ARCHIPELAGOS
Exclusive: Commodore 's
A590 Hard Drive on test
POWER
Volume 2
Number 2
July 1989
£1.95
A Database Publication
\ whole n(
pmputerc
iurable clc
it youreoi
mly safe i
orms of ai
■SkGESKH
Ml. MAJOR
mpsi 2 oop £ 229.99
ITU iJ J.4W1 +. y.OO posi and packing
The Commodore MRS l SKIP printer presents the stale of the an in dux malm printers, wilh all the features nf 11 pnnter that
^ouldoost much more. The MPSlZOOPisdeapieciUJbe like three printer!. in nne. It an act just like an Epson FX printer, or
with the Rip of a switch, it can adjust like an IBM Graphics Primer with IBM Group IH character set <Dundi.‘No^n
character set I supprnt. U can also pnm nil the character* available with the Amiga in the Amiga configuration .The MPS1 JNi|
is capable of all ihc printing functions you would expect, as well as some additional features you may not expert.
MPS1500C COLOUR PRINTER £199.99
A, TECHNICAL CHARACTERISTICS + £5, IK) post ami packing
PRINTING TECHNIQUE Impact dot matrix (9-needle print head)
DRAFT MODE ■■ matrix 9 vertical dots* (5 l 4 ( horizontal dots, - pnntspeed: 1_H char/s, at -Lnur in
TABULATION SPEED 2 chaffs
PRINTING DIRECTION bi-directional, with optimised head movement
PRIM' PITHES .....Ill chaffin 10 y/chail 1 in programmable frontline, and m SE I -IP mode
I.INEFEED „ ! - lftin(4.J3mro|,W8(Tl7mm)aitd 7|, .-in(2.4nitn): -n/216iii*ndii/ .-in.
CHARACTER SET „ , ASCI I characters and special characters
MAN. PRINT LINK LENGTH ,, ,4Utopl92 character*, according to print pilch selected.
1084S STEREO/COLOUR
MONITOR £2S9 00
Compatible with PC * & S I VVF
Amiga, ( Me, C 1 28 + * » P 01 * amt P**"*
AMIGA 1010 DISK DRIVE
Amiga 3.5' 1 external drive. Capacity 880K
PLUS FREE DISK £ 1 /IQ 00
STORAGE BOX & *77
if) BLANK DISKS + £5.00 post and packing
A501 RAM
PACK
-M2K for the Amiga
£ 149.99
4- £5 .00 post and pur king
Pack Includes:
A 500 CPU, Mouse, P.5AJ..T.V. Modulator, Very
First Tutorial, Workbench L-3, Basie, Extras and
Mytumlv
PLUS POSTRONIX BONUS PACK
WORTH OVER £250 which includes 10 Eiltink
Disks. Disk Storage Box, 1(1 Excellent Games, Mouse Mat,
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£ 399.00
t £5 impost and poking
AMIGA 500 plus DISK DRIVE AMIGA 500 + 1084S
Instruction Manuals, Extra Disk, Workbench 1-3, STEREO/
COLOUR MONITOR
The Very First Tutorial. T.V. Modulator. Photon
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£ 449.00
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ADVENT! KKS
Managing Editor
Derek Meakin
Ass/stanl is the
Managing Editor
Aian MclacUu)
Editor
Simon Heckman
Assistant Editor
|efT Walker
Production Editor
Peter Glover
Art Editors
Mark Solan
Douj Steele
News Editor
Don Lewis
AdrerfisemejjJ Manager
|ohn Snowden
Gonunodonts A590 Hard Drive Pius
BATTLE WITH
THE NAZGUL
Dave Eriksson, vrith a little help from
Frudo and friends, lakes on the might
of Mordor. A game which captures
the magic of the book.
AMIGA SCENE
1
DESKTOP PUBLISHING
r
COVER STORY
7 LATEST’
NEWS
Batman is among ihc stars who use
an Amiga to sound good. A Novell
approach to networking and tnfocom
biles the hulls* with a move West
SOFTLOGIK
PAGESTREAM
Output is all important in desktop
publishing. So if yon haven’t a couple
of grand for a PostScript printer then
this could be the solution.
/ A59D HARD
KM mm dkjveplus
Commodore’s own hard disc put
through its paces. It comes out the
shining winner in the upgrade race.
Simon Rock man reports.
AMIGA ARCADE
BASIC IT “J OK
SCHOOLS
Advertising Safes
Wendy Colburn
Editorial:
m-nmm
.\d Hi iris ted bun
Advertising;
mb mm
SubsGTphDns:
(Sl-357 2M£
Mernm Gold.
nm&m
Tdes:
«i imm dh
Fi*
ffiESSTV m
fris&l Mailbox;
L* 1 4 J tH n H . 1
WELL WICKED
HOT NEWS
Silkworm heads up an all star cast
with 96 per cent, well supported by
Archipelagos, Beam and lots more in
our biggest games section ever.
LISTEN
TO THIS
You have complete control of a digital
synthesiser, called an Amiga, John
Kennedy shows you how to make it
whistle, sing and burp.
WE DON 'T N EED
NO EDUCATION
Schools do not have the right altitude
to teaching with computers but now
Commodore is learning to deal with
the educators.
Puhlifilued by:
natabase Publications Uil,
Eurupa House. Adlington Fait,
Adlingtork Macclesfkld SKlfl
IS5X [KJ52-5U4IL
Amiga Cgapvlmi wfkomrt dflicJw Ear publi-
ciImq. M^lRnj I should be typed tit □impuler-
pnnled. mH preferably double-spaiEd Prii pram Hsi-
inps skald .be accompanied by disc FIraw endow
i flimpH, 3 slf*ddjH»d, riivel opr. nlhprwns^ the
rthua n[ material calliDut be Ruarariteeii C-nwtri-
hub™ can only be aiiepted \w publication by
Ditobye Publications Lid db an ill-ii§Jus basis
g 19 S 9 L^alabaw PublkniMS lid, N* mileml miv
be Jephuduced m whole or m pnrl vrtJuiul written
penriissiarL While evay care is taken, tba pu|i-
iiibm cannot be held legally ftspuosiblf Pot anv
amesin article, lutings Dr*dvfTtise£bfialL
Ami|t frtmputini; is arr irnkpradfin/ jwhiVjtion
anrf Goaaodot Bmistess Akdiins |f!Jt Ud is
(llrf ffipffi&ihk hr dm u f the arfrrJw m fjik iwiA* Of
Jfbr airy cf tie apteioas expressed
News trade dislnbrirhc-n: Eiuupress bdta jiui Dte-
tributinti Lnr-ited, t ! n« 1. lurjess Road. Ivybou se
La*t. Hasbnps, East Sussex 1^135 4ML M M 24
ONE
public domain
FAT AGNUS’S
SWEET PD
Following a train of thought and
taking in the sights around PD Land
our explorer sends back the best info
on what's new and free.
MUSIC
DRT’S COPYIST
PROFESSIONAL
Scribbling on a bit of parchment may
have been good enough for Bach but
modern musicians want software
which can word process with notes.
4 AMIGA COMPUTING fuly Jtfflff
A MIKADOS
applications
UNDER THE
WORKBENCH
Lurking on your boot disc is a load of
useful blank space currently filled
with unwanted programs. Henning
Sorenson shows how to free it.
/ ft X-CAD
• KJ DESIGNER
We ail know that IBMs pale into
insignificance next to Amigas. Now
Cad vision International has proved i!
with some ace software.
Mil •'• ' s
X-CAD Designer Page 78
Game Killer Page 85
|i GAME
\M \J KILLER
The secret cheat mode for Cosmic
Pirate, how to win at Joan of Arc,
Chuckie Egg cheat and infinite lives
for Pac*Land in MTH's column.
YOUR RIGHT
TO WRITE
How lo boot Basic programs, better
binary control, how to remove extra
memory without even touching the
hardware and more.
CAMKS REVIEWS
• Silkworm wins a Supreme award
with ftS per cent.
• Raider thrusts on to the glowing
screen.
• Visit the magic land of Archi-
pelagos.
• Beam proves the simplest games
are fun.
■ Aquatic action with Live and Lei
Die.
• Great reading and action with
Battle hawks.
• Smooth scroll is back with
Gol dm nner D.
Silkworm Page ?6
• Coktel Vision breaks the chains of
Freedom.
• Bio Challenge evolves into robotic
attacks.
• The facts about Hollywood Poker
laid bare.
• Tank Attack: Board game or bared
of the same.
• Code Masters slalom into 1G bit
with Ski Sim,
• Pa c- Land goes OTT on the cute
and cuddly,
« The Real Ghosth osiers gel ported
and slimed.
• Grand Monster Slam. Pretty
sprites.
• Steve Davis gets to the end of
CBS's cue,
• fast Duel - the plot sickens with
shooting.
fulv 1989 AMIGA COMPUTING S
NOW DELUXEPAINT
HAS ANIMATION
Presenting AnimPainf
DeluxePaint III mokes animation easy. With the AnimPaint feature, you
can create animation just by pressing one key to record your paint
strokes, and another key to play them back. You can also use any multi-
cel animation as o brush
and paint with it, even in
full 3-D.
8 New Paint Features
DeluxePaint I II also odds sophisticated features to the number one Amiga
paint software: Extra- ha If h rile support for 64 colours; direct overscan
painting for desktop video; wrap and tint brush modes for special effects;
better font support; im
proved compression; and
many performance en-
hancements, including
faster perspective. Product
requires 1 MB of RAM,
SPECIAL UPGRADE OFFER:
Upgrade now and save £50. [Recommended Retail Price £79,99 m. VAT)
Send DeluxePaint II manual cover and £35 (£30 upgrade + £5 carriage) to
Electronic Arts Ltd., 11/49 Station Road, Langley SL3 8YN, England,
Allow 2-4 weeks delivery. DPaint I owners con upgrade for £55,
ELECTRONIC ARTS"
AMIGA SCENE
Infocom goes west
for Mediagenic
G O West. That was the
command Mediagenic,
formerly Activison, gave to
Infocom, the world's
number one adventure soft-
ware house. So Infocom
moved to the American West
Coast.
Only a few of the staff
made the journey - none of
the game designers or devel-
opers. Some will be working
on independent projects for
Mediagenic. In essence all
that will survive is the name.
Tnfocom has had a pretty
rough time since Corner-
Stone, its venture into PC
business software, failed,
costing the company a lot of
money, Despite turning out
some dazzling text adven-
tures it was forced to sell out.
A truly creative company
often fails In fit in with larger
corporate structures and,
although you wouldn't think
so from recent releases, some
of the major talent left.
Authors like Steve
Merelzky, Dave Lebling and
Stu Galley will he following
adventures of their own from
now on,
W ORDPERFECT Cnrp
was welcomed to the
Amiga by those users who
thought that having the best
selling N1M business soft-
ware on the Amiga would
get the computer into busi-
nesses.
We were naive, three
magic letters were much
more important than clever
disc drives, multi-tasking or
memory configurations
which were not stupid,
As a result PC WordPerfect
sold thousands of copies and
Amiga WordPerfect didn’t.
When IBM users got
WordPerfect 4,2 we still had
to settle for 4.1, placated by
the news that when version
5,0 came out we would leap-
frog the 4.2 stage.
But this didn't happen.
WordPerfect claimed that 6.0
was much better suited to the
Amiga and that would be the
next release.
Finally the news broke.
WordPerfect Gorp in Utah
had closed down the Amiga
section. The programmers
Making your
mind up
who loved the Amiga were
moved to work on Apple
Macs and others sent to work
under OS/2. Only a couple of
people were left to look after
version 4.1 and sort out some
lingering hugs.
We could blame the Ger-
mans; looking at the huge
market WordPerfect trans-
lated its program into
German, but it failed to sell.
We could blame WordPer-
fect; the version of Library
was not what the Amiga
market wanted and the word
processor suffered from a
high price, Either way
screams from happy Amiga
WordPerfect users provoked
some response, and people
moved hack to the Amiga
division.
We won't see 6,0, nor 5.0
but improvements to 4.1,
gentle, steady refinements
for one of the most important
programs on the Amiga.
W EATHER satellite pic-
tures arc now available
for Amiga owners with the
latest Micrulext Teletext
Adaptor and an ordinary TV
aerial.
The pictures, which
originate from sources such
as MeteoSat, are transmitted
on Ceefax but can only be
received by a computer with
a teletext adaptor and the
relevant software.
New pictures are sent
regularly and are presented
as an index on the Amiga's
Amiga’s
Meteostat
connection
screen. They can be
downloaded by pointing and
clicking the mouse. The pic-
ture is saved as a compact
data file and the Microtext
software can then be used to
select them for display.
Microtext Teletext Adap-
tor costs £143-52,
O XXI will be distributing
a Novell Network porl
for the Amiga, Scott Martin,
the developer, describes the
installation as pretty much
plug in and go. This is a
healthy addition to the
Amiga capabilities. Coupled
with Ameristar’s Ethernet
capability - in marketing not
networking terms - these
two facilities will go a long
way towards making the
Amiga appear more serious
to people at larger com-
panies.
This is an important devel-
opment for the Amiga, since
Missing link
no longer
Novell is the high volume
network tool for IBM
owners. But it is not a peer to
peer nelwork, which is
something that has more
mass appeal for the Amiga.
This will come with some
Decnet software, two ver-
sions of which are being
written, one by Bob Tully of
Syndesis in America and
another by Paul Ockendcn of
VFM Software in Brighton.
Get weaving
D ON Harding, a lecturer
at Norfolk College of
Arts and Technology (0553
761144), has produced a
report on how to use the
Amiga 500 and Delux Painl
II to design furnishing
fabrics.
Its useful information can
also be adapted for the easier
design of fashion fabric.
Six hard discs to be won
Id em I Hardware and .lui/vn Computing are working un an
amazing i omprliliou which will tiffin- even reader a
i ha lice tu win one of sis System 2lllHl hard drives for the
Amiga 5 (JO, This lie all ti III 1 1 y designed peripheral
aiitobonls vvil limit having to upgrade your Amiga. The
high-speed 40 meg drive would normally cosl £573.65
and is a really good bm at thill price. Rul you < an kil your
Amiga oil I with imi: lor absolutely nothing it l till win. Full
dcla i Is will be published in nuxl month's issue id Imi'-a
f^onifutfinu- Don't miss it.
it for it
L ATEST estimates are that
the new' Amiga 2500
could be available in the next
two 1o three months.
It will be a straight
upgrade from the existing
A2000 including a 14MHz
66020 CPU upgradeable to
25MHz With 60651 or 6RRH2
Math co-processor and up to
4Mb of 32 hit ram.
July 1939 AMIGA COMPUTING 7
V OLTMACE [0462
894410) has completed a
deal to produce a new yoke-
style joystick for the Amiga.
The Hertfordshire firm
bought the design of this
proportional flight simulator
joystick from its developer,
Incontrol of Cambridge. It
will sell it under the name
Delta base A.
“The new acquisition is set
to become the flagship anrl
revitalisation of Volt mace's
ageing joystick range 11 , said
a spokesman.
The Deltahese A is an
analogue joystick specially
designed to resemble the
Now go fly
that table
flight control joystick of an
aircraft with twin handgrips
which rock from side to side
for aileron movement and
move backwards and for-
wards for climb or descent. It
clamps on to the edge of a
desk or table and is plugged
into port two of the Amiga,
Primarily designed for
Flight Sim II version 1.1 nr
later, the joystick is activated
by pressing the j key, It costs
£2f).R5,
A MIGA owners will have
a treat in store later this
year when an ambitious new
computer show is launched-
It's The Computer
Shopper Show, to be held in
the Great Hall at Alexandra
Palace from November 24 to
26. Sponsored by Computer
Shopper magazine and
organised by Database Exhi-
bitions, it will hit a huge
markel by combining four
traditional shows from the
festive season into one event,
The Computer Shopper
Four shows
in one
Show replaces the Commo-
dore Christmas Show, the
Atari Christmas Show, the
Amstrad Computer Shnw r
and the Electron & BRC
Micro User Show', It will
combine all the new 1
products, special features
and bargains from these
events into what is being
billed as “the world's largest
computer shopping spree".
T HE Amiga 500 is turning
in good results in the
High Street. Major chain
store group Laskys has
decided to put the machine
into 32 of its stores, and after
the major advertising and
marketing boost of last
Christmas lohn Lewis group
is also to put the Amiga in 20
of its nutlets.
The Adders chain store
has increased its take-up on
Commodore products t banks
to the success of the Amiga
Chains like
the 500
500 in its stores last Christ-
mas and the machine will be
going into world-famous toy
shop Hamleys on London's
Regent Street.
Catalogue companies
Gratten, Argus and Lit-
tle wmods have also decided
lo stock Commodore
products.
IMING to make its US
business size up to the
success it has had overseas.
Commodore International
has appointed a former
Apple Computer man, 42-
year-old Harold Copper man.
as president and chief
operating officer for its
American operations.
“Our overseas operations
have experienced Strong
growth in sales and prof-
itability and the hiring of an
individual with Harry
Big push
in the US
Cnpperman's experience and
track record is a key element
in our plan for building a
strong US operation", said
chairman Irving Gould,
• Worldwide sales of
Amigas ha v» now topped the
million mark, with GO per
cent going to the European
market.
P ROTEXT can now speak.
Arnor is working on a
version of Protext, its top-
selling word processor,
which uses the Amiga’s abil-
ity to talk.
Designed as an aid for the
blind, Amor believes this is
the first such program for the
Amiga, Talking Protext is
Now listen
to this
still in development and
needs some tidying up
before it can he sold. One
thing which cannot be
altered is the built-in
American accent.
COMPANY which will
typeset pages from any
Amiga DTP program you
care to mention. The Text
Formatting Company has
installed a Linotronic 200P/
model B with a full range of
Adobe PostScript fonts. So
next time you have
something really important
to print give TTFC a call.
It is also the UK distributor
Desktop
hard copy
for AmigaTeX, the typeset-
ting language designed by
computer genius Donald
Knuth to give the very best
output on any system. For
more details call The Text
Formatting Company on
01-806 1944.
M andarin Software
[0625 878888) whose
Amiga titles include Lom-
bard RAC Rally, Time and
Magik, Pioneer Plague and
Lancelot has just completed
a deal with giant German
distribution house Ariola-
soft.
The agreement means
Ariolasoft effectively be-
comes Mandarin’s German
partner and will be
responsible for marketing all
the UK software house's
products through its 2,000
strong dealer base,
“Ariolasoft will undertake
the advertising, promotion,
translation and distribution,
in fact everything, on hehalf
of Mandarin in Germany",
said Annie Creasey, Man-
darin’s head of exports.
"Mandarin already has a
profile in Germany thanks to
the success of both Pioneer
Ariolasoft
links with
Mandarin
Plague and Lombard RAC
Rally, but we believe that
this formal link-up will
increase our presence sub-
stantially in what is the
number one market in
Europe.
“This is stage one of our
corporate plan to ensure that
Mandarin will be a truly
European force by 1992”.
Marketing director of
Ariulasoft Willie Carmincke
told Amiga Computing : "We
are most impressed with
Mandarin's products and
look forward to a Jong and
fruitful working relationship
with this leading Rritish
entertainment software
house".
a AMIGA COMPirmiG fitly iwu
■AMIGA SCENES
t
*
A MAJOR shake-up in
Commodore's mar-
keting department has coin-
cided with the shock news
that marketing manager
Dean Barrett has quit. Both
sides stressed that the end of
his two year association with
Commodore was amicable.
Managing director Steve
Franklin told Amiga
Computing he was looking
to Till not only the plane left
by Barrett hut also two other
positions created by the new
marketing structure. This
will split the marketing
Steve Franklin ...
three posts to fill
Marketing
boss quits
department into two
divisions and was on the
cards before Bar roll decided
to go.
"These plans have been
forced on us by the growth of
Commodore over recent
years and the fundamental
growth we expect next year.
The marketing department is
being divided into two
divisions to cope with this 11 ,
he said,
"Dean's decision to leave
was very much an amicable
move, I did not want him to
go because he has done a
fantastic job for us hut when
someone decides on a career
change there is nothing you
can do. 1 wish him all the
luck".
Barrett has left to pursue
what he says is a long-
standing ambition to go into
publishing. He has taken up
a job as marketing manager
for publishing bouse EMAP.
Musical Amiga
hits cinema screen
L YNNE Hamilton is an
Amiga user you may not
have heard of but you might
have heard her singing. Her
single, On the inside, is the
theme for Prisoner Cell Block
H, the cult lizzie soap where
the acting is only a little less
wooden than the set. The
tune has already topped the
Australian charts where it
was Number One for four
weeks.
* Readers who are sharp-
eyed TV viewers may have
noticed an Amiga 1000
being used in the pro-
gramme Sledgehammer to
trace a missing girl. Perhaps
the best performance hy an
Amiga will be heard at the
cinema.
Glimpsed in a scene from
ITV's Saturday Night at the
Movies was an Amiga being
used to compose the
haunting music for the new
Batman movie.
The Amiga isn't going to
do all the Batmusic itself,
there will be a little help
from Prince,
W ITH desktop pub-
lishing growing in
importance for Amiga
owners, there is a chance for
them to display their new-
found skills and w r in prizes.
The 1989 Desktop Pub-
lishing Awards are once
again being organised by
Database Exhibitions and
Pira, the Paper and Board
Printing and Packaging
Industries Research Associ-
ation.
Winners will be
announced at the Desktop
Publishing Show' w'hieh runs
from October 4 to 6 at the
London Arena.
Judges for the 19R9 awards
will be executive editor of
the Independent Michael
Crozier, production director
of Macmillan Publishers
Michael Barnard and author
Prizes for
DTP skills
of Design for Desktop Pub-
lishing, John Miles of Banks
& Miles.
Categories are for the best
magazine, newspaper, buok,
technical manual, in house
company report, brochure,
leaflet and newsletter.
Awards w r ill also be made
for Desktop Journalist of the
Year. Desktop Editor of the
Year, Desktop Designer of
the Year and the most
original use of desktop pub-
lishing.
Further details and entry
forms are available from
Elizabeth Strutt, Pira,
Randalls Road, Leatherhead,
Surrev KT22 7RU, Teh 0372
376161.
A NEW animation, edit-
ing and special effects
product which has scored a
big hit in America is now
available in the UK,
ANIMagic is designed for
the Amiga by Aegis of Santa
Monica, California, whose
UK agent for the product is
HH Marketing ((JB35
444433).
It works with VideoScape
3D, Deluxe Paint III and most
popular paint and animation
programs to produce
impressive special effects.
Digital video effects
produced by ANIMagic
Magic touch
of animation
include spins, page turns,
Venetian blinds, c.onfettis,
strobes and unusual colour
and titling effects.
These animations can be
edited, enhanced or spliced
together and the package is
intended for presentation use
in business, video produc-
tion, education, trade shows
and other applications
which demand special anim-
ation effects,
ANIMagic costs £63.95,
filly fflflfl iMIGA COMPUTING 9
AMIGA SUPER
CARD
NEW!!!
£99.95
THE AMIGA
SPECIALIST
Kickstart 1 .3
Anti Virus
Floppy Speeder
Boot Drive Selector
Copy Program
Functions under
F-Keys
Mouse Driven
Error Messages
Shortened Reset
Extra Utilities
HARD DISK AMIGA A500/A1 000/A2000
20 MBYTE HARD DISK £ 375.00
30 MBYTE HARD DISK £ 449.00
40 MBYTE HARD DISK £ 549.00
60 MBYTE HARD DISK £ 649.00
(state model , supplied with software)
GENLOCK A500 MINIGEN
- PROFESSIONAL GENLOCK A500 £99.95
- Low cost, enabling you to merge computer graphics
with live video & record the results on a VCR
RENDALE
GENLOCK A500 £199.95
GENLOCK A2000 £199.95
MIDI INTERFACE AMIGA
- For A500/A1000/A2000 (state model) COQ Q 5
- Midi in, midi out , midi thru **
- Cables and software incL
PROFESSIONAL SOUND DIGITIZER
- The ultimate stereo digitizer PRQ QR
(Makes the others sound like toys)
- For ASQ0/A 1 000/A2000 (state model)
NEW - VIRUS PROTECTOR
- Hardware and software £1
- Place hardware between external
drive and computer
- Protects internal and external drives
- Always present after warm reboot
- Gives alarm signal if a virus is found
Protects against 16 Viruses
RAM EXPANSIONS
A500 51 2K
- Upgrade to 1 mbyte , fitted in seconds
- With dock, battery operated to
retain time/date
A500 1,8MByte
- Board to add 1,8 Mb internal memory
to your AS 00 (Supplied without memory 1C)
With Ram
A5Q0/A1 000 2MByte
-2 Mb ram expansion A500/A 1 000
- simply plugs into expansion port
A2000 2MByte
- 8 Mb board, 2Mb Ram
AMIGA DISK DRIVES
3.5" EXTERNAL DISK DRIVE
DSDD SLIMLINE DRJVE -
WITH TRACK DISPLAY !
5.25" EXTERNAL DISK DRIVE
40/80 TRACKS IBM
COMPATIBLE
WITH TRACK DISPLAY £
3.5” INTERNAL DISK DRIVE
A2000 :
ALL DRIVES
ON/OFF SWITCH AND
THROUGH PORT
Digiview Gold Video Digitiser
A1000 Kickstart 1.3 + Clock
Eprom Programmer
Boot Selector
|i HARD PERSPEX DUST COVERS 1
ji A50Q/A1 000/A2000
£9.99
jj Mousepads (top quality)
£4.99
p Diskbox 3.5" (80) with lock
£7.99
£ Diskbox 5.25" (100) with lock
£7.99
1 White Label 3.5” DSDD (10) disks
£7.99
8 Printer cable (top quality)
£4.99
1 Scan cable (top quality)
£9.99 1
^ ^ yn. ^ Surte i, Vftc*/uim House,
T # t 1 tc A V/J/J/J 2 Teddington Rd,
. M j f J #J iJlfl/f/f/ Wompto/i Met, Kingston,
S VV/ W V Sum?* K77 4DP Tel: 01-977 9596
DO YOU OWN AN AMIGA COMPUTER?
For everyone who owns one of these computers, CLUB 68000 offers members software, hardware and accessories at
huge savings off recommended retail prices! Each item has been carefully chosen to offer the best value and quality.
HERE f S WHAT YOU GET
When you join you will receive a free games compendium and a free catalogue every 3 months
AMIGA TOP 100 GAMES
Falcon FI 6
Fed. Of Free Trader
SpticdtHl!
Mayday Squad
Micravrac Stic cer
Navy Moves
Operation Wolf
SwmJ of Sodan
Super Ha ng on .
Space Dues" II
Tkm Scanner, .
T*nes a! Lors..^
Tiger Ftoad
T hundti blade
Triad (3 Gimw]
Archipelagos
Outrun
Operation heptune
Personal NighlrnarE
Purple Satin Day ...
P+drieW Plague
P«fc ol Radiance.
P.OW.
Puffy 5w .™...
Prieon , Hinnrnri . irir .
Precious Metel .......
Police Quest II ......
Bid Ctu iengn
BehtehiJwks 1W2
Tales pin
Tqm A J?ny
Typhoon Thompson
UMI™
UMS Scenery D ek ..
Ultima V.
BlKK^ych
Barbarian II
CiWonva Games
Reputes „
R-Typa — -
Rimbo III .....
floboco p
fluh The Gauntlet
Cosmic Pirate
Crazy Can H
Demon* Winter
Dunoon Matter
R jnnng Man
Steve Davis Sncoiter..
■Shod Em Up Con. 5*1
Star Glider II
SGI
AMIGA PROFESSIONAL SOFTWARE
£4 E mutator 2.5 64 Emulator ..
Aegis Anirmtorflmagft* 3D Animation
Aegis DU sw 30 DO
Aegis Modeler 3D
Aegis Sonbi
4egii AudJnmailer II
Aegis VkteJtcape 3D
Aegis Vita; I der
Aztec C Pmf
A Talk HI
BBS PC
Benchmark Module 2
Mctw
Comic Setter
Comic Sutler AH t
Cant Setter Art 2
Come Softer Art 3
Cambridge Usp
Ca'grapner 1 05
Critics Chaim
Dos Toolbgic
Digjdew Gold
Deluxe Paint II
Deluxe M jhe
Deluxe Video
Deluxe Photo Lah
Del lire Print II
Drum Studio
Dlgteslc
Devpac II
Qigi paint
Dot To Dot
Dtfidor
Eli racial Tool Nil
Design 3 D
Dynamic Drums
Dynamic Studio
Fmt&vtaion
GFA Basic
fiokJapell II
Gonf 3.0
Hercules Copy
Home Accaunl
IrqroCBd
K. Comm 2.0
Kind Words Jl
Lattice 5 0 Dev.
Light* Camera, Aden
MCCPiKlt
Ma-yi urn Turbo
Macro Assem bler
Mailshot Flue
PnrS Utility
Pnpi. DrumTreck
Spreads he*1 .......
Prag !arg jage ...
DraWGriphici ....
Tnntftr lltltty ....
Desktop Video ....
Movie Setter
Omega*!*
Puiiliehers Cnoice
Page setter
Profettlenii P*ge
Photon Pih*t 2.0
Phi mate
Photon Victeg
PralEEsiofial Draw
Pw*r Windows 2.5
PfdVkNn
PtomtSe
Quarterback
Syrtfhli
Superbase Personas
SuperbasE Personal It
Supertiast Pidi-
Sculpt 3D
Studio Magic
Superback
Ttet» Sihrar 3D
Ted Ed Plus
Vid»GE«jlo
Wipe Master
WordPerfect A 2
workbench 1 .3
XCopy
Desktop Video
DiLibate .......
DTP
DTP
DTP
Diaw.^S ran hies
LJlility
Gwk Top Video
Ca^Grapnics ...
INMy.,.
Video Animator
Cad Etad/Tpchnit
Pnjf. Drum Track .
Pray. Language ..
Spelling Checker
Gum Butler
Copy Program
home Finances „
Cid E*tfT«hnle
Communications
Wardprocefesor ..
Prog Language
Desktop Vital ...
Prog unguags
Disk Turin
Prog.La rgijige .
Ueimerge — .,
DTP Camip
Super Herooi.
Funny F«g ik« ,. U1J .
Science Ficlflr.
Prod Language .
Foxrt £d*or
Tejd/'Sf reid'D&Jse
Video Digtrlzer
DfawiTjiaphiOS
MuEC
3 D Video Animation
Desktop Vidw
Desktop Video ..^._
Wordpfqcefieor
1.3 + Manual
MS I Copy Program
CLUB 68000 INTRODUCTORY OFFER
Fill out this coupon and return it to CLUB 6B000 Ltd, Your only commitment is to pay £10.00 for one year's membership
of CLUB 68000. Mail this coupon to CLUB 68000 Ltd., Suite 1, Wickham House, 2 Upper Teddington Road,
Hampton Wick, Kingston on Thames, Surrey KTI 4DP
Name ..
Address -
Please send me
Type of comptitcr
. i Qtcqiifi enclosed
0 Visa/Acceas/Masler. No.
U Postal Onicr
SaftwuB free «f poet A |»£ki(ifia »ii!i in the UK. EEC £1, Ni
tlvdwini Qmitei Krvitt £6
Membership
Fosicodc
Teltphoiic No.
Dale ..
Sigriaiurc,
Victory Road
Vigplante
,.,...15.95
B.99
VWtitw
Vovaocr
...12 99
.. .. 15.95
Wm Ls Matts .......
15.95
Who Fiamfid Fto^r FLabbtt ...
Willow
War In the MWdle Einn
2a k McKraken
........ 19.95
minute
tS .*5
... ... 15-95
Zany QqH ,
15ft
Spelling Checker ....
.. 6 .B 5
Harddiax Ulhrty
3 A.B 5
MusiO'Midi . ......
.. 59.95
Database
.............. 5 B.S 5
DalabasE
.... 69.95
Database
170.95
3 D Amnwlrop
....... 12.95
5 arnp*/MLfli
4 B .95
Kirfflitk Utility .....
3495
3 D Animation
#T- 1 W
Lhility
34.95
FoTgotlerv World
15.05
Ft 6 Combat Fighter
15.95
Guns hip
IS 05
Games Wlntet Edilkifi ......
15,95
Game* Summer Edition
15.95
Gauntlet II
15.95
Gaidregoifi Domain
1 J. 9 S
Haw keys
12.91
HerME □! lbs Lance
15.95
HoH»ge* .
15,95
Hybrls
15.95
tnteFDeplor
15.15
t nter rat iDnal Kerale
15.95
Mn ol Arc
.. . . 12.95
Krlstal
,. 19.95
King* Quttl IV
19.95
Kenney Approach
15.95
L.E.G Storm
15.95
Lombard RAC Hilly
15-95
Leisurt Suite Larry II
19.95
Lael Nin[a II
15.95
LxsfdVdUhe Rising Sun , .
19 95
Manhumer
1 5.95
Pete James (left) and a bespectacled Antony Tagiiom have been
burning the candle at hath ends to complete Bloodwych
W ITHIN the beautiful
Land of Bloodwych,
somewhere north of
Imageworks, lies a large,
rambling castle with a lab-
yrinth of dangerous tunnels.
Dangerous because it con-
tains strange beings, some
friendly, some extremely
hostile,
As is usual in these places,
there are magic crystals -
four in this instance. Two
can be used to banish evil
from the land, the other two
will ensure it reigns forever.
You control the destiny of
the land, although this is not
a burden you have to shoul-
der alone,
Bloodwych is best played
by two people who roam the
3D tunnels independently,
either teaming up with a
common aim or as adver-
saries. The human players
are helped by a party of
computer- genera ted charac-
ters, a bit like Dungeon
Master but with more shoot-
ing and less messing. As you
can see from the screenshot,
Bloodwych is a real ‘doozy
in the graphics stakes.
The project sees the
signing of Antony Taglione
and Pete James to the
I mage works label, which is
rapidly becoming the pres-
tige 16 bit label,
Antony and Pete formed
Starlight Software, famed for
Red LED and other chart-
topping R hit games, hut for
their 16 bit debut they
wheeled out something
really special and so looked
to Mirrorsoft to ensure the
success that the game
deserves.
Back in the dungeon
Populous
tla": trank Aria
m.%
Adhlskw
am
Fraon
MimrrSflft
£29.95
Util
Addictive
£2999
Lombard RAC My
MnMn
m.%
SufHT Hajtg On
Arfftnan
mm
Sworf of Sudan
taitfbr
£2499
Operation Wolf
[town
ms &
Screen 7 steels itself for action
Steiger, Ju'f and run action for shnof'em-llp freaks
D EATH or glory shoot-
'em -ups are popular
all year round, the long hot
days this time of year doing
little to stem the game-
player's thirst for blood.
Screen 7's vegetable in the
pot this summer is Steigar,
which, it says here, is "kind
of arcade quality’*.
Steigar, the hero of the
game, is an ex-mcrcenary
Ramboesquc character who
has been trained by the US
Navy as a hit-and-run heli-
copter pilot, Only the senior
command know that he is no
ordinary recruit.
It may be a terrorist
training camp that needs
wiping out, or it may be a
military dictatorship that
needs persuading otherwise.
When the odds seem impos-
sible. Steigar is let loose,
dealing death and de-
struction.
Screen 7’s follow-up to
Steigar will be High Steel,
for which a head for heights
looks to be a must. There you
are balancing precariously
on a narrow steel girder
trying to build a skyscraper
when all these spitters,
crawlers and mctal-
munching gremlins start
chasing you.
The sixth floor is
complete. The huge crane
delivers the next girder as a
brick smashes into your hard
hat. Things might not be so
bad if you could just find
your sandwiches ...
Steigar is out now at
£19.99, High Steel very soon
at the same price.
12
All the latest news on
the games software scene
s
f
1
p
f
r
The Sales Curve goes wa Ikies
unduly worried by the
ultimatum. “Wd were just
about to recruit two new pro-
gramming teams”, flan
smiles, "which would have
meant leasing a much larger
suite anyway”.
The Random Access team
is currently six strong,
Ronald Pieket Weeserik
(centre, yellow shirt] is the
Amiga expert. He has just
finished programming
Silkworm for Virgin Games
and is now immersing
himself in Ninja Warriors. In
his spare time Ronald likes
to mess with music and has
written a six channel player
for the Amiga.
The score for the first level
of Ninja Warriors has
already been transcribed
from the arcade machine.
Ronald put his player into
action and the Sales Curve
office came to a standstill
while he treated us to a four-
and-a-half minute aural
massage.
Even project manager
Simon Pick (hack mw, left),
whose job it Is to crack
whips (walnut) and make the
tea, stops work and freaks
out when Ronald struts his
stuff.
Technical boffin Matthew
Spall (centre row, left) has
built a special cabinet which
lets the three screen coin-op
game run on three Philips
monitors. Graphics artist
Ned Langman (back row,
middle) has ported and
shrunk all the graphics and
is in the early stages of
touching them up for the
Amiga.
With programming oneup*
tnanship rife, especially
between Ronald, ST wizard
John Croudy (back row,
right] and 16 bit all-rounder
Alan Jardine (centre row,
right), everything looks set
for a big Christmas release.
Left out of the 16 bit action
but still in the Ninja Warriors
picture (front row, right] is
C64 programmer Warren
Mills.
REVIEWED
THIS MONTH
Percentage scores attained
by each game.
96 Silkworm
94 Archipelagos
93 Ream
13 Live and Let Die
58 Biittlehawks 1942
88 Goldruimer II
67 Freedom
83 Bio Challenge
81 Steve Davis World
Snooker
75 Hollywood Poker Pro
73 Raider
71 Tank Attack
57 Artura
64 Fright Night
64 Grand Monster Slam
63 Last Duel
63 Mayday Squad
62 Advanced Ski Simulator
62 Jug
52 Airball
19 Pac-Land
33 Realm of the Trolls
34 The Real Ghost busters
MAX HACKS
i Backlash
I Chuckle Egg H
I Cosmic Pirate
l Dark Castle
I Falcon
I Gauntlet II
) Gold runner
) Joan of Arc
| Lombard RAC Rally
| Pac-Land
I Revenge of Doh
The Sales Curve and Random Access
B ehind the quiei
facade of a South
London office complex inter-
nal wranglings are stirring
up a nest of aliens. The bone
of contention is a dog called
Ben, friend and full lime
companion to Jane Cavan-
agh, boss of international
software sales and marketing
i company. The Sales Curve,
SNOOKER games seem to
be popular, with Firebird's
3D Pool imminent from Nic
"Orlando” Pelling and a
new game due out for
Christmas from Archer
”!K + ” Mclean which
shows several views at
once as opposed to Nig’s
player’s-eye view.
You’ll also he able
to experience some of
Archer’s handiwork in the
help he has given to his
mate Ed Hickman with the
Amiga conversion of
Micrnslyle's RVF Honda
motorbike racing game.
Jane rescued Ben a short
time ago from a dogs’ home
and since then he has hardly
left her side. But the
workforce, which includes
all members of top develop-
ment house Random Access,
has been told either the dog
goes or they will have to find
other premises.
“It's criminal," says devel-
opment manager Dan
Marchant, seen here posing
behind Ben, "He's such a
quiet dog. He just lies
around on the office floor all
day. He doesn’t even get in
our way, let alone anybody
else in the building. We've
only ever heard him bark
once".
The Sales Curve and
Random Access are not
July 1969 AMIGA COMFU71NG 13
I ENERAL Montgomery standi
aside. What with digitised
noises and animated tanks, they'll he
sending me a draft card next It's a
board game. No it's not, iE's a com-
puter simulation. Well, if 5 a bit of
both really.
The box contains a board - handy
to keep track of the game - a disc. 48
playing pieces, a manual and a key
sheet. Four superpowers are at war;
two, three or four players can run a
tank corps each and do the predic-
table ivargaming take-the-enemy-HQ
thing.
Alliances made, it's to war. Infor-
mation is found in an onscreen news-
paper, the War News, which appears
before a move and reports the days
fighting. Weather forecasts are to be
found here, Eon.
There are two kinds of armoured
car and three types of tanks, giving a
firepower variance of phutt to boom,
This is what htcj* fighting for. This is it boys, this is war
REPAIR f r ,
UNITS I "r
5 ’SI
REBUILD I
DEROT I
W^lJ
/■•I t/,< . . 1; 1 (-:r,
^
j ■
TANK ATTAC
Clank clank clank wheeeee bang
which Adds to the realism of a
sometimes confusing game. Jumping
from screen to board and back is
annoying - a screen which showed
(he map would have been nice.
Anyway, on to the reason we're all
herei The payoff. There is no point in
playing any military simulation if
there isn't a kilt at the end. The kill in
Tank Attack is the gratification that
your strategy and planning has
worked. In a refreshing change from
'“Take the pieces off the board" or
“You have been defeated", Tank
Attack rails up its sleeves and puts
you right in there.
The central window of the display
becomes a pair of binoculars, and
you can view the action as it takes
place. A tank rumbles into view and
fires a salvo at an enemy lank. It's
here that the Amiga does some work.
The range, conditions and type of
tank or armoured car are worked out,
along with the trajectory and the
probability of a miss, hit or wipe out.
The ominous rumble and clank of
the tank and the explosion as the
shell bursts are generations on from
the pathetic pops and bangs
wargamers on other computers are
used to. With the Amiga connected to
Better then shelling pens
the hi-fi and the volume turned up a
twidge, my next door neighbour and
her cat surrendered.
The screen has info about which
country is playing plus the status of
its units and battlefield data. It is pos-
sible to repair damaged vehicles and
even rebuild destroyed ones.
The centra! section of the screen
alternates between the bins for
watching tanks shoot it out and a
teleprinter which tells you how much
Sound
Graphics
Game play
Value
Overall — B7%
O NCE again French pro-
grammers have come up with
something original, a game set in a
flourishing slave colony in the Ifllh
century - a plot which belies the
Inlay card picture of a negro breaking
his chains while wearing a very 28th
century pair of jeans. Revolt is in the
air, and you are revolting So are the
jeans, but that's another kettle of
chromosomes ...
Before you get started there is a
blast from the past to deal with - a
colour chart, one of the oldest and
most effective anti-piracy devices for
unprotected discs (a la jSW, circa
1983),
You use the mouse to select the
colours of two given squares from
3,684 possibilities. Make a mistake
and the computer re-boots. The
colours are displayed on screen in
words, so there are no problems for
those editors of Amiga magazines
who happen to he colour blind.
There are three levels of difficulty.
You can be defiant, rebellious or
fanatical, with varying degrees of
skill at look-cracking, fire-starling
and thing -climbing. You can even
make the game easier by weakening
your opponents - two masters, three
managers, three stewards, three fore-
men. a Catholic priest, a Jesuit priest
and an animal doctor.
Once the opposition is suitably
fixed, you spend your time rushing
around talking to the four slave lead-
ers. persuading ail 204 slaves to join
Drumming up support
the revolt, getting rid of guard dogs,
bending the ears of the witchdoctor
and the medicine man. foiling the
priests 1 plans to stop you, starting
fires, breaking into buildings, finally
reaching the road to freedom by kill-
ing one of the masters or burning
down buildings and crops,
ff the local militia is aroused, either
The sla ves are revolting
14 AMIGA COMPUTING July 1989
sng
~
[f r< ‘ T? BtJ
|l <4Bt jF JH33i
f
Mt f " / /
Jr,-.
ytm j k
ip a
and
ich
i of
05-
md
sn
far
I a
icfc
damage or destruction was wreaked.
The lower part of the screen is the
command panel, with highly original
and conversely cute animated icons
For unit movement, attacking the
enemy HQ and battlefield opt ion s.
Cliding an icon of your leader
passes control of the game on to the
next player.
After the War News at (he start of a
more you give orders for movement,
after which you can fire on any unils
which are close enough. If you attack
the enemy HQ, it goes up with a very
satisfying bang.
Because the computer lakes nu part
in the actual game, acting rather as a
surrogate ga me hoard and calculator,
some of Lhe decisions must be made
verbally by each of the two to four
human players. For instance, you
must announce which of your units
will fire before progressing into
battle.
The pass-on icon of your leader is
always active, which means that if for
strategic reasons you want to force
another player to move, you can skip
your turn. Nice.
All in all. Tank Attack is a fairly
standard strategy wargamc with a
few nice touches. The digitised
sound, the animation and the
animated icons set it aside.
Keith G. Pom fret
by your tasks not being completed or
the plantation bell being rung, the
revolt fails.
You normally see a large scale plan
view of the compound. Pressing the
mouse button magnifies the area you
are in and allows you to crack locks,
start fires, persuade slaves and so on.
The Pathfinder option pinpoints
enemies nearby and allows you to
pick fights with them. You can
review vour achievements or seek
advice from a nearby sorcerer, Jf you
are very, very lucky a mermaid will
appear and make time slow down.
Fighting is standard beat- em-up
fare as seen many times before,
although it is well dona with good
animation, including moving
backgrounds and foregrounds.
Control is a little bit awkward if
you're using a joystick - you need
one hand on the stick and another to
press the six keys which control the
various thrusts and parries. One
unusual variation is a fight against
four guard dogs.
The garish graphics are superb.
Sound is excellent, with some realis-
tic effects, especially dogs barking
and a suitably African percussion
passage whenever a new section is
loaded From disc, Boum-dada boom-
dada boom-dada ...
A last air Scott
AIRBALL
Pump up the volume
A couple of knights on the tiles
I N this original twist to an ancient
type of game you start life as a flat
balloon on a bicycle pump which
slowly blows you up. By guessing
wildly you jump off before you
explode, hopefully filled with as
much air as possible, and then make
your way around the Old Castle to
find various bit and pieces.
Once you've found them you make
your way back to the pump and
follow the instructions of the wizard.
1 keep deflating or exploding before I
find the first object, so 1 am doomed
tn wander the castle and write
reviews forever.
Seriously, it's good to see ye olde
isnmeiricke view back, even if many
joysticks are not loo keen on diagonal
movement.
Some of the collision detection in
Airball is rather approximate -
walking into the wall next to a door
will miraculously transport you
through it, and you pick up gold bars
and diamonds well before reaching
them, even through obstacles, You
are supposed to press the spacebar to
pick something up, but looking at the
object in question will suffice.
The stationary and impeccably
collision-detected baddies are
numerous - metal spikes, sharp bits,
spiky balls, pointing fingers on
stands, staircases which you keep
falling off,,. There are no cute little
mechanical soldiers, no spiky balls
which drop from the ceiling, no
falling portcullises, but the similarity
to Knight Lore is remarkable.
First impressions are good: A
demonstration showing the wicked
witch turning you into a balloon, a
colourful loading screen, a good
attract mode screen which allows
you to switch between keyboard and
joystick control - keys are much
easier - and a high score table with
giant gothic lettering.
There is excellent music which
plays throughout, which can be
turned up or down using the cursor
keys. Sound effects are almost non-
existent. An option allows you to
move the whole screen up and down
with the numeric keypad, and stops
you taking the back off the television
to find the Vertical Hold control.
ft’s a rare old game. The graphics
are large and colourful and sta-
tionary. Movement and swapping
between screens is smooth and
quick. There is a certain novelty
value in the bursting balloon, hut it
soon wears off. Airba]l quickly van-
ished into the murky depths of my
disc box,
Aiastair Scott
. [irtwil
rnuts
Mu mh#l
S-ound
Graphics
Gam ep lav
Overall - 52%
Sail up, mil up. Oh you can't
July 1969 AMIGA COMPUTING 15
Awgsoiim;, totally iivvesome
NE of the first things that sold
the Amiga was its capability for
really deep, involved games. You
know the sort of thing - being stuck
on level lfl alter six weeks play and
not an earthly clue as how lo get the
Lost Amulet of Gronk. Very few
people realised that an Amiga could
play a darn good game of Scramble,
too.
To call Silkworm a version of
Scramble is like calling an Amiga a
QL True, they have a few things in
common, but one is the logical exten-
sion of the other,
Where Scramble had a weedy pea-
shooter and a supply of party-popper
bombs, Silkworm has got a vastly
over I he lop mini-missile system
coupled with an. equally outrageous
bombing method. We're not la Iking a
few wee pops and crackles here, it's
all-out annihilation lime.
Because Silkworm is an arcade
conversion - a Sales Curve produc-
tion programmed by Random Access
for Virgin Maslcrtronic, incidental ly
- there isn't much Df a plol, and what
little there is is completely unnecess-
ary, An aggressor - who shall remain
nameless, but whose craft look not
dissimilar to MiGs and the like - has
decided that il is time to get
aggressive,
The allied forces are caughl rather
on the hop, all they could muster was
one helicopter and one jeep. These
aren't standard issue craft, hut highly
manoeuvrable experimental ones
with firepower equal to several de-
stroyers put together.
The helicopter is fast and agile;
there must be some use for the jeep,
bul darned if 1 can find it. It's prob-
ably the one for experts who can get
the hang of its aiming system.
Basically, Silkworm is a scroll
from right to left job. That's where
the Scramble similarity comes in.
Waves of murderous aircraft (ly at
you in formation and the idea is to
mow them down before they perform
the cul-the-grass (coup rfe grace? Ed}
on you.
You. have a rapid fire capability,
which is certainly adequate, but with
the addition of a good auto fire slick it
becomes very adequate indeed.
Various things shoot SAMs at you.
These need some nifty manoeuvres lo
avoid. Some swine even have the
audacity to lob fragmentation bombs,
which can cause a lot of damage lo
the enemy if shot at the right time,
and even more damage to you if not
shot at all.
A counter keeps track Df how many
things you've done away with. When
■hat reaches zero a large "Goose"
helicopter forms which will give a
tasty bonus if shot. This usually takes
Lhe form of a double ft re rale which
goes from the merely blistering to the
quite frankly ridiculous.
As you pick up more things, you
HE Golden Tribe of bacula have
JL overrun lhe twin planet Mu and
taken captive Uie beautiful Princess
Sheelazzzzzzzz... Just who is the frus-
trated sd-fi fantasy writer who thinks
up this crap? I could do belter myself,
(n fact I think I wilt.
The 40ft high Flavians of Flatu-
lence have kidnapped the sister of the
High Lord Tehbo of the planet |ob-
creationscheme. Only you can save
the universe by getting on your hike
and destroying everything in sight.
This will convince the Flavians
that you are indeed a force lo he reck-
oned with, and they will apologise,
return your sister and probably offer
to repaint your house as well.
No matter how it is described, the
plot boils down to the "switch off
your brain and shoot" variety , with
the currently in vogue optional extra
weapons. Two players can play
together, one driving a car, the other
flying a hoverplane. When only one
T?ie things !dti for a princess
person is playing, he or she alternates
between the car and plane on differ-
ent levels.
You travel up a series of roads,
through jungles and across deserts
towards something the resident
aliens take offence at you seeing.
Since flying around the locals is not
offered as an option, your only
recourse of action is to explain mat-
ters to them with a subtle blend of
diplomacy and deadly bombs.
As it al way's does, the dual player
option adds lo the enjoyment of the
game. However in Last Duel Ibis is
only achieved by having two separ-
ate games being played on the same
screen at once with little cooperation
or competition. Later on both players
fly almost identical ships with the
inevitable "Aarghf Which one is
me?!" problems.
At the end of every level there is
the customary larger than the average
alien creature to kill, This can take
the form of several barely-animated
segmented aliens or a nasty creepy-
crawly, Killing them is a positive
pleasure.
Once these have been dispatched
you ere treated to a well draw r n
scantily-clad young woman chained
lo a wall, crying "Save me!" ft looks
nice. Ahem. But it’s very, very tacky.
The graphics are reasonably good.
—
Ifi AMIGA COMPUTING July 1969
Silk iifj-r m
£mmt
Siflrs f.i/rvi! Virgin
Overall —
progress in rank to the
Air Marshal, or simitar. Thu must
handy, and certainly the most
cumin on acquisition, is the shield.
This appears when a landmine is
shot, and it gives 1 0 seconds of invul-
nerability. If you try to pick up a
second shield, ur shoot one often
enough, there is the largest, loudest
and brightest smart bomb effect ever
seen. The same effect happens when
the end of level biggy disappears.
The sound in Silkworm is not
merely heard, it is experienced.
There's an ever-so-slightly nice
parallax scroll and (he backgrounds
are really beautiful, despite the fact
that they take very few seconds to
load with Random Access's fast
loader routine.
Another Ihing which is really
impressive is that occasionally tiny
squadrons of helicopters fly past in
the distance or aircraft carriers
Making Sight work of heavy metal
launch fighters in the background.
These are totally harmless and occur
even when the screen is full of sprites
and bobs.
Sprites arc used to their limit - just
when you think there arc more than
are possible on the screen another 26
or so appear, all bent on causing you
harm.
There are more than enough levels
| l3-ish, if my memory' serves) and the
programmers have added bits that
weren’t present in the arcade
original, including an end sequence.
And where else would you find a
Thundcrbirds Mole appearing in the
middle of a battle?
Although the start is easy, things
soon gut so hot that 1 started seeing
things moving behind my eyes. It
was either the game or the half pint of
Old Java coffee interacting with the
adrenalin. Hither way. Silkworm is a
refreshing, very pretty blaster. It's got
to be in vour collection. Buy it,
Stewart C. Russell
Pahi He's mil going to slop me
if a little slow. The car looks like a
Sumo wrestler with a bun on his
head, hut otherwise everything is
unremarkable, with the possible
exception of the organic -looking
aliens an later levels.
With vertical scrolling routines
lifted directly from LEO Storm, this
game seems to have been knocked up
pretty quickly. The gamepiay is
workmanlike, if not entirely exciting,
There arc a couple of annoying bugs
and thoughtless omissions, such as
your spaceship not actually
exploding when hit by enemy fire,
just reappearing moments later at a
different place on the screen.
At the end of the day we have noth-
ing new: Fight your way up the
fortified landscape, shoot all and
sundry. The different levels certainly
bring variety'. Staying interested long
enough to see them is another matter.
John Kennedy
fie there soon.,.
/..rtf Ihu'l
£14. W
i.iljN Off J
Sound
Graphics
Ga me pi lay
Value
Overall — (iH%
July 1939 AMIGA COMPUTING 17
•W+' i ■ 1 • 1 <« ■■■
- ■ r> ■
■ < ,M..II > ■ ■
IHHHHlJ ■ i»-» *-fM P H •*
r
m -V
Can you tell me the way to Silkworm, phase
g N ordinary circumstances - if you
J .have an extremely fas! powerboat
with a front- mounted 20mm cannon
and surface-to-surface missile
launcher, what you say is auto-
matically fine by everyone else. So
how come James Bond 007 - secret
-•
Gome in 007 . your frme is up
*3*
■k
more
,1 freed/
agent, good egg and only convinc-
ingly played by Sean Connery - has
got problems'?
People are actually strafing this
guy from Cessnas without even a by-
your-ieavE. Tsch, the international
criminals today, no respect for tra-
dition.
Dr Kananga - politician, villain
and bad egg numero unn - has
decided that large amounts of free
heroin would do large amounts of
good for his voodoo-ridden island of
San Monique and inordinately huge
amounts of bad to the ole US of A.
By growing opium poppies under
camouflage netting, the bad doctor
plans to export the resin to his hidden
processing plants. These are slightly
inaccessible, being at the North Pole,
the Sahara Desert and the Florida
swamplands,
All arc open to attack only via
same kind of boat, so it's here that the
powerbe a l-cum- warship comes in
handy. Quite how much navigable
passage there is in the Sahara I'm not
exactly sure, but there can't be much
Mr Pedant strikes back.
There axe the three full-scale mis-
sions, plus one target and steering
practice run. Each has a separate
high score table, so the easier runs
aren't a passport to high score domi-
nation.
The waterways aren’t vour Norfolk
Broads, they arc littered with logs,
lethal rocks and nasty' mines which
go pop (times several thousand) at
inopportune moments.
The boat is fairly tough, so logs
only cause it to leap wildly. This has
a use - apart from giving you a
legitimate reason for shouting
Aciecd! - in that the nasty Cessnas
can be shot out of the sky. Things get
nasty when you meet tunnels or
embankments which must be aimed
through or slid round. Some of these
tunnels have locked doors in them,
but they don't a Her you loose a mis-
sile at them.
As the only way of ending the
game is running out of motion-lotion,
someone helpfully leaves fuel barrels
kicking about. The nasty boats drop
explosive barrels, which make a
slight dent in the old paintwork. All
can be overtaken, as long as they
don’t ram you first.
Every thing moves very quickly, so
a sharp Eye and nimble fingers are
needed. Only when you’ve
hammered through enough hell-and-
high-water do you get a crack at Dr
Kananga’s dope emporium.
The chances of actually getting that
far are pretty slim, far slimmer than
the ubiquitous Bond girl who is
probably draped by the side of the
able agent. But the courses aren't
random, so you’ll learn what to avoid
- eventually.
The display is a neatly centred 2fJU
line affair, with some of the fastest
racing perspective this side of the
dedicated 3D chippery in arcade
machines. The tune is very pleasant -
it doesn't play during the game - but
some of the sound effects occa-
sionally come out wrongly.
Granted, the gameplay may have
all the depth of Spy Hunter, but the
sheer speed and beauty of it is
something else.
Buy this and once you realise what
to do you'll be the owner of one of the
slickest, fastest, prettiest, although
not tremendously educational, pure
Amiga arcade masterpieces around.
.Stewart C. Russell
v
f ivi? and Let Dii 1
£19M
Elite Dotmrk
Sound
Graphics |
Gameplay
Value
FAST
redraw
Comp
PRAC
anLhit
oven]
ACC
mittlo
coh
Iropo
to pll
print
HOI
xct
Overall — 93%
Jfl AMIGA COMPUTING futy 1989
Siijt % ■ . ■ . ' , ■ il . ivJh
Available from your local dealer or telephone ..
CADVISION
Hazlitt Mews, Hailitt Road. London W I4 OJZ
Telephone: 01-603 3313
RUNS ON ANY IMb
AMIGA
FAST - 6 times, faster on zoom and
redraw than AutoCad running on a
Compaq 186.
PRACTICAL - Ideal for design in
architecture, electronics, mechanics
or engineering.
ACCURATE - Precise to I
millionth of a millimetre.
COMPATIBLE -AutoCad DXF
Import/Export module option. Print
to plotters, laser or dotmatrix
printers.
MODULAR - Easy upgrade to
XCAD Professional,
PRICE £99.00 EXC.VAT
Never before has the Amiga been so
well complemented, Never before
has the Designer been given so much
power, speed and flexibility at such an
affordable price.
XCAD Designer harnesses the
incredible power of the Amiga to
deliver a draughting tool to beat all
others. Processing times are cut to a
fraction of most PC- based systems.
Plans, designs and blueprints can easily
be produced using simple, flexible
menus or commands, And at only
£ 99 , XCAD Designer brings true
design professionalism within your
}1CAD
The Designer’s Dream
L ONG, long ago, in a place where
a cloudy planet always hung
above the north, (he ancients played
with thought worlds. Together the
power of the Lr minds created a hun-
dred planets, each an archipelago,
where Ihey met, relaxed and drank
tea.
Their thoughts were so strong that
the places became real. When they
slept, they found the morphogenic
patterns of their thoughts remained
to generate, almost randomly,
thousands more worlds.
Then the ancients turned their
minds to another place. They con-
templated the cloudy planet in (he
north and imagined seas, then
inhabitants, and finally whole civilis-
ations. In time this place also became
real - so real that one day visitors
came from it,
The visitors liked Archipelagos,
They had found 10,000 paradises.
Pretty soon they staked their claim on
every archipelago by placing an
obelisk of immutable granite, each a
sentinel of their power. The ancients
tried to de-imagine their visitors, but
ARCHIPELAGO
Four levels a penny
it was too late - the obelisks were in.
place.
The very idea of de-imagination
made the visitors mad. They decided
the ancients would have to go,
Early one morning, as the mul-
ticoloured birds sang Aeolian har-
monies in the trees of Archipelagos,
the visitors made their East call, They
tracked down the ancients and
drained their blood into the soil.
Their bodies were turned to stone
where they slept. If they awoke, their
waking forms were mutated into the
unspeakable. Their souls were cast
into torment. Evert the tea supplies
were confiscated.
And all the life in Archipelagos
was left perverted. Where clumps of
gladioli once bloomed, eggs now
awaited (he elemental spark of
thunder - erm. shouldn't that be
lightning, Herbie? - to spread poison.
Where birds once sang, necroman-
cers now inexorably ate the very
fabric of Archipelagos. The visitors
have long since gone, but their work
remains. L'ntil now ...
This is where you come in.
floating, as if disembudied, a metre
above the ground. You're here to de-
stroy the obelisk in each archipelago.
Remember, the obelisk gets its
power from the stones, the petrified
remains of the ancients, so to destroy
it you first have to crumble the stones
and absorb their energy. This you do
by placing a crosshair cursor on to
the same square of land as the stone
and pressing the action button.
In each archipelago there are a
number of stones to crumble. Home
are on islands separated from the
obelisk by a calm sea. Before you can
.4 disunited Europe will have, you Russian to pvt il together again
absorb their energy you must join
them by a continuous but not necess-
arily straight path to the obelisk.
Sometimes it's just a matter of three
or four wedges of turf, other limes
you will need to build vast land
bridges from island to island.
Once all the stones in an archipel-
ago are crumbled you have £KI
seconds to return to the obelisk and
destroy it. If you don't get it, it will
get you.
Despite what you may have read
elsewhere about Archipelagos, you
ca
w
9 .
ar
ai
h
n
it
ii
a
t!
4
i
■
Looking north
Pause the game and let's gi i for a paddle
20 AMIGA COMPUTING July 1930
■REVIEWS!
t join
ecess-
fiJrsii.
three
limes
land
lipel-
! 90
and
wj]j
cannot choose which level to start on
- you start on level one and must
work your way through to level
0,0011. There is no save game option
and you only have one life, Sounds
an impossible task, and it is. Let's
hope Logotron leaks a cheat mode
real early.
Various bits and pieces are out to
hinder your progress. As mentioned
in the story, ancients who have
awoken from their sleep drift about
the islands in the form of marvell-
ously animated, tost souls. A won-
derful sound effect, something akin
to a depressed wasp, accompanies
their travels. Let one of these stumble
into you and you'll get to meet
Marvin Gave, And you can't get more
lost soul than that.
Necromancers rise from the
ground and wander along the shore
of islands, devouring the land. When
the sky grows dark and there is a
mighty dap of thunder and a flash of
lightning, a Blood Egg is ready to
hatch. These peeling, spinning beau-
ties either spread poison like arboreal
trees or eat land like necromancers.
You can use the power you suck
from the stones to build or disinfect
Land. Arboreal tree pods, if nipped in
the bud. also build up your power.
You're going to need it.
Every fifth archipelago in the first
100 is bitmapped. There are some
great maps there - Europe, the
Americas, the Logotron turtle. I
won't spoil your fun by listing them.
All the rest are computer generated,
but the deeper you get into the game,
the bigger and more complicated
each archipelago gets, and the longer
it takes to calculate.
Quick. Smooth, Colourful anim-
ation apart, the graphics Logotron
has added especially for this Amiga
vers ion give it that touch of class veu
don't see on the, erm. other thing: A
day and night cycle, lightning
striking when thunder claps, bark on
the arboreal trees and a correctly
shaded horizon, giving it that realis-
tic hazy look of the seaside.
The music and sound effects, some
of which are unique to the Amiga,
are by David Whittaker. Need 1 say
more? Course not.
Rut with the lack of a save option.
Archipelagos falls down ever so
slightly on the gameplay stakes.
Nobody in their right mind is going
to play this one from beginning to
end.
After two weeks of regularly dying
on level 35 - and it'll take a couple of
hours to get that far - you could be
forgiven if you were sick to death of
Lhc First 34. Bet it won't stop you
having another go though.
Jeff Walker
Anyune for plasma holts?
H OWs this for discrimination? f
fust because you happen to be
made of titanium and everyone else
happens to be soft and slightly
squishy, you gel all the dangerous
jobs. And not merely that, since you
happen to he slightly portly, those
olfworld zeebs nicknamed you jug.
Sweet, no?
The planet Spiraeus has got a real
problem - it's one of those rare living
planets end the inside is being de-
stroyed by a strange virus. This is out
good, so you have to kill off the infec-
ted hits.
Like must living things, Spiraeus
has a complex immune system. Since
il hasn't met any titanium
humanoids, il reckons you shouldn't
be there. Hoards of antibody drones
and fighters are after ynu and you've
got nothing more than a weedy laser
cannon to fend them off. Being a
rather clever titanium humanoid you
can pilfer bits of spare machinery
and adapt them to your own needs.
Anyone for plasma bolts and smart
bombs?
The four zones in each of four
sectors scroll as you craw] or fly
about. Crawling does not need any
Even the s r.enen' is ugh
fuel, but is sluw and can only he used
over level terrain. Flying i$ very fast
but eats up the fuel at quite a rate.
Some areas of the planet are mildly
radioactive; they won t do you any
harm, but they are a little sure on the
fuel. At least you can refuel when
you find a none- ton- frequent fuel
dump.
The background graphics are
smart, although they are what we
should expect for this type of game.
Farts of each level are decorated dif-
ferently; as you near the core, the
metallic gives way to the organic and
the denizens become more like living
creatures.
The tune is suitably heroic and
well executed, hut like most com-
puter tunes il lacks direction and is
utterly forgettable. The sound effects
are almost totally masked by the
tune. The program allows the player
to mix the volume levels for each one
to gel the desired effects,
If a certain game called Cyhernoid
hadn't been written ! am pretty sure
we wouldn't have ever seen Jug
because it would have had nothing to
'"inspire" it, Technically, everything
seems OK - sprites bounce about and
explode on cue - it's just that the pace
hasn't been judged correctly. On skill
level one it's too slow, on two and
three it's loo sharp. Everything seems
tired. |ug needs a thorough relube.
Stewart C. Russell
fug
£19.95
Microdeai
July 1989 AMIGA COMPUTING 2 1
A FTER the Frenchmen hid the
pockets ofColonel Pemberton's
billiards table, Smyth spared no
expense in getting them back, Sher-
lock Holmes was called in and alter
many adventures in far flung lands
the pockets were found on Professor
Moriarty’s mantelpiece,
The good colonel was delighted
"Let's rout these damned foreigners
with an English game. Rule Britan-
nia!”. he cried.
So it came to pass that Stave Davis
World Snooker was written.
Although Colonel Pemberton
thought that snooker and poo! were
base game? played only by drunkards
and dissolulcs, the programmers
thoughtfully included English
billiards just for him. as well as
French billiards, also known as
Billiards Carom, which has three
halls and a pocketless table.
”Fgad! 1 squandered ail my
inheritance on Holmes when f could
have read the instruction book!’*, the
once-powerful voice quailed from
beyond the grave.
Snooker is divided into 10 ball and
15 ball versions, Pool is either
American - 15 numbered balls of dif-
ferent colours, points scored by pot-
ting a nominated ball into a
nominated pocket - or English - pot
eight reds or eight yellows, then the
black to win. English billiards is a
influence of a fluctuating gravit-
ational field, which makes said
spaceship extremely difficult lo con-
trol. You are opposed by three killer
halls which roam around threatening
to destroy your ship with a single
touch, To proceed to the next level
A stick in time
So that's what happened Sp Dlltan Duran
r TV« wjtu.ru u tHUA IU L-UIIJJJIGLC,, 111 Cl I LI LL
exit door opens.
The first three levels involve con-
necting power stations with laser
beams without blocking yourself off
from the exit or blowing yourself up.
You drive to a live (red] power sta-
tion, touch it. whereupon your ship
turns red. drive to a dead power sla
tion and touch that, whereupon Lhe
two stations will be connected by a
beam.
Touching various blocks brings on
differing effects. The Apple block
changes gravity, numbered pieces
add to your score; skulls kill you
stone dead. Then there's the alco-
holic block - an enemy w r hich jumps
around randomly and knocks you
into skulls. There is a tight time limit
of 90 seconds lo each task.
You can choose between two types
of spaceship. One can be brought to a
halt by pressing the Fire button, the
other is for experienced players and
maniacs only; it tends lo run out of
control as it cannot be braked
without a lot of joystick waggling.
That, essentially, is all there is to
the plot. At first the game looks
extremely simple - then the
subtleties slow I y appear and you find
you can't put the joystick down. Its
secret is the mixture of fast action and
strategy. On most levels there are a
few correct ways to complete the task
but plenty of opportunity to go
wrong, even without any nasties to
distract you.
oaphK* umm.
Gameplayj
MU
Overall - 93%
The graphics are stunning. Bright
reds, greens and blues are used to
greal effect, but the real show-
stoppers are the patterned
backgrounds in the style of
Arkanoid. Some are animated.
Seeing foreground graphics, then the
mid ground oscillating behind them
and a static background behind I hat
makes a terrific impression.
Text is displayed in a large, clear
font and the display lilis the whole
screen. Mo corners have been cut -
even the menu screens are w r e[|
presented. You never have to louch
the keyboard, its joystick selection
for everything.
Sound quality lags not far behind.
There is a short, delicate passage
accompanying the loading screen,
then some loud and rhythmic tunes
on the menu and high score screens,
plus wonderful effects during the
game - a screech of brakes as lhe
spacecraft slides to a halt, the dang of
metal on barrier and much more.
Beam is one of the best games l
have played on any computer,
Alastair Scott
22 AMIGA COMPUTING July ! Jit ft
■ REVIEWS!
■
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T HERE was only one problem
when I upgraded to my Amiga: I
couldn't play Thrust any more. It was
the best budget game every written,
using simple game play and even
simpler graphics to great effect.
Raider is as close a copy as is likely
lo be written. The inevitable plot
paints the usual Rebels versus The
Empire slory and you, Greg Simpson,
are the only person left alive/ stupid
enough (delete as applicable) to save
Life, the Universe and Tescos.
With that out of the wav we can gel
down to playing the game. Your ship
appears out of hypers pace above the
surface of a beautifully drawn planet.
Your small arrow-headed ship - and
I mean small - is manoeuvred by
rotating left and right and giving a
small amount of thrust al just (he
right mum ant,
Gravity and gun emplacements,
your two enemies, will do their
upmost to foil your important mis
stun. You can destroy the guns with
laser cannon, hut avoiding the
ground and mountains is a matter of
great skill, great cunning and the
occasional sharp intake of breath.
The mission consists of collecting
pods, which form part of the very
involved and highly dubious plot.
Suffice lo say that collecting them is
what the game is all about, They are
swiped off the surface by havering
above them and switching on your
tractor beam. Mo need to low it
around after you. presumably the
RAIDER
The gravity feels good
advances of 16 bit technology mean
your ship now has a larger bool,
Fuel tanks are scattered around.
They arc also collected by hovering
above them and using the tractor
beam, A further type of fuel is avail-
able to power the torch you will need
when the lights fail on later levels.
Each star system consists of four
heavenly bodies - either planets,
m oons or asteroids - and each is dif-
ferent. not only graphically but in
game play as well. The strength and
direction of the gravity, the atmos-
phere and even the shape of the place
can change dramatically from level to
level
Once you have collected four pods
it's off to the inter-level gap for a bit
of nuclear powerplant engineering. If
you manage to make it this far, you
will be given a password to allow
easier access to the higher levels
when you play again. This is a Good
Thing.
The graphics used to define the
various planets and moons are won-
derfully drawn and smoothly scro-
lled in all directions. Every new land-
scape is a joy lo look at and explore.
Raidvr
£19,95
tmprvssiom
Strand
Graphics
Gamepla rTTTTTT
Value Q]
■
minim
Overall - 73%
The only flaw is the minute ship,
which doesn't rotate in as many steps
as it could.
Sound is either brilliant, if you
have never heard an Amiga before,
or disappointing if you have. The
explosions are fine, but the laser
sound sets your teeth on edge. It must
have taken ages to find just the right
Pet Shop Hoys album to play
backwards al half-speed and sample.
Raiders doesn't have the “less is
more" touch of Thrust, going
completely overboard with fancy
graphics and more levels than is
humanly possible to play. It does
however have the same delicate,
addictive game play.
There are 1(1 star systems to
explore, making a total of 40 levels to
play. Without the password system
this would be impossible, but as it
stands you can get just far enough
with each game to warrant another
go. Some might say this is addiction,
hut I could give it up any time I
wanted.
John Kennedy
;nr\'
m
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1
wonderfully silly game which gives If you want to be thrashed, play the
you big scores for such indiscretions computer on the highest of its six
as potting your opponent's cue ball skill levels. It plays cannons, plants,
and going in-olf, whereas Billiards doubles and other impossible shots
Carom is "hit the balls as hard as as a matter of routine. The lowest
possible and croissant vonr fingers”, ^
Game play is very similar to the It
ski It level is ideal for duffers like
myself, combining dazzling pots
bit versions, except that a cue rather
than a cross-hair cursor is used to
line up your shot. Unfortunately, the
pockets are no longer like buckets, so
nonchalantly notching up gigantic
breaks with your eyes closed is not
on.
After several hours of trying, my
record is nine. The high score table
recognises this - anything above six
and your name is displayed in lights.
with ridiculous misses,
If you are an exhibitionist, trick
shots ran be set up using a very good
table editor, although it doesn't cater
for bottles, jump shots and other
baize rippers.
The graphics arc reasonable The
balls are a little small, but there is a
magnify option which lets you have a
closer look at the area round the
pockets. No, you can't play a shot
Sieve Daria U ttrhi Sntmkrr
a ft. art
while it is on.
Movement is smooth and fast, par-
ticularly with only a few balls on the
table, it's a pity the programmers
didn't play to the gallery with
smoothly animated striped and
spotted pool balls. There is no 3D
option.
For Steve Davis groupies there is
ample opportunity for hero worship:
Three mono digitised pictures called
up by pressing the right mouse
button and a superb HAM loading
picture accompanied by a perfect
rendition of that annoying tune
which comes up on BBC at all hours
of the day during snooker cham-
pionships,
Overall — 81%
Sound during the game is limited
lo the click of ball on ball and the
clunk of ball into pocket, plus SD's
annoying digitised witticisms.
A classic game which still looks
good after five years at the lop. No
frills, just an accurate simulation.
Alastair Scot I
July 1989 AMIGA COMPUTING 23
■ REVIEWS*
{
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■
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Go nuts over bolts through space
Look* like Robocop, sm tads tike (Juries Asna vour
R* T f «
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Anrf A* tfoflsnv H-esr ftw um*vpurf» outs** his trousers
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JJ4 AAiJG/l COMPUTING fuiy jgg S
JnHAPPY with your washing?
If you lake the Bio Challenge,
it'll tome out wilh the extra
halfbiitenuss you like. And we think
you wouldn't go hack to using vour
old powder... Now hold on there. The
French may be many things - most of
them repeatable - but no! even the
most wacked-oul of their number
could produce a game about washing
powder adverts. Not even after an
evening on the calvados.
No, the real subject matter of Bio
Challenge is genes. Not 501 type, the
I3NA type which don't come with a
teaspoon Jul of abrasive grit in each
pocket. It seems Ihc human genetic
system is getting weaker and sooner
or later it’s going to guru with no left
button to click. This is seen as a very
tiny hindrance, the merest setback in
pcoplekind's relentless advance.
In order to counter the loss of
human strength, those omnipresent
technobods have managed In
shoehorn a human brain into a high
strength mechanical body and still
keep things working OK. Being
technical types, and therefore exempt
from most bounds of reason, the
machine is called Klipl,
The Reid test of the first Kljpt takes
place in a fairly typical set of strange
dimensions where there are a
number of planets linked by ■tele-
ports.
In order to escape to the next
dimension Klipts got to colled four
ports of the magic amulet and enough
dead robots to destroy the end-of-
level guardian. Klipt's only weapons
are its ability Id somersault, jump
and spin - guns and other things that
might cause people harm have been
ruled out.
You run on oil, and everything else
in these dimensions is partial to the
odd drop of lube now and again. This
is going to be no picnic, there are
millions of them and only one of you.
Energy platforms fitter each planet,
hovering in space for some unknown
but probably fairly plausible reason.
If Klip! jumps on to one and somer-
saults the correct number of times it
will come crashing to the ground,
hopefully wasting (he nastie that is
lurking beneath.
Ground-based nasties roll about in
a set pattern, sd sharpen the skills
you team I for Manic Miner all those
years ago.
Spinning is mostly used to de-
spatch the weeny Hying monsters
which bu 74 ! about like wasps on an
August afternoon. They're fairly
harmless, hut you do gel points for
I he™, so waste 'em all the same.
Spinning can be combined wilh
jumping, and this can be used lo
bump off platforms sideways, wast-
ing more crawlies on the ground or
One of the rather oast}' bouncing
snakes which lurk on the platforms
Some nasties leave behind a
spinning cauldron which can be
cracked open for bonuses. One gives
you a kind of smart bomb, another
allows you to hurl the litlie flying
things about in the vain hope that
they migh! splatter a robot or two.
Once you have ail your bits and
bobs, rush back to your sphere and
onwards to deal with the guardian,
This one is more famed for its genera I
unpleasantness rather than its typos,
You have very little ammo to spare,
Once destroyed, on to the next, much
harder, level,
Each screen seems to have rather
more colours than is usual even in
EHB mode - about 180 according (o
Palace boss Pete Slone, who isn't
sure - a tribute to !he skills of the
folks at Ddphine Software.
Delphine also has strong finks wilh
the music business and has got
someone who knows a quaver from a
semibreve to do the equally clever
sound. So Bio Challenge is definitely
special in the technical department.
The gamepiay is. erm. different, and
lakes hours of practice jus! to ge|
used to the controls.
If you enjoy really mastering a
game. Bio Challenge is probablv for
you. But for the occasional time and
robot wasting session, there are alter-
natives that won’t cause so much
angst and cursing , Verv good, but
very hard.
Stewart C. Russell
Hsti Chaltei>i;r
£24. m
Delphine
Sound
Graphics
Gamepiay
Value
OvflraJI - a;j%
u\ ■WV
! V <V 9 ■
OCTOBER 4-6, 1989
3
Don’t get left behind - get down
to The London Arena for . . .
Because first
impressions count
E verything you need to know about making a
belter impression — written or visual — is on
display under one roof at the International
Desktop and Professional Publishing Show and its new
partner, Presentations '89, If you’re an expert this is
where you'll find all the latest hardware and software.
If you're just starting out you'll find all the help you
need to make the right purchasing decisions first time
around. And it’s all happening at the exciting new
London Arena in the heart of London's Docklands.
At DTP ’89 you'll finch
* All the major hardware, software and service
suppliers
* The Pira desktop publishing clinic
* Help and advice from DTP user groups
* Daily seminars on the practicalities of desktop
publishing — what to look for and how to decide
what’s best for you
* A two-day professional conference on The Changing
Face of Desktop Publishing
* Gallery display of the best desktop published
materials produced during 1989
At PRESENTATIONS ’89 you’ll find;
* The latest computerised presentation systems and
graphics software
* Audio-visual and data projection hardware
* Slide production and reprographic services
* The full range of everyday presentation tools, from
flip charts to marker pens
* Daily seminars on improving communication skills,
do-it-yourself presentations, and state-of-the-art
techniques
Register now to reserve your FREE copy of the 1990
Desktop Publishing and Presentations Yearbook
(worth £20)
Complete the coupon helow and send it to:
Database Exhibitions
Euro pa House, Adlington Park, Adlington,
Macclesfield SKID 4NP
Tel: 0625 879970 Fax: 0625 879966
Please reserve my copy of the 1990 Desktop Publishing
and Presentations Yearbook and send me:
( >/) r- — v
□ Advance registrations far DTP ’89 L J 1 , .
□ Advance registrations for Presentations 69 L J * *
* PlitnxH! *t0(a number required
□ Information on conference end seminar programmes
□ Entry details for the 1989 Desktop Publishing Awards
Name_ _
Position
Company
Address
Postcode .
TrL
A733
M ysteriously, this game is
billed as an arcade adventure,
which some may claim is bending
the facts a lad. The truth is that it is
just a crazy- psycho held trip with a
little bit of a plot lost in it somewhere.
What's wrong with that? Are the
joystick-happy gamesters of today
ashamed of their annihilistic yearn-
ings? Maybe.
Following on from the Goldrunner
saga, the Space Pirates have hit hack
at the humans hy stealing their
robots. Shame, Anyway, for reasons
of genealogy yon have been chosen
to rescue them from the pirates' evil
clutches.
Makes a change from rescuing
princesses I suppose, but without the
perks.
The robots arc dispersed among a
series of disused yet heavily defen-
ded research platforms. Unfor-
tunately it is not quite as easy as
hyperspacing in and blasting
everyone, The robots are all
boogying around the surface in little
cars.
In true arcade fashion you must
blast I he widgets off these cars to free
the robots.
Can you rescue them then? No,
Due to further complications you
can't land and pick up the poor
blighters, Instead you fritter and
(ktldniniwr If
mJi
\tii n tilt 'nl
Overall - B8%
Some
waste your time in an offhand way
waiting for a pirate recovery ship to
come and pick them up. Then you
blast that as well. Yes, now you can
pick them up.
When you have a few on board,
groove on down to the teleporters -
which the pirates have cunningly left
unguarded and switched on - and
zap your tin buddies home.
Massive bonuses can be accumu-
lated based on the percentage of
robots rescued, and this is the only
way to gel ymir name in lights, A few
points are given for shooting unladen
recovery vessels. This can attract the
attention of some fearsome fighter-
craft, Bui what the hcck, it's fun.
The scrolling is amazing, C£54 vet-
erans are sure to remember the
Hawson classic Uridium, Well, it's
like that only better. The ship move-
menl and general graphics seem to be
influenced by those early Bray brook
gems loo, perhaps because, like
them. it is amazingly high quality
code.
The tutorial is an excellent feature.
If you can't understand the plot,
select this option and occasionally a
few seconds of well- sampled speech
will give you instructions. The voice
sounds like the bloke from Rapidom,
but a hit more informative.
Sound is very well supported, with
Lhe option of a good tune or some
above average sound effects. With
the sampled speech as well, a little
more effort than usual went into the
audio side of things.
And if you ever get bored of the
view there are a couple more scenery
discs available for an extra £5.93
each which are even harder than the
original.
Goldrunner 11 is a good game.
Credit must be given to Microdeal for
paying more attention to quality' than
hype,
Green
umjmvj m
Realm aft hr Trolls Death in th
124M ^ .
0 you remember Manic Miner?
1 bet my floppies that the pro-
grammers of Realm of the Trolls do.
To be fair, it is slightly more graphi-
cal and atmospheric than that, but it
is “one of those sort of games" with a
spot of Apple Panic and Dig Dug
thrown in.
If you are fluent in French, Spanish
or Italian you might be able to read
the instructions, The English version
doesn't make any sense.
From what I could understand -
and I am open to suggestions you
assume the role of an elf whose duly
it is to enter the treacherous troll tun-
nels to steal back all the amazingly
fabulous elven relics which the
avaricious if somewhat tasteless
trolls have purloined from the elves
some time in the past.
The caverns take the form of a
series of halls. There are quite a few
ftainlmu Arts
Overall - 33%
of them - a whole separate data disc
full. In each hall the elf must collect
all the valuable elven treasures - he
may also take some of the art treas-
ures the trolls have collected and
pick up some healing potions before
locating and leaving via the exit pass-
ageway.
To assist in moving around the hall
there are infrequent magic portals
which instantly transport you to the
destination of your choice. In some
W'ftjl 1 jjottf j.v a Guardian Angel
20 AMIGA COMPUTING fa ly I98(i
■ REVIEWS!
HOLLYWOOD POKER PRO
The naked truth
I T seems to me that however much
you moralise about software pom,
however much you point out that
softcore on a computer is a complete
rip-off when compered to the dubi-
ous vatue offered by mens' maga-
zines and videos, software houses
will still produce the stuff, And
someone out there will still buy it.
Hollywood Poker Pro is the sequel
to Hollywood Poker, which isn't
much of a surprise. What is
surprising is that instead of just
another collection of digitised cubes,
(he actual algorithms of the program
have been lightened up to give you a
much suffer game.
All good and well really because,
let’s face it, otherwise you'd be
paying £20 just to see four digitised
girls in their birthday suits. Even the
most rabid smut fiend would have to
concede that that is a total rip off.
As il is. the pictures in the game ere
of an extremely high quality utilising,
as they do. the Amiga's HAM mode.
A really tacky extra is a magnifying
glass which can be used to give a
chunky zoom-in on any area of the
picture your sweaty hands desire.
Both you and the computer start
with S10(I, the standard bet is $5 and
you can bet or raise in increments of
$25 as you attempt to beat one of four
computer opponents and cause it to
buy a successive $100 with articles of
clothing. If you manage to win S -1(1(1
you will have reduced the computer
picture to its bare essentials.
And that’s hasically all you're
getting for your money, except for
numerous slightly different tunes
which are composed from sampled
instruments and are reasonably
good, if somewhat monotonous.
As a game of poker this is perfectly
acceptable, it plays quite well and it
will lake you some time before you
manage to beat all four opponents, It
does show off the graphics and
sound capabilities of the Amiga.
But if the only reason you are
buying Hollywood Poker Pro is for
some sweaty stimulation, then you
really are an ST owner in every sense
of the word.
Duncan Evans
tfo/frironrf Polar Pro
£19*85
ReLine
Overall - 75%
ath in the roc ks
halls there are even lifts pulled up
and down by small bats which obvi-
ously don't have a very good union,
Another form of public transport is
the wagons which perpetually run up
and down the tracks in a few of the
halls. For the pedestrian there are
always the ladders.
One of the hazards of being a cave
robber is encountering the owners, in
this case the trolls, who carry around
large baseball bats and attempt to
play nine innings with your head,
which is decidedly bad for your elf
(sorry).
There are several ways to deal with
them. You can use your mental
powers to stun them, use your
awesome magical powers to blow a
hole in the floor and kill them or, by
for and away the best, you can leg it.
A very annoying feature is that the
elf can be controlled by joystick but
you must dick the mouse to use
mental powers and magic.
The animation is not up to much,
though the scenery of decomposing
walls and lichen-covered masonry is
quite effective at building up the
dungeon atmosphere. The same
cannot be said of the sound effects
which, aside from the thunk of bat on
skull, sound like they might have
loaded wrongly.
If you End the puzzles boring, or if
they are too difficult, you can always
use the scene editor. This, as it turns
out, can be a lot more satisfying than
playing the game. As well as all the
usual stuff for building ladders and
walls, you can change the personality
of the trolls.
Only to he recommended if you
have difficulty Ending something to
do on Sundays.
Green
July 1969 AMIGA COMPUTING 27
B ATTLEHAWKS reminds me of
(hat place in London where all
the old relics are kept. No, not the
Atari ST User office, I mean the "ace
caff with quite a nice museum
attached".
If you know nothing about the
history of the Pacific War, you will
after reading Ratllehawk's 150- page
manual. It's impossible to put it
down, the best book I have seen for
any computer program - an excellent
textbook for Mastermind, even with
the novella protection.
The game is nice too. You are in
the cockpit of one of 12 types of
Japanese or American plane and you
can play a vital part in the
reconstruction of four great battles -
Coral Sea, Midway. Eastern
Solomons and Santa Cruz Islands,
Depending on the type of plane
you have, you can torpedo nr
divebomb battleships, whip the
enemy in dogfights, protect damaged
and close the throttle, keep a close
eye on the compass and altimeter,
plus look to the sides and behind you
for any enemy planes trying a
surprise attack.
At first, using the mouse to change
height and direction seems a little
strange. However, you soon find that
it is much more sensitive than joy-
stick or keyboard. Pressing either
mouse button fires the machine guns
and the spacebar drops bombs.
Downing the enemy planes is diffi-
cult because they keep their distance
and it is almost impossible to keep
your plane completely level. On my
maiden flight, lasting one hour, I shot
down three planes, damaged one,
and missed several thousand times.
There are practice modes which
give you a pilot's dream - infinite
ammunition and armour, enemy
planes which don't shoot at you and
a safely device which prevents you
stalling or flying below 75 feet. In
real battles you can save your skin
when shot down by ejecting.
For the vain, the most useful fea-
ture is a camera which can be
switched on during your manoeuv-
res, It can be replayed later as a nice
ego massage.
The best graphics are on the clear
and bright menu screens. The view
out of the cockpit window is much
more crude, The planes and ships are
rather ill-defined - all you see is sea
and sky represented by two blocks of
colour.
The sound is a great help, the note
changing pitch whenever the plane is
damaged or the engines are about to
stall. Together with the rat-tat-tal of
machine guns and the crunch of
explosions, it sounds very realistic in
ships from attack and possibly re-
write the history' books.
Ba si tally, Battlehawks is a very
good flight simulator. The controls
are greatly simplified, mind you - all
you really have to do is guide the
plane around using the mouse, raise
and lower the flaps lo alter lilt, open
D A TTT
1*1 *
Lj .
1
[/"O
kltJ
Palpitations in the Pacific
He he he, shin'll confuse them
stereo.
Many similar programs have been
released before. Battlehawks 1942,
an ace book with quite a nice game
attached, is the best I've seen.
A la stair Scott
Hatifrhuiit-s
tJ4M
Linastttms
Sound
Graphics
Gameplav
Value
O vi! lit 11 — litt%
1 1!U), j
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Can't .set 1 E h game hr the free?
hhant Sinwhhr
£1SLW
Ctttte Masters
Overall — 02%
M Y hunch is that people who
watch Ski Sunday don’t do it
to see fine skiing, What they arc
hoping for t$ a real legs-and-poles-
everywhere fall. I moan, who cares
whether the Austrian or the Swiss
takes the downhill title? What mat-
ters is how well they can WTap them-
selves round a tree at EiOmph.
Advanced Ski Simulator puls yoo
in a head-to-head competition
against a computer or human oppo-
nent over a rather strange course. It's
not a downhill, although there are
steep stretches. It’s not a slalom or
28 AMIGA COMPUTING July I ! m
■ REVIEWS!
I F Amiga Computing was a low
budget production* this review
would start, "Remember Pac-Man all
those years ago? Well* Pac's bank in a
whole new set of adventures!” or
something equally repugnant. As this
is not your average trash mag* we
managed to keep it until well into the
first sentence.
This is quality journalism here.
There is not no bad grammar or spel-
* • i
Dfmaivh *i
ling erors here. Nor are there jokes of
(he type which have haunted com-
puter magazines since spelling
checkers were invented,
IPac-Land is one of those annoying
arcade machines that plays a rancid
tune which puts you off destroying
the Sinistar in the coin-op next door.
The people who play Pac-Land
always seem to be very good at it,
never failing to get to the third trip at
the very least,
Strangely enough, a cutesy game
like Lhis attracts the oddest types.
Dangerous looking bikers have been
known to play it, casting furtive
glances around lest a friend should
catch them in an embarrassing situ-
ation.
The story is simple and virtually
unnecessary. A fairy has got lust and
Pac, being a true and stout - and pos-
itively obese if you want my opinion
- yeoman decides to take her back to
Fairyland, Pass the sickbag, Alice!
But those naughty ghosts Blinky.
Pinky, Inky and Clyde are intent on
slopping him. so you must outwit
them,
At the end of the fourth stage of
every trip the Fairy Queen gives you
a pair of magic boots to help you on
your way. And to think adults wrote
this junk, Pass the bong, brother.
Blinky. Pinky, Inky and the other
one appear in planes, cars, flying
saucers, even on pugo sticks in their
quest to stop Pac's relentless scrol-
ling advance. What makes the arcade
machine bearable is the very sharp
and simple cartoon -style graphics,
which scroll very quickly and go well
A littie squirt
with a tune reminiscent of hanging
heads off walls.
There arc the obligatory fruit and
power pills, and objects to he jumped
over in a fairly predictable manner.
Springboards give you the power to
leap enormous distances, but only if
you hammer (he keys like nothing on
earth. I just about smashed my
Navigator on this bit. Joysticks are
cheaper than new keyboards.
This would he one of the best
Amiga games going but for three
things - the graphics, the scrolling
and the screen sire. It has jagged
tow-res graphics, contrasting with
the sharp cartoons of the coin-op.
It also has a 56 pixel high black
band at the bottom of the screen,
which is the price we pay for having
a superior machine. Then there's the
very ripply scroll, nothing near as
smooth or as fast as the Amiga can
do.
Pac-Land suffers from chronic
underscan - even the ST default cha-
racter set is present in all its some-
thingness. I'm ail for people writing
games for the ST, but when the ST
comes to my Amiga I switch off.
Stewart C, Russell
I
■j
ED
rm 1
rm
? who
\fa il
sy m
poles-
ctres
Swiss
l mat-
ihsm-
Is you
tition
uppo-
sc. its
re are
m or
Become a Darling of the slopes
mogul run, nor are there large
enough ramps to qua lily as a hotting.
There are, however, plenty of ob-
stacles such as huts, trees and rocks,
and these certainly are a faster way of
slopping than snowploughing.
Gelling Air produces a bar
indicator of how high you're flying’
Gelling Piste merely produces an
"ugh!" and a very sore head.
Presentation is good. The title
screen acts as if the text was mounted
□n a rotating glass cylinder and
moves very smoothly indeed. Hacker
a hi! blues, if yai r atch my driif
stuff. The title page tune is also
exceedingly slick, with a well defined
direction and enjoyable twiddly bits.
The game backgrounds are very
pretty, though mostly while, and
make the rather stick- like skiers seem
very poorly drawn indeed. The inci-
dentals (SFX, bucko) live up to the
solid standard set by the rest of the
program. 1 guess the development
team got its friends to produce the
humanfish) noises, all neatly
digitised.
The idea, if you've never played a
Code Masters "Advanced Activity
Simulator", is to complete the course
within a time limit, which becomes
less as the courses become slightly
more difficult. One of the two players
can he either the computer or con-
trolled by a fellow high-order pri-
mate. All the gales must be
completed and a bonus is given for
any lime remaining.
The controls are a simple rotate
method, with rapid hammering of the
trigger giving a cross-country style
pole action. Autofire won t help you
here, so use a fairly expendable stick
- it'll take a bashing and no mistake.
Advanced Ski Simulator has been
produced to live up to the original B
hit version while giving the advanced
features that semi -parallel processing
machines like the Amiga can
provide.
It is unfortunate, then, that the
original B bit version wasn't the
world's greatest mover. And as the
Glasgow-based Highlander's devel-
opment team had a rigid conversion
brief to stick In. all the extra work is
just window dressing.
Considering the original costs two
quid and this considerably more, at
First glance ASS would appear pour
value. The gameplay hasn't been
altered, but everything else has, If the
developers had been given free rein
to interpret the game differently it
could’ve heen a good 'un.
Stewart C. Russell
July 1989 AMIGA COMPUTING 29
■ REVIEWS!
GRAND MONSTER S
Belom bashing bonanza
SLAM
■ .. T— T I
j| >«■ * -—--.z
rt f T'Tr;I
Q
O
O
Faufton feeding - a bit Me school dinners rtalh
O OER! Must be good if it's got
the word grand in the title.
Sounds jolly impressive. And then
there's the slam bit, very violent and
exciting. Not forgetting the monster
element. Ob yes, this does sound
interesting, grand, slam and
cosmopolitan.
Well it isn't. After Denari s. who
would have thought Rainbow Arts
could have fallen so low. Let me
explain.
Grand Monster Slam is a game
about a mediaeval tournament for
trolls, ores, goblins, minotaurs and
sundry other creatures. According to
(he impressively badly translated
manual - Rainbow Arts being West
German of course - you play a dwarf
with a mission, a mission to win the
tournament or be labelled as the
king's fool for a year.
After silting through an impressive
Loading screen, which promises
things the program doesn't deliver,
and an equally impressive piece of
music, the options menu arrives,
complete with quivering beloms,
Whafs a belom, J hear you cry. I'm
psychic you see,
A belom is something small and
furry, roughly the shape and size of a
football and somewhat reminiscent
of the Tribbles in Star Trek, Yes, you
kick the hell out of them.
A I the menu, then, you can either
check out the high score table, prac-
tice belom punting, practice kicking
beloms into faullon’s mouths -
faulton's are things on sticks that you
kick beloms into - or play in the
tournament.
Practice a bit first, because no
matter what the briefing says, when
you start the tournament and get
Whoever wins, the beloms lose
30 AMIGA COMPUTING July 1989
drawn against your first round oppo-
nent. it isn't easy.
This first section is the main game
and consists of you standing, facing
your foe, on a line, kicking beloms
over Id the other side. The first to kick
his beloms over to the other side -
plus any that have been kicked by the
opponents to their side - and runs
across the pitch, is the winner.
Knocking your foes over by kick-
ing beloms at them is entirely legal
and rather necessary. Should a belom
be lofted into the audience a foul is
given and a penalty of up to three
beloms may be incurred, I w r on't bore
you with the details of this because
it's just loo tedious. Suffice to say it
involves your right foot and a duck's
backside.
If you survive the first round you
switch to an overhead view and have
to fend off eight attacking beloms
with a pole. Otherwise they trample
you. This section only nets or Joses
you points, it doesn't hinder your
progress in the game.
Should you manage to heat all the
opponents in the first part of the
game, you can go an to the kick a
belom into a faulton's mouth stage.
Hold the fire button down to gauge
the strength of shot and (ben chip the
ball. Belom, I mean,
Ahh, the thrill of it all.
The writers of the game and
manual claim that the entire concept
was developed from a fantasy role-
playing scenario. Role playing?
Forget it, there isn't any.
Yes, the music is nice, the graphics
are reasonable and the animation and
elements of humour are good, but
where's the game? Can you imagine a
sports game with only three events?
Yawn City folks.
Grand Monster Slam isn't a par-
ticularly bad game, it's just that there
is nowhere near enough of it. It isn't
coherent enough and doesn't have
the surface gloss to cover over its
shortcomings,
Duncan Evans
(tramt Mtutsivf SUm
£24.95
Rainbow ! tis
v.1* rrmrr nTTTTTTi
Overall - 64 %
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■ REVIEWS!
MAYDAY SQUAD
A dose shave with terrorists
And l u u thought your passport photo wan bad
K RSCUE simulators are on the
up. what with the astonishing
total of two in Ihe last few months.
Unlike the other - Hostages - where
the deployment of your team was a
large part of the game, Mayday
Squad has a fixed assault team of
three that sticks together at all times.
Which is just as well, fur each
mem her has a different skill which
the others can’t duplicate.
You can choose your team
members from the second option
screen, the first giving control and
difficulty parameters. There must be
one leader, one ex plosives ex pert and
one communications expert, chosen
from a list of three of each,
The leader is (he best shol of the
group, the explosives person a
wizard at setting charges and
throwing grenades, while the comms
hoffin picks locks and removes
securily devices.
The Lutooiar Embassy - high wit
and humnur here - has been taken
over by the Red Legion, a previously
unknown band of international
One more end we'll shoot the plant
criminals, if such a thing is possible.
They have a list of 143 demands, one
of them obviously being that all razor
manufacturers must close forthwith -
not one of the terrorists has seen a
shave in months.
Unknown to Ihe beard Les. the
Ambassador's daughter is hiding in
one of the rooms. It's your job lo find
her and take out as many terrorists as
possible.
The three brave folk frog around
the embassy in what Tynesoft calls a
Modified First Person Perspective
and what the rest of the world calls a
3D mare. Most of the doors in the
embassy are locked, so you'll need to
call in the comms person. As it’s a
good idea lo keep the squad leader
leading the pack, you'll have lo keep
swapping which member you are
controlling.
Most rooms contain at least (wo
terrorists, so again you’ll have to
move rapidly from the movement
icons lo the action screen to off the
opponents of Freedom. A joystick is
nu use here - make sure you choose
(he mouse option.
Each team member can take
between 20 and 5(1 shots before
copping it, but if you find the correct
room you can be cured by the
resident doctor. This is very necess-
ary because many rooms are booby
trapped and as you must search for
useful objects, you often set them off
Hidden doorways, stairs and
objects lie in wait for those who
search, so the danger element is
unavoidable. Once Ihe time is up the
terrorists all escape in a helicopter,
pausing only to kill anyone they
meet.
I guess the graphics fall into the
"sort of OK” category, but the doors
and objects are all identical. The
entrance hall is the worst offender -
four doors, north, south, east, west,
Iwo terrorists. No matter which way
you turn, the view doesn’t change.
The end-game sequence is neat,
with all sorts of tabloid reports on the
siege, Very nicely done.
Tynesoft should have kept this
game either purely strategy, which it
is partly, or purely arcade. It falls
exactly hetween the two stools by
picking a few bits of each. You might
like it - 1 wasn’t stunned - but sec it
running first.
Stewart C Russell
.Ufidai Sttuarf
£19,95
Trnesot'l
Sound
Graphics
GamepUy
Value
Overall — t>3%
32 AMIGA COMPUTING July 1999
Small Business Accounts
The First Accounts Package
Written with Small
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Accounts, It provides everything the small
business could want . "
ST UPDATE
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Automatic Double Eitfay
Full Nominal Journal Facili ty
1 50 Nominal Accounts plus Budgets
VAT period accounting
On-screen update of current cash position A period
profitablility
Full Audit Trail
Reports include Trial Balance, Profit A Loss Statement,
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Both programs available on;
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Name
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Town
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IS Aiming Street, New Inn Yard, London EC2A MB
Td: 01 739 3450 Fai: 01 739 2199
or all at: G & B Computers 13 Tottenham Ct Rd. Wl, 01 255 1501 AMCflfT
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£225
NEC Mullisync II
£499
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£199
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MEMORY
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£399
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£575
ASOGIMBr- Or v Mon
£7^9
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We specialise in 2G0D Syslerp^!!
02000 2MB SCSI Interface
£599
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El 2.00
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£11 50
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£6.50
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£7.50
3.5 DS Brand( 10) Disks
El 9.50
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E45.00
SOFTWARE
ART, GRAPHICS & CAD
Deluxe P hotel ah
£49.50
Digipainl 2 ■
£32.00
Express Paint 3
£68.00
Fantavision
£29. 00
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£49.00
Pixmate
£39.00
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Sculpt 4D
£326.00
Digiview Gold
£99.00
Comic Seller
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Movie Setter
£49.00
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£99.00
Lights Camera Action
£35.00
fnlro CAD
£40.00
X CAD
£325.00
SOUND & MUSIC
ProiSdUhd Designer Cipt*} £79 95
Amiga Musfc Syslerrf £ "7 « ci: r i
AegisSonix
£39.00
Dynamic Drums
£38.00
Sound Oasis
£50.00
Dynamic Studio
£99 00
Interfax ~
Master Tracks Jnr
£89.00
OTP, WP & BUSINESS
Professional Page
£175.00
Pages (ream
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Kind words
£39.00
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£139.00
Word Perfect
POA
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£70.00
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£175.00
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£27.00
The Works Flail num Ed
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£70.00
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NEC P2200 (24 Pin)
£299
Poslscript Laser
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Xerox 4020
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HP Painijel
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DISK DRIVES
am rtwer
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£79
3.5" Triangle Elite
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£129
3.5/5.25 Li angle
HARD DISKS A50Q
£230
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SO MB Triangles 3
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£499
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8GM8+2MR OK
£999
2MG Memory
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£299
UTILITIES & LANGUAGES
Oos to Dos
£29. Cl)
Quarterback
£35.00
Transformer
£25.00
BBC Emulator
£35. CO
A| redes BBS
£169.00
Power Windows 2,5
£41.00
A^tec C Developer
£169. CO
Hisoft Devpack
-£45,00
Hisofl Basic
POA
Huby Comm
£72.00
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Simple Ghostbu&tin'- Ctrl Amiga* Amiga
the Rt'iil (ihmlbuslrrs
£24M
. 1 ^ livision
Overall - 24%
Don't call iij. well call you
Sound
Graph, « ■miiirrn
Gameiilav I I i I I I 1
Viiiue B I I li I 1 I U h'l I I
P RODUCERS never seem to be
happy with resting on their
laurels. They always feel the urge to
produce a series of follow-ups, the
sum of which is usually considerably
J ess than the merit of I he first. So
when we got f l host busters, and alt
the related paraphernalia, it would
only be time until the spin-off series
followed.
Instead of using people, the spin-
off was a cartoon. The Real
Ghoslbusters; it's pretty amusing too,
if you're not into overly cerebral
stuff. So now Activision has got the
conversion of the a reads game of the
cartoon of the film.
The original arcade machine, by
Data East - a company not renowned
for its originality - is a mildly enjoy-
able affair which plays like a
demented Alien Syndrome. In it, the
city is about to be taken over by
ghosts, so The Real Ghoslhusters
have to save the city by shooting
them and then beaming them into the
containment backpack. The whole
thing is filmed in a semi-overhead
view, with the First level taking place
on top of skyscrapers.
Ghosts come in many shapes,
colours and flavours. Werewolves
and mummies are fairly innocuous,
only being nasty when touched.
Other spooks are a bit more unpleas-
ant, with the large purple mutant
worn hies, who shoot projectiles in all
directions, being the worst.
At the end of each level there is a
sequence.
The tune is not bad - a kind of
Bustin' the House, Frantic Remix -
nor is the two player gameplay if
you're used to a CPC. Discerning
Amigans, which of course you are,
should avoid. Don't touch this even
with something hargepolesque.
Stewart C. Russell
big guardian which must be defeated
to gel the key Id Uie next level, Yawn.
Oh, and before the lack of interest
overtakes me, some ghosts leave
bonuses which can help or hinder
you. Z tit
OK, that's the plot over, Now for
the w hinges. The arcade machine
sported very smooth, clear graphics
and killer sound, which is the
minimum requirement for a coin-op
to keep its head above the water in
today's arcade. Well, someone at
Activision must have thought, "ft's
only a conversion, and since we've
written an ST version let's use that".
So instead of neatly defined
graphics we have grey fuzz. It’s hard
to tell whether the little Ghostbuster
is on top of or underneath the build-
ings because the perspective is so
bad.
All the fonts are bog standard ST
ones and the screen is 56 lines too
short. OK. so maybe the retort is that
not all machines can do the 256 line
PAL screen - but there have been
documented methods for telling
whether a machine is PAL or not for
at least two years, so that doesn't
wash.
Scrolling is fairly slow and none
too smooth, and the sprites are badly
defined and flicker. When your
person cops it - maybe twice in the
first three seconds, if you’re good -
all it docs is put its hands on its head.
No noise, nothing. I used to wonder
why 9 got “Game Over" so often until
I realised it was meant lo be a death
34 AMIGA COMPUTING July JJWffl
■ REVIEWS*
is that
16 lint}
been
filing
lot for
oesn't
none
badly
your
in Lhe
Mid -
Head.
jnder
until
death
id of
nix -
ay if
ning
. arc,
even
issell
I
□
H 1
I]
U
a
i
rjuum i\xuni
Fangs, but no fangs
C ONTRARY to what you might
believe, Fright Night isn't based
on the film of lhe same name, though
it claims to bo. It is instead an
allegorical interpretation of Britain
today.
Primarily, you must wander
around a superficially well-decorated
house, draining the life force from all
its inhabitants, while at the sam e time
fending off the protestations of
previous victims.
No, no, this has nothing to do with
vampires at all. It's all a very clever
piece d! subversion from those
happies in Cornwall who would
have you believe that Fright Night is
an adaptation of the RCA* Columbia
Sim and lhat if you love being scared,
tan this’ll he the game of your life.
Yes, well, not really. 1 don't recall
the hem of the film being a vampire,
do you: More a frightened young lad
trying lo convince the dopey porkers
that the guy next door is a vampire.
Well that goes out of the window,
and how on earth you're meant to be
scared when it's you who is doing the
nibbling, I don't know. 1 wonder
whether Lhe programmers have seen
the him.
Anyway, once you get past an
excellent title screen and some brilli-
ant sound effects - pump this
through your hi-fi and turn the lights
down - you find yourself emerging
from a hard day's sleep and your nice
warm coffin.
You are jerry Uandridgc and
you've got just 12 hours lo suck the
blood from everyone in your house.
An icon down on (he left in the shape
of the moon slowly fading from sight
marks lhe passage of time, while a
picture of yourself indicates your
current health.
On encountering something detri-
mental to your death force, such as a
Bible or a cross, layers of skin peel
from ferry's mug - they have the
same effect on me, strangely enough
- which wasn’t pretty in the first
place. A third icon indicates the
Every night I came from expecting to see my dinner on the table, and tfrere you are. legless again
strength of your dinner’s faith, and
correspondingly the amount of harm
said believer can inflict when they
get the holy water out
jerry is superbly portrayed on
screen in what is basically an arcade
adventure with re-drawn screens, He
is large, well animated and crouches
and leaps quite quickly for someone
who looks so ill. Unfortunately as
soon as any other sprites appear on
screen, everything starts to judder
and slow down. Considering there's
no scrolling, this is ridiculous.
On Monday, the first day of your
adventures in Vampire Land, there
are only two victims to bile and noth-
ing lo hinder the procedure. If you’re
squeamish look away, because as
Jerry bites the blood spurts.
Now where did l drop that contact kits ?
From then do you get progressively
more victims to bite and more ghosts
of past victims to chase you - the
topless green woman is rather tacky,
Mr Lyons - and inflict damage, plus
more rooms to your house. Obvi-
ously someone is a dab hand at DIY,
because whole new floors are being
put in every day.
That's all there is Lo Fright Night.
The graphics are excellent and the
SFX are nothing short of brilliant - 1
love the slurping noise when you bite
someone, which restores your health
incidentally - bid the game play is
very, very shallow. It's also extremely
difficult to get past Tuesday.
Duncan Evans
Fright Xight
£liui5
Mkrode&l
Sound
Graphics
(rameplay
Value
EDI
MIMIMimi
nr
Overall — 64%
fuly lass AMIGA COMPUTING 35
1
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J
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Tripping the
type fantastic
Standard printer
drivers are great for
integration but often
result in chunky
output Rupert
Goodwins looks at
a program which
offers a solution
D esktop publishing, two
words that send computer
salesmen into paroxysms of delight,
users into fits of sighing and bank
managers to the bunker. Give us
enough money, says the DTP brigade,
and you too can typeset your letters,
hooks and leaflets. For most
computers, enough money has to
cover laser printers, hard discs and
special displays. With PageStream,
the Amiga plus cheap printer gets the
chance to do it all.
Can the Amiga cope, or is high
quality output just putting a brave
face on a dotty dream?
PageStream, from Soft-Logik, has
several claims to be the best Amiga
DTP package going. First, it goes to
great lengths to generate as good a
quality of output as your printer can
produce. Second, it comhines word
processor and art program facilities
with typographical effects. Third, it
works on a single-disc, unexpanded
A50D.
Soft-Logik makes great play of its
user interface - unsurprising given
that PageStream has an Atari ST
ancestry. To the Amigan eye, it's just
another competent, logical use of
Intuition, albeit with some nice
touches. It's easy to forget that to
make something as complex as page
design accessible through simple
menus requires a great deal of work.
Getting going is simple. There’s no
protection of any sort (isn't it nice to
be trusted?) - and starting involves
putting a copy of the master disc in
the drive, booting the computer and
double-clicking on the PageStream
icon. No setting up is needed, at least
for a 1 meg Amiga. Later the program
will ask for its fonts, provided on a
separate disc.
The major difference for 512k
machine owners is that they should
sto
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36 AtfiGA COMPUTING July 1939
■REVIEWS
stop the startup sequence and resize
all the windows to free as much
memory as possible - there's a
detailed description in the
documentation of what to do.
Otherwise, the only difference
between small and large memory
sizes is in the amount of document
and the speed of operation. All the
features remain.
The program starts up in interlaced
mode unless told not to, displaying a
large blank page with a menu bar
along the top of the screen and a tool
palette on the right-hand side. It’s
black and white to start with,
although colours can be modified to
minimise flicker. Colour graphics are
fully supported and the screen can be
configured to use 2 colour mode (fast
and memory -friendly), 16-colour
mode (slow, hungry), or anything
inbet ween.
S TANDARD line-drawing gadgets
- circles, geometric shapes, a
text icon, column definition and so on
- can be picked up from the tool
palette - a window of its own that
can be moved around the screen or
sent to the back of the display.
Flexible, but if you move it on top of
the document the pointer type doesn't
change back to an arrow when you're
trying to choOSC a tool.
The first thing to do is to start a
new document. PageStream follows
most Amiga conventions. The File
menu is first on the menu bar and has
the usual New, Open, Close, Save,
Save As options available by mouse
or Amiga-key selection. Unusually, all
menu options are also getatable by
the Esc key and one or more
following keys. The Fonts menu, for
example, pops up if Esc 1 F is typed
in, A legacy of the ST perhaps, but a
useful shortcut. PageStream
multitasks properly, and the
Workbench and CL1 can be started up
horn within the program.
The only other place where
PageStream departs noticeably from
normal Amiga practices is when the
mouse is being used to lasso, draw
boxes and so on. Normally, the
pointer is positioned at the beginning
of the area to be encompassed, the left
button pressed and held down while
the mouse is moved to the final
position, where the button is released.
With PageStream the button has to
be released before the mouse is
moved and pressed again when the
movement is finished. A small point.
but one that 1 kept getting wrong
because almost everything else does it
differently.
Once the page size has been chosen
from 11 preset types from Business
Card (nice) to A3, or a custom size,
the screen changes from blank to a
grid of dots which show unused page
area. The next step is to define
columns or areas on the page where
text or graphics will go. Columns can
be drawn freehand or automatically
allocated - once an area is defined,
the dots are removed and a blank
patch displayed, giving a clear view
of the layout,
I NTRODUCING text is simply a
matter of choosing the icon from
the tools palette, clicking on the
column where the text is going and
selecting the Import item from the
File menu. Chousing Text brings up a
list of files. Clicking on the name of a
directory moves to that directory and
choosing the special <Root> file from
the top directory brings up a list of
the assigned devices. There are no
huttons for DFQ or DFl, so it’s quite
difficult to ask the computer to
display files on a changed disc.
Choose a text file and the menu
changes to show a list of text types it
knows about. On the review copy this
appeared to be limited to Ascii,
although Word Perfect and other
popular file formats are available.
Text is sucked into your document. If
you’ve so selected, it automatically
►
A C man's lament
r
The problem 1 find when I’m looting at lines
Of programs alt written in C
Is Ait the syntax and grammar resemble the
Of a dyslexic demoralized bee
111 bet toy man here {111 wager a beer)-
Caril guess how to cop/ * sirhg
The mess Is draMtfc;, *11 [
. i _ 1
pointer* collected, and thrice I ndi reeled,
Collated In &TUt3CT* and compiled
When traced by debuu^ei car mate coder* *li udder
And conditional drive a mar #ild
I don r wish toj*£nm bitchy, but it only old Ritchie
Had been Wrangled at birth by a ntlrse
And the fate that I've planned for all Kernlah*n« rlan
I* imprint ably invunl Ilmen wnr*e
I vimt that Mr pain beam* with th* HAW
Trie «nly way «iil I* t« iwh:K It
Ihf cne bit at syntax trial Keep* any miml intact
Is the very last I
1 HOVE THAT THIS QIC IE £ LEAVE* THAN TOPE
1 WHITE Iff THAT dgOriETKOfilTV
VOU IglOHT THINK THAT VA&CAL £ A SIT OT A VASCAL
EOT THE ULTIMATE « 9 IS C
My proemm isCMiliiu' 'in st nicnny iippali nip i[
I muM finish im poetic
Hut. lei’s .ill luce it. use ! ( > K I H . LISP in B ASIC
Kvhn lever c on do, don't use C
♦/
[Ttiinib&ir “t guide to itromitK'ijOofi:
[ m open square bracket
= dot
& = ampersand
_ - underscore
f = pling
} = close curly bracket
* = a star
A wide selection of fonts which look good without the aid of a laser printer
futy 1989 AMIGA COMPUTING 3 7
■ REVIEWS
flows from column to column and
from page to page, otherwise columns
are separate from each other.
Next, start putting in headlines
using different fonts. Choose the part
of the text that needs to he prettified
by holding the left mouse button
down and dragging the pointer across
it; inconsistent but never mind.
Then up to the Style menu, where
one of the fonts, each in a wide
variety of sizes, can be chosen, The
final touch is to decide whether to
add a special effect. Again, there are
lots to choose from; underline, bold
and reverse (white on black) are some
that everyone else does, unlike
mirror, shadow, backslant, upside-
down...
With a little diligence a document
can be made totally unreadable with
such style that nobody'll notice.
P AGESTREAM uses its own fonts;
it can't use those from other DTP
programs, although it can make use
of downloadable fonts for PostScript
printers, which gives it access to the
whole range of free and commercial
PS type styles.
The 10 it comes with include
versions of Helvetica, Times, Letter
Gothic and Roman, the rest being
more unusual and perhaps better left
for headlines. Ten might not seem a
lot, but many professional
publications get by with two or three,
Soft-Logik is designing more.
Graphics importation is trivial.
Define a box and choose a picture
from a disc. It can be scaled to fit or a
portion snipped out and pasted in.
Once in, it can be moved around the
document, tilted, twisted or rotated to
taste.
Another nice touch here. As the
parameters for tilt and rotate are
being set, an animated box in the
menu shows whal the effect will be
on the final object. The effects can be
applied to any object on the page,
including text.
Any object can also be dumped in
the middle of a text column and the
text made to flow around it. While
this is good for simple boxes in the
middle of articles, it also follows
more complex shapes and can, with
care, produce stunning results.
Graphics can be filled with patterns,
coloured and edited. The PageStream
facilities aren’t as good as DPaint, hut
they’re more than adequate for the
purpose of smartening up an existing
picture.
Likewise, the text editing bits are
limited but entirely relevant. There’s a
spelling checker, a hyphenation
rulebook, text formatting and kerning
where two letters snuggle up close to
each other because their shapes are
mutually compatible, like W A,
Without kerning, there’s a lot of space
between them and it looks odd. DTP
might not make everyone into
typographers, but it’s teaching the
world a whole new set of jargon.
Two more powerful features are
macros and tags. Macro assigns a
sequence of keys to a function key; as
all the menus can be accessed from
the keyboard this allows complicated
Operations to be repeated by a single
keypress.
Tags are similar, but devoted to
setting up the text. Tags are named,
so one called Headline might select a
big bold font with automatic
justification, one called Byline might
he small with italics and underlining
set- This lets you set up a consistent
style and use the same tags week after
week to get the same effect.
PageStream doesn’t have style sheets,
which are similar to tags but also set
up column sizes. Sensible macros
should do much the same,
W HERE a common feature isn’t
on a menu it can usually be
emulated. There is, for example, no
facility for drop caps - the large
letters with which paragraphs like
this one start in Amiga Computing.
But if you want drop caps, you can
create a box, type a letter in, change
the font size, and then tell PageStream
to make text flow around it. Drop the
box at the beginning of a column, and
IjCtter Golhic 12 point
E
Letter Gothic 24
Letter Go
Letter
Universal Goman 12 point
Universal Domai
Universal
Univ.
Laser output gets rid of the figgfos
voila - drop cap. With macros and
tags it should be easy to automate.
PdgeStream’s simplicity of
operation was immediately apparent
w'hen I started to use the thing. I’ve
used DTP programs on Apple
Macintoshes and IBMs, some costing
more than the Amiga itself, and
PageStream must be my favourite for
ease of use, if nothing else, Things
that look me hours to work out on
other programs were uncannily
intuitive - I wanted a white-on-black
3B AMIGA COMPUTING July 1999
! > tot V
^Citdague
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AMCJuly
Cheques and Postal Orders payable fa SofiaeMers.
Post and Packing tree in UK. Overseas £1 50 per Hem
Subiact Id availability and price change without notice. Not all lilies released at time of going to press.
fifty ts#9 AMIGA COMPUTING 39
■ REVIEW!
PIG FARMERS WEEKLY
Incorporating
Exclusive pictures
of 'SOW BACON',
this weeks Porky
Centrefold
*Pig Sty Monthly*
The lines radiating from I he back of the pig's head reveal a bug
in the hardcopy routine. They were not visible on the screen
4
headline, peek at Style and there it is
in, er, blank and white. And it’s hard
to think of things that aren't available
as a result; it's a narrow-minded
fellow who’ll tire of trying out new
features within the month.
The program has its bad points.
Perhaps the most annoying is the
speed of operation - it can lake a
good few seconds to redraw a page
after a change, and if you, like me,
tend to type fast and make mistakes
errors can build up.
It's frustrating to watch the
computer redraw the whole screen
because you've inserted a letter in the
wrong place which you know you’ve
deleted, ami then watch the computer
redraw the screen again as it finds
your delete keypress.
This is made worse hv one of the
PageStream hugs. Sometimes, when
working with graphics, moving stuff
about or changing the size of an
object, bits of old screen get left
behind when the area around the
object is redrawn. This can build up
over a few edits to a point where it
can he difficult to see what’s going
where. Making the computer redraw
the entire screen fixes this, but the
only way to do it is to change to
another page and then change back.
Any notion that this is in some w r ay
slow, is swiftly - OK, lethargically -
dispelled by the printing. A single
page can take 10 or more minutes,
and a reasonable document would
give the Galapagos Islands lime to
evolve three more species of finch,
There are good reasons for this -
the first is that PageStream generates
its pages mathematically. Instead of
picking a font and enlarging or
contracting it to match the text in the
document, it draws the outline of
each letter according to rules and
then fills it in.
And this leads to the second reason
for it being so slow r - the output is
very, very good, 1 used a 24-pin
printer (he used my 24-pin printer.
Ed}, which, for the first time, showed
signs of being worth all that money.
PageStream will drive any printer
that Preferences knows about, as w r ell
as PostScript-compatible laser printers
and typesetters. It will also handle
colour separations, which makes it
interesting to design and advertising
people. Its lack of speed is forgivable,
but it would have been nice to have
had some indication of haw r long it
w r uuld be to the end of the printing.
O ccasionally PageStream
will crash, either with a Guru
or straight into a reset. I provoked
this a couple of times while
experimenting. It seemed to happen
w r hen a lot of text was imported into a
column that was far loo small, or tags
were set up with ridiculous values.
When I w r as doing sensible things,
PageStream behaved sensihly, but it
isn’t a rock-solid product and liberal
use of the Save option is
recommended.
The documentation is delightful.
Well indexed and organised, it starts
with a brief discussion about
typography and leads into three fun
tutorials.
Not perfect - there are mistakes in
the index and some odd characters in
the text. But there's a really useful
pictorial index, wdth each menu entry
tied to a page number, which makes
up totally for the lack of online help
that isn’t there because PageStream
works in 51 2k.
And work in 512k it does, Printing
is even slower, so there's a straight
trade-off between memory size and
patience, but it works. Given that it
uses cheap dot matrix printers to the
limit, it’s the automatic choice for
Amiga DTP on a buriget.
It’s got plenty to offer the more
sophisticated user too. all that careful
memory management results in a lot
of ruom for documents in higger
machines, The only cloud on the
horizon is reliability. PageStream is a
worthy competitor for Professional
Page, More than that, it’s a match for
the rest of the world.
REPORT CARO
PageStream
Snft-1 ngi k/Si I i c a 01-309 1111
£171.95
EASE OF USE
llilllE m ,
Because the programmer had a good
understanding of ho w (o design a user
interface, PageStream is a pleasure to
wort with. Intuitive,
SPEED. „0 LI I I I I
The only major hug hear with the
program Is the time taken to redraw
and print files. Printing is hard work,
value Minimum;
For under £200 this is great value. IF
you are realty fussy about quality you
might he better off struggling with the
TeX language.
OVERALL 88%
Marred by a few bugs. PageStream is
the best ail round D TP package for
A500 owners with a tot of patience.
40 AMIGA COMPUTING )uiy 1989
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s m$
full- 1909 AMIGA COMPUTING 41
Y OU’RE the typical Amiga owner
are you? Look at you, standing
in the newsagent's in vour grey suit
leafing through the magazines in the
hope of finding something interesting*
Wouldn’t you rather be at home
making strange noises?
Co on, admit it - you're a weird
noise freak. You’re only really happy
making ping noises or some other
audio equivalent to throwing up. You
can't fool me. I know what you’re
like. So, especially for you, this
month we’ll explore the wonderful
Amigattasic commands for making
sounds.
The Amiga is a rather special
computer when it comes to sound
generation. Most micros have a
dedicated sound chip which produces
various tones at different volumes. By
design, these chips can produce only
a limited number of sounds. To
understand how Ihe Amiga's sound
chip - called Brian, or is it Paula? -
differs it is necessary to get into the
realms of some secondary school
physics. Since we have the greater
part of the column to go, why not?
Sound is a phenomena caused by
the vibration of air molecules. When
an object such as a tuning fork is
vibrating, it moves air around,
causing little packets of sound energy
to he transmitted. The analogy
normally used is that of a stretched
slinky - you know, those long springy
tilings that walk downstairs on their
own.
If you wobbled part of a stretched-
out slinky back and forth, small
waves of slightly stretched- out and
slightly compressed coils would move
down the length of It. Although the
position of the spring as a whole has
not altered, small parts of it have
momentarily changed their positions,
causing the wobbling to he
transmitted down the spring.
So it is w r ith sound: The air
molecules around a tuning fork hump
into other air molecules, which hump
into other air molecules... until some
air molecules hump into your
eardrum and your brain perceives
what it takes to be a sound. Technical
stuff, eh?
The problem as to whether a tuning
fork w ould make a sound if there was
nobody there to hear it is a silly one.
If there was nobody there to hear the
sound, there would he nobody there
to hit the fork. Thus, it w-ouldn’t make
a sound in the first place.
I suppose you could hit it and run
away very quickly, but then you
42 A MIKA COMPUTING full'
■ FEATURE!
would be so out of breath that by the
time you had finished puffing and
panting the fork would have stopped
making the sound anyway. This is
one of those problems that is best not
interfered with. A bit like
programming in C.
N OW we come to the part with
the graphs in it, 1 like graphs,
don't you? A pirture, they say, is
worth a thousand words. And as 1 get
paid by the word 1 would like to
point nut to the editor that I drew the
three graphs all by myself.
A tuning fork vibrates in a very
regular manner, if you could attach a
fell tip pen to the end of one of the
moving limbs and move the lork at a
set speed over a piece of paper, you
would be very silly. You would also
get a graph that looked a little like
Figure I, which is w hat we in the
trade refer to as a sine wave.
Sine, shortened to sin - 1 don’t
know why either, for all the
difference one letter makes it’s hardly
worth it - is a mathematical I unction
that can be used For ail sorts of things
that usually involve triangles and
circles. In our case the sin wave is the
smoothest and purest wave that can
he produced. Look at the graph again
- no sharp points, completely regular
and quite horing.
The horizontal axis - that's the Hat
line in the middle - can be taken to
represent time. Moving along the axis
from left to right will give us the
description of the sound wave at
subsequent moments in time. Thus
the spacing between the peaks ot the
graph gives us a measure of a period
of the time. The time, which is a very
special thing, is actually called the
period of the waveform.
The formula frequency - 1/ period
gives is the frequency which, put
more simply, is the pitch of the
sound. The shorter the period, the
greater the frequency and the higher
the pitch. The frequency of sound is
measured in units of Hertz (Hz),
named after the car rental people who
invented car radios. Middle C — a note
in the middle of a keyboard - has a
frequency of about 52t)Hz.
Most computers make these sound
wave vibrations electronically,
although on some models you could
he forgiven for thinking a little man
was inside hitting tuning forks, The
electronic signals cause the paper
cone in a loudspeaker tu vibrate.
starting those air molecules a-bumpin'
and a-bashin' into one another. The
waveforms produced are rarely sin
waves. More usually they are square
waves, as shown in Figure II, or a
trianglar shape called sawtooth.
Figure 111.
The Amiga is remarkable in that it
allows you to choose precisely the
shape of the waveform you want, You
could have the standard sin wave, a
square one, or even one in the shape
of a house.
And as any sythesiscr player will
tell you, shape is everything. A sin
shaped wave sounds like a flute or a
whistle, a saw-tooth shaped wave
sounds like a violin or a trumpet, a
square shaped wave sounds like an
oboe or a clarinet, a house shaped
wave sounds terrible.
I GUESS il's about time we got
down to making those noises, so
boot your Amiga Basic, roll up vour
sleeves and make sure the computer
is wired for sound. If you are using a
modulator the audio sockets on the
computer are connected via a Y-
shuped lead to the socket on the
modulator marked Audio In,
otherwise switch on your hi-fi
amplifier and connect up the Amiga
to the Aux Input.
Amiga Basic supplies us with three
commands to make noise: BEEP,
SOUND and WAVE. We can dispense
with BEEP straight away - if just goes
“beep". SOUND, on the other hand,
provides us with slightly more
variety. It can have up to four
parameters- The First two are
obligatory, either or hoth ol the last
two can be left out.
SOUND: Frequency, duration,
volume, voice
The frequency is the property of
pitch we have already discussed.
Units of Hertz are used, so a value
520 is almost middle C,
The duration must be a number in
the range 0 to 77, The numbers are
chosen so that a value of 20 means
the sound will continue for about one
second. For example, to make middle
C play for two seconds, use:
SOUND 5213,40
Now we come to the optional
parameters. The first, volume, takes a
value from 0, which is very quiet, to
255. which is as loud as it goes. If
you leave this parameter out the
computer splits the difference and
chooses 127.
The second optional parameter
determines the voice to be used. The
Amiga has four voices, numbered 0 to
3 , which means up to four sounds can
play at the same lime. They are split
between the left and right audio
channels. On a stereo set-up 0 and 3
play out of the left. 1 and 2 out of the
right.
If you arc using a modulator and a
television, or a monitor with only
mono output, this split is not
noticeable since all lour voices are
►
Figure II: A square wave
Figure HI: A sawtooth tvave
July i*W9 AMIGA COMPUTING 4lf
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AMIGA
GAMES SOFTWARE
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Phone
£1049
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AMIGA SOFTWARE
B OSPNESS-'UTILTYGFUlPHIC-SOUWD
Adrum E39.®5 £23,35
Aeg»5 AnimalofOmagaS £103.50 C03.-95
Aeg s Audio M as ref „ £4^.00 £36.95
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Aegis Vldeo^c^e 3-D £143.75 £i i6.99
CLTmare .. £39.95 £31.95
Deluii A ns Pan 1 DaiaOsa £ 9,99 £6.93
Deiui A ns Pan 2 Data Osc £9,99 £6.93
DeluM FkM & Cool Ja^z I>Dltc £9.99 £6.93
Deluif Music Ccmsrruaion £69.95 £ 49 Bh
Pelujf Paml 1| £69.95 C49 95
Delu* P*nt III Phone
Delui Prmt II £49 35 £35 95
Delux Video £69,95 E^9 95
Delux Pholo Lab £69.95 £49 95
HKM
Highway Hawks .
Iron Lord .
JUG .
Kings Quest Triple Pack ......
Krystal (The]
Laade^board Cofleaion Birdi
Legend ar lire Swwd
Maniex ,
Monsters or Ihe Night ...
Music Cofttiruction Sel
Nght Hunter .
Generator .....
Goeraiion Wolf.
Pac Mania
Pent* Beardsley ....
Prison
Putpto '
Puffy's
Rallies ,
Rock ‘n’ Rn-I
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LHbtbc V 1 2 SP.'DB/GR (1
MCG Macro Assembler .....
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Midid Base
Micro Text
Modula 2 (Standard)
PKrtan Paint
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E29.35
£16.05
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E64.9&
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Run Tbe Gaunflel E24 95
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Star Gtoje r £19.35
Stave Davie Snooker .., ■£19.95
strip Poxer 2 Plus .C14.95
Strip Poker Plus 2 Dala Disc 1 £9.99
Super Kang-On ,.,£24.95
Supwman £24,95
Sword of Sodan ,,, £24.99
Times ol Lore £24 95
Teenage Queen , „ £ 1 9.95
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44 AMIGA COMPUTING Inly MM
■FEATURE*
mixed together and sent to the one
and only channel.
To make a loud sound in the left
channel and a softer sound in the
right at the same time, try:
SOUND 500,20,255,8:SCUND *00,20,100,1
tf we want to make two sounds
happen one after the other we have to
queue them. Make two sounds with
the same voice and the computer will
play them in that order. For example:
SOUND 80B,20,Z55,0:SOUND 400,28,255,8
Tf you want a voice to wait for a bit,
send it a sound with zero volume. Tn
the first line of the following example
both voice (J and voice 1 play notes,
but only voice 0 will be heard. VVhen
both have Finished, the next voice \
sound will be played, this time loud
enough to be heard.
SOUND 800,20, 255,0:SCUND 600,20,0,1
SOUND 600,20,255,1
You can instruct the Amiga not to
take any sounds off the queue until
you say so by using SOUND WA1 1
and SOUND RESUME, If you put
SOUND WAIT at the start of a list of
SOUND commands the computer will
quietly queue them all without saying
a word.
When the SOUND WAIT command
is reached all the sounds will pop of
the queue one after the other. This is
useful when you have written a tune
and want the voices to be totally
synchronised.
F inally we get to the wave
command, which allows us to
specify the shape of the waveform lor
any one of the four voices, It takes
two parameters:
WAVE Voice, wave-definition
The voice is the number from 0 to 3
again. The wave-definition is rather
special though, and can take two
forms, the first of which uses the
—I
Start :
GQ 5 UB Initialise
SOSUB Define .nave
GOS UB Nike. sound
END
Define. yave:
FOR a-0 to 255
if »<12 J then
squar*(a)"-l28
ELSE
squar#ia5=127
END IF
NEXT a
RETURN
Make, sound:
UAVE 0, square
SOUND 500,20,255,0
RETURN
Initialise:
DEUNT i-i
DIN square(255)
RETURN
Listing I: Square wave
word SIN. This resets the wave shape
to that of a sin wave. So:
NAVE 0,SIN
will reset voice 0 to play only
waveforms in the shape of a sin wave.
This is the default value. The SOUND
examples we’ve looked at so far have
all used sin waves.
The second form of wave definition
is where the fun starts. The shape is
stored in an array of integers with at
least 256 elements containing
numbers in the range -12B to 127,
These numbers represent the shape of
the wave.
For instance, if the first half of the
array was filled with elements oi
value -1 2H and the second half filled
with elements of value 127 the
resulting wave would be square.
Listing I will create such an array and
Start:
G05UB Initialise
GDSUB Define. vave
GOSUB Make. noise
END
D ef i ne.wave :
FOR a s 0 TO 255
noise(a) = lNT(RND*256M2&
NEXT a
RETURN
Nake.noi se:
RAVE 0,1101 ss
FOR vel=Z55 TO 0 STEP -4
SOUND 20,1 ,vol ,0
NEXT vo l
RETURN
initial! se:
OEfINT a -i
DIM mri se C 2 55 )
RETURN
Listing II: While noise
play a note using the new wave.
The difference is subtle, but it is
definitely there. 11 you can't hear it
you must have been listening to too
much heavy metal music and have
permanently damaged your hearing.
To simulate explosions and
gunshots a type of sound called white
noise is used. White noise contains all
possible frequencies with equal
likelihood, something which is quite
difficult to do from AmigaBasic.
Listing II is an attempt to make
such a noise. Unfortunately it sounds
more like a mechanical digger, but
notice how a loop is used in
Make.noise to make the sound die
away gradually.
I could run through lots of similar
programs which provide you with
different waveforms, but instead 1 am
►
luly 1‘ttW AMIGA COMPUTING 45
■ FEATURE ■
<
going to give you Listing III - a
program which you can use to draw
your own wave shapes on the screen
and listen to them.
The subroutine Draw, wave draws a
box to put the wave into. Then if
checks the mouse button to see if it
has heen pressed. If so, and the
pointer is within the box„ another
element is added to the graph. This
continues until the wave has been
finished. If pressing the mouse button
doesn’t seem to do anything, try
clicking it several times in the Basic
window' title bar. or press the right
mouse button once or twice.
You’ll find the routine that creates
all the awful noises at the label
Make.sound. First it assigns the wave
shape to voice 0 and then starts a two
second noise of frequency 200Hz. Try
changing this value or adding other
SOUND commands to play a short
tune with your new waveform. Bye
for now.
Rake-a-Wave*
' Stretch the Basic window as Large as passible before
r running. Press the IHB and wiggle mouse up and doun
within graph area.
Start: COSUB Initialise
GflSJB Draw. wave
GOSUB Hake. sound
GOTO Start
WHILE e le#ent<256
wait. for. button: HHlLE fious E (03 0-1 : VEND
y=«0USE(2)
IF y>f67 0# y<40 THEN Out. of. range
Set .um.e Le«nt: shape (etenent)My-10l)*?
e Leneftt s eleienM
Ora*. wave, line: LINE ( xcordJfliMxcord,*! ,1
xcord=seorc(*2
Out. of .range: BEND: RETURN
Hake. sound: WAVE a, shape: SOUND 200,(0,255,0
FOR t*1 TO 2300: NEXT: RETURN
Drev.wave; FOR a=0 TO 255:shape(a)=0;HEXT a
GOSUB Drsu .box
mrd=fij
e Lement-0
Draw, bo*: LINE (50,30M5CZ,176),T,b
LINE (60,40)-(572,16BJ,2,bf
LINE (60,1041-1572,100,1
RETURN
initialise: CLS: DEFJKT a-i:6IN shape (25 6) RETURN
Listing HI; Draw your own wave shapes and listen to the results
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synopsis is given in the instruction
booklet.
There are three main screen
displays - full map, campaign and
animation levels. The full map shows
the entire area of Middle Earth
involved in the game. Characters
under your command are shown as
blinking blue dots, evil forces as red
dots and neutral forces as green. Time
is halted while you look at it.
1'he campaign level gives a detailed
scrolling view, Characters are shown
as small figures and forces as a
shield, its design in telling you who it
represents. Clicking on characters,
armies, towns or any other point of
interest, will bring up a window
telling you what or who is there.
The animation level presents a
moving display. Messages passed to
your characters are shown in a
window. Characters walk or ride in
from one side and move out to the
other, occasionally sitting down for a
rest or kip, Graphics are superb. Keep
this level activated and the scene will
change as your party moves to a new
location-
The
best
tale
ever
told
P UBLICATION of Professor JRR
Tolkien’s The Hobbit in 1937
and The Lord of the Rings in 1965
were two of the most important
events in adventure history. Two
books like no others.
The Hobbit game from Melbourne
House shook the adventuring world, a
Spectrum game with recognisable
graphics, a game which had us
puzzled over for weeks and months.
The sequels. Lord of the Rings and
Shadows of Mordor, were buggy
disappointments. Perhaps
smarting under the criticisms,
Melbourne House has
pursued the theme of The
Lord of the Rings. War in
Middle Earth is a mixture
of adventure, role
playing and strategic
war game. Et
encompasses all
three parts of the
Lord of the
Kings and for
those who do
not know
the story a
Examine
everything
with Dave
Eriksson
48 AMIGA COMPUTING luly 1969
■ADVENTURES*
ie
i
it
»
In each display there are icons that
enable other options to be actioned.
You may look at the health of a
character, see what forces are doing
and their status, change the rate at
which time passes, get a character to
pick something up or use an item
already held, change from one level
to another, instruct a character or
group to move to a place or in a
specified direction and save the game
position.
When opposing forces face up to
one another you have the choice for
each main character - and for groups
such as 4(H) light infantry — of four
actions: Charge, engage, withdraw
and retreat Fighting can make or mar
the rest of the game, here the system
used works quite well and is
believable.
At the start you can only control
three groups: Frodo, Sam and Pippin,
Eomer with a small group of cavalry
in Rohan, and Faramir with a group
of rangers in North Ithilien,
S AURON has sent the Nazgul to
the Shire because he believes
that the Ring is somewhere in that
area. Nazgul are deathless ancient
kings who were given, and came
under the spell of, the rings Sauron
made for mortal men.
To get more allies you must meet
characters or groups. As Frodo and
his companions travel, they meet folk
who offer advice. Read carefully, for
some messages do not stay on the
screen for very long. They usually
indicate where useful objects may he
found.
In the book, Frodo goes to
Huckland, where he is joined by
Merry. The four hobbits then travel
east and meet Tom Rombadil (more
advice) and then on to the small town
of Bree where they meet a tall ranger,
Aragom. He takes them to Rivendel),
where it is decided that the Ring must
be destroyed and that the party to
attempt this will be nine strong.
This Fellowship of the Ring is made
up of Frodo and the three hobbits,
Gandalf, Aragom, Legolas (an elf],
Gimli (a dwarf] and Boromir (a man).
Unlike the book, where you only
meet Eomer and Faramir much later
on, the game enables you to make use
of their services and friendship right
from the beginning.
If is possible to get the Ring to the
Cracks of Doom by several different
methods. There is also the question of
finding treasures that are hinted at.
Who is to find them and when?
Combined might may be able to
make a frontal assault on Mordor and
get the Ring to Mount Doom.
A campaign map showing the area of confrontation between Minas,
Tirith and Mordor. Opposing armies are shown as shields
Frodo, Sam and Pippin meet a passing
ranger on the journey to Buckland
July JSflS AMIGA COMPUTING 49
■ADVENTURES!
A band of trolls and ores up to no good
outside Sauron 's fortress at Ha rad Due
The pace hots up as the hobbits and friends make
their way to the Cracks of Doom with the Ring
Alternatively, as in the book, a mighty
display uf force may cause Sauron to
overlook a small band creeping
silently through a secret back door.
Your options are wide open. There
are healing draughts in the Grey
Havens, in a ravine north of the White
Towers or in Tuckbo rough. There is
mithril armour in Belegust and an
ancient golden sceptre to the west of
Annumias. There is a valuable
hammer lost to the dwarves and a
REPORT CARD
War in Middle Earth
Melbourne House
£ 24 . 9 !)
STORYLINE
No prizes to Melbourne Housi f, fust to
JRR Tolkien,
AURA
Plenty of nail biting , plenty of detailed
planning .
STAYiSti POWER. II I I M M I 1 I I I I I I
Variation in winning ways keeps game
alive longer ,
GAMEFLAY m
Icon control works well with a very'
simple menu.
VALUE .
Different ways to a solution give good
value.
DIFFICULTY w
Easy to win but difficult to follow the
classic path.
m
OVERALL 90%
A good strategy game with adventurous
overtones.
silver orb that will have the elves
following you like the Pied Piper.
There is wood prized by the wise,
elven shards, a red arrow and
Thrain's ring. All these things could
he useful, but do you have the time to
find them?
I NITIALLY the evil forces of
Sauron remain quiescent - some
slight movement hut nothing openly
aggressive. At a moment probably
triggered off by the approach of the
Ring, Sauron unleashes his armies.
It's ohvinusly useful to distract
Sauron from looking too close to
home.
It is possible to finish the game
within an hour by getting Eomer to
ride north to the Shire and escorting
Frodo and friends into Mo r dor from
the east. But apart from proving it can
be done, this provides little nr no real
gameplay. None of the useful ohjects
arc found or used and the Fellowship
of the Ring is never formed.
The time to feel good about this
game is when you can do it as it was
written in the hook.
The Operating system works well,
hut disc access when changing levels
is a little slow. My version crashed a
couple of times.
For those already addicted to The
Lord of the Rings, this is a must. You
will meet many uf the characters who
make the trilogy so remarkable.
This game is very much what you
make of it. It definitely does not lose
interest, you simply take a different
path. What music and sound effects
there are, are quite good, and the
graphics are excellent, you can sit and
watch Frodo and Co w r andering
around for hours.
STUCK?
Zak McKracken
hints
C ANNOT get anything from
the baker? Keep ringing that
bell. Wear the nose and hat to get
past the alien in the phone
company. Empty the fishbowl into
the lamp to create a space helmet.
Use the radio control to get the
blue crystal.
Cannot get on the bus? Bang on
it with something or play the
kazoo.
To distract the air hostess, block
the sink with toilet paper and put
an egg in the micro w r ave. You need
the lighter, seat and oxygen which
takes two distractions.
In the Sphinx maze follow the
sun and enter the friendly eyes. In
the Mayan maze type what is to
find torches and light them with
the lighter. Give book to tramp,
whisky to guard, guitar to king,
and golf club to shaman. You will
need the Hag pole at Stonehenge.
When you fly to the cave in the
giant's right eye only get the scroll
and go straight back - you are
short of time here. Face maze, map
room? centre door, blue, green,
blue, left.
,50 AMIGA COMPUTING July 1 969
Personal callers welcome
Opposite Fulham Broadway
Tube Station - District Line
AftflGA HARDWARE
SKM A500 PACK
A50O Computer
TV Modulator
Photon Paint
9 Star Games
Plus
Free Dust Cover
Free Mouse Mat
All Only
£399
TV Modliatof n irrrurujiuBLij £23
Phi& 8833 Monitor „ f * H , £259,95
Commodore toms Cat Meetter £259.95
A SOI Ram EiqMri»JWCkKk E129.SS
Cemmgdgte AlOlO 3.5" Drhre l&frBS
Currans GAS354 3.5'' Drive * PSD .. £1 16.99
CuffianaCAXlDOOS 5,25" Drive £l 25,99
Cumana CAS 10CMS 5.25" Drive
+ p SU £134.99
SK MARKETING
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Micro Peripherals 135#
£149
Star LCl 0
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Slar LClO Coibur
C24&
Slar LC24 10
^ h ..£332
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£539
Slar NB34 15
Epswi LXSOO
™..£212
Epwm LQ500..
£340
Epson LOS 50
£5 10 j
Epson LQ1 050
£6SG
Epson FX650 (Mow in)
£379
Epeqn FX 1 050 f NtfW h)
£478
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£156
Panasonic 1QB1
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NEC P220D....^
u C340
NEC P6 P9»,-„,
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NEC P7 Plus
—^. h Cfi79
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1 Epson L after GG350Q
CUM
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Panasotnlc 1 124 (New 24 Pki) ,
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* Latest B2000 Made)
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Amiga CdGrophics Sound Teteco 17.45
Arriga Handbook _ £15.95
Amiga Hardware Ref Manual r l: fgg A5
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Arrfga Machine Language ^._.. r E14.93
Amiga MicrwoH Basic Prog Gde £18.45
Amiga Prog Handbook Vol. 2 £23.95
Amiga Prog Handbook Vol. 1 BhrT £23,95
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Auriga Programmers Guide £l6.4&
Arriga ROM Kemei Pel Man Ex*C £22.95
Amiga flOM Kernel R «4 Man Lfc £32.95
Arriga Trick* and Tlpft £14.95
Amiga lor Beginner* cingff
Becoming an Amiga Artl&t ^„... m ,. 1 „..£lfl t 45
Banners Quid* to the Amiga £16.96
Etameniry Amiga Baa sc £14.65
Inside Amiga Grjphlci tamt ^ mmrnawr ti9M
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Kichaiari Guide to the Arriga £ 12,95
Pr gy r a iiBi in Gutfo to the Amiga E23.9&
Hie Am^a CI&95
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Oll« C&WBT ,
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M Cppy HoUar
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impact — TO __.£&4JS
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M ulti tasking is memory
hungry. Amiga!) os does
incredibly well to work in 512k with
an BtSOk disc, a fad best illustrated by
the amount of memory rival systems
need. OS/2 needs at least 2 meg of
ram and a 20 meg hard drive. Unix
isn't happy with anything less than an
AO meg hard drive. All three systems
perform better with more elbow
room.
Anyone who has added an A501 nr
second floppy to their A5UU will
know that it makes a big difference to
the usahlity of the system. That
change is insignificant compared with
the advantages offered by a hard
drive.
Having established that you need a
hard drive more urgently than you
need to eat for the next couple of
months, the Commodore A59C1 Plus
might seem an obvious choice. Rut a
hard drive should not he judged by
the outer case alone. Few people
bought the Commodore A1010
second floppy drive for their Amiga,
the Sensible shopper discovering that
offerings from Evesham, Triangle,
Datel and other likeminded Amiga
Computing advertisers offered hetter
VFM, Perhaps the same holds true.
The A590 is smartly coloured to
match recent cream A500s - early
ones were nearer to white. The styling
matches that of the computer. It is
small and neat, partly because the
footwarmer power supply sits on the
floor like the A50Q one.
Common sense and ingenuity have
dictated that Commodore has not
repeated the mistake of putting the
power switch out of reach. There is
no power switch. The A590 is auto-
sensing, switching on when the A500
powers up. This works both ways -
the computer won’t power up unless
the drive is plugged into the mains.
The front has lights which show
when the drive has power and when
it is being accessed. The hack has an
KS232 look-alike connector which is
actually a SCSI port (pronounced
scuzzy] for connecting more drives,
tape spoolers or even some laser
printers.
There is a socket for connection to
the power supply brick and a row r of
four DIP switches Two look after the
device numbers for adding extra
drives, a third is reserved for future
expansion and the last one sets the
system to autobnot if you ha^e a 1.3
Driving a harcb
A. 190 f fun! Drive Dins
unci Ihuls that it is more
then just an easy way to
keep your left foot warm
Kickslarl rom in your Amiga.
Slotting the drive on to the side of
the computer needs a bit of courage
and a hearty shove. This is a Good
Thing because it means the whole
unit is solid. Assuming you have a
Kickslarl 1 ,3 rom and the DIP switch
is set on the drive, power to the
computer sets the unit humming
noisily into life.
W ORKBENCH appears in about
15 seconds depending on
what Startup- Sequence has to do.
Kickstart 1.2 owners will have to boot
from floppy. The disc provided has
clickable icons which will make a 1.2
boot disc for you. From then on your
Amiga is transformed.
Buying an A590 nets you three
separate units in one box - a ram
expansion, a hard drive controller and
the 20 meg hard drive. Up until now
getting this kind of kil together was a
technojunkie's dream and a sane
user’s nightmare.
Ram expansion is the simplest
feature; getting to the sockets is the
hardest part of installation. The outer
casing, the drive and then a metal
cage have to be removed before you
can get to the slots. This jigsaw
puzzle is a result of keeping the unit
small. Since you are probably only
going to install ram once, l think it is
worth it.
Memory can be expanded by
adding chips to give 51 2k, 1 meg or 2
meg in addition to the ram fitted in
your computer. It is worth noting that
the memory in the drive runs faster
than either the ram in the computer
or the A501 expansion unit. This is
because the computer’s internal
“chip” ram has to be slowed down to
a speed which allows the custom
chips to share it with the processor.
The “fast" ram in the drive cannot be
accessed by the custom chips and so
can whizz along at full tilt.
Sitting between these two types of
memory is the ASCII with its “slow"
ram. This cannot be accessed by the
blitter, and runs at the same speed as
52 AMIGA COMPUTING July 1989
■COVER STORY*
Access (DMA), Non-DMA drives use
the central processor to read bytes
from the disc and shove them into
ram. A DMA drive uses its own
custom chippery. This is not only
quicker, il allows any other programs
your Amiga may be running to work
at normal speed.
DMA is very much faster and the
Commodore set-up is guaranteed to
understand how the rest of the
operating system works. So when
Kicksfart and Workbench change,
compatibility is ensured.
T WO types of drive can be
connected, XT or SCSI. Both are
better than the ST-506 sold with
A 2000s and 1UM type PCs, Because
there are so many IBM clones in the
world, ST-50G drives benefit from
economies of scale - SCST drives are
expensive, partly because they are
made to a higher spec. A 45 meg
SCSI drive without controller card
will set you back £500.
Commodore has compromised and
fitted a cheaper 20 meg XT drive.
This seriously affects performance
when compared with more expensive
systems, but if it makes the difference
between the system selling for £399,
which I can afford, and £59!J, which I
chip ram. When the new Fatter Agnus
becomes available you will be able to
have 1 meg of chip ram. Very new
A2000 s already have this fitted
Some badly written programs do
not like working in anything other
than chip ram. NoFastMem cures this,
To get the most from a legit program
you would be wise to run it in fast
ram, which can be forced by running
FastMem First, Depending on your
needs, one of these commands should
be added to your Startup-Sequence.
Speed costs. The chips which need
to be fitted are rated at 120
nanoseconds. This is pretty fast. Size
counts. Each chip Stores 256 x 4 bits
(1 megabit) per chip. To keep power
consumption down and so keep the
heal generated to a minimum, the
chips need to be CMOS as opposed to
the cheaper NMOS. You will void
your warranty if you fit the latter.
Even with CMtJS. a set-up with all
the sockets filled still gets pretty
warm.
All these factors combine to make
the parts expensive. Suitable chips
proved hard to track down, and then
at a price of £22 each. You'll need 32
chips for 2 meg so it is not surprising
Commodore supplies the unit empty.
C OMMODORE is proud of the
design w r ork it has pul into the
interface. Lessons were learned with
the A2G9D and A2U9()a. When using
overscan and interlace the main
processor has a job looking after the
screen. Expecting it to do any other
work is asking a bit much. So if the
hard drive interface takes too much
processor time, the display has
problems. This has been cured with
the A590.
The new interface will cope with
big drives up to 600 meg. And you
can attach eight drives at a time using
SCSI. There is no through bus so you
can‘1 plug any peripherals into the
A590.
Getting data to and from the
computer as fast as possible is the
primary job of the interface card. For
this reason it uses Direct Memory
can’t, I would much rather have a
slow' drive than none at all.
Speed freaks can either whip out
the XT unit and raid the piggy bank
to fit a SCSI drive — bye-bye warranty
- or add an extra drive externally.
This should see the performance
improve from a data transfer rate of
around 150k per second to a
theoretical rate of more than a
megabyte per second, but for that you
will be paying over £1,000 for the
drive, and the rest of the hardware
couldn't match the speed.
A sensible upgrade would be a 40
meg drive with a 1:1 interleave,
which refers to the spacing of data on
the disc. Data is read as the disc spins
past the head. Sometimes it is
spinning so fast the drive can only
cope with the data by pausing a while
— like trying to drink a pint of milk
wilhnul stopping - so the data is
spaced out, with data from other files
filling the gaps.
If the gap is one sector the
interleave is 1:2. If it reads one,
ignores two, reads one, the interleave
►
fuly TM9 AMIGA COMPUTING 53
t
f
1
!
!
i
f;
i ■
t
§
p
i
I
i
i
T
i
ATARI ST & AMIGA
An addictive and beautifully presented shoot 'em up of the highest calibre! GOLD MEDAI. ZZAP1 h 4 CBM 64128
Thabmurv I telum Ktiitt?, Clfcvl Piri, ^Idermaston, Bf lidiir* BC7 4Q W E 1 0/ ) 772t I 2
■COVER STORY*
<
is 1 :3. The best case* with nn gaps,
gives a 1:1 interleave, whinh isn’t
possible with XT drives. The Epson
or Western Digital drives Commodore
use in the A59U have an interleave of
3:1 or 4:1.
Big 40 meg drives are faster than 20
meg ones because they have more
read/write heads, so upgrading might
he worthwhile, particularly since 20
nieg does start to get a hit pokey after
a while. Commodore has no plans to
fit bigger or luster drives, the priority
being to keep the price down.
D ocumentation is good and
clear. It errs on the side of
caution, always advising you to park
the drive heads. There are good
explanations of how to use the CLI
command Assign to install software
and a guide to using the programs
which come with the system, PrepHlJ
allows you to re-format the drive; an
Install icon copies the standard
Workbench drawers on to the A590;
Park is used before switr.h-off to
prevent the heads from crashing into
the disc.
The major utility is HUTooJbox.
This is the one you will need if you
add another drive to the system. For a
program which has to guide dumb
users through a minefield of jargon it
is very good, hut you should read
through the documentation and make
sure you know the answers to all the
questions you arc going to be asked.
Reviewing hardware is often
difficult unless something exciting
happens, like it goes wrong tbr
instance. If the hox does what it is
supposed to then there is Little to gel
excited about.
What makes the A590 special,
wnrth getting excited about w hen it
works faultlessly, is the care with
which it has been designed. Any
faults are the result of having to keep
the price down, something
Commodore should be praised for.
t here is a rash of hard drives
appearing at the moment, most of
them are at least 40 tneg, but they
will all have to go some to beat
Commodure's Real Thing.
REPORT CARD
A590 Hard Drive Plus
Eu m juncture 1)628 770088
£399
wBvw, ii m miiiim
fust plug in and ga if you have
Kickslart t.3. Still simple for users who
have older A59Q&
SOFTWARE
iiu unimni
The fast filing system improves drive
performance while the new utilities,
such ns HDTuulbo x, make setting the
system up much easier.
aEEP™ m ,, w , iminnnum
Suffers from the use of a cheap drive
but the good interface and extra ram
make it a joy to use.
VALUE
At £100 more this would have been a
good huy. For £399 there is no excuse
for not buying one
OVERALL 89%,
Commodore has got it tight Smart
design, a clever interface and superb
system software. Even the price is
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July iSSS AMIGA COMPUTING 55
AMIGA
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Billiards Simulator 7.95
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Tetris 5,95
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56 A Mid A COMPtnWG inly IM9
■SCHOOLS*
We don’t need
no education
John Ridge gives his
views on learning
kids wha t can *t
do sums or write
English proper
E ducational software is a
fallacy. It is dangerous to lean
too heavily on etymology, but the
word "educate" is derived from Latin
and. strictly speaking, means "to
bring up”. On the other hand, the
word "teach’’ is pure Anglo-Saxon
and means "to impart knowledge or
skills”. Clearly there must be some
overlap. Rut more than anything else,
the difference lies in attitude of mind.
There are far too many educators in
schools these days, all busily
usurping the right of parents to bring
up their own children in their own
way. Or what is even worse, engaging
in the damnable practice of using
other people's children for
experiments in social engineering. At
the same time there is a dire shortage
of what T would call genuine teachers,
The notion of a computer bringing
up children is SO ridiculous lhat I find
the description "educational
software" somewhat fanciful, I prefer
to think of programs being designed
to teach, or serve as teaching aids,
They need not necessarily be written
for children, although I imagine most
will be.
At the last count I had nine
grandchildren, all of whom have
access to a computer at home. Not
unnaturally my thoughts have turned
tu the possibility of trying my hand at
writing a teaching program or two.
It would not serve our purpose to
get bogged down in the quagmire of
technical jargon which accompanies
any discussion of learning theory, so 1
will be purely pragmatic. Think of me
as a bearded grandfather who,
although cuddly and loveable, is
extremely wise, sensible and down-to-
earth. That description, now I come to
think about it, fits me perfectly.
P ERHAPS the most important
consideration, especially if a
teaching program is intended for
small children, is that of reward. It
has to do with what is often called
positive reinforcement. For adults and
older children a sense of achievement
or the realisation that a step has been
made towards some distant goal is
reward enough - small children need
the encouragement of something
much more concrete and immediate.
If an adult is present to heap praise
on the child, well and good, but if the
child has only the computer, then it is
►
Photo: fouly
fitly AMIGA COMPUTING 57
■SCHOOLS®
the computer which must provide the
reward,
f once wrote a version of Hangman
in which the reward was an
additional point to add to the score
and the penalty was a little man
falling into a tank of water with a
splash. I imagined a child would
want to prevent the little man from
suffering such a sad fate.
The trouble turned out to he that it
was a far more rewarding experience
to see the man falling from a great
height lhan it was to see the score
increase by one. It paid to guess that
a word should be spelt Uzxkv. That
was not my intention.
Whatever others may tell you, don’t
write programs that need reasoning
for very small children. They love
rigmarole of any sort, whether it he a
long list of animals chasing the old
woman chasing the pancake, or their
three-times table. What parent has not
been driven almost to distraction by
having to read the same storybook
dozens of times in succession? Rut
heaven help the parent who gets a
single syllable wrong on the 59th
reading. Small children learn by rote,
and they learn well,
A MY temptation to be twee
should be resisted. Children
obligingly humour adults who appear
to favour little furry rabbits, but they
don’t go a bundle on bunnies
themselves. A furry stuffed toy is
tactually pleasant and warm. A two-
dimensional representation is neither,
except by association in the adult
mind.
Asking children to type their own
name at the start of a program is a
good idea - and possibly their age,
because children are keen to advertise
how "big” they are. The
complications of using the Shift key
to input the upper case letter at the
start of a name can be avoided by a
few lines of programming.
I think the correct use of "capital”
letters and "small'' letters should
always he encouraged by example. If
the child is beginning to be
functionally literate, personalised
messages may help considerably.
Negative reinforcement by the use of
messages reading, "Angela, my sweet,
you are a nine-vear-old cretin,”
should be avoided.
When my own children were small
I found that if 1 put on an act of
Gunning for the schools
W HAT is LGEM all about?
Local Government,
Education and Medical is the new
division within Commodore UK
aimed at key areas of computing,
with Peter Tallvol as national sales
manager and bill Owen heading
contract Sales, which deals with
government agencies, local
authorities, schools, MoD and
other ministries.
Today it seems ludicrous that an
overpriced 32k machine should
have swamped the market to such
a degree that only a couple of
other companies have managed to
keep a toehold in the classroom.
The BBC Micro, though, has had
its day.
The first personal computer to
find its way into the classroom was
the Commodore Pel. Now the
company is beginning a strong
initiative to regain the position it
once held.
The world has changed since the
early days, and so too has the
strategy, 1 talked to Bill Owen
about the philosophy behind the
Commodore move. His view was
quite clear.
“The market has to be
thoroughly explored first”. Bill
insisted, "There's no point going in
with a black box with no software
and expecting people to buy. Take
the education world: ’[’here are two
levels at which the market
penetration has to be software led.
The first is a recognition of the
dominance of BBC Basic. The
second is the development of
specialist software”,
Tt was very welcome to hear a
big hardware manufacturer
acknowledging the fact that
educationists are too conservative,
an attitude which is backed up hy
the huge amount of software
written for the BBC,
So Commodore has decided that
if you can’t beat 'cm...
And that’s the background to the
BBC Emulator, ft offers most of the
facilities of the BBC. sitting on top
of the tiBODD looking about as
future-proof as anything can in the
medium term.
Of course there are snags: one in
particular about which 1 was
It is a long time since
Commodore ruled the
classrooms. Professor
Rex Last examines
what is being done to
regain lost ground
concerned. I run a small company
which markets occupational
therapy software for the BBC
Micro, Much of the work involves
patients with defective or limited
motor control and problems with
hand-eye coordination, so some of
the software needs specialised
hardware add-ons like a custom
concept keyboard, which is not
available on the Amiga.
Devising an input port to accept
a concept keyboard is just one area
Commodore is exploring; Bill
Owen and his colleagues are
listening hard to what the customer
has to say.
There’s another area in which
software takes a leading rule.
Specialist applications have
mushroomed. Commodore is eager
to exploit the Amiga's strength at
DTP, speech, Midi, IV, CBT,
graphics, video editing and titling.
Market penetration must be
software led and the development
of appropriate software takes a
prominent role.
Commodore is investing
considerable sums in projects for
the educational world and there's a
Commodore roadshow of
conferences on the Amiga and PC
in education.
But surely the ultimate games
machine is out of place in a
classroom? I don’t want my next
generation zapping aliens when
they should be doing homework.
My guess is that this is a strength
of the Amiga rather than a
weakness - a strong link between
school and home. Children will be
happier with a machine they can
use for education find games.
It will he fascinating to see how
Commodore shapes up. Maybe the
Amiga will turn out to be the new
teach er s Pet.
58 A MIC A COMPUTING Inly 1989
BYTEBACK
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Atlef Burner
Airbal? 13.90
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Alternate Raaliiy 13.90
American See Hockey ,, — - 16 90
Annals of Rome — .16.9C
Archipelagos — — —
Baal ~ 13.90
Balance ef Power 1990 16.90
Ballistic — — 13.90
Barbarian 2 16-90
Bard5 Tala — IE-90
Barctt Tale 2 - — - . — — 1 S.90
Batman the Caped Crusadar 16.90
Baffle Chess 16.90
[ BallS8hBwksl942 ~lQ6
Bio Challenge , 16.90
Blattarokis , - -
BomDouza! — - - 13.90
Breach ... r .„. P „— 16.90
Buggy Boy - 16-50
Butcher Hii 16.90
California Grimes 16-90
Cap-lain Bkjbd 1S.9C
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Carrior Command 16.90
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Rocket Ranger 13-50
Romantic Encounters (10+) 13-50
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[P ,„ 16,90
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■Teal Drive If Scerwry 11,10
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Man hitter New York 19.90
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Operation Wolf, ,-.. - 16.90
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Pacmania 13.90
AMIGA A500 Computer
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99.00
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112.50
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Hi&c't Devpac Amiga 44.^
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MCC Pascal (Version 2) 64.90
Modula 2 Developers ...1 14.55
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HIT DISKS (Vol.2) 16.90
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55.50 1
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34,00
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r ,. + &4,W
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59.90
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..... ... ........ 45.00
Box ol 10 SONY Disks
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6.90
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Mtjuw Mai
5.9C
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July Uitiii AMIGA COMPUTING
■SCHOOLS!
*
bewilderment end confusion they
were eager to rush to my aid. I might
sit scribbling figures on a piece of
paper, muttering and grumbling to
myself, quite unable to puzzle out
how much 14ft of wood would cost
me at half-a-crown a yard.
Sooner or later someone would
come to my rescue, explaining how
easy it was and demonstrating the
method of calculation. Expressing
astonishment, 1 would then speculate
on whether it would be at all possible
to use a similar method to calculate
the price of a tun of potatoes at one*
and-six a stone.
With me heading off in wrong
directions and being rescued by my
adviser, we would eventually find
ourselves coping with problems that
had yel to be touched upon at school.
Instead of being hopeless at
arithmetic, we discovered that wo
wore really quite good at it.
In a similar way it might be feasible
to make the computer appear capable
of errors which a child could
gleefully pounce on and correct. The
simplest way would be to get the
child to say whether something is
correct or not, perhaps with randomly
generated errors which presented
expressions such as 6 x 12 = 99 or
7x6 = 13, and so on.
But I'm sure the machine could he
made to appear subject to human
fallibility in a much more subtle way
than that, arousing a child to a state
of excitement trying to catch it out
making mistakes,
T HE quickest way of learning to
play the piano is to start giving
lessons, so perhaps the same principle
holds when one starts to “teach" a
computer something. As soon as one
begins to contemplate the possibility
of writing teaching programs, all
manner of ideas present themselves,
but it should not be forgotten that the
aim is to teach, not just amuse. The
ground rules were all thoroughly
explored long before the advent of
home computers.
It would be as well to visit a library
and examine the literature on the
subject of Programmed Learning,
which was wrilten when teaching
machines were in vogue. There is
more to it than meets the eye.
For instance, have you ever
considered the question of whether
minimal-step linear programs ought
not to have parallel sequences with
different step- sizes commensurate
with the degree of understanding as
measured by the percentage of correct
responses?
Indeed, is it practical to introduce
such parallel sequences in branching
programs with multiple choice
questions?
And if the inability to deal correctly
with questions indicates the need to
cover some previous ground again,
how is one to loop back without
causing discouragement hy boring
repetition?
The computer must be seen as an
aid to imparting knowledge or skills,
a means to an end, not a substitute for
parents. It will only do this hy losing
the image of heing a mathematical
engine.
We should teach, not educate.
ORDER FORM
The bright new magazine
that shows you how
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own video movies...
If you have a video camera -
or just thinking of getting one
- you'll find Video Action f your
passport to an exciting new
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video - using a home computer to
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your own startling special effects.
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§0 A MICA COMPUTING July
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CUSTOMER S PLEASE NOTE! When compa ring prices remember ours include fast delivery by courier
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£449
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Syslem 1 includes:
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* Amiga BASIC, Amiga EXTRAS, Workbench PLUS the Amiga Stop by stop Tutorial'
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Amiga A500 System 2
£385.00
Amiga A500 System 1 plus over £280 worth of software, comprising
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Amiga A1 01 0 1 MEG £1 39.00
CumanalMEG £99.95
PRINTERS
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Am, f a 1 system 1 With lined 1 meflibyle msrwy expanjion ind dock
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Commodore Amiga A 1084 Slereo coFout monitor inc load racq m
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Tel: 0753 35557 Fax: 0753 51 1 1 22
Conditions of safe
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nolice
All collecsions mad* by prior .arrangement
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n Cl -i- VAT consumable-? a/xji
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AMIGA HARDWARE
Airtgji A50G Complaia ji 2 00
A^iga A500 w ih TV Modulator 326.00
Amiga A50Q * iQGOM Mono Monitor 400,00
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Am.ga A50O. 1 0 64 Monitor and A^ 000 57S.QD
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A3M3 20Mb MS Dog N^rd Dish, 32& do
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A2010 irrt 3.5' Dny* ....
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dataplex drives
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DATAPLEX HARD DRIVES
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GOMb Drive ASQCfc 1000 gi 0 DC
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30Mb Dnv* A2OD0 559 ^
0OMb Drive A2QM .„ ir . 779.00
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philips Monitors
CM0S33 U-RG&'GVBS Monica . ...... lsg.gjj
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Amstrad LO3500 Ol^.. r , 553.00
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CdiZen MSP 1 bE 195 00
Ciiij-en MSP 40 235.00
CitH*n MSP 45 263 00
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Gm.zen MSP 55 . .i£5 00
Citizen Premier 35 . .. 369,00
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200 cps high speed draft, 30 CpS NLO
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Opiiona-' sheet feeder £$9
Option roll holoer £ 1 5
Sladdand four colour notion
Panasonic (CXPlOfll 120.00
Panasonic M XP 1 1 S0 . . 1 75.00
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Shea I feeder — 99 00
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Amslrad CPC Parallel g^,
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Various ribbons in sceck - pi ess* ring
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AST Turbo Po£t&cri£E . 2409 00
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Brother HLS Q$ Poslscnpr 3739.00
Citizen Overture 110-r .... 1149 CO
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REPAIRS - As one ihe largest r epair centres
m che country and vmh an iny^simen! of over
£SQK in our aresl less equipment. We are
proving pur services ig oihpr dealers So ask
your local didJ«r To send us your t^Yiy equip-
menr. pr send lEdirecilous fpr fasT. reliabieand
PfpTessional repairs.
July 1389 AMIGA COMPUTING fit
EEC
T^aiJaes
Dw«ss
gjtpw I*
1
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V uMfSs
1
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V l .voa l
|
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1 w
1 ItfimfOA \
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t.rtvne V
1
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w* f
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1
newt l
t . pn v l
Look what s
waiting fa
you ..■ whan
electronic mail service
Four years' continual development have made MicroLink into
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Every day thousands of electronic mail messages pass between
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So if you want to speed up your mail, tap into a weather satellite,
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Triclaps Invasion, the star of Disc 20 from Capricorn Computers
Capricorn
to old Oz
AH aboard for another tour of the
public domain with Fat Angus
H OW do you explain to a yuppie
that you are nol a train spotter?
The mere mention of PD software is
rewarded with the look we all save
for the bloke collecting numbers on
York station. Cheap camera, clothes
fashionable in 1972, the trusty
thermos and 14 diaries full of the
exploits of 47014. a Brush Type 4 so
I'm told.
What is it that equates the train
spotter with the PD collector? Nothing
at all. It’s so easy to dump an entire
subject because of a misconception.
I know a train spotter from York is
probably getting very annoyed
reading this, but 1 don't care. It’s his
parents’ fault. They should have made
him play rugby and get drunk when
he was younger. They should have
made a man out of him. Instead he's
35 and collecting diesel fumes and
double pneumonia.
His name’s Ralph. But that’s his
parents’ fault, too.
1 don’t know whether it runs in the
Family hut his younger brother Eric, a
civil servant, has just bought a
second-hand BBC Micro to help him
learn about the computers at work.
Cousin Dave who comes for tea on
alternate Saturdays, is spoiling fur a
row this week because he’s got an
Amiga.
Coming up from Church Kenton on
the train, a chap who was “something
in CAD" look him to task for his
interest in PD and referred to him as
"another train spotter” who should
save up his money and buy a proper
computer like an Apple Mac.
What Dave does to Ralph will no
doubt grace the pages of the Sunday
Sport nr the guest list of the
Magistrates Court in Solihull - a town
where l chanced upon Rob Massey of
Capricorn Computers. Over 511 discs
in the collection and still growing,
,l Our PD library started l » months
ago as a service to our customers,
some of whom were worried about
viruses", Massey told me. “We got
inquiries from further afield and
started mailing discs".
As the collection grew, so did the
clientele. Now Capricorn has
blossomed into a fully fledged PD
outfit.
There are advantages to being
small, as I found out when I wanted
one-to-one advice. Imagine ringing a
multi-national software emporium to
request the best way to twidge a
utility.
“Thank you sir, I'll put you on
hold".
W HILE we’re waiting for a
reply from them, I've time to
look at these Capricorn discs. Eany-
meanie-minie-mn. Ho hum. Discs 20,
22 and 26.
Disc 2fl is a fairly predictable
collection of Amiga PD games.
Gravity War, Cycles, Egyptian Run,
Invaders, Tic-Tac-Toe and Adventure.
Nothing earth shattering, but a
reasonable wadge of games for your
pennies.
Discs 22 and 26 are utilities. I can
see you're setting the alarm clock so
i'll keep it short. Aside from the
normal yawnish crunchers and text
readers, there are some nice snippets
like a drive spinner to make disc
cleaners work, an IFF picture to icon
converter, a pointer clock device, or a
pointer device clock, or something,
and many, many more.
Flicking through Capricorn's list,
the company is up to date with
versions of programs, and as well as
the normal PD collection it has some
interesting extras in its homegrown
library.
It’s worth highlighting an advantage
of a smaller PD lihrary, Massey was
well enough in tune with his 50 or so
discs that he could locate what l
►
July 1989 AMIGA COMPUTING 63
wanted without guessing or
consulting huge lists or databases.
Talking of huge lists and databases,
or even not talking about them, is
nothing whatsoever to do with the
report received this week from Down
Under. We re under attack from the
mutant Gr undies. Closely following
the antipodean soap comes the first
hatch of Australian shareware. Nell
Mangel, eat yer heart oul.
Much of this is crude conversion
work from 8 hit machines. The Henry'
Ramsay Lawn mower Simulator is an
example. Sound is a monotonous
sampled moped. The idea is to run
around the neighbourhood avoiding
the cats and postmen while trying to
Sieve Tibbett, PD hero end
X-man extraordinaire
mow as many lawns as possible.
From the as yet unheard of Darleen
Brothers, HRI.S was written from a
totally unoriginal idea and, while very
quick on an Amiga, has nunc of the
machine's graphic capabilities
exploited.
T HE convict beginnings of
Australia are remembered in
another simulation which is slightly
reminiscent of the Cnlditz glider,
H-Block Escape.
The game is split into two parts. In
a horizontally scrolling maze game
you have to gather together six fellow
prisoners, attack a warder, get the
keys, hold the governor to ransom
and finally lead the convicts on to the
roof.
Part two is an isometric 3D plan of
the roof. You have to collect the
necessary parts to make a working
hang glider. This accomplished, you
fly of! into the sunset. Or you would
if you could find the bits.
T plummeted several times hefore I
realised it was supposed to do that.
Aimed at the delinquent sub-culture
around Ayres Rock, H-Block Escape
was written by Paul Read, Erica
Davidson and Beatrice Smith, all part
of the Wentworth rehabilitation
project.
Back on this side of the world, but
still very sneaky, is a brilliant hut less
than honest general method of hyping
PD. Tt labours under the excuse of a
disclaimer: “This disc contains
language or graphics that may
offend”, Well it may have done in
1948, but with naked ladies adorning
the tabloid press daily and expletives
having reached Blue Peter, I don’t
think we re going to be reaching for
the heart pills,
N t), more likely we’ll reach for
the cheque hook in the hope
that this time it may be something
stunning and not just another deck of
digitised derrieres or an Anglo-Saxon
nastie with a Dutch accent.
I took a random sample of 12 of
these so called “buy at your own
risk” discs from various sources, and
this is what I found: 32 four-letter
words about propagation, three four-
letter words about normal bodily
functions, seven digitised naughty
words, five digitised pictures of
protruding protruberenccs and three
naughty parts.
I subscribe to the idea of protecting
minors from the degredation and
squalid thoughts we adults have and
enjoy, but if I find the disclaimer used
as a cunning way to advertise PD
software, offender beware,
And that includes the nasty little
mail at Birmingham’s New Street
Station. After an uncomfortable bus
ride from Solihull the last thing I
wanted was a Left-wing Brummie
trying to get a subscription for some
nasty radical Trotskyist cause. If
perchance his commune owns an
Amiga and he's reading this: “You
nasty little oik, I nearly missed my
train and T hope the swelling lasts for
months”.
At least there was a bar on the train
and 1 had time to inhale a Britvic or
two as we sped southwards. At the
end of platform two at Kings Cross I
noticed a bunch of men crowded
round a diesel. They were taking
photns of a guy dressed from the
seventies leaning on an engine
bearing the number 47014. Whatever
turns you on.
Across London by tube and south
towards Portsmouth. On the outskirts
of that sprawling naval town is
Water! uoviile, famous for absolutely
nothing. After scanning reference
books and gazetteers for a strange fact
to latch on to, 1 had all but given up
when I came to a small comment
about neighbouring Havant, famous
for the largest tampon factory in
Europe. Does this make Waterloovillc
the next door neighbour to ...
Good taste and editorial discretion
plucked away the rest of the above
paragraph.
Softville PD in Waterlooville has 35
million different PD discs for the
Amiga. At least it seems that way. A
40-page catalogue bristling with
Softville, UGA, APDC, AMICUS, Fish,
Panorama, FAUG, Slipped Disk,
commercial software and a club that
guarantees updates and catalogues
make this a well organised outfit.
1 tried the two Fairlight demo discs,
a few games. Fish's latest, a UGA
slideshow, sound utilities and Soft
102, which has a really alarming start.
Slideshow is a useful program.
A grisly example from the 2 1 pieces of
artwork on the UGA Slideshow disc
from So ft Vide PD
Having recently seen a slideshow of
digitised photos and video images, I
am passing it on to an old college
friend for a proper test drive on (he
lecture and seminar circuit.
The Fairlight discs left me with the
harmless but annoying North Star
virus in memory, but VirusX v3.2
flushed it oul Thanks, Tibbett.
Bugs abound lately, with the
newest being the mutations of
originally harmless viruses. There is a
version of Byte Bandit around which
rewards A It- A m iga - S pace- Amiga - Al t
with an obscene message before
doing the nasty on what’s in memory.
No doubt there will soon be a bug
killer to beat it. If you know of one
already, where did you get it?
And I hear of a disc called
Hollandaise which claims to he an all
purpose bug fettler from the
Netherlands.
Informed sources say that it is in
fact a hug installer, and comes from a
►
frj AMIGA COMPUTING July 1‘M‘J
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inp re-" Sen selling Iitle? Thnirr an FEWER cgmpnmes wtig car aht 1 a
*ide range ol product! Tpr ygyr cnrnpL.tar ar. well as CKpert advice IM
help whem you -"leed <1 Therf IS QNlV one enmpany who cSn £pcjvk 1£
rne large^l range pi Amigfi remind p<<sdi.c:h -n Ihi* JK. j Full lime *m yii
spf C al'Sr lechr.ical helpline .ard ir -deplh nflrr saie-s iupporl, including
Tree- ngwfrlQIhgrs an d hrnchi. run deh^ered k: your dcxir lc d.s lung as vdl
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and i. rclrr^landng which >s secord ta rdne Here ire jl/SI some oP rue-
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When you buy Ihe Amiga 5ffl irom SihCi Shop you w*l' ne>| only
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modulilor is npl ne-uded wilh tee ASM* A i DM 3 pac*. as it ia nol
required For use wnh mOAUQ-rsi Second y. we have Added a tree
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RRP nl £&9 95 Las! land by no mears eaSt!|. SC lhai yOu can be
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Whefl yoL buy your Amiga MB
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Arl 01 Chessi
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ifcan Waffkon
£24.95
Insaoily Flghl
Mercenary Comp
£19.99
Terrorpodi
£24.95
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£24.95
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E24.-95
>: £229.50
£22950
INC VAT
v. i i : mj I
ll vOu already owr an Am-aa computer an p would li-n be r*g!Rl»rad on our mnirirg i-*1 as a-‘i
4m r-ja u*ei «r ua *.now We *ill be ptelSBd lg wnd yen, C0CI*1 qf gur CH hits And nowalellEra
FREE UF CHARGE « Ihe^ her "«n".p a-jAila !>i« Complrln thfi rnuppn and rilurn il to auf SidCup
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fo: Silica Shop Ltd, Dept AW COW 07/69. 1-4 The Mews. Hatherley Road,
PLEASE SEND ME FREE LITERATURE 0!
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M THE AMIGA
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Surname.
SILICA SHOP:
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OFEN MQw -SAT farm S 00pm LATE HfGHT. THURSDAY 9^ Syrrr
I
1
Postcode
Do yqy already awn a computer
IF -so which one d& you own^
J
,
* ■'■sw
Chaos
Action ifj ffo e course of
The Control z OQm
Arn v * in the nick nt *- m
°ne of the i„t “ °* time at
— 6 >nfec M Ptenet J
Pioneer Probe Mk IV - a self-replicating robotic spaceship
— is out of control , destroying alt life as it travels from
planet to planet in the Station Cluster. Your mission is to
stop the spread of the plague before it's too iate.
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
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
9 Stereo music score and digitised speech
oOto*f*V*'
a^save^hl pstt ^ns
aug them onto disc
In association with
SOFT WARE
Please sand me Pioneer Plague for (he Amiga-
□ 1 enclose a cheque for £2^95 made
payable to Mandarin Software
Please debit my Acc^ss/Visa number
1 1 1 m 1 1 1 ii
Expiry date
t
Signature
Name .......
Address
Postcode
Europa House, Adlmgton Park,
Adlington, Macclesfield SK10 4NP-
L
Sund to; Database Direct, Freepost, Ellesmere Port,
South Wirral L65 3EB- Tel: 051-357 2961
Postage: Add £2 Eurgpe/Qverseas fh
AMF/
4
group of students in I.ancon de
Provence, Tin toJd that it presents
itself like VirusX and actually rids
discs ol boot-block viruses before
leaving its own,
Wakefield-based 17 Bit Software
claims to have the best value for
money PIT starter pack in the world.
Send a fiver (including P&P) and
you'll get a disc mag with demos,
progs, music and words, a disc of
useful utilities and three PD games, a
disc of graphics, sound, animation
and music. The offer includes club
membership,
17 Bit always seems lo have the
best animations, but I thought r was
having my leg pulled when f finally
received the 1 meg trailer of the t
meg version of the 2 meg mark 2
version of The Walker Demo.
Whatever version it is, the main
feature will he good. Another trailer
indeed. They’ll be sending out
popcorn and Kia-ora with it next. Or
those dreadful hot dogs that look tasty
on the screen hut by the time you’ve
made it to the foyer they look like a
limp apology for a Canadian weanic.
In need of a good belly laugh (To
go with hte goad belly. Ed) I
remembered an earlyish disc from 17
Bit ahoul loo paper, number UH4 in
the collection. It is not suitable for
Mary Whitehouse or Lord Longford,
but anyone with a broad ish mind and
an honest memory should find it
funny, ft you do find it offensive,
tough, ft’s a nasty old world, isn’t it,
A BIG prize for porkies lo the
salesman in a Glasgow
computer shop who told a customer
that the ST could do anything the
Amiga could. Has anyone seen an ST
version of the Wild Copper demos?
What was Ralph doing in Glasgow
anyway? Ah. train spotting. 1
understand there are sume wondrous
b cashes in Polmadie Motive Power
Depot,
So as Ralph returns to York with
ST and free "software” under arm, I
must stop this month’s SwcetPD
wdiile I go off to chase the elusive gas
freezer. Using a fridge and a freezer
as supporting points for the tahle was
a great idea. Trouble
is, these appliances
of sciences have nasty
motors that can reset an Amiga at 10
paces with a spikev bit down the
mains.
After buying a gas fridge, a freezer
is the next target. The gas hoard
agreed reluctantly lo put another
point next to the desk and all being
well I should soon have a double
smooth supply.
The microwave and the coffee
machine don’t cause problems, hut
I’m told that a deep fat fryer causes
environmental hassles. And I
promised I wouldn’t mention the
measures afoot to ...
WHERE IN THE WORLD ?
Capricorn Computers, 35 Warwick
Road, OJton, Solihull, (Tel 021-707
0381),
Soft vi He PD Services, 55 Highfleld
Avenue, Waterloo villa, P07 7PY.
(Tel 0705 40RD4).
17 Bit Software, PO Box 97,
Wakefield, WFl 1 XX, (Tel 0924
360982).
Mail Order Offers
At last, an inexpensive and very easy-to-use spreadsheet that’s simple enough for
beginners, yet sophisticated enough for professionals.
Dig i cate 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 tor all 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.
J liked the package to begin with, end first impressions are important... Digits
deserves full marks for the way in which the menus and command driven operations
have been implemented. It's a no nonsense spreadsheet.. I d certainly recommend it
for general purpose spreadsheet work", - Rex Last, Amiga Computing, December 1088.
RRP
£ 39.95
OUR PRICE
£29.95
TO ORDER PLEASE USE
THE FORM ON PAGE 95
Reviewed in the December
issue of Amiga Computing
TYPICAL APPLICATIONS
Home budgeting
Invest me nt project appraise!
Comparing rent/lease/buy options
Processing results of experiments
Engineering calculation modeJs
Education
SMALL BUSFNE55 APPLICATIONS
Cash flows
Profit and loss statements
Balance sheets
Purchase orders
invoices
Costings
Stock control
Saiea/purchaseynominal ledgers
Payrolls
Price lists
filly J lifts AMIGA COMPUTING 67
All prices include VAT! delivery
NEW SPECIAL OFFER AMIGA PACK
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★ Mercenary
A Him in a tor
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A Bubble (Jho&l
A and 1 extra game free,
while stocks last !
A pirn 5 disks of
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All this for only £399.00!
Amiga 500. including tV modulator £359.00
A501 RAM /clock expansion for Amiga 500 £ 129 GO
Pye 15" FST TV /Monitor model rno.1105, inc, Arnica caJDlo £269.00
Philips CM6833 colour m on I lor syllable Ipt Amiga 500 „*^ P „ £229.00
Philips CM0O52 monitor as above, but highai rasalulkjn „ ^99.00
Philips TV Tyner AV7300, use wilfi any composite monitors £74.05
X-Copy powerful newdteK copier £27.95
Word Porf eel - - — . . ..... - . ... £ 1
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Supeffeaso Profasswnal £179.00
Logistic , . - ■ - - - £799&
AS00 DljsE COvor £4-95
vortex system 2000 hard disks
Now available - Vortex ‘System 2000’ hard disks, offering versatile
high-capacity storage, suitable for use with the Amiga 500 and Amiga
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System 2000 40Mb Hard Disk package E529.00
ude VAT delivery & cable
Wo use and recommend Star prtnlers
slnco They oltor an u nla^m a hit com-
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Slar LC24-1Q to aturo packed multifont 24pin printer £319-00
Siar SF-IQDJ / DK cul sheer feeder for LC-10 / LC24-10 £64.95
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Panasonic KXP1O01 reliable 9pin Id" primer 120/24 ops ,, £ 169-00
Panasonic KXPi 160 super new 9pln mufti ion e 11. 7~ carriage £199.00
Panasonic KXP1 124 good quality new multifont 24 pin ,,,,, £319.00
Panasonic KXP-37 cul sheet feeder tor KXP1 1BD £95.00
Panasonic KXP-36 cul sheet feeder to* KXP1 124 ............. £109-00
Epson LX0OO popular Spin 1CT 10O/25cps £199.00
Epson LQ5Q0 24 pin 10" l5O/50cps . .. £319.00
Epson EPX-200 Cut siieet reeder tor LXSOO / LQ500 £74.95
NEC P2200 budget £4 pin l6S/55cps £319.00
Citizen 120D budget Spin IQ* IZOcpa £139,00
Ciiiwn HQP-45 bargain value vykde carriage 24 pie ....... £399.00
Manneamann-Tairy MT-B1 Q pin 1 30 ■ |l 34^ps £149,00
3.5" EXTERNAL DRIVES
using Citizen drive mechanisms
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Ultra low price!
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Inc.VAT and
delivery
Now available - Our New
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We are now supplying the new, good quality j
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the Amiga. Quiet in operation, the unit is ;
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giving lull Transformer' compatibility.
Only
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including VAT |
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disk backup utility
Probably tha be$i and mo&t oomptote
3.5" disk copier for the Amiga user.
Can a van copy MS-DOS, Alarf ST,
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Because of lha high specification ol
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ST t Also indudos Irack editor,
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DOUBLE TAKE!
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3 5" Disks
[How to order from
All prices include VAT And delivery. Exprets Courier delivery E5.DQ extra. |
Kj?i Send cheque, Poild Order
^ or ACCESS/VISA cord details
Evesham Micros Ltd
63 BRIDGE STREET
EVESHAM
WORCS WR11 4SF
(£) 0386-765500
la* 03a6-76S354
telex 333294
10 Bulk packed DS/DD 3.5" disks
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25 bulk disks as above £27.95
1 0 disks as above with plastic case ..... £13.95
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m
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AMIGA COMPI TING fuiv 1939
■ MUSIC!
P HRASE symbols such as tics or
trills that extend over several
notes are entered by positioning the
cursor at the starting point of the
symbol and pressing a key, then
positioning the cursor at the end
point and pressing a key again. Slurs
need four points to be specified by
cursor.
Commands used for manipulating
groups of notes include cutting,
pasting, erasing and moving. A range
of notes is chosen by dragging a
square around it with the mouse.
When the mouse button is released a
Range Edit requester opens.
You select the type nf edit and
which symbols the edit will apply to
- all text, rests, ledger lines, upper
stems, lower stems, staves or bar
lines. These commands can all he
executed with keystrokes.
As well as ihe standard editing
mode, there are three others tor
entering data on the screen: Text
mode for entering text, keyboard
mode to enter note heads at specific
pitches and Join mode to add stems
and beams In sets of notes.
A simple font editor allows the user
to create 10 user-defined symbols.
This editor consists of three windows
showing the screen, dot matrix and
laser versions of the symbol; 10
buttons at the hottom of the screen
are used to pick which symbol is
being edited. Symbols are edited by
toggling pixels on and off with the
mouse.
C OPYIST Professional lets you
take long sequences of
keystrokes and save them as macros.
So if you need to use the same
sequence of commands over and over
this vastly simplifies the process.
After a complete score is written
you can easily extract individual
parts. Suppose you want to extract the
part that will be played by the
trumpet. Just click on the Parts
Program icon from the Workbench.
This opens the Parts window, where
you specify which score file you are
►
I QYFUL anticipation overcame fear |
as T approached Copyist
lfessinnal. Having used Dr '!”s
popular Keyboard Control Sequencer
software I was braced for a program
that was powerful but difficull to
learn. And J expected the manual to
be a confusing mess.
Happily, Copyist Professional is
packed with features. Even more
happily, this time Dr T has come up
with a comprehensible manual and
logical user interface.
This software allows Amiga users
to create arid print truly professional
music scores which can be entered
directly using the mouse and
keyboard or transcribed from Midi
sequencers. So you compose a tune at
the keyboard and Copyist turns it into
a score.
There's a great deal of flexibility in
the way scores can be formatted. A
small edit cursor box is positioned
within the Score Editor window. A
musical symbol is selected for entry
by mouse or a set of keystrokes, Some
of the more complex symbols can
only be entered from the keyboard.
After the} edit cursor is positioned,
symbols can he placed using the three
Symbol menus. Symbols! contains
the most common ones, including
note heads, accidental signs and
dynamic markers, as well as the stave,
SymbolsZ includes clefs, time
signatures and ornaments. The
Symbols:! menu otters rests and
guitar ta Mature signs. Symbols that
can be entered only by key
commands include bar lines, dots,
slums and user-defined symbols.
Rob Griffith looks at a program
which removes some perspiration
from the toil of inspiration
Inly 1989 AMIGA COMPUTING lift
■ MUSIC!
-|
Project Mode Page
jftuai
VERB
\}\ <J j' s
Flat i
Natural n
[Double Sharp x
Black Note Head b
Kalf Note Head h
Whole Note Head «
Bruit Note Head X
Closed Diamond v
Open iiaiwnd Vi
Snail Black Note Bj
Snail White Mote H
Staff S
Single Staff Line 2
Forte F
Mezzo M
Ledger Line z
2 3 Print Inport Other
.,i
m
frl
w
i
u
# N
±±t
w
J-S. Bach
r*
f I
f
I
T
i*
i
3
Symbols can he plated using i he three Symbol menus
VI HHib « '%j la . i k
% r *i | i v
V* I pi I ■■ -
m- w «- i h j ... wy-m- U .
UVAkVk If: .
V-
T-ftr r‘tr eu' t_r
I iiJlIr 11 ■!«, i,„_ »* -■- . ■! u |i_ y „ .
iB “■ r ■ rCinD ^r-"T‘
./TJ3 . J
ri- l«OJ ■I’PIfB . Euir I .“i — A H__ - - i k nm Ilia. (j £; *1 £.
Members of the orchestra can have customised versions of the score
the number of staves for each track —
one or two - the key signature, time
signature, note value per beat, bars
per line, staves per page and steps per
beat. Once these parameters have
been set you begin the conversion by
clicking on DK.
Now the stream file must be read
into a score. A new r score should be
opened from the Project menu. After
you specify the stream Hie the
Transcription Options window
appears for you to specify parameters
like bars per line, staves per page, any
inclusion of rests, page numbers, bar
numbers, stems, beams and so on.
Drum parts can be transcribed, but
it is important to assign each drum to
the proper note.
U nfortunately Copyist
Professional’s synth program
module is not yet working. It is
supposed to convert scores into Midi
format or KCS .all hies. Dr T
promises to send Copyist owners this
module as well as a backup of the
program as soon as some bugs are
ironed out. Converting a score into a
sequence will be the reverse of
converting a sequence into a score.
Copyist is not a tool for the casual
hobbyist. There is always a trade off
between power and case of use, and
this powerful program lakes some
time to learn.
For professional musicians as well
as serious amateurs. Copyist fills a
vital need among the growing
number of music programs for the
Amiga.
extracting the parts from and the
name of the file you are saving to.
In this window you also enter how
many parts will be created, the
number of staves per page and which
staves from the source score go to
which destination part.
It is possible to merge several
staves in the original score into one in
the extracted part. The extracted parts
can he transposed. This is useful for
instruments which are not in concert
pitch — such as an E-flat saxophone.
When scores and parts are
completed they can be printed as
draft quality scores for quick
reference or as manuscript quality
scores for performance or publication.
Copyist Professional supports Amiga
drivers for dol matrix printers as well
as Hewlett-Packard DeskJet or Laserjct
for producing high quality output.
C ONVERTING sequence files into
scores is a relatively painless
process. Copyist Professional will
convert Smus, Midi and tracks, then
the sequence files are converted to
stream files that the Copyist can read.
Using the Import menu, you select
the format of your sequence file and
enter the names of the source and
stream files. The Conversion Options
window opens allowing you to select
REPORT CARD
Dr Ts Cupyisl Professional
Amiga Centre Scotland
025
ease of 1 1 1 J IJilLLLM 1 i I
Offers word processing flexibility to
composers and makes splitting up peris
a simple task.
SPEED.
mu
Much quicker than transcribing by
hand, takes a while to learn.
ur
VALUE
Needs a lot of use to justify the price.
O \ I K \U.
.A competent program which should
satisfy an ever growing market.
?& AMIGA COMPUTING fitly
■PROGRAMMING
Under the
Workbench
W E’VE all been through it,
wandering about directories
late at night, trying to cram an extra
byte out of the Workbench disc to fit
in the latest thing in editors, virus
killers or directory utilities.
Here is the answer to ail your
prayers. How to make a personalised
Workbench disc on to which you can
cram more programs to make life
easier. You will want to use this in
vour daily work to avoid a lot of the
disc jockeying normally associated
with the Amiga.
OK. Make a copy of your
Workbench disc and put the original
well out of harm’s way. My fridge is
such a place. Make all the suggested
alterations in this article on the
duplicate you have just created. When
you delete or copy something
remember to delete or copy the file
with the same name plus the
extension info, Without these there
will be no icons to click on.
You are. of course, familiar with the
I rashcan directory, and since you'll
Henning Sorensen
plays cat and
mouse with
redundant
routines
probably need to use this with the
WorkBench again, it would be daft 1o
delete it.
Moving on, you can see there are a
lot of files in the C directory. These
are the AmigaDos commands which
are loaded when required. I will not
recommend you delete many since
you may well need them, but likely
candidates are Edit and ED, two crude
text editors infinitely inferior to
MicroEmacs on the Extras disc.
If you haven't got a 5.25in disc
drive for your Amiga, and most of us
haven’t, you can safely delete
DiskChange. SelClock is a likely
candidate to go if you haven’t got a
battery backed-up clock, and
BindPrivers isn’t much use if you
haven't got special extra hardware -
the A 501 ram upgrade does not fail
into this category. Apart from that,
most of these files are good to have.
The Prefs directory is pretty useless
except for the Preferences program.
Copy it and Preferences. info to the
root directory then delete everything
in here, including the directory itself.
It will not give you much, hut a
couple of kilobytes can make a
difference.
S OME files in the System
directory may be of no use to
you, depending on your machine
configuration. If you haven’t any
expansion memory, in other words a
vanilla A5DD with 512k, delete
FaslMcmFirst, MergeMem and
NoEastMem.
NoFastMem “removes” extra
memory, sometimes a necessary step
to get old programs to run.
Merge Mem can make two memory
boards appear as one to the machine,
and KastMemFirst makes sure the
“fast” memory on the expansion port
gets used before the slower standard
and A5t)l memory,
If you have extra memory, but only
one board, you can delete
h a si Mem First and Merge Mem, If you
have several memory boards you're
out of luck, nothing goes — except
fab 1969 AMIGA COMPUTING 71
,
1
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jwaie- F ur1 rnn EuctiD'i to c°
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dinates
Now children can really have fun while learning.
Fun School 2, designed by a team of education-
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giving educational help.
The computer itself monitors the child’s
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- is automatically adjusted to suit the child's
ability.
Now children can enjoy using their parents’
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Pi easa supply Fun School 2 for the code
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AMC7
■PROGRAMMING!
your money for a hard disc to store
all the extra files.
Still in the System directory, if you
never use the minus sign and are
pretty satisfied with the standard
keyboard layout, you could delete
Setmap, which alters the keyboard
layout. You can always get a fresh
one from the fridge.
Don't he surprised if you see a file
in your System directory called
CLI. noinfo. This is because you have
deselected CLI in the Preferences
program, It's the CLI. info file renamed
so that Workbench can't find it.
There are a few extra bytes to be
claimed in the L directory, which
stands lor library, not to be confused
with the Libs directory which stands
for libraries. Some parts of Amiga Dos
are kept in L and loaded off disc
when needed.
Do not touch Disk-Validator
because it is used to check the discs
when you insert them. Leave Ram-
Handler alone, it's the program for
the ram disc. Likewise Pori -Handler,
which handles the serial and parallel
ports. You prnhahly don’t want to
delete Shell-Seg or Newcon-Hartdler
without which the new Shell and
command line editing will not work.
The rest are not so commonly used.
Pipe-Handler allows the output of one:
program can be made the input of
another. In theory' it can be useful but
I have never had a use for it myself, I
doubt if you will, delete that one,
Speak-Handler can he cute lor five
minutes, but nerve wrecking until
doomsday. It lets your Amiga read
text with the built-in speech
synthesiser. It sounds like
Muhammed Ali on a bad day, with a
cold to match his ego and his head in
a bucket. You may have guessed I
think the space could be put to better
use.
Po stFi I e System is great - the best
thing to hit the Amiga since Atari
refused to buy it - but only if you
have a hard disc, otherwise you have
no use for it.
Aux-Handler has the same problem
as Pipe-Handler, it can be useful, but
you will probably never need it. It
allows you to communicate with the
serial port directly from CLI, This can
be great fun. I controlled a friend's
Amiga over the phone, starting all
sort of programs as fast as I could,
while he manicaJly closed them
down. But unless you have a rusly
IBM the scrapyard didn’t want and
you want to control it from your
Amiga, you know what to do.
EV5 contains three sub-
directories. Dr vs y key maps is
where Set map looks for keyboard
layout files. The trick is only to keep
those you use, which probably means
GB to you and me. Devs/ printers is
/ You could delete
Setmap, you can
always get a fresh
one from the fridge f
where AmigaDos looks for the printer
driver you selected in Preferences.
Again, the trick is to keep only the
printer drivers you use.
Don't concern yourself with Devs/
clipboards. This directory is used by
the Amiga to store clips - what you
make when you "cut” in your text
editor or word processor. It is totally
transparent to you.
The file called Mountlist in (he
Devs directory is pretty special. Have
a look at it with your favourite text
editor. It is used bv the system to
figure out exactly w'hat you mean
when you type, for example, MOUNT
RAD:, The system looks for RAD: in
the Mountlist and follows the
instructions it finds there. To be more
specific goes beyond the scope of this
article, let’s just say you leave it
alone.
System-Configuration is just as
essentia]. This file is written
whenever you click on Save in
Preferences, It contains information
on how you like your Amiga to look
and behave. Don’t touch.
Clipboard .Dev ice is used by many
programs, especially text editors,
word processors and spreadsheets, so
this one stays. Para! lei, Device,
Serial. Device and Printer, Device are
essential, at least if you want to send
anything to your printer.
If you never use a printer, a modem
or anything else connected to the
parallel or serial ports, you can delete
these files, hut it is not recommended,
What will happen when your IBM
friends bring their lasers over? Lots of
laughs because the "stupid Amiga”
can't print.
Ramdrive. Device is used by RAD:,
the recoverable ram disc, A great little
number, so 1 suggest you leave it Lit.
The last of the hunch,
Narrator. Device, is a hit tricky. It is
used whenever you want your Amiga
tu speak.
If you are anything like me that is
as seldom as possible, in which case
delete it. But if you left Speak-Handler
in and intend to use it, it is necessary
to keep Narrator. Device loo, Make it a
low r priority deletion - only remove it
if you are desperate for bytes,
The S directory is important
because AmigaDos searches here for
execute files — small simple programs
designed to carry out small simple
tasks. What the Amiga does w r hen you
put a disc in the internal disc drive
and rehoot is to run the execute file
Startup-Sequence, So naturally, this
stays.
CU-Starlup is executed when you
double dick on the CLI icon and
Shell-Startup is executed when you
double dick on the Shell icon. Both
of these should stay. Deal, Pcd and
Spat are examples of execute files,
none of which is very useful. Have a
look, learn and keep them if you like
them.
Startup- Sequence. HD is a suggested
startup file for hard disc users anti is
a candidate for deletion since it is
very stupid. I definitely wouldn't use
it even if I had a hard disc- Startupll
is called by Startup-Sequence; leave it
►
July 1989 AMIGA COMPUTING 73
■PROGRAMMING!
in here unless you change the
Stii rtu p- Sequence.
No prize lor guessing what's in the
Fonts directory. It’s where Amiga Dos
hides different character sets. Each
one has a .font file holding vital
information and a subdirectory where
the actual fonts are stored.
The numbers in the subdirectories
are the size of the fonts. So you can
see that Ruby comes in three sizes: H«
12 and 15. There are more fonts on
the Extras disc - with all the space
you’re making, you can soon pul
some of them on your work disc.
As mentioned earlier. Libs means
libraries. Files bore are collections of
routines which can be used by any
program. They are loaded from disc
when needed. It would be stupid to
delete anything in here because you
never know when a program might
need One of these libraries. Hands off.
except for Trans la tor. Library, which
has to do with speech. It translates the
Queen's English to phonemes, the
basic sounds of the language.
As you may have noticed by now. I
bate computer speech, but on the
other hand some programs may not
run if they can’t Find this library. As
with Narrator. Device, I suggest you
make it a low priority deletion. If you
delete Narrator. Device there is no
poinl in keeping Translator. Library.
Empty is, erm, quite empty. Except
for a file which is necessary lor
Workbench to figure out how to
handle directories, or drawers as they
are known in Workbench jargon, it’s
only use is to give you a chance to
make a new drawer from Workbench
by dragging it into another window'.
This is reason, enough to let it thr ough
the eye of the needle. It's not many
bytes anyway.
B OY arc we going to have a ball
in Utilities. Watch nut or the
Delete command may overheat. This
is where the bytes come floating in.
Let's start with Calculator. Hardly
the best of its kind and certainly
inferior to my HIM SC an arm’s reach
away. So out it goes. Clock is quite
cute, but 1 have one just like it on my
arm and one beside the Amiga, so
what’s the use? The same goes for
Clock Ptr.
CMD is another earlul of Babel fish,
it is one of those programs you may
have a use for. This one redirects
everything sent to the parallel or
serial port to cl file - useful when you
want to print something but haven't
got a printer.
Just print as normal, but to the file,
chuck the disc to your friend with the
HP LaserJet 11 and let him print it out.
If you occasionally want to print to a
printer other than your own, you can
use this Utility. If that is as remote a
chance as going to Betelguese 5 for
the weekend, you can delete CMD.
GraphicDump is a handy utility and
T suggest you leave it in. Notepad on
the other band is as lar removed from
a decent word processor as the Amiga
from the ZXttl. If it is notes you want
tn write, what good are fancy fonts
and colours? No, in my opinion a
/ Clock is quite
cute , but I have
one like it on
my wrist J
good text editor is much better for the
job. Resides, NotePad has crashed on
me so many times I would be a
millionaire had ! used the lost time to
make needles and pins. Out.
Say. Well you know my opinion on
computer speech. Say no more,
1 ns tallPr inter is an execute file
designed tn copy the correct driver
for vour printer from the Extras disc
to the Workbench disc. Assuming this
has been done, there is no need to
keep the execute file.
The More program is good for
viewing text Files and should be left
on the disc unless you have one of
the superior public domain efforts.
Some of them can send files from disc
to printer, which brings us to
I’rintFiles, which does just that.
Overkill. A simple Type command
from the CLI can do exactly the same
job. in the bin with that one.
t he Expansion directory is as
empty as Empty but hasn't got a good
reason tor us to show mercy. Chuck it
away. It's only used to hold software
for very special hardware add-ons,
which most of us haven't got and will
never gel,
The rest of the files on the disc are
the .info files for the directories you
can see as drawers on the
Workbench, Don't touch them, nor
the Shell,
A word of warning. IF you delete a
file from your WorkBench disc which
is used by Startup-Sequence, your
Amiga will not bool up properly. This
doesn’t mean you shouldn't delete the
files, but nither that you should edit
your Startup-Sequence, The
commands in question are
Rind Drivers, which is there for hard
discs and similar peripherals,
SetGlock, which reads the time from
the battery backed-up sundial, and
FastMem First which gives any
external ram priority over internal
chip ram.
You could encounter a similar
problem if you delele Aux-Handler,
Pipe-Handler or Speak-Handler. Edit
the Startup! I execute file and remove
the appropriate Mount commands.
Nothing is easier, and your Amiga
will boot faster he cause of it.
Y OU may think we haven’t got
any more tricks to pull, but we
have an ace up our collective sleeve.
Get hold of the PD program Crunch2,
You can find it on TBAG Disc #23, A
public domain distributor like Purple
PD should have it. CrunchZ can
reduce the size of an executable file, a
program you run by typing its name.
The reduction varies a great deal
depending on the type of program,
but generally speaking Crunch2
works best with executables between
15k and HOk long. Anything smaller
won’t give much reduction, with
anything larger the wail after the
program has loaded - while it is
uncrunching itself — gets to be
annoying.
I have usfid it on a number of the
files on my Workbench disc. On
Preferences I achieved a 20k
reduction.
I used the tips t have given you
here to make a personalised disc,
squeezing an extra 250k out of it
without sacrificing usability. This
gave me room for some utilities to
make lifewilh Amiga much more
enjoyable, such as a virus killer, a
couple of superb text editors, an
MSdos transfer program, a disc cache
program, some sluff of my own
devising and several other bits and
pieces. You could do that too, I have
shown you how.
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Artec C Dwdoftef £112 70
Artec C Professional E95 £5
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Newsletter Fwfls E25.25
Power wndcwg V2.5 £56.96
Project D £33.65
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Studio Fails. £25 25
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fitly 1<M9 AMIGA COMPUTING 75
commodore
FROM C 345 t
VMMTGA
Prlt« Indudd I5S. VAT, FREE delivery
1o yemr door, and I year iflJ nulaclurar'a
wjTTvnly. Addf.is for owimlght dttllvcrv
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Ort-*U# oFtl^laoainice option available
| A SOD tgmpMO. ngw pnly £349
| Amiga A £00 with lSriOM
hiqti-rgjs mortd nxruftjt
| Amiga A500 wnh Aims
hi-rot fa.iro* cotour Irtrtllitel
I Amiga 62000 with 1.1 Roma
ar*d WorABcnch 1.3 Software
t Amiga B2Q04 As abrave. plus
A 10643 3tereo colour monrlof
I Amiga njHHW A*; abc-wi. plus £1595
KT bncfcga boaid * ?:wa hard drjk
£429
t ses
£8SS
£'1125
PERIPHERALS
mrnGA
I A2621 Unix Card Phan a
I A2*2fl EW320 Accelerator Card £ 1 395
I ATOS «M B card. ZMB instarind £ 59 5
| A33M PC - AT t^-ard ft ftj' di mu C 895
I A24BB Pt-XT board ft S h drive £349
I NEC oi" internal drive [A2D00) £79
I A3093PC£gMB MS-DOS hd dish £239
| A2492A OT0 AmrjJDOl h* *Sk £395
I A209ZPC 3DMB MS-DOS hd disk £399
I A2flfl4A ZOWB^OWB JHilotwot Phobfl
| StFcam 40ME3 ICrnOviUlii hd dtak £995
I Supfi Modem 300-2*00 bpe £ 189
I ij" d/s c.'d dishfiiwis p*» no
I Trackball Marco™ P.92
| A501 pA-S-ifi RAM/ccW-k Sl£K
| NEC si' twin-port slimline drive
I AlOlO 1-1" external disk drive
| Cumana sl" extendi cfrwo * PSU
|A590 HMBbd dmk SMR RAM &K £395
I Vortex 40M& auloboor tiaicf dis* £549
IA1034S slereo Dolour monrior
( Guadran Mulltacan 1*' Medlar
| NEC Mullltync II 14' Mnmlm
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IStarLCiQC colour ■ 20 cps-. NLQ £259
| HP Cheah J®t 300 dpi irtk|b4 ( BW £ 67 5
I HP PalnUel colour *nh|ut iso dpi £ 089
| VtriiT 4030 rplmjr ink^M 24Q dpi £ 1 075
£10
£ 59
£125
£89
£99
£145
£239
£425
£525
£375
£149
TELETEXT
Why not enjoy the tree Teletext da1atia3«
wflhlhe Mlcref exl Telettaxl Bdaplor... fu*y
programmable, with Taste* 8 lacilitv , instant
access 1& I ;i c IB pagfis , doubto pago view,
telaionwir* loader auto-slarlj background
operation... Papes can spoken printed an ASCII or graphe*. aavod .is ASCII or DIF lilos..
Wnh digital toning tor crystal clear colour TU.'Smmd iocd|iiien on u>>v Aitifi i/iDfia/EMfla.in
monitor! Uses Parallel port with ItwpuqihpftrT Igr pnnlnr Avriilnblii Irpm stock lor Only £13?!
AMIGA
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The Woiki ca t*
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Hugh prisrfotmartee dnflSdflp WP, now wt\\ t Ht3 loms fi 9 'is-
! niegrfl&ed Wor-dpro/Dalabe; B/Spfla^heet/Comrrts 1 59 q ■.
Kmdwofds 2 tPEigeSelle* 2 + LezerScriJi + lentg *clip art B-9 q^
Invoicing, S-iles Ledger Ste* Ctuntrol, ty ParMnead 121 si
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UK Income fax c^mnLiia^Kin program, 1 i am Oigira 39 **
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By Absotl Comprios Aimqi l^asic... FASfl 124.1*
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I Amiga Basic Inalde B Dirt £18 »
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Prml ft manipulate photo qualify imege« 59 n
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T he ulEimale dt owing logl U tos vw.-lo-i ntl gi ap hie?: 1 J9 - ■
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Entry-level CAD system 69 **
Prftte^iOnal CAD sy^lorfi frvHSds SMB> 4*9 S*
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Real-iim* ootour d*giri5er71rarrr jabber ft ggnlockl 47S.s*
BroadcHSI qu «lv genlock For Ihe prole*' ional user -525.it
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7774
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Shoot-first -ask- quest ions -later fans will thrill
to Raider. This great game with ear defying
sampled sound challenges you to balance
ance the thrust of your spaceship against the
varying gravities of a system of planets. You
will be able to sample two full levels to get a
real feel for the the game.
New, and hot enough to melt an asbestos
joystick, is Trained Assassin from the award
winning programmers at Digital Magic Soft-
ware. Only Amiga Computing gives you the
chance to experience for yourself the dan-
gers of entering the Chasm of Skulls, with a
50 frames per second, arcade quality play-
able demo.
And no more typing in listings from the
magazine. With the August disc you'll be
able to create a whole solar system from
Basic with The Model Universe program.
No more problems using corrupted discs
with the latest version of the PD triumph
DiskSalv.
All programs on the disc will be fully docu-
mented in the magazine. You'll find instruc-
tions, hints and tips on how to make the
most of your megabyte. And the price is just
£2.95 a month.
REMEMBER - The disc is ONLY available
with your monthly issue of
Amiga Computing.
Place a regular order with your
newsagent NOW - or subscribe
using the order form on Page 95.
Starting next
month in
From next month every issue of Amiga Computing
will include a 3.5in disc packed with entertaining
and useful programs.
The entire MEGABYTE is being crammed
with software to provide the best possible
disc, topped up with the cream of the Public
Domain, all professionally selected.
Look what's being lined up for the August
cover disc:
No more wondering if all the games are
really as good as the reviews say because
the disc will feature TWO great game demos.
iulv 1983 AMIGA COMPUTING 77
\
There’s a terrific i
Stewart C. Russell
discovers that
Cad vision f s new
designer software
is a blueprint
for success
T HE influence of CAD on the
computer world is hard to miss,
the vector graphics so common in
arcade games plus the obligatory
rotating wireframe enemy ship in the
scanners of some naffola spacecraft
epic are the more obvious ones. CAD
generally stands for Computer Aided
Design, but in this and most other
cases it should be more honestly
called Computer Aided Draughting.
The advantages of CAD over
manual draughting are speed and
ease of alteration. True, many
draughtsmen could dash off beautiful
drawings far quicker than many CAD
users, but if asked to alter a drawing
they may have to redo the whole
thing. CAD users just reload the file,
mess about with it and then replot it.
With a skilled user ami a fast plotter,
CAD systems save valuable working
time.
Unfortunately most CAD packages
are hopelessly expensive, need an
inordinately large computer to work
on and don’t break any speed records,
t he industry standard system costs
£2,500, needs at least £2, nt)0 worth of
286/237 PC and can take more than a
minute to redraw a fairly simple 2D
image on a 10MHz machine. Clearly
■ design
draught in here
Ihero is a market for a cheap, slightly
simplified CAD system that doesn’t
need an expensive machine on which
to run.
Kilter X-CAD Designer from
Cadvision International. All il can
produce is ANSr/ISO/BSl/DlN two*
dimensional plots, with no capability
for ;iD work. Three-dimensional CAD
is great for visualising difficult parts
or layouts, but is rarely used for day
to day drawings. Two-dimensional
CAD works, needs Jess calculation,
and is understandable to those who
need to know. X-CAD Designer has
two main selling points - its speed
and its price.
C ompanies always like to brag
about how their product is
much taster than the one everyone
else uses. Cadvision claims that its
package zooms and redraws at six
times the speed of Autodesk’s
AutoCAD running on a very
expensive PC. This time the numbers
are about right.
Nol ever having timed both
packages - many reviewers are wont
to place enormous credence on piles
of numbers - I'd say that X-CAD’s
zoom and redraw won't ever have
you drumming your
fingers. AutoCAD
undoubtedly will. It
definitely feels six times
faster, so Cadvision isn’t telling
porky* pies,
ft s strange, but il someone
produces a new computer product,
the workalikes that appear soon
afterwards generally cost about the
same, maybe; a little less. There’s a lot
of work in a CAD package, so the
awesome lumbering, yet brain-
flatteningly powerful AutoCAD
Release lo very nearly justifies its
£ 1 2,500 - X-CAD Designer has most of
Ihe useful 2D features of AutoCAD,
yet costs one short of a hundred.
for your £99 you get the program
disc, a 30-page tutorial and a 1 un-
page manual. You’ll need a 1 meg
Amiga, although there’s plenty of
space left for complex drawings -
over 300k in med-res mode.
Owning two drives isn't really
essential but, as ever, it’ll cut dow n
on disc swapping, A steady monitor
1S essential, A 1O04S is OK by me,
although the program can run in
interlace mode where a long
persistence display would be
beautiful. Kind of defeats the
“People’s CAD ’ ideal, but you can
always dream.
As with every CAD system, the
emphasis is on accuracy rather than
prettiness. Where else could you
produce dimensions accurate to one
millionth of a metre?
ft is in the display area that X-CAD
Designer has its one minor fault.
Using an area about two-thirds of a
K40 X 25K PAL screen doesn’t really
give a high enough resolution to
make out the fine details on a
drawing,
I rue, you can always zoom in and
scroll around the drawing at lightning
speed, or you could use interlace if
you re into headaches. It’s just that on
a display ol an A3 page, most text
comes out as a slightly furry
horizontal line.
1 he menu system used is a rather
clever application of Intuition. Instead
of providing linear pull-down menus
with lower level menus appearing
alongside, X-CAD Designer puts all
the options on the screen as a kind of
tree. Starting from the left hand side
selecting an option highlights the
available options on the lower menu
level, further to the right.
O ccasionally numerical
input is needed, which can he
done with the mouse using the
keypad display. This menu technique
could confuse people who are more
used to other packages. At least the
menus are quick to learn and not
cryptic, unlike some of AutoCAD’s
If you still can’t abide mice, there’s
Expert keyboard mode where
complex commands can be built up
lui V AkfJ/lA /"Vjj rnr mi/v'
™ --
S&t the driver steer end tfwtge
smoothly thmugh e»ch cf tire getrs
Dm down twsfy t*nef ft night With
an uKr&dihk 3D view nf the toad
I
BuiJd op OF repair jmir cat at tny
time in the welt-equipped workshop
Screenshots i'nnm At in SI and PC ventvna
Please send me Lombard/RAC Rally for:
□ Atari ST □ Amiga □ PC* f5W) □ PC* (3V? 17 )
19157) (98391 {572&1 (5729)
Postage: Add £2 EuropesV verseas £5 - Works with and
□ \ enclose cheque for £24 95 payable to Mandarin Software
□ Please debit my Access-'Visa number:
Srgnature
Marne
Address.
'An absolute must J ST Action
'Totally addictive' - Atari ST User
'Thoroughly engrossing' - C&VG
'Overall 95% l Computer Gmesw&k
Postcode.
AMC7
Climb inside the Group A Sierra Cosworth and prepare
yourself for the most realistic driving simulation ever.
Speed through the ever-changing terrain, skid round
hairpin bends and experience the unbelievable graphical
roller coaster effect as you plunge down into the valleys
and hurl up the next hill.
Take part in a TV interview to earn money for spares
Visit the workshop to add extra lights for fog and night
driving, and repair damage to your car. Every second
counts as you race towards the finishing line ... wifi your
skills measure up to the challenge?
SOF T WA R E
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SHED
GRID
im
RECT
PARA
CIRCLE
HATCH
i I KK
STRETCH
HOVE
HO-COFY
MIRROR
MI-COPY
ROTATE
RO-COPY
cowtind;
Other things.
Placing ran also be done using a
coordinate grid, which can he set to
any pitch. X-CAD Designer relies on
its grid system rather than AutoCAD’s
crosshairs ami coordinate display. If
you're used to the latter, the former is
initially irksome until you realise that
grids can be rescaled almost instantly.
Entities can he placed on one of
several layers, allowing easy editing
of aspects of the drawing. For
example this could he main detail on
layer zero, dimensions on one, border
and titlehox on two and text on layer
three. Thus you can delete
dimensions withotit disturbing the
main detail.
X-CA1J Designer allows linear,
angular, diametric and radial
dimensioning. Basically this involves
selecting a point or line, selecting
another point or line and then saying
where you want the dimension text
put.
The package will do all the
calculations for you, and will deal
with parallel or chained dimension
lines. And it’ll do very' neat little
arrowheads, external or internal to the
dimension line, dependent on the line
length. Basic stuff, but lovely
nonetheless. It’s here that the ability
to snap to any point is very useful.
All this loveliness would be useless
If it wasn'1 possible to output your
delightful drawing on to some kind of
plotting device, X-CAD Designer
supports HPGL, I lewlett Packard's
Graphic Language, a simple plotter
control language that most plotters
can speak.
You can also output to an Epson
printer or Ihe graphic device you have
defined with Preferences. The trouble
with the last two is that they are
raster devices and
produce Jumpy
output, unlike the
poetry-in-motinn pen
plotters. Output can
also be to an IFF
ILBM file.
Although X-CAD
Designer is
superficially easy to
use, you need the
tutorial, especially if
you're more used to
other CAD packages. The tutorial
assumes nothing, so you may feel it's
a little slow. Follow it to the letter and
it’ll do you a lot of good.
With a bit of luck the whole tutorial
takes a leisurely morning and. the
Adjustable zoom shows instant close-up detail
26-ALL
SCROLL
tiSDRAtl
DELETE
UNDO
MENU
457
from two-iettcr abbreviations. It may
not be strictly the spirit of intuition,
but it can be a lot quicker once you
know the way around.
A really neat feature - and kosher
Intuition, too — is the ability to use
defined menu strips at the right hand
side of the screen containing all the
frequently used commands. Because
you can store Ihosu on disc, you could
use different menus at different stages
in the design. Very crafty and very
quick - you don’l have to wade
through about six menu levels every
time you want to draw a rectangle.
Single line elements can be built up
into more complex collections called
entities. The plot thickens when you
realise that single lines are also
entities, just very' simple ones. Entities
can be rotated, moved and rescaled.
The entity can be copied or replaced
by the altered type.
There are very few drawing tools,
but each one is very
powerful. Lines, rectangles,
ellipses, circles and arcs are
the main ones. More
complex shapes can he built
up by joining shapes and
trimming the lines to fit,
Intersections can be
filleted, that is, rounding of
the sharp join to give a
stronger and more pleasing comer.
Sectioned - cut away - surfaces ean
be crosshatched to tell the viewer that
the view r is in cross-section. It takes a
little time to work out where exactly it
wants to put the hatching — maybe
five seconds - but once calculated,
redrawing is instant.
Moving and rotating entities also
takes a few more seconds than you
might expect, and it's here lhal maths
co- processor support would be
welcome to make every action truly
instant.
The real slowcoach is Undoing a
whole drawing after it has been
accidentally on purpose deleted. It
only redraws it at about the speed of
AutoCAD, so AutoCAD users will feel
a little nostalgia here, The Undo
buffer is only one level deep blit will
hold an entire page without losing
hits or resorting to temporary disc
files.
S INCE you can create lines and
other ohjects to micron
accuracy, it would all be wasted if it
isn’t possible to place them
accurately. There’s a comprehensive
menu bar which allows a point to be
endpoints, midpoints and
intersections of lines and the centre
and tangents of arcs, among
filly 1989 AMIGA COMPUTING 81
r
9 - 21 - 07 )
X-CAD Designer will produce plotter err dot matrix hard copy. This sample unis output tu a 24 pin Upson LQ-500
learning process stinks pretty well,
unlike many tutorials.
Some of you may be wondering
why there hasn't been any mention of
how good the manual is. how think it
is or how large its coefficient of coffee
permeability. The truth is. like the
tutorial it wasn't quite finished. Hut
take heart from the fact 1 managed to
get everything to work correctly after
a little trial and error plus one or two
references to the provisional
documentation.
I tested the Beta version, meaning
that what was there, worked. Some of
the more trivial bits were missing -
like the scroll routine - but going on
Cadvis ion’s past record, the finished
X-CAD Designer will he as good as
the Amiga can handle,
An additional package is available,
the DXF Read & Write module. This
allows AutoCAD llles to be imported
and X-CAD Designer's XDK Hies to be
converted to AutoCAD format. As
there isn't to my knowdedge an IFF
CAD Entity formal, and AutoCAD is
the de facto industry standard, this is
a good idea. It would he interesting to
see if it would be quicker to import a
file into X-CAD Designer, edit it. then
export it, rather than use AutoCAD
for the whole process.
C ADVISIQN wants £149 for the
DXF module, cheap at twice the
price really. Let’s hope this gives a
little credibility to the darling Amiga
in a PC-saturated industry. The funny
thing is, although 99.5 per cent of the
known universe uses PCs. nobody has
a good word tu say about them.
Adding a hasic A3/A4 plotter to a
twin drive, 1 meg A5D0 will give you
a very workable CAD workstation. At
current prices this will retail
somewhere around £1 ,400 - a good
£500 less than most CAD systems’
monitors cost. It must be the most
killer 2D CAD system on earth. It is
fast, cheap, very small and pretty
robust.
So then, who would buy this
system? Schools and colleges not only
have the cheapest technical drawing
system around, but also have a
computer that can he used by every
other department. Small
manufacturing and design concerns
have a cheap way to improve
presentation and increase productivity
by decreasing the time spent slaving
over a hot parallel motion.
It’s even within the reach of poor,
deprived engineering students who
would never, ever contemplate using
the system for games. Honest, Mr
Hank Manager, sir.
Although X-CAD Designer is the
little brother of the £399 X-CAD
Professional 2D/31J system, there’s
never the feeling that it’s only a half
measure. This is tins only CAD
package that makes me want to
produce drawings, rather than feel
I'm under the obligation to put up
with slothful responses, no multi-
tasking and exorbitant prices.
As an example of the speed of the
thing, in the 10 seconds the public
domain Screensave program gives
you to arrange your front screen,
then; was time to flip back to the
work screen, pull the drawing window
to full size, do a full redraw in lti
colours of the Columbia image and
still have at least three seconds to
myself before the drive came to life to
save the image. And that's with no
added speed-up hardware.
For safety in the education market
the package is not copy protected but
is dmigled. Rather than stop the
package from working, the dongle
stops the Save and Plot routines from
working, so it's possible to learn on a
dnngleles5 set-up. A good idea, and
one that won’t lose any friends,
Forget food. The next £99 I get is
going to be spent on X-CAD Designer,
it's less fattening and doesn’t need to
be kept in the fridge. It also happens
to be the best 2D CAD package
around. The Aegis Draw series are
toys in comparison.
RE) ORT CARD
X-CAD Designer
Cadvisien Intern ational
Ol-fitil 1313
can
EASE OF USE.... 1 1 n 1 1 1 1 n tt
A complex package but one whose
comprehensive menu* make light work
of most problems.
speed . m i nim um
Lightning fast* especially onscreen
update. Somebody somewhere knows
about custom chips-
VALUE.,.,, nil I 11 1 111
For what it offers, an absolute steal.
There's eiyough here to tempt the must
casual draughtsmen.
OVERALL
93 %
With thane features, at this speed and at
the astonishing price, X-CAlf Designer
should become the standard 2D CAD
package fur any machine.
S2 AMIGA COMF1 DING fvfy 1B89
l
1
VideoStudio for the AMIGA
* "Comprehensive itT ft 9 capabUkht^
* "Video Studio impresses gt& 3 !>y r
WHAT
VIDEO
THE ZVP VIDEOSTUDIO PACKAGE ISA COMPLETE EASY-TO-USE VIDEO POST-
PRODUCTION SOFTWARE UTILITIES SUfTE, FEATURING;
* A cteie* Trom up Iff 4Mt cokers,
* A library ot WiperfFade *»WtB and Border (mask) patterns
for use wflh giB^loeksd video.
, , riML . ic Cus[orniS4*l&. Slaton Cfoek and brcwdeaal alyl* VT ft stolclock-
FUNCTIONS * A stopwatch wri* options sufih as day-and-dat* . tram* display eie
* A surie of slandardised 1&sl pelMrm wrih autto 1*tf ton*s.
E®. Crossharch. Taslcard, Greyscala bEc.
■*■ A Main scnwi 1 * 1 ** wnh mufti-cakur fenl op*raton
* A Scroll tnler with smooth v(f|«tal and IttfttCitiiJ scrolling.
* A Subtle* wilh cotour Lffga and Iasi Cut, Fade and Print options
* 2>Q high-qua^iy fonts, w 1b Gold, Hafc A Underl^a styLes and Outlio*/
□rop-shedffw wandering ffphans.
* Ovaday over live video or ovar t^ckground picture files OFF)
ganaraled by a paint package or a video dig idsartf rams jraboar.
* m port -ng,' Expo fling of Fonts tolwi ortbat packages.
VIDEOSTUDIO produces an mlerlaced output dir«% oompatib^e yrrlh all VCR fortnals &
TVSi and may be u?*d with or without a gaslock It requires an Amga ASOQ. 1000 ffr
£0G& computer with 2 disk drives a/wl 1 Mbyte □« memory.
GRAPHIC
SPECIAL
EFFECTS
TIME
TEST
FACILITIES
TITLING
V'DtOfiTUDIO is avB4aW* now lc* .... ..
AMIGA GENLOCK DEVICES
Mirmon ffei the hg™ u*«rl
B-mdH A&B02 \?W f
C 92
r ttio praAwn>-pro|
Of VtckoOunhi^ eKJ*esSHMal Girt lack •• ■ ■■■
(Tha G2 ra S VHS egnnpalii* - has menual Fadorifniiw*?
GENLOCKS + SOFTWARE
MirMEn . Vd* 9 G!uck> sol'***
Uimgiifl i Vh*poGikiikk: Ma&«f Tilling solfwfife
(VidDO Easier Sollwaip wilHunpr. an Ln*i-p*nclfid
Randila 4 Vri&aawcka
Rmidaie Aj&floe PrafasukXifli 5 M*o Quality Oentocfc
AMIGA HARDDISKS
Anvifw ASM 40Mb — -
AKH ECWb i-ji-J drsk i AutaAmp t 2 Mb ram
Other Amiga [kWktffc =« -MtUaOkl ! 5 *fid Larg* S*E ^ ^»taih.
ALL PRICES INCLUDE UK VAT 4 P&P Send POfChequaa to;
, cm
.:; —
-EM 5
cjh IpavsistHiitvl
(awe ci § Cl S3
............... t4£»D
C-ALt
g | E JW
-CALL
AMZ£ rfCWWOIOGT
20 Woodlands Road, Walthamsto w El 7 3 LE
^Ma/ 7 orrfflr only 07 -520-9753 y
C-LIGHT
- REAL TIME 3D ANIMATION -
C-Light is a complete ray tracing sysicm for generating
3D pictures and animations for the AMIGA.
Some of Ihe amazing effects:
• Mirror surfaces
• True shadows
• Multiple light sources
* Fisheye and telephoto lens effects
♦ Variety of colours
* Easy 3D scene editor for creating and
changing scenes
C-Light runs on all AMIGA'S and comes with an easy to use
program and manual.
Price £49.95
To order send chequu/FO payable to Artronic Systems quoting
items required or telephone 0423-525325 for credit card sales.
Trade fmqitiriES welcome
1-3 Haywra Crescent, Harrogate HG1 5BG
Disk boxes 50 capacity £8,00
1 00 capacity £1 0.00
Sony branded double sided disks boxed
in tens with labels £15,00
r Sony bulk double sided disks including
labels £10.00
purpla p.D. Mega Packs Purple p.D. Hardware
purpla Amigo Mega Packs - -3 disks far only £61 My inclusive!
A Me^a Pock 1: Business Fock T word pfoceisor. database.
spreaOBbeeh
4 Mega Padc 2: Commune a Tions Pack 1. 3 disks nJl of
*eiecommuntQnpn *p ft wore
4 Vlego Pack 3- Gfor^ihics Pack 1, yrppfucs packages on a uNnes.
A Mega Pack * Animation Pack 1, stunning graphic animotior
d^mos. . _ . .
4 Mega Pack 5: Future Pack 1. bockea full of the best Armgo
pi* 1 ^ t^f flS.
A Mago Fock £ Demo Pock l The most 'obJous greohes and Kxnd
A Mego Pock ? Arngo Base Pock 1, 3 oisks HJl of Amiga Basic
progTO/ns.
A Mag a Pock 8: Game Pock 1. adventures, board gomes and
shoot 'em ups. „ ^ ,
A Mega Pock * Pie rue Pock 2. packed full of^hie best Amiga
* Mega Pock 10; Demo Pock 2. the most fabulous graphics ond sound
J Ambo A 5 CC. Indudrg moOU oror £ 350 .00
j Amigo ASOO. T.V, modulotw end colour maoita* £ 750,00
j Amigo. A £000 ono cotaw monitor £ 15 * 0,00
j Cum ana C A SOM svvitchoble disk anve £ 90 . DO
J A 501 0.5 Mb RAM Upgrade £150 00
ir Telephone now ‘or the latest prices on ANY Commodore
tr Amiga hardware or commercial software produC T
We also hove the following Amigo P.D.
collections Fred Fish, So ft vine, APDC, AMiCUS,
Sipped Disk , TBag, Amuse . AUGE, FAUG t
MUSIC, Panorama and others.
Prices for P D. disks ore 1-5 £3.00 each , 6-10
£2.75 each and a or more £2.50 each.
Fof full details of the thousands of Public Domain software titles that we have for the Commodore Amiga send for our latest
Purple P.D. catalaaue.j f
(Send postal orders and cheaues oavoble to Purple, or vaur Access or Afiso card I details to:
J Bartholomew Road, Bishop's Start ford, Herts, CM23 3TP. Tet:027<? 757692
fuly AMIGA COMPUTING fl.T
THE COMPUTER STORE
Monitor Leads Amiga to:
AMI Scan (Analogue RGB) £11.95
AM 2 EIJA Honda (Taxan Sanyo Sony etc.) £11.95
AM3 9 Way 0 Plug [IBM Monitor) ....£10.95
AM 4 9 Way D Plug (NEC Multisync Analogue RGB) £10.95
AM 5 9 Way D Plug (Philips 3873) £10.95
Make Your Own with a 23 way D Socket ... ..£3.95
Other Amiga Items
AX1 1 Metre Disc Drive Extension Lead
AX2 Surge Protector Plug ,,,,,
AX3 Mouse Mat
r fc+ 4 +++ 44 £ i
H i ■ fc p i i l r r + + + + + ri -» -i a
r r r r r r-r-r i i
'44 + 44 + 4*1 a ■
F4+4++44 4 1 ■
.£14.95
.£14.95
,..£6.95
Books
Amiga Basic Inside And Out (Abacus)
Amiga C For Beginners (Abacus)
Amiga DOS Inside and out (Abacus)
Amiga DOS Quick Reference (Abacus)
Amiga Disk Drives Inside and out (Abacus)
Amiga Machine Language (Abacus)
Amiga Systems Programmers guide (Abacus)
Amiga Tricks And Tips (Abacus)
Amiga For Beginners (Abacus)
Advanced Amiga Basic (Compute!)
Amiga Aplications (Compute!)
Amiga DOS Reference Guide (Compute!)
Amiga Machine Language Guide (Compute!)
Amiga Programmers Guide (Compute!)
Beginners Guide to the Amiga (Compute!)
Compute's 1st Book of the Amiga (Compute!)
Compute's 2nd Book of the Amiga (Compute!)
Elementary Amiga Basic (Compute!)
Inside Amiga Graphics (Compute!)
Kids and the Amiga (Compute!)
Amiga DOS Manual (Bantam/Commodore)
Amiga Hardware Ref Manual (Add is on- Wes ley)
Amiga intuition Ref Manual (Addison- Wes ley)
Amiga ROM Kernel Ref Man Exec (Addison- Wes ley)
Amiga ROM Kern a I Ref Man Lib (Addison- Wes ley)
+ 44 **++ a
,£18
........ £18
.£18
.£13
. £27
£14
™..,.£32
£12
■ h ■ 11411.J _a_r JL, aL
£16
£16
£14
£19
.,,,..-£16
,,,,,.,,£16
£16
£16
£14
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£14
£22
£22
.£22
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.£32
4 + 4 + 4
4 + + * 4 + + i
* 4 4 4 4 4 4 4
44444444
95
45
45
95
95
95
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95
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.95
Unit 82 tn Shops
2-8 Greenwood Way
Cheimsleywood Shopping Centre
Birmingham
B37 STL
© 021-770-0468
Printer Leads for Your Amiga
api 2 Metro Centronics i
APS 3 Metre Centronics ,,
£11.95
AP3 5 Metro Centronics
£16.95
AP4 1 Metre Printer Extension Lead
£16.95
APS 2 Metre Printer Extension Lead
APS 3 Metre Printer Extension Lead «*******„„„
£23,95
O 1 ll
ONLY TOP
BRANDED DISCS
3 2
n n QUALITY
2 FOR 1
DSDD 1
oUp
GUARANTEE
EACH
PER 10 £14,95
Microswitch Joysticks with No Quibble Guarantee
AJ1 Konix Speedking Joystick ., B .., tL
AJ2 Konix Navigator
,£14.95
AJ3 Competition Pro (Black).
iititixTtir
AJ4 Competition Pro (Clear)
£15.95
AJS Competition Pro (Clear extra) ...
.....£16.95
AJ6 Cruiser (Blue)
AJ7 Cheetah 125 Delux
.£12.95
Workbench 1.3 (3 Discs + Manual)
£14 95
■ ■ ■ ■ P P ■# P444 + + + 44 a ■ BfcJiJ
A500 + Modulator +
Workbench 1.3 + Ten Star Games Pack ....
.£399.00
Citizen 120-D Printer (Free Lead)
£159,00
NEW FOR YOUR COMMODORE
FROM TRILOGIC !
AMIGA: ?
AUDIO V
DIGITISER
YLJL.
, 'TRILOGIC
‘<>V
- NEW. CHOOSE MONO OR STEREO VERSION W
Both Amiga audio digitisers give superb perfonnantje, unsurpassed dl the
price. No software is supplied, since they annuity compatible with Perfect
Sound r Ptftscuiid Designer, Audiomaster. and Oatel's Prasampter Sampling
rales up ig are passible depending upon the softwara. An audio lead fs
suppled for con neciing to I he headphone socket or hue output ol a radio,
personal stereo, keyboard etc Full instructions are included, and the mono
versionaisohasanL E.D. overload indicator. A public domain "'Sound Workshop'
disk is available which has demo versions of Audiomaster A Perfect Sound eit
MONO DIGITISER . . . £27.99 POST FREE
STEREO DIG ITISER . ... £37.99 POST FRE E
SOUND WORKSHOP DISK .... £4.99 POST FREE IF PURCHASED WITH DIGITISER
ADAPTOR FOR AlOOO £2.00
EXTERNAL 3.5" DISK DRIVES
• 380 k FORMATTED CAPACITY
m THROUGH PORT
• VERY QUIET OPERATION
• SLIMLINE STEEL CASE
• LOW POWER CONSUMPTION * CHINON DRIVE MECHANISM
MASTER 3A 3.5' DRIVE WITH NO ON-OFF SWITCH 674.96 POST FREE
MASTFR 3A3.5' DRIVE WITH ON/OFF SWITCH £77.99 POST FREE
AMIGA MONITOR & PRINTER LEADS
RGB TV g MONITOR LEADS
We have leads lo connect all AMlGAS tp your TV or colour
manitoi provided it has an RGB ;nput socket. Ah leads give
a much cleaner picture than using the AMIGA MODULATOR,
per mit ALL 409$ cplpu r& to be displayed and incl ude
the a ud io lead (to give stereo- with stereo tv’s). % J
ORDER AL 1 FORm WITH 21 PIN EURO (SCAFTT) SOCKET.
FITS PHILIPS. FIDELITY, SONY, GRUNDIG. NORMENEDE, ETC- ONLY £9.99
ORDER AL 2 FOR FERGUSON TVs WITH 7 pr 8 PIN DIN SOCKET"
MODELS MCOl & MOOS, ETC. ONLY £9 99
QROER AL 4 FOR HITACHI & GRANADA TV'S WITH 7 PIN DIN
SOCKET. MODE LS CFT1444, ETC... ONLY £9 .99
OUR LEADS ARE GUARANTEED TO WORK WHERE OTHERS DON'T'
LEADS ALSO AVAILABLE FDR ATARI. ST RANGE PLEASE CONSULT US IF IN DOUBT
ATTENTION 1901 MONITOR OWNERS
Why net have your 1901 monitor oonwned to wcwk with the AMIGA OR ATARI
ST — Ihe performance !5 indistinguishable (ran Ihe CBM 1064 monitor. After
conversion, jmir 1901 will display all 4096 colours fi existing inputs are NOT
affected so il remains compatible with the C64 & 126. Conversion costs only
£29 95 including lead for callers {carried out while you wail) Or £53,95
including next day collection £ dehrtry by courier Please phone to arrange an
appointment or coll&ction.
OTHER LEADS
AMIGA 64 EMULATOR LEADS - Connects 1541 ETC So your AMIGA.
Thete are se^ral programs which need Shis lead AEL I ONLT £4.99
MODULATOR EXTENSION LEADS MEL 1 ONLY EB.99
AMIGA PRINTER LEAD Parallel Tvpe 1.5M long .... AMP 1 ONLY £6.99
S.DM long AMP 3 ON L Y £9 99
PLEASE STATE WHICH AMIGA YOU HAVE WHEN QRDFRING
EXTERNAL DRIVE SWITCHES
ADE 3 - QN.'OFF SWITCH FOR DFl
ADE 4 - ON OFF SWITCHES FOR DFl ft DF2
Connecls between Amiga port 6 drive lead No exposed connections.
Switches era on hying leads for easy access £ reduced strain on RGB,
compared to other makes.
£8 99
£10.99
MOUSE/JOYSTICK SWITCHER
* NO MORE UNPLUGGING MOUSE (
WHEN JOYSTICK REQUIRED V
* EXTENDS THE PORT FOR EASIER ACCESS A
* SAVES WEAR & TEAR ON THE MOUSE PORT
* PUSHBUTTON SWITCH CAN BE OPERATED WHEN THE COMPUTER 1$ ON
A VERY USEFUL GADGET ONLY £ 10 99 orter as DJA1
AMIGA MINIAMP 2 - WITH TWIN STEREO SPEAKERS
Mini AMP 2 combines a mini sterao power gmp with two
neat speaker units which connect directly to your AMIGA
They are ideal lor use with mono TV’sS monitors. & simply
plug in lor inslant stereo sound You hi be amazed at the
difference.
MINIAMP 2 WITH REMOTE VOLUME CONTROL & AlL LEADS ONLY £19-99
SUNDRY ITEMS - BARGAIN PRICES
SONY/FUJI 3.5 1 ' DISKS
1-00% Gua ra n teed Lowest Pr .ces Per 10 £12.99
DS'OD disks Lowest Prices . . Per 25 £28.49 Post Free
Lowest Prices Per 50 £55.99 Post Free
3.12 1 DISK BO* FOR 40, '50 DISKS. SMOKED LID. UDCKABLE. DSB40NLY £B.45
31-2 1 DISK BOX TOR SO DISKS SMOKED LID LOCKABLE, D$B5 ONLY E 10.49
31/2 DISK BOX TOR 1-00 DISKS SMOKED LID, LOCKABLE, ONLY £12 49
PRO 5CW JOYSTICK ARCADE QUALITY WITH MlCfiOSWlTCHES ... £14.95
PR0500G JOYSTICK CLEAR TYPE £15.95
PR05000 JOYSTICK CLEAR WITH RAPID FIRE & SLOW MOTION £16.95
A 500 OUSTO0VER. ANTISTATIC TYPf, ADCi ONLY £4.99
A4 NON -SLIP MOU 5E PAD. AF M 1 ONLY £4.99
Please add 75p part postage + packing to orders under f j 5 00
hFitt CATALOGUE fJTPRESS Of i WBN
wiTn.Au OROFRS iJWfjiw _ _
J§L |
?na
VTRILOGIC
TRILOGIC, Dept. A.C. Unit 1, —
253 New Works Road, Bradford BD12 OOP
Tel 0274-691115 Fax 0274-600150
FAST MAL QflJHI SOY ICE HKWTD€3^TOI All BOS FLU1T IWCLUSWIPUJ^ lOtWHOWET
BACA CUMANTEE. 0*i ML Hlffi WNEHT Pf CASH, CHIQUE5 RpsYaBLE TO TUDClC b POTIM
C*«l, ACCESS Oi VrSA AM> £2-99 EJTIa rm ucror DWJEIS, ftTMENT H milfHC ONU
H4 AMIGA COMPUTING July t989
Hack,
hack
and
away
Max Tennant , the
man with an appetite
for winning, offers
some helpful advice
from the cheating
kings of Europe
W HATEVER the means, play to
win - that's what I always
say. Well, not always, Sometimes I
say: “Big Mae, regular fries and a
large orange", but only at lunchtime.
And I need the calories to help me in
the battle against alien hordes,
If you w r ant to diet and win take a
gander at a hint an’ a poke from
“Slim'' Justin Ga nano vie. A man who
knows his onions, JG has scrambled
Chuckle Egg 2 with a cheat mode.
He’s found that if you type ENABLE--
E2 into the high score table it will
give you infinite lives. Note the two
minus signs before the F2.
While holding down F2 you can
move into any adjacent room by
pushing the joystick in the direction
of that room. Remember, you read it
here First. Chuckle Egg 2 poachers
will be shot on sight.
jus tin's cooked up a peach of a
poke for Grands lam’s Pac-Land. Did
you know that the name Pacman
comes "Pacu" the Japanese word
meaning “to eat"? What a yummy
fact.
As ever, type the poke into
AmigaHasic, save it, swap discs to put
the Pac-Land disc in the drive and
Cosmic Pirate
run the poke. The disc will produce
an error when the Pa c- Land disc is
inserted into the drive,
REN INFINITE LIVES FOR
REN PA C LAND
REN COPYRIGHT 19 fl 9 AINIGA CONFUTING.
REP BY JUSTIN S,
tot-0
Ftf t n- 5 T 20 e 08 TO 512140 * STEP l
READ AS
A=VAU'!liTAi)
tot*tct+A
PMEH n,A;P 0 KEH <nH 42},0
NEAT n
IF tot=697A7AB THEN GOTO aectionZ
PRINT THERE IS AN ERROR IN THE HAT*.
END
section!:
che«t* 512000 i
CALL treat
DATA 6100 , 0044 , 337 {, 0002 , 001 t, 42 A 9
DATA 0 l 2 t, 237 C, 0000 , 0400 , 0024 , 48 F$
DATA 000 M 000 , 234 M 02 S, 4 EAE,FE 3 fl
DATA 4 CF 4 , 00 fF, 00 U, 4 £FM&FM 30 fl
DATA 387 t, 0300 , 00 BC , 4 EED, 000 C, 33 FC
DATA 4 E 71 , 0000,3 70 E, 4 EF 6 , 0400 ,!t 79
DATA 0000 , 0004 , 95 £ 9 , 4 EAE,FEDA, 45 FA
DATA 009 C, 2480 , 43 FA, 00 a 4 , 4 EAE,fE 9 E
DATA 43 FA, 002 E, 4280 , 4261 , 41 FAJ 014
DATA 4 EAE,FE 44 , 43 FA, 001 E, 45 FA, 0 & 6 A
DATA ! 34 A, 000 E, 4 E 75 , 7472 , 6143 , 6 B 64
DATA 69 73 , 6 B 2 E, 6465 , 7649, 6345
Next on the menu is a cheat mode
for Cosmic Pirate. This comes from
John Pickford, who oughl to know
such things because he wrote the
gamel Still, John wins a Konix
Speedking and a mystery game, like
all the other guests at Max Tennant's
table, for serving such an interesting
titbit.
There is a requester within Cosmic
Pirate which gives access to the built-
in cheat mode. To get there press the
spacehar to pause, press full stop, and
a requester will appear. Now type
GZAIMASEN and there should be a
sound effect to tell you that you are in
cheat mode. This makes you
invincible.
Once in cheat mode you can choose
which spacetruck to attack by
recalling the requestor and typing
GIMMESHIPx where x is A-Z. This
only works before entering the sector
with the spacetruck.
M ORE food for thought is on
offer from Jason Freeman. His
Up is for Lombard RAC Rally. If you
gut as far as the full rally you will
know that to repair your car by
pressing W takes time. It is so
annoying when you get to the last leg
and then run out of time. So wait
until you cross the finish line on any
course and then press W. You will
find that when you return to the game
after fixing the Cossy no time has
gone from your clock.
The unfortunate thing is that you
have to do that course again, hut this
is not too bad if you go slow. Make
►
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Just how good is Protext?
1 Protext ,
I
Tin wimp*
M
‘...merely the best word
processor for the Amiga’
- Reviewed in
Amiga Computing,
January 1989
Protext is 3cknowied ^ e ^L^ros and the 'Xriga
processor for most how u w jtfi Am ; ga
version ts no 9xCe P*‘ f^rkharse with a proven track
?£ord %os P a saving of £20 off the retail price of the
new version 4 1 —
press comments
1
Some Patent's leateres
^icmatic relarmanirtg ^ tflft
breaks show* during cdil^g
spell check vou type
^vsr ‘HkflOfl w&ra Enylreh dwUflrary
Macm resold mode
Foowoie* _
^ghu iJn^n oor\%u ration prOflriffl
Aulb indent io f prpgrim; editing
Lins drawing
Fast ar4 ilBOfll hnd and rcplac*
Pow^tul maimergE lealljv
Bo* made fy Cf«Ming cowmfis
Edit Swft files * 4 time
Keyboard Of mousa opg-Btinn
For powe. and v^ue tor mon.y. ^UI.W
that Protext beb^tenjn ^ m0S ,
^ptomailmerge routines^n^hort. it can be
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yp to everv “ which elk other word processors are
J ' Pretext deserves to be the system y
judged' 1 . - Your Computer __ Computing
Deserves very serious consideration
ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY, USING THE FORM ON PAGE 95
e*
srRf
’
VW
el i
L
Tank Attack is a computerised board game for two, three or lour
players, where each one takes the role of a General commanding
a country's Tank Corps of one or more armoured divisions.
Your objective is to capture the enemy headquarters, which will
require the planned strategic deployment of your forces and
regular fire duels between your own and enemy units.
Weather . morale, skill, judgement, planning foresight, careful
management of rebuild and repair facilities and luck ail play a
part in deciding the result of each game.
Tank attack is one of those games you keep coming back to,
and at the special offer price of only f 19.99 Is guaranteed to
give you and your friends hours of ad ion -packed excitement,
ft Control a full division of tanks and armoured ears
ft See all the fighting 'live' on your computer
ft Superb board and fully detailed playing pieces
ft Real time graphics
ft Play as allies or enemies
ft Suitable for all ages
*
L;-'
m
s
flMM
The unique computerised boai
V
V
•few
tame
r v rf -
_
RRP £24.99
OUR PRICE
£ 19.99
Ifli
TO ORDER PLEASE USE THE FORM ON PAGE 95
aa AMIGA COMPi mNG fuly 1989
■HINTS!
Navroz Billing hints for foan of Arc
Defence of Ihe wall; As soon as
the screen changes start pressing
fire to launch rocks. Use nil when
time is short or when two or more
enemies are coming up the same
ladder. Even though it says that oil
is limited, there are at least five
cauldrons al your disposal.
Entry into town; As sonn as the
screen has loaded push righl and
keep pushing right until the end.
When an enemy appears keep fire
pressed until he is slain. Release
fire and your man should run right
up the drawbridge. Repeat this
until you get into the town.
Attack on the wall: Rush the
joystick forwards as soon as the
screen changes. Keep pushing
forwards until the wall is taken.
Use the fire button to ward off the
rocks until the top is reached.
Game strategy; At the starl of the
game Orleans must be taken. Select
Start A Campaign and then
Displacement to move north into
Orleans. Here voti should
encounter your first battle.
Battle warfare: Hold your
ground and wail to be attacked. As
soon as the enemy move, shower
ihem with arrows and then with
mortars. Move your troops forward
to protect your archers and send
your cavalry out (they are likely to
be killed]. While your troops are
fighting, remember to Fire your
arrows if the remainder of the
enemy moves forward to attack.
On the defeat of the enemy,
choose Offensive and attack
Orleans. Use the Entry in to town
and “Attack on the wall” lips to
succeed. After capturing Orleans
move north east into Champagne
and lake Rheims to crown the
king. After the coronation move
north taking each town in every
province until you have reached
the northern- most province. Sweep
anti clockwise until each province
has been taken.
loan's army soon becomes
depleted; choose Royal Army and
then Modification to top up her
army. Ahout 2,000 archers and
3.000 troops are enough. To pay
for this collect Hie Lithe in
September hut forget about the
other taxes. This will avoid any
uprising, hul means that you will
have to ransom some hostages.
Choose Diplomacy and then
Liberation, deal with Henry VT and
use Regnnult of Ghatres and
Tremoille as ambassadors, the
meeting place does nol really
matter.
Ransom demand guidelines
Duke of Bedford
Duke of Warwick
Duke of Gloucester
John Talbot
Count of Suffolk
Cardinal of
£4,000,001)
£2,000,000
£2,000.000
£1 ,000.000
£i,nnn,oou
Winchester £1 ,000,000
Ca plain Pa I sta ff £ 1 ,000 ,000
If you arc really desperate halve
the ransom. If your coffers arc
overflowing, execute one of them
using the Royal Justice menu,
which will reduce the number of
armies that Henry VT can control.
Any French characters caught
should be executed promptly. II
there are no hostages when payday
comes chouse Helping Hand and
kidnap one. Do not try for the
Dukes because these attempts are
most likely to fail. Remember to
pay well — £20.0UU is the right
incentive. If Joan is caught,
Richemont, war general, is a good
replacement.
sure that you are still rolling when
you press W and don’t Slay in the
workshop too long.
B RUMMIE Mark Syrer has a feast
of fried aliens now that he has
discovered a cheat for Go Id runner.
Press F2. F5, F4, F3, one at a time in
that order. You then have infinite
lives, energy and speed. He’s a master
of good taste, since Mark says: T did
have a Spectrum and got my Amiga
one week ago. And 1 have already
sent off for a subscription”. Good on
ynu, Mark
Here are some sugar-free
sweeteners for a couple of coin-op
converts from Daniel Moore. When
playing Gauntlet 11 you can avoid
tricky levels by pausing the game and
waiting for three minutes. Press fire
and all the walls turn to exits, This
happens anyway, but if you pause
you don’t lose energy and have time
to boil an egg.
To get into the secret room clear the
dungeon completely, picking up the
super shots last, then go to the exit
without pressing fire. Now you have
that licked you’ll want lu play
Arkanoid II - Revenge of Doh. Well
Daniel can’t suggest any tips, but says
when loading hold left mouse button
down to reveal Robocop title page.
H UNGARY for victory, and that
doesn’t mean marching over
the Black Crisu from Transylvania,
Kevin Saunders offers some morsels
of information for Dark Castle,
Insanity Fight and Backlash. "Please
use them in your fah magazine”, he
creeps.
Dark Castle; The first thing you do
is to go to the shield roum, Once
there, press (W) up and (S) down,
Keep them both pressed - Kevin used
a couple of size D batteries to weigh
them down. This will now cause your
hero to go up and down between the
two screens. After half an hour or so
you’ll have about 25 lives. This is ihe
only screen you can do it on.
Not content with just giving tips
Kevin sent in a couple of diagrams.
►
ftity 1989 AMIGA COMPUTING 89
HINTS
Figure I refsrs lo Insanity Fight, When
shooting the mothership, slow speed
to zero, move to the left side of the
ship and shoot so that your bullets
just miss the large gun on the Left,
Figure IT is for a Backlash tip. Move
to a position where you can shoot
“both" enemy holes. Continually
shoot so as not to give the enemy a
Enemy
holes
Figure II: Backlash position
chance to come out of the hole and
shoot you. When a single missile
comes straight at you, move left or
right, not up or down because once
you have shot it, you'll want move
hack to the same position,
Ralph Bolton and Kieren Fitts have
some delicious hints tor Speotl uni
Holobytc's megagame Falcon. After
takeoff, press A and your autopilot
will lake you to your target. To go
one stage further engage constant
autofly below 500 feet. Switch Ihc
radar off and turn on the afterburners.
If any MiGs start to track you the
autopilot will turn lor face to face
combat.
Decrease thrust lo military power,
turn on the radar bprescan mode,
When the enemy is at two miles, send
off a short burst of rounds, and
damage a MiG.
If you get hit and your engine
flames out, don’t bail out, head tor
home. Press Help and + on the
numeric keypad and keep them
pressed. The F-16 will stay level and
drop down. Switch to tracking mode
and rotate to side view, just before
you touch down, pitch up the nose
and the plane will land perfectly
every time. Select end mission and
you will be rescued, even if in enemy
territory .
If you fly from takeoff on a heading
of GO from your airfield you will find
a section of road not displayed on the
map. On this section of road there is a
convoy of lorries lor all the trigger
happy people out there to destroy,
W FLT. thanks guys. What a
great selection of tips, and
don't forget that you can seek fame, a
free game and a Knnh Speedking
joystick by sending your own,
original tips to me. Max the Hax.
Amiga Computing, North House,
7B-84 Ongar Road, Brentwood,
FjSsex, CM15 9BG.
Yuppies can fax me on 0277 234529.
-I 1
AMIGA Mail Order Offers
computing Dwwmmam
C- o
C-O
w
, o O I* p
Don't miss these
back issues
fieebdalar Wwlfl en«lu««» revis* Proiext P f ^ JIEV ' WJ®*
hai 24 funs and todcs good on papef’ Hi 'he CiUrtfl HQP-40
colour printer! Home Moounts - tales from the v&lkw? * 0 .
a package to balance (he books. Midi Magic sourds great,
the Supra hard drive is great bul cosis
February I issue
n
Shwt^m-up tonBtructfi&fl kit. New series bn Basic and
machine code. Digital Maillol lakes the pam out of
past&ge. Date sampler sounds off. but a magic bos wt
make lhe Amiga sound much better. E-type - the typewriter
amulatur - filed undar WPB. A cheap but great modem from
Amstrad K- Gadget - programmers' friend or fiend? 0esi
Amiga toy yel - the Microtek telete*i adaptor.
[*
March 1303
puts the official Commodore 5 p*ed-up board through its
paces.
4 prjf T9S9 issue
□
Big Screen Hero - can't take our eyes oft lh* monitor
with 3 1 DOB k 1008 rwohJlton. Triangle TV, Ihe company
which married the Amiga to commercial video, tells its tale.
Gen up -on genlocks - we look at the four main contenders
Superplan, the businessman's menage-a-irois llenes its
muscles. Zoetrope, animation at a price Amigas by accident
- we meet the Burucare mink-tank.
0E
rVtav 1389 1HU#
1
Gold Disk’s Movie&etter - cartoon capers on-screen GFA
Basic masted, The Amiga Show in the Big Ap*ile Prettier
icons mh Icon Paint. Opus-1 plays sp«Mst ™us*e Uvn
hnw lo use functions fror m Basic and the Move command
from machine code. Lrflfewood looks at the different
forms at ray tracing and rendering. TR Sketch dragged IP t e
trg^ncan. WoidPerfed Library fares a irllfe ben*-. Plus a
mega collection of games including the earth-fluttering
Populous and the truly cosmic Cosmic Pirate.
June T 303 issue
Hisoft Basic Compile* undergoes a speed trial. Deluxe Print
shows i Is colours. A listing in C to scan a disc lor IFF
pictures. Dragon's Lair review and play Ups. Programming
functions m Basic What went or. at the Developers"
Conference in Germany. Man Ihe Hacks shows how to win a:
Rocket Ranger. Roger Rabbit, Out Run and Hite. Jaz San
DaluKe Paint HI - ihe number one art program gels tetter
with animation. Scorpion heeds up the games ,ln€
Aprodraw graphics lablfL using lines from Basie. Sculpi-
Animate AD reviewed - a bargain at f^Od- TTie besl 01 ine
public Domain and the CWI processor aOCBferatcr run
through its pace$ as ldMHz.
TO ORDER PLEASE USE THE FORM ON PAGE 95
►
90 AMIGA COMPUTING My iBW
■LETTERS*
Getting into video action
RECENTLY I purchased an Amiga
500 to improve my video productions.
However 1 fear that 1 may have
bought myself a heap of expensive
trouble. Before the Amiga I had a
Commodore H4 and a Data soil Disc
known as Video Title Shop. This
package does a fantastic job for my
video productions.
The program is in two parts; A
simple paint package which allows
you to create a canvas such as a
picture of a birthday cake, and a more
complex part which allows you to
fizzle it in. then on the next page you
can get any size and colour of Fonl,
and either scroll, brush, pop, wipe,
Fizzle, cycle, and so on on to your
chosen picture.
The best part is that the canvas can
be changed at any point, giving an
excellent introduction. Is there
anything like this for the Amiga?
Nigel Gregory,
Blackburn.
Byte Bandit unmasked
tell me how to get in touch with Mr
Qurcshi to see what else he has done,
and to look for other solutions to the
problem? Thanks
D } Lewis,
Newbury, Berks.
Further research into Navid's problem
has led us to conclude that the disc he
was using to format the discs with
was infected with Byte Bandit.
Monitor modification
TRYING to decide between
purchasing Ihu Amiga or the Atari ST
I decided to buy a magazine featuring
each one to help me reach a decision.
After browsing at the newsagents I
came to the conclusion that your
magazine was the most
comprehensive. Would T be able to
have a Cub colour monitor lhal I used
with a QL modified For Amiga use?
S.A. Kent,
Horsham
system routines within mv programs.
The Metacomcn Pascal compiler vl.25
I have got does not tell you a lot
about this. Another problem is how
to access system devices, for example
to redirect my output to the printer.
Another is how to allow Pascal to
make use of raw input, useful for
writing real time applications. All the
information I need is in these books I
know, but there is no way I can
manage to gel it out of there.
It would be inconvenient to learn
other languages just to be able to
understand how to use some routines.
They were supposed to be available
to any language that supported them.
Danili},
Italy.
Give MB Marketing a cal! on 0895
444433. It has a couple of suitable
programs - Video Gen Master and
Video Wipe Master.
Extracting information
SINCE I bought the Amiga I have
been wanting to write to someone
about the problems 1 have heen
having with it, but, because of my
bad English (I am Italian and hate
writing) 1 always felt discouraged to
do so.
I tried to collect background
information and I bought and almost
entirely read all the reference books.
My problem stems from the
documentation assuming a knowledge
of Assembler, C or Basic and
sometimes two of these together. At
college I have studied Pascal.
It follows that when something is
explained everything is fine until I get
to the examples W'hich, instead of
clarifying what had heen discussed,
gel me stuck because 1 do not
understand the language.
One of my problems is how to use
I WAS quite surprised to read in the
latest Amiga Computing a letter from
Navid S. Qureshi of Stirling, which I
could have written, word for word,
myself.
However your reply seems to have
missed the point, that the discs are
totally unused and have no
information on them before
attempting to format. In my case, after
Diskdoctor, the discs can still not be
initialised and I suspect that that also
applies to Mr Qureshi.
This problem has not occurred
before but has only arisen in the last
few days. T have tried eight new discs,
including Commodore ones, in DFO
and DFl using WB 1.2 and WB 1.3,
using CLI and Shell, and ptilldo wn
Initialise, with no success.
If you cannot help will you please
Write to: The Editor, Amiga
Computing. 78-84 Ongar Road.
Brentwood, Essex, CM15 9BG.
We’ll send the writer of the best
letter each month a program from
our goodie drawer.
The Amiga is the obvious choice. You
could have the QI. monitor modified
but Miernvitec, which makes the Cuh
monitor, advises against it as being
expensive. This would still be the
case if you made the mistake of
buying an ST.
Printing with Okimate 20
HAVING just bought an Okimate 20
printer for my Amiga, I have
encountered a number of faults, but I
am not quite sure whether it is the
fault of the computer, printer or
operator, I confess to not knowing
very much about the computer,
programming and CLI,
The first problem arises from
printing text. J have tried eight word
processors and none of them has
proved adequate. There are little
faults with all of Ihcm. Pro write II
prints out OK in NLQ but insists on
putting in double spaces at random
intervals and adding extra blank lines.
Scribble prints out in NLQ mode
when first loaded, but subsequently
►
fnfy 1909 AMIGA COMPUTING 9i
■LETTERS*
4
prints only in standard mode.
When outputting graphics with any
software the printer selects thu wrong
portion of the ribbon using blue and
red first.
Could you also tell me of any place
which sells an adequate paper to use
with the printer as any tiny variation
tin the original type of paper
produces sub-standard prints. Thank
you very much.
Richard Billcliffe,
Manchester.
See if you can try your Oki with
WordPerfect, which hits its own
driver for the Oki mete 20. It is also
worth trying Workbench 1.3
preferences ■ Make sure that the cable
is OK and that von have Amiga, not
IBM rnms in the printer. The Oki mate
distributor in the UK. X-Data (0753
72331). should he able to help .
Don’t open the box
SOFTWARE can solve Ray Harris'
problems with the extra memory
(Arnica Computing May 1989). There
is an answer other than dismantling
his machine for the sake of stroppy
games.
Firstly there is a commercial
program called Inf-Switch available
from George Thompson Services
(077-082 234), Secondly l own a PD
program called Boot which checks to
sec if you have extra drives and
memory and asks if vnu would like to
disable them.
It then allows you to softhoot, three
finger reset, administer a vulcan death
grip, call it what you will and the
settings survive leaving you with a
disabled drive and or memory, so you
can play your autobool game (yawn)
or use some other practical software.
1 got my copy from 17 Bit Software,
those awfully nice PD people, who
are on 0924 ’3G69H2,
Chris Cannon,
Romford.
Sum problem
I NEED a program that will convert
decimal numbers into binary', octal,
hexadecimal, binary coded decimal,
unsigned integer, signed integer, high
order integer and floating point
numbering systems and also convert
between themselves hexadecimal-
binary, binary-octal octal-hexadecimal
for my work involving programmable
logic controllers.
Do you know r of any PD programs
that will help me or of any
commercial software that 1 could get
hold of? Dr could you tell me how to
go about writing my own program in
your Basic program.
That's a " bare bones” disc.
Depending on what your program do,
you may need other essential files
from the Devs, L and Libs directories.
tifie=TlHER:delay=10
yttlLE ttilHije Lay >>TI!!ER: MEND
Basic - could a decent spreadsheet or
maths program help me?
Peter Grford,
St Helens, Merseyside
WordPerfect Library, reviewed lest
month, includes a calculator with
these functions, but it is expensive.
We suspect the solution is to knock
together a Basic program.
Looking through the ArnigaBasic
manual there are keywords tor octal
and bet. Too will have to write your
own routines for binary — a fairly
simple problem
The only type of number not
catered for is binary coded decimal. A
full answer would take up mure space
than we have here. Start at the local
library by digging out some honks on
computer science then translate the
formulae into Basic ,
Booting a Basic program
HOW can I hoot an ArnigaBasic
program using CLI via the Startup-
Sequence? I already know how to
access this facility to load up and
access a file by typing in its filename,
but I do not know how to load an
ArnigaBasic program.
x\nd how can I make ArnigaBasic
wait for a certain length of time
before carrying on to the next
command without using a FDR ...
NEXT loop?
In the CIRCLE command an aspect
can be stated, so defining an arc or a
perfect circle. The approximate aspect
is stated at 0.44 in the ArnigaBasic
User's manual, but is shown to he not
accurate if a large circle is drawn.
Do you know of a better aspect
ratio, or perhaps how to convert the
screen so that no aspect is needed for
a perfect circle to be drawn, as it is
very Frustrating?
Andrew Roberts,
Cheltenham.
Autorunning an ArnigaBasic program
is easy . First get yourself a blank
formatted disc ready. Next transfer
on to it a copy of ArnigaBasic and a
copy of your program. Finally, create
an S directory and use a text editor to
put a Startup- Sequence into it that
contains the line:
(Lfiii gaBaii c MyPrograi
where My Prog ram is the name of
waits 10 seconds, but there is usually
a better way to present information
than by forcing the user to wait a set
time.
The need for an aspect ratiu comes
from the screen resolution being 640
by 200. which is 2.25:1. A more
accurate Figure is 0. 44444444444 44
recurring or 1/2.25 .
Moving along with
animation
MY interests lie in the field of art and
animation. At present I have Deluxe
Video and Deluxe Paint II and am
contemplating the purchase of Aegis
Animator and Images along with a
music compilation software of some
type as a suitable package.
But here are my main “expansion"
considerations: Should I invest in an
A5G1 memory extension, a dual 3,5in
second/thinl disc drive, a single
floppy drive or upgrade completely to
a more powerful machine such as an
A 2 DUG?
Marcus Barrett,
Somerset.
(TV: would go for Deluxe Paint III as
an animation package. If you have
DPaini IF it is a cheap upgrade (£30),
and very easy to use. Too will need at
least i meg of ram, preferably more if
you want to produce a decent
animation.
A second drive of some sort is a
must, and fur these reasons we would
go for the Commodore A 500 Hard
Drive Plus. You can add ram more
cheaply than buying an A 501 and it
saves floppy shuffling because
everything fits on to the hard disc.
Mail order snail service
I HAVE used the services of a number
of mail order companies and have
had no problems from such
companies as Trilogic, However, l
must mention that there is at least one
black sheep, in the form of Ceslrian
Software.
The service from these people has
been quite pathetic. I have been
wailing for two and a half months
now' and, despite repeated phone calls
they refuse to give me the goods I
ordered or my money back.
G Dash,
Maidenhead.
92 AMIGA COMPUTING }uh I'JbS
Freedom
. . nfstrat*
A fascinating game nf ro,e ' p,aV
escape towards ^ leve | 0 \
In the game you r h ar acter's personality,
SSES con.rom ft. ^--nee hounds * a«
your heels. efforts t0 liberate
;klash
. i. » that am
F |& a game that any arcade fan should
fadto^Uen, solid 3D graphics
t ^^onV^splaaTX'-'ovcn if
of Backlashl
. . . when you
buy all four
These four games are
some of the best written
for the Amiga, and for a
limited period we are
making them available at
unbearably 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 you
gel your copies, send in
your order toda y.
1 game £15.95
2 games £14.95 each
3 games £12,95 each
4 games £9.95 each
RRP £19,95
RRP £39.90
RRP £59.85
RRP £79.80
Our Price £15.95
Our Price £29.90
Our Price £38.85
Our Price £39.80
SAVE £4
SAVE £10
SAVE £21
SAVE £40
Hell Bent
_ . + n«
throughout Aldo^ha. ftis computer
f eSS^fr us,e " ai " ,h,,w ' !
encountered by ^1™*. b the speed
C-fu-^yo^^S^uhedto
20,000 Leagues
under the Sea
ex cew< from the CoHel Pest. SO, July t06J-
■■Monsler of ** ^*",.“he departure
"The government n ®J -Abraham
? a,e w Mr. FPf«au> " h ° is 90,n9
Lincoln , heimeo ^ monst e*,
of Jules survive *h#
TO ORDER YOUR
GAMES PLEASE USE
THE FORM ON PAGE 95
Mail Order Offers
~ ^ If you take
out the new 24 month
subscription you only
pay for 22 issues
- an extra saving
of almost £4!
TO ORDER 1
YOUR . '
SUBSCRIPTION
USE THE
FORM j
OPPOSITE k
Offers subject
to avwbhtMy
A$ UK prices tmfvd#
postage packing 3 VAT
ASpvmseas peters
tf&spaichetf by Airmail
COMPUTING
Annual Subscription
Including FREE I Ludrlcus (UK only)
12 months
UK £2935
Europe S Eire £34,95
Overseas Airmail £49.95
24 months
UK £54 95
Europe a Eire £63.95
Overseas Airmail cai .95
HEW
954 t
9543
9545
954 ?
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9557
RENEWAL
9542
9544
9546
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955Q
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Back issues
\See p&g& 90}
January l&a^June 1989 bundle
Add £3 Europe A Elf»r £12 Overseas
January 1989
February 1989
March 1 909
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Add 50 p per Issue Europe A Eire y £2 Overseas
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£ 2,10
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9707
970$
9709
9710
9711
9712
Games Selection
'sea page S 3)
Freedom
20,000 Leagues Under ihe Sea
Hellbent
Backlash
Buy 2 Games and SAVE E 1 0
Buy 3 Games and SAVE £21
Buy 4 Games and SAVE £40
£15.95
£15,95
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£38.8$
£39.00
9837
9838
9839
9840
9136
9J87
9189
Special Offer. If you are buying more than one
game, please tick the box next to each game, ihen
ick die box for the number you are buying to Qualify
or extra discounts.
dd ££ Europe S ElfS l C5 Over
Send to: Database Direct, FREEPOST,
Ellesmere Pori, South Wirraf L65 3EB
(Np itarrp rumdad K peeled In UK)
Pease aiiowuplczs days for delivery
Valid 10 31.7.8
Fun School 2
(seepage 72)
Under 6 years
& 10 0 years
Over $ years
Add £2 Europe 4 Elite / £5 0 veMujas
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(sot> page 88f
Add £3 Europe & Eir*. / E7 Overseas
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Dtgfcaic
(See page 67)
£29.95
9831 j '
Add £2 Eurtipe a Eire / £5 Over*™
Pioneer Plague
(see pop# SB)
Arfd £2 E urope 4 Eire / C5 Qu&fusa*
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Add £2 Europe S Eire ! £5 Overseas
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™ m ■ ^ m m wmt mJ
Inly LSM9 AMIGA COMPUTING rJ.f
MovieSetter, the latest soft-
ware blockbuster from Gold
Disk, is the Amiga owner's
ticket to pro-quality video ani-
mation and brilliant stereo
soundtracks. And because of a
software design breakthrough,
it'll let you create dazzling
overscan video movies that are
minutes - not seconds - in
length, without requiring truck-
loads of memory (512K mini-
mum. 1MB recommended).
In spite of its power,
MovieSetter is easy to use -
even for the first-timer. Unlike
other programs, it lets you see
what you animate as you ani-
mate it. Using on-screen tools, it’s easy to change speeds (up to
60 frames per second), colors (up to 32 on-screen at once), tran-
sition effects, and backgrounds. It's got handy built-in graphics
and sound tools, and can import IFF graphic and sound files cre-
ated by your favorite programs. Or you can lake the shortcut and
use the generous supply of "MovieClip" clip art and sound sam-
ples that arc included with the MovieSetter program disk. Either
way, "cutting together" your epic masterpiece will be a breeze
with MovieSetter 's full array of editing features - including the
incomparable convenience of on-screen storyboards.
So bring a little tin so tlown to your desktop. Order a copy of
MovieSetter for only £69.95 ind VAT, For your nearest dealer,
contact HB Marketing Ltd a! (0895)444433 |Fax (0895)441962).
Combine MovieClips. stereo
sound, storyboards and...
history features to effortlessly
create minutes of animation,
GOLD DISK
P 0 Bus im. SlrahnMr
'■fiHihWJUgn. Unlurui. Cjn^iia, I Vvi li'l
i -Uhl H2B (HU
This Lid whs produced iKing Cold Disk’s Professional Page,
I
!
AmigaTEX
AmigaTEX provides a powerful alternative in document
preparation. It enables you lo typeset complex or long
documents, especially those of a technical nature such as user
manuals or journal papers, It gives you true typeset quality with
kerning, ligatures, full floating accents, mathematical and
technical symbols and the ability to produce tables and special
formats. AmigaTEX will accept input from any text editor or
word processor and with its built-in screen previewer, a
document formatter of mainframe power becomes available.
Also included with AmigaTEX are LaTEX * a document
formatter with dozens of preformed styles, SliTEX ■ a slide
generating macro, and BibTEX - a bibliography database
program, AmigaTEX Is fully fie compatible with other versions
of TEX.
Printer drivers are available for most printer types and the com-
plete set of Computer Modern Fonts is included. A companion
program METAFONT is available for those who wish to create
new fonts or modify existing ones.
AmigaTEX is El 25 and printer driver sets (laser series,
Epson FX series, NEC P6 and Epson LQ series, HP
DeskJet) are priced at £75 each. METAFONT is £50,
Ail prices include VAT and carriage.
Access and Visa accepted.
For further details and free demo disk write or call:
THE TEXT FORMATTING COMPANY
1 4 OSBALDESTON ROAD, LONDON N1G7DP TEL: 01 -BOG 1944
Are you new to the Amiga,
finding it d/fficu/t to
harness the power of this
amazing computer ?, then
what you need is help from
the largest group of Amiga
enthusiasts in the world
Members receive:-
* Excellent discounts on software
a Technical support and on line help
a Superb hardware reductions
* A bi-monthly newsletter of over 60 pages!
* Access to a PD library of over 300 disks
a Use of the groups Amiga only bulletin board
a Discounts on books
AMIGA
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 0GD.
Or Telephone :
Leicester (0533) 550993
AT MlCRONET
We’re Really
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J'rif-r tN-ludn lat quarter reaidemJul Milwi ripiiuh by diiKldehn unit InvrmaJly £231 rntd iln \a,\
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}u!v JS89 AMIGA COMPUTIM, 97
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£55.00 FIXED PRICE REPAIR
Includes - courier delivery, parts, labour, full service and
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(subject lo parts availability)
All our engineers are fully experienced in 16 bit technology
Estimates given for:
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customer damaged units
Dealer enquiries welcome
SHIELD COMPUTER SERVICES LTD
50 FNxton Road, lirmston. Manchester M31 3AB
Tel: 061-747 3105 Fax; D61-747 0515
MAKE YOUR AMIGA EARN!
Yes making money with your Amiga becomes incidental when you
know how Your micro is, il only you knew it. a gold mine. The size and
make is irrelevant. Make the initial effort NOW by starting your own
HOME BASED BUSINESS.
this may be she most important move you will ever make!
REMFMBEH' You'll never get rich by digging someone else's ‘ditch*.
Anyone in |he country, including YOU. can become very rich in a
relatively short period ol tune just by doing a few basic things! It's more
rewarding than playing games. The benefits are many and varied Full
or part time For FREE details send SAE. to:
flffttBKB MMBMM
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31 PILTON PLACE (AM6)
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WALWORTH, LONDON SE17 1DR
TELETEkil
A world of information
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The Microtent Adaptor turret ycmr A-mi^a Into pn advanced Teletext TV
giving yvu fast access H? any u! the free ptiges from Con-fax or Orade.
Hurkdri^of pj&t-s constantly updated lo give you the very latest
informal ion, at the touch of a button
The mouse may by us^d to select any page then print it or save it to disc.
Sav^ may be compact or IFF, ft can read out the news ua\d is easily
programmed lo do al! these things automatically With true TastTe*!’, the
system knows what pages are likely to be selected next and gets them in
advance making them available instantly. Many more facilities are also
provided- The Adaptor connects to the Parallel port„ your printer is then
reconnected lo a socket on the Adaptor and when the computer is no! in use
you can waich TV on the monitorf
,! A highly recommended purchase"
Amiga Ctympuling Feb W
At only £12-1.80 + VAT for an advanced Teletext TV. its excellent value for
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L Telephone: (0705) 59S694 A
ADVERTISERS
*
INDEX
Amigatex..** „ _
Amiga Users Group
..... ,.97
Applied Research Kernel „
76
Applied Visions UK Ltd .
100 1
Artronics + h i+T „
B yteback .
Cad vis ion International
,,,,...19
Calco Software
Castle Software .
5g
Club 68000
Computerstore „
13a ta 2 1? x.
fi 1
Dri tel Electronics ...................
1 D i g icon)
....61
Digit a International Ltd
75 1
Electronic Arts
........ B
Evesham Micros
66
Equinox Business Systems. .............
.......33
First Micro .
HB Marketing
Homo Hased Business
98
Maze Technology
83
MD Office Supplies
MJC Supplies ...
M icru text . . . . *
ga
M idland Microsoft Supplies
41
Owen (J R)
ga
Pick ’n Choosu......
Postronix
2,3
Power Computing
..31,33
Purple PD Software
83
Shield Computer Services
98
Silica Shop
65
SK Marketing.,
S C) ft S(? lie FS
...... ,39
Sunderland Computer Centre
.,....,75
1 elemap .......................
Thalamus
T ri logic
T urtlcsoft
44
Worldwide Software
p.7ti
POSITION
REQUIRED
Ambitious, hardworking, relocatable 21 -year-old (with
'A' -levels) wants programming work on the Amiga.
Anything considered.
Contact: John R. Owen
2 Ffordd Derwyn
Penylfordd
Chester CH4 0JT
Telephone: (0244) 547323
98 AMIGA COMPUTING juiy 1989
[Cftoccy Egg)
ffyou have played the classic computer game Chuckie Egg you
hardly need an introduction to this "cracking" sequel which
takes us from the hen house to the chocolate Easter egg.
RELEASED DUE TO PUBLIC DEM AND
GUARANTEED SALMONELLA FREE
This eggcellent game is guaranteed to be salmonella free
on your Amiga, ST or PC machines It will give hours of
entertainment and no matter how many times you unwrap
the disc and sample the goodies it will neither make you fat
nor rot your teethl
CHUCKIE EGG N
Available on Atari ST/Amiga/Spectrum/Commodore/Amstrad
soon on PC
97
97
70
... 1 (H)
83
59
.,..19
—.76
....56
10,11
....64
....61
56,87
....61
....75
6
..,.68
—.33
..*.47
....96
98
....83
,...55
46
,...98
...41
,.. 9 «
—99
..2.3
1.33
...83
...98
...65
—51
...39
...75
.,.97
—54
,..84
...44
...76
with
ia.
Screen ihoij from A/nig* Version
Pick & Choose
CHUCKIE EGG
Available on Atari ST/A m iga/Spectrum/Com modore/A mstrad
/Atari/MS VDragon/BBt/Hectron soon on PC
Review of Chudde Egg
by Computer Games Week
jameplay 90%, Grafix 85%,
• Overall 09% j
Cheques & P.O. to: Pick & Choose (F.GJ Ltd, 45 Bury New Road,
Manchester MS 8EG, Tel. 061 831 7922
Screen iftQli from Am\q& Version
Pick & Choose
FutureSound 50G
M
Possibly the best Sound Digitizer around?
In STEREO for the Amiga 500 and 2000.
.Records two tracks Simultaneously
.Separate microphone input with huilt 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 w here available,
up to 8Mb
.Sampling rates up t^ 56,000 samples per
second if used with a 68020 processor and
AudioMaster II software
Available from,
Applied Visions (UK),
Jersey Supreme Works,
538-546 Whippendell Road,
Watford, Herts, WD1 1QN,
Tel:0923 818078
H. It. Marketing Ltd
Hrnoktvn House , 22 The Green,
West Drayton, Middx UB7 7PQ.
Tel: IIK95 444433
SDL (UK) Ltd
Unit 10,. Ruxley Corner lad EsI,
Sidcup-Bv-Pass, Skimp. Kent
UA14 5SS, Tel: 01-309 0300
And all 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 A50O, 1000, and 2000 supports a 68881
or 68882 co-processor at speeds up to 33MHz,
and is available today.
Programs like Sculpt & Animate 31) or 41) 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 priKlucts please w rite to :
In the U.S.A. In Europe.
CSA Inc. A.T.H.
7564 Trade Street Jersey Supreme Works
San Diego 538-546 Whippendell
CA 92121 Road, Watford, Herts,
Tel:0923 817549
ASDG (UK)
Announce ProScanLab
for the Amiga 2000.
ProScan Lah 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 Tor printing by
your local DTI 1 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 con junction with Gold Disks Pro
Page program this allows you full Colour
DTP with 16.7 million Colours output.
ProScanLab Board & Software £900
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)
. CI v r i Jersey Supreme Works
lnc _ 538-546 Whippendell
Stewart Street. Road, Watford, Herts,
Madison. WI 53713 win IQN
U.S.A. Tel:0923 818079