Volume Two, number Seven
Best Foot Forward
by John King Tarpinian
Our September issue of fl.A.C.K.5. will be the
one that is handed out to exhibitors and
attendees at the Southern California ATARI
Computer Eaire, Version 2.0. Why should you
care? Because this issue will be the one that
many people will use to compare us against
other clubs nationwide.
Thanhs to Kitts and lew we have the best
looking newsletter there is. But, looks ain't
everything. (You don't know how many times I
have used that line, unsuccessfully.) We need
contents. Please, if you have any literary talent
^at all show it.
We cannot depend on Alan. Ross and the
other regular contributors all the time. IT you
write only once this year, please write It now.
When are the articles due? Yesterday. Actually
the deadline is August 1st. So get cracking,
please.
Something to Do
by rootbeers
Sometimes a good way to learn to program in a
language Is to translate a short program from a
book. I think it was David Ahl who compiled
"101 BASIC Computer Games" which is where
some of my friends learned to program in high
school. Mind you, the programs didn't always
work the first time, but ft served to give you an
idea of something to do and a starting point.
Anyway, I was doing some research a few
days ago {trying to answer the musical
question: "What are the three common English
words which end in — gry?" when I came
across "Create Word Puzzles with Your
Microcomputer" by Ernest E, Mau, Thumbing
through it l was struck by a number of things.
first of all, these programs were written for
professional purposes; Ernie used them at some
point to try to make money. Second, and more
_ importantly, an integrated approach was taken,
^11 of the programs use the same set of files to
generate their specific puzzle. What this means
to the novice is that some programs will be
used to edit the word lists and puzzle programs
Studium Omnibus Habendum Est
will use the generated word lists. If you are
interested in learning file accessing techniques,
this might be a good place to start. The preface
claims 1 7 programs which produce 25 types of
puzzles, which is quite a bit of variety, in
addition, each puzzle can be printed with and
without answers, just as if you were going to
send them to a publisher.
The bad news is that these programs were
not written for the Atari, so the amount of
translation required may be quite high, but
usually that's a simple learning curve— you
learn the equivalent expressions on the Atari,
and then it's just a matter of direct conversion.
The book was published in '82, 1 Found it in a
library (GV 1507 .W8 M38). if puzzles and
programming are your interest, by all means
check it out
Programming
Finesse
by rootbeers
One question software engineers are trying to
resolve is how to cut down on the costs of
producing software. As the cost of hardware
plummets, so the cost of larger and larger
software projects soars, faster processors mean
larger programs.
One of the key concepts is known as
modularity. Take a programming task and do it
once, do it right, and do it so that it doesn't
involve anything it doesn't need, then always
use that code when you need that task done,
note that this is an easy thing to do if you write
in a language that supports this kind of
thinking.
Another key concept is the idea of readability.
A program is written only once but it is read
many times. Structured programming is really
an attempt at this. Standardize the control
structures so everyone can agree where a loop
begins and ends. etc. Combine the idea of
readability with modularity, and you can read
through a module, and once you have verified
that it does what it's supposed to do, you can
check it off as correct and never think about it
again, at least in theory.
So far though, these are ideas we can enforce
or encourage in the language, but I'm sure
July 1987
many of you have seen structured modular
code you could not make head or tail of if you
were given a million dollars and a year's time.
So then software engineers had to decide how
to impose arbitrary restrictions on
programmers in an effort to write more
readable code. Such vile things as
"documentation". Where 1 work, if you need to
know how something is done, you look at the
code, because that is the definitive answer.
Consequently, any documentation of a routine
consists of the comments in the code and
that's about it. But documentation doesn't
quite fit the bill when the code itself is garbage,
so on large projects there is now an attempt to
limit the size of the software modules.
One approach is to put a fixed limit on the
number of lines in a module, commonly to one
screen or printed page. I happen to dislike that
notion because it promotes NOT putting in
blank lines, which increases readability. Also,
the poor programmer who needs to put In one
extra line when there is no mom gets the task
of splitting the routine into two new routines.
The best idea I have heard of comes from
analysis of the code written by hot 'Shot
programmers and the idea fits in nicely with
the concept of modularity. The idea is that a
module should perform only one task. Length is
not at stake here, and yet. a founpage routine
that only does one task is rare. The term
coming in vogue for this "singleness of
purpose" is "strength".
So when you program, whether the program
is large or small, remember to do ail the normal
commenting and whatnot that you normally
do. but now add the ideas of modularity and
strength to the list of things you think about
when you program under the heading of
"readability". Someday you will hunt down a
program you wrote six years previous and you'll
be glad you kept these concepts in mind.
Readability and documentation are like castor
oil— you don't drink it because you like the
taste, but because it's good for you.
The President's
Comer
by John King Tarpinian
Last month i asked for a volunteer to lead an ST
Graphics 5IG, Well l got lucky. And it has been
a while. Nike Malloy has volunteered to run the
SIG. This 51G will normally be held the FIRST
Tuesday of the month. It will be at the same
place as the other three SIGs, Logical Choice.
The meeting will begin, promptly at 7,00 PM.
You know what they say about I before E,
except after C Well this applies to our first ST
Graphics 5IG. Mike is going on vacation the first
week in July and wilt not be able to prepare a
meeting by the first Tuesday, Soooooo, the
meeting will be on Thursday the 16th, After
this meeting we will revert back to our first
Tuesday schedule that we have not had yet.
With the addition of the ST Graphics SIG we
now have five meetings a month, A quick
review is: 1st Saturday— Genera! Meeting, 1st
Tuesday— Graphics SJG (except this month),
2nd Tuesday— ST SIG, 3rd Tuesday— 6502 SIG,
HOOKED OH ATARI COMPUTER KEYBOARD SOCIETY
President: John King Tarpinian
newsletter Editor: Kitts Anderson
Public Domain Editor: Alan Magge
Telecommunications Editor: Dave Evans
Contributing Editor: Ross Beers
ST SIG Chairman: Tony Lee
I'lidi'SIG Leader; Glenn Fert
Graphics SIG: Mike Malloy
8 Bit Librarian: Ron Baxter
16 Bit Librarians: Kevin Gallagher and
Steven 61 ac Kb urn
Graphics and Layout: Lew Marches*
Founder: Greg hiscott
Founded: June, 1981 /S
This newsletter is pushed by the HOOKED ON ATARI L W?
COMPUTER KEYBOARD SOCIETY. HACKS, an informal
association or individuals This group is not affiliated with
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informal way of referring to a product or an organisation
Articles arc written and donated try members. Opinions
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and do not necessarily represent or reflect the opinions of this
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Articles appearing in this newsletter may be reproduced
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Membership dues are 520.00 per year per person, We also have
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participating retailers
4th Tuesday— NIDI SIG. That is about ten hours
a month of meetings.
The 6502 SIG will slow down someday. When
it dies out we will either move the Graphics SIG
to that spot or, if I get someone to lead an
XL/XE 5lG r then we will make that the 3rd
Tuesday of the month. You people are lucky
that conscription is not allowable. Do I see
someone taking two steps forward? I hope so.
Hot to repeat myself but, we MUST look to
ourselves for 8-bit support.
We had an ACEHET meeting last month. The
Southern California ATARI Computer Faire,
Version 2.0 is going foward very smoothly. How
you men out there do not have to do what I did
last year. Which was to send the little woman to
ST NIDI SIG
by Ben D\ Tost I
The 2nd H.A.CK.S. ST-MIDI SIG meeting took
place on the last Tuesday of Nay at Logical
Choice for Computing, Those attending were
treated to a demonstration of some rather
innovative music software developed by the
fast-rising company, COMPU-MATES, who
design and implement truly easy-to-use
programs. Founder Charles Paris, who
incidentally is a record producer with 36
platinums to his credit, stated that his company
would continue to design music software for
the 51, which would allow all musicians to ease
into the creative use of his/her midi-studio
setup.
Current COMPU-MATE5 products demoed were;
Hawaii RlOO DRUMDROID— an
editor/ librarian for the Hawaii tuneable drum
machine which facilitates creation & storage of
drum patterns and tracks.
Hawaii K 3 SYHTHDR01D— a wave
table/patch editor and librarian for both the K3
and K3M synths.
Korg DS5-I 5YNTHDROID— a waveform
sampler editor/patch librarian.
GEH-FEDAL3— a really useful program that
provides for midi reassignment of your pedal
controllers such as volume, modulation, pitch
bend etc. For example, one pedal might start as
a volume control device, and at bar 9 it would
convert to pitch bend.
Ail of the above programs run under an
accelerated version of the ST H s easy to use GEN
environment with the following features:
controls are completely mousedriven with pop-
down menus for easy access to all of the
program functions. The user can paint
waveforms of harmonic attributes and
immediately hear the result in real time! Heat!
In addition, artificial intelligence droid patterns
or sounds can be mouse-clicked instantly and
those that sound useful can be stored to disk
Qmi-.
the Virgin Islands during the Faire. But make
sure you have the lawns mowed and the garage
cleaned out by September 19th and 20th.
Maybe a trip to her mother's, with the kids, is^
order for that weekend?
This month is our tri-annual Swap Meet,
Remember the rules. Originals only, with
manuals. At 300 pounds I do not that that last
statement lightly.
June 19th & 20th is/was the World of ATARI
show in Santa Clara. This event was, as will be
our show, cosponsored by ATARI and the local
users groups. I plan on giving a slide show blow
by blow of the show.
See you at the meetings.
for later retrieval and manipulation. The author
claims resultant patches are 95% usable.
Kudos to COMPU-MATES for HOT copy
protecting their software, thus allowing for the
convenience of hard disk and ram drive use.
Unfortunately, some of the competition has yet
to get the message. Dr. T goes so far as to warn
their customers that any attempt to copy their
programs may result In damage to their disk
drives. So much for “worm-ware!"
The learning curve of COMPU-MATES' music
programs appears to be considerably briefer
than other software products I've worked with,
and you won't believe the speed of these
productive program tools. I can't wait to see
their FIHAL TRAK ST (sequencer) & FIHAL
SCORE (real-time scoring tool) which will be
announced at the HANM show in June,
YOUR
ARTICLE
BELONGS
HERE.
J
VALLEY’S LARGEST
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FACTORY AUTHORIZED SALES AND SERVICE FOR ATARI
COMPUTER SYSTEMS AND DISK DRIVES:
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Panorama City Mall
Your club has been given booth space at the
Fanorama City Mall computer show. The show
wilt be Saturday & Sunday, July 18 & 19. Your
president does not want to sit there by himself,
he would enjoy anybody's company.
Slide Show (Yawn)
in July
Your president will be showing slides from the
World of ATARI show in Santa Clara, Expect to
see all types of candid shots. Ho, there will be
no slides of ex-presidential candidates and their
paramours.
A Month of Tuesdays
What, another one? Mike Malloy has
volunteered to lead an ST Graphics SIG, Come
see Mike make grass with DEGAS Elite, Starting
in August this meeting will be on the first
Tuesday of the month. But due to a vacation
beyond my control this meeting will be on
THURSDAY July I6th + The Second Tuesday is
our general ST SIG. Our main topic will be
telecommunications. The Third Tuesday is for
you people wanting to learn 6502
programming. Mark has kept you captivated for
some time. Come and be mesmerized. The
Fourth Tuesday is the MIDI SIG. Good ole Hybrid
Arts will be showing off ail the new and
completed stuff they had at HAMM. ALL of our
Tuesday night meetings are held at 7:00 PM at
Logical Choice, 6116 Lankershlm BL, one block
south of Victory in the Safeway shopping
center.
flCENET
ATARI
COMPUTER
ENTHUSIASTS
NETWORK
CHARTER MEMBER
4
M<!()l;inj|8 Schedule
SUN
MON
TUE
WED
THU
FRI
SAT
’
— —
1
£
3
4
HOLIDAY
5
6
7
S
9
10
11
GENERAL
MEETING
IN
BURBANK
12
13
ST SIG
14
15
16
GRAPHICS
SIG
17
18
19
20
6502
PROGRAMMIN
CLASS
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
MIDI SIG
28
29
30
31
WED
THU
Schiidult
SUN MON TUE
FRI SAT
1
GENERAL
HERTIrNG -
£
3
4
GRAPHICS
SIG
5
6
! T
i
8
9
10
ii
ST SIG
12
13
14
15
IE
17
18
6502
PROGRAMMIKC
SIG
19
£0
£1
££
£3
£4
£5
MIDI SIG
£8
£7
£8
£9
30
31
What... Again?
i, our general meeting will be on the second
Saturday of the month. Why, because the first
Saturday is the 4th. Yes, THE FOURTH. So
expect us to return to our normal schedule in
August, I hope. The meeting is still at the
Golden Mall Pavilion, 200 H. Golden Mall, in
Burbanh. Doors open at 10:00 AM and the
meeting starts promptly at 10:36 AM,
Second Tri-Annual
Swap Meet
Yes friends, it is time to get rid of the dumb
software that you could not live without not too
long ago. Rules are rules. Only ORIGIHAL5 with
their documentation will be allowed. Anyone
caught doing anything otherwise will be
formatted!!!
Southern California
ATARI Computer
Faire
We will need volunteers to help. How don't step
over somebody getting in line to sign up. Be
patient. There is enough work for you, you, you
and even you. Remember this is Version 2.0
^and that means it will be better than last year.
Do We Still Need a
General Meeting?
by John King Tarpinian
One of our members asked me this question
the other day. The only answer I could come up
with, at the time, was that we had to have one
because it was traditional. I thought about my
answer for a while and could not come up with
any other answer. Do we need the General
Meeting anymore?
Let us think this through. We have a general
meeting the first Saturday of each month. We
are lucky enough to have guest speakers ten
out of twelve months. Most of the guest
speakers are ST oriented. This is also the
meeting at which we give out the fabulous door
prizes. We then have four Special Interest Group
[SIG) meetings a month on Tuesdays. Three are
for the ST and one is for the XL/XE.
That makes five meetings a month. I am
noticing a drop off in general meeting
attendance and an increase in SIG attendance.
The majority of new memberships are coming
from the ST meetings. Our club is still growing
at about five percent a month. With norma!
attrition this is a very healthy growth rate.
Our XL/XE meeting is currently going over
6502 programming. This class is winding down
and I have not gotten a volunteer to lead a
general XL/XE SIG, If ! cannot get a volunteer
this SIG will cease to exist. This means that the
only real information for the 8-bitters will come
from the General Meeting. I hope this does not
happen. ! am sure that you XL/XE owners enjoy
having a meeting you can call your very own'
Please take one step forward.
As far as the ST-SIGs go they are doing very
well. We are starting a Graphics SIG this month.
We have the General 5T-SIG. This is where we
get the majority of our new members from.
And the MIDI SIG is a unique animal. If I can
get the musicians to show up on time we coutd
end the meetings before midnight. We have
gold and platinum album winners in
attendance. Hot to mention our humble
Grammy-winning SIG leader.
Please think about what I have said here. Do
we need the General Meeting? If yes, please give
me some ideas on how to revitalize the
meeting. As always, 1 ask you what you want
and the silence is deafening. Please roar a little.
HACKS
HOOKED ON ATARI COMPUTER
KEYBOARD SOCIETY
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