, DORSET 



INC. VAT 


cib 


0202 813176 


FREE DELIVERY 


AMIGA A500 

+ FREE £220 SOFTWARE 


INCLUDING:- -PURPLE SATURN - HOSTAGES 

• INTERNATIONAL SOCCER - WINTER OLYMPIAD 

• SPITTING IMAGE • STARGOOSE • BACKLASH 

• QUADRALIEN • ELIMINATOR 

• FANTASTICK F3 JOYSTICK 

• TV MODULATOR 


£389 


inc 


AMIGA A500/ 
PHILIPS 8833 


£599 inc 


AMIGA B2000/ 
PHILIPS 8833 

INC ACCESSORIES 


£1199 


AMIGA A500 

INCLUDING:- 

* MOUSE - WORKBENCH 

* UTILITIES * MANUALS 
- BASIC * TUTORIAL 
-TV MODULATOR 


£305 + VAT 


AMIGA B2000/ 
PHILIPS 8833 


INCLUOING:- 
- MOUSE - WORKBENCH 

• BASIC • UTILITIES • MANUALS 

• XT BRIDGE BOARD 

• 20Mb HARD DISK 


£1599 


me 


AMIGA B2000 

INCLUDING:- MOUSE - WORKBENCH 
* BASIC - UTILITIES - MANUALS 


£999 


A500 HARDWARE 


AS 00 + TV MOD _ _.E368 

AS 00 + £200 or GAMES £393 

A500 + 1064(5) HIGH 
RES COLOUR MONT £S9B 

A5Q0 + IBM DRIVE £443 


AMIGA EXTERNAL 
DRIVES 


Cumana Ca*354E ,. 
AFS80 

£99 

£69 

RF302C...,, 

£66 

Supra 20mb H/disk .. 



A All drives 1 mb + oiVoff switch ft 

AMIGA ACCESSORIES 

A 501 -512k RAM.,«, 

T £i29 

TV Modulator .......... 

£24,95 

Mouse Mat 

Call 

Amiga dust-cover .... 

Call 

3.5 13STPID&OD.. 

Call 


COMMODORE C64 


C64 Hollywood .,..£149 

C64 Entertainment ....,..£199 

1541CII 5.25 C04 drive £1 59 

1S-S 1 3JSW00K C64 drive ,.......£129 

Oceanic 5,25 C64 drive ..........£125 


A2000 HARDWARE 


A2000 + Imb RAM „ 

A 2000 + 1084(a) monitor 
+ bridge BD + 20mbH/disk .,,£1599 

A2000 + 1064(a) ....... .....,.£11 99 

2Qmb hard disk ...£299 

XT bride* BD £299 


A500/A200D 

MONITORS 


1084(3) High res mori\ £249 

Philips C MB 833 High res £229 

1901 C 64 - colour ..........Call 

1900 C64 - Mono £129 


PRINTERS 


StafLClO(P) 130CDS „....£195 

star LC 10 Colour £249 

Star LC24-10 (24 din) £349 

Citizen 1200 _...£119 

Commodore MPS 1230 El 19 

Panasonic KXP1124 (24 pin) .£279 
Panasonic KXP 1 0B 1 £1 69 

Epson LX600 El 99 

Epson LQ500 £31 9 

Epson FX&50 £216 

Epson FX1050 ....£362 

Epson EX8Q0 ,,£427 

Epson EXl 000 . ...£462 


COLOUR PRINTERS 


Citizen HQPiO .. 
Epson EXlOGO ., 


..£352 

..£543 


Hewlett Packard PaintJet ...„E6S 9' 

NEC P5+ _ £606 

NEC P7+ ... £624 

Star LC 10 £195 

Xerox 4020 .£949 


LASERS 

Citizen overture 

..£1299 

HP 1 JUHmel II 

£2099 


BUSINESS S'WARE 

AEGIS Sonix . 

Animated Images 3D... 

City Desk 

Sales 
.™.,C39 
...... £99 

...... £69 

Deluxe Video... 

E49 

Deluxe Music 

£49 

Deluxe Paint,, 

£49 

Digiview Gold 

..,,..£99 

Home Accounts 

£1 g 

Mailshot Plus 

...,..£39 

Maxipian A500 

...... £69 


...... £23 

Organiser 11 

Page Setter 

. .£49 

...... £89 

Page Flipper Plus 

£24 

Photon Paint ( . J « + . 1<i++T ,. 

ww £49 

Photon Video 

.... Ring 


Professional Page £175 

Pro Writer 2 Ring 

Publisher Plus £69 

Scul pt 3-D Animate £102 

Scul pt 3-D £63 

Superbase II ..£59 

Superbaae Personal™...™ „.£44 

Superbaae Professional — £169 

TV Show/Text ..... £T9 

Word Perfect 42 £169 

Works' £69 

Zumafonts . — £25 


UK TOP 19 GAMES 


No Sale E 

! Falcon J * ++ „4 ++ *. lll+ «„. 1 19-99 

2 Sword of Sedan 19.99 

3 Dragon Master .....19,99 

4 Gales Dragon's Domain .... 19.99 

5 TV Sports Football 19 99 

6 Dragons Lair 19.99 

7 Victory RD .19.99 

8 |nt Karate + .19 99 

9 Speedbaii .-,.,19.99 

10 Who Framed Roger Rabbit 19.99 

11 Operation Woll ....19 99 

12 Lombard RAC Ra% ...19 99 

13 Elite 19 99 

14 Motor Massacre 19.99 

15 Mickey Mouse .19.99 

16 Captain F122 ...19.99 

17 Purple Saturn Day 19.99 

i& Technocop 19.99 

19 Rocket Ranger .....19,99 


ALL PRICES INCLUDE VAT 


CREDIT CARD MAIL ORDER 
AND EXPORT HOTLINE 

* 0202 813176 

OPEN MON-SAT 9am-5.30 pm 


^ To: First Micro, 6 Forest Close, Ebblake Ind. Estate, Verwood, Dorset 

| l wish to order 

| My computer is 


I enclose dieque/PQ for £ _ 

I Or charge my Acoess/Visa No. 

I I I I I I l I I 


inc VAT, 


Exp. date 


I Name 

I Address . 
^^Posicode 


_ Signature 


Tel No: 






















"Offers end 30Ui June 1989* 


GENUINE PRODUCTS AT GENUINE PRICES 


HARDWARE 


A 500 with Modulator .. 

A1QS4S Colour Stereo Monitor 

ASM + A1JB4S Bundle 

A501 Hall Meg Expansion 

A20QQ + A10B4S.... 

Amiga A101C 1 Meg 3.? Drive 
PRINTERS & PERIPHERALS 

Xerox 4020 ink jet Printer 

Amiga MPS150GC Colour Printer 

NEC P2200 24 pin _ 

NEC PS Plus 24 pin . 


™.... .£375 

— - £280 

£575 

1125 

£1375 

£130 


Epson LXS0Q Dot Matrix 

Future sound 

Pro Sound Designer 

Sound Sampler 

Midi Master 

DRAGONS 
LAID 
BUNDLE 


™.£990 

£274 

_,£3S7 

£540 

£277 

—£155 
£05 


.. £45 
£30 


{A500 Modulator. 
AMI Expansion. 
Dragon's Lair) ....... 


..£500 


LEISURE 


MIXED BAG 


Dragon's Lair (1 Meg }....„ 
Roger Rabbit 

....£35.00 

Languages 

HiSoft Basic 

£65 

Batilechcss 


Assem Pro ... 

£39 

Dungeon Master 

£18.00 

AC' Fortran 

£230 

F16 Falcon . 


Dev pa c 

£40 

Hostages 

£18.50 

Aztec C Developer 

£224 

Thunder blade 

£18 50 

Metacomco Shell.. 

£37 

Faery Tale Adv. 

f 18 50 

Metacomco Tflnlfciy 

£30 

..,£130 

Interceptor 

Star Glider 2 

£18 50 

Lattice C V40 

DATABASES 
dB MAN 

Pioneer Plague 

£18.50 

£110 

Elite M .„ 

.£18.00 

Acquisition VI .3F 

£240 

Speedball 

-.....£18.50 

Super base Personal 2 

....£70 

UMS ... 


Super base Professional 

£180 

Chassmaster 2000 
Photon Paint 

......,.£1750 

£50 00 

DESKTOP PUBLISHING - DTP 

Shakespeare 

£] 10 

Sculpt 3D 

£65.00 

Page Setter 

' £S5 

£76 

..£110 

(Vint Master Plus 

£4000 

Publisher Plus 

Publishing Partner Prof , 

Joysticks from 


Home Publisher 

f19 

Mouse Mats from 

£5.00 

City Desk VI. 1 

.. £75 


WE DON'T JUST SELL EQUIPMENT 
WE PROVIDE PERSONAL SERVICE 


Ws might IXJT be th* cheapest, but one# you try us, we think you'll find us 
one of the BEST. 

All Prices INCLUDE VAT, 

Individual software sent by Special Delivery. Computers. McNlora eta. sent by courier 
service. Please phone for carriage, P+P rates. 

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£299 



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£2999 



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20MB Triangle 3 (68ms) 

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SOFTWARE 




ART, GRAPHICS & CAO 

80 MB Triangle 3 

£999 



A 500 2MB Auto Boot Board £59 

Deluxe Photo lab 

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Express Paint 3 

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Fanlavision 

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Movie Setter 

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T ransformer 

£2500 

SOUND A MUSIC 


BBC Emulator 

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30 graphics, animation and my tracing 
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ETBA 

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the above books (saeft) 

£13*95 

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LATEST RELEASES 


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Better 


Rushing a product out 
can ruin its future, says 
Alex Aird as he compiles 
his views on GFA-Basic 


buggy 


F ASHION dictates that hip coders 
use G. There are good reasons 
for this, one of the best being that it 
allows you to slag off programmers 
who use Basic. But the Basics are 
fighting back, offering the structure C 
programmers use as ammunition, 

GFA Basic is one of the new breed, 
offering advanced features without 
having lost touch with its beginner's 
roots. It comes with an impressive A 5 
ring-bound manual in a library slip 
case. The manual describes GFA 
Basic as M an extensive programming 
language with a comfortable 
development environment”. 

Extensive is certainly the right word 


26 AMIGA COMPUTING May 1989 


■ REVIEWS 


coders 
ons 
tat it 
iers 

TJ 

ure C 
x , 

need, 
■ut 
ler’s 
* A5 
lip 


ling 


word 




- the manual, which is little more 
than a list of keywords, is over an 
inch thick, I didn't care too much for 
the documentation. Collecting 
keywords in logical groups seems a 
good idea, hut I was constantly 
referring to the index to find 
commands 

There are a few amusing errors, 
probably due to the manual's German 
origins, and the odd line missing 
from some example programs, but no 
major disasters, 

GFA Basic can be started from 
Workbench or CLI. When the editor is 
loaded you are presented with a 
single window into which you type 
your programs. At the top are 20 
items which can he selected with the 
mouse or function keys. 

You can use an independent editor, 
thanks to multi-tasking, I tried 
running GFA alongside the small 
version of Protext with a 512k 
expansion and it seems to work OK. I 
found it quite handy to be able to try 
something out in Basic, save a demo 
program as an Ascii hie, then switch 
to my word processor and merge the 
demo into this review. 


HE first thing you will notice is 
that each line of the program 
you type is checked for syntax errors 
as soon as Return is pressed. An error 
must be corrected Immediately, The 
editor will not allow you to enter 
another line until the error in the 
current line has been corrected. 

GFA Basic does not use line 
numbers, and only one statement is 
allowed on each line. For example 
PRINT; PRINT is regarded as a syntax 
error. Loops are automatically 
indented, which helps program 
legibility when several loops are 
nested. 

Program control is very important 
and is achieved by using Loops and 
conditions. GFA supports several 
types. The usual ones such as FOR 
NEXT, WHILE ... WEND, REPEAT ... 
UNTIL, DO ... LOOP are there but 
have been extended in GFA to 
include DO ... UNTIL, DO ,„ WHILE, 
LOOP ... UNTIL, LOOP ... WHILE, 
There can also be exits from a loop 
using EXIT ... IF. 

Even the humble IF ... THEN ... 

ELSE type of condition testing has 
been greatly expanded, A simple form 


I GFA-BASIC 3,12 


Load 
Save 
Hew Hanes CJN 



mi fait i New nmn 

QS Llist 


IB lot V IBlkEndl 


asKpr i 
Taskpn I Ol 
Cleanup QC 
VSiue Icon tO I 
NewCLI 


te color for the PRIM 

mce; chr$(ftH 9 b);"<St' 

Plain Text 
Bold-Face 
Italic 
Underscore 
Inverse Video 


The only 
pull-down menu. 
All other options 
are chosen 
by clicking on 
the control bar 


of this loop is: 

IF n=1 THEN 

PRINT "a equals wit* 

ELSE 

PRINT "a is not equal to 1" 
EMD1F 


More complex forms of condition 
testing are supported by GFA: 


OPENrw 0 
00 

t*=INKEYi 
If t*=T 

PRINT '■Load' 

ELS-EIF tl=T 
PRINT 'Save' 

ELSE IF (S=T 
PRINT "Input" 

ELSE PRINT Unknown Coniand' 
EHOIF 

LOOP 


It should be noted that the keyword 
THEN is not obligatory. The whole 
structure of the condition testing 
employed in the above listing makes 
the program readily understood by 
anyone, The indentations are 
automatically put in by the GFA 
editor to make program listings more 
readable. 

Another example of loop structures 
in GFA Basic is: 


OPEN* 0 
00 

LOOP UNTIL NQUSEK 

CO UNTIL HOUSED 
DO UHILE flQUSElM 

LINE t,MOUSEX,HMI&EY 

LOOP 

LOOP UNTIL INKET$=' ' 


This short listing allows you to draw 


a line by pressing the Left mouse 
button - that is when MGUSEK=1. 
You exit the program by pressing the 
right mouse button or the spacebar. 
The DO ... LOOP makes the listing 
much neater than a WHILE ,,, WEND. 

The GOSUB .,. RETURN subroutine 
structure is supported in the form of 
procedures which can have local 
variables. The ubiquitous GOTO has 
not been left out but there are 
restrictions as to its use - no GOTOs 
just before a Return, for example. 
Structured programming is no bad 
thing especially for a newcomer to 
Basic; those who prefer pasta will 
have to adapt. 

For debugging a program GFA has 
TRQN, TRQFF and TRACES, allowing 
program execution to be traced. There 
are a few variations of these 
commands. One of the more powerful 
is the ability to send the trace output 
to a file or to the printer. For example 
to send trace output to the printer use 
the following. 

OPEN UWPRN;' 

TftON #1 

'section of program being traced 

TROFF 

CLOSE #1 

By putting a DUMP command 
within a program all variables, labels, 
procedures and functions can be 
listed during program execution. This 
list can also be sent to a File. 

GFA Basic has many commands 

► 


May 1989 AMIGA COMPUTING 27 





■REVIEW* 





that relate to file handling. All the 
usual types are supported such as 
sequential and random access files, In 
addition there are a few extra 
commands. 

STORE enables the programmer to 
save a string array to a text file - 1 
can hear those Spectrum 
programmers counting their pennies 
now. The complementary command 
RECALL reads back a string array. If 
the end of file is reached then no 
error message is produced* instead a 
simple variable holds the number of 
items read. 


M ENU commands let you add 
drop down menus to your 
programs. This is abetted by a simple 
way to include keyboard short cuts 
within the menu selections. For 
example, if the sixth item on the 
menu was SAVE and you wanted to 
add Amiga-S as a short cut, then add 
a single line MENU KEY 6,83, The 
symbol for Amiga-S would be added 
to the menu and the command ON 
MENU GOSUB would also recognise 
the shortcut. Submenus are created by 
putting an exclamation mark before 
the menu entry. 

One of GFA's nicer features is the 
command FILES ELECT, This is very 


useful when you want to load or save 
files from within a Basic program, if 
you write a database type program for 
example, you will want to load or 


OPEN W tfl 
DIM a-SMB) 
il = 0 
DO 

READ mm 
EXIT IF a(UX)=’* J 
INC M 
loop 

a*(il)=- \ 

DATA 'RrojKt"/ Load/Save * 

DATA “! Load '/! Save 
DATA Other,* 

Ft ENU atO 
PtENU ICE 1 2,76 

nm w 3,83 

ON PtENU GOSUB nenuselect 
DO 

SLEEP 

LOOP 

PROCEDURE ienuselect 
IF flENUU)=2 
GOSUB- loadf i Le 
ELSE IF MENU CS) =3 
GOSUB savefile 
EN&I F 
RETURN 

PROCEDURE Loadf Ue 

FILESELiCT Toad Fi leyLoidyRAPiVaS 
‘actual load coiiinds go hare 
RETURN 

PROCEDURE savefile 

FltESUECT 'Save FU« v /SmYRM:%«l 
'actual save tonisnds go here 
RETURN 


save data, 

A little box is put on screen and a 
list of files in any directory displayed 
with just one line of Basic, Files can 
be selected for loading or saving by 
clicking the mouse hutton. 

Producing impressive graphics is 
simple. And after a quick look at the 
demo programs I felt that it would be 
fairly easy to write good graphics 
programs using GFA. It has all the 
commands that yon would expect 
such as LINE, CIRCLE, ELLIPSE, 

BOX, FILL, GET PUT and so on, Abo 
some you may not expect* like 
SCROLL to move a rectangular area 
of the screen and an extended 
variation of the DRAW command 
which simulates Logo: 

H 

INPUT 3 5 

DRAW at 

EXIT IF al=WT 
IMP 

Now inputting fd 50 rt 90 fd 50 at 
the input prompt would draw a line 
50 pixels long and turn the imaginary 
turtle 90 degrees to the right then 
draw another line 50 pixels long. To 
anyone who has ever played with 
Logo this would be quite familiar. 

There is rumour of a compiler 
coming soon.- When that appears 

► 


23 AMIGA COMPUTING May J 939 





COCCI TENSTAR PACK 

iflLLa WORTH OVER £229! 



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FREE !- WIZBALL - by Ocean 



Commodore 




INCLUDES 
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DELIVERY 


£346 


The Amiga 500 is one of a new breed of techno logically 
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6BD00 chip The A500 has 51 2K RAM and a 1 Mbyte double 
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losanily Fkgbl 

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> £229.50 

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INC VAT 


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Do you already own a computer 
Uf so, which dhe do y&u own 151 


J 















■ REVIEW* 


< 

commercial programs might be 
written using GFA, but then again C 
seems to be the flavour of the month, 
especially on the Amiga. The First 
copy I had of GFA Basic was version 
3.1), l had lots of problems with it so 
sent it back for a replacement, A 
week or so later, version 3.02 arrived. 

On the disc is a File called 
changes .readme. This was a fi ve page 
document detailing all the hugs that 
had been fixed, plus details of some 
new keywords that have been added. 

This later version is not without its 
problems. The most serious perhaps 
is that the machine hangs after 
printing a program listing or after 
changing a disc. The only way out in 
either case is to reset. 

When 1 got my second drive 
halfway through this review 1 thought 
I could load the Workbench from 
DFO: and run GFA from DFl: but 
GFA Basic will only autorun 


programs properly from the internal 
drive. 

The search and replace function 
does not work, it will find but not 
replace. Changing between insert and 
overwrite mode puts another cursor 
on the screen. I had 10 cursors on 
screen at one point; quite confusing. 

To enter direct mode you can either 
click with the mouse or press a 
function key. The effect should be the 
same, but it is no!, I sent the disc 
back a second time because of these 
problems, but after more than two 
weeks I have heard nothing more 
from Microdeal, 

This product has been rushed t 
leaving the unfortunate purchaser to 
do the what should be pre-release 
testing. What GFA Basic does, it does 
well II is faster and nicer to use than 
Amiga Basic and has some good extra 
features. And despite the bugs 1 like 
it. 

1 get the feeling though that it will 
get a had reputation and never be 


considered as a serious tool for 
Amiga programmers. This will be a 
shame because with a little more 
work it could be the best. 


KKI’ORT CARD 


Product GFA Basic 
Supplier Microdeal 0726 68020 
Price £64-95 


EASE OF USE., 


OK until it crashes. You need to reload 
after doing minor things like swapping 
floppy discs. 


SPEED. 


Very much faster than ,4 miga Basic, 
especially when using graphics. 


minim 


/ wouldn 't go out to huy GFA Basic, 
after all Amiga Basic is free. 


OVERALL 56% 


A missed opportunity , but it's not too 
late for the programmers to fix. 


SHC 



0 



I 

i 


DISCOUNT SOFTWARE 

FOR THE AMIGA 


GAMES: 

Zak McKrakan ....... £21-95 

War in Middle Earth £15.95 


Interceptor - £ 1 8 95 

Goll 


WORD PROCESSING: 

Pretext V4 - JSH5 

Kind Words 2 - £3995 

Micro text -£15.95 


Zany Golf ......... - * £18 95 

Ferrari Formula One .£18 95 

Afterburner £17.95 

Baal £13.95 

Bombuzai £1695 

Carrier Command « - £1595 

Double Dragon * £1495 

Dragons Lair £29 95 

Elite £16.35 

FakswiFie * £19 95 

Fisti ,...,....,.£16 95 

Galdregons Domain £13.95 

Lombard RAC Rally ,,,£1595 

Menace - .£14.95 

Operation Wolf . £1695 

Pioneer Plague £1595 

Purple Saturn Day £1fl 95 

Rocket Ranger £19.95 

Kennedy Approach .....£ 17.95 

Speed Ball - £17 95 

Soper Hang On £16.95 

Time & Magik £1 1 95 

Th Ltndarblade £ 1 6 ,95 

TV Sports Football ,„... £19.95 


JBMBB5L . »* 

£26 95 


Home Accounts ( 

«irrrzzr-=: «** 


ACCESSORIES: 

Mouse Mat £395 

Amiga Keyboard Cover £3 95 

Amiga to Centronics Print Lead £6.95 

Guickshot Turtso Joysbck .......... £10 95 

3 5 Head Cleaner ........ £5 95 

Comp Pro 5000 Joystick £1 2 95 

ASM Ram Expansion {Inc. Clock) ,....£139.95 


GRAPHICS: _ _ 

Deluxe Paint 2 m + E54.9| 

Digi Paint " tVAl 

Photon Paint ..,,£49.95 


PROGRAMMING: 

Hi soft Basic tl 

Hi soft Devpac V 2 ... £39 .95 

K Seka C34.95 

Metacomco Pascal £66 95 


PRINTERS: 


Panasonic 1 081 : 60 Column, 120 cps. 

F fiction A Tractor .£169.95 

Star LC 10 60 Column. 1 44 cps, 

Frtcion & Tractor £19595 

Star LC 1 0 Colour: As above with 

seven colour option £245.95 

Star LC 24-10 24 pm 

Excellent print quality £319 95 


DATABASES: 

K Data . ,,..,£34 95 

WoobMM - 

OmaQa l.le - S2&2S 

Supertiase Personal £66 95 


BOOKS: 


Elementary Amiga Ba&ic £14.95 

Ktckstart Guide . L , ■■■ ■ 


Amiga Tricks & Tire £12.95 


PHILIPS COLOUR 
MONITOR CM8&33 
with ttarao sound! 


SOUND: 

Amu Midl/Sampler —““““ESS'S* 

Adrum. £29.95 

Aegis Sonix — - 

Fun School 2 2-6 years S 3 Sf 

Fun School 2 6-8 years El 3 96 

Fun School 2 fl 12 years £13 95 


Advanced Amiga latfc £)6.9s 

Amiga for Beginners „.„.„,.„.,.........£1095 

Amiga Machine Language ....£12.95 

Amiga Microsoft Basic ... EiB-45 

Bosk: inside 6 Out £18 95 

TheC Language £23 95 


OUR PRICE £229.95 


ALL PRICES INCLUDE VAT 
A DELIVERY 


□ 


Bulk 3.5 Discs 10 off 

£9.96 

Bulk 3.5 Discs 20 off 

£16.96 

Sony Branded Sox of 10 

£15-96 


All goods offered Subject to availability Overseas orders welcome - Please writs lor prices Callers welcome: Monday lo Friday 9 30 to 5.00 Saturday 10.00 to 400 

Please send cbeques/POs to 

M.J.C. SUPPLIES (AMG) 

40a QUEEN STREET, HITCH1N, HERTS. SG4 9TS 
Tel: (0462) 42141 5/32897/420874 tor Enquiries/Credit Card Orders 



30 AMIGA COMPUTING May 1909 






LAN COMPUTER SYSTEMS 


SHOWROOM OPEN MON TO SAT 1 0.30am TO 5.30pm TELEPHONE 01 -597 8851 (5 lines) 












* * -¥■ ■¥■ 


E levators which feel like 

helicopters take some beating - 
AmiExpo New York was held at the 
Marriott Marquis Hotel, which is 
distinguished by having the tallest 
atrium - or lobby - in the world. The 
glass lifts whizz up and down the 50 
floors at breakneck speed, taking a 
couple of floors to slow down. 

New York is famed for magnificent 
skyscrapers, but the Marriott manages 
to provide spectacular scbfi style 
views inside the building. 

America 

loves 

Amiga 

Simon Rockman reports from 
the Amiga Show in New York 



Attending AmiExpo is not cheap - 
At around Si. 75 to the pound, tickets 
which cost $20 for one day and $30 
for all three days worked out at 
between £11 and £17. There were a 
number of intensive classes on using 
the Amiga as a video tool, the art of 
Amiga art, programming in C, using 
the Amiga for music, desktop 
publishing and animation. 

The art classes were taken by James 
Sachs, who also gave a talk on 
pushing forward the quality of Amiga 
software. He showed a video tape of 
his current project, 20,000 Leagues 
Under The Sea T which is being 
produced in conjunction with Disney. 
The game is still a couple of years 
from completion. Most of the graphics 
are finished and he is now working 
on the programming. 

This is pure machine code, James 
has no truck with multi-tasking or C. 
The demo was spectacular, with the 
kind of graphics that make even blase 
Amiga owners applaud. But what will 
turn it into a really special game is 
the music and the load speed. 

The Nintendo games console has 
been very successful in the US and 
Mr Sachs contends this is because 
cartridge games load instantly, 20,000 
Leagues will start running within a 
second of putting the disc In the drive 
and be playable within three seconds. 

I AMES revealed a couple of home 
truths about Roger Rabbit. He 
mits the game has a couple of 
I problems because it was rushed out 
in 90 days on the Amiga, PC and C64, 
| but he is proud of the quality of 



The portable Amiga — mono only ; It costs $2, 200 from Micro Momentum 




32 AMIGA COMPUTING May 1989 



■FEATURE! 



animation which owes more to the 
traditional cartoonist's skill than any 
computer game previously. 

What made the video special was 
the sound. The game will have a 
Wagnerian soundtrack produced by 
mixing samples from a collection of 
digitised instruments. James admits to 
tipping his hand to other software 
developers, but would rather see the 
standard of games improve than live 
with hissy samples. 

The music course was run by Dean 
Friedman, the musician famous for 
hits like Lucky Stars, Rocking Chair 
and Lydia as well as the music for 
Bonn. Dean is acknowledged as 
something of an Amiga Midi expert in 
America where he runs the New York 
School of Synthesis. Look out for his 
articles on the Amiga and music in 
future issues of Amiga Computing, 

The show provided a chance to 
meet a lot of the people who have 
made the Amiga - not the big 
companies, but the user groups and 
magazines. There were several stands 
selling PD software; programs to do 
pretty much anything you wanted 
were available for $4 a disc, 

N EWTEK showed the Video 
Toaster (again]. It looks as 
though this super-duper video mixing 
card for the A2000 really will go on 
sale this summer in NTSC form. But a 
PAL version is a long way off 
Tim Jennison, the owner of 
NewTek, claims that a European 
version is pretty tricky. The higher 
definition we have on our televisions 
means that the card needs more ram 
and quicker processing. The problems 
are exacerbated by British companies 
being much fussier about the quality 
of television pictures than US stations. 

But Tim admits there is probably a 
big enough market to make the 
project worthwhile, fust as soon as 
the NTSC version is out and he has 
bad a holiday — sorry, vacation. 

Other attractions to the NewTek 
stand were DigiPaint III, which will 
be available soon, and a stunning 
demo by Allen Hastings. NewTek 
glossed over the jump from DigiPaint 
to DigiPaint III without the usual 
business of messing with a DigiPaint 
II. Perhaps the spectre of Deluxe Paint 
01 was looming too large. 

R&DL productions were on home 
territory and used the show to launch 
Lightbox, a drawing program which 
allows an animator to see frames of a 
cartoon as though they were drawn 


Allen Hastings had some great new demos 

on layers of tracing paper. Individual 
frames can then be saved and 
coloured in using something like 
DPaint. R&DL has applied for a patent 
on the system. 

Impulse Software had some demos 
to go with Turbo Silver and promised 
Turbo Silver III soon. This habit of 
not having a version II is catching. 

The company also showed a 3D 
system like the Haitex using the Sega 
glasses. It allows up to four players to 
take a squint and they look more like 
Ray Bans. It’s hard to act cool, let 
alone save the universe, wearing a 
welding mask. This combines with 
Silver to produce great 3D 
animations. 

Impulse also has a musical 
instrument. You sing into a 
microphone and an interface converts 
the sounds into musical notes. This 
will cost Si 99. 

M ICHTRON and Microdeal 
were showing Viva, an 
interactive visual authoring system 
which is aimed at the computer based 
based training market. It uses a 
standard video disc player and the 
Commodore A230A genlock. There 
are three versions of the software, 
costing between $50 and $600. 
Michtron is selling the HiSoft Basic 
compiler in the US, along with a 
number of familiar UK programs. 
Soft-Log ik launched Pagestream, 


This DTP package has been a success 
on the ST and now aims to repeat the 
performance on the Amiga. The 
software costs $199.95 and offers 
advanced text editing with spell 
checking in addition to the usual DTP 
functions. 

It will produce colour separations, 
so that high quality colour can be 
produced by getting a proper printing 
company to run off pages, and 
supports colour printers. Pagestream 
will also produce high quality output 
on non- Postscript printers. A full 
review will appear in Amiga 
Computing soon. 

Syndesis announced a couple of 
improvements to its range of shape 
translation programs. Interfont can 
turn normal bil-mapped Amiga fonts 
into the wire frames a program like 
Sculpt 3D needs. It will also allow 
you to edit the shapes, and has 
recently been upgraded to include the 
A gets Draw format used by 
Professional Draw and Turbo Silver 
3,0 format, 

A departure for Syndesis is the 
move into networking software. Bob 
Tolly has written a DECnet emulation 
which uses the serial port and allows 
the Amiga to be connected to a 
mainframe as though it were a 
dedicated terminal. This should be 
help establish the Amiga in the high 
end workstation market, but I can’t 

► 


May 1989 AMIGA COMPLYING 33 



w 



* 

see any sales to home users. 

The Amiga has always attracted 
users who want to do more and go 
faster. With the official Commodore 
A 2620 on sale, third party companies 
have moved up market. Great Valley 
Products announced a 66630 card for 
the A2000, This will be available in 
16 and 25Mhz versions , which at a 
guess will be between 10 and 15 
times faster than a standard Amiga. 

Some clever circuitry lets the 68030 
run faster than the rest of the 
computer and still access the memory 
at maximum speed. A socket allows 
for a floating point co- processor, GVP 
also announced a 44 meg removable 
hard drive for the A 2000. 

G OLD DISK did not have a stand 
at the show, but took the 
opportunity to announce a number of 
new programs and some hardware. 
Design 3D has been previewed before, 
but at AmiExpo it was nearly finished 
and Looked realty good. 

It is a modelling program which 
interfaces with Videoscape but has a 
friendly front end. Objects can be 
created in 3D with four views - top, 
front side and perspective. Up to four 
light sources can be used. It looks a 
useful tool, but a bit pricey at $99, 
More exciting, for me at least, was 
Transcript, the second program in the 
new Gold Disk home office series. It 
is hilled as a writing/ editing tool, but 
is really a word processor. 

Transcript is designed to be small 
and quick to use, ideal for multi' 
tasking with Pro-page, There is a 
90,000 word spell check which can be 
run as a separate task. A special mode 
lets you see - but not alter - what 
output will look like. At $69,95 it 
looks a good buy, 

1 said it was the second Home 
Office program. The first will be 



Seren Grtinbech - you probably 
know him as Sodan 


Home Budget. This is a book 
balancing tool which helps look after 
things like home bank accounts. 

The first move into hardware is an 
interface for the Canon 1X12 scanner. 
The scanner will read an A4 page in 
15 seconds at 75, 150, 200 or 300 dpi 
and turn it into an IFF file. It is set up 
to use fast ram because an A 4 black 
and white page gobbles up a meg at 
maximum resolution. The US price of 
$1 ,095 is unlikely to be reflected by 
the UK price, where the scanner costs 
£1,406 for the IBM PC, 

One item of hardware seems to be 
particularly popular with developers 
at the moment - the multiple serial 
board. ASAP in Scunthorpe is about 
to release Amiox, an eight parallel, 
eight serial port device. 

CMI from Oregon announced 
CMInet, a networking card with two 
serial and one parallel ports. This 
includes some custom software, 

ASDG launched the incredibly fast 
DSB or dual serial board which adds 
two extra RS232 ports to the Amiga. 
Perry Kivalowitz from ASDG showed 
me two A mi gas linked with the car ds 
and transferred a file between them at 
around 10k a second. The card costs 


$299 and will be a useful peripheral 
for A2OO0 owners with several 
machines. 

Games were very low key, 

Psy gnosis was showing Blood Money, 
an impressive Menace type game for 
two players, on its stand, A novel 
feature allows players to buy weapons 
by collecting money dropped from 
the aliens they shoot You will have 
to get on well with a partner to get 
very far. 

The only other games software 
house was Visionary Design 
Technologies - responsible for 
Dragon's Lair - which has now 
moved on to more traditional games, 
a defender clone called Question and 
a funny breakout in the round called 
Vortex. Question is by Soren 
Gronbech the programmer who wrote 
Sword of Sodan, He has now moved 
to Canada and is on the Visionary 
Design team. 

Many Amiga owners have asked for 
a portable Amiga. Dale Luck, from 
Commodore- Amiga built himself one 
using an old SX-64 case. The small 
screen is far from satisfactory so 
Micro Momentum has come up with 
an Amiga in a briefcase design which 
uses an amber monitor. The whole 
thing looks very Heath Robinson, so 1 
can see technology has a lot of 
catching up to do before a portable 
Amiga becomes viable. 

T HERE was a lot to see in three 
days, which made for a great 
show, American Amiga users are a 
great and dedicated bunch. They 
obviously get a lot out of using their 
I machines and the healthy PD Libraries 
are a tribute to the work they have 
put in. 

Lots of people seem to ha ve A20D0S 
and A500s with hard drives and it 
was the quality off visitors which 
really made the show. New York 
obviously likes AmiExpo, It's a bit of 
a shame I wasn’t keen on New York, 



The new version of the Exec documentation, ft will be here in fune 


— 

i 


34 AMIGA COMPUTING May 1933 


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on production of this advert 

Subject to availability and price change without notice Mot atf titles released attune of going to press 



May 19S9 AMIGA COMPUTING JS 







AMIGA 

GAMES SOFT WARE 


Price 


E 13,85 
£13-8$ 
£13.86 
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E16.06 
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£27 95 
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£219 95 

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E1B9 96 

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I AMIGA 

1 GAMES SOFTWARE 

Retail 

Price 

10*2! _ £24.98 


£24.99 

Akiedo 

£13.98 

Alien Syndrome 

£24.95 

Goid Miia II ......... 

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£19.95 

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£24.95 

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£149$ 

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£24,36 

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40 DSDD + Lodufcto Disc Box £M,85 

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.624.95 

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£24.95 
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, £24.95 
£24.95 
.. £19.95 
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.. £24.95 
..£24.35 


..£10.90 


r , £24.95 


..£13.98 

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Ot^ceratof 

, £24.95 
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Oper^ion WWf — — 

Pec Mania 

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..£20-96 
£24.85 
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.. £10.35 
.. £19.99 
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..£24.9$ 



... £24.86 

rVu^MlkrT. £19.95 

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..£14 35 
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...£24.08 
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..... 19.35 

flobbeary «• 

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£1985 


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£24.85 

' - 

■ MHGA$OflWAflE 
| BUSINESS UTlUIV GRAPHIC SOUND 

RdSH 

Pnc* 

Dmpack A*ft*n±iter 

rafl-05 

Dlgp Paint - 

Inatahl MuMC — 

K-S*ka 66000 Auarcbkr 

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I ngbiiii Vi 2 S P.'OG'G fl (1MBJ 

.. tOV-95 
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..£68.9$ 
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MCC Shell .. 

£49 85 

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£19.85 
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Module 2 Devekipen) 

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£149.115 
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..£79.95 

Phflpn Pain! 

Pro Sound Designer (SAN A H/W} .... 

£$9.95 

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MOUSE MATS 
SPECIAL PRICE £3*95 


Disk Ginning Kits only £4,95 
Amiga Dust Cavers from £9,95 
Lockable Storage Box (holds 403.9" 
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Mouse Brackets £2.95 
Amiga Joystick Extension (pair) £G.95| 


JOYSTICKS 

Crystal Joystick Turbo 
ONLY £16-95 

Euromax Professional Standard 
ONLY £14.95 


$o*nery DfcC Japan - ». 

SDsnery Dbc WTEumpean . 

Scrabble Deluxe 

Shadow Gate 


Shoot ’Em Up Cone Kit 

... £24.95 
... £24 95 

CLkntfVul 

,624 9$ 


Space Racer — — 

...,£19.99 

....£24,85 


..., £24.85 


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....£24,9$ 

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u „£l9,9$ 
....£24 95 

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£8.99 

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Techno Cop 

„..£19,8$ 
£19 95 


..£19.95 


£24.89 

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£18.89 


£18.98 

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„„ £18.05 

Ihdn^iv £24.85 


£19.99 

Vtlb 

£10.95 

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£19.95 

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Who Framed Roger Ratobil 
Wizards Crowr 

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£14.06 

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7j»rty Cioi 

£34.85 

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£10.95 


1 AMIGA SOFT 1 ;; ARE 
1 BUSINESS UTILITY GfiAPHlC SOUND 

HcLiil 

Price 

Pro Sound* Dnlgner tS<W OnW 

£34.0$ 

£99 95 


... £140.06 

ScritAteiT 

£08.85 


£59 9$ 


... £248.85 

Supefptan 

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TV ’ SHcwr 

£49,8$ 

6138.95 

tv' Text , 

£88.9$ 

VIP Pirteulonei 

..... £89.95 
C9S.06 

Word Perfect V4Jl 

Wrfrj* a Ri |« rWP/DR needs 1MB) -. 

£228,35 

£99.85 

XCopy 

28.ft5 


ZumaFomaVri i h 2* 3 . 


Please ring lor availably on these specials as slocks are strictly limned 

AMIGA SOFTWARE SPECIALS AMIGA SOFTWARE SPECIALS AMIGA SOFTWARE SPECIALS AMIGA SOFTWARE SPECIALS 

Special Price Special Prl« Special Price SpocMPm* 


Arctic Rm t9« 

Armageddon Man CIO-49 

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Crazy Cm — - 61 3.85 


Dart Caalte 13-95 Pladoon 

Iridon £10 90 Bottom ..... 

Jlmr _ _C11.«S SKychHa»...„ 

Phantasm - C10.8S Skyfox II 


,.£10.43 

£999 

..^...£9,89 

£9.88 


Spaceport m . mrtf .....£6.99 

Three Stwgf* ,£16.06 


Soft**!* S im.Mttmt #«il IttCtos Pau. Chtqutt nquln 7 rfijn TurtIMoll __ 

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Turtiesott, Dept. AMC4. Unit 3, The Old Ma it house, Springfield Road, Grantham, Lines. NG31 7SE 

Subject id availability, all itami are dwpatchfltl wnhfl 24 hours. EftOE 


36 AMIGA COMPUTING May 1989 








-J L 


REVIEWa 




Rupert Goodwins^ 
looks at a utility to 
provide you with 
a broader palette 


E veryone knows that the 

Amiga can display 4,096 
colours, but It's hard to credit, 
looking at the vivid orange, china 
blue and Da z whiteness of the normal 
Workbench display. There’s no hint 
in the Amiga manuals as to how such 
dayglo diversity might be obtained, it 
seems that you are expected to be 
happy with |usl the four that 
Commodore gave you. 

This is silly. At least, Hi Tension 
thinks so, as it has brought out Icon 
Paint to warm up the Workbench and 
give you the power to iconise your 
own programs. Icon Paint is really a 
set of programs which can switch the 
Workbench between 2, 4, R or 16 
colours, create, edit or import icon 
images, and generally give Amy a 
fresh coat of makeup. 

Booting from the Tcon Paint disc 


gives an immediate indication of what 
is in store. The Workbench is 
switched into 16 colour mode, with 
several subdued colours mixed with 
shades of grey - very attractive. The 
disc icon looks like a solid 3,5in 
floppy and double-clicking on it 
draws the metal shutter back to reveal 
a realistic disc surface. There really 
should be a sampled sound effect to 
go with that,.* 

The Icon Paint window is 
dominated by the icon of the editor 
package. Below that are various other 
icons for the new programs provided, 
as well as buttons to switch the 
number of colours in use. Hi Tension 
has redone most of the standard 
Workbench icons, and hidden away 
on the disc are a number of 
impressive multicolour pictures, as 
much there to show what can be done 
as to be serious alternatives. 


The editor package is the Largest 
program on the disc. It has two 
windows, in which icons up to 320 
by 100 pixels can be edited. One 
window is for the “normal" icon + the 
other for the icon after it has been 
selected. 

The editor is, for a world satiated 
by PixelPaint and awaiting Deluxe 
Paint III, rather crude. There are 
gadgets to fill an area with solid 
colour, type in text, draw Lines, boxes 
and circles and not much else. The 
magnify function works rather slowly, 
and it gets unusable if you draw on 
the main screen over the area being 
magnified. 

But all this doesn't matter, because 
the program will load and clip to size 
any IFF picture file. You can mess 
around with your picture to your 

► 


May 1989 AMIGA COMPiTUNG 3? 



■ REVIEWS 


heart's content in your favourite 
graphics utility, and turn it into an 
icon when you're quite happy. 

Those with video digitisers can 
capture their favourite rock stars, 
scale them to fit and get them to stick 
their tongues out when the icon’s 
selected. Just don’t ask me why. 

The editor allows you to set what 
sort of file will be associated with the 
icon when it's finished. Task is used 
for programs. Project for files which 
contain data for programs, and so on. 
It’s a neat way of providing programs 
you use with their own icon and a 
presence on the Workbench screen. 

Other programs are included to 
smooth the introduction of this 
chromatic extravaganza. One is a 
palette program which sets up the 
colours just so. There’s another, 
called Dircol, which lets each 
Workbench draw have Us own colour 
settings by loading information from 
a colour map file. 

Finally, there’s Getcob which 
extracts colour information from any 
IFF image file - though not a HAM 
image. You want a HAM Workbench? 
You write it! Between them, they 
more than compensate for the 
Preferences program only controlling 
the four standard Workbench colours. 

There are also a couple of utility 
programs to create a second 
Workbench or kill one off. I'd have 
preferred to have been able to load an 
IFF picture as a backdrop to the main 
Workbench - I’ve seen some PD 
software on an early Fish disc that 
does this, and it would have added a 
nice touch. 

At first I had considerable problems 
with Icon Faint. Icons on old discs 
consistently corrupted the screen* 
crashed the computer or left 
droppings all over the place, A quick 
phone call to Hi Tension revealed that 
I hadn’t read the ReadMc file (cue a 
16 colour reviewer’s face) and many 
icons were corrupted themselves, but 
for the normal four colour 
Workbench this didn’t matter. Throw 
them at the 16 colour version and 
things break down. 

The cure is to load the icons into 
the editor and save them out again. 
This works in all the cases I tried - I 
couldn't resist the temptation to 
modify the pilot's head in Interceptor 
and stick a smiley on his helmet. 
There was still the occasional odd 



The soft wan? 
comes with a 
range of icons 


corruption on screen; whether this 
was from an icon I'd missed or some 
deeper malaise I'm not sure. 

Whatever, it wasn't nearly nasty 
enough to rouse me to investigate 
further. 

The documentation was adequate, 
apart from using "itV’ for "its” 
throughout. The biggest annoyance of 
the whole setup was the copy 
protection - there are no restrictions 
on the number of times you can make 
backups, but whenever you want to 
use the editor you need to have the 
original disc to hand* otherwise the 
program won't run. 

It's not the sort of thing you do to a 
utility which people might buy to 
make their livings from. Not to 
men lion the annoyance it causes to 
hard disc owners. 

Icon Paint lets you choose between 
speed and beauty on your Amiga, A 
two colour Workbench is faster for 
text painting and window movements 
and uses less chip memory; a 16 
colour version is slower and hungrier, 
but looks so nice. Altogether a 
worthwhile utility. 


REPORT CARD 


Product loon Paint 
Supplier Eli Tension 
Price £14.95 

USEFULNESS DTI 1111 

Whih a prettier Workbench is very 
nice it isn't ready any great use, 


EASE OF USE...... 

When you have conquered the 
problems caused by buggy icons it is 
simple. 


INTUITION 

AVfbotitfb designed to work within the 
limits of Workbench , it is hound to 
break some AmigaDm guidelines. 


hd 


SPEED 

The extra hit-planes needed to add new 
colours take time to blit and so makes 
the system much slower. 


VALUE. 

There are few games you can buy for 
less than £20, so a utility at this price 
really is a bargain. 


OYIMMI 


Saved by the price, a fun r frivolous 
utility, but it is quite cute , 


m AMIGA COMPUTING May 1989 










BYTEBACK 



Ring us now! 0636-79097 we're programmed to help 




GUARANTEED RETURN OF POST Delivery on ALL Stock items: 


DELIVERY 

SERVICE 

. . . and the keenest prices 


INTERNATIONAL ORDERS WELCOME 


NEW RELEASES ONLY! 



15.90 

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Lanka C (NEW Vertion 5)— 179.50 

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temm — Wimiftf Edkton — -...., M® 

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* Scanary Tor 11 — .15 JO 

* Europun Scenery 12.S0 

■ Japan Scenery ««**»■ 12.90 


2BB.Q0 

__ __ ...619.00 

AMTI^AM/Gtock Ekpanston 135.00= 

Genlock (A600J - && ™ 

mkiiGEN ..„ — ..™«® 


f After Burner — 

...15.90 | 

Lord* of the Rising Sun — 

Operdion NepliXn* 

Space Qu**4 II 

Tech 

19® 

16® 

15® 

15.® 

Th* flhaim .. 

...... 16® 


W*r In Middle Eertk - 

lt .. 15.90 

L* Warm 

...... 16,® 

Zany Golf 

16.® 

^Alklh , 

12® 

PaJadln 

15® 

fcf**dn 

-,.-.15.® 


[ Gauntlet II 

.„.15.« 1 

Baibailan ? 

15® 

QNA Warw 

12® 

Emnanu#l0 

12.® 

LED Swim - 

12.® 

nhau 

fl® 


| Shoal Em Up Ctmslrurt Krt 

t ...15 JO | 

Rtnch fsx the Stsn 

„ -15.® 


15.® 

IVJflflte ■ «i ■* nanmntMfH* mm m ■ ■■■ ■ ■ 

Roger Rabbit 

15® 

nranhrt* 1 air 

39. H 

■ 

|aoventure$ 

ONLY! | 


Football Director 2 ... 
Football Manager 2 .. 

Fusion him 

Gftld rayon* Domain . 
GarlWd .. 


..12,90 

.,14.90 


Gary L Inekera Hotlhbts .. 
T-laroE* of ita Lane* .,„ 


Incredible Shrinking Spbera 


.12 90 
..15.90 
.15.90 
._ 10.90 
...15.90 
.., 15.00 

Inlemsrttonal Karats PkJ* — 16-90 

Kennedy Approach — 16,9® 

King d Chicago — * — — - 18® 

LeaMrboard BIROlE 15® 

Lontaad RAC FtaJiy ^ 16® 

Menace. 1*® 

NeOulue — 15® 

OperMion Wofl,.™ — 15.90 

Pacmarla — — - 1 z ® 

Par* Dm FigWer — —* »«- 12.00 

Pioneer Plague 


STAR LC10 Printer (Mono) »» 

STAR LC10 Rrlnlar (Cotour) 259 .00 

(All printer* indod* leadi) 

Cy, maria. 3.5" 1Mb Qmk Drive ,.99.00 

mumum; 



* rw a t rtuCULh .. 12.® 

BBC EmulatOf — — 

39.® 

□rnEo.4 TT 

29.90 

(Superb Disk Copier) 

rau- 

79.® 


DiolCalG - 

,29® 

| GDMF-Th* Hutton 

,-....,54,90 1 


PACK 1 MHMW 

1 1010 1Mb Ditk Drive 
- A501 FlAMiGkx*. E Kjiam+on 
■ Superbaie Personal 


... 36949 239.90 


* lOlO 1Mb Ql*k Drive 
■MRS 1230 Printer 

* Ten Cr«H 


Rocket Ranger., 
Scrabble Deluxe , 


1 5.90 

19,90 

..12,90 


Strip Poker 2 * .. 
■ Dale Diak 


,5-90 


Sword d Sedan ...... 

Teenage Queen 

TV Sport* Footbai - 

VkW ■ 

Wald Tour Gori hh 


1 MPS 1230 Primer 

* A501 RAM^todt Eqjiwion 
' Superbase Perianal 

PACK A 69 0.0 5 M9.9Q 

* 1010 1 Mb Dkk Drive 

* A501 RAM^tack Eitpamion 

■MPS 1230 Primer 

mmm^mnssa 

"TV STOW .62,50 

Aegis Anlnyg/lmagea 69® 


publisher* Choice 

5 bdos: Page Setter 1 2 
Kind Words 2 , Laser Saipt 
CaJo Fonis, Artists Choice 


Softwood FN — 

w® 

S uper Plan - 

69,® 

f SUPERB ASE PERSONAL. 

19pW], 

c; HurhMA PnriuifMlI 7 

89® 

j iip&rtiM if PmiBU^wuy «■ 

174® 

X-Cppy (DtokCcpier)— h — — 

29® 



Arriga lw Beginners 

Arriga Bask Inude and Oul „ 
Machine Language 


Tricks and T(pa „ 

System Program* 

Amga DOS leside and Oui - 


..1&.9S 
..14,95 
.. 14.95 
.32 95 
.18 95 


COMPILATIONS ONLY 


TRIAD - 3 Game Padk ^ 1 8.90 DelUKe PhrtoLib 

Barbarian. Defender of UM Crown, Star^ktof 



59.® 

Movie Saner 

»-» 

DejijX* Pnini 2 

47® 

Deluxe Print 2 — 

34® 

| Deluxe Pelrri 3 , 

59,® | 


Real 


Anna.* cd Rome 15® 

Balance Of Power 18® 

Baida TJa 15,90 

Barda Tale 2 15® 

Chrono Quetl — 18® 

CWTiptWjn - m ,H-, is.90 

FWl 15® 

Lanwklt 12® 


MIT DISKS (VoA 1> — — — 

GekJnunner, Karate Kid II 
JiLoriAf Probe. Slaygon 

HIT USKS I - " 

Major Motion, Tin* Bandit 
Leather neclL Tanglewood 


Deluxe Video .. 

Deluxe Mimic Con, Set. „ 

dee Ign 30 ....... 

Dtflrrww Gold (PAL) . 

| Feimyleto n . 

irwtartL Music 
Modeler 30 .. 

Phrmde ^ 


Disk Drives IraBe and Out 27® 

Program* dleka 10 iicwrnfany tl 

B«*i{eacn) ^ — ** — - 13 ® 

r.WH*w«iaig3 

LockMiQ Drsk Box (30+) 

Locktog Dd* Box (100+J - 
Media 60 * (Hold* ISO) - 
3.5T Dtek*DSrDD (x10.. 

Box Of It) SONY Disks _ — — ic-*r 

rCw»rI ...fl.90 

a naked without onel) 


Keyboard &wer — 


Menwe Manor .. 


..12.90 


Romantic Encountera (ia+) 12,0D~| 


Pluto*. Mouse Trap, Second* CM 
Winter oyrrplad. Suicide Mltskm 


.15.90 Pie Sound De*lgn*r 

I PHOTON PAINT . 


^..■■19® | 


JoyslKK - Mouse Extension 
WlZ CARD OOntroHer — 


Shadoegala 16® 

Tale* of Low .h.™-.— 1&® 

Ultima (V ,.„, r ^ 15.90 


SUPER*...,. 
Thai Boning 
Flight P 


g Grand Prix.Grid Sian, 
La* Vegas, XR3S 


Scultp 3D (PAL) 

O rector Took* — M® 

The Dj rector ... ,..„,.h.-42.60 

Uhlmaie Sound Tracker 27.50 


. 13.90 
.. 14® 


The above is just a email selection of our VAST stock of AMIGA software! 
Callers welcome; Norrnul Office Hours - 24 Hour Telephone Sarvlco 1 


J 

BYT 



CK 

DEPT AC. 6 MUMBY CLOSE, NEWARK, NOTTS NG24 1JE 


Cheque, postal 
orders or credit 
card facilities 
are available 


E3 



May 1989 AMIGA COMPUTING 39 







framed 






'J Uice'mtiOUirg 






Look what s 
waiting for 

Pi*s«sr H 

electronic mail service 

Four years' continual development have made MicroLink into 
the COMPLETE communications and information system for 
everyone with a home or business computer, 

And it's so easy to use. From your keyboard, linked to a 
modem and phone, you can directly key into the services 
shown above - and many, many more. 

Every day thousands of electronic mail messages pass between 
MicroLink subscribers throughout Britain . . . and many other parts of the 
world. From their keyboard they can also send telex and fax messages, 
without the need to buy expensive equipment. 

MicroLink can be used with ANY computer, from a tiny hand-held Psion 
Organiser or 288 portable to the most sophisticated computer of 
all And from anywhere where there is a telephone point. 

So if you want to speed up your mail, tap into a weather satellite, 
carry out company searches, obtain free legal and financial advice, 
order flowers, book theatre tickets, negotiate a mortgage, help 
yourself to free telesoftware programs - or go adventuring in the 
land of Shades, the world's biggest multi-user game - 
then there's only one answer — MicroLink. 


Qne number to dial . . . 
one security password . 
one simple log-on . 
and ypu're only a 
keystroke away from 
the best information 
and entertainment 
services now available! 


FIND OUT MORE ABOUT miaolioh 


I Please send me Name— _ - 

more facts about Address 

! mkrolioh ~~ 

y Send to: MicroLink, Europa House, Adfington Park , Adiington, Macclesfield $K16 4NP. 



AMC5 


■ REVIEW 



What’s 
up, Doc? 

John Kennedy finds that animating 
Bugs Bunny is as easy as chewing 
a carrot , provided you've the memory 


S UPERB graphics are what sells 
the Amiga, mostly through short 
animated demo programs and the 
occasional appearance on a Channel 4 
music programme. The blitter, the 
Large choice of colours and an 
overscan mode wherehy the whole 
screen is used with no borders makes 
it the ideal, cheap way to produce 
professional looking results. 

However to achieve anything that 
looks in the least part useful you 
would First need to spend a lot of time 
learning machine code and reading 
volumes I to X of the Amiga 
hardware specification. Realising this, 
several software companies have 
released packages that do all the 
programming - you just supply the 
ideas and the drawings. MovieSetter 

► 


May J 999 AMIGA COMPUTING 41 



claims to be the first Wysiwyg 
animation program for the Amiga, It 
comes in a large box on two non 
copy -protected discs with a 68 page 
manual It claims to need only an 
A 5 00 with no bolt- on memory or 
extra drives to run. 

Now I am no artist - drawing the 
curtains is large enough strain for me 
- so I must be the ideal person to test 
an animation program, If I can 
achieve anyrning worthwhile, it must 
be good. 

The disc auto-boots and leaves you 
on a Workbench. Clicking open the 
disc reveals several icons including 
MovieSetter, ScreenEditor, SetEditor 
and MoviePiay. The last is a freely 
distributable program that will play 
your finished animations. This means 
you can give all your friends copies of 
your epic productions without 
breaking any copyright laws, T 
wanted to keep my friends, so I kept 
my animations to myself 

M OVIESETrER brings its own 
set of jargon, unavoidable 
with a program of this complexity, In 
some cases the choice of words leaves 
a lot to be desired because they might 
easily confuse the beginner. 

The word set is used very 
frequently but not! as you might 
expect, to describe the environment in 
which the movie takes place. Instead, 
a set is a collection of faces , and faces 
are all the possible drawings of a 
particular object Thus the 
SetDesigner program allows you to 


edit the actual characters and objects 
you wish to animate. 

A NIMATIONS are created by 
first using SetEditor to define 
all your characters. 

Every possible position that the 
character can be in must be defined. 

If you are animating a man walking t 
you must make several drawings^ 
each with his legs in a different 
position. If you are designing a 
stationary object! say a lamp post, you 
need only draw it once. 

When the drawings are finished! 
ScreenEditor must be selected to get 
down to the business of creating your 
film. 

First you choose the background 


that your objects will appear in front 
of The way in which this background 
appears can be chosen from a 
selection of wipes, which allow any 
subsequent backgrounds to appear, 
not immediately, but in a pre- 
determined pattern. For example the 
old background could be replaced by 
the new background in a series of 
columns sliding down the screen. 
There are six such wipes to choose 
from. 

The backgrounds can be scrolled 
horizontally or vertically. You can 
specify an acceleration if you want! so 
the background will start to move 
slowly and then build up speed. As 
the manual points out, this mimics 
real life! where things start slowly* 

| then increase speed. To allow your 


Loop 


Previous frame 
Play reverse 


Start movie 


Next frame 

Play forward 


End move 


I 


I □ 


ci U ei ctiania 


[000813000 05 20 

1 1 , I L_J L ■ 


Frame number 


Minutes . Seconds Degrees 


The controls are pukka windows 


42 AMIGA COMPUTING May 1989 




■REVIEW! 



mt 

und 

y 


ke 

by 


so 


animations to move you must lay 
down tracks for the drawings to 
follow, After selecting New Track yon 
must choose one of your previously 
defined sets. When this has been 
loaded, the pointer is replaced by the 
first drawing in the set. Clicking the 
mouse button will fix the face at that 
position. The face at the pointer is 
incremented automatical ly h so the 
next drawing appears, ready for 
positioning. 

A LL objects remain displayed as 
you Lay them down, making 
positioning easier. This procedure is 
repeated, perhaps using a another set 
and track, until your animation is 
complete. At any time you can 



Insert dement before 


Insert element after 


Move track 


Track behind 


Select 

track 


Track 
in front 


Go to end 
of track 


Co-py 

track 


Go to start 
of track 

Change face 


Cut track 


Paste track 


preview the film to see how things 
are going, 

SetDesigner is the part of the 
program where the hard work in the 
form of drawing Is done. All the 
features of a standard art package are 
here - zoom, cut and paste, 
airbrushes and so on. No tween ing is 
done for you by the program, you 
must redraw every stage of movement 
yourself. 

You can copy details from one 
drawing to another, which makes 
things much easier, especially If only 
a small part of the drawing changes - 
if the eyes of an object blink, for 
example. Pictures in IFF format can 
be loaded and saved, so you can use 
DPaint or similar if you prefer. 

The sound options are impressive 
and a doddle to use. You select a 
sound from the menu, choose the 
pitch using' a short section of a piano 
keyboard and then move through 
your film until you reach the right 
moment to play it, 

S OUND can be selected anywhere 
in the stereo image by use of the 
pan slider, A bouncing ball could 
make a ping sound on the left 
channel as it hits the left-hand side of 
the screen and a pong sound on the 
right channel when it hits the 
opposite side, Although not wildly 
useful, it is a nice touch. 

Where this section of MovieSetter 
falls down is with the appalling 
selection of sounds supplied. Most 

► ' 


More memory 
less restrictions 


M EMORY restrictions are 

important, 'The program is 
supposed to work with a standard 
512k - the demonstration film 
supplied was created on such a 
set-up. This film only lasts for 10 
seconds and does nothing 
amazing, which says it alb You can 
use the program with no add-on 
memory, but not to do anything 
worthwhile. 

The length of your film depends 
on many factors: The number of 
different objects, the number of 
sounds used, the number of these, 
the number of those. 

With 1 meg you can use the 
actual MovieSetter program, a 
combination of SetEditor, 
ScreenEditor and MoviePlay, Using 
MovieSetter with only 512k means 
being forced to use a monochrome 
display — not a good thing because 
all the example art is colour. 

All the programs in memory at 
once means you can have several 
windows from each program 
opened at the same time, which 
simplifies things somewhat. 

A Storyboard option is also 
available with extra memory. This 
will produce a series of miniature 
representations of your film with 
each drawing coming from a 
specific, usfcr-defined event. An 
event could be each background 
change or each sound effect. 


May 1SB9 AMIGA COMPUTING 43 







r 



tr °V hostile. 
r,st >upout 


* as 
s/fes 


' ?*« c our 

Control fh. 


J?‘ ck oO, me , 
,n,e *ed planen 


' Well to es 
1,3n Space 


patterns 
37 disc 




Pioneer Probe Mk IV - a seif-replicating robotic spaceship 
- is out of control, destroying afi fife as it travels from 
planet to planet in the Starion Cluster. Your mission is to 
stop the spread of the plague before it's too iate. 


Please s#nd me Pioneer Plague for the Amiga 


□ | endo&e a cheque for £24,95 made 
payable to Mandarin Software 

□ Please debit my AocessAAsa number 

ill Il l L-L 


Signature 


Name 


A.:. Ir 


• Drone flight patterns that you can program to soak up energy from the city below 
§ Carefully-designed instrument panel - to help you plan your strategy 

1 Your performance analysed to show your strengths and weaknesses 

• Dazzling HAM-mode graphics: 4,096 on-screen colours 

• Eight-directional scrolling over a detailed cityscape 

• Stereo music score and digitised speech 




tctwp'f 0 


Europa House, Adlington Park, 
Adlington, Macclesfield SK10 4NP, 


i 
I 

Postage: Add E2 EuropafOverseas £5^ ^ AMCSj 


Postcode 

Send to: Database Direct, Freepost, Ellesmere Port, 
South Wirral L65 3ES. Tel: 051-357 2961 





■ R E V I E W ■ 


* 

appear to be nothing more than 
simple dicks and grunts. There was a 
splendid chance to use the wonderful 
sounds used in the old Tom and Jerry 
cartoons - the gasp or scream when 
Tom's eyes popped out of his head, 
that sort of thing. Instead we get a 
“twok" sound made by flicking the 
sampling microphone with a rater. 
Pity. 


D ocumentation is thorough 

and includes a tutorial section 
to help build up a movie from 
scratch. The best bit must be a short 
flickbook cartoon, made up by 
putting lots of drawings made, 
presumably, with MovieSetter in the 
top right-hand comer of every page. 

Extra documentation is supplied as 
a text file in the MovieSetter window 
and clicking on it will produce 
streams of information that has been 
left out of the manual, most of it 


concerning A 5 00 owners with no 
extra memory - exactly the people 
who would want to read the 
information straightaway, not find it 
lurking on disc. Bad show, this. 

Moviesetter needs both a memory 
expansion and a drawing program 
that creates IFF screen files to he used 
to its fullest. There is no way to create 
your own backgrounds from within 
the program, leaving you with the 
three demo ones to choose from. 

Although a disc is supplied 
containing nothing but example 
drawings and animations to use, these 
are all quite limited and none will 
help create graphics for business 
presentations. 

And when it comes to producing a 
finished film, the dreadful sound 
effects and absence of speech bubbles 
will mean it is an almost completely 
silent affair. 

Although computers have come a 
long way since the humble ZXBTs 64 
x 40 monochrome graphics, the 
prospect of creating your own full 
colour cartoon is still a long way off. 


MovieSetter comes close, but not 
close enough to convince my mother 
she’s watching television. Nice try, 
though. 


REPORT CAR 13 


Movi&Settcr 

I IB Marketing 0895 444433 
£09.9 5 


EASE OF USE, 


To make anything but a simple cartoon 
would be out of the question without 
extra memory. 


SPEED, 


A fair number of tracks can be kid 
down on the same animation before it 
begins to dawdle 


VALUE., 


Needs both a memory expansion and a 
dra wing package that creates IFF fifes 


to be used to the ft///. 


OVERALL 79% 


The prospect of creating your own full ■ 
colour cartoon is still a long way off. 



Conditions of sale 

Ail prices exclude VAT and delivery charges 
EAOE ail prices subject Id changa without 
notice 

All Cdleakint made by prior arrangement 
from our warehouse 

Please add E1+VAT tor consumables and 
£$*VAT for all other item* tar 3 working day 
delivery 


AMIGA HARDWARE 

Amiga A500 Complete 312.00 

Amiga A500 with TV Modulator 326.00 

Amiga AEOO * 1 9O0M Mono Monti or ... 406.60 
Amiga A500 * A 1 664 Colour Monitor , . $30.00 


PTiiliDi 0033 Moniior 

219.00 

Ami ja A500, 1064 Monitor and AFOSO 5T8.CH> 

AFflfln nrivB A3 no 

MPS 120OC Disk Drive 

109.00 

96.00 

1084 Detour Monitor 

239.00 


Dataplex 3.5' Drive 60.06 

Arr*g* Ger*oe* (A500) 226.00 

A501 Q.&M Ram Upgrade 1 13 00 

Amiga B2000- 1 M Ram SOOk 3.5“ Disk. 

Mouse, Software . 665.00 

Amiga aa above* 1 004 Col. Monitor .. 1 003 .00 
A2056 SMb Ram populated wWl 2Mb . &W.0Q 

A20M XT Bridge Board 3W.OO 

A2286 AT Bridge Board 865.00 

A2D92 20Mb MS Dob Hard Disk ........ 326.00 

A2Q94 20Mb Amiga Dos Hard Drive , ,. 433.31 

A23D0 internal A2000 Genlock 250.00 

A2010 InL 3.5“ Drive 17S.M 

A2D6£2Mb Ram Expansion 399.0 O 


DATAPLEX DRIVES 

1Mb 3.5' External Drwe 66,00 

1Mb 3, S' internal Drive 63.00 

1Mb 5.25- Floppy Dr iv* 106.00 

MODEMS 

M rade WS2000 Modem M OO 

M*ede WS4000 Modem 1 4?, 00 

Unnet Modem 121.74 


DATAPLEX HARD DRIVES 


20Mb Drive A5CQ/1 000 470.00 

30Mb Drive ASOtVIOOO 520.00 


60Mb Dr|v*A£O<yiO00..,„„„^,H.^91O,O0 

20Mb Drive A200C „ 470.00 

30Mb Drive A2000 52^.00 

60Mb Drive A2000 779.00 

Please ring for other capacity dtivei 

PHILIPS MONITORS 

CMaeOt Colour Monti or 173.00 

GMSBQfl CokHa Monitor 105.00 

CM6033 14“ RG0/CVBS Monitor -.215,00 

CM8B52 Hi flee . Cdour Monitor 254.00 

PRINTERS 

Amstrad LQ3S00 Dl 253 00 

Amstradi DMP40O0 190.00 

Amatrad LQ3&00 Dl -334.0 0 

Amatrad LQSOOO Dl 365.00 

CrtJfen 120D 105.00 

CitlJW 180E 152.00 

CtttWI LSP 100P - 130-00 

Citizen MSP 15E - 1M .00 

Citizen MSP 40 — 273 00 

Citizen MSP 46—.— 330 .00 

Citizen MSP 30.-.-.— - 31 7,00 

Citizen MSP 55 . 455.00 

Crtirer Premier 3£ 360.00 

Citizen HOP 40——.-.- 335,00 

Citizen HOP 45. 320.00 

Citizen Overture 1 >0 1 190-00 

Epson UC300 164.00 

Epson FX850 201.00 

Epson FX1050 367,00 

Epson FX80O — 420.00 

Epson EXBOO 445,00 

Epson E Xl 000 — «. -...4fl7.00 

Epson LQ5O0 250.00 

Epson LQ8S0 - 413.00 

Epson LQ1050 „ $50.00 

Star LC10 105.00 

Star LC10 Colour 205.00 


Star NX1 5 

5WNB24-1Q 

Slar NB24-1 5 

Star LC24-10 

Star KJB1 5 

MP13S 

NEC P220Q PinwTTtBf 

Clrt Sheet Feeder 

Serial ImeHac* Kit 

Font Cartridge 

NEC P565XL 

NEC P6f90 Character 

NEC P7*13fi Character 

Panasomc KXP1O01 

Panasonic KXPl 124 

262,00 

425.00 

51 2.00 

262-00 

667.00 

110-00 

267-00 

56,00 

53.00 

20.00 

740.00 

42200 

.... 536.00 

128.00 

319.00 

Panasonic KXP1S92 

279,00 

Panasonic KXPl 695 

,.,,369,00 

Panasonic KXPl 540 

419.00 

Panasonic KXP31 51 

341.00 

PRINTER CABLES 


Amatrad CPC PwaH*l 

0.00 

BBC Psal* - 

6.50 

IBMr Amatrad Parallel 

0.90 

RIBBONS 


KKP 10B1/10BW1/2 

4,00 

DMP 200013000^160 

.2.00 

DMP 4000 

5.75 

PCW 0256^.03500 

-4.50 

Panasonic 3131 i'MF , 26 

„„ 2 30 

LxeockRXriwx'Fxao 

„&1G 

PXIOOCvTXfRXIOO 

_._.4>40 

Ml ic 

4,40 

LG50VWC1I05O 

4.40 

LClO 

....4.40 

NEC 

5.00 

LASER PRINTERS 


AST Turbo Postscript ..... 

2400.00 


Brother HL8 .,,1479.00 

Brother HL9 QS Pest««pl 3799.00 

Citizen Overture 110+ ,.-——1149.00 


Epson GO- 35 00 

1009 
1338 

00 

00 

Hewlett PacK laser 1 ID 

2399 

00 

Panasonic KXP *450 

4699 

00 

Quit* Scnpt Ten PpstscngH . 

...Z9B9 

00 

Star LP6 

- 1349. 

.00 

All iBser printers indude on site 

maintenance 


FAX 

Canorrfax 

Fern 10 ..—1044,00 


PaxSSO 


1440.00 

Fax4l0 


1649.00 

Fa* 730 


• • • 2350,00 

C-F*x Card SFll 


400.00 

Nerax r*2 


1084.00 

Nefax N18 


1669.00 


Nelax N2S — 3000.00 

Panfax UF1 50 ..—..-.-,—.—..1149.00 

Parrfax UF2S0 1404.00 

R»wh7 760.00 


Fttaoh 20 

....1*69.00 

Ricoh 60 

. 1829.00 

Ricoh 70 

.... 2439.00 

Sanyotax 100 

089.00 


Sharp FO40 — 040.00 

Sh;*p FO-1S0 050.00 

Sharp FQ'2lO 1269.00 

REPAIRS - Aa one of lha largest repair »nlr*» 
m (he country with an investment of over 
E6QK in our lalesi lest equipmenl. We are 
prpvlding our series to Olh w dealers. So ask 
VLWjr local dealwr w **rid ue your Faulty equip- 
ment, or send it direct to u-s for Iasi, reliable and 
proieseionaJ repairs. 





COMPUTER LTD 

31 Palace Street, London SW1E 5HW 
Tel: 01-630 9218. Fax: 01-630 7943 

CONDOR HARD DISK SYSTEM 

THE INTEGRATE!! 

A complete Hard Disk System packaged in 

a cabinet matching your Amiga 500 

The Basic 'Integrater' included: 

— |*lilli 

✓ 20 Mega Hard Disk (SCSI) (Autoboot) 

✓ 3.5'' Floppy Disk 

✓ 2 Meg Ram Expansion Unpopulated 

✓ Battery Backed Real Time Clock 

✓ AC Power Station with 4 Switched Sockets 

✓ Surge Protector 

✓ Cooling Fan 

✓ Multisynch Output 

✓ Software and Cables included 



of. 


THE PROFESSIONAL 

The Ultimate Amiga Office Work Station 



SOFTWARE DIRECTLY FOR 


Now run the finest Software available for Amiga 
and MS-DOS right out of the box on one fully 
integrated system 


Individual 
Co moon ants 
RRP 

£500.00 

£600.00 

£800.00 

£600.00 

£50.00 

£100.00 

£ 120.00 

£500.00 

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✓ Amiga 500 with 1 Meg 

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46 AMIGA COMPUTING May 1969 







■ REVIEWS 


Ariadne So Aware’s 
new Opus music 
composition language 
can do things that 
no other program 
can. Rupert Goodwins 
asks if it is worth 
adding to the 
Chopin Liszt 


A knight at 
the opera 



L LOYD WEBBER made it, Bach 
did it four different ways at once 
and even KyLie Minogue is rumoured 
to have heard about it. Music has 
been big business for a long time. The 
Amiga, being a musical machine, 
knows all about it and has some 
harmonic hardware to generate the 
stuff. But even sonic silicon needs 
software to make music. Opus 1, from 
Ariadne, is that sort of software. 

There's lots of Amiga music 
software - Deluxe Music Construction 
Set + So nix, Soundtiacker, Soundscape 
and more. The Amiga, also a 
graphical machine, encourages its 
software to be pretty, and since music 
is normally written as blobs on lines 
most Amiga music software spends a 
lot of time picking up blobs and 
plonking them down on lines. Rather 
like writing a book with a word 
processor, it*s very easy to make 
changes, add bits and move stuff 
around. However, there’s more to 
writing music than words. 

A magazine article like this is an 
almost random collection of words. 
There are rules of grammar, but if the 
writer wants to put in a word like 
gherkin there’s no reason why not. It 
doesn’t make the English any worse. 

Music is structured; some parts 
repeat for a fixed number of times, 
others change as the piece progresses. 
They have a mathematical 
relationship between themselves and 
the time since the piece began. 
Dropping in a random phrase is 
certain to make things worse. It's like 
a computer program. 

U NLIKE Instant Music or Deluxe 
Music Construction Set, Opus 
isn’t a music editor. It’s a 
programming language, or more 
accurately a music composition 

► 


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■ REVIEW* 


language, an MGL. To make it 
produce music, you have to feed it a 
program, written like any other in a 
plain text editing program; it then 
compiles that into a data file which it 
* or another program - plays. No 
picking up, no plonking down. 

The first step, programming the 
music, is the interesting part. The 
Opus language is like another 
computer language, Forth, an 
infamous longue designed to control 
radio telescopes. It has found a much 
wider audience among technical and 
low level programmers, its main 
features being that it is very powerful 
- a little f orth can do a Lot of work 
very quickly - and cryptic. 

It works by building new 
commands out of lists of old ones, in 
the same way that a piece of music is 
built out of lots of little bits of music. 
Which is why Opus is like Forth, and 
why a lot of people will be put off 
hefore they even start Looking at the 
package. And that would be a shame. 
Perhaps the most arduous part of 
learning Opus is getting to grips with 
Reverse Polish Notation. RPN is 


nothing to do with Polish - it's 
named after the mathematician who 
invented it ~ it is all 1o do with giving 
the computer the data it needs before 
telling it what to do with it. 
Computers like this; humans, alas, 
don't Instead of saying f Play bongos 
100 times 1 , the command is 100 
Bongos Play. It isn't difficult to 
understand, eventually. 

Because of RPN, and because of the 
way commands are built up out of 
existing ones, it is very difficult to 
write an Opus program by just 
feeding in the instructions as you 
would with Basic. Instead, the 
program is written as a document in 
Ed, or Scribble!, or whatever. 

Once it all seems likely to work, it 
is passed to Opus, which compiles it. 
At this point any errors in syntax, or 
missing commands, are spotted and 
the programmer/ musician edits the 
text again. 

D eveloping ihe code takes a 

while. When the program 
compiles the computer displays the 
main tracks of music. Tracks are the 
almost final stage of music generation 
- lists of notes, instrument changes, 


dynamic effects (volume, crescendos 
and so on) and everything else that an 
individual line of music in a song 
does. 

The tracks are displayed on a stave 
in traditional format with a few extra 
bits 10 let the programmer know what 
instrument is selected, w T hich bits are 
repeated and so on. 

No editing takes place here — if a 
note is out of place or a phrase needs 
changing then it's back to the text 
editor to modify the program, 
recompile and review the track. This 
sounds hard work, and there's no 
denying that it takes some learning, 
especially if you are not familiar with 
developing a compiled program. 

The Opus program displays a 
screen with three main components. 
At the top is a status window which 
shows current file details as well as 
information about the amount of 
memory being used. Below is the 
main display window. All of Opus' 
output appears here - errors from the 
compiler, listings, the lot. At the 
bottom is the control window, with a 
set of buttons which are used to 


An Opus score 


<* Bieti Chorale Prelude on In Dulci Jubi Lo 
l* This sounds nice if you liter the instruments to i variety of 
Hidi presets M 

instrument definitions first *1 


{ Trumpet 0 0 0 }i instrument 
t Pipeorsan2 ft 0 -0 instrument 
tracts 

C t r a c fc 0 
3 K/5 5 4 T/S 
truapet Yfff 

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54 ft !2 E !4 F# 52 E 54 R 52 E 54 F# ! 2 E L 4 D Cl 58 C# ft 
tl 6;6 54 A ft R A B B 7;C# 6;B 0 52 A 54 B !2 7;Cl 34 R EE 
Fl 32 E !4 D ' C# 58 Cl ft C# 6;® ! 4 A ft R ABB 7;t# 6;i B 5 2 

A !4 & 7;C# ft R !2 &;F# 34 F# !2 G* 14 G* ‘ A 58 A B ?;C#& 

52. E 32 Cl ! 4 Cl 52 6;B !4 B * A '8-3 A B 7;C* ft E F# 34" 4; 
Gl 58-3 Gl A B 7;C* &l F !4 F| ft R !8-3 R A G F* G E ft E C# 

32, ‘ ft !I-J 0 E b C# M;6 JL B Gl !2. A 12 ft 54 l! 

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( trickl 
3 K/S 3 4 T/S 
Trumpet Vmf 

32. R ! 4 5; A A A 32 M* !4 ft !2 E 34 F# 12 E !4 ft 5;A A A 32 
4;C* !4 & 32 E !4 Fl 12 E !4 R !2 E !4 F# !2 E !4 ft ‘ Cl 58 
C# & Cl 4;0 !4 A R R A B B !2 6;Cl 3 4 4;& 12 A 14 B 328; Cl 
!4 R E E Fl 32 E !4 D 4 C# !S Cl & Cl 4;B J4 A R R A 0 6 12 6; 

Cl 14 5;B 12 A !4 B i;C# ft H R ft ft !2 5;F| 34 Fl 12 G* 54 Gl 

' A 38 A B 6;C# 0 5 2 . E 52 C# 34 C# !2 5;B 54 B 32, " A A R 

54, B 58 F| E D 52* I A E ] !2 R !4 R 

) 


{ tratkZ 
l m 3 4 T/S 
Pipeorgan2 Vf 

!8*3 fi;A Gl F# E F* 0 Cl D 5;B A 0 A Gl A F| E FI 0 58 A A A A 


A A 58-3 G;C* E ft C# ft 5;B A B Gl A $;Gl F* E F# ft Ctf D 5;B 

A 0 A Gl A FI E F# ft !B A A A A A A !8-3 6;CI E ft C# ft 5;B A 

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F# E FI ft !8 E F !3-3 F* B A G# A F# E F# ft !B C# 6;tl !B-3 ft 

Cl ft E ft E 5;A 6;E " A A 0 A U F# Gl A & Gl F# Gl FI E F* ft 

!8 Cl £ S; A * 6;A A Gl 58-3 A E G# A 8 7; Cl ft C# ft Cl E ft C# 

D i;B A 0 6# A Gl F# E FI ft !3 E F !B-3 F# 0 A Gl A FI IF# 

D !8 Cl S;CI 18-3 ft C# ft E ft E 4;A S;E * A A B A Gl F# Gl A 

B Gl FI Gl FI E FI ft Cl ft £ F# E F# Gl F# Gl * Al Al A# !4-J 

B E&-3 6;Cl D l Cl !4-3 D 58-3 5;B 6;£ Fl ft Cl ft 5;B !8 6;Ci 

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Gl FI G# E ft ft 5;8 6;E f# ft C# ft 5;B !8 ft; E S;F Fl Gl !4 Aft 
Cl Gl FI 50-3 R A G FI G E !4 fl !B R [ ft;G 5;G ] [ ft;F#5;f| 

1 [ 6;E 5;E ] !2. ‘ C ft;F| 5;FI ] 38 C ft;Fl 3;Fl ] l i;F*5; 

Fl 1 E &;E 5;£ ] [ F# 6;ft 3;ft 3 [ E i;CI 5;CI ] C ft B 4;B] 
32. “ [ 5;E A i;CI 3;C# ) 58 t E A 6; C# 5;Cl 1 !2 R 58 S 


{ t r *ck3 
3 K/S 3 4 m 
PipeOrginJ V*f 

52. R 58-3 4; A Gl Fl E Fl ft Cl ft 3;& A 4;& A Gl A Fl E FID 58 

A A A A A A 58-3 3;C# E ft Cl D 4;B A 0 Gl A Gl Fl E Fl ft Cl 

ft 3;8 A 4;B A G# A F# E F* ft 58 A A A A A A 58-3 ft;Cl £ ft Cl 

ft 4;0 A ft Gl A ft; Cl 4;B A B 5;C# ft Cl ft 4; A 5;E ft Cl ft 4;BA 

i Gl A G# Fl £ F# D 58 E F 58-3 El B A Gl A Fl E Fl ft 58 Cl 

C# !8-3 ft Cl D E ft £ 3;A 4;E ‘ A A 0 A Gl Fl fi* A 0 Gl FlGl 

Fl E F# ft !& Cl E 3;A * 4;A A Gl 58-3 A E Gl A 0 5;Cl ft Cl ft 
4;A 5;£ ft Cl ft 4;B A 8 Gl A Gl F# E Fl ft !S E F 58*3 F# BA 

Gl A F# E fl ft 5 6 tl Cl 58-3 ft C# ft E ft E !;A 4;E ‘ A A & A 

Gl fl Gl A B G* F# Gl Fl E Fl ft# E Fl £ ft E Cl 3;B 4;C#3;A E 

4;E ft Cl ft 3;0 A B. Gl F# 4;Fl E ft E C# 3;B 4;C# 3;A Gl t;Gl 

Fl E Fl ft Cl ft 3;B 54 A 4;E A !8-3 A B A Gl A F# 54 Gl 58-3 

Gl A Gl F# Gl F 54 Fl 58-3 F| G# Fl F F# ft| !8 £ Cl 58-3 3;fl 

A G fl G £ ft E C# J2. ' ft 58-3 ft E ft Cl ft 2;& A B Gl 12. C 3; 

A 2;A ] ‘ [ 3;A 2;A 3 5 8 [ 3;A 2;A 1 32 II 58 R 

} 

110 tempo 


May 1989 AMIGA COMPUTING 4ft 






SPECIAL OF FIs R SPEClAI. OF FEII—llUCIAt OFFER — SPECIAL OF FI ft 



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50 AMIGA COMPUTING May 19&9 








REVIEW* 



XiitClocfcOff HidiUocJrtn MidjConl ifmf Kt di S-lop NidiStlH Vfff Yff V! 

BS y* w Jfo ytr» m *+ ™ - kv Cg\ u\ m\ kr\ kB\ kr 

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Op#s;text/ExuJ tatf.txt 



The compiler is ft proper intuition program 


control the compiler. 

To start with you have to set up 
input and output files before Opus 
will even consider compiling a 
program. The buttons bring up a 
standard list of files from directories 
called Text and SMUS, the Amiga 
standard music file format. Normally 
you pick the program you want to 
compile as input from the list in the 
normal way. The same mechanism is 
used to choose the output file. 

W ORKING backwards has 

obviously become ingrained 
in the programmer 1 s soul. Choosing 
an outpul file would normally he 
simple, either automatically generated 
from the input filename or just typed 
in. With Opus the output filename 
stays until explicitly changed. If you 
pick a new input file and forget to 
change the output the old output file 
will be lost. This happened to me, 
embarrassingly more than once. 

There are other oddities on the 
control panel. Some of the buttons 
toggle between two states; save off 
switches to save on, and this controls 
whether to automatically save the 
output file once it’s compiled. 
However, when automatic save is on 
the hutton shows save off and vice 
versa. 

Likewise the compiler can display 
the part of the program ifs currently 
dealing with; there's a button marked 
text on or text off to control this. 

When text is displayed, the button is 
marked text off. There is a kind of 
Logic in this, hut ifs unlike any other 
Amiga program that I've seen. 

Other buttons include Words, 
which shows all the commands Opus 
knows about. Compile, Edit and Play, 
which do the obvious, Filter which 
turns the Amiga's internal sound 
filtering (and the power LED) on and 
off and Quit, which finishes Opus and 
returns to the Workbench, 

The filter gets rid of some of the 
high frequency noise from the 
Amiga's audio output. With it on 
music sounds muffled but clean; 
when the filter's off, the music sounds 
much brighter but with some odd 
noises thrown in. You might have 
noticed that some games turn the 
power LED off. This isn’t for the fun 
of it — the music sound better, Amiga 
1000 owners do not have this feature, 
Experienced programmers and 
mouse haters mighl prefer the 
interactive option. A button switches 


off the control window and Leaves 
you at a prompt in the Interactive 
window. Here Gpus commands can 
be typed in directly. It’s a good idea 
to leave this until at least one 
program has been written and got 
working with the help of the control 
window. The Help button produces 
several screenfuls of online help, as 
might be expected* hut ifs not terribly 
useful. 

Once a program is compiled and 
saved, either the main program’s 
player - which has a dandy little 
display of notes playing fnr all four 
channels - or the stand-alone, 
displayless but very fast player can be 
used to turn all that hard work into 
beautiful melodies, 

I NITIALLY the programming 
language is incomprehensible, but 
a little inspection reveals the logic 
behind it. The first items in a program 
are usually the instrument definitions, 
in the form (cello 0 0 0 } instrument. 

The cello is the name of the IFF 
instrument which Opus expects to 
find in the directory assigned to 
Instruments. The three zeros are part 
of the smus definition and are used if 
a link to Midi is needed instead of a 
sampled instrument or for other 
special purposes. The final 
"instrument" tells Opus to take the 
data and load it as an instrument - 
RPN f remember? In a Basicish 
language, the equivalent command 
would be instrument -cell 0,13,0,0 
Then come the tracks. The word 


TRACKS is used to tell the computer 
that the following words should be 
compiled into a list, not just analysed 
and left till later. The lists of notes arc 
kept within curly braces { and } r and 
begin with a word that will he used 
later to refer to the whole list. So the 
list { nasty 4 4 t/s cello !4 4;a b c a/ 

F# a } would sound awful (believe 
me), but could he included in a song 
later by something like 100 ( nasty ) 
which would play nasty 100 times. 
The various parts of the list are 4 4 
t/s - set the time signature to 4/4, 
cello — use the cello Instrument, !4 - 
use crochets, 4; — use octave 4, a fr c 
a/ f# a - play the notes a, b* c* a flat, f 
sharp and a. If you don’t know what 
a time signature is, and think 
crotchets are a kind of snack, then the 
chances are that Opus is not for you. 

Of course* if you don't like to use 4 
4 t/s to set the time signature you can 
always define a new word to use in its 
place, like ( common-time 4 4 t/s }. 
But you have to define words before 
you can use them. 

Although Opus generates standard 
IFF smus files, which can then be 
played on any music player program, 
it has a file structure of its own which 
caters for the many extra features that 
Opus supports but that aren't in the 
smus definition. For example, if you 
want a bit of music repeated 1,000 
times then the smus file has to have 
the bit of music repeated 1,000 times. 
The Opus file definition - OPX1 - 

► 


May 1SS& AMIGA COMPUTING 51 



■ REVIEW* 


< 

just has the instruction to repeat 1,0GU 
times in front of the hit of music. 

This can result in some 
extraordinary savings in file size, and 
since each bit of music can have its 
own loops inside it is possible to 
produce a piece that will fit on a 
floppy but will play for Longer than 
the Universe will survive. As the 
manual says, that's a sobering 
thought... 

Other tricks in the Opus repertoire 
include repeating a Loop until another 
bit of the music is finished, sending 
pitchbend and aftertouch information 
to the Midi channels in order to slide 
notes, adding vibrato and other effects 
to a note after it's been struck and 
randomly choosing between options. 
The word Break will wind down a 
complex series of loops in a 
controlled fashion, useful for those 
into weird, polyrhythmic music. 

Ail the things that aren't capable of 
being expressed in normal smus 
format are included in a small subset 
of extensions. The idea is that the 
format is 99 per cent smus and 
existing players can be modified 
quickly to cope with the flood of 
OFXl format music which is, Ariadne 
hopes, about to flood the market 

Opus-1 needs at least a megabyte to 
work with. It comes with Opus- 512, 
which foregoes some of the posh 
features of Opus-1 (online help, 
control panel) to give the unexpanded 
A50G a bite of the cherry, but since 
the program is properly written and 
can merrily multitask, people with 
mure ram get more fun. 

There are a couple of extra 


programs in the package, one to 
capture Midi information from a 
keyboard and turn it into an Opus 
source file - so it can be edited, 
transposed, cleaned up, and so on - 
and one called Performance which is 
much more interesting. It plays 
music, and lets you play along on a 
Midi keyboard. 

Once you’re happy with what 
you've got, you can mix it into the 
main track and play another tine. It's 
multitracking; limited but - Ariadne 
dangerously admits in the 
documentation — a pointer to what's 
going to happen to future Opera. 


G ranted Opus is a 

programming language. But 
does it sound any good? Since it 
plays sampled sounds, in theory it 
should sound no better and no worse 
than the rest. But in terms of what it 
can do with the samples, it is orders 
of magnitude more flexible than the 
competition. 

People with a serious fondness for 
producing music will be able to use 
Opus to wipe out the rest. But the 
prospective Opus owner must know 
at least the basics of music theory, be 
prepared to program, and to brave the 
eccentricities of the Ariadne user 
interface philosophy, which is only 
slightly less impenetrable than Zen 
Buddhism. 

I can see this program justifying the 
purchase of an Amiga for a music 
laboratory in a university or 
polytechnic. Likewise, anyone who 
knows their chromatics from their 
arpeggios and is fond of Philip Glass 


shouldn't hesitate before taking the 
plunge. But the new muso, or those 
who have problems programming 
their video, should stick to Ihe other, 
graphic-based programs. In fact, one 
of those would make a good 
companion to Opus. 

Wishlist? Well, it would be nice, 
given all the support that exists for 
experimental music in the package, 
not to be Limited to Western scales 
but to include Eastern and microtonal 
options (1 only want the world), And 
there are plenty of rough edges which 
put Opus in a needlessly bad light 
against other, swisher packages. But 
Opus docs things with music that 
other programs can't. 

My neighbours are going to hale 
Ariadne. 


REPORT CARD 


OPU5-1 

Ariadne Software 
£99.95 


EASE OF USE„ 


This is a programming language. No 
compiler is going to be easy to use if it 
is to be powerful and flexible 


srkd,. h _. h » m^bhdh 

Does not hog the processor while you 
are multi-tasking, This is a properly 
written suite of Amiga programs . 


VALUE 


due 


Opus is pretty expensive for a music 
program — good value for a language. 


OVERALL 7H"i> 


There are some things that no other 
music program will do. It’s not for the 
novice muso or programmer hut is an 
incredible musical tool. 




wm 

L p R 

5 5 1 

V 

63 J> . 

f 


in 

— 

-^13T F— 

” ~ §= 

-7* 

SEED 1 

984951818 

zdt — 

l 

2 


Mainl 


Even if you cannot edit staves you can display them 


52 AMIGA COMPUTING May 1969 





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H AVE you read the explanation 
of DEF FN in the Amiga Basic 
manual? hit heavy, isn't it? And U 
doesn’t even skim the surface. A 
novice to Basic would wisely pass on 
to the next keyword, yet functions are 
really rather simple. Without resorting 
to counting, I would guess that over 
half the keywords in AmigaBasic are 
functions. 

You can spot them a mile off 
because the keyword is always 
preceded by an equals sign. For 
example, 

(a) umumm 

lb) guess=BHD 
Cc) valu«=PEEKM00) 

Another thing all functions have in 
common is that they return a value of 
some type. But be it floating point, 
integer or string, a function will only 
return a single value. 

in example (a) the function IN KEYS 
is called and the string value returned 
from the function is assigned to the 
variable whatS. In example (b) the 
function RND is called and the 
variable guess is given the floating 
point value which returns. In example 
(c) the function PEEK is called, which 
introduces us to an important concept 
of functions, the parameter. 

Most functions need to be supplied 
with at least one parameter, and it is 
always given in round brackets 
directly following the function name. 
In this case, the function of PEEK is to 
look at a memory location and return 
the one byte integer value it finds 
there. Obviously we need to tell it 
where to look, and that is what the 
(100) in example (c> is, the memory 
address we want PEEK to investigate. 
So let's define ourselves a simple 
little function to do something mildly 
useful - tp pick a random whole 
number between zero and 10: 

D-EF FWrandoi = CHtHRNB+10) 

The name after FN, in this case 
random, is supplied by your good self 


54 AMIGA COMPUTING May 1989 





■PROGRAMMING! 


and fallows the same rules as for 
variable names: It must start with a 
letter, can include numbers and 
fullstops, can be up to 40 characters 
in length, mustn't be an Amiga Basic 
keyword and can be followed by one 
of five symbols - %, &, !, #, $ - to 
signify which type of function it is. 

Once our function has been defined 
we can use it almost as if it is a new 
AmigaBasic keyword. Listing 1 is a 
simplified view of it. In practice you 
would be assigning the value returned 
by FNrandom to a variable. 

Something like: 

number * FNrendoi 

Right. Before we go any further we 
must learn a very important rule 
about using defined functions, which 
is that the function must have been 
defined before calling it for the first 
time. 

The best way to do this is to put all 
your DEF FN statements in one 
initialising subroutine, like Initialise 
in Listing I, and make the first line of 
your program GOSUB to that 
subroutine, If you always do it this 
way you will never have problems — 
typing mistakes apart - with 

Starts 

GOSUB Initialise. variables 
GOSUB FHflt, random. riuibers 
ENb 

Print, rand cm. mutters: 

PRINT FNrandom 
FOR detail TO 1«&:NE*T 
GOTO Print, random. numbers 
RET Lift N 

Ini titlise. variables; 

DIF FNrandQi ‘ CINTMtUMlfi) 
RETURN 

Listing I 

Undefined user function error 
messages. 

Oh yes, and unless you are really 


pushed for memory - which isn’t at 
all difficult with barely 25k to play 
with (curse you, Microsoft) - never 
redefine a function to do something 
else. It creates confusion and bugs. 

There is no restriction on the 
number of functions you can define, 
so if you need a function to do a 
different job, define a new one with a 
fresh name in your initialising 
subroutine instead of re-using an old 
function name that you know has no 
further use in your program. 

OK. Getting back to the 
programming, FNrandom would be 
more useful if it was a little flexible in 
the range department. In other words, 
instead of letting it pick a number 
from aero to 10, wouldn't it be better 
if the top of the range was supplied as 
a parameter? Of course it would. That 
way we can use FNrandom in any 
program that needs random whole 
numbers between zero and anything. 
Take a look at this; 

DEF FNrandomix) = CINT(RND+x) 

The (x) after FNrandom means we 
will have to supply a parameter when 
we call the function. The actual 
variable name x is arbitrary. By that 1 
mean it could be a, b , 

HumptyDumpty, or whatever. 


W HATEVER variable name you 
use in brackets on the left- 
hand side of the definition, the same 
variable name should appear 
somewhere on the right-hand side 
because it will be used temporarily to 
hold the supplied parameter while the 
function works on it. In this case the 
variable appears on the right-hand 
side in the calculation RND*x r. 

Whatever you call your variable, its 
name and value will always be local 
to the function it is defined in, That 


means that if you have another 
variable of the same name elsewhere 
in the program it will be unaffected 
by the function. The simple example 
in Listing II illustrates this local 
variable concept belter than a 
thousand words. 

If you run the program you’ll see 
that the value of x, set up in the line 
labelled ValueX, remains constant at 
999 even though we use x in the line 
labelled Define as the variable to hold 
the parameter passed to the function, 

VaLueX; 

GOSUB PrintK 

Refine: DEF FNrandoi<x> - CINT(RND*x) 
GOSUB Print* 

Choose : picked - FNra ndoc ( 50 > 

PRINT 'PICKED picked 
GOSUB Print* 

m 

Print*: PRINT '* =';*;RETURN 

Listing II 

which is called in the line labelled 
Choose, 

If you study the line Labelled 
Choose you'll see how a parameter is 
passed to the function. In this case the 
parameter is the number 50, but it 
could just as well be a number 
variable of any name - including x if 
you want to be literal about it. It 
could even be a long calculation like: 

■picked - fNrandMUuess+W*tPtal/3) 

As long as what is between the 
outermost brackets evaluates to a 
legal return value for the function, the 
calculation can be as weird or 
complicated as you like. For instance, 
you could use a function as a 
parameter: 

pitied = FNran&Di'ff Brandon ( 100 ] ) 

which would be perfectly legal, A 
line like that would first pick a 


May 1989 AMIGA COMPUTING 55 



■PROGRAMMING 


*4 

random number between zero and 
100 - say 67 - then pick a random 
number between zero and 67, then 
pass that value back to the variable 
picked. 


R emember, however, that 

defined functions can’t access 
variables in the program proper, they 
can only work on variables you’ve 
passed to the function as parameters. 

And you don't have to stop at 
single parameters, you can have as 
many as you like. We could extend 
the portability of FNrandom further 
so that both the top and bottom of the 
range are supplied as parameters. 

In Listing III you supply the 
number range as the lower and upper 
limit inclusive, separated by a 
comma. The example picks 15 
random numbers between and 
including 106 to 200. You’ve got to 
admit that: 

picked - FNrandQi<1flfl,?B8) 

is far more readable than: 

picked - C1NT(MBH2H-1|I)}+1I0 

SO far we've only Looked at functions 
that return numbers, but we can also 
define functions to return strings. The 
principle is exactly the same, except 
that you should suffix the function 
name with a dollar sign. Thus, if you 
defined a function FNlfS as: 

m FMlfS(i) = STRINGS*, CHRltlfl)) 

and then executed a line like: 

PRINT FNlfflZSI; 

you would get 25 linefeeds printed + 
scrolling whatever text was on the 
screen up through the top of the 
window, giving you a slow but fancy 
CLS, The number in brackets after 
FNff$ is the number of linefeeds that 



will be printed. 

Again, that's a simplified example, 
but you can do clever things like 
defining a function to split someone's 
forename from their surname and 
capitalise the first letter of each. 
Which is what Listing IV does. 


T AKE special note of the use of 
FNfnamvS and FiXlnamcS as 
parameters for FNcapit$ in the final 
two lines of that listing. I'll leave you 
to wade through the logic of the 
string slicing in the DEK FN 
statements on your own. Paracetamol 
will help, although you should be 


experts on strings after last month’s 
article. 

Although the function itself is of a 
certain type, the parameters you pass 
can be -of a different type, or even of 
mixed types. As an example, here's a 
function that will pad out a string 
with a programmer-defined character 
to a programmer-defined length: 

DEF FNpad lef til texts, chir$,ii it) - 5 

TRIJtGit Si Je-LEN( text!), Chari) ttestl 

Watch the wrap. Don’t press Return 
after = 5\ type the whole thing into 
the List window as one line. Notice 
that the function itself, FNpadIeft$, is 
a string function, but the parameters 
are of both string ( text$, char$) and 
number {size) type. You can test it out 
by adding another line: 

PRINT FNpadLeTtiCFretf/ft'jK) 

which should print six stars followed 
by the word Fred. 

F INALLY this month, we’ve seen 
how defined functions can use 
themselves or other functions as 
parameters, and although you can 
also use other defined functions in a 
function definition - which is totally 
mind-blowing and something yon 
ought to experiment with because it’s 
better than a cold shower in the 
morning - you can’t use recursion 
with functions. In other words, a 
defined function can’t call itself from 
within a function definition. 
Confused? You will be. Try this: 

DEF FNhalHx) = FNhalfU) 

PRINT FHhaLfUM) 

OK, logic tells you this is wrong 
anyway; it is merely a quick example 
of whal happens. The program stops 
with an Out of memory error 
message. What's amazing is that the 
error message is correct. Yes, all 25k 
of Amiga Basic user memory has been 
used up by this tiny program. How? 
Welti it’s due to something called 
stack overflow, which is another 
subject and a good way to end an 
article on defined functions. Byeee. 


Start: RANDOMIZE TIMER " Set the seed for RND. 

GOSUB initialise ' Define the function. 

FOR Uop=1 TO 15 ‘ Do the next bit 15 ti hi. 

GQSUB Pick.nmbtr 1 Pick a number, 

GO SUB Show, pi eked 1 print it, 

NEXT loop r if Lacp<l6 do it again. 

END ' Otherwise finish. 

Pick. number: pi ffced=FNrand«< 188,218): RETURN 
Shou. picked; PRINT picked; RETURN 

Initialise; DEf FNrandcml ld,hi)=UNTCRNDMhi-la»+U:RETUSN 

Listing III 


56 AMIGA COMPUTING May 1989 


DEf FNfnantSt**} = 

DEF FNLnamellxl) = R1&HT${)($, LENfiiMNSTRtxS/ ’)) 

DEF FNcapi ttlxS) = iCJLSEttLEFTKxf ,imRIGHTl(x( ,lEN( xiM) 

INPUT 'Enter forename La$tnaae: J ,ful LnameSiPRINT 

PRINT "Forename = p ;FNeapitSC FNfnaiellfuUfiiiel)) 

PRINT ‘Lastname = ';FN:apit$tfNlnaiel( f uilnamei)) 

Listing IV 



Discover new ways 
of using your micro 



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By Bus: 

266, 714, 716, M W, 72, 73, 74 


Commodore 

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Commodore computers are 
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F requent mentions of exotic 

fruits in computer articles is 
prohibited by the EC directive 
"Importation of fruiting bodies and 
plant components by reference into 
European 68000 machine code 
descriptive tracts [part 3) fl . However, 
the use of small mammals, and birds 
no matter how exotic, is still 
allowable* pending a decision by the 
European Court So well have no 
more kiwifruit, but we can settle for 
the flighty one. 

Last time, the idea of subroutines 
was spotted on the sonar. Subroutines 
are chunks of code that have a 
specific purpose, almost little 
programs in their own right These 
are very useful for several reasons. 
First, and most importantly, they 
prevent that curse of the coding 
classes^ Finger Wear And Brain Fade. 


FWARF is well known to the 
medical profession; the sufferer has 
his digits permanently curved in the 
typing position and his brain locked 
in an endless loop considering his 
program complexity. Its nasty, but 
avoidable. 

Say that you want to get your 
Amiga to squeak like a coypu at 
various times during a program - 
when a user types in the wrong thing, 
for example, or when your animated 
aardvark collides with a motionless 
marmoset. 

You could work out the instructions 
to make the noise and put them in the 
program at every point they're 
required, but it's far simpler to make 
the squeak a subroutine and call it by 
a JSR (Jump to Subroutine) each time. 

Not only does this save typing, it 
makes the code smaller. The only 


disadvantage is that it's slightly 
slower — the processor has to execute 
a JSR and an RTS [ReTum from 
Subroutine) each time which 
wouldn't otherwise be there. But 
that T s only two more instructions, and 
it's very rare that speed is so 
important that subroutines have 1o be 
abandoned in favour of repeating the 
instructions. That particular trick is 
called inline code* by the way. 

There are more advantages. First, if 
you want to change anything you 
only have to look in one place; 
anything which means you have to go 
through mountains of listings usually 
mean you’ll miss things and make 
mistakes. Secondly it's easier to catch 
bugs, for the same reason. It also 
makes it easier to have one squeak 
routine that can be used in many 
programs - the generation of sets of 


Stacks and subr 



Machine code 
programs can be 
made to run faster by 
splitting the routines 
into modules and 
using stacks in place 
of registers, Rupert 
Goodwins explains 



■PROGRAMMING! 


useful bits that can be plugged into 
new programming projects is called 
building up a library, and it is 
something all professional 
programmers do. Helps prevent 


id 


FWABF. 


e 


if 


v 

b 


Lastly, it makes a program easier to 
understand, since a JSR coypu-calling 
in the code is self-explanatory, The 
trick lies in deciding when and where 
to employ subroutines; if you're often 
copying strings around memory it’s 
worth having the string copy code as 
a subroutine, but if you only do it 
once then the overhead might not be 
worth it. 

Subroutines can - and often do - 
call other subroutines; that coypu 
code would most likely set up an area 
of memory to sound like a large, 
water-living rodent and then call 
another subroutine that just took an 


effects. A stack is an area of memory 
which is used for storing temporary 
data, but since it's the sort of data 
which is very important to the 
processor - register contents, 
addresses for subroutines to return to, 
and so on - there are special 
mechanisms which provide fast 
access to it. 

Stacks on the 68000 are more 
complex than with most other 
processors k since there are various 
ways to use the things. 

The stack's address is normally 
painted to by a special register called 
the stack pointer - if you wanted 
imagination, you should have gone 
into basketweaving, The 680GO 
doesn't have a register that’s called 
the stack pointer; instead it uses the 
address register A 7 to do its dirty 
work. 


broutines 


area of memory and made a noise 
with it. 

The second subroutine would also 
be used by others, like the one that 
said "Game Over". Again, the right 
choice of subroutines makes the 
programming easier, and is a large 
part of the process of software design. 

There are problems with 
subroutines ; they make nests beneath 
the floorboards and steal cheese. 

Also, they - like any other useful bit 
of code - have to use registers to do 
their thing. But at the point in the 
code where yon call a subroutine, you 
might be using the same registers for 
something else. 

Since having to make sure that you 
knew what subroutines used what 
register before you could use them 
would promote FWABF. it’s a good 
idea to save the contents of whatever 
registers will be used in a subroutine 
at the beginning, and restore them 
later. And the 68K, like most other 
microprocessors, has just the place for 
them - the stack. 


P ROGRAMMERS have a love/hate 
relationship with their stacks. 
They're useful, convenient hut tend to 
take on a life of their own and, unless 
controlled, cause interesting side 


There are 
actually two A 7s 
within the dark 
recesses of the 
68k - one is 
switched in 
when the 
processor is in 
user mode, and 

the other when it’s in supervisor 
mode. This last mode is more 
powerful, and tends to he reserved for 
use by the operating system which 
has to control what programs get 
what memory. 


O NE effect of this is to give the 
supervisor mode a separate 
stack. Another is to prevent A7 from 
being used as just another register - if 
you do this, it's the equivalent of 
wrapping your chips in the roadmap, 
Things are written to the stack in 
three ways. The first is done 
automatically by the processor when 
it comes across a subroutine call. A 
JSR, makes it subtract eight bytes (a 
long word) from A7, since that's the 
amount of memory needed to store an 
address. 

It takes the address of the 
instruction that follows it and sticks it 
in the area of memory pointed to by 
A7. Then it jumps to the new address 
specified hy the JSR. A7 now points 
to spare memory, which the 
subroutine can use if it wants. 

When the processor comes across 
the RTS instruction later it adds eight 
bytes to A7 and reads in the data at 
that address. This data was the 
address following the JSR instruction, 
so the processor loads it into the 


program counter and carries on. 

Since it doesn’t care what happens 
to the data on the stack now, the 
program can reuse the stack memory. 
But, while the processor was 
executing the subroutine it did care 
about keeping the return address safe, 
so by subtracting a longword from A7 
it stopped anything else from 
overwriting it. 

This only works, of course, because 
everything follows the same rules. Put 
something on the stack, subtract the 
length of whatever it is from A7. Take 
something off, then add the length to 
A7. As the stack gets used, it grows 
down through memory, as 
information is removed, it shrinks 
upwards again. 

The second way of putting stuff on 
the stack is by using the normal 
MOVE instruction. If a subroutine 
wants to use registers DO, Dl and A4, 
it can save the old contents by the 
following: 

H0VE.L DB,-(A7) 

MOVE. L Dl t -(hT) 

MOVE. I A4,-(A7) 

Here the subroutine does evil things 
to the registers: 

HOVE , L U7)*,A4 
mUA (A7)*,l>1 
MOVE A (A7)*,&0 
RTS 

Note the use of those awfully useful 
increment and decrement fixes to 
make the saving and loading of 
registers nice and short. Also note the 
obvious - once you know about it - 
fact that stack items are removed in 
the opposite order they are put on. It 
might seem natural to remove D0,D1 
and A4 from the stack in that order, 
but it would result in the original 
value of DO ending up in A4, and vice 
versa. 

It might be becoming obvious why 
the stack is a place for introducing 
subtle bugs - the program that called 
the subroutine might not check A4 or 
DO for a while after it calls the 
subroutine, so the real cause of the 
error would be lost in the mists of 
CPU time. 

Other things that can go wrong 
with the stack include removing less 
than you put on, or more - it really 
doesn't matter which. Either way, 
when the final RTS turns up, the 
processor will remove the incorrect 
return address from the stack and 
blithely do a BDB, or Branch Dim 
Beyond. You the programmer will 
observe a machine apparently 


May 1969 AMIGA COMPUTING 59 



Lombard 


See the driver steer an<^sng^ m 
^ootNy through each of the gears 


Ori\se down 

^^ncredibte 3D view of the fOM f 




ie all your pcweiToUon^t^tlon 
negotiate the mountain range 




i 

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Complete the five stages - down winding tracks, through verdant 
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tn association iwf/j 



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r An absolute must? - ST Action, January r 89 


Please send me Lombard/RAC Rally for; 

□ Atari ST □ Amiga 

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Ttf: 051-35? mi 






■PROGRAMMING* 


possessed by $ demon; experience is 
the only way of preventing this. 

There is a quick way of putting 
whole scads of registers on the stack, 
and pulling them off again 
afterwards. This involves a new 
variant of the MOVE instruction - 
MOVEM, or Move Multiple. So, the 
instruction: 

ncm.i M-ae/AB,-U7) 

will stick DO, D3 and AO on to the 
stack and adjust A7 accordingly. At 
the end: 

mnn.i \uw 

will put everything back again. This 
is a bit slower than one ordinary 
MOVE instruction, but quicker than 
about three. So, if you have to keep 
three or more registers safe and sound 

opt l-,ct,d+ 

inedir t :incLudi/ 1 ' 

include ex ec /exec _lib,i 
include LibreHes/dosJib. i 
include Li bra ri e s/d-gs , i 

start move. I #dflsna»e,a1 
■oveq *MB 

CALLEKEC GpenLibrary ; get access to the OS 
tst.L di 

beq stop.noy ; stop if w can't 
■five, l df,J0S9ait ;sm pointer 

+ n on find our output handle 
CAL LDDS Output 

■ove, L d |, out put-band Le ; save output handle 

* a series of subroutine calls hide the complexities of 

* Loading registers and calling DD5 from the programmer 

* uho just has to move single Lines of machine code about 

* to change the output of the prograi 

bsr start-message 

bsr marmoset 

bsr squirrel 

bsr aole_rat 

bsr magenta_fgced_Lemur 

bsr end-message 


* finished so close 005 library 

iove.1 -&Q$Base,a1 
CALLEHEC C lose Li bra ry 


across a subroutine, MOVfcM is your 
best bet. 

Using the stack in this way is quite 
slow in relation to other machine 
code instructions, and whereas ifs 
safest just to save registers, significant 
increases in speed can be had by 
being very selective about what gets 
saved and what gets sacrificed. 

Obviously, if a program's got a 
fixed number in A5 it’s quicker just to 
reload it after a subroutine than to 
expect the subroutine to carefully 
store it on the stack and replace it 
afterwards. 

But maybe you want to use the 
same subroutine elsewhere where A 5 
has more important data: again, this 
comes down to designing the 
program properly in the first place 
and balancing speed against 
efficiency and ease of programming. 

The third way of using the stack is 


a little odd, and involves the PEA 
instruction. Luckily there ls a specific 
exemption for this in the EC directive, 
otherwise it would have to be called 
the GERB1L instruction. PEA stands 
for^no jokes about standing for a 
PEA, please) Push Effective Address. 

Most processors - but not the 6Bk - 
have special instructions for saving 
stuff on the stack called PUSH and 
POP. Since the 6Bk can use its 
ordinary MOVEs for stack operations, 
the only place where PUSHing comes 
in is with this, PEA takes an address 
and puts it on the stack. It’s similar to 
what the processor docs with JSR but 
you get to define the address how you 
like and the processor doesn't attempt 
to jump anywhere afterwards. 

PEA isn't overworked: It can be 
used to set up false return addresses 
from subroutines or to put parameters 


stop.nou 

Pts 


; and finish 


* Subroutine to print a lessage 
+ Weeds 62 -> string, dj = string length 

scared: ; ve all live in a yellom subroutine..* 

tove.L outputJiandLe^dl ; set up output handle 
CALLUPS Write 

Using subroutines to write text to the screen 


* Subroutines to select a message to print 
start message: 

move. L *$tart_teAt y d2 
asve.L #start_len,d3 
bra do_Dutput 
marmoset: 

move. I *iarmoset_text,d2 
move. I ^larnoset.LeriydJ 
bra do-putput 
squi rrel: 

move. I #squirreLtext,d2 
move. I *squirrel_Len,d3 
bra do-output 
mole-rat: 

■ove.L #«ole_rat_text,d2 
low. I *mo L e_r a t_L eM3 
bra doLoutput 
iiagenta_faced_Le«ur: 

move, L #«agenta_t ext,d2 
low. I #*agenta_len,d3 
bra do_output 
end-message 

move. I #end_text,d? 
move. I #end_text_len,d3 
do.output: 
bsr scared 
rts 

start„text dc.b 'In my shoebox, I've got ' 
5tart_len equ ‘-start-text 
marmoset-text dc.b "a manic marmoset, %Tg 
marmoset_Len equ *-nario&et_text 
squirrel-text dc.b 'a sullen squirrel, ' 
squi rrel.Len equ *-squi r reLtext 
■dU_rat_text dc.b 'a lorose mole rat, ■ 

■ole_rat_len equ *-mole^rat_text 

magenti-teit dc.b 'a blushing *agenta*faced leaur, 

magenta, len equ +-magenta_text 

end-text dc.b 'and a happy goldfish, %10 

end-teat-len equ »-end,text 


-HOSBast 
output-hand Le 

dos-name DGSNAHE 


dc.L 
dc. L 


space for pointer 
space for handle 


1989 AMIGA COMPUTING 81 



■ PROGRAMMING* 


M 

on the stack before a RTS, 

Passing parameters on the stack is 
an advanced technique. It’s very 
useful when interfacing machine code 
routines to high level languages like C 
or Basic, and also for any situation 
where you want to pass information 
to a subroutine but there aren’t 
enough spare registers. 

it works by putting all the data on 
the stack before doing the JSR. The 
subroutine knows that there is a 
longword of address data on the stack 
and that after that it can find its data, 
so it loads the value of A7 into a 
spare address register, adds eight (for 
example — if it’s saved some registers 
on the stack already it might add 
more] and can then get at the data by 
using this new address register, 

At the end it can put results back in 
the same place — providing there’s 
enough room, if not the calling 
program has to leave some extra 
space on the stack before doing the 
|SR - before restoring the old value of 
the address register that it used and 
doing an RTS. 


The reason for going to all this 
bother is that, since the data is kept 
on the stack, it doesn’t take up any 
permanent place in memory and it 
can he reused without any FWARF, 
Also since the stack grows and keeps 
whatever + s on it safe and sound, the 
routine can call itself without 
overwriting anything important. This 
last is called recursion, and sounds 
completely bonkers - why would any 
routine want to call itself? 


T HERE are lots of reasons. 

Imagine that every second you 
want to do 10 things. Every second 
you call a routine that does these 10 
things. One might be "if the giraffe’s 
fallen over, squeak like a coypu" and 
it might lake longer than a second to 
complete. 

So you're deep inside your "do 10 
things” routine when another second 
comes up and the routine is called 
again. If the thing's not recursive, all 
the information needed to complete 
the first call will be overwritten by 
the second cal), and when the coypu 


routine finishes the chances are the 
computer will crash. 

But if everything’s safe on the stack, 
all will unwind safely. The only 
proviso is that there’s enough room 
between the stack and whatever’ s 
next in memory... 

Finally, always comment your 
subroutines with special clarity. It’s a 
good idea to put at the beginning of 
each subroutine a comment noting 
the registers it changes and those it 
saves, the amount of stack it needs, 
what the routine does and any other 
special things it needs. 

This makes it easier to reuse the 
subroutine later, as well as making 
your programs even easier to read- 
ies a hassle, but not as much as the 
onset of FWABF at three in the 
morning, 

This month’s program uses 
subroutines to display different 
animal names. 

By shuffling Ihe order of the 
various subroutine calls, the order of 
the names change, too - much easier 
than moving large blocks of data 
around. Although it’s not particularly 
fruitful (whoops, sorry EC). 



Maniax 

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Zynaps ~ 

Eliminator— 

Circus Gamas 

Winter Olympiad 68 . 

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Sword at Sedan 

Hager Rabbit 

Zany Golf 

Uninvited 

Lombard Rally 

Nigel Mansells 

Typhoon 

STockmarket......,,.,.- 

Hybrift — H+t+ 

Bermuda Project 

Teenage Queen 

No Excuses 

Reach tor the Stars 

The Krystal — 

Freedom 

GoWragon's Domain 

RType 

Facmania 

Purple Saturn Day ... 
Afterburner 

Prison 

Facland 

Bombuzal 

Super Hang-On.. ....... 


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62 AMIGA COMPUTING May 1989 



■ ANIMATION! 


Making movies 


Sam Littlewood gets things 
going in the penultimate 
part of his animation series 



| OMPUTER animation is as 
V_J fashionable as Ozzie soaps, 
although it has been around almost as 
long as jeans which button up. 

Nothing gets an advertising agency 
reaching, for the chequebook faster 
than the thought of the client's name 
flying down the Grand Canyon in six 
foot silver letters. 

Animation falls into two broad 
styles. The first is to describe the 
motion of fixed objects over time, The 
description is often in terms of a path. 
This describes position, pitch, roll 
and yaw, and scale. A refinement of 
this system is to allow paths to be 
attached to other paths — giving 
submotions - such as a jaw moving 
while a head is turning. Some 
systems allow the special objects in 
an animation to fly along paths, such 
as the lights and camera. 

The second category is to describe 
the world at two separate points in 
time, and the computer then works 
out the intermediate positions. An 
object can be changed smoothly from 
a cube to a sphere. It could explode 
by defining the normal object at the 
start of the sequence and the totally 
exploded object at the end. The 
intermediate stages of the explosion 
would be automatically worked out. 


This technique is know as tweening. 

Of the existing tools* ScuJpt- 
Animate-3D provides the most control 
over animation. Both path-based 
animation and tweening are available. 
The path based animation can be 
fully hierachical. This allows you to 
build up a big path from lots of little 
ones. The tweening capabilities can 
be applied to every aspect of an 
animation, including colours* 
brightness of lights, 7 , 00 m of the 
camera and so on. 

T HERE are two versions of 

VideoScape-3D, Version 1 has 
limited path based animation* and 
objects can be t weened or morphed 
as Videoscape calls it. A morphing 
object could be flying along a path at 
the same time. Version 1 does not 
allow hierachical paths. Creating 
complicated motions, a hatch opening 
on a moving spacecraft for example, 


may require a program written to 
generate the motions. Version 2 
allows paths to be attached to other 
paths, making life far easier. 

Other packages have similar 
facilities - Turbo Silver has 
hierachical path -based animation. 
Forms in Flight has simple path- based 
animation, like Videnscape Version 1, 

The movie being discussed in these 
articles has a relatively simple set of 
animations. The objects do not 
change shape, they only move. The 
main motion is the movement of the 
camera. The various motions are: 

• Camera starts at back of auditorium 
and moves down to focus on speaker 
standing at podium. It then moves 
behind the curtain at the rear of the 
stage and moves in on the bull. 

• The speaker is talking - the head is 
nodding and turning. The body is 
rocking backwards and forward. The 
arm is waving. 

• The bull's head is nodding in some 
semblance of chewing. 

Of these motions, those of the 
speaker are the most complicated* and 
will be a hierarchy. Starting at the top 
of the hierarchy* the torso is moving 
backwards and forwards, bending at 
the hips. The torso is one object, 
while the legs are stationary. The 
torso is given an oscillating path 
within Sculpt-3D, 

The first step is to make a circle. 

This is then scaled in the east to west 
direction so that there is no side-to- 
side motion. This path is then scaled 
so that its length is about half the 
depth of the torso. The path is not 
attached to anything else, it is at the 

% ► 



The buiTs head 
needs a small path 
to crea te a 
nodding effect 


May tfJtiV AMIGA COMPUTING S3 




nr 


ANIMATION 


M 

i 


i 




1 i 


top level of the world hierarchy. The 
torso is attached to this path as a 
child . The path is in the centre of the 
torso. 

The torso will now oscillate 
backwards and forwards. There is one 
slight problem, the top of the legs and 
the bottom of the torso are not 
connected, giving the impression of a 
bad magic trick. The path is modified 
so that the torso tilts while it moves 
along the path, keeping the bottom of 
the torso at the same position as the 
top of the legs. 

We now have a torso waving back 
and forwards. When creating paths, it 
is often worth working on them at a 
large scale, and then scaling to be 
very small in one or more directions. 
The torso's path is a loop, in this case 
of 20 steps. The path will be repeated 
as. necessary. 

Remaining paths in this hierarchy 
are constructed along the same lines 
as ihe basic one for the torso. Two 
paths are added as children of the 
torso’s path, one for the arm waving, 
and one for the head turning side to 
side. 

The arm is similar to the torso. A 
path is attached half way up the arm 
that is a circle squashed in one 
direction. The pitch and roll is 




Most of the bull is hidden 

modified so that the arm stays 
connected to the shoulder. The head 
has a further path before it is 
attached, a small nodding path. The 
hierarchy is as follows; 

Torso-urn Torso L(tt_ari 

+- Ara.wivt - (tighter* 

+* H«d_wag - H?ad_nod --Head 

The left arm was originally going to 
he given a path that kept the left hand 
In contact with the podium. This was 
later changed to keep the arm at the 
side of the torso, since the camera 
would not be able to see much of it 
anyway. 


By keeping the right arm still the 
number of paths can be reduced 

H AVING created a complicated 
set of motions for the speaker, 
none of which caused anything to 
actually go anywhere, the next path is 
that of the camera. Within Sculpt-3D, 
the camera can be attached to a path 
and be given roll and tumble just like 
any other object This path was 
created using a spline. 

The length of this path in points 
will be the length of the final 
animation in frames. The current 
estimate for the number of frames is 
128, The two endpoints were made, 
and a straight line put between them. 
This was then subdivided seven 
times. 

Having created 128 points, a few 
were picked as key points and 
dragged to important places, selected, 
and the whole thing made into a 
spline, the remaining points sprung 
into the intervening locations- 
After defining the path of the 
camera, the pitch and roll must be 
modified so that the camera keeps 
pointing at the areas of interest. This 
is done by hand and with judicious 
use of wireframe previewing- 

During the first part of the path the 
point of interest is the Speaker- 
Having moved up to the speaker, the 
camera slides sideways through the 
curtain and the point of interest is 
now the bull back stage. 

The speed of the camera movement 
is controlled by the distance bet ween 
points. In this case the points are 
bunched up at the point where the 


The link between the hull and the 
man still needs to be established 


camera moves up to the speaker. The 
camera slows down as it moves up to 
the speaker and then accelerates 
away. 

The final path to be added is that of 
of the bull's head nodding. The same 
techniques that were applied to the 
speaker are used here, 

This animation has made extensive 
use of paths, including hierarchy to 
get paths attached to paths. Creating 
the paths requires a large amount of 
previewing, the wire frame preview 
modes of both Sculpt-3D and 
Videoscape-3D being both ideal for 
this. 

To create smooth motion, both of 
the camera and objects, the paths are 
constructed from smooth objects such 
as splines and circles, 

A common situation is to have an 
object moving on the spot, such as 
nodding or spinning. In these cases it 
is a good tactic to make a path and 
then shrink it so small that the object 
does not go anywhere. An example is 
to get things to spin — make a circular 
path and then shrink it to a point size. 

With the objects hooked together, 
the next stage is to generate the 
individual frames. The wire frame 
previewing during the animation 
stage should have sorted out any 
problems of the camera pointing in 
the wrong direction, or objects not 
coming into view. 

The generation of the final images 
I is the subject of the next and last 
I article in this series. 


G4 AMIGA COMPUTING May 19ft9 





Disk boxes 50 capacity £8,00 
100 capacity £10,00 

<*• Sony branded double sided disks boxed 
in tens with labels £15,00 

Sony bulk double sided disks including 
labels £10.00 


purple p.D. Mega Pocks purple p.P. Hardware 


purple Amigo Msgo Packs - 3 disks for only £6! fully inclusive 

a Mega Pack 1: Business Pock I. word processor , database, 
spreadsheet. 

A Mego Pock 2- Commujrtcotions Pock 1, 3 disks 1UI of 
telecommunication software. 

A Mega Pack 3t Graphics Pock 1„ graphica packages and unities, 
a Mega Pack 4 Animation Pock 1. stunning graphic onimotlon 
demos, 

a Mega Pack 5: Picture Pock 1, packed full of the best Amiga 
oic turns, 

A Mega Pack 6: Demo Pack 1, the most fabulous graphics and sound. 
A Mega Pack 7: Amiga Basic Pock 1. 3 disks full of Amiga Basic 

programs. 

A Mega Pack 8: Game Pock 1, adventures, boord games and 
shoot 'em ups. 

A Miego Pock 9 Picture Pock 2, pocked till of the best Amiga 
pictures, 

a Mega Pock IQ: Demo Pock 2, the mast fabulous graphics and sound, 


□ Amiga A5CQ, including modulator £350-00 

J Amiga A5QQ. TV. modulator and colour monitor £750-00 

□ Amiga A20GQ and Colour monitor £1560.00 

□ Cumana CAK354 switchable disk drive £90.00 

□ A50I 0.5 Mb RAM Upgrade £150.00 

ir Telephone now for the latest prices on AMY Commodore 
«- Amiga hardware or commercial software product. 

We also have the following Amigo P.D. 

C olfec tions Fre d Fish, Soft vitte, A PD C, A MI C US, 
Slipped Disk , TBag, Amuse : AUGE r FAUG, 
MUSIC, Panorama and others . 

Prices for P.D, disks ore 1-5 £3.00 each, 6-10 
£2.75 each and 11 or more £2.50 each. 



For lull details of the thousands of Public Domoin software titles that we h ave for the Commodore Amiga se nd for o ur latest 

a I Purple cataloaue. 

Send post al orders and cheques oavable to Purple, or your Access or Visa card d etails to: 

darthoiome w Rood. Bishop's S tort ford. Herts, CM23 3TR Tel: 027 9 757692 


MAILORDER 
For all your 
software 


n 


GAMES 


Q^ettam 

■ 

A Em Lflngueig* 29.40 

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A*gii VidvcKop* 3-0 10(7.80 

Amigo Boiic Ireudt and Out 15.99 

Amigo Lighta, Canwei, Aehon 45.58 

Amigo Mishin# Umguag* 12 50 

Amigo Modollw 3-0 53-40 

Amigo Pt*iOui>4 Oaiignw 62-17 

Amigo Ruby Vi*w/T*rm 76 69 

Amigo Syrlmio 72 54 

Amigo Trick* 0*d Tip* 12 50 

Amigo 005 moriMol 2nd Edihton 20 ?5 

Ajtoc'i C CcwipiUr ftofuuondl 1 47.20 

A520 Moduloiw 23.50 

Collioraplw Colorfonl* 68 44 

Cily DaifWtoe Publiiher V2 108.88 

Comic S*itfw 52.84 

Com*c Setter Clip Art j*«h] 3 9. 1 ft 

Critic'* Choke 114 02 

Wwi Mu*k ComlrvoKon S*t ..53.26 

Mum Poinl 7 52 04 

Mow IVj Lob 53 09 

Dalux* Production* ... 107.00 

Delvx* Video 53 09 

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Dimpoini 2 . 44.54 




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Around th* World in 80 Doy* 

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Captain 6*o*d ..... 

Charon 5 

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Digital Link 52.84 

DigWiew Gold 122 37 

Digipk: From* Grabber 205.00 

[>05 to COS 30.02 

Expreu Point 2 ... 49.26 

Fonkwiiion v 30.59 

For in* in FI ighi . 54.91 

FmKkvkummJ , . 77.77 

Gdileo 44.54 

HiSofi Ctovpak V2 46.61 

Horn* Account* 21 .98 

Intorcbong* , 37.97 

IntopCAD. 49 72 

KComm 2 21.99 

K.Dolo 36.50 

K Rcge-1 36 50 

K -5*1(0 680OO Auernbler ... ' 38 32 

KSpread 2 58.96 

Korakwvti 44.54 

Kind Word* 2 38.77 

Lattice Amiaado* V5.0 183.55 

Lin not Modem r 1 38.00 

Logitfoc 87.22 

Moil*ko* Plw 36.50 

Mathomorton ,„ ,....53-11 

Max. Plan A5O0 77.72 

MCC Macro Auembler 54 91 

MCC Pared V2 68 39 

MCC Shall 3935 

Mrcrofcche Fibr 5906 


Mirwl. WJ20QO 11 0.00 

Modula 2 Standard 77 26 

Mom S*R«r 55.38 

Mu tic Stodani 44 54 

Muuc Stadia 26-91 

On Linil 45. 1 1 

Poo* Hwpar rtv* P/k 91 .20 

Photon TrpniportCortlrolWr .,,.145.00 

Photon Vuiw Cal Animtitar 76.22 

Paw Window* 2 53,87 

Pro WVrti 2 67.35 

Prof**i4ontJ 0f<r*r 11 6-00 

ProfewtonoJ Ppg* - 191.84 

PubliiWPUu 75.18 

Publishing portnw Protoutoflof 1 09.66 

Sculpt 3-0 ,...50.02 

Sculpt 3-0 Animal* 96 83 

Sculpt 4-0 322 00 

Sluaia Font* 22.81 

Stadia Magic 53.87 

Suf>*fboiaW>nol 2 77.72 

Suparbo** PtoWmorKsI 106.61 

Scparplan 72 80 

TkaWodt*P 79,85 

Turbo Silvar 3-0 108.83 

TVSbowATVTiKf (aoch| 58.00 

V.dad Eff*ct* 30 95 00 

Workbanch 1.3 jEnhanoat SaPtafflr*) .... 12-95 
Zaatropa . 7 ! 71.50 


PANASONIC 

CAMERA 

£259,00 


BAXALL 

CAMERA 

£199.00 


External 3 5" 

Disk Drive 

£92,95 


GENLOCK 
| PAL] 

£230.00 


PROFESSIONAL 

GENLOCK 

£650,00 


Jutf b«eu» you don't we it - doesn't m*on we tiflyen'l got it 

For full detail*, tend a targe stamped eddretwd envelope 

Pleow moke cheques and postal order* payable to: 

"COTTAGE SOFTWARE” 

Please endorse cheques with bankers card number 

Dept AC, P.O. Box No, 8 , Show, OL 2 8 QN. Telephone: 0706 845365 


HANDY 

SCANNER 

£265.00 


May 19S9 AMIGA COMPUTING 65 








PRINTERS 

es include VAT delivery & cable 


9 pin printer', the 
4 NLQ fonts (with 
96 print combinations) at 36cps and 
1 44cps draft. Has a large 4K buffer 
and IBM/paraltel interface buiiH ln t 
includes a comprehensive front panel 
operation and features paper parking, 
allowing single sheets to be used 
without removing; tractor paper. 


Only £199.00 

Colour version also available, 

Only £249.00 

Prices include 2 extra 
black ribbons free of charge. 




All prices include VAT/delivery 


NEW SPECIAL OFFER AMIGA PACK 


All-new special Amiga 500 pack include* the following: 
•k Amiga 500 computer A Quadr alien 


* TV Modulator 

* Mouse & Mouse mat 
A Joystick 

A Zynaps 

A Purple Saturn Day 
A Hostages 
A Winter Olympiad 


A Eliminator 
A Stargoose 
A Backlash 
A Spitting Image 
A and 1 extra gome free, 
while stocks last! 

* plus 5 disks of PD s/ware 


All this for only £399.00 


Amiga S00, including TV modulator £359.00 

A501 RAM /clock expansion for Amiga 500 ... .....™..« +M £126.00 

Philips CM6633 colour monitor suitable tor Amiga 500 £229.00 

Philips CMS852 monitor as above, but higher resolution £290.00 

Philips TV Tuner AV73O0. use wilh any composite monitors £74,95 

Cameron Handy Scanner Typo 4„ 64mm wida. scans up to 

400dpi with 1 6 grey scales, inc. Paint ft OCR software £320.00 

Vidi-Amtga, muffi-iana video Irama grabber, wilh software 

Word Perfect - . 

Supetoaso Personal 


Superbase Professional 

Logistic 


£96.00 
£140.95 
,. £69.00 
£170.00 
. £70.95 


Star LG24-10 feature- packed multifont 24pin printer £339-00 

Star SF-1QDJ f DK cut sheet feeder lor LC-1Q * LC24-10 £64,95 

Star NB241Q 24 pin printer 216/72 Cps, 

including cut sheet feeder and 2 extra ribbons £499 00 

Stan NX-15 good value wide carriage 9 pin primer,... . £329.00 

Panasonic KXP1QS1 reliable 9p<n 1&" printer 120/24 cps . £169.00 

Panasonic KXPl ISC super new Spin multifont 11,7* carriage .............. £199.00 

Panasonic KXPl 134 pood quality new multifont 24pln £319.00 

Panasonic cut sheet leeder for KXPl 160 - £95,00 

Panasonic KXP-36 cut sheet foeder for KXPl 124 £109,00 

Epson LXSOC popular 9pin 10" 160/25cps £199-00 

Epson LQ5O0 24pin 10" lS0/50cpa .£319,00 

Epson EPX-200 cut sheet feeder for LXQOO / LO500 £74. 

NEC P2200 budget 24 pin 16S/56cpe £319.00 

Citizen 1200 budget 9pin 10" 120cps ,. £139.00 

Citizen HQP-45 bargain value wide carriage 24pln £39900 

Star Laserprinfor s high specification Sppm / 300dpi laser, 

(prise Inc, 1 year on site maintenance) ~ £1795,00 


DOUBLE TAKE! 
PYE 15" FST 
TV MONITOR 

(MOO EL 1185) 


Superb quality, stylish medium 
resolution FST eotouf TV/menttor 
to suit the Amiga or Atari ST, 
Features leletem, fill infra-red 
remote control, Eurooonnodor. 
| Video/Audio input and head- 
Cutpul connectors, 40 
presets, external aerial 
connector and a loop aerial. 


phone 

toner 


computer type whan ordering). 


SPECIAL 
OFFER ! 

£269.00 

Includes VAT 


3 



EXTERNAL DRIVES 


Cumana 5.25" External 




using Citizen drive mechanisms 


Floppy Disk Drives 



• Suits Amiga 506 or Amiga tOOD 

• Top quality Citizen drive mechanism 

• On / Off switch on rear of drive 

• Through port connector 

• One megabyte unformatted capacity 

• Slimline design 

• Very qulat 

• Long cable for location either 
aide of computer 

• Full 12 months guarantee 


Ultra low price! 

£79.95 

fnc.VAT and 
delivery 


(model CAS 1000 S) 


We are now supplying whisper quiet slimline 5.25" floppy 
drives for the Amiga user from Cumana. The Transformer 
compatible drive features an integral power supply, 40/80 
track switching, 36Q/72GK formatted storage capacity and 
throughport connector, It also has an on/off switch which 
effectively unplugs the 


drive from the Amiga 
when it is not required. 


Only £159.95 



Only £34.95 

inc.VAT/delivery 


Probably the best and most 
complete 3.5" disk copier for 
the Amiga user. Can even 
copy MS-DOS, Atari ST 
CP/M, Xenix and Archime- 
des disks. Because of the 
high specification of the 
Amiga drive, this copier is 
probably the best for the 
Archimedes or ST. Also In- 
cludes track editor. Updates 
will be available in the future 
as and when new software 
protection schemes arise. 


3 5” 

|How to order from 1 

All prices Include VAT and detNery. Express Courier delivery £5.E» extra. J 


fwl Send cheque, Postal Order 
^ or A CCESSIVISA card details 

Evesham Micros Ltd 

63 BRIDGE STREET 
FVFSHAM 
WORDS WR11 4SF 

<£> 0386-765500 

lax 0336*765354 
telex 333294 

10 Bulk packed DS/DD 3.5“ disks 

with labels, fully guaranteed £1 1.95 

lEveshamilicros] 

25 bulk disks as above £27.95 

10 disks as above with plastic case £1 3.95 

25 disks as above, with 40 capacity 

lockable storage unit £34.95 

Kodak DS/DD 3.5 1 * disks, top quality 
storage media. Box of 10 £17.95 

ES 

Phone us with your 
ACCESS or VISA 
card details on : 
® 0386-765500 

Govt, ediK. A PLC orders tretarae 

AU goods subject to availabililj, E.&O.E. 
Opto to olkfi i days, 

\Ah* Mi 1742 Fenton KtL, Coflrrid|F T Bindngfcun JBH Tel; HI 4SK AM4 













WOf '* Mail Order Offers 


Just how good is Protext? 




Protext is acknowledged by many as THE word processor for most 
home micros, and the Amiga version is no exception. 

With over 4 years of development by one of Britain's top software 
houses , Protext has evolved as more powerful micros came along - 
each version being extensively tailored to fit in its new environment 
So what you get with Amiga Protext is a powerful workhorse with a 
proven track record and tens of thousands of customers who wouldn't 
consider using any other word processor. 

in this special introductory offer we are knocking £20 off the retail, 
price- For just £7 9,95 you'd be one of the first Amiga users to get your 
hands on what an atricie in Amiga Computing described es "The best 
word processor for the Amiga." 

When you get the package you'll also receive a voucher entitling you 
to a FREE UPGRADE. So as Protext grows you can grow with it - for no 
extra cost This is an offer you should not miss. 


□ 


"For power and value for money, I _dor ' 1 can* handle the most 

w- - - - * 

"Inyo”' Z°T» professional interest in words is likely to find it pays 
dividends". - PC Business World wp kage whlc h 

"It is a refreshing change to review a^n^pensrve 

*i“ eS Up " 6VerV 1 t h e S y StB m bv which all other word processors 

• superb product • 

- Your Computer 


ol proteMtVfeat^^ 


- Your Computer 

• The great strength of the package is its ease of use 

- CPC Computing ■ * n WWt 

"Deserves very serious 
consideration" - Am strap 
professional Computing 

"pretext is probably the most 
powerful word processor 
available on the ST and is 
quite likely to become the 
best selling too" 

- Atari ST User 


'...merely the best 
word processor for 
the Amiga' 


- Reviewed in 
Amiga Computing 
January 1989 


Macro record mode 

ESrasss- 

VSSSSSlW find and h *** 


TO ORDER YOUR 
COPY, TURN TO 
THE FORM 
ON PAGE 97 




► 


Ill 


Amiga Arcade 


Bomber that' 

's 


| 

a blockbusU 


-rS 

|r^p| 

““iTI 

FrjF_i — 

\T EKTOR GRAFIX, 
V team best known 

the 

for 

T1 



Arming the F-15 
Strike Eagle in 
Bomber, the working 
name for Activision s 
summer release flight 
simulator 


Ilia VfllC I1DI11U Ufci 

The Empire Strikes Back, has 
signed up with Activision to 
produce four original titles. 

The game under develop- 
ment right now is almost 
complete, with conversions, 
the ST among them, Lagging 
two weeks behind, 

Given the working title of 
Bomber, it is a variation on 
the flight simulator theme* 
Vektor has created a game 
where the player can choose 
any plane from a list of the 
most exciting modern 
aircraft around, including 
the Tornado, F-15 Strike 
Eagle,, F-4 Phantom, F-lll, 
Saab Viggen and Mig 27 
Flogger, 

"Gallup Chart 


Last 

Month 


Fikon 
MiirttrSofll 
i £29.95 


2 
3 

in 


TV SpoMs Foothill 

ViinjrSofl 

£ 29.85 


Sword at Sodan 

GdiriRtar 

24.95 


Elite- 

Firebird 

£24.95 


4 ' 


5 


Lombard RAC Rally 1 * i 

Mandarin . K 

£24.95 1 W 


6 


Operation Wolf 
£24,95 


7 


Dragon's Laif 

Ktadvvn-ft 

£44,95 


i Galdregiwi's Domain 

1 Pandora 
I £19.99 


9 


Pucmama 

Cianddann 

£49,95 


5 


10 


Thunder Blade 
US Cold 
tli . 95 


7 


t 


Tli#? Bomber team 
surround Vektor 
Graft* founder Andy 
Craven (hack wall, 
black sweater} while 
co-director fohn 
Lewis ( far right, on 
the table) guards 
the loot. 

Everything is different 
about each plane, even the 
handling, and you will be 
able to fight one of 14 
potential computer con- 
trolled adversaries, 

Vektor founder member 
and director Andy Crane 
came up with the Bomber 
idea while conducting 
research for a game that 
never happened. 

He discovered that every 
year the USAF Strategic Air 
Command plays host to the 
Curtis E. Le May Inter- 
national Bombing Competi- 
tion (God Bless America and 
all that). 

Andy realised this was a 


natural for the home com- 
puter and, together with his 
11-strong programming 
team, has turned it into a 
game where you can arm 
your jet to the teeth and blast 
away at anything that moves. 

Vektor co-directnr John 
Lewis admitted to Amiga 
Computing that as a flight 
simulator the game may lack 
certain features: “We've tried 
to keep as close to the actual 
aircraft as possible", he said, 
"hut realism has had to run a 
dose second to fun”. 

The package will cost £125 
to £30 on two discs - maybe 
three — with lots of 
background info on all the 


planes, plus there is a DIY 
scenario option built in to 
the the game, opening up the 
possibility of extra “mis- 
sion” discs, 

With Bomber almost fin- 
ished, the Vektor team has 
begun work on its second 
major project. What is it? 
John Lewis won’t tell, but 
Amiga Computing can 
reveal that it is not a flight 
simlulator. 

Instead it will use Vektor’s 
natural language parser - "It 
can do things that Infocom's 
falls down on”, says John. 
But it's not an adventure, 
Sounds intriguing. Watch 
this space,** 


Down to earth challenge 


F ROM the creators of the 
absorbing Joan of Arc 
{Amiga Computing March, 
B9) comes the visually and 
aurally stimulating fourney 
to the Centre nf the Earth. 

The game has you playing 
the role of an eminent sci- 
entist who has to negotiate 
echoing caverns and wind- 
ing passages in an attempt to 
follow Arne Sakmussen's 
steps in the Jules Verne novel 


of the same name, 

Stampeding mammoths, 
cascading rocks and slimy 
reptiles are just three of the 
hazards you will have to 
face. Beat" them off. Find the 
correct path and your rew r ard 
is a stunning 32 colour pic- 
ture of your next destination, 
Review next month, when 
we ll Find out whether the 
gameplay lives up to the 
graphics. 


Not the 
centre of 
the earth, 
hut a 
resting 
place 
on the 
journey ? 






)JY 


All the latest news on 
the games software scene 


First impressions are favourable 



Raider, the first Impressions Software release. Out now at £19.99 


R emember oids and 

Thrust? Well the 
format lives on with Raider, 
the first release from new 
software house Impressions, 
To save the inexorable star 
system you By through a set 
of four planets, killing every 
turret on each before a small 
green cog appears. Tractor 
up the cog and fly to the next 
planet. 

Once you have all four 
cogs you can enter the pow- 
erplant where you have a 
limited time period to pos- 
ition them and escape before 
ail something-or-other blows 
loose. 

We + ve only seen a one- 
level demo so far, but can tell 
you that if you’re a Thrust 


Thanatic or an Oids Obses- 
sive, pretty soon you’re 
gonna be a Regular Raider. 
The gravity feels good. Full 


review next month. Provided 
the programmers get their 
collective finger out, of 
course. 



• Afterburner 

• Hi asteroids 
® Captain Fizz 

• Charon 5 

• Chase 

• Cosmic Pirate 

• Denaris 

• Hostages 

• Motor Massacre 

I ® Populous 
• Prison 
• Prospector 
• Zany Goif 


MAX HACKS 


• Afterburner 

• Faery Talc 

• Adventure 

• Operation Wolf 

• Super Hang On 
(amazing cheat mode) 

• Sword of Sedan 

• Uninvited, 


to 

Hie 

its- 

fili- 

lias 

und 

it? 

but 

san 

«ht 

ot’s 
■ lL It 
•m's 

ihu. 

lire, 

itch 


STOLEN! The Complete 
source codes for a 
number of top selling 
games. 

Shahid Ahmed, the 
author of Pandora, has 
had his Apricot X an 
60286, paper-white moni- 
tor, 20 meg hard disc and 
PDS hoard purloined , The 
thieves left behind the 
power supply when they 
burgled his office in 
North West London. 

The hard disc had the 



Invaders line up 


* 'source of every major 
game I've written T % 
Shahid told Amiga 
Computing, This includes 
Amiga Pandora , Night- 
shade for the 64 and some 
Speccy titles. 

The machine cost more 
than £3,000, but the 
source code is much more 
vaiuahle t since Shahid 
does not have copies . 
Fortunately his current 
project. Last Ninja If is 


C ACHET is a new 
German software house 
with a range of budget soft- 
ware, The first releases 
include Slider, a com- 
puterised version of the p las- 
tic sliding puzzles that 
usually cause you to give up 
in frustration, 
ll may not be much of a 
game, but it looks good with 
wood, plastic and metal 
finishes plus against-the- 
clock and auto-solve options. 


Cachet's driving game, 
Crash and Burn looks like 
Microlllusion's Turbo, Drol, 
a compilation of t>4 games, 
might be, erm, good value. 
The author of Zoom has 
been busy working on 
Quasar v a Centipede clone, 

Pegasus is a sister label to 
Cachet producing full priced 
"quality" software. The first 
release is System 4 . which at 
first glance looks like a cross 
between Q*Bert and Bom- 
buzaL 

You don't have to 
complete one level to pro- 
gress to the next — it takes 
you from level to level, but if 
you complete, say, level 
three you would jump 
straight from two to four, 

The next release will be 
Alien Legion , sold through 
Gainsiar, a cartoon-like bi- 
directional scroller. 

Later in the year we + H see 
Andromeda , a scrolly, 
shooty Defender done. The 
boss at Pegasus didn’t want 
yef another shooU’em-up, 
but the programmer won the 
day. It looks as if he's done a 
good job. 


safe. 



good and the jokes get any comes? 


May 19S9 AMIGA COMPUTING S0 










- 


I 


1 


1 Commit: Pirate 
1 £19,99 


I Ofcri/aiv 



Elite plus gonzo graphics 



E VER been stuck in Ihe bouse on 
a wet Bark Holiday Monday, all 
the shops dosed and you’re bored of 
everything that fits into that inviting 
slot on your dear Amy? 

OK, so maybe you haven’t played 
Dealh Mutants from the PJanel Nong 
all that much, mainly because it isn't 
all that good. A real “push il to the 
bark of the drawer and hope it goes 
away” rase. Hut it won't. Neither will 
the 25 quid hole it made in your bank 
balance. 

Well, said he in his best washing 
powder advert voice, the Holiday 
Monday Hines are at an end. All you 
need is Cosmic Pirate and your 
boredom troubles vanish. 

So maybe it doesn’t have 3D 
graphics that lurk seductively with 
the whispered promise of “Wanna 
good time?” IPs got sprites, though, 
and plenty of them. It was also writ- 
ten by folk who clearly know an 
Amiga from a Vic. 

The instant the disc goes in pretty 
things start to happen; every home 
should have the beautifully done 
animated hoot sequence. 

Oh, ynu want to know about the 
game? All rigid then, if you insist. 
You play the part of a rookie Cosmic 
Pirate who has joined up with the 
Nest 51 team for safety. Nest 51 hap- 
pens to be a ginormous spare station 
with all the facilities Ibat a cosmic 
pirale’s warped mind could wish for. 

The only swines arc the taxes, 
w r hich run in the 90 to 90 per cent 
range. Youll si ill make a wedge of 
dash, because piracy is faintly prof- 


itable, Nest 51, although totally 
despotic in nature, looks after its own 
by running simulators and supplying 




The free simulators are there 
purely to get your shot accuracy per- 
centage above 30; Nest 51 won’t let 
anyone go out without that as a 
minimum, 

Everything gels thrown at you very 
quickly in a simulator. Time to buy a 
Konix Navigalor Autofire stick, 
methinks. 

The first ship you gel is a useful, 
basic device, Everything works, but 
don’t try anything flash. Once you've 
booked a mission from one of the 26 
grades you are free to zoom off, but 
not until you’ve paid Nest 51 even 
more cash, Youll have an overdraft, 
and if it gets big some nice people 
will come and shoot at you. 

Once out of the Nest, and after 
some very pointless but beautiful 
effects, you arrive in a sector. Things 
appear that have il in mind to show 
you that they don't want to be friends 
with you. 

If the feeling's mutual, they'll soon 


lYrrAtaz fcy M wfefl know an Amiga from a Vic 


70 AMIGA COMPUTING Mav 1989 






I 








usually costs. If you've harmed 
enough aliens, you can get through - 
extra points are saved against the 
next journey. 

Once in the portal, you can move 
closer to the fish-like ship or towards 
a planet. Plane! strafing is Fun, and 
can be very profitable. But one can 
come over all dead. 

Once you find the ship you shoot it 
until il gives in, This would be great, 
but unfortunately it s doing the same 
to you. Once pacified you guide it 
back along the spacelanes, shooting 
all the way. Nest 51 lakes the ship, 
gives you some money - not much - 
and you are free to continue living, 

And so it goes on. It's like Elite 
minus the 3D bits and the docking, 
hut plus gonzo graphics and (abbo 
sounds. It makes the most staid, 
sensible type wan! to do something 
very unslaid indeed. 

Cosmic Pirate is fun lo be with. I’ve 
played il for hours and will play it for 
many, many more, 1 want Lo have its 
babies. Buy Cosmic Pirate and kick 
some donkey! 

Stewart C, Russell 




G AMES with two-player options 
aren't new, Captain Fizz is dif- 
ferent in that instead of the players 
competing against one another, 
cooperation is needed to solve all the 
puzzles, 

The plot is a bit overworked: A 
starship is out of control and heading 
towards the sun and only you can 
save it by deactivating the main com- 
puter. 

Both players start at the bollom 
floor in the ship and must get to the 
top floor using the emergency lift. 
Before the lift can be activated all Ihe 
ordinary, non-functioning lifts must 
he de-commissioned. 

Access on Ihe decks is restricted by 
doorways, which can only be opened 
if the player is in possession of the 
correct colour-coded card. Force 
fields are also in operation and they 
need a little more thought to over- 
come. The decks are swarming with 
the obligatory aliens, moping about 
and generally getting in the way. 

Money can he picked up and 
exchanged at vantage points for extra 
health. Various other items can be 
collected to increase your armour, 
damage rating and charge rating. 

These factors determine how wet] 
you can communicate with the 
enemy and how resistant to damage 


I you are. On the higher decks - the 
on es with mines going off all over the 
place, not to mention a kill-crazed 
missile launcher - a high armour 
factor can be a life saver. 

Another interesting feature is that 
i death is not a permanent con d ition . if 
; your com pa trio! is still alive and can 
make it to the next deck, a replace- 
ment done-hrether wiU be teleported 
aboard. If the unfortunate should 
occur and both players are stuck in a 
logical impasse, one can make the 
ultimate sacrifice - the suicide 
switch. 

When both players die the game 
can be reset to the last nearest level, 
in multiples of five, which saves 
having lo start again from scratch, the 
prospect of which could send you as 
criminally insane us the guys who 
wrote the title music. 

The game screen is split into two 
halves, each showing a plan view of 
part of Ihe current deck. Scores and 
the status of each player are shown in 
a large box on the left. This has the 
effect of making the actual playing 
zone each player sees about a quarter 
of the size of Ihe screen. As a result 
the graphics are very smalt and 
undetailed. 

When a player moves nut of sight 
the entire play urea flicks lo the new 


zone. With both players running 
about, the constantly changing 
screens can be very confusing. 

Players can appear in both halves 
simultaneously - the shock of sud- 
denly coming face to face wtlh your 
colleague can cause the trigger finger 
to slip, which doesn’t help when the 
health levels are getting low, 

First impressions were that of dis- 
appointment because the graphics 
are small and the sound is minimal. 
The puzzles, which demand thought 
and cooperation, are seemingly 
impossible on your own, Unfor- 
tunately Ihe baser human instincts 
are always drawn nut and the game 
can rapidly degenerate into petty 
retaliatory tactics. 

John Kennedy and Green 


Captain Fizz 
£ UM 


Psy gnosis 


Sound 

Graphics 

Gameplay 

Value 





Overall - 72% 



May 1989 AMIGA COMF1 tTINC 7 ? 











)M j m m ■ m ■ m m. Jr i ■ /■ / m / « ■ ■ m u 




Worse than the M2! 

5 on a wet Monday 

r 

,1 

L 

hiior Massat w 
iftm 

m..,. , . ... _ ■ . _ 

Gremlin Graphics 


T HE holocaust has come, laying 
waste to vast trails of once 


beautiful countryside. Out of the dev- 
astation emerges a breed of 
survivors, barbaric in their thirst for 
power and dominance. To survive 
ever a day is h ell 

Vou must compete in the most 
hon-ifying carnival of motor destroy 
tion ever conceived, No, it's not the 
Stoke Pages by-pass on a wel 
Monday morning but Motor Mas- 
sacre from Gremlin, the latest addi- 
tion to the "car is an extension of a 
mar's joystick" school of games. 

Cause of the problem is the evil Hr 
A. Noid 1 creator of the vile and mind- 
bending food substitute Slu. Now 
everyone is trapped in the cities, 
unable to break free from the grip of 
Slu addiction. Killer cars cruise the 
streets, strung-out zombie mutants 
roam abandoned buildings searching 
for a healthy victim to contaminate - 
you know the sort of thing. 

Your mission is to seek and destroy 
the mad doctor, and you’re going to 
have to fight your way through three 
cities to find him. 

You must locale the supplies that 
will help you survive. Money doesn't 
mean a thing, food does - but first 


you've got to find it. You cruise at (he 
controls of your Araioured Tactical 
Vehicle (ATV) through city streets 
filled with hazards such as oil slicks, 
gun turrets, land mines and enemy 
cars intent on ramming you, 
searching for the entrance lo one of 
the derelict buildings. 

Inside you find the food you need 
lo trade for fuel, weapons, ammo and 
repairs to your battered ATV. But 
take care, the buildings are full of 
slimy mutants. They're slow and easy 
to blast but there are a lot of them and 
if one touches you your health level 
drops. If it drops too far... 

Before you can leave the city you 
must find a pass to Ihe arena. There 
you must take part in a demolition 
derby. Your ATV converts into a 
Ram-Car. This is smaller and more 
manoeuvrable than your opponents. 

No guns arc allowed in this contest 
- the only way to destroy your enemy 
is to ram him often enough and 
smash him to bits. Land mines, 
ffipping door tiles and the bottomless 
pit that surrounds the arena all add to 
the fun. 

Once you reach the second city it 
all becomes much tougher. You have 
to shoot the cars more than once to 


destroy them, the mutants are harder 
to kill and the battle in the arena 
needs all your skill. It gets worse for 
your final battle with the mad doctor 
when you reach the third city. 

Computer games are becoming 
ever more complex. This can result in 
a game that is thought-provoking, 
needing both strategy and subtlety 
for success. Motor Massacre is about 
as subtle as a brick in Ihe ear. There 
is nothing new about the gameplay 
nor about the obstacles to be over- 
come, there are just a lot more of 
them than you’ll find in most other 
games of this type, 

A save facility is available so that a 
lot of hard work need not be lost in 


Sound 


Graphics 


GamepJav 


Value 


Overall - 75% 


one moment of madness and the 
increasing levels of difficulty are well 
paced, This is a game that will hold 
your attention and keep you enter- 
tained for some time. And that has 
got to represent good value for 
money. 

Mike Rawlins 


Into battle with a mouse 


E will dispense with the bl urb 
on this one because quite 
honestly you've heard it all before - 
the usual stuff aboul a captured prin- 
cess and a gallant pilot setting off to 


face the enemy hordes. Basically you 
have to dodge things and shoot dawn 
the foe. 

There are several stages. Firstly the 
initial pursuit phase in which you 


must pilot your craft through a wire 
frame meteor field and shoot down 
the enemy. If you survive this you 
must take on a sort of giant slalom 
run, weaving In between giant 
monoliths. Nol quite sure why you 
have to do this. 

After that ifs off to the Quad- 
rilateral Vortex, otherwise known as 
flying through squares. This is quite 
difficult because there are obstacles 
in the tunnel which you don't see 
before it's too late. Then you must 
zap a few mure baddies. 

Where Chase really falls down is 
that you can only play it with the 
mouse. Before you buy a mouse-only 
game there are a few questions you 
should ask yourself, like "Have 1 got 
a really large desk?” and "Would I 
really like to pilot an expensive 
spacecraft with a mouse?” 

The vector graphics are done quite 
well, except in the vortex tunnel, 
where it is difficult to determine 
whether that thing up ahead is a 


(haw 


\ lastvrlmnks 


Soum- 1 1 11 1 i \\ 1 1 1 1 1 1 1; 

Graphics WWWWWW 1 i 1 

Gameplay 

■ 

Value HE] 

'imiimii 

Overall 

- 42% 


yellow square or a red square with a 
yellow square displayed on top of it. 
A mistake is usually fatal. 

Abo more thought could have 
been taken with the choice of 
colours. The instructions describe 
the enemy ships as being “a sort of 
putrid blue colour", !| is difficult to 
argue with them on that point. 

This is a budget game. Prices are 
quile high on standard Amiga soft- 
ware, but at least with games like 
Falcon you can feel certain that a 
large proportion of the cost actually 
went into development and not into 
high interest bank accounts. 

Green 


72 AMIGA COMPUTING May 1989 










ifr^sl rikvi ^ ^ ih* 

Age of (Chivalry when 
u.r^rk] knights were hold, 

“alinping across the countrywide 
mul rescuing damsels in disJress, 
lj;vrt 9 recreate the tint*: nf 
wizards and the Knights uf the 
Kmind Table in their greattiftl 
idvenlu re yet. L.incrdul consists id 
Him: inlerlmked adventures, spanning 
Ihi! complete saga from the foundation 
id Ihc Order In its finest hour — the (jurist for 
111*; Hnlv Grail, 

Guido Lancelot through his many exploits <t1 
Camel ot, hull In with wayward knights, and win Ihi; 
love of (turnover and Llaine. 

The challenge which has fascinated treasure hunters 
thru ugh the centuries is now yours - and you*] I need all 
your strength, wii and valour to achieve your goal. 


Inside every box there's a detailed guide to 
playing Level i) adventures, a background story to 
I the classic legend, a parchment map of Arthurian 
England - and full details of how to take part in 
the Quest for the Holy Grail competition. 




Order your 
copy today 
using the 
form below 


Screen shuts from 
Atari ST version 





Phase send ms the following Lancelot (tick the format you require): 


•Text only 


£14.95 1 

"ape 


)isc 

Atari XLtfE 


tukj* 

LUd 

Amairad CPC 


8171 * 



Apple II 



__ 

ima* 

BBC Master 

lh_ 



21 #2 

Commodore G4 


#MH* 


HP! 

MS* 64k 


Wfld + 

>§!:' ji 

Spectrum 


KMH - 

!!!■ 


E19.9S 

Disc 

Atari ST 


#184 

Commodore Amiga 


#322 

Amatrad CPOPCW/ 
Spectrum Plus 3 


*177 

IBM PC and Compatibles 


5724 

Macintosh 


1053 


Tape versions cvme 
with three cassettes 
in every package 


Dealers: Ring Diane O'Brien on 0625 878888 for 
your free Mandarin Software Information pack 


SaFT WAR E 


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and pip) made payable to Mandarin Software 

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MACS 











rue touwaiME 


•«.;>• ‘I “i “I' 


S. : jit! : -! : -! 
ii : ill nil' 


l! VLH! 

k in it 
n'll he (Ik 

.eanw -if y( hi i 




Fright Might 


SCREEN SHOT FROM 
ARCADE GAME 


microdeal 


RIGHT MIGHT 


SCREEN SI I OF [ROM 
ARCADE GAME 


COPYRIGHT: © 1988 COLUMBIA PICTURES INDUSTRIES, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 






■REVIEWS! 



May 1989 AMIGA COMPUTING 75 


Do you feel omnipotent? 


F EELING a little run down, are 
we? Things nol quite going the 
way they should? What you need is a 
dose of omnipotence - create your 
own planet, colonise it, nurture it 
that sort of thing. 

And if another pseudo-supreme 
being should happen by, you can 
destroy him, plus all his misguided 
followers, 

The idea behind Populous is to be 
the best. Top God, as it were. You 
start off with three followers, knowm 
as Walkers, a leader, some land and a 
religious centre, the Papal Magnet. 
The more the Walkers worship you, 
the more power you have. The more 
power you have, the more you can do 
for your people, thus generating 
more worship, 

You can also do the dirty on the 
followers of the opposition, either 
Evil or Good, dependant on your 
alignment. Doing the dirty can be the 
relatively harmless nicking bits of 
landscape, to the positively ultimate 
Armageddon, If you don't have a 
very large following in the Final 
Battle, Armageddon outa here. Ah, 
the joys of cheap and unavoidably 
obvious puns. 

Your people can build on Gal land 
- the larger the area, the more secure 
the settlement and the stronger the 
followers produced. 

Your Walkers can settle and mul- 
tiply, gather to form a powerful 
Walker, make their way to the Papal 
Magnet or fight any infidels about the 
place. , 


Populous 

£24.95 

Ehxtnmk Arts 


,4 deity’s home is his castle 


They're more likely to do these 
things if they have plenty of good 
ground and as much protection from 
the other side as possible. They will 
usually ignore enemies unless they 
are attacked or you have instructed 
them to Gghl. 

Leaders can be transformed into 
knights who carve huge inroads into 
the enemy with a joyous gesture after 
every victory. Knighls are the 
quickest way to gain dominance, 
although creating one takes a fair 
shoe of manna. 

Once your people have boosted 
your manna supply lo an adequate 


level, you can start damaging the 
opposition. How about earthquaking 
them? Building swamps whiles away 
the millennia, especially when the 
opposition are apt to fall in them. 

Volcanoes are fun; damage is 
repaired by razing the area lo sea 
level and then rebuilding it. Total 
enjoyment were it not for the fact 
that the opposition is doing the same 
to you. 

Once one world has been won to 
your cause the next one in your cam- 
paign will be more difficult with 
harsher terrain and a more intelligent 
enemy. Apart from the enormous 


Sound 


Gnpa 


Gameplay 


Value 


Overall - 87% 


flexibility of the game options - you 
can even make your opposite 
number very stupid - Ihe really smart 
feature of Populous is its comms 
feature. 

Usually the game is single player, 
but with the addition of a modem 
two can compete. More sociable 
types can use a null-modem RS232 
lead and talk to someone at a closer 
range. High haud rates increase the 
speed of movement, and all versions 
of Populous use the same protocol, so 
Amig&s can talk to STs. I can forsee 
many budding deities having trouble 
answering to a very large phone bill - 
a short game takes an hour. 

The graphics are neatly isometric 
and Ihe sound is suitably big for a 
game about supreme heings. What 
could really be done without is the 
flashing of the power LED on the 
Amiga casing in time to your 
heartbeat, Nervous types may 
assume a crash. 

If the world’s getting loo much for 
you, build your own with Populous. 
It'll take you more than six days, and 
you won't want to rest until you're 
finished. 

Stewart C. Russell 


EAi ray own square world 





CHARON 5 

Plot’s tiredness shows 



Borins; landscape lacks detail 


A FTER an odd start the scenario 
for tiiis game is fairly standard 
stuff. Board the mysterious intruder, 
which is called - surprise, surprise - 
Charon 5, get captured by aliens, 
become trapped in a tight corner, 
blast your way out. 

There are some almost superfluous 
trimmings such as repair of damaged 
airlocks and control circuitry, but 
they are really a euphemism for yet 
another scrolling shool-’cm-up. 

According to my juvenile psy- 
chologist I am supposed to be a 
superior thinker with quick reflexes. 
Clearly I am neither, judging by my 
progress so far. The circular ship, 
known as a HUMAN - Highly Usable 
Manoeuvrable ANdroid - is viewed 
from above. It moves across a rather 
boring landscape, almost completely 
devoid of detail. 

Most of the time HUMAN is 
wedged tightly in a narrow channel. 
Only occasionally do these channels 
open out into rooms, where the nas- 
ties lurk. They generally look like 
small halls of cotton wool and are 
fast, evasive and can take several 
direct hits before they are destroyed. 

The consequence is that it is only 
too easy to get blown up within a few 
seconds of starting off. 

Pressing Fire while hovering over 
certain objects on the ground will 
transfer you to one of the computer 


screens. Here you can mess around 
with the components needed to fix 
the airlocks and other broken bits. 

Unfortunately the methods of con- 
trol needed to do this are very com- 
plicated and frustrating. You need 
balletic grace with the joystick. 

The must serious condemnation of 
Charon 5 is lhal it doesn't look like an 
Amiga program. II could easily he 
mistaken for a competent CPC or C64 
offering. 

The plot is tired, the means of pro- 
gressing beyond the first screen 
obscure, the graphics uninteresting 
and the colours dull. There is some 
enormous, smooth -scrolling text on 
the startup screen, plus an excellent 
rotating logo on the loading screen, 
but the unfortunate tendency to use 
80 column (ext makes for poor 
viewing with a television. 

Alastair Scott 


Outwit J 

£WM 

Pmisim 

Sound 


m 

Graphics 

mm 

m 

Gameplay 

■'mini 

' Val ue 

■ milim 

ID 

Ove 

ehhus 





A H, the great British holiday. 

Two weeks of well remem- 
bered pleasures and traditional 
delights at Sludgethorpc-on-the- 
Mire. From the moment you're 
evicted horn Stalag Seaview by dear 
old Mrs Muldoon, the tattoos on her 
muscular forearms glinting in the 
cold light of dawn, until the hour 
when footsore and weary you trudge 
back to face a welcoming plate of Sal- 
monella Salad, your day is played out 
according to a lime honoured ritual, 
Long hours spent sheltering from 
gale force winds and driving rain, 
huddled for warmth around a cup of 
lukewarm Bovril; bone shaking rides 
on an evil tempered donkey around 
the Sludgethorpe Municipal Car 
Park; and above all else the activity 
without which no holiday would be 
complete, the countless rounds of 


crazy golf. No other British instit- 
ution is capable of dividing families 
with such ruthless efficiency. 

Dad, with his 15- handicap and a 
putting stroke as demonstrated by 
Sandy Faldo in Golf Monthly, spends 
40 minutes trying lo force his hall up 
a pig's bottom while six-year old 
Johnny, with a style that Sean Kerly 
would be proud of, whips round the 
course twice in two under par. 

Memories are made of this. 

Now you can recapture the thrills 
and excitement in the comfort of your 
own home. Zany Gotf is as enter- 
taining, offbeat and totally frustrating 
as the real tiling - and more. From 
the opening screen with its superb 
graphics and music tl is apparent that 
this game is a bit special. 

The basic mechanics are simple, A 
round of Zany Golf consists of nine 



76 AMIGA COMPUTING May 1989 







■ REVIEWS! 


7 a mv rni i? 


li- 

es 


is 

V 

Id 

t? 

30 


Us 

ur 

ir- 

is 

ID 

rb 

at 

\ 

w 



£jt/] haie has a titk 


holes and can be played by one to 
four players. The mouse is your 
putter and is used to spot the cursor 
on lop of the ball. 

Holding down tbe left mouse 


button reveals an X under the cursor. 
Moving the mouse in any direction 
with the button held down produces 
a doited while line that indicates the 
distance and angle of the putt. 


The further you pull the mouse 
back, the harder your putt. Release 
the mouse button to play the shot. 

Each hole must be completed 
within a specified number of shots, 
otherwise you're out for the rest of 
the round. The first hole is a par two, 
although you are allowed up to five 
putts. Any unused putts are added to 
the par for the following hole to 
determine your stroke allowance 
there, and so on. 

From time to time bonus shots axe 
available either for completing a hole 
within a time limit or for hitting a 
fairy with your ball. A score card can 
be viewed to keep track of your pro- 
gress. 

The holes themselves are 
colourful, superbly detailed and have 
been designed with a good deal of 
imagination and wit. Windmill, the 



1 

tm • .|jQg , S fc 3 



— r — «7 

1 T 









Attn (itf If 


Ut't tnmii 1 rh 


Overall - 95% 


first hole, is the one that is closest in 
design to those found in real life. 
You putt up a slope and past the 
mill s revolving blades In order to 
send your ball on to the lower half of 
the hole. From here on in it gets pro- 
gressively more surreal. 

On the second hole, Burger Bar. 
you haw to putt round a U-shaped 
track by bouncing your ball off a 
large bottle of ketchup into a hole 
protected by a giant, bouncing 
quarter-pounder, 

Ant Hill finds you trying to knock 
your ball into a hole that is situated 
on the plateau of a pyramid shaped 
hill, fust to make it more difficult, the 
hole is moving. 

Energy, the final hole, is a lulu, a 
sombre, mechanistic Landscape, criss- 
crossed by energy beams waiting to 
bias! your ball into oblivion. 

Merely completing a round needs a 
lot of skill and a liberal helping of 
luck - to do so under par is another 
matter. One slight nigglette is that it 
takes an age to load each hole, prob- 
ably inevitable given the level of 
complexity involved. 

The game can be loaded from a 
hard disc, so those of you lucky 
enough to own one - both or you - 
shouldn’t experience this problem. 
Zany Golf is not a game that you 
would want to play continuously for 
a week, Neither is the real .thing, they 
are both best enjoyed in short bursts 
at frequent intervals. There can be 
few better games available at the 
moment. 



May 1909 AMIGA COMPUTING 77 




■REVIEWS* 






Hat tag/es 
£ 24 . 9 i 

hftniramps 


L ONG ago some bright misguided 
spark hit on the idea of deman- 
ding things with menaces. Clearly 
this must have gone through some 
evolutionary problems, because 
demanding a ransom for a mother-in- 
law sometimes ended up satisfying 
for one party and annoying for 
another. 

After a while the captors got so sick 
of being grilled on whether they had 
a clean handkerchief that they gave 
themselves up voluntarily. 

Hostages is not so trivial. Here we 
have a meticulous reinaction of a 
siege situation. Designed with the aid 
of the French National Gendarmerie, 
it has three basic stages - deploy- 
ment, entrance and neutralisation, 
That last one sounds pretty ominous. 
Terrorists of unknown persuasion 
have taken hostages in an embassy, 
You, as the team leader, must arrange 
the deployment of six specialists - 
three marksmen and three Direct 
Intervention Combat (D1C) soldiers. 

Your team of three marksmen must 
take up places which will provide 
covering fire for the DIG men. These 
positions are given on a map, which 
also shows where the men are cur 
rently stationed. 

Positioning the men entails 
running along the street past the 
embassy, dodging into doorways to 
avoid the terrorists' searchlights. A 
digitised “Aarghr followed by your 
man falling over is a sure sign that 
you need some more practice. 

If one or more of the team gets shot 
by the terrorists the game goes on, 
but with a greater risk of failure since 
the DIG men need all the backup they 
can get. 

| Once dropped off by helicopter, 
the commandos abseil down the 
building to gain entry through a 
window , The marksmen can provide 
cover at this point - a terrorist could 
be lurking in the same room. More 
digitised "AarghPs cither mean that 
there was indeed a terrorist in the 
room, or that you have run out of 


rope 

Once inside - more digitised bangs 
and crashes - the hostages must he 
taken to the safe room in the 
embassy, and any extant terrorists 
must be remedied with vout Walther 
PPK. Being devious types, the 
terrorists often hide behind hostages, 
making your job a little more inter- 
esting. 

The embassy has three storeys r 
each with the possibility of hostages 
and terrorists. Movement is like an 


Overall - Bl% 


however, along with the suspense, 
will keep Hostages a mueh-played 
game. 

Stewarl C. Russell 


HOSTAGES 

Your chance to join the SAS 


Commandos abseil down the building 

updated 3D mate game, with the 
corridors moving in byte-sized 
chunks rather than a smooth scroll- 

The action sequences proceed in a 
series of freeze-frames, heightening 
the suspense - some encounters arc 
truly heart-stopping. 

Any hostages found immediately 
latch on to you, They will follow 
wherever you go, so it is important to 
clear out the third storey quickly - 
that’s where the sale room is. 

Any number of DIG men can be in 
the building at once, all al different 
places, Tbe action can be switched 
quickly between them, allowing 
them to eliminate the terrorists on all 
levels. Once you have either run out 


of DIG men or terrorists, the game 
finishes w r ith either a derogatory or 
complimentary newspaper report. 

Hoslagcs creates an air of tension 
unlike any other action game I've 
seen. The graphics, although compe- 
tent, are fairly drab and show a defi- 
nite ST ancestry. The sound is very 
well executed; small incidental tunes 
being variations on a theme, all pop- 
ping up al the right moments to add 
to or defuse the situation. 

The only real problem is the length 
of time spent slaring al a blank screen 
waiting for another section to load in. 
Surely it would not have been too 
difficult to gi ve some kind of display? 

The plethora of playing levels 


Tour teem of jnar*smpn mew! provide covering fire 


78 AMIGA COMPUTING May tms 








- som ething very si range going on. It's as if you art living 
" r "ucP^ir worst nightmare and unable to wake up. Won't 
yc-e iffou joont he terrible secret that haumsyour waking 
■“.om sms. 

i$ theUfew brain child of 

'%.■■■ kind of icon-driven, animated game that has been written 
specialty developed Agos language. 

is highly original using gllthe features of the 
1 £z : " c'z T“e superb, fully animated graphics, backed by 
r b e s s j na e ff sctMO me together with a h ig h ly sop h isticated 
u - ■ - " -r^hace to give total involvement of a new dimension- 

will introduce you to numerous Characters 

dueling; 

■ Landlord of tPSWg and Duck 
^-yj^ptord and his attractive wife Susan 
-,e CTeemvoood 

r.e local village policeman . . 

and a host of other inhabitants who will shanaln your 


UnPS, ^fdison Industrie] Estate, Blayoo^ 
Tvns A Wear NESt-iTF Tnl torn i 4t4 ■ ’ 





Sound 


Graphics 


Carnap! av 


Value 


Overall - 8K% 


P REPARE to eat hoi gamma rays. 
Alpha Centaurian! When you 
read a sentence like that you know 
you're either about to read an excerpt 
from Niven and PoumeHe's Footfall, 
or it's the start of another shoot- em- 


up review. 

In this case it's a renew, but before 
you start complaining, it isn’t an 
ordinary run of the mill, seen it 


DENARK. 


Ultimate in sideways scrolling mayhem 


before, read il before review. No 
siree. because this is a review of the 
best sideways scrolling shoot 'em-up 
ever released for any home corm 
puter. 

Now you all know that those spoil- 
sports at Activision made US Gold 
keep Kalakis off the market until after 
Christmas because it was so similar 
to R-Type. Well a few changes were 
ordered to while away the pro- 
grammers’ time, including the name, 
and now it's back, better and badder 
than before. It's a total blasting 
experience. 

It all begins quietly enough with a 
parallax scrolling starfield filling vir- 
tually all of the screen save a small 


control panel at the bottom. 

In troops an attack wave of laser 
fodder. Wasle l eim An icon pops up. 
Run it over and a nose appears front 
the stores, floating behind you. Go 
back and collect it. The nose is the 
essential accessory fnr trendy blas- 
ters, the difference between life and 
death. 

Suddenly metal lie- blue scenery 
scrolls in, missiles come hurtling 
towards you, stumpers stomp across 
the bottom and floating aliens fire 
repeatedly. Before you can draw 
breath the next icon makes an 
appearance. The phoney war is over, 
the serious action starts here. 

All this lot was actually level two 


of Kafakis, but it has been modified 
and made easier to form the ini reduc- 
tion to Deouish. 

On you fly, encountering spiralling 
attack waves, laser gates chopping 
from the ceiling, large blocks which 
pile up blocking Ihe way, hopping 
aliens, running aliens, aliens on jet- 
bikes, aliens selling ice creams - only 
kidding - and not forgetting those 
lovely icons. 

After dispensing with one huge 
mother of an alien at the end of the 
level, it's shock horror time on level 
tw o as throbbing spheres and wicked 
looking boomerang-style attacks are 
just a foretaste of what is to come. 

Scenery with nasty barbs and 




80 AMIGA COMPUTING May 19B9 






id 

fr 


'8 

i 

'6 

t- 

ly 

» 

ie 

ie 

f] 

d 

¥ 

d 


tricky passages is the order of the 
day, More jetbikers on a road to no- 
where are just waiting to die for the 
cause of entertainment. Then again, 1 
do hear the pay is good. 

Tumbling panels - which were 
first seen in Xevious - and a swirling 
field of spacemines are two more of 
the hazards to be overcome before 
you get to the really difficult stuff on 
level three. 

This is a grey metallic hell with 
little room to manoeuvre and less 
time to react. Indeed the challenge at 
the end, which is a total R-Type steal 
involving a mechanical snake-like 
device, is impossible unless you have 
protective pods to keep out the point 
blank firing. 

Around this time you might have 
collected what \ take to be the final 
weapon to add to your arsenal - 
homing missiles. My, are they fun! 

If you are looking for a game that 
needs fast reactions, that delivers a 
satisfying killing experience, that h 
the ultimate in sideways scrolling 
destruction, then look no further, Gel 
a copy of Denaris, get that nose, and 
give those Alpha Centaurians some 
hot gamma rays. 



Duncan Evans 



nnTcn\T 


Aliens have studied martial arts 


T HE scene is set with some omin- 
ous yet funky music, A large 
domed city is in Lhe distance. As the 
sun rises over it you can make out 
some rather large cracks. Clearly this 
is a city requiring serious repair 
work. 

What is worse is that you are stock 
inside it with nothing but a pair of 
jeans, a T shirt and your wits to help 


distinguish from the backgrounds, so 
the little red light which flashes on 
the status screen is appreciated. 

If nothing is immediately obvious, 
selecting lhe Search option will cause 
your figure to spin on the spot and 
have a good nose around. This can 
get a bit tedious at times, especially 
when someone has thoughtfully 
placed some booby traps. 


form of some nasty aliens who seem 
to have studied too many Bruce Lee 
martial arts films. You can punch and 
kick them, but if they get too close 
they'll take you in a stranglehold 
from which only a frantic waggling 
of the joystick will save you. 

The sampled sound of some poor 
soul choking is thoughtfully played 
to remind you that you are dying. 



you. You are in Prison, 

The display is halved between 
your various scores, lives, objects 
held, status windows and so on, and 
a graphical representation of your 
whereabouts. 

Your persona in the game is a well 
programmed male figure. He walks 
and jumps left and right using about 
lb frames of animation, and very 
smooth it looks too. 

The backgrounds are well drawn, 
colourful and detailed. Although the 
desolation can get very depressing, 
the occasional touch of humour 
cheers things up. 

The only way to escape from 
Prison is to solve a series of puzzles 
using the various objects you will 
find, These are sometimes hard to 


The same mad bomber has placed 
mines in the footpaths, so not only do 
you have lo watch out for objects and 
aliens, but you have lo watch where 
you put your feet. 

The puzzles start at the Sun reader 
level hut progress quickly enough to 
make things interesting. The first 
problem is how to get the lift doors 
open so you can move: to the next 
level. Sure enough, not a million 
miles away you find a plastic access 
card and a piece of wire. 

But now a dilemma: Do you try 
using the card, or do you bypass the 
lift door w ith the wire? The wrong 
decision means the end of the game. 
This is where the Save Game option 
is invaluable. 

The arcade action comes in the 


Prison is a good blend of puzzles 
and occasional Kung-Fu Fighting. 
Although not startlingly original, it is 
well done and fun to play 

fiiiui Kennedy 


Prison 
£ tit. ft .1 
Chrysalis 


Sound 

Graphics 

Gameplay 

Value 


Overall - 71% 



Mey 1W9 AMIGA COMPUTING SI 






■REVIEWS* 



THD 


Menace 


in the mazes 


£ 24 . 9 5 



- »4"/o 


Overa 


Afterburner 


Sound 

Graphics 

Gameplay 

Value 


I MAGINE sitting quietly having a 
serious Workbench session when 
suddenly the urge grips you to play a 
game. So off you go reselling the 
machine and loading up Violent 
Death HI. 

After a few minutes - give or take 
an hour - you realise you desperately 
need lo do some Wcrkbenching 
again. Rut can you stand the age long 
wait while Amy does some booting? 
Wouldn’t it he nice to have a game 
that multitasks properly? 

Enter Prospector in the Mazes of 
Xor. It multitask^ so Workbench is 
but a moiLsedick away, On an A5UU 
the multitasking will be a little 
wasted - there w ill be little over 10(lk 
free. It's like Dolby NR on a tape by 
The Cramps - nice to have, but only 
useful on an expensive setup. 

The title doesn't exactly rattle off 
the tongue with the greatest of ease, 
but since it’s a sequel, small diffi- 
culties can he ignored. Xor - the 
original - never made it lo the 
Amiga, allowing Logotron lo include 
all the original mazes, plus 15 new 
ones and a construction kit. 

If something is tying around and it 


happens lo he worth something, it 
won't be lying around for too long if 
Herb and Pip are about. They have 
just been to their local fishing shop 
and bought them selvas some jet- 
packs. No piscatorial purveyor 
should be without Ihem. 

Being young, headstrong and none 
too bright, they make their way to the 
Mazes of Xor to have some fun. 

The words “fun" and "Mazes of 
Xor" aren't usually linked. Xor is an 
inquisitive and highly intelligent 
entity who creates bizarre mazes for 
kicks, Once inside a maze the only 
way out is to collect all the balloons - 
an easy task were it not for Xor’s 
warped sense of humour. 

Objecls litter the place, each of 
which has its own rules, Zeppelins 
and Tin Bombs fly lo the left, given 
half a chance. Rocks fall, balls roll., 
dynamite explodes - fairly predict 
table, really - but if you happen to 
block off a bal loon there is no chance 
of recovery unless you know 
something about logic that everyone 
else doesn’t. 

Time is unlimited. You can even 
I call up Workbench in mid-game. bul 


every move is counted by the 
invisible Xor. 

With 30 mazes, ranging from easy 
to PhD in Extreme Cleverness, plus 
the chance to design and save 15 of 
your own. Prospector will occupy Lhe 
old attention for many a moon, 

Stewart C. Russell 


Player loses the war 


HEQURBGDKS al 5 o’clock. 

With a flesh of a Parker on the 
dotted Line, the biggest arcade licence 
of SB was won for Activision. The 
rights lo convert Sega's Afterburner 
for home computers wen! for 
between £100,000 and £250,000, 
depending on who you believe. 

It was down to Argonaut Software 
to create a game which justified 
Activision's handout to Sega. The 
FT 4 Tomcat is an awesome fighter, 
capable of taking on six enemy- 
planes at once. Afterburner really 
tests your flying skills by presenting 
you and your Tomcat with dozens of 
enemy craft. 

This is no simulator, it's a seat of 
the panls blast- 1 em-up, As lhe skies 
fill with targets you can lake them out 
with either your constantly firing 
machine gun or move a crosshair 
over the foe and target a Sparrow- 
hawk. This triggers Lhe lock-on logo, 
while a box on the head-up display 
shows which target is lined up for the 
missile treatment. 

Your main problem is spotting the 


incoming missiles among those you 
have sent on a mission of death I 
guess real F-14 pilots have much the 
same problem, 1 found a good tech- 
nique was lo alternate between 
minimum and maximum thrust. 

It all gets a little repetitive^ 
although a phase of flying down a 
canyon is quite fun. 

There are interludes to rearm and 
refuel at the end of each level, all of 
which have been copied across from 


the arcade game. A flying tanker can 
top you up with the best unleaded the 
IJSAF can provide, while later on 
you land among a collection of 
bowsers and a ground crew. 

It is in these interludes that the 
arcade programmers have included 
some nice touches. Sprites from other 
games appear, such as the Super 
Hang On motorbike and the Out Run 
Testarossa. They have suffered a little 
in the translation - Fm told the 


£ 24,95 

riefiUSMJfl 



colours had to be restricted to gel a 
multi megabyte game on to two discs. 

Afterburner was a feast of fast 
action in the arcade, complemented 
by great hydraulics. Al home the 
game fails lo live up to that, but then 
there is no way an £500 home 
machine, even an Amiga, can 
compete with £9,000 worth of 
dedicated hardware. 

The Amiga version is by far the 
best, a good deal faster and slicker 
lhan the ST game, b ut still fails to live 
up to the promise of the screen shots 
on the box, Activision may be the 
winner in the battle of the licences, 
but it is the gamasplayer who loses 
the war. 

Simon Ruckman 




82 AMIGA COMPUTING May JflSS 








INTRODUCING THE 


ir _i n < ■ ■ r * ■ m * 

a 


‘’Comprehensive In its atmtie s' 

"VideoStudio impresses greetty-Whai Video 

VideoStudio it a coin plate, easy-to-use Video production, 

software utilities suite factoring: 


•Wide repertoire of titling opciom 
la S- smooth verUlv^i. «raRflf, subtitle r, ett| 

* 20 broadcast uml ty foots 

* Nino wipe pattern*. FnH? 5 


■ CimomiHbh Ckic^Dgev'CnpyTiflht scream 
* Braadcitt- style YTft*iirickc!tfir*rTii display 


*" broadcast juMy foots *Silic(un of time FunctiaiH ia.o. slflrwvittb etc) 

* Nino ftlpo patterns Fades a M,y ftr wuhout, » scnlrn 

* Csunpritienswa suite of sta nderd ion signals * BS-fos PAL htgh-m INTERLACED a uipul 

An Amiga SCCI.-1 DCO'iDOO. 1Mb nm + 2 drat driv** iw.^„r,d 

VideoStudio is available now for 

Also Available' Deluxe Paint HI , ,„„ , f?S W> 

Amiga Genlock Devices 

Mini gen (for th® home video mak(r) „ r , ,, fllft O fl 

Rend ale ABBlJZIfor the SPtnt/prDfosswnal userf £287.00 

Minigen ♦ VideoStudio __ |Save£l5M £133 00 

Minigen * Video Generic Master Titling Software _ ...iSava £101) £175.00 

I Video Generic Master software will run on in unexpended AbOOf 

Hendala ASBOI 1 + VkJeoStu*? [Save CIO !| £339.00 

Re nda I e A8M2* Pro -video plus titling software ISava £120!) £429.00 

Complete A500/2000 Amiga Vidao systems are also available. Please send 5AE for 
details- All prices include UK VAT & P&P. Send PQyChe-qwes to: 

MAZE TECHNOLOGY 

20 Woodlands Road, Walthamstow Ei 7 3LE 

Mailorder only Tel: 0 1-520 9753 


Cheques or Postil Order* piyible to SOFTVILLE or ring 
°ur 24 hour orderlinc 

E3 0705-266509 3 


SOFTVILLE PD SERVICE 

55 HIGHFIELO AVENUE 
WATERLOOVILLE HAMPSHIRE 
PQ7 7PY ENGLAND 


UGA Collection 


SOF Collection 


You have gean ail the olher collections' of disks 
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ONLY from S divide. a collection you must gel! 

MUSIC 

UMUS 1 ,2. 3 . j , 5 4 6 - Thus# dsk* era lut or graal muse, ll 
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VINT I - OOCjHypnoliC Circles by ThrusT. Lliarcn by Arcadia 
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i I or mare - £2 SO oaoh 
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We have over SOO DISKS, 
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| jj^l^j 'Flicker Fp*r i* i registered Trade Me rk af Micmwiy Inc. S 

Designed and made in Britain 


Dfg/u/sfon 


May A MIGA COMPUTING 83 






Happy 

hacking 


It's worth the risk 
Hacking a disc 
So all yoti folks 
Can have the best pokes. 
MTH will demonstrate 
With cheats to captivate 


C HEATING may have become a 
little unfashionable since 
Michael Douglas had boiled rabbit for 
dinner, but that hasn’t slopped John 
Hey wood from Anglesey, Gwynedd, 
putting together a whole bunch of 
cheats for Uninvited. 

He advises you to open the bottle of 
No Ghost and operate it on the female 
ghost that appears in the hall. Operate 
the can of Spider Cider on the 
veranda. Operate the lamp in the 
bedroom next to the kitchen. Put the 
spider on the ghost when it appears. 

Operate a knife on the left chair in 
the entrance hall to find a key, which 
will unlock the cupboard in the 
master bedroom and the cupboard in 
the recreation room. Say: ^Instantu 
illuminaris Abraxas” to the dogs 
outside the chapel. Say: “Specan 
heafod abraxas ’ 1 to the fortune teller 
doll the statue in the entrance hall 
and the head of the statue in the 
chapel. 

A door will open after you speak to 
the head of the statue in the chapel. 
Make sure you have the lit 
candleholder from the chapel To 
light it, operate match on matchbox 
then operate match on candles. Move 
the cross in the chapel. Operate the 
golden amulet from the envelope on it 
to kill an individual zombie. 

John also has tips for the Faery Talc 
adventure. In the Citadel of Doom fall 
asleep against the blue wall To do 
this make sure you are very tired, that 
you are right up to the wall and that 
you are carrying a bow and some 
arrows with which to kill the 
necromancer. 

The lava is awkward to get across. 
Use the vials to get your vit up, Then 
save the game by the lava and keep 
trying to cross it. 

Another way to get your vit up is 
by killing a lot of enemies to get a 
higher bravery scorer (brv). When 
you are next killed you will get more 
vit if you have more brv, Instead of 



By Max Tennant 

killing those nasty creatures, you can 
increase your brv by standing on the 
turtle and continually pressing fire or 
clicking the right mouse button. 


W HO's afraid of Operation 
Wolf? Certainly not lanaka 
Alwis from High Wycombe. No 
problems on level one. Shoot the 
animals for extra ammo but watch out 


Uninvited laid bare 


for the guys with black berets, they 
need to be shot twice and throw 
knives at you if you donl get them 
straight away. 

When two vehicles are near each 
other fire a rocket bomb in the middle 
to blow them both up. The red bottles 
reduce your damage while dynamite 
blows up any nearby enemies. The 
free icon gives you infinite ammo and 
twice the rate of fire for a while. 

There are more black berets on 
level two. Look our for the Rambus 
who jump and roll across the screen, 
making them difficult targets. Hit 
them when they jump in the air. 

Make sure that you finish with a 
racket bomb to spare. To get the boss, 
aim a little to his right and fire the 
rocket bomb. Hell blow up but the 
hostage won't. 

You must get through level three 
without a continue. You can only do 
this twice, and you want to save them 
both for later. There aren't too many 
enemies here, so it’s quite easy. The 
only problems are the unarmed 
soldiers who come on with one arm 
cocked back. If not killed straight 
away they lob grenades at you. These 



B4 AMIGA COMPUTING May 1989 













Infinite lives 

for Sword of Soden 


le 

£ 

i 


i, 


are a nightmare to shoot down. 

Your damage is reduced 
substantially at the end of level three, 
which is quite helpful. 

On level four the Amie lookalikes 
have body armour so have to he shot 
in the head. The black berets 
reappear. The bald blokes fire rockets 
at you so they're number one on your 
death list. Your ammo is replenished 
at the end of this level. 

Level five is the hardest stage, even 
though there are only baldies and 
black berets. When a hostage appears 
on the screen drop everything except 
the mouse and get the guy with the 
knife who's chasing him. Whatever 
you do don't shoot 4he hostages. Your 
damage will he pretty high — at least 
it should be if you haven't used a 
continue yet - so go crazy with your 
newly- replenished ammo and get as 
many points as you can before having 
to restart the level. 

The absence of ammo, black berets 
and baldies on level six make this 
slightly easier than the previous level, 
but it’s still difficult thanks to the 
enemy horde who pelt you with hot 
lead. Unless you have a continue left. 


forget it. If you do, be careful with 
your rocket bombs because you must 
save two for the very end. Again, 
watch out for hostages legging it 
across the screen. Make sure they get 
across safely. 

The bonus round appears once 
during the game. It’s not difficult - 
one rocket bomb will take on three 
choppers at a time. Aim for the 
middle one. If you run out of rocket 
bombs they will fall from the sky. 

The final helicopter is a doddle. 
Keep shooting with the Uzi. If you 
run out of ammo a magazine will 
drop from the sky. When the 
helicopter fires two rockets at you, 
fire one of your rocket bombs at it. 

Do this again and you've made it. 

If you didn't save any hostages an 
old man will shout at you. If you get 
at least one into the plane ... well, see 
for yourself. 


J USTIN Gavanovic is more than 
just a long name. He's got a fearful 
disassembler, and this has helped him 
produce an infinite lives poke for 



■HINTS! 


Sword of Sodan. Type in the routine 
below and save. When the disc is 
inserted it won't bring up an error. 


RER INFINITE LIVES FOR 
HEM SUORD OF SODAN 

COPYRIGHT 1989. BY JUSTIN G. 
m FOR MIGA COMPUTING. 

tot-# 

FOR n=45S752I TO 458914* STEP l 

READ al 

a=YALf1K'+i$) 

totMOt+e 

POKEH n,a;P0£EU 

NEXT ft 

IF tot-744 795! TNEN GOTO section* 
PRINT 'THERE IS AN ERROR IN DATA,’ 

END 

section*: 
cheit=45(752l 
CALL cheat 

DATA 615A,337MMZ,illC,42AM§2C 
data 237M00M4SM#24,?37C,jm 
DATA MHJ*2MElE,FE3M3Ft,7FFF 
DATA 0fl&F,Fi9C,tlFA,#B1C,45F9 J |#l7 
DATA ?#00,23CA, 0006/01.04, 7064,2408 
DATA 51t8,FFFC,«EFMHMHC,3IH 
DATA 6004, 33C0, 0004, A4DA,33CMM4 
DATA CT5A,4EF9/0003,E4B0,2C79,0000 
DATA 00&4,9K?,4£AE,FEDA,45EA JB9C 
DATA Z480/43fA,00fl6/4EAE,FE9E,43FA 
DATA 00ZE,4*IMJSl,4m,M1MEAE 
DATA FE44,43FA,001E,45FA,006A,234A 
DATA 000E,4E 75 ,7472, 61 63/6864, 6973 
DATA 6B2E, 6465,7669, 634$ 

S PACE: The final front ear has Mr 
K P Simpson confused. But it's 
not the game of the Kleenex men, it's 
Elite. "Just when I'd got completely 
hacked off with Elite you go and do 
this to me. Missions? No one told me 
about missions. Let alone five of 
them. 

“So all weekend f spend my time 
trading - having done one galactic 
hyperspace - and what do I get, 
nothing. Help. 

“My status is competent, as it has 
been for ages, I have four military 
lasers and everything else I can find 
useful. Thargoids are no problem, yet 
1 haven't got a mission to complete, 
“Am I in the right place? Do I have 
to go to a certain planet to get my 
mission? I’ve got a feeling Tm doing 
something wrong. The manual 
indicates I might have some 
communications with various beings. 
If so, how? 

“I love the game, but trading does 
get boring after a while. To know that 
I am missing something is very 
frustrating, to say the least. Please 
help, 

"Lastly, one tip that no one seems 
to have found is that if you plonk a 
military laser at the rear of your ship 
it gives you absolutely ages to blast 


► 


M&y f 939 AMIGA COMPUTING 95 





■ H I N T S ■ 


Super 

hero 

creator 
for Bards 

Tale 


F(W 1=1 TO 13: REM i,b;F0R j = 1 TO a:at=aS+NltlMbkNEKf j,i 
a t= at+CH R< <0 3 
FOft 1=1 10 2 

IF 1*2 THEN FOR j = l TO B: READ 4,b: Pll aS^a ,2>-nElSCb3 : NEXT 
INPUT hi 

OPEN 'U’jl/BMDS TALE CHARACTER DISKiTPIf/tbSt'.C’ 

PR1 Nt#1 ,al: CLOSE 1 i NEXT i ;END 
DATA 3,8,18,99,1,-1,7,9999,2,8,1,-32719,7,8 
b AT A 1,15258,1 ,-13825,1,15258,1, -15825^,99,15,1 
b AT A 5, 9, 33, 9999, 35, 9999,37, 8, 65,7,87,7,69, 7,71,7 


< 

away anything you want while they 
try to catch up with you. Who needs 
retro rockets? This may leave you 
further away from your destined 
planet at times, but it makes easy 
work of those pirates". 

Well K, missions don't start until 
you get into the second galaxy. Then 
you need to hyperspace hetween 64 
planets. So you were nearly there. 


S UPER HANG ON has the best 
cheat mode I've ever seen - a 
machine gun on the motorbike. To 
activate the cheat mode you must beat 
the highest score on the current 
continent's high score table. Africa is 
fairly easy. As the name, enter "7S0j + \ 
It should change to The cheat 
mode is now enabled. 

To get into the cheat mode screen, 
hold down Ctrl, Left Alt, Z and T 
while the attract mode changes from 
the credits screen to the options 
screen. The cheat mode screen will 
appear when you let go of the T and 


you will be prompted to enter new 
coefficients for the road turn effect 
using the numeric keypad. 

Once the cheat mode has been 
enabled it cannot be disabled, so it is 
worth remembering that the initial 
settings are 60 for outer turn and 45 
for inner. 

The bike gains a machine gun 
when the cheat mode has been 
activated. It is used by pressing the 
left Amiga key. The stream of bullets 
can be used to destroy other bikes 
and roadside objects except for 
checkpoint and goal gates. It is easy 
to shoot objects you can collide with, 
so white a Bird I and sign is a simple 
target it is difficult to hit a tree. 


There are no special sound effects 
or explosions because they would be 
a waste of precious memory and disc 
space. Have fun. 


F INALLY a quicky cheat for 

Afterburner, Pause the game and 
type in "together in electric dreams". 
This is not the same as the ST cheat, 
and whoever it was who sent in the 
wrong message deserves to be super- 
glued to the Atari keyboard. A similar 
fate will be reserved for anyone found 
stealing tips from other magazines or 
sending Max The Hax tips to the 
enemy. 


APOLONIA SOFTWARE & 
THE MAD MAD SALE GANG! 


THE ULTIMATE SOUNDTR ACKER 

With this program you're able to 
edit music-scores in stereo, that 
you can also build in your own 
programs. It has got 1 27 different 
instruments. Additional you can 
also sample your own instru- 
ments. If you have a song to disk, 
the used instruments will also be 
saved to the disk. The great 
advantage of the program is , that 
you Gan adit very long songs, that 
you can build in your own pro- 
grams, and that does not use 
much memory. The quality of the 
sounds has to be heard to be 
believed. All these and more in 
two disks and a mad mad price. 

ONLY £29.00 

COMPUTER HITS VOL.2: £9.95 


PRINTER SALE 

STAR LC10 B/W: £160 
STAR LC10 COLOUR: £230 
STAR LC24-10: £299 


PHILIPS 8633 STEREO MONI- 
TOR: £173,50 + VAT. PACE 
LINNET V21/V23 MODEM: 
£125. RS232 CABLE: £12.00 
PRINTER CABLE: £12. MONI- 
TOR STAND: £24.50 MONITOR 
STATION (lift & swivel base for 
any monitor up to 14"): 
£10. MOUSE MASTER (allows 
2 joysticks & a mouse connected 
at the same time); £21. TRI- 
ANGLE 2ND DRIVE: £75. UNI- 
STAND PRINTER STAND: 
£9.50. DISK BOXES: 40 Disks 
£&95. SO Disks £10.95. 1 20 Disks 
£12.95, 


SOFTWARE SALE 

THE CRITICS' CHOICE (Integrated Business Package, Kind 
Words + Maxiplan 500 + Microfiche Filer all in one box): 
£99.00 

THE WORKS (Analyze + Organize + Scribble): £60.00 
DEVPAC AMIGA 2: £39.00 

FACC II (A dynamically managed intelligent Buffer Cache 

which speeds access to your floppy disk drives.) Turbo 

charge your drives with only £19.00 

PROJECT U (The best copier for the Amiga. It can even copy 

MS-DOS/PCDOS, Atari ST, CPM & Xenix formatted disks), 

£34.00 

X-COPY (Copie r/Nibbier tor the Amiga, auto adaptable to 
any configuration & situation. Only £27.00 
DIGI-V1EW 3 + ADAPTOR. ONLY £103.26 + VAT. DIGI- 
DROID. ONLY £44.90 +VAT* DIGI-PAINT. ONLY £25,22 + 
VAT. GENLOCK (A6B02). ONLY £220.64 + VAT. TV 
MODULATOR: £21. AMIGA TO SCART CABLE: £12. 
PVC DUST COVER: £4, HANDY-KAP HARD DUST COVER: 
£9.95. 


VERBATIM 525‘ H -2S/2D 48 TPI DISKS: Box of 10 E9.50. COMMODORE XS"-2DD DISKS; £12.50 For 10, TDK MF— 2DO 3.5” DISKS: (Thetest 
media to store your programs) £1 4. 50 for 1 0, Special deals if you buy them with Disk Boxes. Joystick prices the lowest in UK. SEND CHQ/PQ/ ACC ESS/ 
VISA CARD NO. + EXPIRY DATE TO 

' APOLONIA SOFTWARE, SOUTHBANK BUSINESS CENTRE, UNIT 37, 

ALEXANDRA HOUSE, 140 BATTERSEA PARK ROAD, LONDON, SW11 4NB. 

TEL: 01/976-2280. 24HR: 01/738-8400. FAX: 01/622-1063- 




BS AMIGA COMPUTING May 19S9 




Sixteen Bit Superdeals from the Sixteen Bit Specialists! 

CUSTOMERS PLEASE NOTE! W hen comparing prices remember ours Include fast delivery by courier 

Txternal disk drives ~| Amiga A5O0 System 1 

i E3&5rUU 

Amiga A1 010 1 MEG £139.00 

Cumana 1 MEG £99.95 J * Amiga A5GQ S12K Keyboard wiifi BuiJl-in 1 Megabyte disk drive. 

* Fre* TV modulator worth E 24.99 allowing you to use the Amiga with a normal TV. 

* Amiga BASIC, Amiga EXTRAS, Workbench PLUS the Amiga Step by step Tutorial. 
A All leads, manuals PLUS MOUSE and mains plug! 


fNEW| AMIGA A500 + jJwfw 
500 AIR MILES £459 ^ ^ 

Air Mifes pack includes everything in our Amiga 
System 1 pack PLUS: 

* Sprite Paint Package 

* Disk wallet for 25 disks 

* Star Ray 

* Nebuius 

* PLUS SOO free Air Miles, that enough for a return flight to 
Paris, Amsterdam, or Brussels. 

PRINTERS 

Seikoslu 80 column NLQ p^gg 

Sflikosha 80 column 24 -pm 10..,,. £279 

Star LC10 including interface lead £239.00 

Star LC1 0 colour including interfaca tead £269 00 

Citizen 1 20D including interface lead ! £15900 


Amiga A500 System 2 

£365.00 

* Amiga A5O0 System 1 PLUS E230.M 
worth of Mftwara comprising 10 games 


Amiga A500 System 3 

£395.00 

* *mi(U A5O0 Syatflm t PLUS £265 worth cH 
software tarninsirio 6 Dimes anrt PHUT0N 
PAINT graphic* PKXlp* plus WcirVbenh l J 



NEW! AMIGA 1 MEG! £499 00 

Announcing me new Amiga 1 rrwff ■ an ASM system 1 with lifted 1 megaOy!? rremoiy rapawim antf cloc* 
cairt PLUS TV Modulator AND DRAGON'S LAI Basis disK 1 ftWfl mugaggme’ 

AMIGA 1 MEG+ £519.00 

Our Amip 1 meg t also indufel the E23D wqrtfi pf yinxil sort we normally given 
with owASOO System J Gamas Pac k 

MONITORS 

Commodore Amiga A1C&4 Stereo colour monitor inc load H6B.OO 

Philips CM8833 stereo colour monitor inc lead [ 349.00 


DIGICOM - 

Unit 34, Wlwrf&id#, Fenny Stratford, MILTON KEYNES MK2 2A2 
Alfprtay mchxte YATtnd tethety fry court* 



Mail Order Offers 



f2.ioj 


,7 for 

Uk?5 


f/Gi 

wo _p r 1 N G 


0jg screen 1 

SSSff 5 W 


Don't miss these 
back issues 


Comicsetler make OTP tea for all while AmigaTex dues a 
better |ob than anything the PC has ever see n, ARexx and 
WSttoll: Two programs from the world of the mini and 
mainframe which make the most d (he Amiga's muhi- 
lasking environment Plug e selection of truly authoritative 
game reviews. 


| December ^988 issue 

How !he Amiga came to be. Discover the pitfalls of learning 
C. ho-punehes-pdled reviews of Microfiche Filar - a new 
way to look al databases; Cygnus Fd - [he best screen editor 
available; Digitate - a cut-down spreadsheet at a budget 
price and lh« latest 3D graphics tools. A host of games 
reviews. Fiilt techie tips □#> IFF. Interviews wilfr tha top 
gawres makers: Tt» Bitmap Bros and Origin. 


| Jsnu$fy 1989 issue 

B tabulator: World exclusive review. Pretext preview. Whar 
has ?4 pins and looks good on piper? ft's the Citizen HGP40 
Mlrnir printer! Home accounts - talas frpm the valleys? ho. 
a package Jo balance the books. Midi Magic sounds great, 
the Supra hard drive is great but costs. 


| f&hrvery j&w* 

ShoDt-em-up construction kit. New series cm Basic and 
machine code. Digital Meiishot takes the pern out of 
postage. Datel sampler sounds Off. but a magic box will 
maka the Amiga sound much better E-type - tha typewriter 
emuiaior - filed 1 under WPB. A cheap but great modem frpm 
Amstrad. K-Gadgei - programmers' friend or fiend? Best 
Amiga (oy yet - the Mierple *1 teletext adaptor. 


Hisoft Basic Compiler undergoes a speed trial. Deluxe Print 
shows its colours. A listing in C to scan a disc for PFF 
pictures. Dragon's Lair review and play tips. Programming 
functions in Basic, What want on at the Developers' 
Conference in Germany, Max the Hacks shows how ip win at 
R ockef Ranger. Roger Babbit Out Run and Elite. Jei San 
puls llw official Commodore speedup board through its 
pacas. 


Big Screen Haro - we can't take out ayes qN the monitor 
wilh a 1000 * l&QB resolution. Triangle TV. the company 
which married tha Amiga to commercial video, leflt its tale, 
Gen up on genlocks - we look at |f» four main contenders. 
Superplan, me businessman's menage-a-trois flexes its 
muscles. Zoetropa, animation al a price. Amigas by accident 
- wa meet the Burocare think-tank. 


TO ORDER PLEASE USE THE FORM ON PAGE 97 


May 1989 AMIGA COMPUTING 87 






1 



I wai Mai! Order Offers 


[Freedom 

„ .urinating ga"' e °f s, ?2! 


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.“S** p, rt* 01 

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your heeis- d j n your efforts to ^ 





Backlash 


DO* e lhat 3 n V arcade fan should 

havVSe'tr ®J« , tenWl solid 3D 9 taphi« 

^T£sS«SSt. 

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GAMES 


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Confused? Vdd " “ * vlu requl red w 


SAVE 

£ 40 ! 

. . . when you 
buy all lour 

These four games are 
some of the best written 
for the Amiga, and for a 
limited period we are 
making them available at 
unbeatably low prices. 

Buy one and save £4, two 
and save £10, three and 
save £21 or buy all four 
and you'll save a massive 
£40= So the more you buy, 
the more you save. 

This has to be one of 
the best offers we have 
made. To make sure y ou 
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vour order today . 



20,000 Leagues 
under the Sea 

■‘Monster of tl '* de ^ s p* e d the departure 

.■The government has t . Abra tiam 

«? »*.•»» "S&. -» » *• 

ttXflggsSSi-- 



1 game £16,95 RRP £19.95 Our 

2 games £14=95 each RRP £39.90 Our 

3 games £12.95 each RRP £59-85 Our 

4 games £9.95 each RRP £79=80 Our 


Price £15.95 SAVE £4 

Price £29,90 SAVE £10 

Price £38.86 SAVE £21 

Price £39.80 SAVE £40 


TO ORDER YOUR 
GAMES PLEASE USE 
THE FORM ON PAGE 97 


REVIEW! 



Back to the 
drawing board 

A real horror emerges from the Australian 
outback. Alas fair Scott charts his chastening 
experiences with this aboriginal artefact 


C AN you visualise an art 

program which takes up less 
than 50k, is intended to be jumped in 
and out of via the CL1 while you do a 
bit of word processing, has cuband- 
paste functions which need one meg 
to function, which has only the most 
basic facilities, all for £30? Once upon 
a time, neither could I. 

For your cash you get a disc and a 
crude photocopied manual with 
plentiful dot matrix text. The manual 
explains how the program works 
clearly enough. Eventually, 1 mean, 
it’s page 21 before you are told how 
to load the program, the previous 20 
pages being filled with vast quantities 
of repetition of the Amiga manuals, 
supposed justification for writing the 
program - of which more later - and 
hot air. 

On hooting up TR Sketch from the 
Workbench you are shown a window 
telling you that the program is alive 
and well, then a blank screen. Calling 
up the menu bar displays four 
options. 

The first, the Project menu, contains 
the usual file handling options. IFF 
format - for storing screen pictures - 
is used exclusively, but pictures must 
be 640 x 200 resolution with eight 
colours. 

More colours? Different resolution? 
Sorry, not possible. Some 
demonstration pictures on the disc arc 
silent testimony to the program’s 
limitations. One called The Old Castle 
is particularly noteworthy - it could 
easily be mistaken for a Spectrum 
screen picture. The lack of colour and 
generous use of blank spaces proves 
that a picture does tell more than a 
thousand words. 

The Tools menu supplies 
paintbrush, airbrush and freehand 
drawing. There is only one thickness 
or paint density of brush, spray and 
pen, Ellipses, rectangles and lines can 
be drawn using rubberbanding, and 
there is a crude erase option. 

Text can he incorporated into your 
artwork, but you are restricted to the 
smallest size of the standard font, 

1 had problems on a 512k machine 
with the paintbrush; using it tended 
to make the screen flash, and a crash 
could only he prevented by frantically 
clicking the mouse buttons for a few 
seconds until the menu bar 
reappeared. 


There is an Undo option in the Edit 
menu. Draw four lines, press 
Amiga-U and only the last line will 
be removed. Better than nothing, l 
suppose. 

Cut and Paste, as mentioned above, 
only work with more than 512k. The 


cut part of the screen is 
unceremoniously dropped on top of 
the background. There are no options 
which allow you to AND, OR or XOR 
it with what is already there. Nor is 


May 1999 AMIGA COMPUTING as 



■REVIEWS 


4 

there is a Magnify option. 

In the Extras menu there is, as the 
name suggests, a collection of 
leftovers. Incredibly, there is no flood 
fill, Only rectangles and ellipses can 
be filled with a solid mass of colour; 
there are no patterns. 

The Join and Snap options do 
obscure things with complex shapes. 
Invert, which is completely useless, 
does just what it suggests to a section 
of the screen. The Fast Menu allows 
you to change the current pen. and 
Palette supplies the usual set of RGB 
sliders to alter the colours. 

Status displays the amount of free 
Chip and Fast ram, which is 
supposedly useful if you are multi- 
tasking TR Sketch. Last but not lea si 
is the most comprehensive section of 
the program - Help, which provides 
adequate instructions for every 
command. 


TR Sketch was written in C. Given 
that compiled programs are on the 
whole enormously wasteful of 
memory, the program is tiny and its 
limitations arc painfully obvious. 

Every command is pared down to the 
hare bones — beyond in some cases - 

The online help is entirely 
unnecessary, the commands being so 
simple and obvious that you don’t 
need help after a cursory look at the 
manual, It would be a good idea to 
remove it and include some 
desperately needed enhancements, 
like a click-to-back gadget for 
instance. 

The most remarkable part of the 
program is the way the authors note 
its limitations; turn them on their 
head and use them to supposedly 
justify the shortcuts. 

TR Sketch is a complete waste of 
time, effort and money, Td rather use 
my Amstrad CPC + s Advanced Art 
Studio - it's l»k Longer and 180 times 


better. Given the graphics capabilities 
of the two computers. this shows just 
how inadequate TR Sketch is. 


REPORT CARD 


TR Sketch 

JIB Marketing 0695 444433 
£29 95 

EASE OF USE,.,*".,.. ^BDDDDD] 
So simple and obvious that you only 
need & cursory read of the manual, 

Then again, it doesii t do anything 
powerful enough to need explaining 

SPEED. .... H D I I I I 1 M 

The Fill the only processor hungry 
option, takes far too long to do what it 
does. 

value m i n i m M ini 

A complete waste of time , effort and 
money. Save up for DP Paint 


OVERALL 19% 


Its limitations are painfully obvious. 


MAINFRAME TYPESETTING COMES TO THE AMIGA! 

AmigaTpX is a powerful new implementation of Donald Knuth’s revolutionary TpX typesetting program 
for the Amiga. Widely used in Universities and research establishments on multi- megabyte mainframes, 
TpX is capable of producing output of unparalleled quality. In addition to advanced typographic 
functions such as the use of ligatures, discretionary hyphenation and automatic footnote numbering, IpX 
handles complex mathematical and scientific typesetting with ease. In fact, the American Mathematical 
Society has adopted TpX as its official typesetting language - even Us on-line databases are encoded with 
TfX! No other typesetting or DTP software, regardless of cost, can typeset mathematics with such ease. 
Now this enormous power is available on the Amiga, Using the multi-tasking abilities of the Amiga an 
the preview facility of AmigaT E X, a document preparation system capable of handling the most 
demanding typography is available at a fraction of the cost of conventional systems. 

360 dpi Fonts 10 disks £50. Complete set of 360 dpi 
fonts for 24-pin printers. Needs P6 Driver to use them. 

^ ... w , . IroageWriter H Driver 2 disks £50. 

but no printer driver. ,, , . , Amiga MET A FONT 2 disks £50. Includes, METAFONT, 

User Printer Drivers 8 disks £75 Includes drivers tor jniMETAFQNT, a screen display program, and source 

fo'^t^Computer Modern fonts^ * 

DeskJet Printers. J . . USEFUL READING 

Epson FX Driver 10 disks £75. Includes a driver and Th y F xbook - D Knuth £21.95 

fonts for the Epson FX, MX, JX and compatible senes _ E? B k . L Umport £19.95 

of printers. Alw includes a separate driver for printers j{> e y M n Wak 02.00 

NEC%VDXV4 S d“ 5 ks 0 ^ a, indudes drivers and fonts The MCTAFONT Book - D Kn^ ZI .Z....».... 119.95 

LQleHesofSTp^printer^ Pm,er5 ““ EpS ° n 

Send lor further details, a tree demo disk and a review of AmlgaT E X by Amiga GompuUng which 
" ...recommended AmlgaTEX to anyone looking to produce top quality documents on their Amiga. 

QUEENSDOWN GRAPHICS, 14 OSBALDESTON ROAD, LONDON N16 7DP^ TEL: 0t-806 1944 


90 AMIGA COMPUTING May 1989 




AmigaBasic ami only 5 mins 2 secs in 
HiSoft Basic. The same program, no 
changes, hand on heart. 

HiSoft Basic costs £79.95 if you buy 


hours without playing a game. How 
do I survive? 

My inquiries are about speeding up 
this Basic calculating, It seems I have 
four choices; Upgrade to a 68010; buy 
another version of Basic; buy a maths 
co-processor; steal a transputer from 
Inmos. 

So my questions are; 1) If I can't 
run the 68010 and 68060 program 
before loading a piece of software, 
how much software will cease to 
work properly? 2) Which Basic is 
designed for the types like me, if any? 
3) How much are co-processors and 
how much software uses them? 4) 
What is the security at inmos like and 
would an Amiga 500 talk Ocean? 

Finally - was that a sigh of relief I 
heard? - is Workbench 1.3 software 
or hardware? Where can I lay my 
hands on it? For how much and what 
would happen to my warranty? 

Mark Cann, 
Crawley, 

What very interesting questions. Wish 
we knew the answers. Oniy Joking , 
but we arc going to pull out of two of 
them because we have articles on 
some accelerator hoards coming up 
very soon ; one of which costs just 
under £300 and features a 68020 chip 
with a maths co-processor. Watch out 
for the reviews , they should make 
interesting reading. 

What you need, Mark , is the HiSofi 
Basic Compiler, To test it out we 
wrote a hasty but functional 
Mandlehrot Set program to do this 
which took 62 mins 22 secs in 


If you can't afford something, you 
have two choices - save up for it or 
go without. If the anonymous writer 
opts for the second choice, then the 
product can't he that important to 
him. At present he is as low as a 
thief, 

I buy one piece of software a 
month. T read various reviews and 
then buy what is in my view the 
game of the month. In this way 1 
build up a small but elite collection of 
original software. W r hy can’t the pirate 
reader do the same? Probably because 
he is very greedy. He must have no 
conscience at all. 

Why must the rest of us suffer for 
what he and other software thieves 
are doing? He must have known 
when he bought his Amiga - 
presumably he did buy it - that 
games would cost £20+, 

Craig Thornton, 
Nettleham, Lincoln, 


The Mandlebrot Set 

it now ■ If you wait until the 1,000th 
copy has been sold - and Dave Link 
of HiSoft (0525 718181) tells me it's 
selling well - you will have to pay 
another £20. Snap it up, we reckon 
it's a bargain. 

Workbench J ,3 is also well worth 
the money. It's a manual three discs , 
no hardware and costs £ 14.95 . Try 
the UK Amiga User Group (0533 
550993). 


Speed is of the essence 

I AM an A level student studying 
Further Maths and Physics - don't be 
fooled, I’m a nice guy really - and as 
such come across some groovy little 
alterations like MandLebrot sets, Julia 
sets and a few hip mechanic and 
dynamic formulae. 

However, just because I know what 
the previous sentence meant (Glad 
someone does , Ed) it does not imply I 
can program in any language other 
than Basic* which is almost 
embarrassing, 

I love using Basic, but some 
pictorial results take upwards of four 
hours to calculate, which ties up the 
machine and I can t play Bard’s Tale 
until it’s finished. Think of that - four 


What the doctor ordered 

RECENTLY I bought an Amiga, 512k 
memory expansion and a Cum an a 
disc drive. Being a newcomer to 
computers I had to do a good deal of 
reading beforehand. After going 
through various magazines l decided 
to go for the Amiga because its 
applications suited most of my needs. 

I have been reading Amiga 
Computing since last November and 
have now become a subscriber. The 
magazine has proved to be the most 
useful ’’software" that T will be 
needing to learn my machine. 

Now my problem: J am having 


Write to: The Editor, Amiga 
Computing, 78-84 Ongar Road, 
Brentwood, Essex, CM15 9BG. 
Wc*il send the writer of the best 
letter each month a program from 
our goodie drawer. 



May 1989 AMIGA COMPUTING 91 




DIAMOND COMPUTER 
SYSTEMS LTD 

0703 338933 



AMIGA 2000 PRODUCTS 

yvnlga B2Q0G £649 + VAT when you part exchange your Amiga 1 000 
(this price is based on a 5 I2K machine in reasonable condition) 

internal Genlock * ' ™ Amiga S2000 Phone 

Flicker Fixer “45 SMb ~ 

2nd 3.5" Int. Drive £75 AT Bridgeboard... 

Midi interface - £59 XT Bridgeboard 


£299 


AMIGA A500 (U.K,) - — £299 (Please specifyl 

AMIGA A500 Tenstar Pack — » £ 329 


AMIGA A500 

TV Mod. * * — - 


PRINTERS 

Star LOO * - — - £H9 

Star LC1 0 Colour (UK version) lb Stockl £195 

Panasonic KXP 1G8Q *«« - «. ++ .£l 19 

NEW Panasonic 1 180 £1 59 

NEW Panasonic KXP1 124 « .....£259 

Epson LXSOO ...» * - ,.,,.£149 

Citizen 120D Parallel £1 99 (Please specify) 

Citizen 1 20D C64/1 20 Ver ,... £1 1 9 (Please specify) 

NEC P6+ * - 

Xerox 4020 - ^949 

I n tergrex ..**■*«.* - £2999 

Star Laser .« tl 249 

Star LC24/I0 „ - * ..£269 

1.8m cable 15 


DRIVES 

Cumana CAX 354 — — — ..*,.£79 

Cumana CAS 1000 . . £105 

Diamond Drive 

Thru pori/on off switch NEC Mechanism £$9 

Commodore A590 20Mb Hard Disk 2Mb Ram ..£499 


ACCESSORIES 

Mouse Mat ...£4.95 inc VAT 

Computer Dust Cover .... £7.95 inc VAT 

Monitor Dust Cover £9.95 inc VAT 

Disk Drive Dust Cover..... .....,£5.95 In VAT 

CBM 3.5" Disk (box ten) - £1 4.95 inc VAT 

CBM 5.25” Disk (box ten) £9.95 inc VAT 

2 Way Switch Box £24.95 inc VAT 

Joysticks from ., . £5.00 inc VAT 

A5G0 Mouse,.,,.... ..... £24.95 inc VAT 

A500 F.S.U, £29.95 inc VAT 

Disk Box 1 00 Capacity £9 95 Inc VAT 

3.5" or 5.25“ please specify 

SOFTWARE GAMES 


Games 

Member Price 

R.R.P. 

Amegas — 

£5.00 

£14.95 

Art of Chess, 

£9.00 

£24.95 

Barbarian Ultimate Warrior . .. 

£7.00 

£19,95 

Buggy Boy 

£9.00 

£2495 

Ikari Warriors 

£9.00 

£24,95 

Mercenary Comp 

...,,£700 

£19.95 

Terrorpods 

£9.00 

£24,95 

Thundercats 

£9.00 

£24.95 

Wlzball. 

£9,00 

£24,95 

All Ten Games — 

,,£49.95 Inc. 

£229.50 inc 


MUSIC 

YAMAHA KEYBOARD SPECIAL 

Yamaha keyboard. Aegis Sonix, Music Data 
Disk. Midi Interface (ASOO/2000) 

MiHi M^nir 

£199 inc VAT 

.£149.95 inc VAT 

Apnis ... 

,.,£29.95 inc VAT 

Midi Interface 

. , £59.95 inc VAT 

Deluxe Music Construction Set 

. £59.95 inc VAT 

MONITORS 

DKSI.nc 

£169 

Philios 8B52 - £199 

Philip* 9073 £359 

Kicr Mi Ill-icunr 11 £399 

I1L% 

,.,,...£199 

[lower resolution than Philips 8852) 

£5 


TV MONITORS 


ITT 1 4“ R/C 



..£179 

Ferguson TV Monitor 14“,..... 
Phil inc 1 4“ 13/C Teletext 



...£189 

.£217 

Ohil.ru- 1 C“ CCT 



,.£109 


RIBBONS 




2+ 

6+ 

12+ 

LC1 0 Black 

£3,90 

£3.70 

£3.50 

LC10 Colour 

£6.50 

£600 

£5,50 

LC24/10 * 

£6.50 

£6,00 

£5,50 

Okimate 20 Black 

£6.60 

£6.20 

£6.00 

Okimate 20 Colour 

£7.00 

£6.50 

£6.20 

Citizen 120D 

£3.25 

£3.10 

£2.70 

Epson LX800 

£2,50 

£2.10 

£170 

Panasonic 1081 .......... 

£3.95 

£3.80 

£3,60 


How to order from 
DIAMOND COMPUTER SYSTEMS LTD 

All prices exclude VAT and delivery unless otherwise stated. 

Courier £5-00 inc VAT 

PHONE us WITH TOUR ACCESS OR 
VISA CARO DETAILS ON 

tt 0703 338933 

Govt- Edut, & PLC orders welcome. Same day despatch whenever possible. Ail 
goods subject to availability. EiO-E. 

CALLERS PLEASE PHONE FOR MEW SHOW ROOM DETAILS 
Showroom 10.00am-5.3Qpffi Mon-Sat. Thursday late night B.OOpm 

Diamond Computer Systems Ltd 
6 Gwen Rhlan Court, Court Road, 
Southampton SOI ZJS 


92 AMIGA COMPETING May 



■LETTERS 


increasing difficulty in formatting 
discs. These are unbranded but 
certified discs I bought in hulk 
through an advertiser in our 
magazine. I am having no difficulty in 
making backup copies on these discs 
and the programs on them run 
without any problem. 

However, on formatting them the 
System informs Error Validating Disk 
or Disk is unreadable with an advice 
to consult DiskDoctor - which, after a 
painfully slow process* informs me of 
a hard error on all tracks and that the 
disc structure is corrupt. 

I have used both Workbench and 
AmigaDos to format them but the 
result is the same. Yet when I make 
backup copies on the discs they work 
well. To make the problem more 
confusing, at other times the 
computer formats the discs without 
any problem. 

What is this temperamental 
behaviour due to? Is there any fault in 
the discs? When in this mood the 
computer treats branded discs in the 
same way. Or is there a problem with 
the disc drive? It makes no odds if I 
use dft): or dfl:. Is there something 
else 1 should know about? 

I would also appreciate if in some 
coming issue you would publish an 
article about computer viruses and 
how to save software from being 
infected. 

Navid S. Qureship 
Stirling. 

Last question first . Protecting yourself 
from viruses is easy. Get yourself a 
copy of VirusX. Ifs a public domain 
program that you should ideally run 
from your boot disc Startup- 
Sequence. 

It remains in the background 
checking every disc you put in the 
drive before validating it. Check out 
17 Bit (0924 366982 ) or AUG (0533 
550993 } for more details of PD 
software. 

A hard error on ail tracks sounds 
fairly terminal. Are you sure the discs 
that have given you this message have 
been reliably usable after 
reformatting ? 

The fact that you're having trouble 
with both dfO: and dfl: suggests that 
your problem is caused by the discs , 
not the drives. Because J . Sin discs 
have hard cases, newcomers to 
computing are sometimes led into a 
false sense of security. Had you 
upgraded (fom a 5.25in set-up you 
would know fust how important it is 
to take good care o f them. 

Tb ere ore two main problem areas. 



The first — magnetic fields radiated by 
electrical equipment, typically 
monitors and TV sets - cart erase the 
magnetically stored information on 
the disCt disrupting the format at the 
same time v 

It's an awful temptation to stack 
your discs on the flat top of a TV or 
monitor - I've even seen stacks of 
discs on a power supply unit , Nine 
times out of 10 you'll escape scot- 
free; ifs the 10th time that drains the 
blood from your face ♦ 

The second problem area is less 
obvious - dust and smoke. The read / 
write head in a disc drive never 
comes into contact with the floppy 
disc surface , it floats a very tiny 
distance above. 

If you Te a heavy cigarette puffer or 
a bachelor who doesn 't know what a 
duster iooks like , smoke and dust 
particles can drift into the drive when 
you insert a disc. Said particles can 
then get between the read/ write head 
and the disc surface, causing the 
minute scratches which make the disc 
unreadable. 

Generally you can recover a Jot of 
the in formation on a corrupted disc 
using DiskDoctor. Once the doc 's 
done his work you copy everything 
on to a disc which you know is OK 
and reformat the dodgy one* which 
usually steam roils over the hard 
errors. If it doesn % get the flame 
thrower out and turn it into a Blue 
Peter ashtray. 

You must remember to use the 
Copy command to transfer salvaged 
hies, not Disk copy The latter will 
transfer everything , including the 
sectors of the disc that have read/ 
write (hurdj errors on them, 

Another feature of Diskcopy is that 
if formats as it goes , which is why 
your corrupted discs wwk OK when 
you Diskcopy other discs on to them. 

If the source disc is pucka, so will the 
copy be. 

Anyway, the morals of this story 
are: Always keep at least two backups 
on separate discs of any important 
files: always store your discs in a disc 
box away Horn electrical equipment 
in a dust- free environment - no, on 
the window sill in the sun next to the 
pot plant is not a good place - and 
always use branded, double-sided 
discs to store information that you 
don 7 want to lose , 


Driving me mad! 

THE printer I am using with my 
Amiga is a Tandy DMP130, which is 
IBM compatible, anti I am having a 
problem finding the correct printer 
driver for it. For graphics programs I 
have to use a driver for the Panasonic 
1001 and for word processor type 
programs I have to use the CBM- 
MPSlOOO one. I can’t use the CBM 
driver for graphics and I can’t use the 
Panasonic driver for text. 

Do you know of any driver that will 
do the same as both of the others? If 
not, do any of your readers have the 
same set-up as me? 

Also, could you tell me where I can 
get some educational software for my 
daughter, aged four-and-a-half? She is 
quite happy using the mouse and is 
able to load and use Photon Paint 
quite easily. 

V* Langley,. 

BFPO. 

We don't know the Tandy DM PI 30, 
Workbench 1.3 comes with more 
printer drivers. We’ve checked, and 
yours isn't among them , but you may 
find one that works better, especially 
as there is a very detailed section on 
all the drivers in the Workbench 1.3 
manual. Having said that somebody 
somewhere must have a printer driver 
tailor made for you. 

The Protext word processor comes 
with more than 20 drivers, including 
a plain IBM one which sounds like it 
might work. The trouble is, ifs going 
to cost you £79.95 to find out. Unless 
you know somebody local who owns 
Pretext/ At a computer club maybe ? 

. Clik (0753 682988) sells a bit of 
educational software for the Amiga, 
so does SCC (091-565 5756). Has your 
daughter discovered Clock yet? The 
young son of a friend is also four - 
and-a-bit and his favourite trick is 
booting Workbench, clicking all the 
correct icons to run the Clock 
program and then spending a happy 
hour or two moving it about the 
screen. He can't tell the time yet, but 
boy can he drag a window. 

One for the book 

IS there is anything available for 
assembly language programming on 
the Amiga for absolute beginners? I 
may have gone about things the 
wrong way, I have bought the DevPac 
assembler along with Amiga Machine 
I^anguage by Abacus and 68000 ALP 
by Osbourne. McGraw-Hill, 

All this valuable and very useful 


May 1969 AMIGA COMPUTING 93 



■LETTERS! 


4 

information is currently going to 
waste because 1 haven't the basic 
building blocks of knowledge needed 
to begin the write assembly language, 
Peter Gainey, 
Exeter. 

You need a good assembler, Peter, 
and DevPac is a very good assembler, 
but there's no point in owning a 
powerful tool if you don 't know how 
to use it Get yourself down to your 
local library and dig out some books 
on how computers work They don't 
have to he Amiga-specific, just any 
old book that tells you how data is 
moved around the wires inside, 

A good hook for newcomers to the 
68000 - that’s the chip you program 
inside your Amiga - is a Glentop one 
in the First Steps series . It costs £9,95 
and is called 68000 Assembly 
Language (ISBN I -851 81-081-1). IPs 
not Amiga specific, but it will give 
you the basic building blocks you're 
looking for. Once you 've worked your 
way through that one , the Abacus 
book will make a lot more sense. 

The Computer Store (021-770 0468) 


should be able to get it for you if your 
local library can ’t 


Dutch courage 

1 NOW and then read your magazine 
because my friend buys ft for his 
Amiga (A computer that can read? Go 
on, pull the other one , Who do you 
think 1 am, an ST owner? Ed), 

The main reason I am writing is 
that I am an ST owner (Oops, Ed) and 
l am sick and tired of the “my 
machine is better than your machine" 
war. As most 16 bit owners have a 
16 + age they should stop fighting like 
children. But your magazine isn't 
making things easier. 

In the most recent issue I saw. Issue 
9, 1 read several pieces saying - not 
directly, mind you - what a super 
machine the Amiga is and what a 
boo-machine the ST is. When are you 
going to grow up? 

Both machines have advantages and 
disadvantages. Instead of showing the 
good points of both 68000 machines - 
an all-round machine for games and 
serious stuff, something which can‘t 
be said about IBM clones - people are 


always trying to kill each other, 

| ay Lee, 

Capeile a/d yesel, Netherlands. 

We think " always trying to kill each 
other" i&a hit strong. We haven't 
killed an ST owner for at least six 
months , Gets a bit boring after a 
while v 

A friend took his Amiga to a local 
computer club the other evening. As 
he walked into the hail a group of ST 
owners sitting in a comer by the door 
copying discs poo-pooed him and 
loudly pointed out to the rest of the 
membership how inadequate a 
machine my friend’s computer was. 

After a short while he plugged his 
Amiga into a couple of self-powered 
20 waff speakers and booted Out Run, 
Guess which machine all the 
members - including the ST owners — 
were standing around 30 seconds 
later? We'll give you a clue: It wasn't 
the ST. 

Come on, fay, this is an Amiga 
magazine , What do you expect us to 
say? The people who write this 
magazine live and breathe Amiga. Its 
what makes Amiga Computing the 
best Amiga magazine around. 


SOFTWARE 

EXPRESS 


For 

AMIGA and ATARI 
( 021 ) 643 9100 


-A. 


ATARI 


DUNGEON MASTER EDITOR 


Bashing your head characters against a dungeon wall? 

At last, the answer is here to all those frustrating late nights! 

The Dungeon Master Editor 

from Softex 

Create shortcuts, new passages etc. 

Open doors without keys! 

Remove secret doors! 

Print out maps of all fourteen levels’ 

Also includes the revised "Way of the Firestaff" with the "List of 
Spells", Character Attribute Chart, even more hints and tips and a 
brand new set of maps. 

Available for the Amiga and Atari ST 


MIDLANDS 

For the best in 

SOUTH 

212-213 Broad Street, 

Service & Support, 

9 Exeter Street, (The Viaduct), 

BIRMINGHAM, B15 2JP 

visit our 

PLYMOUTH, Devon, PL4 9AQ 

Tel: (021) 643 9100 

Regional Branches 

Tel: (0752) 265276 



£9.95 

(Disk & Book P&P £1.00) 










Are you now to the Amiga, 
finding it difficutt to } 
harness the power of this\ 
amazing computer ? t then 
what you need is help from 
the largest group of Amiga 
enthusiasts In the world 

Members receive:- 


tiki 




ft Excellent discounts on software 
ft Technical support and on line help 
* Superb hardware reductions 
A A bi-monthly newsletter of over 60 pages! 

A Access to a PD library of over 300 disks 
A Use of the groups Amiga only bulletin board 
a Discounts on books 

H AMIGA H 

DON'T HESITATE - JOIN NOW and start to 
appreciate what Amiga computing is all about. 
For further details write, enclosing a stamped 
addressed envelope to: 

The U.K. Amiga User Group, 
66, London Road, 
Leicester. LE2 OQD. 

Or Telephone : 

Leicester (0533) 550993 


HUMGOLD 
COMPUTERS LTD 

for your AMIGA requirements 


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Please send your orders (cash/cheque only) to: 
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All prices are subject to change 


EAZYPRINT COMPUTERS 

Telephone (0932) 780103/781257 


AMIGA SOFTWARE NOW AVAILABLE 

Amiga Gold Hits 1 1 850 D igiView G d d 1 1 9 9: 

- - 11.00 Comic Setter 50,01 

B»rb«rren II 18.00 Sonix .,35.01 

asTJTiani 1 8 50 Deluxe Video 47. 51 

California Semes 17.50 Deluxe Productions 105,01 

Phantom Fig foier 1 7 .90 Th e Works 55,01 

Mini Golf 13.50 Critics Choice 1 11.51 

H ellfire Attac it 17.25 Ex press Paint 50.W 

Ciezv Cars II Workbench U 14.9- 

F-1 6 Fa Icon 2 1 .00 M ouse IYI ets £,ot 

Gauntlet II _ — 17.00 D isk Boat ag; 

Superman 17.50 Flicker Master 14‘ Screen ... 12.9= 

Dark Fusion - 14.00 Mecro Assembler 50.0c 


THE BEST PRICES FOR AMIGA HARDWARE 


Amiga AMO + TV Modulator ..... 370.00 

Amiga A500 + 8833S 62000 

8033 Stereo Monitor ...260 00 


40Mb A500 Hard Disk 599 00 


ASD1 512K RAM 132.50 


Cumana Limited Edition Drive 
Cumene CAX354 Drive 90.00 


AF302C Drive ,90.00 


AMIGA 2000 

Latest Spec 02000,1.3 0S r 
BS0K Disk Drive, Amiga BASIC 

£1150.00 


BZflOO FuN System 
*02000 * Monitor 
* Hard Disk * XT Card 

Only £1495 + VAT 


— Benda I e Bud get Genlock 270 00 

Amiga 2000 AT Bridgeboard _ „ i 

Hgif XT Bndgeboard 

^ UUI Broadcast quality Genlock . hHJi .. 750 00 

£999 inr 20Mb MS-DOS Hard Disk ., 

in^ Amiga ^ mm Hflr(j c , sk ^ ^ 

DENMAR HOUSE, 30 SCOTTS AVENUE, SUNBURY-ON-THAMES, MIDDX TW16 7H2 
Telephone (0932) 781257/780103. Fax: (0932) 780367 


As above with 6833 Monitor ... 1390.00 

XT Bridgeboard ,520.00 

20Mb MS-DOS Hard Disk .300 00 


May J 989 AMIGA COMPUTING 95 










ALL THESE 


This stylish, credit card sized, 
solar powered calculator has all 
the functions you'll need for 
most calculations, including a 
memory feature, a percent 
function and a handy mark-up 
facility. 

Sporting the Amiga Computing 
logo, the limited edition Artecarte 
is only available when you 
subscribe. And don't forget, 
because it's solar powered you 
won't need to buy any batteries! 


Your Amiga 
Computing is the 
ideal source of 
reference for 
every Amiga 
computer user. 
Keep your 
magazines tidy 
and in tip-top 
condition by using 
our top quality 
binder, holding 12 
issues. Each is 
embossed in silver 
and features the 
distinctive Amiga 
Computing logo. 


Keep your Amiga 500 keyboard free from dust 
and grime with an Amiga Computing dustcover, 
made from clear pliable vinyl, bound by strong 
blue cotton and sporting the Amiga Computmg 
logo. 


BINDER 



. . . when you 
subscribe to 


masA 



COMPUTING 


Take out a yearly subscription 
for just £25 and well send you 
an Amiga Computing binder 
{worth £5.95) to keep your 
issues in - absolutely FREE! 

But that's just for starters, you'll 
also get a limited edition Amiga 
Computing solar powered calculator 
(worth £ 7,95 '), an Amiga 500 dust 
cover (worth £4.$5} f and a giant 
mouse mat (worth £6,951 

That lot adds up to a tidy saving of 
£25.80. So after paying for your 
subscription you'll actually be in 
pocket! 

But remember because the 
Artcarte is a limited edition , this 
special offer wifi only be available 
for a short time . Take out your 
subscription today. 


GIANT 
MOUSE MAT 


Your mouse won't frighten our jumbo size top 
quality Amiga Computing mouse mat! With its 
specially-designed perfect-grip surface, it provides 
the ideal desktop environment for your rodent... 

* Offers much smoother movement! 

* Gives super positive control! 

* Protects tabletops! 

* Extra large] (277 x 240 x 9mm) 






I N G 


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postage, pacttn # t VAT 


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Annual Subscription 

Includes FREE Artcarte, Duslcover, 


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NEW 

HE HEW A 

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9502 


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Back issues 




(saapagaBTf 




November 19SB- April 1969 bundle 

£0.46 

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9531 

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9929 | 

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(see page 6Qf 

£24.116 

9520 [ 

Protext Version 4 




(See page 63} 

£711.05 

9530 

rn 

Lancelot 




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£19.06 

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JV1AKE YOUR /AMIGA EARN! 


Yes making money becomes incidental when you know how. Your 
micro is it only you knew ft, a gold mine. The size and make is irrelevani 
Make the initial effort NOW by starting your own 

HOME BASED BUSINESS. 

This may be the most important move you will ever make f 
REMEMBER You'll never get rich by digging someone else's "ditch" 
Anyone in the country, including YOU, can become very rich in a 
relatively short period of time just by doing a few basic thingsl It s more 
rewarding than playing games The benefits are many and varied Full 
or part time. For FREE details servd S.A.E to 



3T PILTON PLACE (AM4) 
KING AND QUEEN STREET 
WALWORTH, LONDON $E17 1 DR 


TWO WAYS TO ENSURE 
YOU GET 



VZ/b OMPUTING 
EVERY MONTH 


1 . Complete and mail subscription 
form on Page 97 

2. Hand this form to your newsagent. 


Please reserve me a copy of Amiga Computing 
magazine every month urn* further notice, 

□ I will collect 

□ I would like it delivered to my home. 

Name, 

Address — 


Nbto Jo n*HWp*ffl r AflUfe* ComfiVUrtg ttKHitd b» 
rttMfnmbt* tw» your twt f rnTfiTlTiTr. VHfllKt 
Ckcuhtlon UanmQK W 0*2* *00422 


Amigawx — 90 

Amiga Users Group 95 

Applied Visions 1QQ 

Apolonia Software 86 

Byteback 39 

Cal co Softwa re 2 5 

Castle Software ........ 62 

Cestrian Software 53 

Commodore Computer Show 57 

Condor International 46 

Cottage Software 65 

Databrain 23 

Dataplex , 45 

Datel Electronics lO, 11 

Diamond Computers 92 

Digicom 87 

Digivision ,,,83 

Eazypri nt . . 95 

Electronic Arts 6 

Equ i n ox . — 53 

Evesham M icros 66 

First Micro 22 

H B Marketing 24 

Hi-Soft 99 

Home Based Business 98 

Hugh Allen 98 

Humgold Computers 95 

Lan Computers 31 

Mandarin Software 44, 60, 73 

Maze Technology S3 

M D Office Supplies .50 

Microdeal 74 

M i crotext 2 1 

MJC Supplies 30 

Postronix 2 P 3 

Power Computing ........ 19, 21, 23, 25 

Purple PD Software . 65 

Silica Shop 29 

S K Marketing 48 

Softsel lets . . , T 35 

Softvi lie PD 83 

Software Express. 94 

ST Amiga Club 98 

Turtlesoft,,, 36 

Tynesoft . , 79 

Worldwide Software 21 


TBBCS Bulletin Board 

Become a sysop for less 

If you have an Amiga with two drives and a Hayes 
compatible modem, you could be runmnf your own 
bulletin board for only 35 pounds/ 

TBBCS will let you build up a BBS with messages, voting, a 
dating service, SlGs, downloads, and a CB Simulator for 
less than the price of most Comms Packages, If you don't 
have your oivn phone line, TBBCS can shore a voice line. 


Send an SAE to the following address 
for more information. 

Hugh Allan Jr* Ness Castle, Cores Rd, Inverness IVl 2DJ 


★ Stop ringing other peoples bulletin A 
boards, and start running your own, 


9B AMIGA COMPUTING May 1909 




HiSoft BASIC 



for the Amiga 

A fast, easy-to-use interactive compiler 

Fully compatible with: 

AmigaBASIC 
Microsoft QuickBASIC 3 


ST BASIC 
Power BASIC ST 
HiSoft BASIC ST 



Runs on any Amiga 

The fastest BASIC on the Amiga 

Full use of shared libraries & multitasking 

No licence fees on your compiled code 


r 


L 


Special Introductory Offer! 


As a very special offer, the first 1 000 copies of HiSoft BASIC for the Amiga iuHI be shipped with 
a FREE copy of the AmigaBASIC Inside 81 Out Book and Software so that you can instantly 
experience the true poorer of HiSoft BASIC, If that wasn't enough, are also reducing the price 
from £99,95 to £79,95 (inclusive) for the first 1 000 copies . Hurry to get your copy now! 


HiSoft 


High Quality Software 


HiSoft BASIC for the Amiga is available from all good shops or, in case of 
difficulty, directly from HiSoft, You can order using Access & Visa. 

HiSoft, The Old School, Greenfield, Bedford MK45 5DE 


Call: (0525) 718181 








Future Sound 500" 

Possibly the best Sound Digitizer around? 
In STEREO for the Amiga 500 and 2000. 


.Records two tracks Simultaneously 
.Separate microphone input with built in 
amp 

.Samples up to 42,000 samples per second, 
20,000 samples per second per channel in 
stereo 

.Sliding input volume control 
.Ribbon Cable attaches to parallel port 
.Easy to use software editor with many 
features 


.Full support for all hard disks 
.Support for RAM disks' & VDO devices 
.Works with all Amiga operating systems 
including 1.3 and the new Fast File System 
.Listen to input through digitizer 
.Uses expanded memory where available, 
up to 8Mb 

.Sampling rates up to 56,000 samples per 
second if used with a 68020 processor and 
AudioMaster 11 software 


Available from, 

Applied Visions (UK), 
Jersey Supreme Works, 
538-546 Whippendel) Road, 
Watford, Herts, WD1 1QN, 
Tel: 0923 818078 


H. II. Marketing Ltd 
Brooklyn House , 22 The Green, 
West Drayton, Middx UB7 7PQ. 
Tel: 0895 444433 

SDL (UK) Ltd 

Unit 10, Ruxley Corner Ind Est, 
Sidcup-Bv-Pass, Sidcup, Kent 
DA 14 5SS, Tel: 01-309 0300 

And tdl good Amiga Dealers. 


Only. 
£79.95 Inc 


A CSA Turbo 

68020 

For ONLY £295 Inc ? 

Hard to believe isn’t it ? But its true CSA 
broke the price barrier in 32 Bit technology. 
Now you don’t have to settle for a far less 
capable 68000 accelerator, you can have 
affordability, capability, and speed in one easily 
installed package. 

CSA’s new 68020 Midget Racer Board for the 
Amiga A500, 1000, and 2000 supports a 68881 
or 68882 co-processor at speeds up to 33MMz, 
and is available today. 

Programs like Sculpt & Animate 3D or 4F> and 
X-Cad have been written to directly access the 
68020 & 68881, and may not even run with a 
68000 based accelerator. 

For further information on this and all other 
CSA products please write to : 


In the U.S.A. 

CSA Inc. 

7564 Trade Street 
San Diego 
CA 92121 


In Europe. 

A.T.H. 

Jersey Supreme Works 
538-546 Whippendell 
Road, Watford, Herts, 
Tel:0923 817549 


ASDG (UK) 

Announce ProScanLab 
for the Amiga 2000. 

ProScanLab allows full control of the 
Sharp Colour Scanners, giving full 24Bit 
colour input and output to the Amiga for 
Desktop Publishing and graphic editing. 
The full colour graphic output is 
compatible with all postscript printers. 

And can be output as a file for printing by 
your local DTP bureau or direct to your 
own Linotronic device, ProScanLab allows 
editing of the input so you can pick just a 
small area of your Image for output. If 
used in conjunction with Gold Disks Pro 
Page program this allows you full Colour 
DTP with 16.7 million Colours output. 
ProScanLab Board & Software £90(1 
ProScanLab & Sharp A3 Scanner £7500. 
ProScanLab & Sharp A4 Scanner £3000, 

All prices include VAT. 

For further details on this and all ASDG 
product please contact. ASDG (UK) 

* w Jersey Supreme Works 

ASD(, Inc 538-546 W hippendell 

925 Stewart Street, Road, Watford, Herts, 
Madison. WI 53713WD1 ION 
U.S.A. Td;0923 818079