/
TAR
COMPUTER
ENTHUSIASTS
Wellington Atari Computer Enthusiasts
NEWSLETTER NO. 15 MARCH 1.98*1
Dear Members,
H e rew.ith the M 3 reh newsletter , Actually, this 1 s the third ti m e I
tried to enter this text but each tine My comp uter has refused to save
Therefore, Menders are instructed to treat the following as deathless p
ANNUAL GENERAL MEETING
As Menders who were there know, we have a
Eddie Nickless
Michael Munro
Des Rowe
Kar1 Bettiehei m
C hris Caudwel1
Dennis Dawson
Keith Hodden
Ft' o g e r S h e p h e r d
Rogsn Maxwell
Felix Bettiehein
Neil Upton
David Burns
John Blaikie
new connittee, as follows
President
Mice President
Secretary
Treasurer
Mendership
Club PrograMMe Library
Club Tape Preparation
Technical Services
Tape Manufacturing
Books and Magazines
Out-of-towners contact point
• Liasion with other User Groups.
Newsletter printer
It was a good AGM, notable, perhaps, for its brevity,
A N N U A l. S U B S C RIP T10 N S
Annua 1 subscr i. p t i ons ar e now due (our thanks to m e m ber s who have air ea
>aid up). The subscription has again be set by the AGM, at $15.00 (per fsni
.tnit). Failure to pay the subscriptions by the end of May will lead to the
cessation of Membership,
NEW TOPES
Much to the committee’s Pleasure, Keith Hobden will continue to put together our Club Tapes. Tape 14 will
therefore be available at our next meeting. Again, at the tise of writing, the contents of this tare are not
Known, but it will be good.
Keith sill also be starting work on an "above ISk tape" for those with Machines that can handle large
progresses. We do not promise that this tap? will be available at the April meeting - perhaps the Hay meeting
would be a more realistic deadline. The ’above ISk tape’ will probably also be available on disk,
SATURDAY MEETING
Your co,>®itte? has been anxious to increase the rang? of services available to members,Of particular
concern has been the display of new comsercial programmes and a less hurried circulation of our books and
magazines,Your coisaittee has therefore agreed that we should hold a supplementary Meeting of the club on
SATURDAY APRIL 14. The meeting will be held at Lecture Theatre in the Wellington City Library building. The
meeting will be "free-forsi" (no official business etc).We anticipate having six or more computers there, with
at least four demonstrating a wide range of commercial prosrernes (kids of all ages will be encouraged to test
their skills on these programmes), one computer will display club tapes (rest and present) while another could
demonstrate programmes in the club library. All the club’s books and magtiines will be there for tnesbers to
peruse at their leisure. Members will be able to xerox articles etc on the library’s two Machines. Coffee and
tea (no biscuits) will be available. The meeting will begin at 2.15 pm and end at 5.00 pm. The only
restriction will be the usual injunction against pirating commercial software.
d y
ly
have
i t .
rose
1
NEWSLETTER
Folissuing some comments at the AGM about the threat to the newsletter Posed by rising Printing costs, we
are Pleased to report that very favourable terms have been obtained so that the only remaining threats to the
said publication are the lethargy of your Secretary and the failure of members (with certain honourable
exceptions) to provide useful and relevant articles.Sotie members Might recall that the club has distributed a
rather sood word-processing programme Known as "Tinytext" which Permits articles to submitted for Publication
on tape or disK.
THE TYPING IN OF PROGRAMMES
Your Secretary raved on at the AGM about the typing in of prosammes. No resistance having been offered to
the idea that Members shall each type in three prosrammes during the next year for the club, your committee is
now sorting through the 480 odd programmes in Michael Munro's possession and hopes to have a first selection
available for Members at the April meeting. Should the programmes not be distributed next month,the Pleasure
will be yours in May.
OTHER NOTES
Educational Tape 11
There is a bus in 'A train’. Line 1010 should read RESTORE 1020: FOR J= 1 To INT(RND(0)*30)+1 (and so
on to the end of the line).
Tape 12
For the programme "Alpha - blox”, use the arrow Keys (but not the shift or control Keys) to Place the
cross-hairs over a different biock. To see the letter under the bitxK, press tie space - bar.
Interest Areas
Paul Satherly (of Telegraph and Data, Post Office Workshops, Wanganui) is interested in "Action"
language. Any others so interested should contact Paul.
Colin WiIKins (Po Box 275, Otorohansa) is interested in "TEXT SCREEN/ VIDEOTEXT (or the Atari talking to
the BCNZ’S new service).
For Sale
Paul Satherly (see address above) has the following cartridges for sale’.
Assembler
$100
Missile Command
$60
Basket Ball
$60
Music Composer
$60
Star Raiders
$60
Chess
$60
Telelink 2
$60
D E Monks (of Kellet St, Onua (Bay of Islands) has the Atari master diskette (0x8104) Plus the Dos 2
manual and a formatted disk for sale at $50.00
Club Address
You can get to us at Po Box 16811, Wellington. Out-of-towners should write to Neil Upton at 38 Fyvie St,
Linden, Wellington.
Your sincerely,
Des Rowe,
(Secretary)
y
REVIEW OF SOFTWARE AIDS FOR TYPING PROGRAMS FROM "COMPUTE! "
Utility programs are being published which are designed to ease the
task of typing new programs. The method is to give a warning immediately
at the end of each program line if there was a typing error. This
eliminates the most tedious part of program entry, the checking of an
entire program after it has crashed or malfunctioned.
"Compute!" has published two utilities to assist in typing future
programs from their magazines and books.
1. MLX in the 12/83 issue is the utility for typing in their machine
language programs. The check-digits are incorporated in the
end of each program line. It the data or check digits are wrong,
a buzzer will prompt re-entry of the line. To correct errors
noticed before pressing RETURN, use the BACKSPACE key. Non¬
numeric data is rejected, and line numbering and comma's are
automatic,. .
When first run MLX asks for various addresses ("Compute!" supplies with
each program) and whether output is to BOOT TAPE, BOOT DISK or
DOS DISK.
Press CTRL and a letter for the following functions:
S (to save the program)
L (to load and continue typing)
N (to give a new line number to resume typing or
change place)
D (to display, similar to LIST in BASIC
Program lines of only zeros (except line no, and checksum) will
be. entered automatically by using N command and typing line No.
for next line of non-zero data. Verify this later with D
command.
2. "Automatic Proofreader” in the 3/84 issue is for typing programs
written in basic. Virtually no effort is needed to use this
facility, certainly no extra typing. Operation is as follows:
CLOAD the utility "Automatic Proofreader".
Type RUN RETURN and wait for READY prompt.
Type NEW RETURN so that basic language lines of
"Proofreader" are not included in your program.
A machine language program now’ resides in Page 6
of memory to provide the check digits.
If resuming typing from a previous session, CLOAD
the part of the program already typed.
Procedure: For each program line, type in the line
number and program line and RETURN. A two letter
check digit appears in a panel at the top of the screen,
which must be compared with the two letters preceding
the line No. in the magazine. If they disagree, check
and amend and RETURN to retry.
Save program typed in.
NOTE,Proofreader will not detect errors of transposition, or
the omission of whole program lines. To deactivate proofreader,
press SYSTEM RESET, and to reactivate it type PRINT USR (1536)
(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)
(e)
(f)
By Aljcan Hrrmctz
Sew York Times Service
LAS VEGAS — The feeling this
veek at the Consumer Electronics
Ihow here appears to be relief that
he video-game and home-comput-
:r industry, in which some compa-
ties lost hundreds of millions of
iollars during 1983, still exists.
William Grubb, chairman of
magic, said: "For this industry,
1983 was the year of humility.”
Roger Sharpe, the editor of Vid¬
ro Games magazine, said: “The
phenomenon is over. The industry
lug its own grave by thinking that
ill you had to do was put some¬
thing in a box and the public would
buy it. The question is where the
industry will stabilize.”
Many other experts said that
most companies left in the industry
would survive but would be taking
a much more conservative ap¬
proach.
According to Egil Juliussen of
Future Computing, a company that
docs market analyses of the com¬
puter industry: “The video-games
industry is now a replacement busi¬
ness like the automobile industry.
The market won’t die overnight
just because everybody has one.”
Industry experts said sales will be
down moderately this year.
There were 6.6 million game ma¬
chines sold in 1983, down from
eight million in 1982, according to
tire Electronic Industry Associa¬
tion, a trade association. Analysts
and manufacturers put the 1983
figure closer to five million.
There were 75 million game car¬
tridges bought from retailers last
year, up 15 million from the previ¬
ous year, according to both the as¬
sociation and analysts and manu¬
facturers. But 40 percent of those
cartridges were deeply discounted
leftovers. Many 1982 games, such
as Atari’s E.T., were sold as close¬
outs ranging in price from $4 to
$9.99. They originally sold for $25
to $35.
“In 1982, 60 million cartridges
were sold, but 30 million cartridges
were left on retailers’ shelves,” said
Jerry Thompson, vice president for
electronic sales at Parker Brothers.
Thomas Lopez, vice president of
editorial development at Activi¬
sion, said the discounting would
continue, but he noted that a few
new cartridges did sell well.
In Q-Bert, priced $30 to $35,
Parker Brothers had a best seller.
The game requires the player’s
gnome to hop on colored squares to
change their colors while pursued
by comical monsters. Parker Broth¬
ers’ handling of Q-Bert reflects the
industry’s new caution.
“We bit the bullet and cut our
planned games during the second
half of the year from eight to three,
concentrating on the three we
thought could do best,” Mr.
Thompson said. “We had spent $5
million advertising Frogger a year
ago to be played on Atari’s VCS
system. But we knew the VCS
couldn’t sustain a $5-million pro¬
motion in 1983. However, we
shipped Q-Bert for five different
systems, and so we were able to
spend the same amount of money,
$5 million.”
Mr. Juliussen said: “The video
game is a special-purpose device,
and that’s the way to go early in an
industry’s growth. What we didn’t
anticipate was the bloodbath of
Texas Instruments and Commo¬
dore slugging it out and bringing
home-computer prices lower than
prices of video-game hardware.”
The price of the Atari VCS was
marked down to as low as $49. At
one time, the machine sold for
slightly less than $200. At an ana¬
lysts’ meeting Sunday, James Mor¬
gan, Atari’s new chairman, said
that the average sales price of the
VCS now was $61 and that Atari
was “making money” at that price.
What does 1984 have in store for
video games?
The entrance of such mass-mar¬
ket retailers as Sears, J.C. Penney
and K Mart has meant the death of
many of the specialty stores that
first fostered the industry. Chess
and Games, a seven-store southern
California chain that started 11
years ago, is in bankruptcy. A six-
store chain, G.A.M.E.S., has
shrunk to one store.
Companies that make cartridges
have shrunk from nearly two dozen
to half a dozen. As for game hard¬
ware, many experts said that
Atari’s 2600 system would domi¬
nate the low end of the market,
while its 5200 or Coleco’s Colecovi¬
sion would comer the high end.
Although Mattel Inc. insists that
it will continue to make its Intellivi-
sion game module, almost every
other maker said privately that In-
tellivision is no longer viable. “In-
teliivision is dead,” Mr. Sharpe
said. Both Imagic and Parker
Brothers have stopped making
games for the machine.
On the other hand, many ana¬
lysts and software makers spoke in
surprisingly flattering terms about
! Adam, the new Coleco Industries
computer that includes a word pro¬
cessor, a printer and a Colecovision
video game.
At the show Monday, however,
Coleco said that because of pro-
duction problems with the Adam,
, the company would report a loss
| for the fourth quarter of 1983 but
j would return to profitability in this
! year’s first quarter. It also said it
{ was raising the wholesale price of
the Adam to $700, from $650.
BUMPAS REVIEWS
More on the new drives:
With the help of the folks at Computer Palace and my friend Nick
ii hr0 . n ™ I Ve had the °PP° r <unity to play around with the 3 new drives-
the ASTRA 1620, the TRAK AT-D2. and the INDUS GT. I’m personally
using the Indus, but my opinion of the other two drives has improved
over the past couple of weeks.
I m not going to discuss the compatibility problems caused by com¬
mercial software which use illegal entry points to the operating
system. I think the Indus is a little more compatible than the other two,
but I admit this opinion is 2d hand. I am going to discuss compatibility
problems between the drives in double density mode. In sinole density
j mxKfe each Q f the driven can read and boot a disk formatted and writ-
! fen with any of the other drives.
In double density mode, I have found some problem booting disks
on one drive which were formatted and written on another drive I did
not discover any problem in this area on the Astra And disks format¬
ted and written on the Astra seem to boot line on either the Trak or the
Indus. And disks formatted and written on the Trak seem to boot
perfectly well on the Indus. However, several disks formatted and writ¬
ten on the Indus failed to boot on the Trak. We tried several operating
systems, including DOS 2.0, DOS XL versions 2.2 and 2 3 and MYDOS
version 3.5.
We found we could boot a DOS on the Trak and then read files on
another disk. These files run just tine. Next, we formatted a disk and
wrote the TADS modified DOS 2.0 (explained in the Trak documenta¬
tion) A disk formatted and written according to the Trak documenta¬
tion boots and runs fine on each drive. My conclusion is the Trak Is
slightly less compatible in the double density mode than the other two
drives. It you experience any compatibility problems, just boot up the
Trak according to its documentation, and then read in files from the in¬
compatible disk separately.
The Astra and the Indus both provide the user with a version of OOS
XL. The Astra comes with version 2.3 and complete documentation.
The Indus comes with version 2.2 and almost no documentation, and
the information provided has some errors. I've heard the Indus people
will provide full documentation to users requesting It. I've made my re¬
quest, but have not received it yet. There are differences between the
two versions. Version 2.3 with the Astra has four additional files-
DOSXLXL with 58 sectors, and 3 command files of one sector eacir
NOVERIFY.COM, VERIFY.COM, and RS232FIX.COM.
The Indus comes with a disk containing a word processor produced
by Elcomp. They also promise to send a spreadsheet and database
manager, but these were not included with the Indus when I bought it
If you are considering buying the Indus and the software is an induce¬
ment to you, I advise you to Ihink again. Buy the Indus ONLY because
ft’s the drive you want.
It is a (lice drive. It s the quietest of all 3. The front panel buttons
permit you to protect an unprotected disk, to cycle through 3 density
modes (810 single, 815 double, and 1050 dual), to display the track be¬
ing read, and the error number of any error detected by the drive. The
Astra provides only a busy light. The Trak provides lights to show
single or double density mode and the track being read. Each o! the
drives will automatically switch to the mode used by a disk inserted
but the mode ot the Indus can be altered by using the switch on the
front panel. The others cannot do this, although all three provide soft¬
ware control over the density modes. Tne Trak and Indus have dip
switches in the rear panel to select the drive number from 1-4.
The power switch on the Indus is in the rear (the others are in the
front). This is inconvenient, and the power cord connection is next to
the switch on the outside edge. Its connector is not very positive, so I
find myself disconnecting the power when trying to turn the power on
The front panel is pretty full, but there should be room for a power
switch someplace. The Indus also provides a fancy plastic lid which
closes over the tront of the drive. This probably helps keep dust out of
the drive, but you have to remember to use it.
I notice the last issue of Soflside not only doesn't have anything at
all for Atari, there are no listings at all — no reason given either. Since
most of us subscribe to Softside for the programs, and there are no
programs, I wonder what it all means. I recieved a very beautiful book
from Restonf Ashton-Tate, Through the Micromaze, a Visual Guide
from Ashton.Tate, by Wayne Creekmore (310). An outstanding work of
art, it is a beginners guide to computers and their applications
Designed tor the business computer user, I could recommend it for
any one.
By Peter Coy ■ 1
The Associated Press
1 OCKESTER, New York —
v The latest computer software
n manipulate binary numbers
to any sound from the clash oLa
mbai to a violin vibrato, and
any composers are grappling
th how to make good use of their
w tools.
“It’s as if somebody just discov-
cd that a vibrating string made
und,” said Don Burlila of Berke-
I, California, a composer who has
ade computer instmmeais since
e 1960s.
Buchla was interviewed at the
ur-day, 1983 International Com-
iter Music Conference, which
ded Monday at the University of
xhester’s Eastman School of
usic.
The conference was held in Ven-
: last year and will be held in
iris next year.
More than 400 experts from
wind the world took part. "
Computer music has existed
ice the late 1950s, when' Max
atlhews invented an "acoustic
mpiier” at Bell Laboratories in
array Hill, New Jersey.
Composers have a far greater
nge of techniques from which to
oose now, but several conferees
icstioned how many people com¬
ae the computer wizardry and
usical ear to use them well.
“The real problems are the usual
les — who’s making interesting
usic?” noted Elie Yarden, a pro-
ssor ai Bard College near Pough-
cpsie.
Four concerts in Eastman’s Kil-
iurn Hall gave a taste of the latest
vdopments in tlie field.
Carla Scarlatti of the University
Illinois took the stage in a sleeve-
;s black leotard and a calf-length
Id lamp culotte and played harp
the* accompaniment of a taped
mputer synthesis of whooshes,
‘Hex. whistles and twangs.
* .,**•;« "
She called the piece “Lysogeny,”
which she srid “describes the rela-
. tionship between certain types of
viruses and the bacterial cells
which they infect”
J The stage was as bare as “Phrase •
'Structure Seven” played from
speakers. Gary Nelson of Oberlin
College Conservatory of Music in
Ohio described his piece, which
evoked lost crescendoes passing in
the night, as a study in directed
motion.
“It would he nice to have a piece
like tins performed live,” he said,
■ but bs explained that no musician
could possibly duplicate the com¬
plex phrasing* and rapid transi¬
tions he programmed info it.
The keynote speaker, James An¬
drew Moorer of Lucasfilm Audio
Studio, complained that program¬
mings has become too complex for
most musicians.
Moorer, who prepared the com¬
puterized sound effects for the
three “Star Wars” movies, noted
that one wrong instruction in a
thousand-line program can pro¬
duce gibberish.
“Sometimes it’s funny,” he said,
“and sometimes it’s horrifying.”
Allan Schindler, head of past-
man’s computer music program
since 1978 and tire organizer of the
conference, said, “Composers who
have something to say don’t Want
'to spend two years of their lives
becoming computer scientists.”
“Seriously doing computer mu¬
sic means doing mostly computers,
with a little music,” added Christo-
. pher Fry of Voice Processing Corp.,
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, who
wore a tall velvet top hat to the
conference.
Fry said help is on the way. The
next generation of computers will
be programmable using intuitive
concepts like pitch and tone, rather
than long scries of numbers.
“Most musicians have a fear of.
computers, and that’s sad,” Fry
said. “As computers get better, it
will be possible for musicians to use
them with less training.”
Advances in the understanding
of sound production have enabled
composers to mimic the sound of
cellos, double basses and piccolos
with almost uncanny accuracy.
: But Buchla, among others, ar¬
gues that computer music pioneers
should free themselves from tradi¬
tional concepts of acoustic instru¬
ments, notes and harmonies.
"The history of the development
of music is loaded with alien forms
and alien sounds,” Buchla said.
“I’m not even sure that the aesthet¬
ic acoustic experience that we call
music has to be pleasurable —that
is, beautiful.”
But Moorer said composers
should guard against making
sounds that are mathematically
fascinating but cacophonous. .
“I’d hate to think we're going to
get to the point where reading the
score is much more interesting than
listening to the music itself,” he
said. , .
Sheridan Motley will resume his
London theater column in two weeks.
Atari.
Raise
rices
By Dennis Kneale and Bob Davis
Special la The Asian Wail Street Journal
NEW YORK — Two home-computer
makers, hurt by a year of price wars and in
the midst of a product shortage, plan to raise
prices Jan. l.
Warner Communications Inc.’s Atari unit
and Coleco Industries Inc. have begun
notifying dealers of planned price boosts of
17% to 23% on various products, some of
which haven't shown up yet in most stores.
' The increases appear to he the first since
home computers were introduced several
'year., ago.
Both companies apparently are convinced
that they can sustain price increases. For
one thing, Texas Instruments Inc.’s with-
. drav/al from the home-computer market last
. month appears to have taken the steam out
of price-cutting.
Atari said Wednesday it will raise pitces
charged to retailers $-40 on its 600 XL and 800
XL computers, to $180 and 5233. The move
surprised some in the Industry because the
- new 800 model hasn’t yet hit store s helves.
The company now is “in the process of"
shipping the product to retailers, barely in
time for the Christmas buying season.
“The insane price war has already taken
a serious toll, and Atari doesn’t want to be a
part of it,” an Atari spokesman said. “Atari
is really sending out a message - we don’t
intend to sell superior products at unrealistic
prices.”
Weaker Demand
Atari, which has posted more than 5500
million of losses in the past nine months, also
said it will raise prices on its printer and disk
drive and its two video-game players, despite
. weaker demand for the video products
compared with last year.
Atari and Coleco believe they can afford a
drop in consumer demand if the price boosts
turn away some customers. That is because
demand for home computers currently ex-
ceedssupply. • '
Commodore International Ltd., the home-
computer market leader with 35% to 40% of
the business, already has taken more orders
. than it can fill through year-end. The com¬
pany's consoles and accessories such as the
disk drives are in short supply.
Atari also can’t fill 40% of its retail orders
for the 600 XL and 800 XL through Christmas
because of production snags in Hong Kong.
An Atari spokesman said the company isn’t
taking any new orders for the rest of the year
and that the shortage will continue into early
This (Read This) Blip
May (Read This) Help
Tour (Read This) Life
\OJ iry By Dennis Kneale
Special to The Asian Wall Street Journal
. NEW YORK - Would you like to improve
your sex life? No? Well, how about your golf
game?
An East Lansing, Michigan, company
says it is introducing a device that may help
people, in these crucial areas, and many
more, all while they watch television. The
mail-order Stimutech Inc. device is designed
to change behavior by bombarding TV view¬
ers with split-second subliminal messages
once a minute as they watch regular
programs.
Lasting 1/30 of a second, the subliminal
blips carry messages like: “I see me slen¬
der,” “Exercise is fun” and “Let's make
love.”
; Choosing Your Message
Of course, it's said that subliminal mes¬
sages were tried first on movie screens many
years ago. But the new device is modem. It
uses computers. It also uses television sets,
which people watch far more hours each
week than they ever watched movies. And
people choose it themselves.
“Improve Your Life While Watching
TV,” urges the company’s advertisements
scheduled to appear in a couple of weeks.
Stimutech says 20,000 of the devices, which
use a home computer to send messages
through television sets, will be ready by the
end of the year. The hardware will cost
$89.95 and the software, $39.95.
i If it all sounds right out of George
Orwell's “1984” or Aldous Huxley’s “Brave
;New World,” well, it is. The developers read
' those books and others and “picked up the
; futurists’ projections,” says James R.
? Crawford, Sthnutech’s executive vice presi¬
dent.
Yet there could be snags. The company
itself says it isn’t sure the device actually
works. It says results of a test of prototypes j
aren’tyetin. > {
Public Airwaves
Then, too, the federal government makes
it illegal to broadcast subliminal messages
over the ail\ Mr. Crawford notes. But the
device doesn’t use public airwaves, ana gov¬
ernment officials consulted haven't raised
any objections, he adds. And besides, “if it
didn’t work, it wouldn’t be illegal,” he
figures.
The device, called “Expando-Vision,” of¬
fers 45 messages designed to help in each of
eight vital areas of American life: weight
loss, stress control, alcohol consumption,
smoking, study habits, careers and success
motivation, sex - and golf.
Mr. Crawford, who owns about half of
Stimutech’s stock, watches the messages on
his own TV set. He absorbs snippets like
“I’m perceptive,” “I set goals” and the big
one: “Iseemesuccessful.”
FRIDAY, JANUARY 13, 1984
TECHNOLOGY "
By ANDREW POLLACK
Firms Developing Vending Machines
To Be Used f —* l -~ c ~ , ~ -
^'fS nle fr h pla " s , have becn tried, but have not yet succeeded
goals b Vlde ° EamCS by lele P hone has fallen far"short of its
| Mew York Times Service
rnssraiYi
L AS VEGAS, Nevada — Imagine that bookstores did not contain
* books, but instead merely had a computer storing the contents of all
their titles. When a customer came in to buy a book, it would be printed
out instantly.
This has not yet happened in bookstores, but a similar concept might
soon be used to sell software for video games and home computers. At
least five companies at the Consumer Electronics Show here Lave
developed computerized software-vending machines that are being tested
by retailers.
In these systems, the store clerk or customer inserts a blank cartridge
into a slot in the machine and _
chooses the program desired front _ 4
a computer screen. The program is Some Companies
then loaded on to the cartridge ia ......
anywhere from a few seconds to a Oppose the ideal I hope
h ' Th“™tage of such electron- aU iail miserably,’
k distribution is that software gaid the head of one
publishers would no longer have to
make and retailers would no long- Software Company,
er have to stock huge inventories r ■
of cartridges that might not sell.
Such excess inventories were largely responsible for the heavy losses
suffered in the video-game and home-computer business last year. Atari
Inc., which had a loss of more than $530 million in the first nine months
of 1983, had so many unsold cartridges that it buried truckloads in a New
Mexico landfill.
The three companies that seem farthest along in developing and selling
their systems are Romox Inc. of Campbell, California, Xante Corp. of
Tulsa. Oklahoma and Cumma Technology Corp. of Sunnyvale, Califor¬
nia. Cumma is backed by Nolan Bushnell, the founder of Atari, and the
company is staffed with some of the pioneers of the video-game business.
The systems vary somewhat Xante’s is a console that is operated by the
store clerk. It can put software onto floppy disks as well as cartridges and
prints out the program instructions. Cumma’s system is more like a true
vending machine operated by the shopper. It accepts $1 and $5 bills. “It's
the ultimate in Coke machines,” said Elliott Dahari, vice president of
marketing for Creative Software, at company that is distributing some of
its products through the electronic systems.
Reusing Cartridges
THURSDAY, APRIL 14, 1983
, WAL L STREET WA TCH
__ By EDWARD iiOBRBACIi
Continued Computer Explosion
Presents Booming Opportunity
— -
Mr. Ferry, keynote speaker at this week’s American Flectronics Assn-
( “ ,p “‘ 1 “ d
I , " T ‘l day , j S. 10 - 000 computer will cost $100 in 10 years,” he said ‘There
abo should be a tenfold improvement over the decade in software to
1 n r ® e w r ci p nlly us< 5 computers’ burgeoning computational power.” ’
soK^r^ Peny adde f d V . F °recasting these numbers is the easy part, the
soaal consequents of this explosion is what’s hard to predict ” P
: po "'“ ” d “ mpi “
. eve O'day life. In the home, they —~-—-—
, wil become cheap and as common G . ,
' us television sets,-he said, which at Semiconductor Stockg
S500 each translates'in to a $25 bil- , i . . ,
hon market. Have to DC Viewed ES
*•& “ttracUve „ the
' economy picks up.’
to a stereo — a secondary market
that becomes just as important.” _ V". "7 ---
In addition to alleviating inventory problems, another advantage is
that some electronic distribution systems allow cartridges to be re-used. If
the customer tires of one game, for instance, he can return the cartridge to
the store and load it with a new game.
Proponents also say electronic distribution will allow software to be
sold for a lower price. Romox said it could sell programs through its
system for $8 to $15, compared with as much as $40 for a top-selling
program sold in conventional cartridge form. The Romox customer
would also have to buy a blank cartridge for $ 15 to $25, but the cartridge
could be re-used.
Although such merchandisers as K mart. Tower Records and 7-Eleven
have tested one or more of the systems, none of the three manufacturers
reported receiving any firm orders from retailers.
Software companies are divided on the issue. Some, like Mattel, Sierra
On-Line, Epyx and Creative Software, are involved in the tests. “It is the
finest advance the software business has seen in years,” said Mr. Dahan
of Creative Software.
Biu many leading software companies, such as Atari, Activision and
Parker Brothers, have not signed up yet, and some are bitterly opposed to
such systems. “I hope they ail fail miserably," said William H. Bowman,
chairman of Spinnaker Software-
The problem is that all the programs are given equal treatment in being
listed on the'screen of the computerized sales systems. This does not sit
well with companies that think they already command store shelf space or
brand recognition or that think ihdr pad ages are more colorful and
attractive than those of their competitors. "Cartridges become commod¬
ities under that system,” said Janses J. Morgan, chairman of Atari, who
said the company is “totally opposed” to in-store electronic distribution.
Another problem is providing documentation. Many programs come
with detailed manuals hundreds of pages long. While the program itself
can be prepared in the store in a few minutes, the manuals cannot. That
might restrict electronic distribution to games and other simple programs
that do not require long manuals.
oftware
'Triumph
For Two
Brothers
x Two young Christ-
: church brothers will
| make their.first trip to
j the United States at the
! end of this, month to
i teach the Americans
| about their latest pro-
, gramming triumph.
They are Mr Ian Viney,
aged 23, and his brother
Graham, aged 20, and their
programme is the first
"compiler” to translate the
computer language Pascal
into code which can be un¬
derstood by a small, hand¬
held MSI computer.
It is expected to earn
their employer, CBL Hold¬
ings (previously Computer
Bureau Ltd), almost
$100,000 a year.
t
t
i
i
t
i
Mr Ian Viney said he and
his brother started working
on the Pascal compiler a
year ago.
“We were writing pro¬
grammes for MSI terminals
using their own systems,
but for various reasons
these proved inadequate,"
he said.
“It was taking us one or
two weeks to write each
programme. Now we can
do it in one or two days.
“When MSI in America
saw the product we had ;
produced to help write pro¬
grammes here. they
wanted it, too."
In fact, they were so im¬
pressed with the New Zea¬
land programmers that in
July they signed an agree¬
ment with CBL for the long¬
term exchange of software
and technological ex¬
pertise. •_
Dear Steve,
I'm curious about the
possible wearing out of a
computer. 1 have heard that
it may be better to leave the
computer on all the time than
to turn it off, because the
shock of applying power can
wear out semiconductors.
Edward M. Roberts
Glen Head, NY
The enemies of solid-state i
electronic circuits are heat i
and transients. Leaving a j
computer on for an extended 1
period will cause no harm if it ;
is properly ventilated because
components reach a steady-
state operating temperature.
If components are not hot to
the touch, the heat dissipa¬
tion is probably adequate and
no damage should result.
I On the other hand, if the
power lines to which the
computer is connected are
subject to large transients
(e.g., with switching induc-
A tive loads), there is a greater
risk of component damage if
the computer is in operation.
In a properly designed power
supply, the transients gener¬
ated by on or off switching
are not harmful to operation.
In summary, there is really
no middle road for computer
durability. Use the computer
as required and do not worry
about component wear-out.
. . . Steve
^ /W p.5&‘
COSTLY DELAY
Anyone purchasing an ATARI com¬
puter should test all functions before
the warranty expires. I didn’t, and it
cost me S45 labor to replace a 36<£
defective transistor in my cassette I / O
circuit. If I had just tried my 400 with a
410 Program Recorder I would have
discovered it.
>Sr/nc Jim Whelan
Moore, OK
Q. My ATARI computer system ex¬
periences intermittent lock-up. There
is no response from the keyboard, and
control of the computer is gone.
A. If the problem only occurs it:
BASIC, then it is caused by a bug in the
BASIC cartridge. The problem can
only be fixed by powering the com¬
puter off and then on again. The prob¬
lem with this is that you will lose any
program that was in memory. It is a
good idea to save the program you are
writing after every half-hour or so.
That way you won’t lose everything.
If the problem occurs in a variety of
operating situations, then the com¬
puter should be checked for dirty con¬
tacts on the Operating System board
and all memory boards. If the problem
persists, then you have component
failure and it’s time to take the com¬
puter in for service..
Q. I purchased my ATARI 800 with
32K. I added another 16K and have
many problems. When working with
the BASIC cart for about an hour, my
800 starts to transpose characters in
the program, and randomly places
various characters throughout the pro¬
gram. 1 called the ATARI service
dealers. None had heard of this prob¬
lem or knew what to do; however, they
were willing to take the machine in
and try to fix it. 1 am hesitant to hand
over my 800 for trial-and-error experi¬
mentation. Dave Fifelski, Ohio
A. When you’re working with com¬
puters which have a great number of
chips inside, the only way to find the
problem is to open the machine, get it
to fail, and then swap out the chips
until you find the bad one. In your case
I would guess that replacing the
ANTIC chip will solve your problems.
Q. How do 1 clean the head on my
ATARI 810? Also, how often should I
do it?
A. The head on your disk drive is a
very sensitive piece of equipment and
should be treated with great care. First
of all, you should not use a cleaning
disk; it can possibly ruin your head.
The proper way to clean your head is
with cleaning sticks (Radio Shack Cat.
§44-1093A). Do not use Q-Tips
because they have glue on them, and
it’s possible that a film would be left on
the head. Do not take the top off your
drive; work through the open door.
Take a cleaning stick, dip it in rubbing
(isopropyl) alcohol (do not saturate,
just moisten lightly), and rub the
cleaning stick across the head. Do not
re-use the cleaning stick; throw it
■ away. Let the head dry completely
(about two or three minutes) before
; using drive.
Under normal usage the head should
only have to be cleaned every four to
six months, or every 200 hours.
i Q. My ATARI 810 makes a lot of
noise. Should I oil the carriage assem¬
bly that the head rides on?
A. No, no a thousand times no! On all
drives made until Nov. 1982, the drive
mechanism was supplied by M.P.I.
They were loud and sounded like a
Mack truck shifting gears. This is a
normal sound. By oiling you are risk¬
ing that some oil will get on the head.
That will be the end of your head. To
have your head replaced will cost you
anywhere from S1S0-S250. At a cost
like that, I don’t think it’s worth the
risk. Also, if you just have to get into
your drive, don’t pry the drive case
apart with a screwdriver. I know this
sounds crazy, but I’ve seen people do it
many times. If you want to get in it,
take the round tabs off the top of the
drive and use a Phillips screwdriver to
loosen the screws.
..."When children work at a computer, in
whatever language, they spend 88% of the
time focused on their task (as measured
by where they’re looking), compared with
40 to 60% in most classrooms, says Mary-
Alice White [Teachers Coll., Columbia U.].
Kids can ask more questions of a comput¬
er and get more frequent responses from
it than from a teacher who must handle a
whole class. And a computer can indicate
errors immediately—a faulty program
simply won’t work—whereas a teacher
may take days to correct a paper or test....
White adds that, according to preliminary
studies, not only do students interact
more, they also cooperate more than in
regular classwork."
r Sw-.’tnnm in Sciewe D ew"
/ / . c’., I 62 [C v 16-6 j
I
nn
mMm.
PSil
BY IAN HUGO IN PARIS
SEVEN HUNDRED thousand
transistors on a chip and a per¬
sonal computer that can exe¬
cute between 7 and 10m instruc¬
tions a second by 1930. These
were just two of the predictions
delivered by computer experts
at the ninth triennial Inter¬
national Federation for Infor¬
mation Processing congress in
Paris recently.
The federation brings to¬
gether the leading theoretical
and technical researchers'in the
computer world.
Research and immediate
commercial interests coincided
when Gene Amdahl, father of
the Amdahl Corporation which
really founded the IBM-
compatible CPU industry, and
now leader of Trilogy Corpora- j
ation. spoke. He delivered an
essential innocuous historical j
Perspective of large general-
purpose machine design with a
foot-note on the greatly antici- j
pated first machine from s
Trilogy. p
Tins footnote caused at least |
one notable invited speaker to
rewrite his paper. |
Gene Amdahl is still not |
ready to give much away in f
detail. He is now. however, a |
proven and trusted source and |
more of what his new machine *
will do is emerging. The new \
chip he has been quoted as f
designing is not a chip at all
but a wafer, measuring f
I 2.5 inches square and containing
millions of junctions (he f
declined to reveal the exact |
figure) and 1100 input/output £
pins.
The wafer incorporates
instruction overlap to an
unprecedented extent (64 levels)
and various other technical
sophistications. While the
Trilogy machine is clearly
designed to out-perform any
competitors by a wide margin I
■(and, it is rumoured, at a lower 1
price), the key cic-s 1,-3 parameter
is clearly reliability. .
Amdahl would not say how
the reliability was achieved.
Gene Amdahl with the Trilogy superchip
Safe memories
(COMPUTER users, both
v -' professional and amateur;
dread power cuts because even a
short interruption can lose all
the data in the machine’s
memory. Businesses use batters'
back-ups, but high-capacity
batteries are expensive, and take
hours to re-charge. Now the
Precise Power Corporation of
Florida, has filed a European
patent application (69 568) on a
power back-up system which
docs not rely on batteries.
Instead, in an ingenious way, it
uses a flywheel generator.
The inventor says that a steel
flywheel around half a metre in
diameter can store the equiv¬
alent of around 5 kilowatt hours
of energy. With this it can
supply the computer with power
of accurate mains frequency and
voltage for several minutes as
the wheel slows down. When
mains power comes back, the
wheel gathers speed again in
j around 15 minutes. This
j compares very favourably with a
j battery system, which can take
several hours to re-charge. □
DIY programs ||
SIMPLE but clever idea for ; *)
helping people learn com- :: i|
pitting comes from Research •. I
Machines, in European applica- I
tion 69 522. f
The student has a stock of ;
colour-coded labels which carry ||
I computer key words (such as [
! “GOTO”) or numbers or letters i\
of the alphabet. The legends are . if;
I printed in conventional type, j
! but the labels also have the same \
message printed in binary code. j| :
like the bar-code price-tag on jp
j supermarket goods. !>■
To write a computer program, 3
the student selects appropriate
| labels and puts them in a tray. %
In this way, the program ii
flow is easily depicted and can *
easily be altered by swopping
labels. And when the program is
ready, the student enters it
simply by moving a light pen 1
across the bar codes. f
So there is no need to type M
instructions laboriously into the *
keyboard. □
Itiu- k Barry Fox
3v$r. w. rj
f VT7IIVJ
Push-button introduction to the electronic university
e ffti
Entrepreneur* from Silicon
Valley, California, hare laun¬
ched a new educational telecom¬
munication* system for home
computers, which they claim to
be the world’s first electronic
university. ■
The venture, called Tele-
Learning, , was introduced ia
Washington recently, with an
enthusiastic endorsement from
representatives of the Keegas
Administration. •
“This coalda’t come at a more
propitious time”, said Terrel
Bell, the Education Secretary.
“The thrilling thing is its
flexibility and its ability to ;
reach all learners on all levels.” •
Initially, TeleLearning offers -
170 courses on floppy discs or
cassettes. Some are admittedly,
little more than infantile com-.
pater games, bit . others reach
American college level (though
not the standard of Britain’s
more specialized university
courses).
This aspect of TeleLearning
is no different from the edu¬
cational software sold by scores
of publishers on both sides of
the Atlantic. - ■
The communications tech¬
nology, however, is new to the
world of education. TeleLearn¬
ing claims to have simplified the
procedure so much that students
need only push one button on
their keyboard to be connected
via the telephone system to the
personal computer of their
(human) instructor, anywhere in
.the country.
The Electronic University
package, consisting of communi¬
cations software and hardware
(the modem), costs between
$130 and $230, depending on
the student’s home computer. It
stores all the protocols (user
code, terminal identification and
so on) that , are normally
required to log info a long-dis¬
tance network. Courses run
from $30 to $100 each, depend¬
ing on length and the instruc¬
tor’s credentials. . .
Student and instructor can
either communicate directly at
specified times or use Tele-
Learning’s “electronic mailbox"
facility to leave, work ce
messages • at the other's
computer.-
. Ron Gordon, former chief
executive of Atari, the computer
games company, has been -
developing the Electronic Uni¬
versity for the past two years.
He . has great ambitions for ;
international expansion:
“Within three years the Teie-
Learnir.g Network will be used
to educate more people than any
other private educational insti-
tution in the world.” ...
’ • TeleLearning courses do not
. yet carry formal “academic
credit” in the United States, but
. the company is negotiating such
-. recognition with a number of
; established colleges end tmlver-
| cities. " ,
' As well as offering its own
programmes. through depart¬
ment stores and computer
| shops, TeleLearning will license
the system to colleges, corpor-
i ations and others wishing to
| teach their own courses with
their* own instructors to' their
own students or employees.-
, i The final words of praise for
TeleLearning came from James
Coyne, who heads the appropri¬
ately .named Office of Private
Sector Initiatives in the White
House.' “Never before ' has
technology* offered such promise
to broaden the ability of society
to provide effective, low cost,
industrialised instruction to
those who want to explore the
horizons of knowledge,” he said.
How student
COMMERCIAL SPIN-OFFS from
Iritain’s universities have become
ilmost commonplace. But 10 years’
jxperience with computers at King
Edward’s Five Ways School, Birming¬
ham, has led to something more unusual
—a commercial spin-off from a secondary
school.
Five Ways Software is in the process
of moving from portacabins in the
school grounds to proper offices. And Mr
Tony elements, the director, who is still,
technically, a maths teacher on the staff
of King Edwards, is about to cut his last
link with the educational system and
take charge of a commercial company
producing educational software.
The management of Five Ways are
| teachers, while the programmers are
18-year-old pre-university year students
from all over the country.
A new tier of “middle management,”
aged about 22, is beginning to emerge as
former pupils come back, their univer¬
sity studies completed. Already, Five
Ways has produced 15 software titles
which have been distributed by Heine-
mann, the educational publishers. Eight
more titles are about to be published
and a further dozen are in the pipeline.
They range from programmes on the
French language to a physics course on
lenses and weather for. geography
students.
show t!
Tony Clements has always believed
that computers were made for schools
and could enhance the teaching of any
subject So, since 1972, he has been
running a computer programme at King
Edwards on “ a shoe string ’’—trying to
ensure that as many children as possible
were exposed to microelectronics.
When the Government decided In
1980 to spend £8m over a four-year
period in boosting the use of computers
in secondary schools. King Edwards was
a natural choice to become first a
regional centre and then, when the
organisation of the scheme changed, a
national centre for producing educa¬
tional software.
The young programmers, using the
Acorn BBC computer. Research
Machines of Oxford, Sinclair Spectrums
and Apple computers, earn between
£3,000 and £5,000 a year. The experience,
Tony Clements believes, makes them
“highly marketable.” About 150 apply
for between eight and 12 vacancies—
only five of them girls, Clements
observes sadly.
Britain has a world lead in software
Clements believes and "we have
a potentially huge untapped source of
talent in the schools.”
“Go into any secondary school, and
depending on size, you could find 100
youngsters capable of making good pro¬
grammers,” he argues. Pupils are not,
however, being challenged enough in
most schools—“ there are too many com¬
puter games and not enough production
of software for use."
His young programmers, he admits,
have little concept of the importance
of the worldwide information technology
revolution, but this is more than offset
by their imagination, hard work and the
fact that, unlike adults, “they have no
hang-ups about computers.”
The teachers—now management—are
themselves being challenged by the
, need to develop commercial skills. They
have called in an international account¬
ancy firm for business advice and a
development plan is taking shape.
Unless there is a big expansion of the :
use of computers in primary schools, Mr j
Clements believes the school market is/
unlikely to sustain the company. i
He is pinning his hopes oi educa-I
tional software, for use in the home;
and on industrial use. f
Already, Five Ways has protsiced
software for large companies, including
programmes to train managers in thf
use of microelectronics and for cora-
puter aided design. /
“We expect to break even in 1913
and make a profit in 1984,” says Tony
Clements. i
Raymond Snoddy
%
Bugs irt ATARI BASIC
Yes, both the BASIC cartridge and the Operating System (OS) have problems. Here are some of them:
1) An input statement without an associated variable doesn’t cause an error message but can
cause the computer to lock up if run. 9 ' uul can
Sometimes, if you do a lot of editing, you will find the machine suddenly either has lost some of
your program, or no longer responds to any input (this is called "going to sleep”).
String assignments that involve the movement of multiples of 256 bytes do not move the first 256
bytes. This refers to the internal length, not the number of characters. Since most strings don't
onecharlcteT 1 Y nUmber ’ y0U wi,f seldom have this Problem. If a problem occurs, just add
PRINT A = NOT B puts the computer to sleep.
You must use the LPRINT command from direct mode BEFORE doing a SAVE“C” or CSAVF
Leave any printers you have OFF. This is because the cassette handler doesn’t always set up the
hardware properly for output. You will get an error message which you may ignore.
f?°";V y E e ! n . a program line longer than 3 screen lines unless you want the excess beyond 3
lines to be taken as the next line in your program. Other strange things may happen as well.
Many exponents don’t evaluate exactly. For example, 5/3 = 124.999998, not 125. The lack of ac¬
curacy will mostly effect comparisons where an exact number is expected. Your program can
look for a small range of numbers instead.
A printed CNTL R or CNTL U is treated as a semicolon.
Watch out for the use of the letters “NOT” at the beginning of variable names.
LOCATE and GET do not reinitialize their buffer pointer. This can cause your program to chanae
when next run (for example, some line numbers may change). To fix, reinitialize the oointers thv
using a STR$ call like:) A = STR$(0); or you can print a numeric value like: Print A. y
An input of more than the standard 128 bytes will write them into the so called safe reoion in
page six of memory ($0600 to $067F). Since many programs store their assembly routines in paae
six, you must be careful to relocate these routines if longer input is a must.
2 )
3)
4)
5)
6 )
7)
8 )
9)
10 )
11 )
Bugs in the O.S.
Yes, but please realize how good the operating system is before you feel bad about a few buos Here
atoutDEclMBl^i T "T, in reWSi ° n '' B " Wh ' Ch Sh0uld be *>">«Wn» dipped from ATARI after
aoout DECEMBER 1981 (this date is not exact!).
1) During disk input and output, the disk drives would occasionally “time out” for several seconds
then start up again (this one caught me MANY times). The problem is fixed with no impact on
your old software. H
2) Under certain I/O conditions, the TV display would go away. This is also fixed.
3) Sometimes you would get an error message “device timeout error”, “ERROR 138”, which was
false, but you had no way of knowing this. Problem fixed.
POKEY timer #4 IRQ vector is now working. This would be for advanced users.
Sending the SIO utility a buffer address ending in $FF caused SIO to loop forever.
A vector for the BREAK key has been added. This means programs may now use the BREAK key
° ther than stop a BASIC Program from running. The vector address is a *
$ o,$237 and bytes at $28B-$28D are used by the IRQ interrupt handler as temporary storage
registers.
27
4)
5)
6 )
In the April 1983 issue of ANTIC I
described a “High-Reliability Modifica¬
tion” (hi-rel mod) for the Atari 410 cas¬
sette recorder. Unfortunately, many of
you missed that particular issue and I’ve
received numerous requests for reprints.
In this month’s column I’ll go back over
it in more detail. My first mention of the
hi-rel mod was simply an aside in a
column devoted to the 410 recorder’s
digital-playback circuits. This time I’ll
concentrate on the mod itself.
A BRIEF DESCRIPTION
First, I’ll briefly describe the hi-rel mod
and why it works. The 410 and 1010
cassette recorders use two parallel filter
circuits that convert the signal recorded
on a program cassette into a form the
Atari computer can understand. Think
of these two filters as a couple of bell¬
shaped curves, like those shown in Figure
1. Any signal that falls in the band (win¬
dow) of the low filter is converted into
a logical zero ; a signal that falls into
the window of the high filter is converted
into a logical “one.” Any signal that falls
outside the windows of both filters is
ignored.
SPURIOUS SIGNALS
Unfortunately, electronics, like life, is not
a simple matter of black and white. Due
to a number of different causes, spuri-
Carl Evans is a widely published author
in various technical and home computer
magazines. He is also the author; of a best
selling book, ATARI BASIC BETTER
AND FASTER.
76 ' ---
by CARL EVANS
ous signals can get through the filters and
cause a bad CLOAD. There is no way to
eliminate all of these bad signals, but a
careful study of the Atari recorder’s
digital-playback circuits can provide us
with a way to eliminate the most fre¬
quent cause of bad loads.
Bad loads are often caused by what
might be called “cross-talk” between the
two filters. Look again at the curves in
Figure 1. You’ll notice that they overlap
somewhat. As a result, it’s possible for
the circuit to receive a valid signal but
to assign the wrong value to it. Thus,
what should have been a zero becomes
a one or vice versa. The result of this
mixup is a bad load.
POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS
Two possible solutions immediately
come to mind. First, we could add a new
circuit that would blank out the region
of overlap. This solution involves the
addition of a “notch-filter” to the circuit.
Such a circuit modification would be
extremely effective, but it would also
require the use of an oscilloscope to
properly tune the notch-filter. There has
to be an easier way than this to achieve
our goal. Let’s look at the second
solution.
Tne second solution is to narrow the
y
FiSure t
skirts of the two filters so that the region
of overlap is minimized. This can be
accomplished by replacing a single
resistor in the feedback loop of each
filter. All that’s needed is a soldering iron
and a screwdriver. This seems to be the
best solution we can come up with with¬
out spending a small fortune on an
oscilloscope.
replacing the
RESISTORS
First, let’s take a look at the two resistors
we need to replace. They’re highlighted
in Figure 2. One of them is a 240K-ohm
resistor; the other is a 330K-ohm
resistor. Their power ratings are not
critical.
Please keep in mind that Figure 2 is
a photograph of my recorder - your
recorder may have a very different lay¬
out. The resistors in my 410 are ten-
percent resistors, but some of the newer
recorders contain five-percent resistors
instead. To significantly narrow the
skirts of the bell curves, we need to use
one- or two-percent resistors.
Some of you may not know how to
“read” a resistor. Look at Figure 3. It
shows a side view of a typical resistor.
. -once the bands on its side. These are
color-coded according to an industry
standard that is used to label every
resistor. The first band identifies the first
digit of a two-digit value. The second
band identifies the second digit. The
third band shows how many zeros
should be added at the end of the two-
digit value. For example, on a 24000
(240K) resistor a red band (2) is followed
ANTIC, The ATARI Resourc;
TAPE TOPICS
by a yellow band (4), which is followed
by another yellow band (X10000). Be¬
cause of this standardized coding system,
our two resistors can be identified by the
following patterns:
240K .. RED/YELI.OW/YELLOW
330K . . ORANGE/ORANGE/YELLOW
The fourth color band on a resistor is
used to show the “tolerance” of the
resistor. The specific codes are:
GOLD_ .... 5 %
SILVER. 10%
NONE.20%
The color codes for the first two bands
are:
BLACK... 0
BROWN. 1
RED. 2
ORANGE. 3
YELLOW. 4
GREEN. 5
BLUE . 6
VIOLET. 7
GRAY. 8
WHITE. 9
The color codes for the third band are:
BLACK . .
BROWN .
RED
ORANGE
YELLOW
GREEN .
BLUE .. .
VIOLET .
GRAY ...
WHITE..
XI-
X10
X100
X1000
X10000
X100000
X1000000
X10000000
X100000000
X1000000000
WHAT IS A ONE-
PERCENT RESISTOR
Now I’ll explain what I mean by a one-
percent resistor — the answer is not what
you might think. The easiest way to ex¬
plain the term is to use an example. Let’s
take the case of a typical 240K-ohm
resistor. When these resistors are first
tested, the manufacturer’s measuring
equipment is set to 240K-ohms, plus or
minus one percent. Any resistors whose
resistance falls between 237.6K and
242.4K pass this test and are labeled
“one-percent” resistors. Those that flunk
this test are tested with equipment set at
240K plus or minus two, five, ten, or
even twenty percent, depending on how
Fisure 2
Photo of 410 circuit board
many of them fail at each level.
In other words, a ten-percent resistor
is a resistor whose resistance is some¬
where between 216K and 246K (in our
240K-ohm example). In this case,
regardless of a resistor’s exact resistance,
it is called a 240K resistor. Any given
resistor’s resistance normally does not
vary by more than a fraction of a per¬
cent of its stated value; nonetheless, it
is rated on the basis of its performance
in the screening test.
HOW TO GET THEM
The only real difference between what
a vendor calls a one-percent and a ten-
percent resistor is price. One „way to
obtain a one-percent resistor is to buy
a batch of resistors and measure their
(BANOS MAY BE CENTERED)
SECOND MULTIPLIER TOLEF.ANC
DIGIT
Fisure 3
Resistor Color Code Bondins
actual resistance with an ohm-meter. If
you want to try this, buy cheap resistors.
They don’t go through extensive screen¬
ing tests like those I’ve just mentioned,
so their values will vary considerably.
Another way to get one-percent
resistors for the hi-rel mod is to call any
good electronics supply house and ask
for resistors with the following part
numbers: RN-55-D-2433-F (240K
ohms) and RN-55-D-3323-F (330K
ohms). These are the standard industry
part numbers oi i/iOth-watt, precision
metal-film resistors. You’ll be safe with
l/10th-watt resistors, because power
dissipation in the part of the playback
circuit we’re concerned with is less than
l/1000th of a watt.
By the way, I was able to locate these
metal-film resistors at a local electronics
supply store (they were 38 cents each
with a minimum purchase of 25) by
making two phone calls in the space of
about ten minutes. You may not be able
to locate them quite that fast, by you
should have no difficulty in finding them.
February 1984
77
page 44
TYPO by Bill Wilkinson
Type your prosram once
ATARI AT WAR by Karl Wiesers
The wild world of conflict simulation
FAST FINGERS by Crais Chamberlain _
Autoboot with a ghost at the keyboard
PHONE BOOK by J erry White
Simulate string arrays in Atari BASIC
CHARACTER GRAPHICS by Chris Chabris
Redefine the set any way you choose
INSIDE ATARI
IT'S OFFICIAL by David F. Barry
STARTING LINE
A CINDERELLA STORY by Fred Pinho
EDUCATION
page 19
THE END OF ODD MAN by John and Mary Harrison
TOGO/PI LOT
LOGO BOOKS by Ken Harms
IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN
THE GANTLET by Stephen Groll
★ ★BONUS GAME^ ★ GALACTIC GLOOP by Guy Aitchison
TAPE TOPICS
THE 410 HI-REL MOD by Carl Evans
SYSTEMS GUIDE
NIGHTMARE DETOUR by David and Sandy Small
ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE
3RAWTO FILL by Joseph Tucker
I/O BOARD_
HELP! __
PUBLIC DOMAIN SOFTWARE.
NEW PRODUCTS_
PRODUCT REVIEWS_
ADVERTISERS LIST_
LISTING CONVENTIONS.
SHOPPER'S GUIDE_
MICROSCREENS_
J
page 23
