Current Notes magazines, Volume 10, Number 1, January, February, 1990

$350

CN 1001

1 st STOP Computer Systems

7085 CORPORATE WAY ♦ DAYTON, OHIO 45459

m

10lh Frame Bowling.27

5 Star Combo Pack.39

Action ST.24

Action ST 2.35

Adventures of Sinbad.29

African Raiders.24

Alcon.13

Alien Syndrome.24

All Points Bulletin (APB).24

Alter Beast.24

Alternate Reality tie City.28

Arcade Force Four.34

Archipelagos.34

Artie Fox.14

Armada.36

Asterix.29

Axel’s Magic Hammer.24

Baal.12

I Backgammon.29

I Balance of Power.29

Balance of Power 1990.29

Ballistix.21

Bangkok Knight.26

Barbarian II.24

Barnum & Bailey Circus.24

Baseball II.32

Batman the Movie.24

Battle Chess.29

BatlleTech.29

Battlehawks1942.33

Beverly Hills Cop.29

Black Cauldron.24

Black Cauldron Hint Book.7

Blood Money.24

Blood Wych.29

Breach.24

Breach Scenario Disk.15

Bridge Player 2150.36

Bubble Bobble.19

Captian Fizz.19

Castle Warrior.29

Centerfold Squares.19

Chambers ofShaolin.24

Chaos Strikes Back.24

Chariots of Wrath.29

Chase HQ.24

Chess Player 2150.29

Chronoquest.29

ChuckieEgg.24

Clue.26

Commando.24

"Conflict, Europe’.29

Corruption.22

Crash Garrett.24

Dark Castle.19

Dark Fusion.24

Day of the Pharaoh.29

Death Bringer.24

Dogs of War.24

Double Dragon.29

Double Dragon II.24

Downhill Challenge.21

Dr. Dooms Revenge.29

Dragon Force.33

Dragon Ninja/Bad Dudes.26

Dragon Scape.27

Dragon Spirit.24

Dragons of Rame.26

Dream Zone.24

Dungeon Master.24

Dungeon Master Editor.16

Dungeon Master Hint Book.10

Dungeon Master Hint Disk.14

Dynamite Dux.24

Emmanuelle (Adult).24

Empire.32

Disk Drives Priced Right!

MMR-1 .3.5" Economy Drive.$169

MMR-4.3.5" & 5.25" Over/Under.$289

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Emporer of Minds.29

Enterprise.24

Exolon.22

Eyes of Horus.24

F15 Sfrike Eagle.24

FI6 Combat Pilot.29

F40 Prusuit.27

Falcon.29

Falcon Mission Disk.16

Fallen Angel.24

Fast Lane.24

Ferrari Formula One.32

Fiendish Freddy.29

Fire Zone.23

First Contact.29

Flight Simulator II.29

Forgotten Wald.24

Full Count Basketball.24

Future Wars.29

Galaxy Face.24

Galdregons Domain.24

Games Galae.24

Games (Summer Edition).29

Gato.24

Gauntlet.29

Gauntlet II.24

General Manager.19

GFL Football.26

GhostBusters II.29

Ghouls 4 Ghosts.24

Global Commanda.26

GogoST.22

Gold of the Realm.25

Gold Rush.26

Goldrunner 2.24

Grand Prix Master.24

Gunship.32

Hacker.19

Hard Drivin'.24

Make 1st STOP Your 1st and
Only Stop.If you don't see it,
Call, we carry over 1000 titiles!

Harrier Combat Simulator.29

Hawaiian Odyssey.22

Hawkeye.24

Hellraiser.24

Hedraider.24

Haoes of tie Lance.26

Haoes of the Lance Hint Disk. 13

Hits Disk #1.29

Hits Disk #2.29

Hole in One Golf Plus.19

Hostage.28

Hunt fa Red Octoba.33

I Ludiaus.22

Indiana Jones Adventure Game33

Indiana Last Cursade.33

Intaphase.29

Iron Trackers.24

ISS.29

Jet.29

Joker Poker.29

Journey to the Center of Earth 27
■Karate Championship, Wald" 19

King of Chicago.16

Kings Quest 3.29

Kings Quest 3 Hint Book.6

Kings Quest 4.36

Kings Quest 4 Hint Disk.13

Knight Force.29

Kult.29

Precious Metal.29

Pro Soccer.24

Pro Tennis Tour.26

Prof Plays a New Game.36

Quartz.29

Quest fa the Time Bird.35

Raffles.28

Rally Cross.24

Red Lighting.41

Red Stam Rising.28

Risk.26

Robotron 2084.19

Rock and Roll.24

Rocket Ranger.33

Roller Coaster Rumbla.24

Scape Ghost.24

Scrabble.28

Sauples.25

Sex Vixens from Space.24

Shadowgate.29

Shinobi.24

Shuffleboard.19

Shufflepuck.24

Silk Warn.24

Soldier 2000 . 29

Space Ace.35

Space Quest 3.37

Stay So Far.24

Strip Poker 2.24

Strip Poker Data Disk #1.13

Stunt Car Racer.29

Summer Challenge.11

Super Hang On.24

Super Quintet.29

Super Wondaboy.24

Superman.24

Productivity

1st Wad Plus 3.14..

Univase 3.

Univase II.

Untouchables.

....29

....29

....24

....19

Zak McKracken.

Zany Golf.

....28

....22

Zao Gravity.

....19

S EducationaC

ABZoo.

.19

Biology Vol. #1.

....14

Biology Vd. #3.

....14

Calculus.

.29

Computer Guide Sdar System 33

Deamal Dungeon.

.24

Discrete Math.

.29

Fraction Action.

.24

K'mdaama.

.24

Magical Anagrams

Bentley Bear.

.19

Magical Malh 3 Bentley Bear ..19

Magical Myths.

.29

Math Blaster +.

.24

Math Wizard.

.24

Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing 33

Mem ay Master 1 Bentley Bear 19

Memay Master 2 Bentley Bear 19

Mixed Up Molha Goose ...

.19

Pre-Calculus.

.29

Probability.

.29

Read & Rhyme.

.24

Readarama.

.29

Spdla Bee.

.29

Trigonometry.

.29

Winnie the Pooh.

.14

Turbo ST..32

UltraScript Font PS 22.129

UltraScript Font PS 35.149

UltraScript ST/SLM 804.129

UltraScript ST-1.134

Universal Item Selecta II.13

Utilities Plus.37

VIDI-ST Mono Digitizer.144

WadRar.65

Wad Master.26

Wad Perfect 4.1.149

Wad Up 2.0.48

Wad Writer ST.48

Accounts, ST ver 2.0..89

Accounts, ST ver 1.42

Art & Film Directa.54

Art Gallery 1 (Print Master).19

Art Gallery 2 (Print Master).19

Art Gallery 3 - Fantasy.19

Assem Pro.36

Award Maker*.24

BBS 3.0.48

Becker Cad.139

Cad 3d Ver 2 (+Cybermate).... 53

Calamus.169

Calamus Font Edita. 59

Calamus Outline.149

Circuit Maker II.84

Code Head Utilities.18

Copyist II (Professional).154

Cyber Control.36

Cyber Paint (ver 2).48

Cyber Sculpt.53

Cyber Studio.53

Cyber Texture.30

Cyber VCR.42

dBMan 5.2.164

Diamond Back.24

Digispec 1.22.27

Drafix.114

DTP Desktop Publisher ST.79

DynaCadd.399

Dyna Caddl.7.589

Easy Draw.63

Easy Draw

w/SuperCharga-DS/DD.89

Flash.19

FontzST.23

Faem BBS.42

G+Plus.21

Generation Gap( Family Tree) .32

GFA Basic w/Compiler.84

Guitaristics.48

Hisoft Basic Professional.94

Hotwire.23

KCS Level 2.219

Laser C.114

Laser DB.49

LDW Power Speadsheet.87

Mark Williams C.104

Maxifile.23

Multi Desk.18

Music Studio 88.35

NeoDesk.28

Page Stream.115

Personal Pascal.64

Print Master Plus.24

ProsperoC.124

Protext.124

S'ignum.124

ST Control.49

Stalk the Market.48

Superbase 2.89

Superbase Personal.48

Superbase Professional 3.0.209

Touch Up.119

Turbo Kit, hard drive.36

^Hardware

1 Meg D Rams.12

1040 ST (nomonita).639

256K D Rams.3.5

4 Raya Adapter (Leathaneck) 12

520 ST (w/o monita).499

CM515 Monita Cdble.19

Cadless Mouse.92

Discovery Cart OptO.144

Discovery Cart Opt 2.189

Disk drive cable, 6ft.14

Drive Masta.32

Duplitwix Blitz.44

DVT VCR Hard Drive Back Up159

Epyx 500 XJ Joystick.18

Ergo Stick (Joystick).19

Fast Tape Backup 155 Meg . 799
Hand Scanna w/Touch Up ..429

IB Drive 5.25".209

ICD Host Adapta.99

Joystick Extension Cable (10").. 4
Joystick Extension Cable (10’) 11

Kraft Ace Joystick.5

Maxx Right Yoke.68

Modem cable IBM/ST, 10 ft ....11

Modem cable IBM./ST, 6 ft.8

Monita Master.32

Mouse Masta.26

PC Ditto 2.259

PC Speed.359

Printer cable, IBM/ST 10 ft.10

Printer cable, IBM/ST 6 ft.7

SCI 224 Cola Monita.339

SF314 Disk Drive -DS/DD.... 199

SGS Net Starter Kit (net).123

SGS Net Station Node (net).... 89
SMI24 Monochrome Monita 159

Spectre 128.122

Spectre 128 ROMs.129

Spectre GCR.229

ST Replay 4.89

ST Time (Internal Time Clock) 42
Supra 2400 Modem (external) 116

Turbo 16.269

Tweety Board.36

Video Key.64

Z RAM 2/4 Meg Board.129

Zoom 2400 modem.116

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Current Notes( ISSN 8750-1937) is published
monthly (excluding January and August) by
Current Notes, Inc., 122 N. Johnson Rd.,
Sterling, VA 22170 (703) 450-4761. Direct
subscriptions to Current Notes are available
for $24/year ($42/2 years). Second-Class
Postage paid at Sterling, VA and other offices.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to
Current Notes, Inc., 122 N. Johnson Rd.,
Sterling, VA 22170. _

Opinions expressed in this publication are
those of the individual authors and do not
necessarily represent or reflect the opinions
of Current Notes ox any of the participating
user groups, none of which are affiliated in
any way with Atari Corp.

Publisher: Joe Waters, 122 N. Johnson Rd,
Sterling, VA 22170 (703) 450-4761.

ST Editor: Frank Sommers, 4624 Langdrum
Lane, Chevy Chase, MD 20815 (301) 656-
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XE Editor: Len Poggiali, 225 Mosley Dr,
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Copy Editor: Joyce Waters

Articles or review material and press releases
should be sent directly to the appropriate
editor. Deadline date for articles is the 3rd of

the month.

Advertising Manager: Joyce Waters, 122
N. Johnson Rd, Sterling, VA 22170 (703)
450-4761.

1990 Advertising Rates:

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Store Sales: Joyce Waters, (703) 450-4761.
Current Notes is available in leading Atari
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Current Notes in your Atari store, please
contact us.

Back Issues: A limited number of back
issues are available:

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JUL/AUG, NOV, DEC; (All 8 for $10)

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for $20)

Current Notes is produced on an Atari
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lishing software.

Current Notes

TABLE CE CONTENTS

Vol. 10, No. 1: January/February 1990

In this Issue

WAACE Atarifest ’90, by John Barnes.

Reston, Virginia - October 6 and 7

Atari 8-Bit Systems, by Stephen LaFevers.

Alive and Well in Alaska

And the Winner Was..., by Frank Sommers.

Lynx and Game Boy — Mano a Mano

CN Now Online, by John Barnes.

Visit Us on GEnie, Category 15: Current Notes Online

New Initiatives for Developers, by John Barnes.

Atari Cites New Program as Developers Form Own Association
with Heads of Six Top Firms as Directors
Current Notes 1989 Index, by Joe Waters.

Regular Features

Editorial: A Bit of CN History.Joe Waters

Letters to the Editor.

ST Update: All the latest ST News.Frank Sommers

XE/XL Update!*): All the latest XE News.Len Poggiali

Spectre Tips: #10 Introducing PostScript.Doug Hodson

New Spectre PD Disks.Jeff Greenblatt

Junkyard Pussycat.John Barnes

There & Back Again: Dial 976-CPRG.Robert Millard

Marshall Artist: Spectrum Clip Art.Steve Marshall

Stuck in a Rut: Jinxter.“Sam Wright’ ’

Starting Block: For the ARC of It!.Richard Gunter

ST Toolbox: Small is Beautiful.J. Andrzej Wrotniak

Myths & Mysteries: Hard Disks Part 4.David Troy

G-MAN: As Seen on TV!.David Grace

PD Potpourri.Brian Miller

Atari’s Small Miracles!*).Frank Kweder

Product Reviews

Geography Tutor, by Bill Moes.

Willow, by Bill Moes.

Battle for the Bible, by Timothy Rapson.

The Holy Bible!*), by Terry L. Ortman.

1989 Tax Advantage!*), by Richard Caldwell.

Kidpublisher Professional, by Georgia Weatherhead..

TV Sports Football, by George Hulseman.

Shufflepuck Cafe, by Milt Creighton.

SkyChase, by Mike Heininger.

Paperclip Revisited!*), by David Harris.

Prospero Developers Toolkit, by J. Andrzej Wrotniak
* Atari XL/XE specific.

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January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 3

jilt, =From the Editor's Desk:=

A Bit of CN History

This issue, Volume 10, No. 1, marks the start of the
10th year of Current Notes. Imagine that! The first issue,
Volume 1, No. 1, of Current Notes (unnamed at the
time) was published in May 1981. The six-page
“No-Name Newsletter for the new (and also No-Name)
ATARI Users’ Group of Northern Virginia” was created
by its first editor, Paul Chapin. The club had 25 initial
members. The next two issues, four pages each in June
and July, remained unnamed as did the user group
itself. By the fourth issue in September (even in the very
beginning there was no August issue), the (still name¬
less) newsletter was distributed to the group of Atari
fans in Virginia and another group forming in the District
of Columbia. Paul Chapin lived in Northern Virginia but
worked in D.C., in the very building where the new D.C.
group for forming. It seemed to only make sense for
both groups to share the same newsletter.

By October, the Northern Virginia group had finally
settled on a name (NOVATARI) as had the D.C. Group
(AC/DC). The name “Current Notes” appeared, finally, in
the 7-page November, 1981 issue. The name was
created by Paul Chapin who simply combined the
column titles of each of the two individual club reports:
“AC/DC Currents ” and “NOVATARI Notes ” to create the
name of the newsletter.

Paul’s reign as editor lasted about two and a half
years. In October of 1983, he turned the newsletter over
to a new, young, editor, Staffan Sandberg. Staffan’s first
step was to enlarge the size of the newsletter from a 7 x
9 inch format to an 8.5 by 11 inch page. His first issue
was 8 pages. Staffan doubled the November and
December issues to 16 pages each. In January of 1984,

I agreed to help Staffan by writing a regular column,
called “Basic Beat,” that provided instruction to budding
new BASIC programmers. In February, Staffan sent out
his first second-class issue. He had discovered that CN
could be mailed at second-class postage rates, which
were considerably cheaper than first-class postage.
However, there was a catch. The minimum size of the
publication had to be 24 pages, a considerable jump
over earlier sizes, and more meticulous records had to
be kept. Staffan did a couple more issues but,
eventually, found the combined demands of full-time
study, part-time work, and newsletter editor a bit too
demanding to handle.

So, with the May 1984 issue, I took over the job of
newsletter editor. That issue was 28 pages and had a
circulation of 400 copies. Producing that many pages
every month seemed like quite a challenge, after all, just
where was one to get Atari news? I scaled back the
frequency to 10 times a year at that point. Staffan had

already missed a month and with the post office we had
to be consistent. Besides, I suspected that this was
going to be a lot of work and I wanted to leave a couple
months off as a sort of cushion.

And then we started growing and changing. I enjoy
creating things and I was curious to see just how good
the newsletter could become. As long as we kept
getting better, there was always a challenge in doing the
newsletter and that’s what I enjoyed.

By the end of that year, the issue was 32 pages, five
Atari clubs were receiving Current Notes as their club
newsletter, circulation was about 500, and I had also
assumed the duties of President of NOVATARI. I created
the Washington Area Atari Computer Enthusiasts, a
loose federation of the five clubs, primarily to serve as
the “publisher” of Current Notes. By the end of 1985,
we were up to 52 pages and over 2,000 copies.

By the end of the following year, 1986, WAACE had
sponsored, successfully, its very first Atarifest. Current
Notes had grown to 68 pages and the circulation was
about 3,000. As CN continued to grow, it required more
work than any sane “volunteer” would do. In addition,
as we became bigger so, too, did the financial risks
become greater. So in 1987, Current Notes, Inc. was
formed and by the end of the year, we were producing
80 pages with a circulation near 4,000. My wife, Joyce,
who is not a computer fanatic, was pressed into doing
“part-time” work for CN.

Eighty pages takes a tot of work. In fact, it was
about the limit of what I could reasonably put together in
my “spare time” in a one-month period. Indeed, I was
putting in 40 hours a week just working on CN. (As
some of you know, I also have a full-time job with one
of those secret government agencies.) So, for the last
two years, even though I have held the size of the
newsletter relatively stable (while circulation has grown
slowly), Joyce has had to expand her hours to full-time
work. She handles all the finances (including taxes!) as
well as advertising and store sales. Be nice to her. If I
had to handle taxes and all that paperwork, CN would
quickly become history!

Well, here we are at the start of CN’s 10th and my
6th year. We have near/y completed an addition to our
house just to handle Current Notes (should have been
done by Dec. 18, but that’s a nightmare you don’t want
to hear about!) We have switched to another (our fourth)
printer and the size of this issue, 84 pages counting the
cover, will be the standard size for 1990. CN is
sponsoring an online category on GEnie and the CN
library has been put on CD-ROM (separate untold story
there). I’m not sure what else is in store for 1990, but, I
assure you, the challenge is still there. I’m looking
forward to another year.

Page 4

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

(703)494-3444
METRO 643-1729
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□Battle Chess

$35.99

□Omega

$32.99

□Battle Hawk 142

$34.99

□Phantasy I,n, or IE

$29.99

□Bloodwych

$35.99

□Hctionary

$35.99

□Bloodwych Data Disk

$21.99

□Pirates

$29.99

□Bubble Bobble

$19.99

□Police Quest I or n

$35.99

□California Games

$29.99

□Populous

$39.99

□Dive Bomber

$21.99

□POnlous Data Disk

$19.99

□Double Dragon

$29.99

□Red Storm Rising

$32.99

□Dungeon Master I or II
□Empire

$25.99

$39.99

□Scrabble

□Shadowgate

$29.99

$39.99

□F-15 Strike Eagle

$29.99

□Space Quest I, n, or III
□Star Command

$35.99

OF-16 Combat Pilot

$35.99

$37.99

□F40 Pursuit

$29.99

□Star Fleet I

$37.99

□Falcon

$32.99

□Star Wars

$29.99

□Fighter Bomber

$37.99

□Street Fighter

$29.99

□Gauntlet n

$39.99

□TechnoCop

$29.99

□King’s Quest IV

$39.99

□Time of Lore

$29.99

□Kult

$39.99

□Turbo Outrun

$27.99

□Leasure Suit Larry I or II

$32.99

□Ultima IV

$39.99

□Manhunter NY II

$35.99

□Uninvited

$39.99

OMicroLeague Baseball II

$39.99

✓St Hardware

□*520 ST or 1040 ST

2 Meg Upgrade INSTALLED

$399.99

4 Meg Upgrade INSTALLED $599.99

*Pnoe varies due to Ram races

old style 520 ST/1040 Boards

□Fast Accelerator Board Installed

$289.99

□PC Speed Installed

$399.99

OJRI Board

$100.00

INSTALLED

$150.00

□CMI Board

$200.00

INSTALLED

$275.00

QJATO COLOR BOARD

$ 75.00

Please Ask About Guarantee

□520 ST or 1040 ST with monochrome

with color

CALL

□Mega 2 or 4 Mb with monochrome

with color

CALL

□128k ROMS for Mac

$150.00

□RS232C or Centronics cable

$ 9.99

□ICD 50 Mb Hard Drive

$699.99

□Supra 60 Mb Hard Drive

$895.00

□Atari 60 Mb Hard Drive

$749.99

✓Drawing Progra

□CyberControT
OCyberPaint
□CyberStudio (CAD 2.0)
□CyberPrint

□Easy Draw/Turbo Charger

□Easel ST

□Graph Maker

OQuatum Paint Box

□Spectrum 512

□Art and Film Director

□Touch-Up

□Hand Scanner & Touch-Up

$39.99

$39.99

$59.99

$29.99

$99.99

$17.99

$49.99

$19.99

$49.99

$49.99

119.99

399.99

Letters to
the Editor

The Dream

An Open Letter to Atari, Dealers, and Users

The Atari engineering department continues to produce
astounding machinery. The STE and TT are well improved
machines in a mature environment. Atari is also doing very
well fiscally. A lot of Atari's current financial success is due
to the Atari Portfolio. The worlds smallest MSDOS
computer has captured the imagination of computer afi¬
cionados world wide.

Both the STACY Transportable and the TT have a very
classy feel and give an experienced user the feeling of
almost unlimited power. At last Atari's video resolution is
second to none in the microcomputer market. If the TT does,
indeed, release in a timely manner at less than $2,000 and if
the STACY is priced at $1,495 for the basic floppy system,
the pledge of “Power without the Price*' will be truly
fulfilled.

In fact, Atari has a virtual plethora of equipment and
third party support for this equipment is substantial. From
Parsec boards, to Mac and IBM adaptors, to Calamus,
Pagestream, and Ultrascript, as well as music sequencing
and sampling, point of sale systems, and even dedicated
industrial control Mega ST's, there is no dearth of niche
development for our machine which has somewhat dis¬
appointing sales figures.

This brings us to the crux of the problem. In my
opinion, the Atari ST/TT line is the broadest base of
technically superior hardware available from any company.
But every major computer company has an Achilles* Heel.
IBM s is their graphic performance. They just aren't fun
machines, and there are too many graphic standards. The
Mac's is price coupled with a black and white standard
which is dominant on their machines. The Amiga's problems
are poor resolution and some doubt about the financial
stability of Commodore. Tandy has a poor image due to
their Radio Shack heritage and current IBM compatible
technology. Atari has one major problem. Marketing. All of
our minor problems stem from this basic flaw.

The public attitude needs to be changed. Atari has tried
various outside agencies including, recently, a division of
Chiat Day, the advertising agency credited with Apple's
success. They lasted about thirty days. Frequently, Atari has
mounted in-house campaigns. These have been dismal. Some
of the promotions have been enticing; all of the hardware is
desirable, and potentially well-supported. The one thing
Atari has not been able to come up with is a campaign to
inspire the masses.

I suggest that perhaps because of the owners coming
from Canada, they misunderstand some aspect of the
American market. We must certainly compliment the
Tramiel family on what they do well. Atari is financially
stable, and it was on the verge of ruin when they took over

it. The ST consistently offers the most bang for the buck and
is, in my opinion, the wonder machine of the decade.

On the other hand, the American dollar is spent on fads.
The hula hoop, Davy Crockett, Nehru jackets, Pet Rocks,
and Apple Macintoshes are all fads. The Atari ST has not
become a fad because it has not been advertised properly.

I know this may sound self aggrandizing, but after four
years as an Atari ST dealer, having to battle to survive as
Jack Tramiel did in the marketplace, I am more in touch
with users, user groups, developers and the American public
than any Atari corporate officer. In fact, I studied American
Culture through graduate and post graduate school and have
a degree in Anthropology. That I chose an economic life of
marketing Atari is partially a testimony to the cultural
change computers are wreaking in our lives and partially due
to Atari's accessability, both in ease of use and availability
for less money. What makes Atari inaccessible is the lack of
knowledge of their product by the American public.

I say we can change that. One way is by supporting
“The Revolution,” Don Thomas' ideas on the users selling
the brand. The second is hiring me as consultant or
marketing specialist for Atari. In one year's time we can
double Atari's dealers and quadruple Atari's ST sales in the
U.S. with judicious advertising at a percentage of gross
specified by Atari. Jack Tramiel and Sam Tramiel told me
10 percent. I submit that under my direction, Atari can
spend 8-10 percent on advertising, reach 10 times as many
people, quadruple sales, and create the public image
necessary to set the ST as a new standard firmly in the
American economy.

If you feel as I do that Atari's major shortcoming is in
its public relations, from the general public, through dealer
and user group organizations, then I am asking you to write
Jack Tramiel, the Chairman of the Board, to give us, the
Atari users a chance to market their machine with me as the
coach with certain powers in their company. This is not
some kind of a takeover or assertion of democracy in action.
After all, Atari is a family-run company. I’m just suggesting
that this one aspect of business could be managed better by
me as someone coming up from the ranks. After all, when
queried about marketing at COMDEX last week, Leonard
Tramiel said, “What marketing?”

If you support this move to better market the ST/TT
line please write: Jack Tramiel, Chairman of the Board,
Atari Corporation, 1196 Borregas Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA
94086, and say: I'd like to see Atari ST/TT machines more
widely sold and used. I think Bill Yerger has some good
ideas. Why don't you give him a try?

Thanks,

Bill Yerger

Owner Zephyr/Microworld

EZRAM Not Terrific

Dear Current Notes,

I bought my ST in 1987. A while later, I bought the
EZRAM memory expansion board. A whole meg, wow! It
was easy to install and if there were problems, help was a
phone call away.

Page 6

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

Shift to the recent past. I decided to upgrade again, this
time to 2.5 megs. Since EZRAM had another board and
since I had good experience with them, this is the board I
chose. I had a few questions so a quick letter to Terrific
Corporation was in order. This was answered shortly, with
suggestions as to where to obtain 1 meg chips. Best of all,
EZRAM II was on sale! Well, I planned to install pc-ditto
If so I called Terrific to make sure everything would fit. A
message on their machine gave a number to call for
technical assistance. The fellow on the other end assured me
it all would fit. Just to make sure, I asked if there had been
any problems with the new EZRAM boards. I was assured
that there had not been any problems.

When everything arrived, I had a friend install it for me.
(He put in the original upgrade.) At first, it didn’t work, but
after some moving of chips and repositioning the board-2.5
megs of memory!! A short-lived happiness. Everything quit.

My computer was repaired (memory chips, video chip
and other things). I have been told that a 520 ST should
NEVER be upgraded past 1 meg. It draws too much power.
But EZRAM requires no power supply modifications. Well,
call Terrific and see if they can help. I wrote Terrific. No
answer. I called. No answer. I called again. Left a message.
Someone would call. No one did. Again, I called. This time
a young lady answered and after hearing the problem,
assured me a technician would call back. No one called. I
left another message. I wrote them again. I wrote to
magazines requesting help. (Thanks, CN and ST Informer
for your help.) Apparently, ST Informer dropped Terrific
from their magazine, but didn’t say why. I don’t know about
Current Notes.

What I do know is this: Terrific assured me there were
no problems with EZRAM II. That it didn’t need extra
power to work. That they were eager to sell me a board, but
couldn’t care less about it now that I’ve purchased it. I also
know it cost me $450 for a board and chips (including
computer repairs) that does not work. The chips may be
damaged, I don’t know. I realize that sometimes add-ons will
not work out of the box, but most companies will try to
help. Not so with Terrific.

If you want an upgrade, stick to 1 meg. Any higher and
you’re asking for trouble. Other memory expansions may
work fine, but EZRAM II doesn’t and they are of no help. If
you just have to have an EZRAM II, take the money to the
toilet and flush it. It will save you more in the long run.

Donnie Proctor
High Point, NC

Stay Clear of Tech Specialities

Dear Editor,

I understand that computer magazines derive a great
deal of their money from advertisements. However, when
these advertisers deceive the readership by advertising
products or services which they cannot provide, then it
becomes necessary to inform the public of these unprofes¬
sional business practices. Such is the case with a company

which has advertised in a great many Atari specific
magazines over the past several years: Tech-Specialities Co.
of Houston, Texas.

Approximately six months ago, I sent my 520ST
(purchased with a one megabyte RAM upgrade) to Tech-
Specialities for a RAM upgrade to 4 megabytes. They
advertise RAM upgrades as well as hard-drive components/
kits. I had observed their advertisements in several maga¬
zines over the years and even read some favorable reviews
on their upgrade kits. I first talked with their owner and
technician Kay Vaumund and he assured me that an upgrade
to 4 megabytes was no problem and would be completed
quickly after receiving my computer. He required, however,
advance payment. I consider myself a good judge of
character, and having read favorable reviews of his
company, I forwarded my computer and money.

After waiting approximately two weeks, I telephoned
Mr. Vaumund to find out how the upgrade was progressing.
He advised me that he had not even started the project. I did,
however, receive my cancelled check, indicating that he had
deposited my money in his account. Several weeks later,
after not having received the computer, I once again
telephoned Tech-Specialities, only to be advised that my one
megabyte upgrade had been soldered into the computer and
that this required de-soldering prior to the installation of the
4 megabyte upgrade. Vaumund told me that this would take
longer and that he would complete it as he had time. I later
learned, however, that he had already begun the de-soldering
process without giving me a chance to contemplate other
alternatives (due to the lengthy delays). After three months
had elapsed, and I still didn’t have my computer, I decided
that enough was enough. I had made some one dozen
long-distance telephone calls during this time (California to
Texas) and received excuse after excuse for not completing
the upgrade.

I gave him official notice that I wanted my money
refunded and computer returned or I would file small claims
action against him. He failed to acknowledge and I filed suit
in Harris County, Texas. Last week I was notified by the
court that I was awarded judgement. They awarded me full
cash settlement (my original deposit, the value of my
computer and court costs),. Is there a happy ending? Not
quite yet. I still have to collect. Although he has been given
10 days to pay, I don’t expect settlement. He ignored me
right from the beginning and I don’t see any reason for him
to change. I have, however, commenced lien proceedings
against him and his company. It may take awhile, but I am
optimistic.

As a valued subscriber to yours and other ST
magazines, I understand the dependency on advertisers as a
source of income. However, it is equally important that your
readership be warned of businesses/companies who fail to
deliver, regardless of the magazines they advertise in.
Unfortunately, I took the rocky road. Let’s hope that your
readers learn from my bumpy ride. Stay clear of Tech-
Specialities Co,

Cordially,

G.D.Heckman
La Quinta, CA

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 7

Blasting Into The ‘90’s

The game of Monopoly in the
Russian language is now on sale in
Moscow. Noriega is now in a U.S.
court calling as a defense witness
his last CIA case officer, President
Bush. Few other symbols more
effecively vivify the wave of econo¬
mic and social freedom that washed
over the planet in the closing hours
of the 80’s and the beginning
minutes of the 90’s. While we nor¬
mally get a crick in our neck when
we read “instant histories” of the
last decade or “immediate pro¬
jections” of the next, for Atarians
it is quite clear that the Atari 800
began it all in the early 80’s. And
almost as clear is it that some
device possessing the comput¬
ing power and speed of a main¬
frame, with highly intuitive software
(maybe even some real artificial in¬
telligence) with graphics better than
High Definition Television and fully
integrated into the other electric
tools of your life, e.g. phone & TV,
and finally as portable as the Lynx

is, all of that will be the Atari device
that will stand out at the end of the
next decade. You will order gro¬
ceries with it, telephone from your
car with it, send all your mail with it,
get your news and entertainment
from it, and yes, even compute with

it. Atari made? Yes, way back in the
nether reaches of our CFV (crystal
future viewer) we see Atari, still
being unique and far less self-des¬
tructive with only pictures on its
corporate wall to remind employees
of the former management—the
Tramiels.

Birthing Pains

Judging from the cries of
anguish on GEnie, the pain of
bringing pc-ditto // into the world
may be considerable. Bill Teal of

Avant-Garde Systems has appeared
on GEnie to apologize. Teal started
shipping pc-ditto II in quantity the
second week in January. Then
bang! the sky started falling. The
relatively large 7.5" x 4" board
wouldn’t fit in the 520ST or the
1040’s, unless they were Revision C.
They had to be attached by shield¬
ed cable to the outside the case.
Most Mega ST’s needed a bus con¬
nector, supplied by Avant-Garde
Systems, to attach to the 68000
chip. But the real blow was what

appears to be a glitch in the board
itself. As we go to press, of those
shipped, we still cannot find one
that is up and running. Teal has
announced the problem will be cor¬
rected asap. Because of the repu¬
tation he has garnered for product
quality to date let’s give him the
benefit of the doubt.

The Up Side

What Inspires Confidence? We
all know it. We all know that some
people have that rare quality of
projecting a genuine display of
interest in you and what you are
saying, or that equally unique quality
— you can have confidence in what
they say, you can believe them.
One of Atari’s “most senior” top
managers, Bob Brody, the person in
charge of user group support,
among other things, appears to
have a lot of the latter and much of
the former qualities. He states with
jocular humility that he has “been
around” longer than many of his
predecessors, and also his bosses.

He demonstrates a serious commit¬
ment to user groups and their needs
and problems, and where possible
he tries to keep the record straight.
As a one-man operation he obvi¬
ously won’t be at all the shows, but
he does want to meet user groups,
and he is up on GEnie regularly and
will answer your questions there as
well as phone calls to him at Atari.
Several people have notified us that
his performance on GEnie engen¬
ders something called “respect.”
Recently, Brody implied that we
might be accused of hyping Atari’s
stock if we continued to propagate
our “estimate” on Atari’s total daily
sales of the Portfolio. (In December
we had decimated a rumor that Atari
expected to sell 70,000 Portfolio’s a
day during the month; and noted at
best it might be 7,000 a day.) Brody
wanted the record to read a
world-wide total by the end of
December of 200,000 units ship¬
ped. We find this kind of straight
forwardness with the facts quite
reassuring.

Then you have rumors from
within Atari that one of the most
rational, humble, and big league
“guys” in Atari management, some¬
body who will listen, if not lead, is
Charles Crouch, one of the highest
level officers in the company who is
not a Tramiel. Two quality types is
too much, you say, for a corporation
that spends more time on its sword
than Dracula spends in his coffin.

But how about three? The new
head of the developers group,
Charles Cherry, is dispatching a
developers kit that provides serious
developers with information on the
base of registered Atari computer
users, the Atari dealers, and the
serious discounts available to de¬
velopers wishing to purchase Atari
equipment. One source stated that
means a developer can buy an Atari
laser printer for $400 off the user
price. It would seem he is making a
credible effort to convince develop¬
ers that they can expect support. A
difficult job, you might say, because
of Atari’s history in this area? No
worse than Gorbachev’s. So, for the

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Page 8

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

hopeful, those of us who care about
keeping Atari up and running in
America, these are three you might
wish to encourage.

The Down Side

Even the space shuttle has to
land sometime. But let’s have it be
“a light one.” First, Atari seems to
have forsaken the U.S. market, to a
point where whispers are heard that
they will abandon “this unforgiving
market.” We have talked to half a
dozen serious, articulate, Atari dedi¬
cated individuals, who have conclu¬
ded Sam Tramiel won’t listen. He is
intelligent, he can be warm and
pleasant, but in the final analysis he
won’t listen. As the landing glide
shortens, we should note that in less
than five years, Atari’s reputation for
doing business like Bush does

Panama has made it difficult for
them to get credit, anywhere. The
Federated battery drain continues.
G. Tramiel, youngest and most res¬
ponsive to new stimuli of the clan,
hoped to present the family with “a
done deal” as a Christmas present.
He came close, but “heavy details”,
like taking over 20-year leases

which Atari had signed for when

they made the original purchase,

had to be negotiated. And finally, if
ever there was a Darth Vader out
there in electronic land waiting to kill
off the new and the innovative then
it has to be Atari’s enemy of ene¬
mies, the FCC. If there is a voodoo
doll in Leonard Tramiel’s safe, stuf¬
fed with witch doctor pins, then it
must look like the FCC. Without their
approval the Stacey won’t be with
us “home users” until at least June.
Dealers who aren’t music stores or
selling exclusively to businesses
won’t be able to carry it until then.
Reason: Class A FCC approval
means business use only (not in
homes where it can muck up the
community electronic happiness.)
And the same with the STE, already
selling in Canada, as we’ve noted,
but which won’t be available to
non-business users until June.

Atari Passes Apple

This may be the beginning of
the year that Atari passes Apple in
the numbers of “units” sold. Last
year Atari was ranked 5th in that
category. The dollar comparison
was something else. (Atari’s sales
reportedly were $500,000,000 versus
Apple’s $2,000,000,000.) But if the
sale of the Portfolio continues un¬
abated, then the units-sold prize
should go to Atari versus Apple,
though the latter will still greet the
former with a smile at the bank.

The System Is There

It’s been available for a couple
of years, the Touch Screen System.
Not many of us have been aware of
it. Apparently it sells, at $15,000 a
copy, rather well. What is it? The
standard configuration is 2 Mega ST
computers, 3 monitors (2 mono and
1 color), a big hard drive and some
fancy point-of-sales software. It
provides the restaurant, or the
beauty salon, or what have you, with
a complete accounting, payroll, in¬
ventory, etc. system. One VAR
which has sold a couple of dozen
says that the trick is never to men¬
tion the word Atari until after the
sale is complete. The computer and
monitor part of the system have
labels pasted over the Atari logo’s.

The Lynx Affair

Nintendo hit the Xmas field with
1.1 million Game Boys. Industry
analyst said they “hurt themselves”
by not being able to meet the more
than 3 million demand for the hand
held computer game machine. Atari
roared out of their “locker” onto the
holiday selling arena with circa .07
million Lynx color monitor hand held
game machines. Those who had
compared both machines, i.e. had
them in hand and played a game or
two on both, maintained that the
Lynx was the hands down winner,
“..most outstanding graphics you’ve
seen; as good as an arcade
machine; resolution less than an
arcade machine, but in reduced size
looks just as sharp; extraordinarily
impressive machine, instantly there,

no booting up or fooling around;
Atari should sell several million of
them....”

That was before Xmas. What
was the Christmas track record.
Toys-R-Us hoped to have them in
early December. B.N. Genius, a
Washington-state Xmas catalogue
and high-tech devices distributor,
hoped to have them before 1
December, as noted in the last
issue. Sears had highlighted them in
their Xmas ads. And of all of these
sources where could you actually
buy one? Atari at the end of
November acknowledged to callers
that they would “be available in N.Y.
City, at F.A.O. Schwartz,” premier
toy company of America. Calls to
that store produced the info that
they had received two shipments in
two days and they were all gone
immediately; the impression was
that they had gotten less than three
dozen machines. Sears told callers
that they were “back ordered” and
hopefully would be available by 21
December. B.N. Genius said their
shipment was due in on 24 Novem¬
ber, “something unusual must have
happened to the truck.” They were
back ordered, had ordered 155 and
already had orders for 146.

Then there was the Epyx
“story.” Did Atari actually destroy its
chances of penetrating the Nintendo
Xmas game market, built by mega
$$’s of Nintendo Saturday morning
advertising over the past four years
until the name of the game was
“Nintendo” and no kid worth his salt
would ask for anything else? Did
Atari, famous for its “sharp business
practices,” take a whack at Epyx for
late deliveries that brought the
company to its knees and in the
process cut off Atari’s supply of
Lynx machines? The Lynx develop¬
ers had been waiting for three
months for their Lynx, developer’s
documentation and Amiga 2000
machines from Atari’s developer’s
center at Lombard, Illinois. Amiga’s?
Yes, all the development of software
for the Lynx was being done on the
Amiga!

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 9

And why would Amiga develo¬
pers want to get behind the Lynx?
High selling potential, and as R.J.
Mical and David Needle, the inven¬
tors of the Lynx noted, “The Lynx is
20,000 times more powerful than the
Amiga sprite engine. The Lynx has
unlimited sprite capacity.” What
does that mean? Simply put, it tells
us that you can have an unlimited
number of objects moving around
the Lynx screen at one time. Mical
and Needle’s review in Electronics
Game Monthly, published in Lom¬
bard, IL suggests that they watched
the Atari development of the Lynx
closely.

So, who actually got one for
Xmas and where were they able to
get it? Well, New York got the lion’s
share. Atari estimated it was better
to “adequately” supply one market
than trickle down in several. Sears
did ship a few just before Xmas.
And B.N. Genius sold all of theirs
(see Lynx-Game Boy comparison
elsewhere in this issue.) So that was
70,000. Nobody will know how many
more they could have sold. Manu¬
facturing has been moved from
Japan to Taiwan. There, indeed, had
been a problem with the company
manufacturing the screens for the
Lynx and Atari. It will be interesting
to see how long it takes to resupply
the market place.

Marsupials

The pouch is the thing. That’s
where you carry your most prized
possession, or at least marsupials
do. Sensing this, Caseworks(4038-B
128th Ave. S.E., Suite 294, Bellevue,
WA 989006:800-829-0041) has
produced the PCpouch, a small
water-resistant nylon zippered case
that carries your Portfolio, 3 RAM
cards and 3 AA battery spares in a
space not much bigger than the
Portfolio itself, $24.95. If you’re into
leather, add $25 more.

The STE

Dealer gossip has been that the
ST with enhanced sound and
graphics will not be sold in the U.S.
until the 520’s and 1040’s have been

sold off. While pressure on the
dealers to take shipments of 1040’s
might add fuel to this theory, the
more likely culprit is the FCC. Atari
maintains that you will see the STE
on dealer shelves in the U.S. as
soon as Atari has FCC approval. To
buttress their statement, they point
out that where FCC approval is not
required, the STE is already selling
and selling well, i.e. Canada. Word
has it that Atari, U.S. built a shield
for the STE, tested it themselves,
found it met the specs, and then
submitted it to our gracious U.S.G.
Inexplicably it failed. But corrections
have been made and you could be
seeing the louder, gaudier STE
soon, indeed, here in the U.S.

Canadian sales, at least in
Toronto, have been higher than
dealers expected. It has been sell¬
ing at an average of $1,200 Cana¬
dian ($1 U.S. = $1.15 CAN), that
includes a color monitor and a 1040
STE, and reportedly has appeared
as low as $700 discount.

The down side of its “coming
out party” has been the usual poor
man’s approach to marketing it. The
documentation for this the new Flag
Ship of the line, is simply a 1040 ST
manual with an addendum sheet; a
sure fire way of convincing pro¬
spective buyers that there isn’t
much new here.

It comes with the new TOS 1.6
(which may make the heads spin of
those of us who don’t have TOS 1.4
in our systems yet). There are the
usual reports of incompatibilities.
Current Notes author, Greg Csullog
has discovered that the following
programs are incompatible, i.e. just
won’t run: Neodesk 2.05, Drafix,
WordPerfect (‘87 vintage), Spelling
Bee, and Bent/ey Bear. Also he
notes that Pinhead, CIS II, and
Headstart will not run from an auto
folder. It has no internal clock! It
does have the blitter.

TV & the Teacher

New Yorkers have always con¬
sidered themselves more advanced
than denizens of other cities. And if
you’re talking about seeing Atari ads

on TV, it’s true once again. There
the little guy is, raising his hand to
get “permission” from the teacher.
And there’s a second one, and then
a third. In the restroom you see the
first boy hide himself in a stall as he
brings out his Lynx game machine.
Then you see a teacher coming
down the hall. He hears a noise,
opens the restroom door, and there
are the three little guys, all hooked
up, stall by stall, by cable playing
their Lynx.

Wall St. Rose Garden

Unless you’re a “market regu¬
lar” you probably don’t know what a
“turn around pick” is. That’s an
“opportunity stock.’’ And,
apparently, Atari is looked at by at
least one stockmarket analyst as a
stock that is turning itself around
and should be seriously considered.
The analyst, in this instance, is the
well-known Lee Isgur, who follows
Atari stock closely from New York
City and who also several years ago
wrote a stock portfolio program for
the ST, which sits on the shelf at our
right. Isgur sees Atari as coming out
of the '88 doldrums when its earn¬
ings were a minus $1.45 a share;
essentially because of the $100 mil¬
lion write off of the Federated dis¬
aster. In 1989 he expects the num¬
bers to equal a +$.25-.45 a share,
growing rapidly in 1990 to $1.50-
2.50 and doubling to $2-$3 in 1991.
He sees the Portfolio and Lynx as
two of the main reasons for this
reach to the stars.

We are loath to go toe to toe
with someone of Lee Isgur’s stock
analysis renown. We should report,
however, that Business Journal in
it’s 8 Jan. issue quotes a $.09 loss
per share for 3rd quar. ‘89 versus a
$.02 per share profit for the same
period in ’88. They also had Atari
reporting a $.03 a share loss per
share for all three quarters ending
September 30, 1989 versus a $.21
per share profit for the same nine
months in 1988 (before the write off
for Federated in the last quarter.)
So, as they say, you looks at the
numbers and you takes your pick.

Page 10

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

January, 1990

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XE/XL UPDATE ♦ Len Poggiali

New Print Shop Drivers. Innovative Concepts
recently released three printer drivers for use with
Broderbund’s Print Shop. They are PS Atari 1020 Driver,
PS Okimate 10 Driver, and PS Epson LQ-500/800
Driver. The first supports any one of four colors and
does not modify the original disks. The Okimate 10
version is similar but only prints in black. The third is
made for the new 24-pin printers and also only prints in
black. Each retails for $14.95.

The author of the drivers is Jim Steinbrecher of
Sector One Computers. Jim, the original author of the
terminal program Amodem, is also responsible for
another of I.C.’s products— Easy Scan (the Graphics
Image Scanner for the Atari 8-bits).

[Innovative Concepts, 311172 Shawn Drive, Warren, Mi
48093, (313)293-0730.J

Sharing Dreams. In an October, 1989 letter to CN,
reader David Lei/y made some thoughtful observations
and suggestions that Atari Corp. might well consider.

“I would certainly love to see some of the new
hand-held game machine’s technology passed on to
us, in particular, a new OS that would support a fast
65C02 microprocessor as well as memory upgrades
past 320K that don’t disable one of the machine’s more
attractive features, internal BASIC. Realistically speaking,
this isn’t going to happen. No resources for it. One
could also wish for a more enlightened (less predatory)
Atari attitude toward third party developers. For exam¬
ple, BASIC XE burnt into ROM and a licensed disk
version of SpartaDOS are “naturals.” The question is,
could ICD survive the relationship? No doubt this
thought is running through Alan Reeve’s mind as he
puts the finishing touches on his Diamond application
programs....”

Mr. Lefly’s continues: “Replace the 65XE/130XE/
XEGS hodgepodge with a $100, 128K XEGS! Sell it with
a coupon for an “XEGS Productivity Package” of DOS
XE, and XF551 drive, a dual-mode (joystick/ST) mouse,
the Diamond Cart/Diamond Write, Mavis Beacon
Teaches Typing, and a decent printer, price-competitive
with the low-end dedicated home word processors. Has
anyone else noticed a game machine backlash? I’ve
seen more and more friends sell their Nintendos or lock
them up at work because Little Johnny was skipping
studies and playing, getting up at 3 a.m. for a quickie
and displaying other symptoms of addiction. A pure
game machine is an expensive toy with a real potential
for abuse. Besides, the XEGS is dated game techno¬
logy, and it will never go head-to-head with Nintendo’s
marketing—so why not capitalize on its real strength of
being more than a toy?”

Later David describes his “realistic” 8-bit dream
machine. “...320K, two cart slots and a parallel bus port,

built-in XF551 and XEP80, and a detachable keyboard-
a decent one at last (no XE junk please!) with a proper
cable, F1-F4 keys and a numeric keypad. Don’t forget
the ‘dual-mode’ mouse and Diamond. Build the console
case so the add-on fan Kensington makes for the Apple
II will fit. Not an impossible redesign, but a rationalized
machine to create a user-base of the DSDD drive,
80-column card and XE expanded memory that would
support software development.”

Our thanks to Dave for his insightful comments and
for sharing his dreams with us.

Is SpartaDOS for Me? Tim Fullerton, recently
submitted a brief article concerning SpartaDOS. I have
taken the liberty of including it in its entirety. It is entitled
“Is SPARTADOS For Me? (What the other reviewers
have missed).”

After reading the comparison in the November issue
of Current Notes between SpartaDOS and Atari DOS-
XE, I felt that I had to put in my two cents’ worth. Please
don’t get me wrong, Terry Cowen did a good job of
bringing out the best points of both operating systems,
but there are two or three things that were glossed over
that I find important.

No, you don’t need to spend $150 to enjoy the
benefits of SpartaDOS. I only spent $40 for the Con¬
struction Set. Granted, the SpartaDOS-X on cartridge is
nice, but since DOS 2.5 was on disk, I did not begrudge
my new DOS also being on disk.

Okay, repeat after me, “I hate command line
operating systems. Why should I have to memorize
eleventy-zillion commands?” A menu-driven DOS is so
much easier. All of your options are right on the screen
in front of you. Surprise, ICD heard us! The MENU utility
of SpartaDOS is a joy to use. The only command-line
commands that I have had to memorize are “DOS,”
“RD D3:” (to set up a RAMdisk) and “MENU.”

Copying programs is a breeze. You don’t even have
to use wildcards. A disk directory appears on the
screen. Use the arrow keys and space bar to highlight
the files that you want copied. Tell the computer where
you want them to go and copy them. Since I had the
RAMBO 256K upgrade installed, I typically copy to the
RAMdisk and then to my destination disk. It sounds
more cumbersome than it actually is.

A lot of DOS 2.5 users feel intimidated by all of the
references to Directories and Subdirectories. What’s that
all about? It’s like making one disk pretend that it’s two
or three disks. For instance, I put driving games and
maze games on one disk but under different directory
headings just to keep them separate. Why bother? Think
for a minute, how is a hard disk partitioned? Yep, make
it pretend that it’s a whole bunch of floppy drives. Also,
as hard disk drives get bigger and faster it won’t be long

Page 12

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

before the older ones come up for sale at bargain
prices by their owners who wish to upgrade. By owning
SpartaDOS now, you’ll be ready when you make the big
leap to a hard drive.

I’ll admit that I’m a fan of ICD. In addition to owning
RAMBO XL, I installed US Doublers in my 1050 drives.
ICD’s commitment to quality products, documentation
and technical support is a boon to us who don’t yet
want to part with our beloved Atari 8-bits.”

Winter Challenge Deal. Larry Estep, who occa¬
sionally contributes to this column, has been in touch
with the people at Software Discounters of America
(SDA) concerning the availability of 8-bit products.
Recently, SDA halted sales of Atari software; however,
the company has a supply of titles remaining in its
warehouse. One of these is Winter Challenge, a five-
event Winter Olympics game from Thunder Mountain.
The game was never widely released, but from all
accounts it is a gem.

Larry has asked me to tell you that he will order
copies of WC from his SDA contact. The price for the
program, including postage, will be $12.50. If you would
like to order a copy, send Larry a check or money
order. His address is 524 Roseview Terrace, New
Albany, Indiana 47150.

Martian Light Phasar (MALP). (These light gun
items are by John Pilge, a contributor from California.
John has written a tic-tac-toe game employing the
light gun. He wonders if his is the first public domain
title for the gun. -LP)

The Martian Light Phasar by Mars Merchandising is
a Sega Light Phaser. There is more difference than just
re-spelling phaser. The Light Phaser has been rewired
to work on the Atari and has been relabeled.

Mars Merchandising could have rewired the Nin¬
tendo light gun. I’m glad they chose the Sega Light
Phaser. The trigger has less travel than the Nintendo
model and allows better accuracy. Besides, the plug on
the Sega matches the Atari game ports.

The MALP is compatible with the Atari light gun.
Whatever game works with the Atari light gun will work
with the MALP. Both Atari and MALP have excellent feel
in firing. The trigger has little travel; the firing is done at
the end of the travel so there is less error in shooting.

A program comes with the MALP so you can test it.
It isn’t much of a game. It just shows your choice of
targets and marks where your shots are aimed. But
Mars Merchandising does sell games for the MALP that
also work with the Atari light gun.

[Mars Merchandising, 1041B E. St. Charles Road, Lom¬
bard, /L 60148(312)530-0988.]

High Scores with the Light Gun. Games like
Barnyard Blaster, Crossbow and Crime Buster need a
light gun. Although a light gun is just a light pen with an

extra lens, you need to use the same techniques as a
pistol. These shooting tips should help your score on
light gun games.

Center the back of the light gun stock in the palm of
your hand. Wrap the lower three fingers around the
stock as far as you can reach. Since there is no recoil
from shooting a light gun, you can relax your hand. The
most pressure on the gun is from your middle finger,
with no pressure from the little finger. Any pressure from
the little finger can ruin your aim. Do not tighten or
loosen the grip while shooting. Keeping the pressure of
the grip constant will keep the light gun steady. You do
not need much pressure on a light gun. Keep your hand
relaxed, and you will be able to outlast the game.

For a steady grip, it would be best to rest your
shooting arm on a desk or chair. You can use your
other arm to steady your shooting arm in this position.

Line up the sights of the light gun. Look and focus
on the sights. The target should look fuzzy. If the target
is clear and the sights are fuzzy, you are looking at the
target instead of the sights. When moving the aim to a
new target, don’t just move your wrist. Move your arm,
so you can aim better.

Finger position on the trigger is where it is comfor¬
table. Every time you change your grip, your accuracy
will change. Shooters who use the second joint of the
finger have a tendency to pull to the right, while
shooters who use the extreme tip of the finger tend to
press left. When shooting, trigger finger pressure is
directly to the rear. The best way to do this is to think of
a spot directly behind the light gun stock and press
toward it. Any pressure other than straight to the rear
moves the light gun off target. After you have the
basics, it is just a matter of practice.

The light gun works similar to the light pen. Memory
locations 564 or 54284 (565 or 54285) are both the
horizontal (vertical) position of the light pen. PEEKing
both 564 and 565 will show the LAST screen position of
the light gun even when you move it off the screen. The
position of the light pen does not correspond to graphic
pixels of any graphic screen. There are 96 vertical
positions numbered from 16 at the top to 111 at the
bottom. According to “Mapping The Atari,” the horizon¬
tal positions start at 67 on the left, are reset to zero at
255 and continue to 7 at the far right of the screen. This
didn’t work on my TV set. Mine starts at 89 on the left,
resets to 0 after 227, and continues to 24 on the far
right.

The light gun does not replace a joystick nor can
you use a mouse or paddles to work as a light gun. The
light gun’s trigger does not work like a joystick fire
button. For the light gun, the command STICK(O) reads
the trigger (zero for port one or one for port two). If the
trigger is squeezed, STICK(O) reads 15. STICK(O) reads
14 otherwise. If this were a joystick, 14 would mean the
joystick is pressed forward, and 15 would mean the
joystick is centered (at rest).

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 13

More on Shielding a Mega

Last month I outlined a pro¬
cedure that essentially shielded the
disk drive cable inside a Mega. The
reason we did this was to make the
GCR more reliable in reading Mac
formatted disks. In the procedure, I
stated that the disk drive itself did
not require additional shielding
because it already contained a
shield (which it does). I have since
discovered that adding additional
shielding to the drive mechanism
itself can improve GCR operation
even more.

Another Procedure

Open the Mega again. Remove
the disk drive and cut a piece of
aluminum foil large enough to wrap
the entire drive. After wrapping the
drive, cut away ONLY the sections
of aluminum foil that need to be
exposed for remounting (such as
tapped holes, cable connectors,
etc). Now wrap the drive with some
bare wire and connect the bare wire
to some ground point in your sys¬
tem. Your drive is now shielded!
Remount the drive and connect the
drive cables and now you’re in
business.

On to PostScript

In this and the next couple of
months I will be discussing the
PostScript page description
language. This information is quite
important for Spectre users who
wish to use an Apple LaserWriter or

Introducing

PostScript

Atari Laser for their publishing
needs. With the recent introduction
of UltraScript for the HP DeskJet, I
have personally became interested
in PostScript. The quality of output
produced with this combination will
shock you. It has been a very con¬
venient combination for learning
PostScript programming and pro¬
ducing exceptional drafts before
they are sent to the laser printer.

Most of my information has
been obtained by word of mouth
with friends in the “publishing busi¬
ness” (in other words, anybody who
owns a desktop publishing pro¬
gram!). Don’t let that scare you, I
did do my homework and read the
book titled Understanding Post¬
Script Programming by David A.
Holzgang. Two other books I find
useful are the PostScript Language
Reference Manual and PostScript
Language Tutorial and Cookbook,
both by Adobe Systems.

I have also found that people
are scared of transverting files from
the Mac to the ST for printing. I will
admit it, I was, too! But once an
understanding of “what you are
doing” is gained, the whole process
is much easier.

Of Printing and Printers

Everyone knows that to produce
good looking output (i.e.pages of
print), we need a good high quality
printer along with a good print dri¬
ver. The “standard” printer is a 9-
pin dot matrix and Epson compat¬
ible. I call this the “standard”
because of the shear number of
them sold. Just about everyone has
owned one or two.

The print quality of the 9-pin
was great when we bought it, but

now is just seems to lack something
(at least mine does)? When we
wanted to improve the quality, most
of use were told that what we really
needed was a letter quality printer.
This new printer probably sported a
24-pin dot matrix print head. We
were told that the more pins the
print head contained the better.
After we purchased this new printer
we soon discovered we also
needed a new printer driver to
“control” this printer. If we didn’t get
the right driver for the right program,
our output might not look any better
that the “old” 9-pin or, worse yet, it
may not work at all!

What Does 9-pin Mean?

There are several ways get out¬
put these days. Printers come in all
shapes and sizes. One of the most
common ways of printing text and/
or graphics is to “press” ink from a
ribbon onto the surface of the
paper. This is what a dot matrix
printer does. In fact a dot matrix
printer is little different that an
ordinary typewriter! A typewriter
simply strikes a character (letter)
onto the page by pressing the
shape of the character on the prin¬
ter ribbon. A dot matrix printer
simply presses a very thin wire onto
the ribbon (somewhat like striking
the period character except the wire
is much smaller in diameter).

If we take several wires (let’s
say oh...9) and place them side by
side vertically we could form a
character by controlling the striking
of all those wires while moving the
print head horizontally. Yes, all of
that happens while you’re printing.
That’s why dot matrix printers make
such awful noises when printing.

Page 14

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

You will often see the term 9-wire
instead of 9-pin; they both mean
the same thing.

You might think that in order for
an ST program to “control” a print¬
er, a huge number of calculations
must take place in order to control
all those wires. You think correctly
(well almost). If we on/y print text, all
of the work to control those wires is
being performed inside the printer.
That’s because most printers con¬
tain enough brains to print text. In
fact, most printers contain enough
built-in information to print text in
several different flavors, such as
bold, italic, underlined , superscript, $ub _
script and so on... The only thing the
program must do is tell the printer
when to “turn on and off” the vari¬
ous modes of operation. For exam¬
ple, if we want to turn on bold
printing, we would send the printer
the numbers 27 and 71 if the printer
was Epson compatible. To turn off
bold print, we would need to send it
the numbers 27 and 72.

Epson Compatible?

It couldn’t have been longer
than five years ago that almost
every printer made contained its
own special way of turning on and
off the various modes (bold, ita¬
lic,...). This became a nightmare for
programmers and users alike. Most
programs required you to run a
special “printer installation” program
at least once to set up your printer.
The procedure required you to look
up special codes contained in the
back of your printer manual and
enter them into the computer! (It
wasn’t all that long ago). Nowadays,
if the printer is designated as Epson
compatible, then it means it follows
a standard format for telling the
printer how to go into the various
modes. If you’re looking into pur¬
chasing a dot-matrix printer, make
certain it is Epson compatible!

Now if we want to print
graphics, guess what? Yes, we (i.e.
the programmer) must control the

movement of each and every one of
those 9 wires! Now we start getting
into some tricky calculations. If we
decide to buy a 24-pin printer, then
the program must make a different
set of calculations. This is why a
different printer driver is required.
The printer driver contains the infor¬
mation the program needs to make
the correct calculations. If you don’t
have the right driver for your printer,
all sorts of strange results can
occur.

To sum up, if you’re going to
print only text, a 24-pin printer will
look much better and here’s why.

Of Resolution

The height of standard printed
text is 1/8 inch (0.125 inch). That’s
the length of the 9-pins that are
placed side by side vertically. If we
divide the text height (0.125 inches)
by number of pins used to print it (9
pins), we find out the diameter of
the wires. The number is 0.125/9
which equals 0.01389 inches. That’s
pretty small! In fact, if we invert this
number (i.e. 1/0.01389) we find out
that we could fit 72 pins side by side
in one inch! This is the printers
resolution!

The higher the printers resolu¬
tion, the higher the print quality. This
is because the manufacturer has a
“finer grid” to construct characters
used for printing.

We just discovered that our 9-
pin printer has a resolution of 72
dots per inch. What is the resolution
of a 24-pin printer? Performing the
same calculations we find it to be
192 dots per inch! You will often see
numbers such as there floating
around in computer printer manuals.
In fact most printers are able to
obtain higher resolutions depending
on the various tricks the manufac¬
turer plays when designing the
printer. Also, don’t be totally convin¬
ced that an inexpensive 24-pin
printer will always look better than a
9-pin! Take a look at the print qua¬
lity before you buy.

Other Printers

There are several methods to
get a printed page. It so happens
that a dot matrix printer is only one
type in a now huge fishbowl. The
first alternative that comes to mind
is the ink jet printers now available.
An ink jet produces output by drip¬
ping tiny drops of ink onto the page.
The ink, as you might think, is wet
for a short time after printing. Print
resolutions up to 300 dots per inch
can be achieved!

Laser printers are now starting
to get popular with the continuing
price reductions. Most laser printers
can achieve resolutions up to 300
dots per inch also. (Even though the
resolution is the same as the ink jet
the print quality is clearer, the dots
are better formed). Resolutions up
to 2,000-2,400 dots per inch can be
achieved on professional type¬
setting machines.

The Resolution Problem

Well, you can see the resolution
of printers can vary all over the map,
from 72 dots per inch to 2,000 and
more. Now it should be apparent
how much work is involved in print¬
ing anything to do with graphics.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was an
easier way? Wouldn’t it be much
easier if we could simply forget the
printers resolution and just tell the
printer what to draw? Such as a line,
a circle, a square?

The problem of entering all the
numbers into some printer installa¬
tion program was solved by settling
on a standard way of sending text to
the printer. The printer took care of
actually printing the text at the
highest resolution it could! What
about a standard for graphics?

Introducing PostScript

PostScript is the standard for
describing graphics, much like
Epson is the standard on how to
print text. When we wanted an
“Epson compatible” printer to print
bold text, we sent it the numbers 27
and 71. When we want a PostScript

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 15

Spectre CN Library Disks

printer to print a circle, we send it
the “arc” command. If we want a
PostScript printer to draw a line, we
send it the “lineto” command.
Starting to make sense?

At this point you’re probably
thinking, “PostScript is just a set of
commands to print graphics.”
Right? Wrong! PostScript is a full
blown computer language! In fact it
is an interpreted language much like
BASIC. When you print a page using
a PostScript printer, you are actually
sending a computer program to the
printer! The program is written in a
language called, what else, Post¬
Script. After the program is trans¬
ferred to the printer, the program
runs, and (hopefully) a page is pro¬
duced!

Next month we will continue on
with our discussion of PostScript.
We will be covering, among other
topics, how the Atari handles Post¬
Script, how the Mac handles it, and
how to mix the two and produce
some surprisingly good results!

This month, Current Notes is
releasing five new public domain
and Shareware Spectre compatible
(128K ROMs) library disks. For those
of you using the Spectre with 64K
ROMs, I recommend the excellent
CN Magic library listed elsewhere. If
you like and use any of the files,
don’t forget to make
your shareware dona¬
tion^) to the author(s).

Here is a rundown of
what each of the new
disks contain:

S47D, S48D:

Phoenix, an inter¬
active adventure game
based on the movies
2001 and 2010,
requires both disks.

Your job is to map pre-
viously explored
galaxies, but you accidently find the
starship, Discovery. It never was
destroyed. You must somehow get

Discovery back to earth using HAL.
HAL responds to your commands
with digitized voice sounds from
both movies. (Requires version 1.9
or higher of Spectre, and two dou¬
ble-sided drives or a Hard Disk.)

S49: Lawn Zapper, an arcade
type game. The object of the game

is to mow a lawn while avoiding
hazards. This game has digitized
sound and is quite addictive.
(Requires version 1.9 or higher of
Spectre).

S50: Dungeons of Doom,
Version 5.4. This is an interactive
adventure game based on
Dungeons and Dragons. If you
enjoyed the 4.0 version of this
game, you’ll enjoy this, the most
recent version, even more.

S51D: Postscript Fonts #1,
contains 11 Postscript Type 3 fonts
for a postscript printer or, using
Transverter, moved over to the ST
side and printed out using Ultra-
script. There is a file on the disk
called Using Ultrascript with instruc¬
tions on how to create Postscript
files and print them out. The fonts
on this disks are: Archimedes Bor¬
der, Bill’s Dingbats, Classic Heavy,
Classic Italic, Classic Roman, Draft-
man, Faust, Gordon, Style, Tiny
Helvetica, and Toulouse Lautrec.

CN Library, 122 N. Johnson Rd, Sterling,
VA 22170. Disks are $4 ea+$1/(6 disks) for
shipping & handling.

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Classic Heavy' IS Point

Classic Heavy IS Point

Classic Italic IS Point

Classic Italic 18 Point

Classic Roman 12 Point

Classic Roman 18 Point

draftsman 12 Pt

P raftsman \Q> Pt

tFinistus 32 ipotnt

ZFmxstiis 38 iputtit

Gordon 12 Point

Gordon Arwj Point /ire

Se*U tZ 7***

Style.

Jouloueel^utrea 12 poipt

Joulousel^utree t8 poipt

Sample of PostScript
fonts available on
Spectre disk #S51D.

Page 16

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

Order Line Only

(800) 876-6040
US, PR, AK, HI, Canada

3909 Mask! Highway

Information Line

(301)676-1948
Order Status, Tech Support

ICD Fast 50MB 40ms Drive ICD Fast 50MB 28ms Drive ICD Fast 85MB 28ms Drive ICD Fast 85MB 24ms Drive

$599.99 $629.99 $735.99 $805.99

.ACCess.19

1st Word Plus 3.14.60

AERCO RAM Brd.135

W512K (Older 520s) ..180

w2MB RAM.285

w4MB RAM.435

Apple 128K ROMS.130

Altered Beast.26

Arcade Force Four.30

4 games in 1 package

Articfox.15

Atari Bentley Bear Series

Alphabet Tutor.21

Equation Builders.21

General Store.21

Magical Anagrams.21

Magical Math 1/2/3..ea21
Magic Spelling Bee.21

Memory Math 1/2 ...ea 21

Atari Laser Ptr Accessory

Replacement Drum... 190

Initial Toner.

..70

Regular Toner.

..58

Atari SF314 DS Drive..

160

Atari ST/MEGA Mouse.

..45

Austerlitz.

..31

BAAL.

..13

Backgammon.

..30

Balance of Power 1990

..31

Barbarian 2.

..26

Bards Tale.

..15

Batman The Movie’.

..26

Battle Chess.

..31

Battlehawks 1942.

..31

Battletech.

..31

‘Best’ Mouse.

..30

Beverly Hills Cop.

..30

Blasteroids.

..26

Blood Money.

..26

Bloodwych.

..31

Data Disk #1.

..19

Books

Drives Inside & Out...

...18

GEM Program Ref.

...15

Helpful Hints for ST...

...15

Program GFA 3.0.

...20

ST Internals.

...15

Borodino.

...38

Breach 2.

...31

Bulk 3.5” DS Disks

Quantity 1-49.ea .69

Quantity 50-99.ea .64

Quantity 100+.ea .59

C-Breeze.38

Calamus 1.09.174

Calamus Font Editor.60

Cardinal 2400 Modems

MB2400EX.105

MB2400MNP.170

Chaos Strikes Back.24

Chord Magic.44

Clean-Up ST!.26

Cluedo Master Detective 26

Color Computereyes.179

Comptr Guide Solar Sys.34

Conflict: Europe.31

Cordless Mouse.90

Cover - Various.CALL

Cyber Control 1.1.38

Cyber Design Disks...CALL

Cyber Paint 2.0.48

Cyber Studio 2.0.54

dBMan 5.2 wCompiler ..165

dBMan 5 Compiler.80

DC Utilities.19

Death Bringer.26

DEGAS Elite.38

Deja Vu II.31

Desktop Publisher ST.79

Devpac ST v2.60

Diamond Back 1.04.25

Double Dragon.25

Double Dragon II.26

Dr. Dooms Revenge!.31

Dragons of Flame.27

Dungeon Master.24

DynaCADD 1.7.580

Enterprise.26

Falcon.31

Falcon Mission Disk.17

Ferrari Formula One.33

Fighter Bomber.38

Flash 1.6.20

GFA Basic 3.0.60

wCompiler.85

Ghostbuster II.31

Ghouls ’n’ Ghost.26

Gold Rush.26

Gridiron - Football Sim ...20

Hard Drive Turbo Kit.38

Hard Drivin*.26

Hellraider.27

Heroes of Lance.27

Hillsfar.33

ICD Host Adaptors.95

Indus DS Drives

GTSIOOx.160

GTS 100.170

Interlink ST 1.85.25

Interphase.31

Iron Lord.30

Joysticks.CALL

King of Chicago.17

Kings Quest 1/2/3.ea 30

Kings Quest 4.31

Laser C Compiler 2.1 ... 110

Laser DB Debugger.50

LDW Power 1.11.90

Leisure Suit Larry 1.25

Leisure Suit Larry 2.31

Magnum IV.39

Afterburner - Oper. Wolf
Double Dragon - Batman

Manhunter 1.30

Manhunter 2.31

Mark Williams C.105

Mark Williams Debug.44

Menace.13

Monitor Master.34

Moonwalker.26

Mouse Master.27

NeoDesk 2.05.31

Icon Collection.3

North & South.31

Note Wizard.44

Omega.31

pcDitto. 65

pcDitto II....243

pcSpeed 1.3.330

Pagestream 1.8.120

Paperboy.24

Phasar 4.0.56

Pirates.29

Police Quest 1.30

Police Quest 2.31

Populous.33

Promise Lands.19

Powerdrift.31

Powerdrome.27

Precious Metal.31

4 games in 1 package
Prince.31

Side Arms.14

Space Ace.38

Space Quest 1/2.ea 30

Space Quest 3.31

Spectre 128.124

Spectre GCR.216

Spectrum 512.44

STalker 2.0.19

Star Wars Trilogy.31

Starbreaker.26

ST/ime 520/1040 Clock..45

STOS.40

STOS Compiler.24

STOS Games Galore.25

STOS Maestro.34

STOS Maestro Plus.100

STOS Sprites 600.24

Stunt Tracker Racer.26

Strider.26

Super Hang-On.26

Switchblade.26

Tempest (Game).26

Tempest II.48

Tetris.22

The Story So Far #1.25

The Story So Far #3.25

Thrill Time Platinum II.31

8 games in 1 package

T.I.G.E.R.90

TIME.38

Touch-Up.120

wHand Scanner.420

Triad Volume 1.25

Triad Volume 2.31

BAAL-Menace-Tetris

Turbo Jet.27

Turbo Outrun.26

Turbo ST 1.8.33

TV Sports Football.31

Tweety Board.30

Z-Ram 3-D/4 MEG Brd.. 118

w2MB RAM.275

w4MB RAM.425

Codehead Software

Codehead Utilities #3.18

G+Plus 1.3.21

HotWire 1.41.24

HotWire +.36

(Hot Wire & Maxi File)

MaxiFile 2.0.21

MidiMax.30

Multi Desk 1.83.18

Ralph C. Turner Books

Atari ST Subjects.14

The Atari ST Book.14

(Both for $25.00)
Cables

3’ DMA Hard Drive.16

4’ ST to IBM Floopy.15

6’ ST Disk Drive.15

6' ST Monitor.16

10’ MIDI Set (2pcs).13

Blitz Cable (Deluxe).40

Blitz Cable (Regular).30

Mega ST Keybrd Extn

6’ Cable.7

9’ Cable.9

12’ Cable.11

15* Cable.13

European ST Mags

Action ST.6

Atari ST User w/Disk.8

ST Format w/Disk.8

ST World.7

(6 months, postage incld)

Action ST.39

Atari ST User.51

ST Format.51

ST World.45

Kalmar Teak Boxes

Pro Tour Tennis.27

Pro Copy 1.6.22

Prospero C for GEM.125

Prospero Fortran GEM. 125
Prospero Pascal GEM....95

Quartet.38

Quick ST.15

Red Lightning.39

Red Storm Rising.29

Replay 4.80

Rick Dangerous.22

Robo Cop.26

Rocket Ranger.31

RVF Honda.26

Scale Magic.44

Shufflepuck Cafe.25

Ultima IV.38

Ultima V.39

Ultrascript ST-1.145

Ultrascript Fonts.CALL

Universal Item Select II.. 14

Video Key.65

Vidi ST.140

War Middle Earth.31

Waterloo.31

Winners.38

4 games in 1 package

Wordflair.63

Word Perfect 4.1.140

Word Up 2.0.48

Word Writer ST.48

Xenon II.30

3.5" holds 45, 4 tabs.19

3.5" holds 90, 8 tabs.27

3.5" holds 120, 12 tabs... 35
SEGA Genesis System
System wAltered Beast 188

Genesis Control Pad.20

Genesis Power Base.38

Genesis Cartridges.... CALL
ICD Tape Back-Up
Tape Back-Up System . 775
W50MB 40ms Drive. 1099
W50MB 28ms Drive .1130
We use ICD products in
all our hard drive sys¬
tems. ICD, a quality
manufacturer of Atari ST
& Atari 8 Bit products.

The Junkyard
Pussycat

by
John
Barnes

The Computer as Toaster?

In Charles Cherry’s newsletter to developers he
introduces the “purchaser of the computer-appliance.”
This is said to be a buyer who expects to do only one
thing with his computer. This purchaser is described as
someone who does not read magazines, does not join
user groups, does not go online, and does not look for
other applications.

The millions of MS-DOS machines in American
homes, the millions of application packages that have
been brought home from the office, the thousands of
tons of magazine paper devoted to PC magazines, and
the yards of PC related books on the shelf at any book
store all bear eloquent witness to the fact that home
computer buyers are knowledgeable and anxious to
learn more.

The resistance to products that are not MS-DOS
compatible is a sign that ordinary users have learned to
tame a user-hostile operating system and make it do
their work for them.

The idea of the computer-appliance when seen in
this light appears to be a piece of wishful thinking
conjured up at Atari Corporation. By stripping out as
much added value as possible to keep the price down
the Tramiels and their minions thought that they could
get their computers into every household by marketing
the machines like toasters, electric shavers, or stereos.
By avoiding a heavy commitment to developer and user
support Atari figured to save themselves lots of financial
and personnel problems.

It is time for Atari to admit that this approach has
been a failure. Other vendors have been far more
successful at getting their products into homes and
offices.

The installed base of Atari machines is too small to
make the market attractive to developers who have
been feasting on megabuck sales in the MS-DOS
world. ST software developers who have introduced
promising products have found the pickings so slim that
they do not support continued upgrades or even bug

fixes. Timeworks, Word Perfect, and Generic Software
are cases in point.

Atari claims to be targeting the “personal” comput¬
ing market but it is doing so with hardware that goes far
beyond this market. Atari has always had problems with
this lack of engineering focus. The ST may have been
too sophisticated a machine for the market targeted by
the Tramiels. The SLM804 laser printer is a very clever
engineering stroke, but the lack of good printer drivers
to handle simple tasks has been crippling. At a cost of
$4000 or so for hardware and another $500 or more for
software this system is only for the most avid home
user. The CD-ROM has been sitting in the warehouse
for a long time now because no one has done the
software development to make it useful. The ATW and
the TT are obviously not machines aimed at the home
market.

The software side of the issue tells a similar tale.
Atari struck out on an untrodden path while the other
developers entered the home computer market with
software that was a logical outgrowth of a familiar, if
deficient, system.

Atari entered this fray without committing the
resources needed to make it all the way through.

These were basic business decisions, perhaps even
bold ones, but they will succeed only if Atari can get
help from friendly natives along the way. It will have to
create a climate that encourages people to write soft¬
ware for the ST and its yet-to-be-born brethren.

The new initiatives for developers described else¬
where in this issue might prove helpful if they can be
backed with enough money and talent. Unfortunately,
these initiatives appear to be mainly oriented toward
marketing and do not yet address the issue of technical
support. It is not clear how they will lead to the writing
of new software.

Developers with whom I have spoken have
expressed a lot of frustration over the quality and
quantity of assistance they have received from Atari.
The most successful ones seem to have done it largely
on their own. They may not need the kind of help that
Atari proposes to provide.

Sophisticated users are another class of friends
who could be most helpful. There are too many cases
where Atari personnel have said “that kind of informa¬
tion is only available to registered developers.” The
number of good public domain programs available
bears eloquent witness to the programming ability of
these sophisticated users. When you are coming from
behind, as Atari clearly is, perhaps you take your friends
where you find them.

To summarize, if Atari Corporation wishes to remain
in business as a manufacturer of computers, it should
act like a computer company rather than a consumer
electronics company or a toy company. It should
provide high quality hardware adapted to real comput¬
ing tasks and it should stimulate the development of

Page 18

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

high quality software across the complete range from
development tools to business applications. The fea¬
tures of its systems should be well-documented and
this documentation should be widely available.

Perhaps, on the other hand, Mr Cherry’s reference
to “computer-appliances” should be interpreted as a
sign that Atari is being seduced by a perceived success
of the Portfolio, which may, indeed, be a true com¬
puter-appliance, and which seems to have outsold (in
numbers) the ST’s in the United States. The Lynx may
yet prove to be another success story. If Atari can
overcome some of its problems, it may be able to make
lots of money as a computer-appliance manufacturer.

In this context, the 680XX based product lines are
surely nothing more than a distraction. What will
become of the STacy, the STE, and the TT’s? Only time
will tell, but time is running out fast.

It would not be fair to make such an issue of a
single phrase unless that phrase were particularly apt as
a capsule summation of Atari’s approach as we have
seen it stated and restated over the years. Thank you,
Mr Cherry, for the “computer-appliance.”

The Spectre of Christmas Present

After nearly a year of being beguiled by a Mac IIX in
his office, the Junkyard Pussycat let it be known that a
Spectre GCR with a set of Apple 128k ROMs would
make a nice Christmas present. The earlier Magic Sac
and the Spectre 128 were not attractive because they
were too “klugy.” Mrs. Pussycat got hold of a Spectre
GCR kit at L&Y Electronics and the Pussycat himself
has been spending the last couple of weeks learning
how to cozy up to it.

The following perceptions are presented in the hope
of giving Current Notes readers a view that might be
different from that provided by some of the other
Magic/Spectre material in Current Notes.

Dave Small’s place in history is assured for the work
that he has done in giving a poor, starving Atari
community a gateway into the opulence of the Macin¬
tosh world.

Bringing the system up is not altogether a trivial
matter because the ST’s hardware is not totally com¬
patible with that of the Macintosh. Dave Small and
friends have been plagued by the fact that certain disk
drives on Atari machines (e.g., the GTS 100) are simply
not compatible with the signals needed to read and
write Mac disks, the built in disk drives on Megas pick
up spurious signals unless they are modified, the Atari
monochrome monitor gives off interference, and the
signal level on the disk drive bus must be adjusted to an
optimal value. There is a good bit of pain to go with the
pleasure. This stuff is not in the manual and has to be
picked up from local gurus or visits to the Gadgets by
Small Roundtable on GEnie.

The Pussycat’s configuration is perhaps a Cadillac
version because it uses a Syquest 44 removable car¬

tridge as the drive for all of the Mac part of my software.
It also runs on 4 megs of memory with a monochrome
monitor. The removable hard drive pack is formatted for
a small GEM partition to hold the Spectre software for
the Atari side, a small MFS partition for converting files
from Mac Format to Atari format, and a large Mac HFS
partition. Since all of this is admittedly gibberish to the
non-Macophile, it suffices to say that this configuration
does not use up any hard drive space when the Spectre
is not in use. Because the hard disk cartridge with the
Spectre stuff can simply be swapped out for something
else.

Disk space is a critical issue because Mac applica¬
tions tend to be disk-intensive. Friends who own Macs
without hard drives seem to be swapping disks all of the
time and there are a number of applications that simply
must run from a hard disk.

Memory is also an issue, and 520 users might not
find the environment very satisfying because they will
have somewhat less memory available than does a Mac
512. Some of the Pussycat’s Mac Plus acquaintances
find that 2 megs of memory is barely enough for heavy
graphics work. Mega 2 and Mega 4 users should find
satisfaction.

Dave Small points out that the tricks that are done
to make Spectre run on a color monitor are really not
satisfactory and he advises using a monochrome moni¬
tor. There is no support at all for color Mac applications.

The Macintosh trick of making the ejection of floppy
disks from the drive a hardware function is designed to
help the user avoid shooting himself in the foot. Since
the ST does not have this function the GBS crew
provides a workaround via the F-keys that seems to
work reasonably well.

The GBS gang did some of their best work for those
who have SLM804 laser printers. The built-in Imagewri-
ter emulation is very nice and quick for doing screen
dumps and simple printouts. The trick of snatching
Postscript output into a text file and printing it using
Ultrascript in the Atari mode produces very nice output.

The main obvious flaw in the Spectre GCR is the
documentation. All of Dave Small’s usually pleasing fey
qualities are exhibited to the full in the Spectre GCR
handbook. Perhaps this is just the mindset one needs to
make a sow’s ear into a Macintosh. However, one
shouldn’t need to wade through it when trying to get a
piece of computer apparatus to work. Maybe computer
manuals are dull, but there is no reason to read them as
novels. Just the Facts, Ma’am, and they’d better be
easy to find the next time one needs them.

If one overlooks these distractions there is a lot of
useful information in there and the index is generally
effective.

The real reason for installing a Spectre GCR is not
to pay Dave and Sandy’s mortgage, but to gain entry to
the world of Mac software. The Spectre GCR opens up
that portion of it that runs on a Mac512 or a Mac Plus.

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 19

There is a great deal of very satisfying material out there
in spite of the fact that there are really not all that many
more Macs on the loose than there are Atari ST’s. The
ones that are out there, however, appear to be in the
hands of people who are willing to spend some money
for software.

Mac software is expensive, but most of it is better
written and better maintained than the equivalent soft¬
ware for the ST. There are graphics and data acquisition
applications that we are unlikely to ever see on the ST.
The coherence of the clipboard concept as it applies to
moving data from one application to another is a true
marvel. When a Mac owner buys his machine, he is also
spending quite a few bucks that permit Apple to provide
support to developers and educational discounts to get
the machines onto university campuses.

The Pussycat really hasn’t had a chance to make
choices on “must-have” software for the Mac, but
Microsoft Word, Mathtype, and a presentation graphics
program like Cricket Graph or igor&xQ likely to be early
choices. A good program editor along the lines of
OUED is also a must. A nice CAD package would be
good, but one would have to be absolutely certain that
a product like Claris CAD really does offer the func¬
tionality that people want but can’t get on the ST. The
bill for all of this can add up in a hurry.

Programming for the Mac is perhaps even more
complicated than for the ST but Apple is said to have
been generous in its support for some development
projects and many of the big software houses offer both
Mac and IBM versions of their packages. For those who
are willing to pay the price, there is outstanding
documentation available in the inside Macintosh
volumes. The Apple Program Developers’ Association
also seems to be a lively concern.

They market an exceptionally neat application
development tool named Prototyper that allows the
programmer to build dialog boxes, menus, windows,
and all of the other paraphernalia of object-oriented
programming and then to specify how these are to be
linked together to make an application. The graphic part
of the prototype application can then be run. Once the
programmer is satisfied as to the correctness of this
part of the program he can then ask Prototyper \o write
out the source code that invokes the resulting resources
in one of several dialects of C or Pascal. The source
code contains comment lines that tell the programmer
where to insert the code that he needs to handle
whatever data processing is desired. The various Atari
Resource Construction Sets cannot hold a candle to
this.

In many ways, however, the Macintosh world has a
flavor that can best be described as “kinky.” The fact
that each Mac file is really two files takes a good deal of
getting used to. There is a “resource fork” that contains
information about the file and a “data fork” that contains
the file data itself. The fact that resource forks of

applications are continually being rewritten is surely one
of the factors that allows Mac viruses to spread so
easily. This characteristic of the files is very important
when the files have to reside on a non-Mac system
such as GEnie. Fortunately, there is a utility called
Stuffit, similar to ARC in the ST world, which takes care
of this problem.

Another kinky feature is a rabid insistence on using
the mouse even when it is not appropriate. This is a real
annoyance in MacDraw and MacDraft where exact
numeric values are important for drafting. Keyboard
entry of the data should be an option in such applica¬
tions.

Mac programs also seem bound and determined to
prevent the user from making any use of his data other
than the one the designers had in mind. For example,
there seems to be no convenient way to get a copy of a
disk directory as an ASCII text file.

The thing that is so kinky that it is nearly a complete
turn-off is the missionary attitude of the people who
write books on the Mac. The Macintosh Bible, which
Dave suggests as a useful reference work, is replete
with statements like “why should the rest of us .... who
wouldn’t get within 50 yards of a PC unless it was
downwind and hidden behind a bush ....” These are the
same zealots who have foisted Pascal onto a gener¬
ation of computer science students. Such bigotry is
counterproductive in the long run because it allows the
competition to catch the bigot napping.

Once one gets past these annoyances, however,
the essential coherence of the entire structure is truly
impressive. Printer drivers and fonts are basically
universal rather than being specific to each application.
The use of Postscript as a standard for displaying
graphic and text information makes for enormous
graphic power and adaptability. Apple has set rigorous
standards in these matters and developers violate them
at their peril. Most programs have a very professional
look and a smooth feel, people do not seem to be
compelled to invent the wheel over and over again. This
sameness and smoothness makes Mac applications
highly intuitive for the user. All of this costs money.

If an Atari user simply wanted to get a feel for Mac
software, a few short sessions at a friend’s Mac would
suffice. Atarians take the Spectre route because they
want performance that they cannot find in their own
world. The areas where this is most apparent are in
desktop publishing and possibly CAD. People who use
Mac emulation regularly usually limit themselves to a
couple of applications that they like better than the ones
on the Atari. Everyone has their own favorites in this
area and I have not yet done enough exploring to make
up my mind.

How well does the Spectre do Mac emulation? It
seems pretty good for the few pieces of software that
the Pussycat has tried. The small annoyances like
special keystroke combinations are not hard to live with

Page 20

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

and the screen redraw speed is about what you would
expect from a Mac Plus (which is considerably slower
than a Mac NX). Certain very useful items like Apple File
Exchange do not work. With the aforementioned pre¬
cautions regarding shielding, the disk drives seem to
work pretty well. On the whole, the Spectre GCR seems
to be a useful tool for learning about the Mac in the
office, but it may be quite a while before it becomes
part of the personal toolkit (inertia and money, you
know). The fact that Spectre is totally non-invasive
because it simply plugs into the cartridge port is very
attractive. As ST add-ons go, the Spectre GCR is not
terribly expensive. One can get into business for
roughly the cost of a hard disk drive mechanism; other
peripherals all work provided that a suitable printer
driver is on hand.

The dark side of this business is that the Mac world
seems to be moving away from the 68000 to more
powerful processors. These systems (Mac Il’s, IIX’s,
IICX’s,, etc...) seem to be trying to expand upward into
the engineering or DTP workstation niche to do battle

with UNIX-based Suns, Apollo’s, Iris’s and the rest on
their way down the price scale. Where is this going to
leave the personal user? Will the Mac Plus and its
siblings become orphans in the process? How will Dave
Small and his allies handle these challenges? Stay
tuned.

A Current Notes colleague pointed out that the Atari
ST is, in some ways, more fun than the Mac. You can
get color in your games or applications without going to
a great deal of expense and you do have the choice of
operating in TOS or TTP mode for ease of programming
applications that do not need the mouse. File structures
are simpler because there is no need for a separate
resource fork, thus affording at least a modest degree
of portability to the MS-DOS world. It is actually easier
to customize an ST into a special-purpose computing
engine and it is easier to reconfigure after you have
started.

As a result of this, Atari users can get the best of
two worlds: “power without the price’’ from Atari and
“power at a price” from Apple. Thanks again, Dave.

WAACE AtariFest ‘90
by John Barnes

The AtariFest planning team of the Washington Area Atari Computer Enthusiasts is busy working to
make the 1990 event the best ever. The dates and site for 1990 have been set: 6 and 7 October at the Sheraton
Reston in Reston, Va. This modern, attractive conference facility offers plenty of nicely arranged space for
exhibits, demonstrations, seminars, and hospitality.

Pricing for vendor space is being determined, and arrangements for setup are being made with a
professional exhibit firm.

Conducting the show in a hotel will allow longer show hours on the two days and increased
opportunities for demonstrations and seminars. Exhibitors and out of town visitors will find the in-hotel
location far more comfortable and convenient.

The decision to use commercial space was partly determined by the end of our partnership with Fairfax
County Public Schools Office of Adult and Community Education and partly by our own desire to afford
vendors and visitors a better show.

Potential exhibitors should expect to receive information packets during February. We will need
financial commitments from participants soon thereafter in order to conduct a suitable promotional
campaign.

This change of approach will bring the cost of the WAACE show more into line with similar Atari shows.
In order to keep costs within reason we will need strong support from the entire Atari community.

We are making this announcement at such an early date in order to give everyone a chance to organize
their schedules. We hope that all of you will help us to make this event an enjoyable experience for all East
Coast Atarians.

Further information on this subject can be obtained by contacting the WAACE Chairman, Mr. John D.
Barnes, at 301-652-0667 or by GEMail to J.D.BARNES or R.BROWN3. Watch for new contact names in mid
January.

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 21

Share the Fantasy

SYRA: Hi, my name is Syra, I’m
23 years old and I have blonde hair.

I like movies, horseback riding,
gourmet cooking, and my favorite
CRPG is Dungeonmaster.

GEOFFREY: Hi, I’m Geoff. I’m
24,1 like concerts, fast food, impor¬
ted beer, football, and hanging out.
Oh yeah, I’m really into Lord British,
too.

ROSELLA: Ah, some fresh
voices! Do either of you know
what’s going on with Hero’s Quest?
The Sierra Creative Interpreter
should’ve churned it out by now.
They did a nice job on the IBM
version, even Scorpia liked it. Com¬
bat looks a little like that in-the-
visor perspective from /ron Lord.

REIS: And when’s Origin releas¬
ing Windwaiker? It’s out for the
Amiga.

JAANA: Yeah, and what about
Poo! of Radiance from SSI? The
Mac version’s already out, of all
things.

BORIS: Hey Syra, have you fin¬
ished Chaos Strikes Back yet? I just
finished it, and guess what? I did it
without mapping!

SYRA: Yes, I finished it, too,
though I don’t think many people
have. When I first heard there would
be a Dungeonmaster module, I said
great. When I heard it wouldn’t have
any new monsters or objects, I said
not so great. Which was echoed by
the playtesters, so FTL went back to
work and added thirteen new mons¬
ters. I was back to great. But having
finished it, I can’t say Chaos is a
great game; it’s to Dungeonmaster
what Phantasie //was to Phantasie l

DIAL

976-CRPG

CALL NCW.... IT’S LIVE!

BORIS: I understand your point, it’s
more of the same thing, but if that
thing is Dungeonmaster, I’ll take
more of the same anytime! Besides,
the increased intensity of combat in
Chaos was different. In DM, you
fought one dragon; in Chaos, you
gotta take out a whole nest of ’em.
It wasn’t as long a game, but it was
tough, tough, tough! Some puzzles
were nearly impossible, and the
monsters come at you in leagues
from the moment you start.

Love at 2400 Baud

ALEX: Hi, Syra, I’m Alex. You
sure have a sexy voice. I haven’t
even bought Chaos yet, can you
start from the beginning?

SYRA: Sure, Alex. Haven’t I
heard you somewhere before?
Anyway, the game is stand-alone,
you don’t have to own Dungeon¬
master to play it. But there are no
DM docs in the Chaos package, so
the few who haven’t haven’t played
the original are pretty much out of
luck. The game and graphics sys¬
tems for Chaos Strikes Back are
exactly like Dungeonmaster, and if I
have to describe that to you, you’re
on the wrong phone line. It comes
with a game disk and a utility disk,
and lists for $39.95. The utility disk
has a short graphic sequence of the
events leading to Chaos’s revenge,
a simple paint program to edit your
champions’ portraits, an aid for
stuck gamers called the Hint Oracle,
and most importantly, the utility
called Make New Adventure. You
may use any champions from DM,
but they should be fairly advanced
characters. There is a prison in
Chaos, analogous to the Hall of
Champions, with all new multi¬

adepts curiously over-represented
by the animal kingdom. The portraits
of Chaos champions old and new
are much better than in DM, and
you will have to be quite an artist to
improve them with the editor. Once
a saved game disk has been made
into a new adventure, it’s on to the
show. You enter the dungeon
stripped clean, so cast a FUL spell
and get ready to stick and move. I’m
going to the fridge for a diet coke,
can you take it from here, Boris?

BORIS: Sure. Let’s back up and
talk about the Hint Oracle. Some
people have criticized it, saying that
it gives the game away. I think it was
implemented perfectly. In order to
use it, you must save the game at
the exact location that has you
stumped, exit the game, boot the
utility disk to access the Hint Oracle,
obtain the needed information, then
load Chaos again to continue play¬
ing. Chaos, like DM, is compressed
and takes forever and a day to load,
so who’s going to go through all
that unless they are really stuck? Of
course, if you own two machines
you could sort of, er, multitask, so to
speak. Anyway, there are four
mazes for the four classes: KU
(Fighter), ROS (Ninja), NETA
(Priest), and DAIN (Wizard). At the
end of each maze you’ve got to get
this supramorphic piece of rock
called corbum ore and...well, I’m not
going to be accused of giving the
game away.

SYRA: Hey, the caffeine queen’s
back, coke in hand. I caught the last
part of what you said, Boris. We
should try to explain about the
dungeon layout: it’s very unortho¬
dox, and full of deviousness deluxe.
Those four mazes begin on one
square and eventually meet in the

Page 22

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

middle of the dungeon. There are
four levels with lots of pits and
stairways, and one pitted area I defy
anybody not to map, Boris’s orien¬
tating proficiency notwithstanding.
Also, the program apparently con¬
structs a different dungeon for each
player based on her previous
moves. I’m really fuzzy on the
details of this feature. I can’t tell if
there are infinite possibilities or not,
and if not, how many variations
there are. Understanding exactly
what the dungeon interpreter does
and how it does it is going to be as
intriguing a puzzle to solve as the
game itself. Downloading maps
might be a waste of time, but I just
can’t tell yet.

BORIS: I haven’t gone through a
second time yet, but I have a feeling
you can do it pretty quickly. The
monsters aren’t really that tough, it’s
just that there are so many of them.
Running’s a good strategy some¬
times. Anyway, that’s part of the
idea behind the dungeon creation
feature: so that playing Chaos a
second time gives you a new layout.
I don’t think it’s going to give the
game incredible replayability,
though. Oh, about the monsters:
there are some great new ones, like
the Mouths, and most of your old
nemeses from the original game
have returned. The old gang have
spawned a few mutations: there are
new knights and new worms, to
name two. The ending is somewhat
anti-climactic, but isn’t that a CRPG
tradition? Name me two fantasy
games that end with a bang.
Anyway, if Dungeonmaster is a 10,
then Chaos Strikes Back is at least
an 8, in my opinion.

Vapors of Radiance

FLINT: Well met, all. Name’s
Flint. I’m 135 years old, five foot two
with a long, braided beard, and I still
prefer the term dwarf, despite the
movement towards little people. I’m
into precious metals, spelunking,
and human-throwing contests.
‘Fraid I’ve some bad news about
Poo! of Radiance...

JAANA: It’s about time some¬
body answered my question.

FLINT: Seems it’s in limbo. I
don’t really understand the UBI Soft/
U.S. Gold/SSI web of relations, but
Poo/ has become entangled to the
point it may never get released.

JAANA: Oh, great. Guess I won’t
be transferring Poo/ characters into
Hillsfartox Azure Bonds.

FLINT: Also, the British scribes
have mentioned an ST version of
the excellent medieval strategy
game Sword of Aragon, but Linda
Blanchard of SSI knows of no plans
for an Atari port. On a more uplifting
note, I’ve been playing Dragons of
Flame, SSI’s sequel to the Dragon-
lance action game Heroes of the
Lance. I’ll have to get back with you
next session on whether it corrects
the first installment’s weak points.

Ultima V Calling!

M’LORD TREBOR: Good evening,
everyone. Many of you know of me;

I am called Trebor. Today, January
the 6th, I have had the pleasure of
listening to “Fanfare for the Virtu¬
ous” and fourteen other pieces by
Ken Arnold through my Tweety
Board-equipped ST.

GEOFF: (Gasp!) U/tima V is out
for the ST!?

TREBOR: Yes, Warriors of Des¬
tiny is at last ready for the ST. The
good procurers of Origin have
favored me with an advance copy,
but it could be available to all within
the month. This is even greater pro¬
vidence than it seems; because of
Origin’s split with British MicroProse,
the Amiga version, it is said, may
never come to pass. The UK firm
was scheduled to do both the ST
and Amiga conversions; I’m grateful
they started with the Atari port first.

GEOFF: So what’s it like?

TREBOR: Like the EGA version,
graphically, which is a considerable
improvement over Ultima IV. I’ve
only just begun the quest, but I can
tell you that the combat system has
very much come into its own. The
leap in overall sophistication that we
saw from III to IV is not as great as

in V, but the fine touches Warriors of
Destiny has received are impressive,
indeed. It comes on three single¬
sided disks and draws you into the
story compellingly. I should have all
of the details for you in about a
month. Curiously, I had to adjust the
vertical and horizontal on my Hita¬
chi-made SCI224 monitor to eli¬
minate rolling and align the screen,
which didn’t entirely solve the align¬
ment problem. But I’ve mentioned
this to Origin. The original and
legendary SCI224 monitors have no
problems with the program.

ROSELLA: How are you, Trebor?
My father will be delighted to know
we talked. I’ve been trying to find
out when Hero’s Questri\W be avail¬
able. Have you news?

TREBOR: Your father and I go
back many years, child. Yes, I have
the news you seek. Hero’s Quest
could be available for the ST in
February. B/oodwych denizens can
purchase a data disk with twenty-
five new levels to explore. Wind-
walker xwsy be a few months away. I
was asked to mention that in Current
Notes’ recent Best of the Quest II
feature, a quotation regarding
B/oodwych was inadvertently attri¬
buted to Robert Millard. Those com¬
ments were actually the opinions of
BQ2 panelist Al Giovetti. And, if
anyone has inquired, FTL is going to
try to do something about the docu¬
mentation problem for Chaos Strikes
Back owners have who haven’t
played the original game.

REIS: Thanks, Trebor. I’ve been
asking about Windwa/ker. And earlier
tonight, somebody had mentioned
the doc problem for CSB rookies.

The Same Old Lines

ALEX: Say, Syra, are you still on
the line?

SYRA: Still here, Alex.

ALEX: Speaking of B/oodwych, I
have the new data disk. How about
if I bring it over to your place for a
little two-player action?

SYRA: I thought you’d never ask.

TREBOR: Ah, youth!

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 23

rne

MAASWAU

AAnsr

// have the paint program Spectrum
512, you can enjoy a disk of co/orfui c/ip art to
make creating works of art quick and easy All
courtesy of the Marsha! Artist.

by Steve Marshall

A couple of years ago I began
developing a series of high resolu¬
tion clip art disks for use in desktop
publishing. These art disks were
successful and a lot of fun to do so I
thought I’d try to develop a series of
color clip art disks using DEGAS
Elite, at that time the premier paint
program for the ST. The main prob¬
lem I encountered was the palette.
Either I had to decide on a single
palette and use that same palette in
developing all of my clip art images
(which became impossibly restric¬
tive) or I had to rely on the user to
change the colors as they added
images (which was terribly cumber¬
some).

And Then Came Spectrum

The problem became so frus¬
trating that I shelved the idea. Then I
heard about Spectrum 512, a new
paint program that allowed all 512
colors to be displayed simultane¬
ously. More importantly, it allowed
images to be imported and ren¬
dered accurately regardless of the
original palette. This appeared to be
the answer to my problem and I
quickly placed my order. A few
weeks later I had my copy and
began experimenting with this
sophisticated program. It was all I
had hoped for and I found myself
spending every available minute
trying out functions and experi¬
menting with the many special
effects.

Other people also purchased
Spectrum 512 and I began to find
that for many of them, Spectrum

was just too complicated and diffi¬
cult to use. Too often, Spectrum
was being used solely to view the
many public domain digitized pic¬
tures or to touch-up photos cap¬
tured with Computereyes. No one
seemed to be using it as the
creative tool it was designed to be.
My mind went back to my idea of
color clip art and I began to wonder
if such a collection might
encourage people to rediscover the
wonderful qualities of Spectrum.

So I collected up the few im¬
ages I had saved of my previous
efforts and began to build a new
collection of clip art. I wanted to
provide a variety of images that the
average person might enjoy using
to build pictures. A lot of people
can create simple scenes but stum¬
ble when it comes to drawing rea¬
listic objects or animals to place in
their scenes so I decided to create
a collection of images under a
variety of subjects like animals,

buildings, trees, vehicles, etc. Some
of these images I created from
scratch, drawing them in DEGAS
and importing them into Spectrum
or creating them directly in Spec¬
trum and making use of powerful
functions of Spectrum. Other im¬
ages I digitized and then touched
up within Spectrum. Several months
later I had the first disk finished and
ready to market.

Unfortunately, the interest in
such a color clip art disk was not as
great as I hoped (at least from a
marketing point of view) and I
decided not to invest any more time
or money in the effort. The disk I
had spent months preparing
languished in my desk for nearly a
year. Then, this summer, I attended
a local user group meeting and
watched someone demonstrating
Spectrum. The thought of my color
clip art disk came back to me. I
mentioned it to the demonstrator
and he was intrigued with the idea.

Page 24

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

And I decided that the results of my
hard work should not lie in a desk
drawer. So I contributed the disk to
the club’s public domain library.
And I have made the same offer to
Current Notes (CN #410).

Using Color Clip Art

Using my color clip art disk (I
never came up with a clever name
for the disk) is very easy. Of course,
you do need Spectrum 512 \x\ order
to make use of the clip art. Once
you have loaded in Spectrum,
decide which images on the disk
you want to use. Load in each file,
grab the images you want and
move them into the buffer using
Spectrum’s block function (PIC-
>BUF). On a 520ST you should be
able to hold about 2 full screens
worth of images. On a 1040ST, you
should be able to fit almost all of
them.

Once you have loaded in all of
the clip art into the buffer, you can
start creating your masterpiece.
Begin with the background, either
creating a sky and ground, or use
the supplied sky and mountain clip
art images to form the basis of your
background. Adding images from
the buffer is simple. Just select the
BLOCK function, then go to the
buffer by selecting BUF->PIC. This
will display the clip buffer and you
can scroll through the images by
right-clicking and dragging the
mouse up or down. When you find
an image you want to add to your
picture, left click and drag a box
around it. When you return to your
picture, the clip art image will
appear as a green rectangle. Hold
down the SHIFT key while you
move the mouse to size it, then
press the left mouse button to place
it on the screen. (Refer to your
Spectrum manual for more details.)

You might want to
begin adding trees
and buildings.

Remember to work
from the back of your
picture to the front.

Keep the rules of
perspective in mind,
sizing images smaller
if they are to appear
in the distance and
keeping them large if
they appear in the
foreground. Use the
magnify mode for
touch-up work once
your images have
been placed on the
screen.

Have Fun With Spectrum

It’s very satisfying to see the
results of my efforts finally being put
to use. I hope those of you who
have Spectrum will
try out the color clip
art disk and maybe
even create a disk
of your own for
others to share. It’s
a great way to have
fun with Spectrum
and create works of art without
investing a lot of time in drawing
detailed objects.

Time To Say Goodbye

Finally, I have to say that this is
my last column for Current Notes.
The demands of work and school,
coupled with time spent working on
my new game, leave me too little
time to devote to writing this col¬
umn. I have enjoyed the past year
and am indebted to Joe Waters for
the opportunity to stretch my wings
a little and express myself in words
to a national audience. In the words
of those two wine salesmen, thank
you for your support.

Example of picture created utilizing SPECTRUM dip art

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 25

: vv*. M

Jinxter

Right. Yurss. Well, now. This wossname, game,
called Jinxter (Atari ST, $39.95) has me baffled. Com¬
pletely. Defnly. I solved it, good enough, if solvin’ it’s
considered turnin’ up dead, selflessly savin’ the life of a
dog in the process (which reminds me, the bakery’s
’avin’ a sale on cheese san’wiches)—a dog I’ve not
even ‘ad the pleasure of meetin’.

Er, excuse me. This game does grow on you after
awhile, narmean?

Ahem.

Once upon a time, the late magician Turani be¬
stowed upon the people of Aquitania an enchanted
bracelet, granting good luck to everyone while keeping
the evil forces of Aquitania’s Green Witches at bay.
Recently, Jannedor and her fellow Green Witches have
conspired to overthrow the powers of the bracelet. By
bribing mortals into concealing all of the bracelet’s
charms, the bracelet is as good as processed cheese.

You’ve been the mortal selected by the Department
of Guardians to find the charms, find the bracelet,
restore the bracelet’s power, and use that power against
the witches. “Piece of cake,” your personal guardian
says. “Should be finished by teatime.”

Like the other Magnetic Scrolls adventure games
{The Pawn, Guild of Thieves, and Corruption) published
by Rainbird, Jinxter is highly entertaining, with game-
play, descriptions, parser, and humor (Monty Python-
esque) rivaling Infocom’s best. To break the monotony
of an all-text adventure, Magnetic Scrolls again pre¬
sents us with the usual breathtaking pictures of scenery
we’ve come to expect. I only wish there were a scene
for every location.

The game is loaded into memory except for the
occasional disk accesses to load each picture. Graphics
can be turned off for faster gameplay.

Jinxter is doubly copy-protected: by disk and by
requiring you to enter a certain word on a certain page
in a certain column on a certain line in the documen¬
tation. The latter was not much of a hassle, considering
it only popped up once each time I played the game,
but I’m always nervous about using the original disk.

Jinxter’s parser accepts complete and multiple sen¬
tences, but it’s very picky about how you word things.
Remember that there is a difference between putting
something in something and putting something on
something.

Keep and maintain your really amazing luck. With so
many Aquitanians down on theirs, you need to lead the
way. Whenever you don’t feel as lucky as you once did,
replay that incident another way. Believe me, it’ll pay off
on one of your confrontations with Jannedor.

Indeed, there are different ways to solving things.
While being correct and enabling you to continue with
the game, they may decrease your luck or not increase
your point value. Save the game often, because you’ll
constantly be returning to those situations and others.
(You may realize, for example, you’re missing some¬
thing that might’ve been located at the very beginning
of the game.

Instead of restarting entirely, you can at least pick it
up from a few hundred moves into the game.) In
addition, many times you’ll do something you wish you
could take back. A simple saved game before any
significant move will prevent lots of aggravation and
tedium. Saved games take up one filename of around
11K of space.

Point value, for adventure purists, is extremely im¬
portant. Time was you could use your score to deter¬
mine whether you had done something correctly. In
Jinxter, you may do something thinking it deserves five
or ten points, only to receive nothing. In this case, think
of another, better way to do what you just did.

I finished the game with 175 points, 30 points off.
Thirty points is such a large percentage that I’m not
quite sure if I truly did finish. If you can do better or
know how to obtain the extra, miscellaneous points,
please let me know. I’ll update the clues in a future
column.

CHARACTERS

Baker: Do you really want to work for him?

Bull: Ole, as the toreador would say. But actions
speak louder than words.

Clockmaker: If his attention were distracted, he
wouldn’t have caught it in time.

Cloud: Even clouds with silver linings can ice up.

Jannedor: The clause of the staff memo stated the
bracelet was to get rid of her.

Mad gardener: He can hear that door opening a mile
away!

Magpie: Sing a song of what? You should listen
more closely.

Mouse: At least you don’t have to keep it from
squeaking.

Postmistress: She’s jumps at the littlest things
because she can’t hear well.

Ticket inspector (bus): Follow the rules, or else you’ll
be headed sixteen paces due east.

Page 26

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

Unicorn: An element from its days of yore might put
it back to the way it once was.

Worms: The fastest-eating worms alive!

Xam: Wake up, he’s been captured.

LOCATIONS

Even with descriptions on verbose, all objects aren’t
necessarily in full view when first entering a room. Be
sure to not only examine everything that is listed in the
room description, but look inside it, look under it, and
look behind it.

My copy of Jinxter (version 1.05) displayed an
endless loop of “and”s when trying to go south in the
pub, an invalid direction.

Doing so may hold your suspense for the first fifteen
minutes, but soon your eyes’ll get blurry, “and” you’ll
end up resetting your computer. Occasionally the pub’s
southern direction would also give me about half a
screen of secret code, but attempting to decipher any
of it will give you a headache. Curiously enough, the
southern wall of the pub is the bar.

Airlock: Pay attention to the buttons. You don’t want
to flood the place, do you?

Bakery: Aquitania has a high employment rate.

Beer Garden: Well, well, well, what do we have
here?

Boathouse: The sliding door seems a bit rusty.

Carousel: They all look so real!

Dungeon: The dumbwaiter can hold more than food.

Marble Steps: Afterwards, a simple moving is all
that’s needed.

Pub: How do you spell walrus?

Sanctum Sanctorum: Jannedor’s always in her room
unless her attention can be diverted (by another person,
perhaps?).

Underwater: You’d be out of luck if you got lost on
your way back.

OBJECTS

Beer: That Old Moosebolter is some strong,
extinguishing stuff!

Bottle, milk: Never cry over spilt milk, especially
when you can replace it with something else.

Bottle, plastic oil: Have you tried squeezing it?

Bread: Great! He’ll hire you and you’ll work there for
the rest.

Of your. Life. Starting tomorrow, of course.

Bung: Yes, probably the most obvious choice. Now
to make it bigger.

Candle: Think of it as an eternal flame. And speaking
of bangles stop dillydallying and find that bracelet!

Chandelier: Too bad you don’t have any of Willy
Wonka’s burping soda to float you up there.

Charm, amethyst: Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how
does your...

Charm, dragon: It’s NOT one, two, three strikes
you’re...

Charm, moose: Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit
out of a...

Charm, pelican: Patty cake, Patty cake...

Charm, unicorn: Lights, camera...

Charm, walrus: When Santa Claus gets your...

Crystal ball: Look into the ball and what do you see?
Scenes of the future and all of them free. But which is
the correct one? Which should be the correct one? Ask
the pelican. He’ll know what needs to be done.

Dome: Sliding numbers in a magic square passes
the time quickly.

Door, sliding: Remember the joke about how to stop
a mouse from squeaking?

Fireplace (hall): Ash in.

Fireplace (pub): Ash out.

Flour: Let’s sieve what we can do.

Hat: I don’t know about you, but I think it makes a
great holder. Also, it can dull light from ten different
perspectives.

Hole (canoe): Mighty big hole, there. Let’s hope he
wanted to be buried (or rather, half-buried) at sea.

Key, iron: Yours.

Key, plastic: U.S.P.S.’s.

Key, rusty: Xam’s.

Ladder: Almost! You just need a little boost.

Mailbox (Xam’s): The key is to make something
similar. You’d probably get burned in real life, but
anything’s possible in an adventure game.

Manacles: Don’t get too tied up with the mechanics
of things.

Mousetrap: A watched mousetrap never snaps.

Oil: How to get the oil out is harder than figuring out
how to prevent milk from curdling.

Oil lamp: Pitch a wild one!

Saddle: Clouds don’t like riders on the storm. Hide it.

Safe: Hurry up or you’ll run out of time. It began at 1
a.m. and went to 5 p.m., then switched back and forth
between 5 p.m. and 10 p.m.? It’s too late! Ho! Larceny!
Cry havoc! (As the wiry old bimbo once yelped.)

Sock, woollen: Stretches to keep things warm and
soundproof, that’s for shore.

Spectacles: You use sunglasses to see better in the
sunlight. Spectacles aren’t sunglasses.

Ticket (train): At those prices, you could get a couple
of beers!

Umbrella: If Mary Poppins can, why not you?

Weather clock: Looks like a spell of rain is in the
forecast.

Questions, comments, criticisms? I can be reached
care of Current Notes or at P.O. Box 1853, North
Springfield, Virginia 22151 (please enclose a self-
addressed, stamped envelope for replies). If you have a
modem, I can be contacted on Merlin’s Litterbox at
(703) 250-7303 (3/12/24/9600 HST bauds), located in
Fairfax, Virginia and PC-Pursuitable through the Wash¬
ington, D.C. area.

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 27

STARTING

BLOCK

by Richard Gunter

For the ARC
of It...

Happy New Year, everybody!

During the last several weeks, I
noticed a number of questions on
local Bulletin Boards from users who
were having trouble with ARC
programs and files.

“Aha, inspiration!” said I,
forgetting that Mr. Murphy and his
colleagues watch me closely. As
soon as I thought of doing a
column, every programmer on both
sides of the Atlantic released at
least one new version of his favorite
archiving tool.

Figures.

Now I’m starting to get
confused, what with ARC, ZIP, LZH,
ZOO programs proliferating like
monkeys in a (ahem) zoo. In the
next column or three, we’ll see if we
can bring some order out of this:
learn what file archivers are, what’s
available, and maybe even learn to
use the things.

Archivers?

The first thing we need to
understand is what an archiver is. In
a nutshell, it allows you to combine
a bunch of files into a single file. A
fairly simple idea, right?

Whole Disk “Archivers”

There are two ST programs I
know about that will convert a
floppy disk into a file: CodeCopy, a
commercial product from
CodeHead, and Magic Shadow
Archiver, a shareware program by
Steve Feinstein.

These programs construct a file
whose contents is an image of an
entire floppy disk, including boot
sector data. They also remember
disk format information, and thus
can reproduce the original disk.

In general, this type of program
allows you to retrieve individual data

files only by recreating the entire
original floppy, then copying the
files you want.

These should be considered
special-purpose programs, useful if
you have self-booting disks (like
demos) that you don’t use often and
would like to store away in
somewhat less space. They’re also
of use to commercial distributors
and club librarians who need to
make many copies.

It’s the file-oriented archivers
that we’re really interested in.

File Archivers

File archivers allow you to
combine one or more files into a
single file. File archivers usually use
highly sophisticated data
compression algorithms to conserve
space, and they maintain a
“directory” as part of each archive
file, which permits considerable
freedom in managing the archive
and its contents.

Note the distinction between the
two types of programs. The “whole
disk archiver” operates on an entire
floppy disk, while the file archiver
operates on individual files. In
addition, most file archivers have a
rich set of options, allowing files to
be added, deleted, or extracted.

It’s important to note that an
archive file may contain several files,
but they are compressed, and not\x\
a form that you can use directly. The
data files need to be extracted by a
compatible archiver program; this
restores them to their original form.

Why Archive?

One reason is evident on every
electronic bulletin board system
(BBS) in the country: several files
can be combined into one archive
and transmitted by modem to

another computer. Download a
single archive file, and you have a
complete package.

Moreover, since the file
archivers compress their contents,
download time is less than it would
have been for downloading all the
parts separately. Saves time and
money.

A file archiver can be useful for
personal or professional work as
well, because it allows you to
consolidate related files for
permanent storage.

These columns, for instance,
consist of word processing
document files containing the text,
screen snapshots or other
illustrations, and output files from a
desktop publisher. I like to save all
this stuff in case it’s ever needed
again, so I archive the files on a
floppy disk—reducing the clutter on
my hard drive.

Different Systems

The format’s the thing that
distinguishes different archiving
systems. Format of the archive files,
that is.

The developers of each system
designed a general format for their
archive files, nailing down what the
internal directory looks like, details
of each data compression algorithm
used, the way compressed files are
stored within the archive, and so on.

We can usually recognize the
system used to make a given
archive file by looking at its file
extension (the “EXT” part of
NAME.EXT).

ARC indicates the “ARC”
system, originated by System
Enhancement Associates, Inc. The
ARC format is the eldest of the
bunch, and still the most widely
used.

Page 28

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

LZH indicates a system de¬
veloped by Haruyasu Yoshizaki for
MS-DOS computers and ported to
the ST by Jon Webb and Bart van
Herk.

ZIP indicates a system
originated by Phil Katz in the MS-
DOS community. ZIP’s popularity
seems to be growing in the MS-
DOS community.

ZOO indicates a system de¬
veloped by Rahul Dhesi for the MS-
DOS community, and ported to the
ST by Daan Jitta.

There are other systems in use
elsewhere. I haven’t mentioned
archiving systems used primarily in
the Macintosh and Unix com¬
munities, for instance.

Compatibility

Unfortunately, different archiving
systems are not mutually com¬
patible. In fact, they are absolutely,
totally, 100% INCOMPATIBLE with
each other.

Try to feed an LZH file to a
program made to deal with ARC
format, and the best you can hope
for is that it won’t work. You might
crash your system with some
combinations.

Identification Aids

The best identification aid is the
file name extension, as noted
above. If the file’s creator didn’t use
the correct extension, you could
have a problem.

You can try different archiver
programs on such a file, but watch
out for a system crash. Another
possibility is a program ,WHATIS,
written by Bill Aycock, one of
CompuServe’s Atari Sysops. This
little widget will examine a file and
report what sort of file it thinks you
have. It can be fooled, though.

Different Computers

Since the heart of each
archiving system is its file format,
any number of archiver programs
can be written to process or create
a file in that format. Specifically,
such programs can be written for

different types of computers. Where
this has been done, an archive file
produced on an IBM machine can
be processed on an ST.

There is a little problem, though.
If the original developer adds a new
compression algorithm to his sys¬
tem, the new feature may not be
quickly available for other com¬
puters. Archives created on an IBM
machine with the new program can’t
be processed on an ST until the ST
program has been updated.

In one case (ZIP format), only
an extractor has been written for the
ST, and it won’t deal with files
created by the latest IBM version of
ZIP. Thus you can UnZIP some (but
not all) ZIP files, and you can’t
create a ZIP file at all on the ST—at
this writing, anyway.

Which One’s for Me?

The attached table provides a
list of commonly used ST archiving
systems and programs. You’ll
probably want at least one program
supporting the ARC format because
of its wide use. A number of folks
favor DCOPY because of its speed
and menu-style command struc¬
ture; it tends to run faster than the
ARC 5.21 family. DCOPY is also a
general-purpose file utility.

ARC 6.02 (just out) claims full
compatibility with the IBM version. It
supports automatic processing for
folders and their contents, and also
speed improvements over the ARC
5.21 programs.

You’ll probably also want to get
LHARC 0.51; the commercial time¬
sharing services are accepting
uploads in LZH format, and they’re
showing up on BBSs as well.

For personal use, take your
pick. LZH often yields dramatic
improvements over ARC in terms of
storage space, but isn’t as fast as
some of the ARC programs.

As for ZOO, I dunno. It does
offer some facilities for recovering
corrupted files, and support for
handling folders and subfolders. The
system doesn’t seem to be in very
wide use as yet, and the
appearance of ARC 6.02 may
hamper its acceptance.

ATUNZ/P is a partial imple¬
mentation, supporting extraction
only. You needn’t bother with it
unless you need to UnZIP some
files from the IBM community. Not
much hope for the ZIP system until
someone writes a full ZIP program
for the ST.

Next time we’ll take a close look
at using ARC6.02.

A Sampler of Archiving Systems

Format Program Comments

ARC

ARC 5.21

“Squash” support; not very fast

ARC 5.21 B

Faster, a few bugs

ARC 5.21 C

Some bugs fixed

ARC 6.02

Claims full compatibility with IBM; no “Squash”
support.

DCOPY

Faster than ARC 5.21; partial “Squash”

ARCIT

Handles folders; probably not like ARC 6.02

LZH

LHARC 0.41

Not speedy; has a few bugs

LHARC 0.51

Faster; some bugs fixed

ZIP

ATUNZIP

Supports extraction only; partial MS-DOS
compatibility

ZOO

ZOO

Handles folders

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 29

Small Is Beautiful

Small utilities may make your life less miserable

To avoid any misunderstandings: this is still the
ST Too/box column, and I am not going to give away
any T-shirts or buttons. This month’s title just reflects
this month’s subjects.

Hard Cold Cache v.3.5

A disk cache is a small program running in the
background, which can increase your disk reading
speed significantly by reading into a memory buffer.
Quite often a subsequent read operation may request
data already in this buffer; if this is the case, the data
will be fetched from the buffer (without accessing the
disk), reducing the operation time and drive wear. All
this is quite transparent to the reading program, which
still “thinks” it is actually reading from the disk.

Hard Co/d Cache, a shareware program by Robert
E. Owens, is well-designed, well-behaved and easy to
use, which makes it my cache of choice.

Three programs come in the package. First, the
actual cache program (just 2.5k), to be placed in your
\AUTO\ folder and forgotten about. Second and third,
the cache configuration program, coming in two flavors:
as a stand-alone PRG file and as a desktop accessory.

The dialog-driven configuration programs allow you
to choose drives to be cached. The changes are
effective immediately,
but also can be saved
as defaults for the next
boot-up. You can also
define the buffer size
(64-128k is the usually
recommended choice).

These programs
also know how to
access the variables
storing the per¬
formance statistics
(maintained by the
cache program itself).

A nice touch, allowing
you to see the percen¬
tage of hits (i.e. in¬
stances when a sector
was fetched from the
buffer instead of being

read from the disk) and the total time savings.

The time saved during disk-intensive sessions
(such as program development) can be quite impres¬
sive. Using a 1-Mbyte machine, I can only afford to
cache the hard drive partition with the programming
tools and source code; my buffer size is 32k. Still, the
disk access time saved during one working day spent
on heavy programming is usually above 30 minutes!

Another example, involving operations frequently
accessing the disk directory: the Prospero make utility
checks the consistency of my Pascal library in 179
seconds; using Co/d Hard Cache this time was cut
down to 57 seconds!

With floppy-based systems, the speed gain
becomes much more dramatic. There is, however, a
catch here (with Atari, not the program author, to be
blamed): check whether the floppy change in your
cached drive is properly detected. Load a disk contain¬
ing some folders. Open and close some of them. You
will see that, after accessing a given folder for the first
time, the subsequent accesses are fast — your disk
drive will not spin at all. This is good: you are getting a
100% hit rate. Then, while a folder contents is being
displayed in a desktop window, remove the current
floppy and put in another one. Close the folder. If the
window displays the contents of the new disk,
you are in business, the floppy change is
detected properly. If not, do not cache this
drive! Strange things can happen to your data!
(Other drives can still be cached safely).

Hard Co/d Cache comes with a documen¬
tation file. It is small, cheap ($5 donation
recommended) and useful. Get it.

Hard Co/d Cache (shareware): Robert E Owens
III, 34 Pinecrest Dr, Covington, LA 70433

Double Click Utilities

After having heard some good things about
the first commercial offering of Double Click
Software (the authors of the popular Double
Click Formatter available in the public domain),

I decided to give it a try.

The disk comes with a small but complete
and well-written manual (which, after the first

Perfornance

Overage access tine: 27 ns
Approx, elapsed read tine: 5 sec
Approx, tine savings: 5 sec

533! TRIES HITS
Reads: 393 206
Mrite Optinizations: 8

x

52.4

Settings

9 I Cache Buffers: 80j_I I

I Max. Multi-Sector Read Size: 41

Save

[2 si go (Data iii [a

Cancel I [ Reset Stats 11 OK I

Copyright 1939, Robert E. Owens III

Page 30

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

reading, should rest on the shelf, anyway) and contains
six separate small programs.

Most of these programs have close public domain
or shareware equivalents, but—in most cases, at least
—they represent some improvement in performance or
features over their free cousins. Their usefulness varies,
in my judgement, from almost none to moderate. All
programs behave well (with very\&N exceptions men¬
tioned below) and work as advertised, so basing your
buying decision on the published specifications, without
the hands-on experience, is quite safe.

DC RAMIT - Another RAMdisk?

Maybe not just another RAMdisk; the authors claim
it is faster than any other RAMdisk available. On the
other hand, the speed differences between different
RAMdisks mean almost nothing in normal use, so while I
can appreciate the claimed speed as a technical feat,
as a user I do not care much about it. DC RAM/T also
has some uncommon features. For example, it emu¬
lates the structure of a floppy (with tracks and sectors),
so it can be re-formatted or image-copied. Again, this
is not a feature you will need often.

DC RAM/T can be run as a desktop accessory or as
a stand-alone program, although in the latter case the
only thing you can do with it is copying data to and
from it, as the ramdisk is de-installed upon leaving the
program.

A minor nuisance is that DC RAM/T kept my floppy
drives spinning continuously when I tested it. Luckily, I
do not use it at all: my old trusty YARD (and recently
the HRamd/skixoxn CodeHead Software) do all I need.

DC Desktop Organizer

DC DSKORG is a nifty utility, which will take your
DESKTOP.INF file and re-make it into a stand-alone
program (just over Ik in size). You can have as many of
these programs as you wish; clicking on the chosen
one will redefine your current desktop appropriately
(window and icon positions, installed applications, text
vs. icon display etc.).

Once again, depending on your working habits, you
may find this program useful or not. Most of us are used
to a given desktop window configuration, and many use
the A/eoDesklxoxn Gribniff Software—these groups will
find no use for DC DSKORG. If, however, you have a
need for re-defining your desktop organization on the
fly, then DC DSKORG will come in handy.

Self Extracting ARC

DC SEA (which stands for Self Extracting ARC)
takes a compressed .ARC file, and produces a new
executable file, with the compressed data embedded
inside. Executing this new program will give you the
choice between listing the archive contents or extract¬
ing (de-compressing) it.

Once again, personally I do not see much use for
this program. It does not give you any new options
above those given by the many available ARC shell
programs working in tandem with the current version of
ARC. It is also incompatible with the recent ARC 6.02ST
(an attempt to self-extract the created file gives a bad
header diagnostics). Oh, well, why bother?

DC ARC Extractor

DC Xtract is an ARC extractor. It comes in the form
of a desktop accessory only—it cannot be renamed to
a PRG file and run from the desktop (and here this
feature would be much more useful than in the DC
RAM/T case!). It is also small—just above 11k.

DC Xtract will take an ARC file and extract the
original files from it (it can be also used for listing the
archive contents and testing its integrity). It does work
with files created with ARC 6.02ST, and it works very
fast, much faster than the ARC \tse\f (I have not run any
benchmarks, but the factor of four, claimed by the
Double Click people is consistent with my impressions).
No, it would not automatically de-arc your files into a
created folder, nor does it support the newer .LZH
(LHARC) archive format.

Who may want to replace (or supplement) their
ARC and ARCShe//{ or DeArc/t) with DC Xtract ? I can
imagine that those of us who use floppy-based
systems may find de-archiving of their files significantly
more convenient with DC Xtract : even when run from a
shell, ARC.TTP is loaded again and again from disk for
every archive.

DC Deskey 2.0: A Half-step in the Right

Direction

This utility (a desktop accessory) is somewhat
similar to the StartKey, published some years ago in the
STart magazine. It allows you to define keyboard
equivalents for menu entries in any program. Once
defined, these equivalents can be saved in a disk file,
which will be loaded automatically every time the
program is executed (provided that DC Deskey is
installed, of course).

For example, the early versions (below 3.0) of the
First Word did not have keyboard equivalents for many
frequently invoked functions. Now not only can you
assign these functions to keystrokes (say, Alt-F for
Find), but you can do it in a manner consistent between
various programs you use.

Loading the configuration file in StartKey had to be
done manually for each program; DC Deskey does it
automatically. On the other hand, DC Deskey has a
painful limitation—it allows only for assignment of menu
entries, as opposed to other GEM events (like, say,
scrolling the window up or down). It also does not allow
for re-assignment of keyboard-bound functions. Start-
Key, as buggy as it was, did have both these
capabilities. Including them into DC Deskey would make

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 31

it alone worth the price of the whole package, at least
for some of us (myself in this number). I still hope
somebody (maybe the Double Click people themselves)
will provide us with a well-designed, convenient and
well-behaved equivalent of StartKey.

DC Squish - Now, We Are Cooking!

This is, from my viewpoint at least, the most useful
utility in the package, and it may well justify buying the
whole thing.

Remember the German PACKer (see the ST Tool¬
box of last September: you will find it among the “PD
gems” which were changed into “PD games” in the
table of contents). What both PACKer and DC Squish
do, is to compress, sometimes quite significantly,
program files on your disks. This not only saves you lots
of space, but the resulting programs also load some¬
what faster.

The PACKeris a no-frills, brute-force program. You
have to type in the names of the original and
compressed program files, and it will compress only
one file at a time. Want another one? Re-run PACKer
—not too convenient in larger compression sessions.
Luckily, you do not have to do it often.

Once packed, a program will run as it always used
to (except that it will load faster and occupy less space
on disk), as it is automatically decompressed back
when loaded. Very, very handy.

The original PACKer would not compress desktop
accessories, or even some stand-alone programs (ST
Publisher from Timeworks in this number). The latter
problem has been solved by John Harris from Califor¬
nia: another utility, REMOVESYM.PRG, will make most
of the trouble-making programs packable by the
PACKer. Mr. Harris has also patched the PACKer—now
you can enter the file names from the file selector. The
new version (PACK2.PRG, UNPACK.PRG, REMOVE¬
SYM.PRG and documentation) can be downloaded
from GEnie; Joe Waters will also gladly include it in the
CNPublic Domain Library'X somebody asks him.

Coming back to DC Squish —this program is both
more capable and more polished than PACKer. It can
pack (or, if you prefer, squish) the files, unpack them,
and show the information on packed files. But, and this
is the decisive factor in its favor, it will also pack
desktop accessories! The very first day it saved me
more than one megabyte on my boot partition! I was
also finally able to configure my floppy boot disk (I do
not leave home without it) with all the handy acces¬
sories I may need when visiting other ST users (and,
needless to say, all my friends have STs at home).

Wait, this is not all. The programs packed by DC
Squish can have the “fast load bit” enabled (this
speeds up the loading process under the new TOS 1.4).
You can also disable the process of clearing the
program’s data memory (remember Pinhead dy Charles
Johnson, another small wonder, see the September CN

issue agairt), so that the programs will, again, start up
even faster, which is especially noticeable during the
boot-up process. Programs packed with DC Squish do
not need Pinhead any more!

Some programs, however, assume that their data
memory is cleared at the start. Keith Gerdes, the author
of DC Squish, allows you not only to disable or enable
the clearing sequence, but also to replace it with his
own, significantly faster. If your program does not run
properly with the memory clearing disabled, re-pack it
with the appropriate option enabled and it will work just
fine. All this is nicely described in the user’s manual,
without assuming you are a machine whiz on the one
hand, but without insulting your intelligence on the
other—a rare balance, indeed.

DC SQUISH vlil - File Loadpactor

Copyright (c) 1989 DCS fill right* reserved.

«NSQUIS»

;

tHckr-p:!:

Software • BBS:a

! km kin •• jj: b nii rrs t:f:: : jfcsp rifts i

-i -I—1 .4-J.,|

Program by Keith Gerdes

■=L :» ; ! . T i 515f .. r

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B5U 1 B33WJT I

Ip! :iil M : S

ipfitpBlBgM

EXIT

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Ill

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Last but not least, DC Squish is much faster than
PACKer and more convenient to use.

Does this mean you should throw your trusty
PACKer away? No. The old hand has one advantage: it
compresses files somewhat more efficiently than DC
Squish ir. 1 . 1 . For example, Ei_ Cai 1.18 (original size
177.2k) was packed down to 110.5k (or 62%) by
PACKer and to 118.6k (66%) by DC Squish. This seems
to be a rule: after packing Data Manager ST, Fontzi,
Signum ii, Ei_ Cai and Publisher ST (the last one without
the .OVL overlays), the average compression factor for
PACKer was 59%, while for DC Squish — 63% (the 6%
difference between both programs translates into the
total of 34.5k of disk space).

This difference is not very significant, but I still keep
the PACKer for the cases where every byte counts,
while using DC Squish tor desktop accessories.

There are just two things I do not like about
DC Squish. The first one is the fancy user interface,
including dialogs with buttons getting dark when the
mouse moves over them. At first, this looks nice, but
soon becomes tiring—I often have to move the mouse
out of a button to check whether it is selected. There is
really no need for this deviation from the standard: it
does not offer any new capabilities compared to the
“regular” GEM ways. Moreover, the unorthodox use of
the right mouse button serves no purpose and just
leads to confusion. (Remember the dialog in DC

Page 32

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

Formatter, instructing you to use the right button to exit
dialog boxes? The only way to exit that dialog was by
pressing the ^button!).

These are, however, minor complaints. You will
discover much funnier news when reading the docu¬
mentation update file, enclosed on disk: “You are not
allowed to distribute squished files to any other person
or computer,” it says, lest others “benefit without
buying the software. "Now, I understand that the loader
embedded into each squished program contains some
copyrighted code, but still, this limitation seems, from
my viewpoint at least, unreasonable (not to say
ridiculous). You cannot squish a public domain game
(or another freely distributed program) and pass it on to
others? You have to buy a new copy of DC Utilities for
each computer you use? Fortunately, I have packed my
compilers at home with PACKer before installing them
in my office—if I did this with DC Squish, I would not
sleep at night, waiting for a friendly FBI agent to knock
at 3 a.m. on my door.

Gentlemen, think again! When you compile a
program, it contains much more copyrighted code
(compiler libraries) than your loader, and virtually no
compiler vendor requires any licence fees for distribu¬
tion of the executables (those who did are no longer on
the market). The next thing along your line will be a disk
formatter with a clause against distributing disks format¬
ted with it!

The Decision Is Up to You

Should you run to your dealer and buy DC Utilities
This depends, and I hope my review can help you in
making the right decision. Some people I know say it is
one of the best buys of the year, some say do not
bother (or worse).

In spite of the criticism above, I find the $26
expense quite justified, first of all because of the DC
Squish. Besides, the package is quite inexpensive
(remember those $30 RAMdisks and disk caches from
two years ago?) and, let me stress again, performs as
advertised. Even if I have not found much use for some
of its programs, your working patterns and needs may
be different.

What also is important is that it is difficult not to
notice that the workmanship of these programmers is
high-class. They seem to know the ST in and out and I
hope the ST market will see more results of their work.
DC Utilities: Double Click Software, P.O.Box 741206,
Houston, TX77274; (713)645-3769

Dan Wilga Strikes Again

If you have NeoDesk 2.05 (and if you don’t,
something is definitely wrong), you may be not aware of
quite an array of goodies inside that program, which sit
dormant there, waiting for NeoDesk companion pro¬
grams to be released.

Just before Christmas I received the pre-release
version of the NeoDesk Toolkit and some other goodies
from Gribniff Software.

NeoDesk can communicate with properly written
desktop accessories, which can use many of its
routines (for example, all its quite sophisticated disk
operations). This means that the accessories may
contain much less code than they would need other¬
wise. (The accessories have to be written in C, although
there is a way to bypass this limitation).

The first utilities using this protocol, are a command
shell (again? this one, at least, seems to work!) and a
recoverable trash can. Yes, you will be able to
un-delete a deleted file.

I hope to write more about these products in the
March issue. They look very promising, and—in the
beta version—cleaner than many programs in their
distribution stage.

Opinions, Opinions...

If we talk reviews and beta stage, let me make one
thing clear. Like many writers, I follow the rule of not
presenting my negative remarks to the program authors
and distributors before the review is published, if it
refers to a product already being distributed (read: sold
to customers hoping for something better). On the other
hand, such a communication makes a lot of sense while
the program is under development, i.e. before anybody
buys it. In such a case the reviewer bases his opinion
on the marketed version of the product. I believe this
approach is in the best interest of the readers, who
depend, to a smaller or larger degree, on the reviewer’s
opinions.

One can imagine exceptions from this rule, but
these are very embarassing situations—both for the
writer and for the program author.

If you read this column regularly, you may guess I
am referring to my negative evaluation of ACCess in the
November issue, and to an answer from Mr. Douglas
Hodson, the program’s publisher, in December’s Letters
to the Editor.

Without getting into details (remember what I said
about the risk of engaging into lengthy exchanges?),
and after the re-reading of both my review and the
letter, I feel I have to tax your patience by making the
two following points:

□ I stick to my opinions expressed in the review
(this also includes the technicalities);

□ I am glad that Mr.Hodson (I enjoyed meeting him
at the Fest. too) is not taking it personally..

One of the first programs I reviewed for the Current
Notes back in 1987 was Prospero Pascal v. 1 . The
review contained quite a lot of very critical remarks.
Version 2 of Prospero Pascal is now my favorite
language on the ST. Let me hope the same thing will
happen to all the programs I have the privilege of
criticizing on these pages.

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 33

CN SPECIAL

* *

Atari 8-Bit Systems:

Alive and Well in Alaska

by Stephen LaFevers

I use computers a lot. I’m a
writer and educator in Alaska and
have used many computers—
Apple, IBM, Vector Graphic, Kaypro,
Commodore, Macintosh. That’s why,
when I have a choice, I use an Atari.
If you don’t understand that state¬
ment, you’ve never used another
brand of computer.

The computer I use most is an
Atari 130XE. What do I do with it?
Glad you asked. For one thing, I
write. I have written five books on it
(it’s great for word processing). I
have used Atariwriter Plus and
Typesetter to put out a statewide
newsletter, and I’ve produced many
overhead transparencies as well as
several video training tapes with
Atari 8-bit systems.

The great graphics and sound
capabilities of the 8-bit are terrific
for video tape production. First, you
tape the live action; then, with
another recorder tied into the Atari
monitor jack, you blend in the sound
and graphics. There are a number of
public domain and several commer¬
cially available programs that are
excellent for adding audiovisuals to
tape.

Advanced Music System and
Music Studio are terrific for adding
music. Between Movie Maker, Mes¬
sage Display, Mad Scientist Bulletin
Board, Atari Touch Tablet, Typeset¬
ter, and a few simple type-in pro¬
grams, you can put anything you
can imagine on the screen and onto
video tape. And it’s relatively easy to
produce all kinds of specialized
sound effects.

Oh, I know you cannot get the
quality of picture from an 8-bit that
you can from an ST, but that’s
irrelevant because a television set is
incapable of reproducing that kind
of quality. With an 8-bit, however,

what you see is what you get. The
TV can reproduce it perfectly from
tape. And, unless you are a MIDI
nut, and I’m not, you can get
considerably better sound from an
8-bit than you can from an ST. (If
you are a MIDI nut, there are MIDI
interfaces for the XL/XE computers.)

I have also used my XE to
create course outlines, test question
data banks and printouts, a video
tape catalog and a listing data bank
for more than 1,000 titles, and in¬
numerable other applications that
require a good computer like my
Atari.

Some people have been com¬
plaining that more new software has
been coming out for the ST than for
8-bit computers. I feel, however,
that this is due, in part, to the fact
that there is already far more 8-bit
stuff on the market. The ST is only
trying to catch up. It’s also true that
a lot of older software for the 8-bit
is disappearing, but that is to be
expected, since what is vanishing
isn’t good enough to compete.
There is a lot of good stuff out there
for our machines and more is com¬
ing all the time.

The local Atari store in Fair¬
banks, Alaska [Far North Com¬
puters, 59 College Rd., #217, Fair¬
banks, AK. 99701—Ph. (907) 456-
3700—if you’re interested], for
example, has more than 150 titles
available on cartridge alone! They
include word processors, databases,
paint programs, science applica¬
tions, languages, alternative DOS
carts, a graphic operating environ¬
ment like the ST uses, educational
titles, and, of course, games. When
you add to that the hundreds of
titles in stock on disk, the mind is
boggled! Walk into an Amiga dea¬
lership sometime and see what’s in
stock.

This store has eleven different
word processing programs in stock
for the 8-bit! By my last count that’s
more than are available for the ST.
There’s a word processor that is
designed to include graphics and
works something like a desktop
publishing program, (a similar pro¬
gram, Word Up, has recently hit the
ST market). There’s another that has
integrated a word processor with a
database and terminal program;
there’s no equivalent for the ST.
One lets you work on two docu¬
ments at once with windows;
another has a spell checker that
inserts the correct spelling without
you having to retype it; the list goes
on and on.

And the variety doesn’t stop
with word processors. There are
databases ranging from simple
enough for a child, to complex
enough to rival anything put out for
IBM-PCs. There are spread sheets,
professional and home accounting
packages, tax programs, graphing
programs, print utilities, and scores
of educational programs for
everyone from preschoolers to col¬
lege graduates and trade school
students. There are four different
desktop publishing programs, not
counting things like Award Ware,
Printshop, and the stuff for little kids.
And of course there are a zillion
games.

Many of the newer games play
as well on the 8-bit as their equiv¬
alents do on the ST, and the gra¬
phics are outstanding. There are
arcades, puzzles, mazes, adven¬
tures, board games, card games,
racing games, talking games, musi¬
cal games, educational games and
games that work with the light gun-
-something you cannot get for the
ST.

Page 34

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

CN SPECIAL

All of these 8-bit programs are
in stock at our local Atari store. You
can walk in and buy them off the
shelf. And if you don’t find what you
are looking for in the store, it can
probably be ordered for you. There
are far more titles (and peripherals)
available locally for Atari 8-bits than
there are for Apple or Commodore
8-bits, or even 16-bit machines. As
a matter of fact, the only other
computer in town that has anywhere
near the variety of software and
hardware available locally is the ST.

And the 8-bit is unsurpassed in
educational applications, even by
Apple who made its name in edu¬
cation. The Fairbanks store must
have 50 educational 8-bit titles in
stock and scores more available by
special order. Compare that to how
many—20 or 30 for the ST?

Now I’ve heard that some
people believe Atari is not support¬
ing the 8-bit line, and I can see why
people could think that. After all,
Atari didn’t come out with a laser
printer for the 8—bit, or a hard drive.
(But there are lasers and hard drives
that will work with the 8-bit. I have
an HP DeskJet for laser quality print
on the 8-bit, and it works just fihe.
My wife is writing her master’s thesis
on it right now.) Remember, Atari is
playing catch up with the ST, so it
stands to reason there will be more
new products there. Also, since the
8-bit line is so well established, they
can afford to let it slide while they
concentrate on the ST.

Remember also, however, that
Atari has recently come out with a
double-sided, double-density DOS
for the 8-bit to go with the new
DS/DD drive. Atari has an excellent
letter quality printer for the 8-bit, not
for the ST, and their dot matrix
printer isn’t bad. Other recent intro¬
ductions include the 80 column/
interface, light gun, a 1200 baud
modem (so it works on the ST
too—I’m not picky), and bank-
switchable cartridges that allow up
to 256K of programming. Dozens of

new cartridges have been introdu¬
ced, and dozens more are under
development both at Atari and other
companies.

Everything imaginable within the
capabilities of these machines has
already been done, right? Not so,
Virginia. Third party developers are
still coming up with new products.
With ten years of product develop¬
ment already behind the 8-bits, that
can’t be easy. It is true that we
already have stuff like digital scan-

The next time
someone moans about
the Atari 8-bit, just think
of the poor sap who
bought a Vic-20,
Commodore Plus 4, Pet,
Osborne, Timex Sinclair,
TI-99, Adam, Apple
Lisa, IBM PC-Junior,
Intellivision, or COCO.

ners, video digitizers, audio digiti¬
zers, MIDI interfaces, color printers,
light pens, drafting tablets, RAM
upgrades to 1040K and the like, but
there are new things still to come.
New types of software designed for
the new graphic operating environ¬
ments, 16-bit chips to speed ope¬
rations, more 80-column application
software, and, of course, a lot more
new generation, big memory, high
resolution games are coming down
the pike.

Atari doesn’t have to worry
about the 8-bits competing with STs
because the 8-bits fill a gap in the
ST market: the family with small
children. Only the 8-bit will satisfy
this market because only the 8-bit
line has the computers, software,
and peripherals to fulfill the needs of
parents and children alike—and it’s
inexpensive enough that parents

aren’t afraid to let the kids play with
it.

The next time someone moans
about the Atari 8-bit, just think of
the poor sap who bought a Vic-20,
Commodore Plus 4, Pet, Osborne,
Timex Sinclair, TI-99, Adam, Apple
Lisa, IBM PC-Junior, Intellivision, or
COCO. When was the last time
something new came out for one of
those machines? Think about the
predicament of the orphaned Com¬
modore 64 owners who have 3.5
inch drives while the available soft¬
ware is on 5.25 inch disks. Remem¬
ber the Macintosh 128/512 and
Apple l/ll owners you never hear
about who are being abandoned by
Apple. And while you’re at it, light a
candle for the CP/M owners who
once had THE MACHINE, but have
fallen from grace, and the IBM
compatible people who have not
been IBM compatible since PS/2
came out. True, they’re fighting hard
to stay alive, but so is PS/2, and
somebody is going to lose.
Remember also that most of those
machines will never be upgraded to
perform all the functions that your
8-bit could when you opened the
box.

I have been computing on Atari
equipment since Nolan Bushnell
came out with the 2600 back in the
1970s. Most people don’t know it,
but there was a Basic cartridge for
the 2600 that would let you write
simple programs and produce music
and graphics on your TV set. Atari
still supports that machine, although
less vigorously than the newer ones,
and the same is true of the 8-bit
computers.

Don’t worry. Be happy. Atari is
still selling product for every
machine they’ve ever made, some¬
thing no other manufacturer can
say. If you support your machine, so
will the market place. Buy what’s out
there, discourage pirating, and
developers will continue providing
product.

Stephen LaFevers, 940 Clear,
North Pole, Alaska 99705.

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 35

And The Winner Was....

Lynx & Game Boy—Mano a Mano

by Frank F. Sommers

Happy vs Unhappy

A subgroup of Freudian analysts
maintains that easily born, easily
brought-into-the-world babies are
usually of pleasing dispositions.
Should that unlikely fact be true
then my Lynx is destined for deep
depression throughout its existence
wherever it may be.

Federal Express arrived with the
package as I was going out the door
for the airport. So what’s being
late for a plane when your
handheld, color monitor, com¬
puter game machine has arrived.
Particularly if you know that the
Xmas market will see but a few
of this endangered species. The
bags went down, the boxes
were “field striped,” vital con¬
tents shoved into a carry-on
bag, a set of six AA batteries
was snatched from a drawer and
we roared off to the airport and
a cross-continent hop to “Cool
City” in California.

An Agonizing Beginning

How long after boarding did
it take to have the Lynx up and
surfing away in California
Garnet Would you believe
somewhere over Denver, about
two hours short of San Fran¬
cisco? Why? Well, when the 2nd
officer on the plane doesn’t have a
screw driver, and the set of snatch¬
ed batteries was dead, and the sixth
remained stuck in the battery chan¬
nel, and you had to wait for lunch to
bend your spoon and open up the
back, and California Games was
DOA.... Well, that’s a lot of frustra¬
tion to wash away and have you
start enjoying the device in your
hand.

You ask yourself, “Can I com¬
ment on this product without pre¬
judice?”, and the answer is yes,
about as unbiased as a juror listen¬
ing to a drug pusher who inciden¬
tally had also shot the juror’s sister.

After discarding the one game
that comes with the Lynx, getting a
new set of batteries installed, and
putting in Blue Lightening, one of
the three other games in existence
for Atari’s new piece of hardware, I

settled down to play, while others
watched the movie. In the darkened
cabin, the pastels on the screen,
though by no means as bright as
your ST were still easy to see. What
wasn’t as pleasing was the wooden
action of flying the fighter bomber
across the screen, mechanistically
shooting and strafing until your
thumb began to stiffen and you
mercifully were brought into an

automatic landing and the next level
of attack and dog fight or strafe.

With that we pushed open the
back of a machine, that is about a
foot long and four inches wide and
two inches thick. Gingerly we pulled
out the Blue Lightening game card
and pressing down firmly pushed in
an arcade labyrinth-type game,
heralded as E/ectrocop. Here, in a
space ship environment, the hero
dashes around shooting various
shaped androids, as he moves
from cabin to cabin, and level to
level searching for none other
than the president’s daughter.
The figures are distinct if not
bright and sharp and the action
at 16 MHz is smooth. But after
15-20 minutes you have a taste
of deja-vu which made you wish
you were back at your big set
playing Barbarian.

A quick change of cards.
Gates of Zendocon, the last of
the four games is installed. It’s a
Goidrunner type arcader. After a
few minutes of scrolling and
blasting away, you find the cap¬
tain’s announcement that S.F. is
just ahead and to please buckle
up, not necessarily and unwanted
interruption.

So far what’s the best thing
you can say about baby Lynx?
Well, probably the interest the
guy in the seat across the isle
displayed when he asked you
how much it cost and who made it.

Third Party View

An extended weekend later and
you are back home, with probably
another hour logged on the machine
for a total of three. You’re wonder¬
ing why you were still put off by the
nature of play of the games. By
contrast, a lawyer son in “Cool City”

Page 36

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

who started his computer game
playing on a mainframe at Dart¬
mouth a decade ago and who still
enjoys them spent an hour with Blue
Lightening and would have gladly
doubled that had events permitted.

Thus you sense that another
session is mandatory before reach¬
ing any final conclusions. Also a call
has been made to B.N. Genius, the
speedy mail order company that
had received 150 of these machines
from Atari to meet all their Xmas
demands, and who had back orders
for 146 before the overdue shipment
arrived, requesting a replacement
for the inoperative California Games
card.

After about twenty minutes, a
challenge of sorts emerged from
the flying game. Could you get
to the next level, learn the code
word for that level, so that you
could start there rather than from
the tedious time consuming
beginning. We even engaged in
a little unsuccessful “code
cracking,” since only four letters
were involved, typing in possible
variations, extrapolating from the
two known code words for the
first two levels, “Plan” and
“Alfa.”

Then as we started the
series from the beginning,
everything went black. And black
it stayed. New batteries, wall-
plug adaptor, nothing made any
difference. So what had begun
in frustration, ended after some
four-plus hours of “hands-on-
experience” the same way. Com¬
plete frustration. The credit-card
sized game cartridges went back
into their boxes. So did the Lynx.
And with a sense of lightness we left
the return package at the post office
and went with a renewed smile on
our face, happily on our way. Who
knows who has that little Lynx baby
now.

And in the Other Corner

At Xmas time, Nintendo had
succeeded in getting the last of their

1,000,000 plus Game Boys into toys
stores all over America. They had
gotten such a tight hold on the
computer game market that special
interest groups finally pushed the
U.S. Congress into setting a date for
hearings to see if “monopolistic
magic” was being practiced. Read,
“Marketing magic—Saturday morn¬
ing TV advertising to the max!”

And when the two contenders
“weigh in,” how do they compare?
About half the cost for the machine,
half the cost for the game car¬
tridges, and two-thirds as big and
heavy. Game Boy, that is. Lynx
retails for $199.95 and Game Boy
$99.95. Lynx Games are $39.95 and
the Boy’s $19.95.

Getting Started

The Game Boy almost starts
itself. Four AA batteries, and flick the
switch and there it is. There what is?

Any comparison of the two
machines inevitably gets back to the
question of marketing. A device is
successful if it sells. To sell it has to
appear on store shelves. By that
standard, Game Boy will be 10
times more successful than Lynx—
100,000 versus 1,200,000 sold over
the holidays. Appeal? The game that
comes with Game Boy is Tetris ; the

international favorite, that addicts
one ’til dawn. Even when California
Games works it cannot be called
“addicting.”

But things begin to level out
when you discover that most stores
have only a couple of other games
for Game Boy, e.g. Super Mario
Land and a tennis simulation. The
difference in speed, Lynx being
approximately four times faster,
doesn’t show up on the screen as
such, probably because Tetris by its
nature has a jerky motion even on
the Mega ST and Mario is a simple
jump-and-run game. The controls
on both machines are easy to
operate, both with a four-way
rocker pad and A & B buttons. Lynx
also has a restart and pause
switch and a rotate screen toggle
so you can play it either right or
left handed. Both have connector
cables for multiple player action,
optional adapters for either wall
or car cigarette lighter plugs. And
Lynx has a headphone socket,
so the sound won’t disturb the
person in the seat or the pillow
beside you.

Conclusions-Predictions

The Lynx wins hands down
on the ease of screen viewing. In
the dark it is easily played and
enjoyed. The Game Boy can’t
really be seen in the dark, even
though both machines have
brightness controls. Thus there is
some eye strain which detracts
from your involvement with the
device. As more games come on
the market the wooden nature of the
current games for the Lynx will
dissipate and likely not every player
will react to the current crop the
same way this reviewer did. So....if
Atari can increase production, and if
Atari will advertise the Lynx, they
have a product that could indeed
sell far better than Game Boy.

So....considering all the “if’s,”
by the end of this year, we predict
Nintendo will continue to outsell
Atari 10 to 1.

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 37

I have just finished a four day
marathon writing spree, completing
a forty-odd page manual for our
hard disk products, so I am simul¬
taneously primed for and tired of
writing about hard disks. But, I
promised I would finish up our three
part series, and this being the fourth
part, I think it’s about time. I said I
would tie up any loose ends. Well, I
was right. There are several loose
ends, plus some cool questions
from interested readers which I
would like to address. And, a sur¬
prise.

Interleave

What is interleave? You’ve
probably heard about it, and if you
haven’t, you will, and will wonder
what the heck it is. Here’s the deal.
On a disk, you have circular tracks.
Tracks are divided into sectors (arcs
of the circle). In a perfect world,
sectors would be laid out just like
the numbers on a clock, and the
computer could read data quickly
enough to read one sector after
another as the disk spins at 3600
rpms. This scenario is what is refer¬
red to as 1:1 interleave, where
consecutively numbered sectors are
laid out contiguously in a track.

Enter: Slow IBMs. Because
many machines (particularly PC
XTs) can’t transfer data quickly
enough, a new scheme was creat¬
ed. The reason was, if sectors were
contiguously arranged, as the slow
computer read the first sector, by
the time it got done thinking about it
and was ready to read another
sector, the second sector had
already gone by and a near com¬
plete revolution was required to get
to that second sector again. So,
why not move the second sector a
little further from the first one? This
way, after the computer read the
first sector, and it thought about it,

the second sector would be right
where the head was. How handy. In
between the first two consecutively
numbered sectors, you put another
sector (like the 14th one for exam¬
ple) which makes sense based on
the speed of the disk. This situation
is 2:1 interleave, where you have
one sector between two consecu¬
tively numbered sectors. You can
put as many sectors as you want
between consecutively numbered
sectors, and the ratio increases
accordingly.

The ST is capable of handling
1:1 interleave. The place that you’ve
probably heard interleave come up
is with Seagate 296N (and 277N,
too, I believe) drives, which are
hardwired (in ROM) to do a 2:1
interleave. This is specifically for the
accommodation of slow PCs. You’d
think, “Gosh, if that drive only does
2:1 interleave, then why should I use
it on my ST if it can do 1:1?” Well,
the answer is that the ST can do 2:1
quite handily, and you still get a very
fast approximate 500K per second
transfer rate. That’s all I want to say
about interleave. Questions? Call
me.

Backing Up

People ask me, “Dave, what do
you do about backing up?” Not a
great deal is what I usually tell them.
Maybe I’m a rebel, but I don’t have
too much to lose. Hard drive backup
is not a compulsory task dictated by
gods or laws. The amount to which
you backup your hard drive should
directly reflect your fear of losing
what’s on it. I don’t have anything
too earth shattering on my hard disk
drive. The only stuff that I consider
worthy of backup are things that I
write or obtain over a modem. I
mean heck, where did the other
stuff come from? The stork? I don’t
think so. It came from my floppy

collection. My floppy collection is a
big pile of backups. So, if you have
a 500 page document or piece of
source code that is your life’s work,
then that is worth backing up, many
times, for that matter.

Image backups and large
hierarchical file backups are OK if
you have a delicate ecological
structure to your hard drive, with
layers upon layers of artfully juxta¬
posed folders. Image backups are
great for alternate operating sys¬
tems. But my personal hard drive
resembles more of an ST-only
heap. That’s just me though. If you
must image backup, the removable
cartridge hard drives (available from
certain companies) and the tape
backups are definitely the way to
go. For file backup Turtle and a
heap of floppies works great. And
for backing up just your treasured
creations and downloaded graphics
demos, about four floppies usually
do the trick for me.

Viewer Mail

I received a few questions from
our readers, and I thought I would
try to answer them, as best I could,
or at least reassure you that they
were unanswerable. First off,
someone wanted to know how the
busy light works. The answer is, no
one knows for sure. I tried to get
schematics from a couple of manu¬
facturers and they wouldn’t budge.
There are a lot of things that can
make the busy light blink: a read, a
write, an ID request—the list goes
on.

Someone wanted to know why
the access time of some drives
goes down after several hours of
use. I have heard this to be true, but
have empirically observed this
phenomenon very rarely. I suspect it
is just because heat buildup in the
drive itself causes minute swelling

Page 38

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

and thus more resistance. I don’t
know. Just a guess. If you have
noticed this though, I would not
worry about it. It’s just the way the
hard drive works.

Should you park the heads on
an autoparking drive or not? The
official answer from one manufac¬
turer (Seagate) is no, and that it can
cause damage. I have done this
before and not suffered any adverse
effects, but why do it? If the drive is
autoparking, there is no need to
park it. So if you’re wondering if you
should, don’t.

Clay Miller of Idaho Falls, Idaho
wants to know how to hook a
second drive up to his Supra 20
Megabyte drive. “To add another
drive, it looks like I need a case,
power supply, 25 pin to 50 pin
external cable, a 50 pin to 50 pin
internal cable, embedded controller
SCSI drive and power. Is this right?”
Yes it is. Just set that up, (according
to my instructions in last month’s
“Build It Yourself” column) and
you’re essentially ready to go. But,
SCSI addresses become an issue
here. In fact, let me expound on that
subject a second.

Any device which uses the DMA
port on the ST must have a unique
SCSI address (0-7). Most hard
drives use SCSI 0. The Atari Laser
Printer uses 7, and sometimes 5.
The clock in the ICD host adapter
uses SCSI 6. If you add a second
hard drive (with a separate control¬
ler) you must give it a unique SCSI
address, like 1 (not 0, or 6 if you
have an ICD host adapter). You just
put a jumper on that new drive, and
it will be SCS11 like magic.

There is another parameter,
called LUN (for logical unit number)
which has been baffling multitudes
of unsuspecting hard drive users.
LUN is a distinction which has no
meaning when talking about SCSI
drives. LUN is used to differentiate
between different ST506/412 drives
which are hooked up to one con¬
troller. For instance, most controllers
can handle two drives. To tell the
difference, one is set as LUN 0 and
the other is set as LUN 1. SCSI

drives with embedded controllers
each have their own personal con¬
troller, which can’t run a slave drive.
Therefore, they are always LUN 0.

Those are the questions I re¬
ceived which I deem swell enough
to answer.

Birth of a Feature

I think we’ve pretty much
exhausted the whole hard drive
subject, so it’s time to move on to
something else. So, starting next
month, (actually in October, if you
include this series) my column will
be entitled Myths & Mysteries
(sound OK to you Joe?) and it will
be a general interest feature with
questions and answers from con¬
cerned readers. We will cover the
whole range of ST hardware and
software. I will try to answer as
many questions as I can per month,
and throw in a couple of interesting

stories and tidbits. I don’t claim to
be a great oracle or anything, but
being an Atari dealer, I do know the
answers to many questions, and for
those I don’t know, it will definitely
do me good to do the research. And
you, the readers will have the bene¬
fit of my research. So, really it’s an
open forum for the opening and
widening of ST knowledge.

If you have a question you
would like answered (the chances
are high—I only got three res¬
ponses from my last plea for ques¬
tions), please send it to me one of
the following ways: the mail (best
way) David Troy, 556 Baltimore
Annapolis Blvd., Severna Park, MD
21146, GEnie: Toad-Serv., or Com¬
puServe: 72470,1605. So, that’s the
deal. I look forward to it.

Next month: how to get stuff
from an 8-bit Atari to the ST—and
vice versa!

If you are a scientist or an engineer,
or you are learning to be one,
then we have something for you!

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EL CAL. The Math Machine.

36 standard functions * 44 statistical distribu- * Polynomial least squares * General function
tion functions * 12 user-defined functions * optimization * Data points and histogram
Function, histogram, scatter plots * Square, fitting * Linear equation systems * Matrix and
cubic equations * Numerical integration, dF/ vector operations

dt, equation solving * Mean, s.d., regression, * see reviews in Current Notes (May/89), ST
correlation Informer (Sept/89), Atari Exp/orer{NovldS)

Runs on any ST (TOS in ROM) or Mega, color or monochrome.

To order, send a check or money order for $44 (p/h included) to

Debonair Software, P.O.Box 521166, SLC, UT 84152-1166

Outside continental U.S. add $5 for shipping. Utah residents add sales tax.

NEW! Also available: MIN CAL, smaller desktop accessory version (only standard and
statistical functions, expression parser); $15 ppd. (foreign please add $3).

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 39

Accept No
Substitutes.

.

To ad file 44

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Toadfile 44 Low Pricing. For the Holidays!

Toadfile 44 (44MB Cartridge Drive, ST Ready)..$899 I

Toadfile 44 Magnum (Toadfile 44 w/3 Carts).$1079 |

Toadfile 44S (44MB Cartridge Drive, Case & Power Only).$799 T T

Toadfile 44D (44MB Cartridge Drive Only, No Case or Power).$699 VrC USG iCi/ llOSt

Toadfile 88X (2 44MB Cartridge Drives, ST Ready).$1549 AddptCTS.

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Toadfile 94 (44, 50 MB HD ST Ready).$1279 Computers at THE LOWEST POSSIBLE

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loadtile 74 (44, 30 MB HD ST Ready).$1199 store 44 megabytes of data on a single cartridge

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Toad Computers 556 Baltimore Annapolis Blvd. Severna Park, MD 21146 (301) 544-6943 See next page for more information!

TOAD COMPUTERS

WE HAVE A WHOLE LOT OF HARD DISK STUFF AND MORE!

NON HARD DISKS

WE DON'T JUST SELL HARD DISKS!

TOS 1.4 ($25 Installation).$80.00

Spectre GCR (Roms Required)...$289.00

Mac 128K Roms (for Spectre).Call

PC Ditto H ($10 Installation).$289.00

Fastech T-16 Board ($30 Inst.)..$289.00

Atari SX212.$59.95

Supra 2400 .$129

Atari Portfolio .$389.00

64K RAM Card.$99.95

32K RAM Cani.$59.95

Serial Interface .$59.95

TOAD DRIVES

COMPLETE HARD DRIVES FOR THE ATARI ST

TOAD 20 MB 28ms 3.5" Drive.$529

TOAD 20 MB 40ms 3.5" Drive.$499

TOAD 30 MB 28ms 3.5" Drive.$559

TOAD 30 MB 40ms 3.5" Drive.$539

TOAD 50 MB 28ms 3.5" Drive.$629

TOAD 50 MB 40ms 3.5" Drive.$599

TOAD 65 MB 28ms 5.25" Drive.$679

TOAD 65 MB 40ms 5.25" Drive.$659

TOAD 85 MB 28ms 5.25" Drive.$709

TOAD 100 MB Dual 50 28ms 3.5" Drives.$959

TOAD 100 MB Dual 50 40ms 3.5" Drives.$899

TOAD 130 MB Dual 65 40ms 5.25" Drives.$i099

TOAD 144 MB 28ms 5.25" Drive.$999

TOAD 170 MB Dual 85 28ms 5.25" Drives.$1399

All of our Toad Drives use the ICD Host Adapter and are available in expandable shoebox-style or
under-the-monitor/under-the-Mega type cases. All cabling and software is included, and the
Seagate drive mechanisms are warranteed for one full year. Drives include a built-in dock and fan.

COME VISIT US

AND FIND OUT WHY WE WRITE THINGS THIS WAY

Our store is centrally located between Baltimore, Washington, and
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fully support the Atari XE, ST, and Mega ST lines. Plus, meet your
fine hosts, Dave and Ray. We're more than just a little eccentric.

ICD FAST DRIVES

COMPLETE HARD DRIVES FOR THE ATARI ST

FAST 85 MB 28ms 5.25" Drive.$739 was $769

FAST 65 MB 28ms 5.25" Drive.$703 was $724

FAST 65 MB 40ms 5.25" Drive.$684 was $699

FAST 40 MB 28ms 5.25" Drive.$647 was $709

FAST 40 MB 40ms 5.25" Drive.$595 was $639

FAST 50 MB 28ms 3.5" Drive.$657 was $709

FAST 50 MB 40ms 3.5" Drive.$625 was $669

FAST 30 MB 28ms 3.5" Drive.$595 was $629

FAST 30 MB 40ms 3.5" Drive.$575 was $599

FAST 20 MB 28ms 3.5" Drive.$545 was $569

FAST 20 MB 40ms 3.5" Drive.$525 was $549

FAST 100 MB 28ms Dual 3.5" Drives.$1049 was $1069

FAST 100 MB 40ms Dual 3.5" Drives.$949 was $969

ICD, Inc., a long-trusted name for Atari hardware makes a quality, under-the-monitor
type case and power supply unit, that includes the ICD Host Adapter we use in all
our hard drive products. This case is called the FAST case, and because of the high
volume of hard drives we sell, we can offer these ICD FAST drives at extremely low
prices. We assemble the drives ourselves, using quality Seagate drive mechanisms.

DRIVE KIT PARTS

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ICD ST Host Adapter.$99

ICD ST Host & MFM Controller Kit..$199

ICD ST Host & RLL Controller Kit.$239

OMTT 3520 MFM Hard Disk Controller.$119

OMTI 3527 RLL Hard Disk Controller..$149

ICD FNST Hard Disk Kit (With Host Adapter).$259

ICD FNST Hard Disk Kit (No Host Adapter).$179

Shoebox Dual HD Case/PS, Host Adapter Ready.$109

Under-the-Monitor Dual HD Case/PS, Etc.$119

Under-the-Monitor Single HD Case/PS, Etc.$109

Seagate ST296N 85MB 28ms SCSI Drive.$489

Seagate ST157N 50MB 40ms SCSI Drive.$349

Seagate ST157N-150MB 28ms SCSI Drive..$379

Seagate ST138N 30MB 40ms SCSI Drive.$329

Cables: Controller to Hard Disk.$10

Cables: Host Adapter to Controller/SCSI Drive.$10

ATARI MEGA ST

Atari Mega ST2 CPU - $1169
Atari SM124 Monochrome Monitor - $149
Atari SLM804PCV - $1399
Atari Mega ST4 DTP System - $3779

Atari Mega ST4 CPU - .

Atari SC1224 Color Monitor - $319
Atari Megafile 30 Hard Drive • $599
Atari SLM804 Toner Cartridges - $59.95

I~kTo Order, Call (301) 544-6943, or Write to:

/ Toad Computers, 556 Baltimore Annapolis Blvd., Severna Park, MD 21146

These prices reflect a 4% discount for money order, personal, or certified check. We accept
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ALL HD ORDERS QUALIFY FOR FREE SHIPPING IN CONTINENTAL US!

-- The G-Man —

"...as seen on TV!"

by David G. Grace
G.S. Special Agent

As we begin a new year, a new
decade, we wonder what it will
bring, good times or bad. The Atari
community also wonders what the
year will provide: new hardware or
software, upgrades or revisions, new
technology or rehashed ideas. One
thing is almost certain. This author is
more likely to appear on prime time
television than Atari computers.
Believe it or not, I really would prefer
to see an Atari there. Ataris excite
me. The programs for the ST are
visually and audibly stunning. The 8
bits really are “Power without the
price.” I’m a stockholder in the
company. My only writing (outside
of law enforcement reports) is for
Atari publications. I want the com¬
pany to succeed. I think it can
succeed. I think it could be the
biggest selling computer in America,
not just Europe. I want to have a
computer at home that’s compatible
with the one at work. I WANT TO
BUY AN ST!

I’m sorry. I guess I got a little
carried away. But sometimes the
frustration point is easy to reach.
Sometimes those who want Atari to
succeed can’t help but wonder why
it doesn’t. Like a ball team, one
looks to the top when the team has
the players, but still doesn’t win.
One looks to the managers and
owners. My ego will enjoy being on
the tube this winter, but I’d rather be
watching a station break with a Fuji
symbol.

Equal Justice for G-Man

In case anyone out there will
settle for seeing ME in prime time,
you can do so in a TV movie on the
ABC network called “Equal Justice.”
It’s a pilot for a new series which is

to begin running during the winter
months. The pilot will probably be
shown in January. I’m a glorified
extra, appearing in several scenes
which have little or nothing to do
with the plot. The extent of my
performance will be determined by
the film editors. My only plot-related
scene comes in the last fifteen
minutes. There, in a District Attor¬
ney’s law library and in the space of
a few minutes, I drink booze, get hit
with a blow up doll, sing with Gene
Pitney, and otherwise have a grand
old time at a poker game. At one
point, I sit on the arm of a chair
(vacated by the blow up doll) next
to one of the stars, Barry Miller, and
drink whiskey out of a white mug.
For that I got paid. What a country!
Of course, if you aren’t interested in
seeing me, and why should you,
you can watch “Rosanne” or some¬
thing. Oh, in case you were won¬
dering, “Equal Justice” is similar in
style to “LA Law” but is focused on
a District Attorney’s office instead of
a private law firm. No, they haven’t
contacted me about doing the
series. I predict that Atari will not be
one of the sponsors.

Looking Back

I remember when we were in¬
undated with Atari commercials. The
Atari 2600 game machine was a
national craze. Everybody had to
have Space Invaders. Lines formed
in front of the PacMan machine.
Atari computer clubs were looking
for bigger places to hold their meet¬
ings. Atari magazines were springing
up monthly. The ST created a new
surge of interest, debate and even
more magazines. Compute maga¬
zine gave as much space to Atari as

it did Apple or IBM. Softs/de maga¬
zine had the disk or tape editions to
save you hours of typing in, and
there I tried my first text adventure,
and I was hooked. I always carried
the latest magazine in my G-Car. I
would read it through every lunch
hour, sitting outside courtrooms or
on surveillance when it wasn’t my
turn to watch. When the kids were in
bed and Whatshername was watch¬
ing the upstairs TV, I’d pull the end
table over in front of the one in the
family room. While lamenting my
lack of one of those expensive
computer desks, I’d hook up the
wires, plug in the joy stick and boot
up a cartridge of Star Raiders or a
tape on the 410.1 bought the Micro¬
prose flight simulation, Spitfire Ace,
and I was hooked. I bought a disk
drive and two more microprose pro¬
grams, F-15 Strike Eagle and Ken¬
nedy Approach. When that radio
voice came through the TV, followed
by the realistic static burst and when
I flew in low over Libya, dodged the
SAMs, dropped my bombs, pulled
back hard on the stick, punched the
afterburners on and headed home
with a barrel roll at supersonic
speed...DAMN! I was hooked! Was it
so long ago?

I’ve graduated to the 130 XE,
multiple disk drives, Star NLQ print¬
er, a modem, i write with my Atari-
writer+ downstairs, while my
daughter does the same in her own
room on the old 400, upgraded to
48K with a full-stroke keyboard. An
800 I bought for $15.00 (not includ¬
ing the power transformer) rounds
out my trilogy of 8 bits. Not one has
needed a penny’s repair in the past
eight years, despite spilled drinks,
dust and occasional dropping. With

Page 42

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

the word processor came a new
hobby, writing. Writing about com¬
puters, especially Atari computers,
and preferably with a touch of
humor along the way. But what will
tomorrow bring?

Looking Forward

To put it nicely, I don’t believe in
psychics; you know, the seers who
make predictions or tell you where
you left Aunt Martha’s missing pin.
I’ve been a Fed for over eighteen
years and I have yet to see a
psychic provide anything, short of
comedy relief, to an investigation. I
am happy to say that, to my know¬
ledge, they are not used by any
Federal enforcement agency. For¬
tune tellers, card readers and astro¬
logers are con men (or women).
Although I don’t always agree with
Carl Sagan’s politics, I do agree that
(despite the effect of the moon on
the tides of Earth) the doctor who
delivered you had more effect on
you, due to distance and relative
size, than did some vaporous nebu¬
lae in the Orion constellation. Nor
do I believe that I, and one out of
every twelve others in the world with
my Zodiac sign (including some
Aborigine from the Outback), can
really expect “...a financial or busi¬
ness matter is to be settled to your
advantage today, due to the in¬
fluence of a stranger who is a Scor-
pio.

Having established my view of
predictors, I would now like to make
some predictions. I never said it
wasn’t possible to be accurate, I just
don’t like those who claim they have
some extraordinary power to do so,
particularly those who charge for
their services. I have no special
powers, have never tried this before,
and my service is provided free in
this fine publication. It remains to be
seen if I’m accurate. If I am, it’s
based strictly on an examination of
history and the application of
deductive reasoning and logic. The
dates provided are, of course,
approximate ones. Even logic
requires SOME guesswork. In any
case, let’s look at the year 1990 as I

see it from here. And remember,
you heard it here first!

Atari 1990 Highlights

January 1: Shortly after midnight,
at a New Years Eve party and with
drink in hand, Jack Tramiel begins his
annual “Business is War” speech. This
has been a family tradition since his
days as the owner of the Commodore
computer company.

January 15: Sam Tramiel, in an
exclusive interview with Antic maga¬
zine, predicts that the 1990s will be the
decade of the Atari.

January 30: The Editor of Cur¬
rent Notes receives a letter protesting
the G-Man’s use of KGB and CIA men
as a vehicle for humor, suggesting that
it could affect the success of the next
Bush-Gorbachev summit meeting.

February 15: Atari announces the
development of a new hardware pro¬
duct, the STX computer. The new unit
is said to run not only its own soft¬
ware, but also IBM, Macintosh, Apple
II, and Amiga programs, without the
need for additional hardware or soft¬
ware purchased from David Small.

February 27: BBS communica¬
tions begin rumors which suggest that
the new STX does not run the existing
8 bit or ST software. Included in the
ROM chips is a special routine that
will prevent Darek Mihocka from mak¬
ing a translation program. This is
added by Atari as “...a service to our
users because, after all, why would
they want to run cruddy old software
they already own?”

March 7: I call my broker to
make sure my account is still active
and to warn him to prepare to sell.

March 25: At a CES show, Atari
wows them with its new product line,
including the STE, a 20 megabyte
RAM laptop with MIDI interface, built
in disk and hard drives, 90,000 pos¬
sible colors (over 1000 on screen at
any given time), and voice synthesizer.

April 1: Current Notes prints a
G-Man April Fool article about the use
of computer databases in Heaven, in¬
cluding a remote terminal located at
the Pearly Gates for efficient entry
control.

April 12: Atari, in an exclusive

interview with Analog Magazine,
announces the release of TOS version
43.211, which corrects all the bugs
found in the three hundred previous
versions.

April 20: Current Notes receives
the first letter protesting the G-Man’s
insulting treatment of psychics and
other gifted people who have powers
and abilities far beyond those of mortal
men.

May 1: BBS systems around the
country begin providing a new public
domain utility program for down load¬
ing. It can be used to remove the new
bugs found in TOS version 43.211.

May 25: The first Atari 8-bit
program of the year is released...in
England.

June 17: Letters of complaint
begin to arrive at Current Notes, pro¬
testing the April Fool article on com¬
puters in Heaven. It will be noted that
someone of a Judeo-Christian back¬
ground could find it disturbing that
one’s entry into the Hereafter might
require a delay for the selection of a
joystick position and the pressing of
the fire button.

July 8: Atari reveals that the
release of the STX and STE machines
may be delayed by (pick one) A) a
computer chip shortage, B) slow action
by the FCC, C) software pirates, or D)
the conjunction of Venus and Saturn.

August 4: Sam Tramiel, in an
exclusive interview with Watchtower
magazine, announces that the STX and
STE line is expected to be available in
time for Christmas. In addition, the
release will be made simultaneously
with the beginning of a new prime
time TV ad campaign, with print media
support, featuring a well known star
who will represent the company.

August 20: Whatshername asks
when I’m going sell that Atari stock.

August 29: Atari stock rises to
my absolute break even point (the cost
of the stock plus broker commissions,
interest lost and interest expenses paid).
Whatshername insists that it will be my
decision alone as to whether to sell that
stock. However, I best not forget that
I’ll have to live with the consequences
for the rest of my life, or until I hit the
millionaire lottery, whichever comes

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 43

first.

August 30: i sell.

August 31: Atari stock rises three
full points.

September IS: Atari announces
that its new TV ad campaign will kick
off during a prime time special. The
star who is to represent the company in
the commercials continues to be a
secret, but Leonard Tramiel lets it slip
that it’s the head of a household on a
popular TV situation comedy.

September 20: Jeanne Dixon pre¬
dicts that the Atari ads will feature Bill
Cosby, or maybe Elvis.

September 26: Atari stock
reaches its highest point since it went
public. There is talk of a three for one
split.

October 2: The ST, following a
redesign, is released. It doesn’t do

anything new, but it now sports pastel
colored function buttons and a built-in
ROM version of PacMan (the Atari
2600 version).

October 15: Apple reveals its
new hardware line during a TV ad blitz
throughout the World Series.

November 23: IBM reveals its
new hardware during the Thanksgiving
Day football games.

December 7: [a date which will
live in infamy] The new Atari ads hit
prime time television. The company is
represented by Rosanne Barr. The
debut of the ads occurs throughout the
Pee Wee Herman Christmas Special.
The ads feature the Atari 2600 game
machine.

December 10: Atari stock drops
five points.

December 26: On Page 206 of

the TV Guide (just oppositethe horo¬
scope) appears Rosanne Barr holding
an Atari 2600 and saying “Here’s my
recommendation for a memorable
Christmas. See if you can stop the
Space Invaders!” A red banner crosses
the advertisement diagonally through
one corner. The banner says, “As seen
on TV!”

December 31: Jack Tramiel,
shortly before midnight at a New Years
Eve party, gives his annual “Business
is War” speech. He stuns the guests by
admitting that he never sold his interest
in Commodore. He adds that some¬
times infiltration beats an overt attack!

January 2, 1991: Commodore
stock plunges five points.

Handle files Anywhere, Anytime with Universal Item Selector
NEW W-I-D-E MODE can display up to 36 files._

Set up your
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Universal™ Iten Selector III
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F:\PUBLISH\SOFTWARE\*.*_

|9| ' ! : ^ 59392 I

1Fornafl I Folder I
DOC STY DTP PI3 DOC*

AUTHOFttlfc*-^
J-WTtJFF
HI DINVOC.DTP
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06-12-85
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15582 85-24-85

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Set File Attributes:
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file dating.)

Delete files or

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I_OK_|

I Cancel I ^
HTove

f~C opy~k

Displays ALL
drives active
in system.

A

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Create a
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anywhere,
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Find any
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Other features: Use Wildcards to find & process files. Hide or unhide files to t id directory clutter. Show or
not show hidden files. Lock or Unlock single files or groups of files. Reset your computer from the keyboard.
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changes. You never have to use the desktop to manipulate files again. You never hesitate to manipulate files,
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“Your UIS.II has been a fantastic
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Galveston, TX

Page 44

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

WMW/MMA

Wmdmkii

W/A / YyY/yy/y A ////m

//T/N/fv/sf/

mmmmmmm

M’',:>i

In collaboration with the folks at the General Electric
Network for Information Exchange (GEnie) Current Notes
has established an electronic bulletin board for matters
about Current Notes. Category 15 of the Bulletin Board
area of the Atari ST roundtable on GEnie has been set aside
as ‘‘Current Notes Online.”

We took this step to increase our visibility and so that
some of our current subscribers all over the US and Canada
could use their modems to get in touch with us. Of course,
the ST roundtable is not operated as a charitable institution
and the folks at GEnie hope that our presence will enhance
the demand for their service. Everyone will benefit if we
can generate lively discussions and post lots of files for
folks to download.

The list of files posted to date includes a handbook for
Current Notes subscribers (CNFACTS 1. ARC, File number
13150) that gives our subscription rates, notes for contribu¬
tors, a list of the files in our disk library, and a list of
dealers who carry our magazine. File number 13130,
CNCLUB01.ARC, is a list of Current Notes Registered
CJubsXo help stray Atarians find a user group near them.

We have also posted a few articles with commentary
from recent issues. We will also post our cumulative index
for 1989. This will give you a convenient way to look up
articles from a wide-ranging list of mataerial.

We have started several topics, which are the GEnie
message threads on particular issues. One topic is devoted
to tables of contents for recent issues. People who are not
currentl subscribers may find that they want to get hold of
a particular issue after reviewing this index. Another topic
is devoted to feedback. Let us know what you like, don’t
like, and think we ought to cover.

Current Notes has a reputation for telling it like it is
and we step on more than a few toes in the process. People
who feel that their favorite software has been unfairly
savaged can get our attention by posting messages in the
feedback topic. People who want to enquire about writing
for us can send GE-Mail to JOE.WATERS.

Current Notes does not intend to become an electronic
magazine like STReport or Z*Mag, so you should not
expect to find material that replaces the hardcopy magazine
in the online library or the message threads. Discussions of
current events in the Atari world are, however, welcome
since they may provide us with leads into stories that
should be developed further.

In a very real sense Current Notes is the leading
advocate for the common man in the Atari world. Our
magazine is what you, our readers, make it. The new online
service is an additional way for you to participate. Enjoy.

Icon & text displays not available at the same time.

The Ultimate Upgrade for the Atari ST!!

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desktop. Its hundreds of features are clearly documented in an
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Features Include: High-speed file and disk operations (no more
multiple disk swaps!) • Unique custom file icons for any file
(includes icon editor) • Place commonly used file icons right on the
desktop • Run these from the mouse or keyboard (hot keys) • Twenty
character editable disk volume name • Replacement control panel
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equivalents for all commands • Mono &. color support • Improved
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January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 45

CN SPECIAL

New Initiatives for Developers

Atari Cites New Program As Developers Form Own Association
with Heads of Six Top Firms As Directors

In recent months the Atari com¬
munity has seen two new initiatives
aimed at improving the lot of devel¬
opers. The first, announced at the
WAACE AtariFest, was the formation
by developers themselves of a new
Association. The second, announc¬
ed at a special party at the Fall
Comdex in Las Vegas, came from
Atari Corporation and took the form
of a new corporate program for
developer support.

Atari Association of
Developers

According to a press release
dated October 8th 1989 over 40
developers met during the WAACE
AtariFest to lay the groundwork for
an independent “Atari Association of
Developers.” The AAD seeks to
strengthen the developer support
structure already provided by Atari
Corporation. “Developer Helping
Developer” is their motto.

The temporary board of direc¬
tors (see box) was given the task of
developing a constitution for the
AAD, a set of membership guide¬
lines and qualifications, and a set of
goals which the association will
work to achieve. The complete
details can be obtained by down¬
loading file number 12519 entitled
AAD.INF from the library in the Atari
ST Roundtable on GEnie.

AAD is recruiting from all
registered Atari developers.

The primary communication
vehicle appears to be a
special private category
within the Atari ST Round¬
table on the GEnie online
service.

By John Barnes

The tasks that AAD has set for
itself include:

o Development and expansion of
information which will supple¬
ment the published developer’s
documentation from Atari Cor¬
poration to assist developers in
creating problem free, efficient,
and complete hardware and
software products,
o Assistance and support to
developers in the marketing,
distribution, promotion, and
support of developed hardware
and software products,
o Assistance to Atari Corporation
in the Sales and Marketing of
Atari products in concert with
developer products.

There are two types of members
in the AAD, these are defined as:
o AAD Developer: Any devel¬
oper who is registered with Atari
Corporation as a “Registered
Developer” and is recognized
as such by Atari Corp.
o AAD Professional Develop¬
er: Any developer who has pro¬
ven to have created or is creat¬
ing a viable hardware or soft¬
ware product for the Atari pro¬
duct line, with the intent of

releasing this product into the
commercial market. Shareware
products may qualify on a case
by case basis. Public Domain
products do not qualify as com¬
mercial products, nor do hard¬
ware products which are
assembled from other develo¬
per’s kits or parts.

A member must first qualify as
an “AAD Developer” before being
considered for “AAD Professional
Developer” membership.

All development support pro¬
vided by the AAD will be provided to
all “AAD Developers” in concert
with support currently provided by
Atari Corp. All “AAD Developers” will
have access to development sup¬
port provided by the AAD.

Support provided specifically to
“AAD Professional Developers” will
include business related assistance
to help commercial developers bring
products to market.

The AAD does not expect to act
as a clearinghouse for resolving
disputes between developers and
Atari Corporation or between con¬
sumers and developers.

As stated previously, the full text
of AAD’s first press release is avail¬
able in a document that can be
downloaded from GEnie.

Atari Development
Partnerships

The second new initiative
comes from Atari Corp itself
in an “Atari Development
Partner Newsletter” dated
December 1989. The initial
announcement was made at
Comdex, but the newsletter

Atari Association of Developers
Temporary Board of Directors

Gordon Monnier.President of Michtron Corp.

Nathan Potechin....President of ISD Corp.

Rich Flashmann.President of Gribnif Software

John Eidsvoog.Partner in Codehead Software

George Morrison....President of Alpha Systems
James Allen.V-President of Fast Technology

Page 46

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

appears to have been mailed to all
currently registered developers.
Atari regards the new “partnership”
between themselves and developers
as a new approach to the way they
interact with developers. The
announcement was signed by
Antonio Salerno, VP Applications. Mr
Salerno is no longer employed by
Atari.

There appear to be six com¬
ponents to this initiative: a complete
listing of all registered Atari owners
and dealers, a database and soft¬
ware demonstration product named
Softsource, a trial subscription pro¬
gram with ST magazines, a new
person to handle the program within
the corporation, re-registration as
an Atari developer under new
ground rules, and access to deve¬
lopment equipment at a 50 percent
discount from retail.

Developers must complete the
re-registration procedures in order
to participate in this program. The
program seems to restrict developer
status to people who either are
already shipping software products
or who expect to ship them in the
future. It marks a departure from the
previous situation in which one
became an Atari developer by
simply plunking down the money for
a “Developers’ Kit” and signing a
non-disclosure agreement. Under
the new scheme, registration must
be renewed annually.

The person whom Atari has
hired to implement the new partner¬
ship is Charles Cherry, previously
the product manager for Antic.
Charles states that he is where he is
because “Atari is finally ready to
provide serious help to developers.”

Mr. Cherry identifies three criti¬
cal problems for a developer: Sales,
Education, and Visibility.

Mr. Cherry treats sales as a
matter of identifying customers for
products, hence the effort to pro¬
vide an Atari Customer mailing list.
The list of all registered Atari owners
will be available to all Atari Develop¬
ment Partners and it will be updated
monthly in a form that allows the
developer to construct a database

for making direct mailings to these
potential customers.

Education is identified as the
problem of helping naive owners to
realize the potential of their
machines. The vehicle for this will
be the free subscription offers to all
new Atari computer customers. The
magazine publishers will be able to
obtain the customer database for
use in mailing out three free issues
of their magazines to new buyers.
The content of these magazines will
presumably give these new purcha¬
sers a feel for the potential in the
“computer appliances” that they
have bought.

Registration is a matter that
rests with the purchasers of the
machines and the offer of free
magazine subscriptions will
encourage them to register.

The new program encourages
developers to enhance their visibility
by working through a new tool to be
called Atari Softsource, a complete
index to all Atari software and hard¬
ware products. Developers are to
provide disabled copies of software
and self-running demonstration
programs to be put on CD-ROMs in
dealer showrooms and into online
libraries. Developers are also to
provide three working copies of their
products to Atari.

What Does It All Mean?

There is no doubt that Atari has
done poorly by its developers in the
past. On the surface these new
initiatives seem eminently reason¬
able. Do they really promise a rosy
future?

The one thing that developers
would like to see more than any¬
thing else is an aggressive effort on
Atari’s part to market its machines.
Efforts to market the Portfolio or
Lynx products do not count
because they are irrelevant to the
current people who develop Atari
software and hardware.

Add-ons can only be sold if
there are enough Atari computers
out there to make it worthwhile to
develop products for them. In this
case, the egg clearly comes ahead

of the chicken. All of the other
initiatives are pure empty gestures
unless Atari puts its own resources
into an all-out effort to put Atari
computers into the hands of people
who can use them.

Charles Cherry provides a clue
to Atari’s thinking when he refers to
purchasers of “computer
appliances.” What kind of appliance
is it? A vacuum cleaner? A toaster?
A dishwasher? The computer-
appliance is a piece of wishful
thinking on Atari’s part. When the
Tramiel clan introduced the ST, they
made a conscious decision to com¬
pete on the basis of price alone.
This meant that the monies to sup¬
port extensive advertising and
developer assistance were nowhere
to be found.

Unfortunately, this decision has
not withstood the test of time.
People who have computers in their
homes have them because they
want to do something useful with
them. The millions of copies of
MS-DOS software products bear
witness to their sophistication. If the
computer-appliance resembles
anything, it is a Cuisinart, which
needs lots of attachments and train¬
ing to make it perform.

Advice to Atari: Forget about
computer-appliances and focus on
computers. IBM, Apple, Com¬
modore, Compaq, and a host of
other people who know about com¬
puters are saturating the market
while those who hawk “computer-
appliances” (toys, actually) sit on
their hands wondering why nobody
buys.

The new partnership that Atari
has with its developers is like the old
one in that there is very little of
Atari’s money tied up in it. Direct
mail, which seems to be the mar¬
keting tool that Atari is promoting,
costs an enormous amount of
money for a very small return. The
developers themselves will bear this
cost. Mailings to 2,000 new potential
customers each month would eat up
the profit from an awful lot of
software sales. Attempts to reach
the entire installed base by direct

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 47

mail would bankrupt most Atari
developers in a hurry. This is why
most developers are content to get
their products out for review in
magazines and to advertise to
audiences that are at least inter¬
ested enough to buy the magazines.

A little arithmetic is all that is
needed to demonstrate that free
subscriptions to magazines will not
be a big success either. Production
and postage costs for mailing three
issues of a magazine will eat up
anywhere between $3 and $8. Mul¬
tiply this by 24,000 new buyers in
the course of a year (a skimpy
number, which will do little to
enhance Atari’s financial prospects)
and you come up with between
$72,000 and $192,000—a huge
chunk of the cash flow of any
publication.

Atari Softsource is a program
whereby CD-ROMs containing
demo versions or self-running ani¬
mated descriptions of software are
placed in dealer showrooms to give
a potential buyer the look and feel
of new products before deciding to
buy them. This looks like a scheme
to move part of Atari’s warehouse
full of CD-ROMs without having to
worry about developing too much
software for them. It would certainly
be nice to truck off to the nearest
Atari dealer (assuming there is one
nearby) and get a nice demo of any
product that was intriguing. Most
developers, however, have enough
trouble making software that works
and most users by now have
enough experience to know that the
only demo worth looking at is the
final product.

Atari has alienated a number of
developers by their demands for
copies of products. The letters
requesting this have been couched
in a tone that seems guaranteed to
minimize cooperation. The basic
idea is a good one. Someone at
Atari should know what is out there
and should have it available for
testing when someone comes up
with bright ideas for a new TOS.
Perhaps Atari could help the deve¬
lopers by purchasing this material.

Atari once had an “official” list¬
ing of products both online and in
book form. This was allowed to
lapse, but it should be revived, at
least in the online form.

People who bought the original
Developers’ Kit from Atari were
deeply disappointed in the product
after it arrived. The main ingredients
were a C compiler of dubious value,
a very primitive Resource Construc¬
tion set, and volumes of poorly
reproduced GEM documentation
from Digital Research. This has
since been supplemented by
material from Abacus, Sybex, and
various compiler publishers. The C
compiler has been upgraded. Con¬
tributions from Atari personnel have
also been important, but many
developers have found that extract¬
ing this material is frustrating and
programmers who are not registered
developers have found it nearly
impossible to get help.

Self-help for Developers

Given the absence of resources
from Atari Corporation it is important
that the members of the developer
community unite to help themselves
by helping each other. The Atari
Association of Developers can be
viewed as an effort in this direction,
and its initial goals are certainly
laudable.

The initial effort, however, is
simply not ambitious enough. The
emphasis on communications
through GEnie is one example.
GEnie has no presence in Europe at
all, yet the development effort in
Europe is said to far outweigh that
in the US and Canada. Even within
North America there are many loca¬
tions where GEnie access is pro¬
hibitively expensive.

AAD’s emphasis on serving the
registered Atari developer com¬
munity is a second example of
insufficient ambition, although it is
probably essential to obtaining even
minimal cooperation from Atari.
There are many sophisticated users
who could benefit from a knowledge
of AAD’s activities even if they have
no need for proprietary information.

It is obvious that the AAD must
broaden its scope if it is to have any
impact at all. They need to field
teams on the worldwide networks
like InterNet and Usenet and they
need to develop means of com¬
municating with people who are not
online at all. They need to be far
more outgoing about their progress
and goals and they need to demon¬
strate receptiveness to suggestions.

It is unfortunate that a number
of important software houses take
the position that they either cannot
or will not spend their own money to
help someone else. This is a very
practical decision even if it seems
shortsighted. Improved sharing of
knowledge within the Atari develop¬
ment community is needed to nur¬
ture new programmers and to iron
the kinks out of the products that
are there already.

What About the User

Both the AAD and Atari Cor¬
poration appear to view users as a
separate species that rank some¬
where below developers on the
evolutionary scale. Users would be
too ignorant to make use of any
assistance that would be proffered
to them, so there is no need to
bother.

This view is probably reinforced
by long hours spent on telephones
and BBS’s answering questions that
should not have arisen if the pro¬
grams had been well done or if the
documentation had been well writ¬
ten. There is no such thing as a
“dumb question.” There is also a
law somewhere that says that a
certain percentage of customers
never will be satisfied and that
handling them is one of the burdens
that comes with taking the public’s
money.

Regardless of how they behave,
these people are customers and
they are the ones who determine
the success or failure of a product.
If they don’t need it they won’t buy
it. If it breaks on them they will be
angry. If their computer-appliances
fail them they will consign them to

Page 48

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

the junk heap. These people are the
market and any effort to deal with
the marketplace must take their
needs into account.

User groups are one segment of
the marketplace that cares enough
to put forth some effort on its own
behalf and they would seem to be a
good target for focussed effort by
Atari Corporation and AAD. Atari
should revitalize its user group liai¬
son activities by providing up to
date information on groups and their
locations. Regular mailings of sani¬
tized versions of the Developer
Partner newsletter would be a good
way to let these people know that
something is happening. The AAD
should also make special mailings
describing their activities and
recruitment efforts. The AAD could
provide assistance on developer
participation in shows and the user
groups would be a natural vehicle
for distributing marketing and train¬

ing information on developer pro¬
ducts.

Why All the Secrecy?

Both Atari and the AAD seem to
feel that they have secrets that are
worth stealing. Of course, there is a
need for some level of confidentia¬
lity with regard to products that are
still under development and there
are laws to protect copyrighted and
patented material.

In all other matters, however,
openness should be a key goal. The
informed consumer is a more willing
buyer. The press release from AAD
seems to indicate that they are
setting up something akin to a
college fraternity or a masonic
lodge, with secret handshakes and
all of the attendant paraphernalia.

They really should reach out to
the public, perhaps through an open
category that supplements their
closed one on GEnie or through

regular contributions to the Atari
press. The whole community wishes
them well, but the silence since
October has been deafening.

Has the Horse Already Left
the Barn?

There is a good chance that
Atari and the AAD have awakened to
their plight too late. Closed dealer¬
ships, reduced user group member¬
ships, and slow sales are ail clues
that customers are standing back
from the marketplace if they have
not, in fact, already deserted it.

The stalls in the barn need
some fresh, juicy fodder in them if
the horses are to be lured back. The
consumer needs to see clear signs
of vigor in the marketplace. A highly
visible, strongly active, partnership
between Atari and its developers
might be enough of a sign to attract
attention for a short while.

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January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 49

When it comes to public domain
or shareware software, I am often
left feeling like a small child who
stands drooling before a glass
candy counter. As a boy, I can
remember agonizing over what
candies to buy, and which ones to
leave for another day. I have had as
much trouble coming to a decision
as far as what to discuss for this
month’s column.

After a good measure of fretting
and pacing, I thought I would sift
through a number of graphic utility
programs. Commercial and share¬
ware paint programs abound, and
desktop publishing is a very popular
application for the ST. Graphic utility
programs are frequently lifesavers.
They make using these other pro¬
grams much easier.

It is not hard to find graphic
utilities. In fact, Current Notes has
dedicated two disks to just these
types of applications. Disk #254 and
#352 include utilities for just about
every occasion. They include picture
conversion programs, snapshot
programs, picture viewing programs,
and even a paint accessory program
for editing paint files stored in
Gem’s .img format.

Disk #254 is a treasure chest
full of goodies. Chief among them is
PicSwitch.

PicSwitch 0.7
Written by John Brochu

Advanced Software, 21 Northend
Street, Peabody, MA 01960.

PicSwitch is distributed as
shareware. It is the first utility pro¬
gram I discovered long ago, and I
continue to find it quite useful today.
The program allows you to load
pictures which have been created
on other computers and convert the

PUBLIC

DOMAIN

POTPOURRI

picture files to Degas or Neochrome
formats, which are standards for the
ST.

According to Mr. Brochu, Pic¬
Switch was originally written as a
simple picture viewer for Amiga IFF
paint files. In its later incarnations,
the program was expanded to sup¬
port monochrome monitors. It was
also modified to read many more
picture formats which it then con¬
verts to Degas, Degas Elite or
Neochrome formats. PicSwitch can
convert pictures from one resolution
to another. It can also be used to
print pictures.

I like the program’s ease of use.
Once you initiate the program, it
presents a GEM file selector box.
You select the picture file you want
to view, and it draws it to the
screen. If you attempt to load a
picture format which is not suppor¬
ted, you are given that message.
You are also presented with a listing
of formats which are supported.
Among the many which are suppor¬
ted are: Amiga IFF, MacPaint, CIS
Vidtex hi-res RLE, and Atari Koala.

PicSwitch has enabled me to
easily convert a wealth of MacPaint
clip art to Degas. I recommend it as
a useful, no fuss program.

DegaMac

Written by Frank Stewart

DegaMac is another simple yet
useful picture conversion program.
As the name suggests, it converts
Degas pictures to MacPaint format.
It also converts in the other direction
as well. This program has let me
boast that I can use Degas Elite on
my ST at home to develop clip art
for use on the company’s Macin¬
tosh. The program presents a GEM
dialogue box which prompts you for

Shareware

Sampler

By Brian Miller

the type of picture you wish to
convert. You are presented with
another dialogue box which gives
you the options available for saving
your picture. It can even rotate the
picture 90 degrees. I did encounter
one problem. It failed to recognize
several MacPaint files, which I was
able to load as MacPaint and con¬
vert with PicSwitch.

DEGASAVE

Written by Jeff Seibert

Have you ever wondered how
the action screen from your favorite
game winds up on the pages of
Current Notes ox some other maga¬
zine? Well, screen saving programs,
like DEGASAVE, can make this feat
possible. Once you have activated
DEGASAVE, you can “capture” a
screen by pressing the Alt key and
Help key. The screen momentarily
freezes and your disk drive grinds.
The game or whatever program you
loaded after activating DEGASAVE
resumes. When you finally quit, you
will see that the screen shots were
saved as SCREEN#.PI Degas files.

This program is particularly use¬
ful for screen shots of games or
programs that don’t use the GEM
menu bar. One limitation I have
found when using DEGASAVE is
that it does not appear to work with
games which load automatically.

I have covered only a fraction of
the programs contained on this Uti¬
lity Disk. I have concentrated on
those programs which I have had
some direct experience in using.
You should know the disk also in¬
cludes programs to convert pictures
to and from Spectrum format. It also
contains utilities to convert Print
Shop to Print Master pictures, and
from Print Master to Degas.

Page 50

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

Current Notes disk #352 in the
CN Library features graphic utilities
of more recent vintage. It would go
a long way to round out your
graphic toolbox.

It includes a slideshow written
by Charles F. Johnson called Art
Gallery. John Brochu, author of
PicSwitch, presents his new offer¬
ing, Deluxe Slideshow. Both pro¬
grams are capable of displaying
slides saved in a number of popular
formats.

The disk also includes a Snap¬
shot Accessory program. If you want
to capture a screen where the GEM
menu bar is present, the Snap-
shot.ACC program will do the job
easily. You merely select the pro¬
gram under the Desk option. You
choose the format you wish to save
your snapshot in. You then rubber
band the section of the screen you
want to capture. The screen turns
black for an instant as the snapshot
is taken, and then you are presen¬
ted with the File Selector Box to

name your photo. This is really a
painless method so long as you
happen to be using a GEM program.

Image Editor DA V0.65

Written by Mike Bergman

I must admit that it was for
Image Editor that I added this utility
disk to my library. I own Easy Draw
and have been frustrated that the
package does not include an effec¬
tive way to edit pictures stored in
the .img format. Migraph’s Super¬
charger program is useful, and
works to a limited extent. I have
wanted a program which would edit
the paint file directly. While I could
spend big dollars to buy Migraph’s
Touch Up, I really felt a simpler
alternative would do as well.

/mage Editor, may fill this need.
He distributes this accessory pro¬
gram as Shareware, and employs an
effective marketing strategy. The
program is fully functional with the
exception of the .Save function. You
need to send the requisite regis¬

tration fee to obtain your fully func¬
tional program.

Image Editor will only work with
high resolution on monochrome
monitors. You run the program as
you would any desk accessory. The
function keys are used to select
different brush types and other
options.

A full-fledged paint program
may be preferable for making art¬
work from scratch. However, for
editing image paint files which have
already been created, /mage Editor
would be hard to beat.

I hope this gives you a sampling
of utilities which are easily available.
It is by no means complete.

Remember to reward public
domain and shareware developers
for their efforts. Feel free to pass
along useful programs which you
would like to see receive deserved
attention, c/o: Brian Miller 13848
Delaney Road Woodbridge, VA
22193.

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January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 51

All four programs use a MOD function and come
from a COMPUTE! IBM program which was also
translated for the ST later. I never got around to using
MOD in Turbo Basic so here I used COMPUTE’S
suggestions to turn it into Atari BASIC. I also added
color cycling to MOD3. Press START to change the
direction of the color cycling. MODMOD is a modified
version of one cell of MOD3 which was enlarged, more
sides were added, and color cycling too.

MODI

A series of multi-colored triangles formed one at a
time until a giant triangle is made.

3 REM IBM TRANSLATION: COMPUTE

4 REM MOD FUNCTION

5 DIM X(3),Y(3),XD(3),YD(3)

10 W=0.1:W1=1-W:XSCALE=1:YSCALE=0.99:
H=2:VRES=166:SfflFT=2:II=l
15 GRAPHICS 31:SETCOLOR 0,15,6:SETCOLO
R 2,4,2:SETCOLOR l,8,4:SETCOLOR 4,0,0
20 FOR J=0 TO 3:H=-II:JJ=l:FOR 1=0 TO
6:JJ=-JJ:IF I<J OR I>6-J THEN 110
30 IF J<2 OR I>2 THEN C=C-INT(C/3)*3+l
40 IF J=3 THEN C=C-INT(C/3)*3+l
50 X(1)=0:X(2)=39:X(3)=78:Y(1)=0:Y(3)=0
52 IF H=JJ THEN Y(2)=48:GOTO 60
55 Y(2)=-48

60 FOR N=1 TO 11:X1=3+X(3)+I*39:Y1=VRE

S-Y(3)-J*48+II*JJ*24:X 1=X 1*XSCALE+SH-

IFT:Y1=Y1*YSCALE+SHIFT

70 FOR M=1 TO 3:X2=3+X(M)+I*39:Y2=VRES

-Y(M)-J*48+II*JJ*24:C=C-INT(C/3)*3+l:-

X2=X2*XSCALE+SHIFT:Y2=Y2*YSCALE+SHIFT

80 PLOT Xl/H,Yl:COLOR CDRAWTO XI/

H,Yl:DRAWTO X2/H,Y2:Xl=X2:Yl=Y2:NJ=M-INT(M/3)*3+l

90 XD(M)=W1*X(M)+W*X(NJ):YD(M)=W1*Y(M)+

W*Y(NJ):NEXT M

100 FOR P=1 TO 3:X(P)=XD(P):Y(P)=YD(P)

:NEXT P:NEXT N

110 NEXT I:NEXT J
120 GOTO 120

For Atari XL/Xl
C omputers

i

M0D2

Instead of triangles, this program creates green
and violet filled boxes.

3 REM IBM TRANSLATION: COMPUTE

4 REM MOD FUNCTION

5 DIM X(4),Y(4),XD(4),YD(4)

10 W=0.12:W1=1-W:II=1:XSCALE=1.11:YSC

ALE=0.976:H=2:SHIFT=-14

15 GRAPHICS 31:SETCOLOR 0,11,4:SETCOLOR

2,5,6:SETCOLOR l,7,4:SETCOLOR 4,0,0

20 FOR 1=0 TO 3:FOR J=0 TO 3:IF (I-INT(I/

2)*2+l)=(J-INT(J/2)*2+l) THEN 40

30 Y(1)=49:Y(2)=0:Y(3)=0:Y(4)=49:GOTO 50

40 Y(1)=0:Y(2)=49:Y(3)=49:Y(4)=0

50 X(1)=20:X(2)=20:X(3)=89:X(4)=89

60 FOR N=0 TO 18:X1=X(4)+I*69:Y1=Y(4)+

J*49:X1=X1*XSCALE+SHIFT:Y1=Y1*YSCALE

70 FOR M=1 TO 4:X2=X(M)+I*69:Y2=Y(M)+J

*49:X2=X2*XSCALE+SHIFT:Y2=Y2*YSCALE

80 COLOR M-INT(M/2)*2+1 :PLOT X1/H,Y1:D

RAWTO X2/H,Y2:Xl=X2:Yl=Y2:NJ=M-INT(M/4)*4+l

90 XD(M)=W1*X(M)+W*X(NJ):YD(M)=W1*Y(M)

+W*Y(NJ):NEXT M

100 FOR P=1 TO 4:X(P)=XD(P):Y(P)=YD(P)

:NEXT P:NEXT N:NEXT J:NEXT I

no goto no

M0D3

Multi-colored hexagons appear in this variation.

3 REM IBM TRANSLATION: COMPUTE

4 REM MOD FUNCTION

5 DIM X(6),Y(6),XD(6),YD(6)

10 W=0.2:Wl=l-W:n=l:XSCALE=1.2:YSCAL

E=1.02:H=2:VRES=218:SHIFT=-35

15 GRAPHICS 31:SETCOLOR 0,1,6:SETCOLOR

2,5,6:SETCOLOR l,8,4:POKE 712,0

20 FOR J=0 TO 2:FOR 1=0 TO 2:IF J=0 AN

D Iol THEN 110

30 E=31*(I=1)

40 X(1)=0:X(2)=25:X(3)=75:X(4)=100:X(5)=75:X(6)=25
50 Y(1)=31:Y(2)=0:Y(3)=0:Y(4)=31:Y(5)=62:Y(6)=62
60 FOR N=0 TO 28:X1=35+X(6)+I*75:Y1=VRES-
Y(6)-J*62-E:Xl=Xl*XSCALE+SHIFT:Yl=YnYSCALE
70 FOR M=1 TO 6:X2=35+X(M)+I*75:Y2=VRE

Page 52

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

S-Y(M)-J*62-E:X2=X2*XSCALE+SHIFT:Y2=Y2*YSCALE
80 COLOR M-INT(M/3)*3+l:PLOT X1/H,Y1:D
RAWTO X2/H,Y2:Xl=X2:Yl=Y2:NJ=M-INT(M/6)*6+l
90 XD(M)=W1*X(M)+W*X(NJ):YD(M)=W1*Y(M)
+W*Y(NJ):NEXT M

100 FOR P=1 TO 6:X(P)=XD(P):Y(P)=YD(P)

:NEXT P:NEXT N
110 NEXT I:NEXT J

120 TEMP=PEEK(710):POKE 710,PEEK(709):

POKE 709,PEEK(708):POKE 708,TEMP
130 FOR S=1 TO 48:NEXT S
140 IF PEEK(53279)=6 THEN 170
150 GOTO 120

160 TEMP=PEEK(708):POKE 708,PEEK(709):

POKE 709,PEEK(710):POKE 710,TEMP
170 FOR S=1 TO 40:NEXT S
180 IF PEEK(53279)=6 THEN 130
190 GOTO 160

MODMOD

A many-colored spiral is formed.

3 REM MOD-MOD

4 REM MOD FUNCTION

5 DIM X(12),Y(12),XD(12),YD(12)

10 W=0.16:W1=1-W:XSCALE=3.8:YSCALE=2.
96:H=1.3:VRES=64:SHIFT=10:SPEED=32
15 GRAPHICS 31:SETCOLOR 0,1,6:SETCOLOR
2,4,2:SETCOLORl,3,4:SETCOLOR 4,0,0
40 X(1)=0:X(2)=5:X(3)=20:X(4)=30:X(5)=45:X(6)=50:
X(7)=50:X(8)=45:X(9)=30:X(10)=20:X(11)=5:X(12)=0
50 Y(1)=26:Y(2)=10:Y(3)=0:Y(4)=0:Y(5)=10:Y(6)=26:Y(7)=39:
Y(8)=55:Y(9)=64:Y(10)=64:Y(11)=55:Y(12)=39
60 FOR N=0 TO 120:X1=X(12):Y1=VRES-
Y(12):X1=X1*XSCALE+SHIFT:Y1=Y1*YSCALE
70 FOR M=1 TO 12:X2=X(M):Y2=VRES-
Y(M):X2=X2*XSCALE+SHIFT:Y2=Y2*YSCALE
80 COLOR M-INT(M/3)*3+l:PLOT X1/H,Y1:D
RAWTO X2/H,Y2:X1=X2:Y1=Y2:NJ=M-INT(M/12)*12+1
90 XD(M)=W1*X(M)+W*X(NJ):YD(M)=W1*Y(M)
+W*Y(NJ):NEXT M

100 FOR P=1 TO 12:X(P)=XD(P):Y(P)=YD(P
):NEXT P:NEXT N

120 TEMP=PEEK(708):POKE 708,PEEK(709):

POKE 709,PEEK(710):POKE 710,TEMP
130 FOR S=1 TO SPEED:NEXT S
140 CK=1-CK:IF CK THEN POKE 53279,CK
150 GOTO 120

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Many developers release their products
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CYl//

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 53

Atari ST/Mega

CN Review

Geography Tutor

Your Electronic World Atlas

Full Maps and Statistical Data Bases
Re vie w by BUI Moes

.There are a couple of ways I
could begin this review.

Sure, I could moan about the
shortage of learning software for
the ST. But, while there is not a
great quantity, the quality is fairly
decent.

Or I could remind you of news
stories that have pointed out how
poorly American students do when
asked fairly basic questions on
world geography. But, as a profes¬
sional educator, I have serious
disagreements with the reports
written by some of those headline-
hungry hustlers.

So, let’s begin this positive
way: Geography Tutor is a new
learning software program for the
Atari ST. It should appeal to a very
wide range of students. It does
what it claims to do, and it does
the job well.

A Simple Little System

The mouse-driven program is
easily used and clear in its presen¬
tation. Select a continent for study.
The choices offered: whole world,
Europe, Africa, North or South
America, and the provinces and
states of the U.S.A. and Canada.
You’ll note that certain regions are
not specifically listed. They’re
available on a supplemental disk,
described below.

At any time during the session,
it’s possible to select a new con¬
tinent, take a look at the world
map, adjust the colors (on a color
monitor, of course), or choose to
turn on/off the playing of national
anthems of some countries. Not all
countries have their anthems avail¬
able on this standard disk. Yes,

another supplemental disk is avail¬
able.

OPTIONS

Hem Continent
World Map
New Colours
i National Rnthen

Once that initial selection is
made, the learning begins. Select
“Identify Regions” from the GEM
menus and you’re shown a map of
the continent. Click on a region. It’s
shaded and identified. Click with
the right mouse button and you’ll
see a screen of information on that
country, 20 or so items. Click with
the left button and you’ll be able to
select another country to identify.
Both buttons return you to the main
menu screen. It’s all simple, direct,
effective.

You may find yourself learning
more than you had planned. The
USA/Canada section, for example,
will have you checking through
some of the lesser-known Arctic
islands as well as the major states/

Identify Regions
Country Quiz
Capitals Quiz

provinces.

Just in Time

Think you’ve got it all down?
Ready for a quiz? It’s possible to
be quizzed on either countries or
capitals. Let’s choose country. One
is named near the bottom of the
screen. Click on the correct region.
It flashes “yes” and your score is
adjusted. A mistake? The one you
chose is named, your score is
adjusted, and you’re asked to try
again. Three attempts are offered,
then the correct country is flashed
and named.

If you want some help, press
the right button. The correct
answer is flashed and identified.
Then you’ll still need to identify that
country. No score changes are

THIS IS HHHT I KHBH HBBBT HICBHBBBB

-

POPULATION (000.8001

LAND AREA €800 NA.l

NICARAGUA

3.49

11875

CAPITAL

X GROUTH POPULATION

CULTIVATED AREA COOO HA1

MANAGUA

2.2

151G

NAIN LANGUAGES

X LESS THAN 13 YEARS OLD

CATTLE HEAD COOO OOOl

SPANISH

48

2.3

NAIN RELIGIONS

BIRTH RATE (per OOO)

CALORIES (X of neodl

CHRISTIAN CATHOLIC

47

109

NOTE 1

DEATH RATE (per 0001

PERSONS PER DOCTOR

12

1800

NOTE 2

LIFE EXPECTANCY Olenl

X LITERACY Olenl

57 :

58

NOTE 3

LIFE EXPECTANCY (Mortenl

X LITERACY (MartenJ

54

57

NOTE 4

GNP PER CAPITA CSUS1

DEFENSE ASCXl OF GNP

792 ;

35

l«»USE^<^^»y»IILS<«>=«l|llSE»IIC*<^R>=l1EI|»I

Data screen (Nicaragua) showing 20 data items plus space for four Notes.

Page 54

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

CN Review

Atari ST/Mega

made if you’ve asked for help. The
scoring process is simple but suffi¬
cient. The numbers right and wrong
are shown, along with the percent
correct.

After you’ve selected the cor¬
rect country, clicking the right but¬
ton will screen that database con¬
taining the 20 pieces of information
for that country.

This information can include:
birthrate, deathrate, life expectancy
(men/women), GNP per capita,
area, cultivated area, persons per
doctor, percent literacy (men/
women), and more.

If you go after the capitals quiz,
the procedure is similar. This pro¬
gram makes excellent use of both
mouse buttons and is structured
with sound educational principles.

COMPARE

The Largest...

The Snallest...

Search Data

Conpare One Country to All
Conpare All Countries

Hello, Hello There!

A major strength of the pro¬
gram is the database of information
on each country. With the numeri¬
cal information, it’s possible to
compare countries based on the
largest or smallest for the titles
from that database.

For example, select “The
Smallest,” then click on literacy
rate. The country with the lowest
literacy rate on that map will be
identified.

It’s possible to “Search Data,”
setting up your own cut-off point.
Maybe you’ll be after a list of
countries with a male literacy rate
of less than 50 percent. Those
countries will be identified and
listed.

Compare one country to all
countries in a region with any one
of the items in the database. Using
our example of literacy rate, select
one country. Countries with a

greater literacy rate will be shaded,
those with a lower literacy rate will
have a different shading.

All countries in a region, or
continent, can be compared for
any one of the items in the data¬
base. Select the item. The coun¬
tries will be shaded and keyed for

CREATE

New Data
New Titles

New Haps _

that item. Then a list of the coun¬
tries, either alphabetically or by
size of the item, can be displayed
on the screen.

In this world where more is
never enough, it’s possible to enter
new, updated, numbers for any
item in the database. And it’s
possible to create new titles for
items, completely redoing the
entire database with information
that may be more helpful to each
individual user. Then these
changes may be loaded separately
or may permanently replace the
supplied information.

Obviously, this offers fine flexi¬
bility in learning software.

There are four boxes in the
database titled “Note.” You can fill
these with your own information.
Or you can load a Degas (com¬
pressed) screen as the Note. That
Degas screen can, obviously, in¬
clude illustrations and/or text.

Does all of this sound interest¬
ing? Maybe a closer look would be
helpful. Try the demo disk: CN ST
Library disk 384. Geography Tutor
runs in color (medium resolution)
or monochrome.

Drop That Name

Geography Tutor ($39.95)
covers a lot, but not everything.
Supplemental disks are available. A
disk of maps and data for the
Middle East, eastern Asia, islands
in the western Pacific, and pro¬
vinces of France and Spain is
offered ($15). A second supple¬
mental disk containing the national
anthem of every country in the
world can also be ordered ($20).

The most exciting supplemen¬
tal disk is a construction set ($30).
Using your own Degas-format
map, this construction set allows
you to create your own map/data
base. The publisher of Geography
Tutor will then list your product in
its annual bulletin.

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 55

Atari ST/Mega

Incidentally, the maps in Geography Tutor were
created with Antic Software’s Maps and Legends,
another excellent product for geography students.

Students in 5th grade learn the U.S. states and
capitals. This program will help. Students in 6th grade
usually learn world countries and capitals. Again, help
here. Students in junior high and high school need to
know additional details on many countries in the
world. Right here. And beginning college students
often are asked to take a basic geography course.
Again, Geography TutorXo the rescue.

Few computer learning programs can so effec¬
tively cover such a wide range of students. With a
snapshot accessory, maps created could be included
in school reports. High schools sometimes compete in
academic challenges where geography questions are
popular. Example: What country is located between
Somalia and Sudan? Geography Tutor could be a
great aid to students reviewing this type of informa¬
tion. (...it’s Ethiopia.)

The documentation is a 20-page booklet that
clearly explains the features of the software and
carefully guides you through the program. The single¬
sided disk is not copy-protected, although a serial
number must sometimes be entered when beginning
the program.

The Party’s Over

So, with Geography Tutor we have an extremely
well-designed program that offers help to students
from 5th grade through college. It’s easily used and,
with the supplemental disks available, amazingly
open-ended.

We’ll not whine about the lack of ST software.
We’ll not listen to the self-serving critics.

We’ll take a look at Geography Tutor and know
we’ve got a winner! I was most impressed.

[ASDE Inc., Geographie, 151 rue Jolicoeur, Hull,
Quebec, Canada J8Z1C8J

COUNT

ANGOLA

E s1^7eoh

NIGER

SOMALIA

CHAD

MAURITANIA
BURKINA FAS
MALI REPUPB
GABON

gFGHgrusrAN

GAMBIA

c*!n§8 uti

SAUDI ARABI
UNITED ARAB

NEPAL

PAPUA NEM G

BURUNDI

PAKISTAN

MADAGASCAR

MOROCCO

3 iraHI

TTT

8

1 INDIA

56

10

Iegvpt

56

10

ISOUTH AFRIC

57

10

Inicaragua

58

12

IUORV COAST

58

14

LESOTHO

58

16

CENTRAL AFR

59

17

GUATEMALA

59

18

ALGERIA

60

19

TUNISIA

bl

22

CAMBODIA

62

26

RUANDA

62

27

27

CAMEROUN

SUAZILAND

64

64

30

KENYA

64

30

UGANDA

64

30

HONDURAS

64

30

SURINAME

68

31

IRAQ

68

33

BOTSUANA

69

34

KUUEIT

70

38

EL SALVADOR

70

39

SYRIA

74

39

BRAZIL

75

39

DOMINICAN R

75

41

JORDAN

76

41

LIBYA

77

Upper left hand corner of screen showing worldwide literacy rates.

GEOGRAPHY TUTOR v2.5

THE UORLD

HOLLUCIPE PRPJCCTIOH

This program provides ATARI ST owners with an electronic atlas of the
world. You can learn about all the countries in the world. Not only are there
maps available, but there is also a full data base of useful facts concerning
each country. There are 20 items of standard information from the United
Nations office of statistics

You can have access to maps and databases of:

THE WORLD NORTH AMERICA

SOUTH AMERICA EUROPE

AFRICA STATES and PROVINCES OF N.A

You will find facts on such things as:
MAJOR RELIGIONS
NAME OF CAPITAL
GROWTH RATE POPULATION
DOCTORS PER CAPITA
LAND BASE

AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTION
MILITARY SPENDING

MAJOR LANGUAGES
POPULATION
LIFE EXPECTANCY
LITERACY RATES
CROP LAND
GNP

EDUCATION SPENDING.

There is a special data base for each of the 50 US states. It has
information on education, health and other social expenditures as well as
many other statistics from the 1989 publication of the US Bureau of the
Census.

You can view all facts, you can also plot them on the maps. You can
compare countries, search facts to be plotted, order lists alphabetically or by
size etc. All the facts can be displayed on the screen and compared or rank
ordered between countries. You can update facts or insert new information
in free fields. You can also create your own data base without affecting
the standard base provided with the program.

Version 2.5 has the added feature of playing the music from the national
anthem of many of the countries displayed. A disk with ALL national
anthems is available separately.

TO •OMXBik; (by mail) ASi&iE

$39.95 151 rue Jolicoeur

Hull, Quebec
CANADA J8Z 1C8

TO ORDER (byphm*) VISA, MASTERCARD, AMX
CHIANG COMPUTERS
(613) 230-2854

For all ST/MEGA mono and colour. Packaged in compact
box with fully illustrated manual and four colour cover.
Single sided disk. The only full money back guaranty in
the software business. WE TRUST YOU.

Page 56

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

CN Review

Atari ST/Mega

U/ltlow

The Computer Game ... Enter CN’s New Contest!
Re vie w by Bill Moes

n evil queen. Magic. Unlikely heroes. A
quest. Welcome to Willow.

A popular movie in 1988, Willow, full of adventure,
was an obvious candidate for a computer game. After
all, if something is successful as a movie, it should be
successful as a computer game. Right? ...sure. Maybe
the real word is “$ucce$$ful.”

Into the Woods

Fans of the movie will find much that is familiar.
Start with the scroll. Read and learn the story. And
know that the scroll is also a doorway. For those
words highlighted offer transport to parts of that story.

Select “Dungeons” and find yourself in a maze of
corridors. Move quickly or find great danger in your
path. Avoid the traps. Carefully.

And don’t forget the Daikini crossroads. Cross the
“Woods” to get there. Nockmaar troops will attack.
Armed with magic acorns, you may be lucky. You
must be swift and cunning.

Other adventures in Willow include the challenge
of “Spellcasting,” choosing the correct three of 13
runic charms. And the “Ice Caves” are good for a
chilling thrill. Slide the path leading to safety or go
tearing into the side of the cave, destroyed. And
finally, the “Battle.” Be a swordsman in your quest to
defeat the evil Kael.

Willow can be played in quest or practice mode.
The quest mode will challenge with all the dangers
and obstacles in the proper order. In practice mode,
choose just one of the obstacles for practice.

The documentation claims that input can be by
keyboard, mouse, or joystick. Willow, a two-disk
program, requires a color monitor and runs on a
standard 520 ST.

Potties

So: how does Willow rate? Alas, not well. It’s
been a long time since I’ve been so disappointed in a
game.

It’s almost a software axiom that popular movies
make poor computer games. W/llowlils that rule.

The graphics are decent enough, although
nothing terribly spectacular. The music and sound are
acceptable, although certainly not noteworthy.

The gameplay, though, is most unfortunate. I
never was able to get the mouse to work properly.
And the keyboard and joystick seemed to work fitfully.

Different game modules took sometime beyond
forever to load. And they didn’t stay in memory. If, for
example, you choose to practice the “Ice Caves,” that
section will need to be reloaded if you choose to
immediately try it a second time. It’s an agonizingly
slow process.

The actual game modules, which reflect major
action sequences from the movie, seemed dull and
simple in design. To be fair, I was not a fan of the
movie. Like too many Lucasfilm spectaculars, WH/ow
(The Movie) seemed more interested in flashy special
effects than in sincerely telling a story the audience
could care about.

And Willow (The Computer Game) ($49.95) has
managed to capture that shallowness.

So, what is there left to write? Well ... this one
growls and barks. Don’t buy W/How. Period.

^.ssasins

But, okay, let’s have some fun!

How about a contest?

Yep, once again Current Notes leads the way with
true reader participation.

I was disappointed with Willow. Sure, something
like that has happened to all of us at one time or
another. So, let’s take out our frustrations and nail 'em!
Pick your most disappointing Atari game, 8-bit or ST.
In around 25 words, give us the “why” on your Edsel
of Atariland. Scratch it down on a letter/postcard and
send it off via. good ol’ U.S.P.S. to: Frank Sommers
(you ^volunteer, didn’t you, Frank?), 4624 Langdrum
Lane, Chevy Chase, MD 20815. Deadline: the end of
the month (//?/£month! i.e. February).

Frank will choose one (maybe out of a hat?) as
the grand prize winner. Extra credit given if you can
explain how the subtitles in this review are related to
each other.

Will Current Notes publish the entries? Maybe.
Maybe not.

And what will we have for the winner’s prize? Why
... you guessed it... my copy of Willow.

[Mindscape, 3444 Dundee Road, Northbrook, /L
60062]

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 57

Atari ST/Mega

CN Review

BATTLE FOR THE BIBLE

Four of Them, Count ‘Em, Four

By Timothy E. Rapson

Finally!

Four years of tears and we
finally may have some Bible study
software available for the ST!

In December 1985 I plunked
down $1,000 for a 520 ST with
double-sided drive and color
monitor. At the time this poor for¬
mer seminarian was reading with
great anticipation reports that a
California com¬
pany would buy
hard disks
directly from
Atari (with an
anticipated
dealer cost of
$200), install the
entire Bible in
three versions,
plus Greek and
Hebrew (the
original languages of the Old and
New Testaments), and sell them,
drive and all, for $400. Boy, was I an
idiot. I believed the whole thing.

Four years older and wiser, and
thousands of dollars poorer I like
my ST, but I missed the Bible on
disk. Now, in the Summer of the
ST’s life, four programs have
appeared that threaten to make
computerized Bible study an excit¬
ing possibility. They are, Super
Search, Seeker, Godspeed, and
Spiritware Concordance. These
programs take very different
approaches to searching the Bible
for words and phrases.

We can forgive the lack of
software to this point by the fact
that Bible searching has been im¬
peded on all computers by the
elephantine proportions of the task.
The Bible takes up 4.6 megabytes
in ASCII format. Compression rou¬
tines in Franklin’s new handheld

Bible compress that to only one
meg, but these compressions can
slow searches a great deal. The
information must be de¬
compressed, then searched, then
saved and then a new section
started on, and so forth, and so
forth. It can all take a long time.
Yet, without compression we are
doomed to search four times the
information;
also a slow
process. Two
of the pro¬
grams here,
Godspeed and
Spiritware
Concordance,
deal with the
immensity of
the searching
task by acting
more like databases than word
processors. They don’t use the
mere ASCII text of the Bible, but
make there own data files that
store the text and a list of its
vocabulary in special ways. They
are fast and they allow many types
of sorts. Seeker and Super Search
find words and phrases just as a
word processor would. They are
slow, they have limited
sorts of searches, and they
are slow. Did I mention that
they are slow?

Real Dedication

I must commend Rod¬
ney E. Haun who wrote
Super Search and Larry
Mears who wrote Seeker.

They have obviously done
an incredible amount of
work. It appears that Haun
actually typed in the Bible
text (or substantial parts of

it) on an Atari 8 bit. This is dedica¬
tion. Larry Mears has shown his
love for his work by releasing the
entire work as public domain. Each
of these programs have some nice
features (see chart). Nonetheless, I
can’t recommend them. They are
written for 520 & 1040 ST’s without
hard drives and use standard slow
search routines like a word proces¬
sor. Almost anything you can do
with them would be better
accomplished with a Bible concor¬
dance and a pencil.

Godspeed & Concordance are
in another ball park playing the
game with the best of the field.
Godspeed is also available for the
IBM & compares well with the
prolific competition there. Concor¬
dance, while unique to the ST (a
Mac version is in the works) was
written with the faster seek routines
that set professional Bible search
programs apart from the “home
brew” versions.

Godspeed is a fascinating
example of speed. To use the
program requires a hard drive. You
begin with four double-sided disks
full of King James Bible data. Run
the Makekjv.tos (make King James

Page 58

Current Notes

Vol. 9, No. 10

CN Review

Atari ST/Mega

Version) on disk #4 and the pro¬
gram asks you where to write the
2.3 megabyte data file to. Insert
each of the disks in the correct
order and they are “glued” together
into one huge file on the hard drive.
Copy the Godspeed program to the
same directory and double-click on
it. You are then greeted with a stark
text screen that looks like a typical
program of the IBM world. The word
“find” followed by a blinking cursor
about half way down the screen is
the only useful information pro¬
vided. Here is the definitive state¬
ment about this whole program...
“find.” If you want to find a word or
phrase in the King James Version of
the Bible this one will find it for you
fast, fast, fast.

Limited Utility

The problem is that this is all
the program will do. You can’t save
the verses to disk. You can’t view
them in context (and the way the

program works I don’t look for this
to change). You can’t print them.
Godspeed is a fascinating look at
how quickly an ST can access
large files from a hard disk, but as a
Bible study tool it is of very limited
value. As a speed study it may be
worth $30. It is not worth the $100
list price.

The real power and hope of
this group stands with Spiritware’s
Concordance. This program does it
all and does it well. It is one of the
most elegant implementations of
GEM I’ve ever seen. It will find your
word, verse, or phrase fast. You

may save your work to disks or print
it on your printer. Complicated
searches rival database power.
There is only one drawback in the
current version. It will search only
the New Testament. Concordance
2.0 should be ready by the new
year, with even more features and
the whole Bible in King James or
New International Versions. But, let
us not repeat the over-optimism of
four years ago. The future may look
bright for this one, but even in its
current form, it is a winner. The
bottom line may be the best feature
of all. You can have it free. It is on
Genie as shareware. (Hopefully, as
you read this it will be in the Current
Notes public domain library as well)
But, PLEASE send the authors $15
for the full manual and most recent
version. If we can get Don Clifton
enough money for a MEGA 4, laser
printer, and bigger faster hard disk
there’s no telling how far Concor¬
dance czx\ go.

Best, and Worst, Features

Published by: Rodney Haun, Computers As
Seeker Tutors, 325 May Court, Mt. Zion, IL 62549. Various

Best Features: Least expensive, searches whole programs, versions and data files (Old &/or New
Bible, faster than Super Search, probably the best PD. Testaments) $5 to $50.

Limits: Slow, requires multiple disk swaps to
search whole Bible. Can take as long as 45 minutes to Godspeed

search whole bible even from hard disk. Best Features: Fast, does some complex

Recommendations: With apologies to Larry searching, & contains whole Bible.

Mears for all of his hard work, this program is probably Limits: Will not save verses, print them out, or
not a worthwhile Bible study tool for most of us. show them in context.

Published by: Larry Gene Mears, Ph. HAUG BBS Recommendations: Not worth $100 in its cur-
205-461-7893. Available in the Current Notes public rent state and is not likely to be upgraded,
domain library on six dsdd disks for $24. Published by: Kingdom Age Software, 3368

Governor Drive Suite F-197, San Diego, CA 92122.
Super Search, Word Search, The Talking ph 619-586-1082
Bible:

Best Features: Shows verses in context, actually Spiritware’s Concordance
speaks verses as requested using Atari’s own voice Best Features: Fast, full-featured, inexpensive,
synthesis routine, inexpensive, eight bit version avail- easy to learn & use, good support, promising future,
able. Limits: Currently available with only New Testa-

Limits: Slow, loads only small portions of the text ment.
at a time for searches. Recommendations: Buy this program now.

Recommendations: With apologies to Rodney Published by: Spiritware, c/o Fifteenth Avenue
Haun for all of his hard work, this program is probably Bible Church, 15211 15th Avenue NE, Seattle, WA
not a worthwhile Bible study tool for most of us. 98155

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 59

Atari XL/XE

CN Review

I was given the copy of
this program by Timothy
Rapson, to review it, prior
to its being given as a door
prize at the Second Annual
Central Illinois Computer-
fest, and I find the program
to be good for what it does.

My first major complaint is that
nowhere on the package, or on the
disks, are booting instructions writ¬
ten. When I booted it up, it locked
up on me. Because it didn’t say it, I
didn’t enable BASIC in my 800XL.
Instead, I tried my trusty BASIC XL
cartridge. This caused it to change
the screen color, and sent the
cursor racing down the screen into
never-never land. Naturally, I re¬
moved my BASIC XL cartridge,
pressed Reset, held down the
OPTION key to enable BASIC
(Turbo-OS for the Turbo-816), and
it worked. Considering the AUTO-
RUN.SYS loader used, the publish¬
ers could have made the one minor
change to allow the program to
work with the OSS Supercartridge
languages.

The program is not copy pro¬
tected. In fact, the authors allow
you to make copies and to give
them out. BBS SysOps may place
the data disks on-line, and if they
send their name and the BBS
phone number to the authors, they
will provide updates.

The package comes on seven,
double-sided (flippie) disks,
employing Atari DOS 2.0S. Since
they aren’t copy-protected, they
can be converted over to any other
DOS that is compatible with DOS
2.0S.

If you leave them on the DOS
2.0 disks, and use them, when you
enter in the Book you wish to read,
as well as the chapter you want to
read, you have to switch the disks
to make sure the proper disk is in
the drive. Although the docs say
the program will only search on
drives 1 and 2,1 was unable to use
any drive other than 1, without

getting an Error-160. This is time
consuming, but the entire package
should fit very nicely in a one
megabyte MIO, or a one megabyte
Ramdisk upgraded 8-bit computer.
This would make it virtually
memory resident and would allow
for reading the Bible a lot faster.

Some of the verses, due to
length, are divided up and made
part of the following verse, due to
screen size limitations. An XEP80,
Bit3, or Omniview 80-column ver¬
sion would probably solve this.

The major problem is the Word
Search disk. Once again, it didn’t
say it required BASIC or not, so I
assumed it did, booted it up, and
nothing but the familiar READY
prompt appeared. Apparently it
makes an illegal Operating System
call to the 8-bit computer line. Yes,

I had to switch over to a 400/800
Operating System in the form of
either my Newell OSNXL, or my
Omniview 80, Operating System, in
order to get it to function. Once
again, nowhere does it say it
requires BASIC, nor does it say it
will not function properly on the
XL/XE operating system, without a
translator disk.

Needless to say, these pro¬
blems can be fixed very easily by
modifying the AUTORUN.SYS file
to not use the illegal entry point in
the operating system, but unless
you are prepared for this, the
software can prove to be very
frustrating!!

The Search feature asks for a
word or phrase, then allows you to
enter a second word or phrase. It
asks for the drive identifier: D1, D2,
D3, D4, or BYE to bypass drive
output. Naturally, I assumed that I

could enter a different
drive number. After try¬
ing “D3” for my US
Doubled 1050, it gave
me an Error-160, so I
tried again with “D1,”
and I still received an
Error-160! I finally gave up and
typed in BYE to bypass the disk
drives.

After entering the search cri¬
teria, the program prompts you to
enter the disk in drive 1. This is
where the MIO, RAMdisk, or even a
hard drive, set-up with Sparta-
Dos’s, or MYDOS’s redirection
command as drive 1 would come in
handy.

The program then searches the
text file by loading it into memory,
then searching verse by verse for
any occurrence of the phrase or
words typed in. It displays the verse
with the match found, and gives
you the option to continue, go to
the next chapter, print the verse, or
exit.

I tried this, using the standard
disks. It will find a match for any
occurrence of the string in a word
(e.g., if you type in “love,” it will
also find “loved,” “unloved,” etc.).

The copy I got came with an
index already printed out, so I
could locate which chapters and
books were on which disk. Users
can also print out a directory from
the main menu, when they first
boot it up and choose the Direc¬
tions option. One printing flaw is
that the program only prints to one
side of each page.

The program is a very good
implementation of the Holy Bible,
and would do well for someone
who needs to find a phrase, or
otherwise wants to read various
chapters and verses from books in
the Bible.

fThe Holy Bible, The New Tes¬
taments, Computers as Tutors!, 325
May Court, Mt. Zion, IL 62549. 8-bit
version cost $20. OO.]

Page 60

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

CN Review

Atari XL/XE

1989 Tax Advantage

Needed: 600 Copies to Make 1990!
Review by Richard Caldwell

Simon & Schuster, Inc. has added the best selling
program Tax Advantage, by Harry Koons and Henry
Hilton, to its family of tax preparation software. This
program is available in versions for the IBM, Apple II,
Macintosh, Commodore 64/128, and Atari ST com¬
puters. The program was produced by Double Eagle
software who will continue to publish a version for the
Atari 800/XL/XE 8-bit computers. This may be the last
year for the 8-bit version unless more interest is
shown by users. The goal is to increase sales by 600
units to pay for the cost of the annual updates.
Versions of the program for all listed computers are
available directly from Double Eagle software, but that
is the only source for the 8-bit version. Ordering
instructions have been included at the end of this
review.

As a satisfied user of this tax preparation program
since the 1983 tax year, I would be very unhappy to
see another excellent 8-bit software program discon¬
tinued. I hope that by reviewing this program for you,
some additional interest and sales will be stimulated
which will continue its annual publication and update.

The Tax Advantage program is provided with a
detailed instruction book which is very well written,
easy to read and includes a complete table of
contents and index. Most users will be successful in
using the program without extensive study of these
instructions except to answer questions about more
complicated tax returns.

The tax program is very user friendly with a series
of menus for the various tax forms beginning with
Form 1040. Shown below is an example of the menu
for this form beginning with line 7. These numbers
correspond to the lines on Form 1040.

*** FORM 1040 ***

—>

INCOME

7

WAGES, FORM W-2

0

★ ★

empl.bus.exp.

0

★ ★

wages, tips etc.

0

8a

TAXABLE INT. INC.[B]

0

8b

TAX-EXEMPT INT. INC.

0

9

DIVIDEND INCOME [B]

0

10

TAX REFUNDS

0

11

ALIMONY RECEIVED

0

e-:

Enter I-Itemize L-Line

Q-Quit

u-

UP D-Down F-Forward

R-Reverse

+

- A X H-Help O-Option

T-Tax

The arrow is moved to the desired line using the
up or down keys, and the action for that line selected
from the user choices on the menu at the bottom of
the screen. The forward and reverse keys select the
next or previous screen of lines of the form. Schedule
A is reached by selecting the key to itemize line 34 on
the Form 1040. Other schedules or forms can be
reached by itemizing lines with the corresponding
letter or number in brackets. The tax program recog¬
nizes the interrelationship of data entered on the
various forms and flags lines with an “x” to indicate
that these lines must be itemized one last time to
complete the final calculation of the income tax due.
The help function provides more information about the
selected line. It is a good idea to use this function
before making an entry to insure that you are using
the correct line.

All of the tax payer information and tax form data
is recorded on a data disk which is separate from the
program disks. Two disk drives are not required but
highly desirable since they preclude frequent disk
swapping as data is entered for the various forms. The
authors recommend that back-up copies be made of
both the program disks and the data disks using the
J-duplicate disk DOS option. These disks do not have
copy protection, and the authors request that you
respect their copyright.

Using a 9-pin dot matrix printer, the program can
print completed forms which are approved by the IRS,
except for the Atari 8-bit version. The 8-bit version
prints all of the IRS approved schedules and forms
except for Form 1040. This Form is printed in a draft
format listing dollar amounts by line number to
facilitate transfer to the IRS printed form.

The prices for this year’s programs for the 1989
tax year are $25.95 for the Atari 800, 800XL, 65XE, or
130XE with 48K RAM and $35.95 for the Atari ST.
Shipping is $3.50 with $3.50 additional for UPS Blue
Label. Telephone orders are accepted at 1-800-
443-0100, ext. 315m.

Please call me at (703) 356-4248 if you have
questions about this program, or call Double Eagle
Software at (213) 212-6611.

I hope that this review has been of interest and
that enough 8-bit users will buy the program so that
Double Eagle will achieve its goal of 600 new
customers nationwide which will enable them to
continue production of the Atari 8-bit version of the
program in future years.

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 61

Atari ST/Mega

CN Review

Kidpublisher Professional

Desktop Publishing for Kids in School

_by Georgia Weatherhead_

KidPublisher Professional has
added and lost some features from
the KidPubiisher I first viewed and
loved. This Professional desktop
publishing program is targeted for
elementary and preschool using a
520 ST with single-sided disk
drives. It cannot be put on double¬
sided disks or into the hard drive.
Yet it is worth the minimal cost to
get it for your child three to nine
years old to use at home.

Using the limited memory of
single-sided disks, the program
must be limited in itself.

Text Screens

The good news for the text part
of this desktop publishing for chil¬
dren is the addition of the title page
for the five-page booklet that can
be made. There is also a choice of
one of four different fonts that can
be adapted according to the curri¬
culum of the school using this DTP.

Some schools start children
printing upper case and lower case
with simply drawn letters. The sans
serif font will be familiar to these
children. It is available in small
lettering or large bold lettering.
Other schools use a font more akin
to cursive handwriting. The slanted
D’Nealian font will be more useful
for these children. For posters, an
outline font is available. Only one
font can be used for a book.

The CapsLock, space bar, Shift,
Backspace, and Delete keys work
with the alphanumeric keys in the
same way they always do.

The bad news for the text may
not be bad at all. Let us just say it is
a different feature. There used to be
a LOAD function whereby a book
saved could be brought up from the
past. Now the saved book is auto¬
matically loaded when the program

is loaded. Get rid of it by clicking
the BLANK function to start a new
book. The HELP function on screen
is no longer available, which again
is ok, because a child couldn’t read
it anyway. The bright red 24-page
manual can give the teacher the
information quickly. The teacher
can carry the manual from com¬
puter to computer (if lucky enough
to have several 520 STs in the
classroom.) However, the pro¬
cedures are not so complicated
that a manual is needed very long.
This is meant to be so easy a
three-year-old can use it.

Children will love this creative
program where they make their
very own stories and
illustrations.

Graphics Screens

Good news for graphics are the
best yet. The picture at the top of
each page originally could only be
drawn with freehand use of the
mouse. This procedure of drawing
on a horizontal plane of the table
and seeing it on the vertical plane
of the monitor is a very difficult
operation for young children (and
us older left brain types.) Now
there are circle, rectangle, line, and
10 pattern fill features added to the
free hand draw. The ERASE func¬
tion has three features—pixel
erase, small box erase, large box
erase.

EXIT has been removed from
the graphic screen. Exiting can
only be done from the text screen.
The name has been changed to
SAVE, but the procedures remain
the same. I have mixed emotions
about changing the name EXIT to
SAVE. Exit is a word all children

should be familiar with because of
its use in all public buildings such
as schools, movies, stores, libraries,
and malls. As a teacher, I just
appreciate the use of a lifesaving
word in many situations.

The original Kidpub/isher had a
program CONTROL.ACC with
accompanying DESKTOP.INF to be
added to the disk if the printer did
not print properly. I tried to add
these because mine does not.
There was not enough disk memory
with the new graphics to add these
to Kidpublisher Professional. The
new instructions suggested getting
Tom Hudson’s program to make
your own printer driver. I do not
know when I would get around to
that.

However, I called D.A.Brumleve
to tell her my problems, which
turned out to be with TOS 1.4. She
had the solution right away and
sent instructions of how to adjust
the Desktop information to center
the print. These instructions will be
included in the new manuals.

One does get personal help
with KidPubiisher Professional im¬
mediately from the writer, a feature
not always available with ST soft¬
ware. Support will be given by
means of GEnie, CompuServe, Del¬
phi, phone, or mail. You cannot
beat that support.

An added nicety to the Profes¬
sional package are six preprinted
labels for your copies. Each child
should have his own disk.

I could bore you with the edu¬
cational values of this program
mentioning all kinds of skills to be
developed, but it is better I tell you
that the children will love this crea¬
tive program where they make their
very own stories and illustrations.

Page 62

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

How much is YOUR
time worth?

- W7.

Turbo ST turns your 520/1040 ST into a speed
demon. Check out Turbo ST at your local dealer
or download our free demo from your favorite
bulletin board.

Upgrades to version 1.6 are only $5 with your
original disk. For more information, call (407)
657-4611, or write to SofTrek, P.O. Box 5257,
Winter Park, FL 32793.

DOES YOUR KID THINK THE ST IS A GAME MACHINE?

Kidpublisher Professional

A Desktop Publishing Program for Young Writers

Kidpublisher Professional represents a major enhancement of
D.A. Brumleve’s freely-distributed careware program, Kidpublisher.
Version 6.0 has been completely rewritten to bring your child:

an automatically-loaded font set (4 sets included)

Q3* a faster word processor with word wrap, an underline option,
and movement of the text cursor with mouse or arrow keys
03* a greatly-expanded drawing program with features such as
LINE, CIRCLE, BOX, FILL, and the all-important UNDO
03* a title page option which automatically centers your title,
author, and illustrator

03* many minor additions and improvements

ss*"is? I I

sional-looking books ,# t °

and other documents. b g trw bcsidt ny ham. I con
! The kidfriendly features cl ,nb thot and I nant to
you’ve come to expect build a trathousa whan ny dad is

from the author’s NiIIing to lat na u*a a hannar.

kidprgs series com- Ha sags naybe I can next suraier!

bine to make this pro- Page i

gram accessible to the - - ■ -

youngest Of writers. TO Kidpublisher Professional’s typing

order your Child’s copy, screen is shown above. Five pages of text

see your dealer or send and 9 ra P hics are automatically loaded

a check for US$25 to- with the pr0 9 rar7V Each printed page has a

* picture at the top and text below.

D.A. BBUMLEVE

P.O. Box 4195 REQUIRES COLOR MONITOR

UrbdflB IL 61801 Printer must accept an ST screen dump.

Demo version available for $5. Dealer inquiries welcome. I

THE ONE PLACE FOR
ALL ATARI OWNERS

The Electronic Clinic is the one-stop shop for all your Atari needs. If you own or would like to purchase
ANYTHING with the Atari name on it, we are the people to talk to for sales, service and support. We carry a full
line of software, accessories and peripherals for:

o Atari 2600 and 5200 and XE game machines
o Atari 400,800,800XL, 1200XL, 65XE and 130XE 8-bit computers
o Atari 520ST and 1040ST 16-bit computers, and
e>the new Atari Mega ST computers!

We also provide factory-authorized service on all Atari-manufactured products. We have been in the
service/repair business for 20 years, repairing stereo and video equippment, and have been servicing Atari
computers for 8 years.

At The Electronic Clinic, we are dedicated to providing all Atari owners with the tools they need to get the
most out of their computers. Give us a call or drop by for a visit! We take personal checks and cash (No Credit
Cards) and are open Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays until 6, Thursdays until 8, and Saturdays
from 9 to 2.

MAIL ORDERS ARE WELCOME!

THE ELECTRONIC CLINIC

4916 Del Ray Avenue, Bethesda, MD 20814

(301) 656-7983

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 63

Atari ST/Mega

CN Review

T V Sports Football

Easing The Postseason Letdown

Reviewed by George Hulseman

It was about a month ago when
I casually informed my family I
would be conducting important
research for an upcoming review
and to not disturb me for any
reason. I then crept into the con¬
fines of what is known in my
household as the computer room
(equipped with an ST and a 130 XE)
and loaded up TV Sports: Football,
a football simulation from Cinema-
ware which, in fact, has nothing to
do with television.

After several hours of careful
research I have no doubts about
the quality and effort that must have
gone into the making of this pro¬
gram. While TV Sports: Football has
its flaws, including a rather major
one which I will describe later, the
selling points of this game are most
impressive, making it one of the
best ST sports simulations around.

“So real it sweats!” the game
box proclaims and rightly so. This
entertaining sports simulation com¬
bines good arcade action with the
strategy of pro football. TV Sports:
Football features superb graphics
and animation while allowing you to
compete in a 28-team league
made up of either computer or
human-controlled teams or a com¬
bination of both. The games follow
the rules of professional football
very closely, taking into account
field goals, extra points, safeties,
and penalties. You can play alone
or against other humans, taking a
team of your making to the cham¬
pionship final.

The ST version of this game is a
pretty straightforward football simu¬
lation with none of the gimmicks
that accompany some of the other
versions. The Amiga version, for
instance, actually has “commer¬
cials” in an attempt to mimic foot¬

ball as you see it on television. As
far as I’m concerned such gim¬
mickry becomes tiresome and the
game is better off without it.

What TV Sports: Football does
have is excellent graphics and fluid
animation that is both visually
appealing and realistic. Each of the
28 teams competing in the league
has its unique traits, some having
fairly strong offensive tendencies
and others with the accent on
defense. Each team can be altered
and saved to disk, including the
team you control which can be
adapted to your specific game
plan. This can be done in edit
mode only before the season starts
so there can be no changing
around in mid-season.

When editing a team, each
player is assigned an overall rating,
his skills adjusted according to how
many “talent points” he is allotted.
Your number one player receives
the most talent points and therefore
excels in all four categories: speed,
strength, hands, and ability. The
way you distribute the talent points
determines the strengths and
weaknesses of that particular
player. For example, you will pro¬
bably want to emphasize the
“strength” of your punter at the
expense of his “hands” ability,
which is essentially his ability to
hold on to a ball. For a wide
receiver or running back, speed is
probably most important. How you
divide up the talent points on your
team has a direct bearing on that
team’s ability to win games.

The season in TV Sports: Foot¬
balls 16 games long, as it is in the
National Football League. Teams
with the best records go on to the
playoffs as do two “wild card”
teams from each conference. The

winners of the two wild card games
advance to the conference semi¬
finals and the winners of the semi¬
finals then proceed to the con¬
ference championship. Finally, the
two conference champions meet in
the championship game, a sort of
video “Super Bowl.”

Playing TV Sports: Football
takes some time to learn, but is not
too difficult to master. There is
enough variety in the number of
plays available to provide an im¬
petus for experimentation. On
offense you control the player with
the ball. When passing you control
the intended receiver both before
and after he catches the ball. To
throw the ball you move your quar¬
terback behind the line of scrim¬
mage and then aim somewhere
upfield where, hopefully, your
receivers will be running their pass
routes unhindered by pass defen¬
ders. By pushing the joystick button
and holding it down, you control
just how far the ball is tossed.

Quarterbacks with high strength
ratings can throw the ball as far as
John Elway. If your receivers are
well-covered you can hold on to
the ball and try to run upfield
Randall Cunningham style. Or you
can throw it away, either out of
bounds or somewhere away from
the coverage. If you hold on for too
long you can be called for offensive
holding. You can also get penalized
for intentional grounding.

On defense you can shift con¬
trol between four linebackers
before the ball is hiked and then
either try to cover one of the
receivers or go after the quarter¬
back. Sacks are both gratifying and
rare, and can be attempted without
too much risk if you assign the
other linebackers to cover the pass.
You’ll occasionally get burned,
especially if you are on an all-out
blitz of the quarterback. Defensively
you can get called for being off¬
sides or encroachment, both five
yard penalties.

On both defense and offense
the computer will take over for you

Page 64

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

CN Review

Atari ST/Mega

if you do not input any moves with
your joystick after a period of a few
seconds. Although this is intended
to make it easier for beginners, it
can become irritating if, for in¬
stance, you want your quarterback
to remain in the pocket while wide
receivers are getting open. The
computer will also choose forma¬
tions and plays for you if you do not
choose one after about eight
seconds. In fact, the computer will
take over completely if you would
rather put the joystick down and
simply watch.

While graphics are outstanding
in TV Sports: Football, the sound is
virtually non-existent. Just about all
you’ll hear is a theme song that
plays before games and the clicks
when you enter in each play. Don’t
expect any cheering when you
score a touchdown unless you have
an audience in the room with you.

The program saves all teams’
standings following each week of
play. When you are ready to play
press continue season from the
menu and you will see a schedule
of that week’s games. Select the
game involving your (human-con-
trolled) team and you will go to the
playing field to witness the coin
toss and then begin play. Results
from around the league are deter¬
mined automatically by the com¬
puter. If you want to watch a
contest between two computer-
controlled teams simply choose
that option when the schedule of
games is displayed.

Games involving the team you
control can also be determined in
auto mode if you want to weed out
your easy opponents by letting the
computer determine the results. If
you’re competing in a multi-player
league and one of the players isn’t
available for his game, you can
have the computer decide the
game for him. No one can advance
to the next week until all the games
from the current week are decided.

As the season progresses, the
league standings are automatically

saved to disk. If you lose in the
playoffs, you’re no longer in the
running, although you have the
option of turning the computer off if
it looks like you’re going to lose.
You can also make copies of your
game disk at any stage of the
season. The game disk is not
copy-protected; you can make all
the backups you need. We all
know, however, the consequences
of distributing illegal copies of pro¬
grams: less profits for the develop¬
ers and less likelihood for con¬
tinued support of Atari computers.

There is a rather significant
problem that apparently only
affects some of the STs out there,
including the machine I own. For
some mysterious reason the first
playoff game involving a human-
controlled team does not save to
disk, effectively preventing a player
from competing in subsequent
playoff games and ultimately the
championship final. The folks at
Cinemaware are aware of the pro¬
blem, but they have not corrected it
yet because they don’t know
what’s causing it. A spokesman
from the company told me the
failure is probably somehow linked
to hardware since they are unable
to duplicate the problem on their
computers using disks returned by
irate customers such as myself.
The company will send you a
replacement disk, but it probably
won’t do any good. I have not yet
received mine, but I am willing to
wait until the problem is corrected
while I use my backup copy.

Despite this rather serious flaw,
there is a way to take a human-
controlled team to the playoffs.
Allow the computer to determine
the results of the first playoff game.
If the computer decides you are
the victor, then that first game
registers and the league position is
saved. You can then play the
remaining playoff game and the
championship final successfully.

If you go into the playoffs as a
wild card team, you will experience

the problem in both the wild card
game and the conference cham¬
pionship. I took a team of my own
making all the way to the cham¬
pionship, but only because the
computer decided my team the
victor in the two mentioned playoff
games. Although I had won both
games on my own, the computer
didn’t acknowledge those victories
and I had to allow the computer to
determine the results.

There are other problems as
well. Most of the computer-con¬
trolled teams you play are simply
too easy to beat. Not that you can
score a touchdown on every play,
but nearly always you will outmatch
your opponent without batting an
eye. Every once in a while you
come across a team that poses a
challenge, but generally it’s easy
pickings from game one on.
Theoretically you could attempt to
take a statistically poor team all the
way, but with the above-mentioned
flaw in the program, you’ll never get
it past the first playoff game.

Another problem is that while
documentation for TV Sports. Foot-
ba// \s quite detailed and informa¬
tive, it contains references to
options not available with the ST
version of the game. For example,
the manual talks about viewing your
opponent’s stats to help develop
your game plan, an option not
included for the ST.

Overall, the folks at Cinema-
ware have put together a very
worthwhile game. This is a sports
game to be enjoyed and savored. I
know of no other football game for
the Atari computers that comes
close to the depth and detail. The
animation is very convincing; the
graphics have to be seen to be
believed. The complexity of the
game of football is integrated very
well into a sharp program which will
have long-lasting appeal for com¬
puter sports enthusiasts.

Anyway, I’ve got to go. I have
much research to conduct.

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 65

Atari ST/Mega

CN Review

Shufflepuck Cafe

Entertainment Software from Broderbund
by Milt Creighton

Shufflepuck Cafe takes place
in the sort of dive you might expect
to find in a seedy starport in one of
the Starwars movies. Its inhabitants
include some of the most exotic
creatures you’ll find this side of
Millways. Interestingly enough, the
entire crowd is hooked on the game
of shufflepuck, a sort of cross
between shuffleboard and ping
pong.

In essence, shufflepuck is
played by two contestants who
stand at either end of a long,
narrow table. The table has cush¬
ions on either side like a pool table,
but each end of the table is open.
The object of the game is to drive
an object that looks like a hockey
puck past your opponent’s guard
and off the end of the table.

A Floating Paddle

The instrument with which you
will accomplish this feat is a rec¬
tangular paddle that floats just
above the table, allowing the
players to strike the puck toward
their opponent’s goal. Each time
the puck flies off the end of the
table it shatters a glass-like protec¬
tive force field and a point is
scored. Serves alternate between
players and the first player to score
fifteen points wins the game. You
don’t have to win by two as in
volleyball. Simple, no?

Well, it is a simple game and I
have found that simple games are
often the most entertaining kind. It’s
hard to categorize Shufflepuck
Cafe. Strictly speaking, it’s not an
arcade game—there’s nothing to
shoot, no knives, rocks, or barrels
to dodge and no swordsmen to kill.
It’s not a sports simulation either—
it doesn’t play like “Air Hockey” and
there aren’t all those confusing

knobs you find in “Fooseball.” It’s
not exactly in a class by itself; it’s
just good clean fun.

The Joy of Slumming

What makes Shufflepuck Cafe
fun is the atmosphere of the place
and the opponents you play. Each
of the denizens of the bar is a
potential opponent and each has
his or her own style of play. Begin¬
ners should start with the geeky
Skip who will congratulate you
every time you score a point and
smirk if he should get lucky. After
Skip, Vinnie or Visine are the next
easiest. You shouldn’t have any
trouble with them and they are fun
to play. The elegant Lexan is
another matter and a formidable
opponent—at first.

The others all have their
strengths and weakness and you
should eventually find a way to
beat them, even if you have barna¬
cle-encrusted reflexes like mine. All
except for Biff Raunch. He is the
most irritating of the lot; you’ll want
to shove that paddle down his
throat each time he wins a point-
and he’ll win most of them unless
you are very good or very lucky.

Once you’ve beaten all the
players, you’ll want to enter the
tournament and try to beat every¬
one there in straight games. If you
do, your name will be entered in
the champion’s hall of fame. That’s
what this game is all about, but it
doesn’t give you a good feel for
what it takes to get there.

Shufflepuck Cafe is played
using the Atari ST mouse. The
mouse controls the movement of
your paddle. It registers movement
in both the vertical and horizontal
dimensions and controls both the
swiftness of your block and the

speed of your return stroke. It
permits angle strikes for bank shots
and straight-forward slams. I don’t
think you can really put english on
the puck, but the rebound off the
bank sometimes looks like spin
might be taken into account as
well.

The control of the mouse is
superb—especially when you are
fresh and aren’t trying to make the
mouse track more than it was
designed to do. However, as you
gain experience (and your mouse
begins to show signs of wear) it is
possible to over-control your shots
and some of your quickest strikes
will go awry. It’s unfortunate that
the mechanics of the mouse can
interfere with the game, but it’s a
real-world problem upon which the
game designers had to comprom¬
ise. The mouse is still the best
controller; a joystick wouldn’t be
nearly as intuitive. Once you get
used to the limitations, it shouldn’t
interfere with your play. If your
mouse is in good condition, it will
improve game play—at the
expense of wear and tear on the
mouse, of course.

Top Graphics & Sound

The graphics in Shufflepuck
Cafe axe excellent, and the digitized
sounds are just as well done. They
are appropriate and add immensely
to the enjoyment of the contest.
The animation in this game is one
of the best efforts I have seen on
any fast-paced game, and the
characters (contestants) are both
colorful and worthy of your atten¬
tion.

Broderbund would have had a
great game if they had stopped
there, but they have added a num¬
ber of additional features to keep
the appeal of the game strong even
after you have mastered all the
contestants (or to handicap an
opponent to learn his weakness).
You can change the size of your
paddle from a small postage-stamp

(Continued on page 67)

Page 66

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

CN Review

Atari ST/Mega

SkyChase

See How the Red Baron Shoots You Down

by Mike Heininger (c) 1990

With all the flight simulators
available, there’s still nothing as
smooth, fast, easy, and pure fun as
SkyChase with its split screen
option that lets you see how your
esteemed opponent (computer or
human) is blasting your fanny from
the sunny skies of Atariland.

SkyChase is easy to load, easy
to customize for handicapping
yourself or your opponent, and
easy to play. Jets are wire framed
3D images a la Starg/ider, and just
as fast and silky smooth. When my
son and sons-in-law and I argue
about who’s top gun, the program
that lets us settle it is SkyChase.

Forget about mimicking actual
combat scenarios. It’s just you and
the other pilot. Call it the Gun/
Missile Fight at the OK Corral/Cube,
because that’s where the action is
in a large cube 50,000 feet high.
That’s so no yellow bellied coward
can run very far or fly too unbeliev¬
ably stupidly to stay in the air.

Choose one of seven jets, each
with comparative limits on throttle,
max level speed, max roll rate, max
upward pitch change rate, and max
downward pitch change rate. If
you’re a real J.R. Ewing, you can
skip the F 18, F 14, F 15, F 16, MIG
31, and MIG 27 to opt for the Paper
Airplane which combines all the
best features.

Customize the Challenge

You can also go for optimum
fuel, ammo, missiles, missile lock
threshold, bullet hit threshold, G
force effect, and skill level. Either
player or computer also can have a
skill level of easy, average, difficult,
or ace, corresponding to increasing
levels of maneuverability. In short,
you can make the fight as chal¬
lenging as you like.

Main gripes are copy protec¬
tion, which requires using the ori¬
ginal disk all the time, and unrealis¬
tic gun configuration. The gun nor¬
mally outranges the missiles, and is
more accurate at long range than
up close. This is because the
default bulls eye is nine pixels,
which are more concentrated when
your target is a mere blip than
when it expands to fill most the
screen up close.

The missile lock threshold
defaults to 20 pixels, and can be
set anywhere from 0 to 40 pixels.
Guns are fired by pressing the
trigger button once; missiles are
fired by pressing it twice. This takes
a little getting used to, but is no big
problem. Interval between the two
clicks can be adjusted to fast,
medium, or slow.

In fact, such adjustability is one
of SkyChase's strongest points.
While the defaults make excellent
play for relatively matched
opponents, the adjustability of all
characteristics from fuel to weapon
lethality makes big league handi¬
capping a cinch. It should be no
problem to match a real fighter pilot
with a nine year old under such
handicapping, the bottom line
being a rousing game that is totally
enjoyable for BOTH players.

When in Doubt, Climb

Combat tip: when in doubt,
haul that stick back and climb
straight up. Altitude is almost
always a virtue in SkyChase. In fact,
the computer opponent can be
considered handicapped even in
expert mode because its pitch is
limited to 60 degrees (less in other
modes) while you can blaze a true
vertical 90 degrees.

Nevertheless, don’t ever get the
idea anything about the computer
or human opponent is easy. Just as
in real combat, the instant you relax
against any reasonably competent
antagonist is the instant you’re
zapped. So who is top gun in your
circles? Get SkyChase and settle it
... again, and again ... and again ....
SkyChase will be your cost effec¬
tive max fun per play champion.

Available from Maxis Software,
953 Mountain View Drive, Suite
#113, Lafayette, CA 94549; (415)
376 6434. List price: $39.99.
Requires joystick (two for two-
player option). Should not be run
with RAM disk configured or other
configuration or desk accessories
that use much RAM. Operating
system must be in ROM (TOS in
ROM). Copy protected.

Shufflepuck Cafe

(Continued from page 66)

size patch to one the full width of
the table. You can set the speed of
the puck’s forward and sideways
rebound and power from your pad¬
dle with the left button up or down.

In addition, you can add a
blocker (an obstruction in the exact
center of the table that will move
when it is struck by the puck) of
any size or weight. You can choose
to play the android server for prac¬
tice and set his skill to any level you
desire. It makes for a formidable
adversary even after you have
managed to humble Biff Raunch.

The Bottom Line : Shufflepuck
Cafe is one of the most entertaining
games I’ve played in a long time. It
is simple to learn, but challenging
enough to retain your interest for a
long time. Theatmosphere of Shuf¬
flepuck Cafe is diverting enough to
tempt me into a round against one
of the better denizens (Eneg is my
favorite) even when I know I don’t
really have the time to play games.

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 67

Atari XL/XE

CN Review

Paperclip Revisited

One of the Best Word Processors Ever Produced for the Atari 8-bit
_by David J. Harris_

This is a goodby review for an old Atari friend.
One, I might add, who has served me faithfully for over
four years, turning out everything from simple letters to
college term papers. Paperclip 130XE is, without a
doubt, one of the best word processors ever produced
for the Atari 8-bit computer, bar none. Even so it has
not received the publicity or recognition it deserves
and now joins the growing ranks of discontinued
productivity software. It’s a shame that new Atari users
are going to be deprived of the opportunity of using
such an excellent program once the current supply
dries up. I am still amazed that Atari has not bought
out the rights to Paperclip and replaced AtariWriter+
with it. Then again just about everything that Atari’s
management does amazes me (thats not a compli¬
ment).

Paperclip’s features seem limitless, and thus I
won’t try to cover them all in this article. Briefly though,
it has dual text windows, cut and paste buffer, search
and replace, macros, mail merge, print preview,
numerous printer drivers, and many other features that
make this a truly professional word processor. Who
says you need an IBM or Mac to do professional style
work?

The features I will cover are the expanded text
work space and the excellent SpellPack spell checker.
These two features work best on Ataris with expanded
memory, preferably 256K or more. The usual text file
size on an unmodified 800XL is around 25K but when
run on a modified Rambo XL 256K model, you have a
whopping 112K of continuous text. The Newell
memory upgrade requires a patch I am told, but it still
will give you a respectable 90K of work space.

It’s a shame Newell does not release a patch that
would enable Paperc/ip to work on their fine Omniview
chip. This chip gives a very readable 80-column
display and has been all but forgotten by the Atari
community. It seems that if Atar/Writer+ will work with a
patch on Omniview, then Paperclip should work as
well. Any programmer out there feel up to the task?

Dan Moore and Steve Ahlstrom, the authors of
Paperc/ip ; have implemented a superior method for
using extra memory. Instead of the segmented 16K
buffers (like poor AtariWriter +), Paperclip’s methods of
memory management are similar to those the Apple II
line uses for expanded memory.

Since the 6502 can only access 64K at one time,
the rest has to be bank switched. This is done in such

a manner that the memory looks and works as one
continuous chunk of memory. The bank switching of
memory is unseen by the user. The Apple II line has
memory cards of over one meg, and the programs
that take advantage of this memory have huge
continuous work areas. These programs make the
memory upgrades more practical as well as useful.
We Atarians, on the other hand, have been limited in
using our expanded memory, mainly as ramdisks with
little software actually taking advantage of the extra
memory.

Even with 112K of text there is still enough
memory left over for loading the entire Spei/Pack
dictionary into RAM. It does take about a minute and a
half to load the dictionary, but it is still light years
ahead of spell checking with a disk drive. Once loaded
you can switch back and forth between the main
program and the spell checker with no lost time, unlike
AtariWriter’s disk-based spell checker which must
reload every time you want to use it. AtariWriter+’s
proofreader mode takes close to a minute to load for
comparison. Once your Paperc/ip dictionary is loaded
you can spell check as many documents as you wish.

One bug in checking more than one document is
that the menu asks you to reload the dictionary again
which is impossible since you have already loaded it
into RAM. The drive will not operate. To get around
this, hit the Print error option in the Spei/Pack mode
and then hit ESC after the first word is printed, and it
will begin correcting like normal. I don’t know if this is
a bug common to all Paperclip 130XE versions or just
my copy (my copy is close to four years old). Since
this bug is easy to get around, you could say it is
more of a nuisance then a bug.

After all of this there is still enough room left over
for 16K of supplementary (personal) dictionaries.
While not exactly IBM-like in size, these personal
dictionaries can be set up in such a manner that they
will take care of your most often used words that don’t
appear in the main dictionary. The manual suggests
that words of similar nature should be put in the same
dictionary for saving memory space.

For comparison’s sake I ran a speed test between
AtariWriter+’s disk-based spell checker and Paper-
ciip’s RAM-based spell checker. The file checked was
around 1700 words long, and the results were
staggering. Paperc/ip won hands down. After sub¬
tracting load times for both programs, Paperclip took

Page 68

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

CN Review

around two and half minutes while Atariwriter+
took seven minutes.

The one big advantage of using a disk based
spell checker such as AtariWriter+ and Spell
Magic is that they can be used on normal 48K
and 64K machines. Paperclip’s SpeHPack, on the
other hand, can only be used on a 130XE or
larger machine.

The method by which SpeHPack checks its
documents is another big plus. The screen is split
in half with the bottom half showing the SpeHPack
choices and dictionary selection, while the upper
half shows the file in context. If you don’t know
the spelling of a word, just type in the first two or
three letters, and the dictionary will start there and
scroll through the RAM-based dictionary until you
find your word. Once you find the right word hit
“yes” for accept word and return, and the word
appears in your document.

Again a far superior method compared to
AtariWriter+’s method of finding the word and
then typing the correct spelling in. This adds
greatly to your spell check time and frustration
level. The 36,000 word SpeHPack dictionary does
not have the correct spelling for all mistakes but
will nonetheless highlight every word it does not
recognize.

Admittedly Paperc/ip is not completely per¬
fect. Jiggle your printer interface enough, and
sometimes it will lock up. Save a blank screen
with the Write command using the same file name
as a document that is already on disk, and you
will end up with an empty file.

Despite these bugs it is still one of the few
programs that truly uses the extra memory on the
souped up Ataris intelligently. As I stated before I
am very sad to see its demise. Even sadder is the
fact that I will also probably never see the only
feature it lacks—an 80-column display.

New Book by Ralph Turner! Covers hard drive
management & optimization, IBM emulators,
connecting a 5 7,-inch floppy drive, assem¬
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editing, binary, hexadecimal and decimal
codes, ASCII file problems, escape codes,
miscellaneous tips, and much more. No
programming knowledge required. (Also avail¬
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This compact hardware device reads, writes, spits fire (well almost) with
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January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 69

Atari ST/Mega

CN Review

Prospero Developers Toolkit

Not Great, Just Good, and Worth the Money

Review by J. Andrzej Wrotniak

Prospero is gaining ground on
the ST programming language mar¬
ket and not without a good reason.
Without much hype they keep
expanding their programming tool
set; 1 am using their Pascal, FOR¬
TRAN and C very heavily without
many complaints. No wonder that
as soon as 1 knew their Toolkit was
being shipped, 1 called them with
my credit card handy. A few days
later and $96 poorer 1 could start
playing with my new toy—and on
my company’s time, too! Now, after
two months of using the Too/kit for
about eight hours a day, 1 can share
some remarks with you.

The Developers Toolkit can be
used with any and all of the Pro¬
spero languages. It consists (in
addition to some minor utilities) of
five major parts.

The Workbench

This is the editor-shell, from
where programs can be edited,
compiled, linked and executed. It
looks and behaves very much like
workbenches supplied with Pro-
spero’s individual compilers (which
means good), but can be used with
any Prospero language as well as
with the assembler. All improve¬
ments (a dozen or so) are evolu¬
tionary rather than revolutionary.

This is a convenient program¬
ming environment with few minor
shortcomings (slow file reading the
most irritating among them). The
replacement comes in very handy,
especially (but not only) for some¬
body switching between languages

Command Line Interpreter

Some of us may prefer to run
the compiler, linker, or the resulting

programs from a command line
interpreter (CLI), as opposed to a
GEM shell. Also, some (if few)
operations can be performed more
conveniently from a CLI. Last, but
not least, more frequently used
sequences of commands can be
grouped together in batch files and
executed with a single invocation.

The CLI coming with the Toolkit
is quite simple to use and behaves
just fine. It also can be activated
directly from the GEM workbench
by clicking on a menu entry, so that
both modes of work can be
smoothly mixed.

The set of twenty or so sup¬
ported commands could be a little
expanded. No, 1 do not need a
Unix or VMS clone, but, for exam¬
ple, the lack of the MOVE com¬
mand can be, at times, incon¬
venient: COPY and DELete will take
more time, especially when files are
moved within the same disk drive.
A smart MOVE command will just
change the directory entry, without
actually copying and erasing the
moved files.

1 use the CLI occasionally,
mostly to execute batch files (luck¬
ily, IF and GOTO commands are
supported), but it is good to have it
there in case 1 need it.

Promake, a Make Utility

The interdependencies be¬
tween various files which have to
be processed to result in an exe¬
cutable program can be described
in a control file with use of a
special formalism. Promake will
interpret this file and perform all the
necessary operations (e.g., com¬
piling or linking) to make sure that
the files that depend on others are
appropriately updated.

For example, if our program
PP.PRG is produced by linking of
object files A.BIN, B.BIN and C.BIN,
and if the BIN files are derived by
compilation of appropriate PAS
files, these dependencies can be
described in a control file PP.MAK.
If, after discovering a bug in our
program, we correct it by re-editing
A.PAS and C.PAS, then Promake
will recompile A and C (there is no
need to touch B!) and then—it will
re-link the program. All this can be
done with one mouse click from the
workbench! For programs consist¬
ing of many files, the convenience
is very, very significant.

Promake will work with all Pro¬
spero languages. It is even more
general; the update operations are
not limited to compiling and linking.

1 have used Promake with the
Public Domain document formatter,
PROFF, when my document heavily
depended on nested INCLUDE
files.

One remark: make utilities hea¬
vily access the disk (imagine all
these comparisons of date stamps
on files?). Even with a hard drive,
checking the consistency of a
library of about 100 modules (with
no updates) takes three minutes or
so. A reliable disk cache {Co/dHard
Cache is my choice) can reduce
this time very significantly.

Anyway, 1 am quite happy with
Promake. It gets the job done
reliably (if without bells and whis¬
tles), and 1 am using it all the time.

Macro Assembler.

Do not expect from me an
expert opinion on this subject. 1 was
able to re-assemble some VAX-
to-IEEE number conversion rou¬
tines written years ago—without

Page 70

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

CN Review

problems. Combining and modify¬
ing some low-level GEM bindings
from the Prospero libraries did not
cause any problems either. All this,
of course, from the workbench
shell-editor.

Kuma Resource - Again?

A few months ago in this
column I mused about the lack of
a good RCP for the Atari ST. I was
hoping Prospero, with their high
quality standards, would fill this
gap. Unfortunately, this is not the
case.

The RCP included in the Tool¬
kit is the well known effort by
Kuma from Great Britain. The
Kuma PCS was for some time
available in the US market; it is
also bundled with Mark Williams C
v.3 (with just the logo changed).
Do not misunderstand me, there is
nothing really wrong with this pro¬
gram, but the user interface is
quite inconvenient (not to say
clumsy), and minor irritations pre¬
vail at every step.

Take it or leave it, we have not
much choice here, as there is
nothing really good on the market
(WERCS at least has better docu¬
mentation). Many people live hap¬
pily ever after with the Kuma RCP.

I stick to my old, moderately
buggy, RCS2 from Atari.

Documentation.

The documentation consists of
one volume, a total of about 120
pages. It is quite adequate, if
nothing to write home about. The
documentation supplied with Pro¬
spero languages was significantly
better. The macro assembler sec¬
tion is very skimpy, and so is the
section on the resource construc¬
tion program. Sure, I was able to
find things I needed (there weren’t
many, the programs are fairly sim¬
ple to operate), but I would expect
a better effort from a software
publisher as dependable as Pro¬
spero.

The package also contains the
updated librarian and the .TTP
(stand-alone, as opposed to
overlayed) version of Prospero
linker. The .TTP programs are
used from the command line
interpreter (or from Promake ),
while the workbench uses the
smaller .OVL versions. The newest
updates of Prospero languages
($10 and original disks) contain
also the .TTP versions of com¬
pilers, necessary to work with
Promake.

Those of us who use floppy-
based systems for program deve¬
lopment may want to use the
Public Domain compression utility,
PACKer, to reduce the size of all
.PRG, .TOS, .TTP and .OVL (yes!)
files on their system disks, espe¬
cially if they are going to use both
versions of the compiler and lin¬
ker. PACKer will, of course, save
also a lot of space on your hard
drives. All Prospero programs
work fine in the packed versions.

The Bottom Line.

If I do not sound too enthu¬
siastic in this review, this may be
because of my raised expec¬
tations. After all, all programs work
as advertised and in spite of all
my reservations I consider the
Toolkit to be a good investment.
The price is quite moderate, taking
into account the goodies included
into the package.

I can recommend the Pro¬
spero Developers Toolkit to
any intermediate-to-serious
programmer using one or
more of the Prospero
languages. I also hope that Pro¬
spero will keep improving it with
time.

Prospero Software, 100 Commer¬
cial St., Suite 306, Portland, ME
04/01; (207)874-0382.

Construction

Estimator

Construction Estimator 2.0

Very easy to use, make estimates for
house, driveway, small building etc.

Creates quantity and cost totals

Functions include: footings, stem wall,
floor slab, blockwall, rebar, ceiling and
floor joist, woodwalls, floor and roof
sheeting, cut & stack roof, sheetrock,
roofing, soil excavation (basement &
trench)

ASCII file^ave & load. Also creates
LDW Power compatible files so you can
use a spreadsheet to further modify
your estimate.

$39.95

Michael C. O’Massey
9910 U.S. 395 north
Reno Nevada 89506
(702)972-3659

ONE F°

fill

MICE

$ 35.00

A&AGIC

Microswitch Joysticks

ONLY $10.00

One Stop . W

All Kinds Of Good Stuff For Your ST

(217)337-0802

30 Day Money Back Guarantee

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 71

Current Notes ST Public Domain Library

Disks listed by month of introduc¬
tion . See page 74 for ordering
information.

June 1989

#327D: Sonus Superscore Demo. Demo
version of MIDI sequencing and scoring
software packages, 1Mb, Mono.

#328D: GENIE ST Roundtable Data¬
base, by Library/Topic.

#329D: GENIE ST Roundtable Data¬
base, by File Number. These two disks
contain complete database of ST files avail-
- able within the ST roundtable as of June 1989.
Program includes variety of search options.
#330D-#335D: Seeker Bible Search
Program. 6 disk set has KJ version of bible
plus program tohelp you find any word or
phrase you choose.

#336: BSTAT Statistical Graphics Pro¬
gram. In a beta test state, quite complex and
contains virtually any statistical function you
might need.

#337: Graphics Demos, an assortment of
A VS demos and a Cyber animation demo:
Bugs Bunny, spaceship gettting hit with lazer
blasts, four cylinder Honda engine cutaway,
color only.

#338: Micro-EMACS. Ver3.10. latest ver¬
sion of popular text editing program now
provides ’some’ mouse support. Complete
manual, help file, and text files on disk.

#339: Extensor. Game based on the
LIGHT CYCLE sequence in the movie TRON.
Color or mono.

#340: Disk Label Programs. Over a
dozen different label maker programs from
standard mailing labels to labels for diskettes,
file folders, casette tapes, or report covers.
#341: Print Master Utilities: PM_2_DEG,
saves PM icons in Degas format. PS_2_PM,
converts Print Shop to Print Master. Borders:
REWVOL1, DINOREW, REWART1, CUSTOM,
ICON1.

#343: Utilities No. 29: DISSASSM,
DCOPY312, MYSTIC, MACCEL, RATEHD,
HEADST10, GIFNEO, RAMBABY.

#344: Utilities No. 30. ACC.PRG,
DCFORACC, DCFRM301, QUICKUTL,
QMENU2, QFIND, QUIKME, QUICKST 0.81,
QINDEX, SCRNSAVE.PRG, SUPRBT55.

July/August 1989

#345: Berthold Pics No. 1. 8 exciting
Spectrum pics from John Berthold: Anasazl,
Blokblos, Duckneuv, Explore, Moonfest, Out¬
back, Philtoo, Scape3c and spslide.prg.

#346: Spectrum 512 Utilities. SPCPRINT
(print Spectrum pictures directly to printer,
color or black-and-white), SPCCONVR (con¬
vert Spectrum 512 pictures to Degas PI1),
SPCVIEW (GFA Basic program to view Spec¬
trum 512 pictures). Disk includes three pic¬
tures: laserbee, madonna, and redarrow.
#347: MOTerm Elite 1.41. The Ultimate
Telecom Package for the ST, by Doug
Johnson. Features many things that no other
terminal packages contain, including medium
or high resolution graphics which can be
exchanged over the modem automatically,
sound that can be transferred online, a new
file transfer protocol called Dmodem that is

faster and more accurate than Xmodem, built
in text editor for editing of information
captured off of a modem or other files, an
automatic dialer that will dial phone numbers
while you do something else within the
program, the fastest Xmdoem file transfer
routines yet available for the ST, and much
more. Requires 1 Mb.

#348: Game Disk No. 18. Companion 1,
color arcade action as you fly your ROCM,
and Trivia Quiz, test your knowledge against
the computer or other players. (C)

#349: XFORMER Programs No. 1. In¬
cludes Analog 35, 38, 41, 44. These are the
Analog 8-bit disks converted to ST format for
use with Xformer. Xformer is the Atari 8-bit
emulator. (CN #263: ST XFORMER now has
version 2.4)

#350: XFORMER Programs No. 2. In¬
cludes Analog 47, 50, and 55. More Analog
8-bit disks converted to ST format for use
with Xformer, the Atari 8-bit emulator.

#351: Publishing Partner Utilities No.
3. 18 fonts for use with Publishing Partner:
Binner, Blockup, Cyrillic, Futura Bold Con¬
densed, Futura Block, Keyboard, Gothic,
Lubalin, Old English, Oriental, Segment,
Spokane, Stop, Timebold, Tyme/Helv,
University, and Wilkes.

#352: Graphic Utilities. Metaview Prg/Acc
by Ric Clayton. Program allows you to view
GEM Metafiles in standard GEM windows.
(Metafiles are files with a .GEM extension
such as those produced by EasyDraw and
GEM-Draw.) Will display any GEM Metafile, in
any resolution, with or without GDOS instal¬
led, and (hopefully) run on any version of
TOS. Image Editor DA V0.65 Demo by Mike
Bergman (mono only), a tool to edit mono¬
chrome .IMG files for desktop publishing and
related activities. Deluxe Slideshow V2.0, by
John Brochu, combines all the currently
popular ST graphics formats (Neochrome,
Degas, Degas compressed, Tiny, and Spec¬
trum) into one compact, but flexible slide
show program. IMG Show, by Migraph, allows
viewing of monochrome .IMG files on any
resolution ST (low, med, hi, & Viking 1). Art
Gallery, by Charles F. Johnson, shows Degas,
Degas Elite compressed, Neo and Tiny pic¬
tures. ST Banner, print large banners out of
small letters on your printers. Also Degas-
nap.prg and Snapshot.acc.

#353: Print Master Icons No. 3. Collect
1,2,3,4. A collection of 479 icons for use with
Print Master.

#354: Print Master Icons No. 4. Collect
5,6,7. A collection of 470 more icons for use
with Print Master.

#355: IMG Mortised Cuts. 19 IMG pic¬
tures: angel, artist, backsign, dinner, dog,
dragon, elf, frntsign, jackbox, jester, mirror,
paperboy, shipl, ship2, train, trumpet, two
elves, umbrella, wide man.

#356: Bolo. Discontinued.

September 1989

#357: PageStream Fonts No. 1. An

assortment of DEMO fonts available for
PageStream. Note: these demos do not
include the entire alphabet. Anglo, Opt, Type¬
writer, Downtown, Handwriting, Rock, Begin¬
nings, Brushup, Karin ... +24 more fonts.

#358: Calamus Fonts No. 1. 15 complete
fonts for Calamus. Chancery, Cursive, Con¬
densed Cursive, Gillia, Gilly, Revue, Savings,
Souvenir Medium, Souvenir Med Italic, Spok¬
ane, Study, Study Cond., Windy.

#359: Pentimo. This is a terrific puzzle
game that will provide you with hours of
entertainment. Place 12 pieces in box. Many
variations, 100s of solutions, but try and find
one! (M)

#360: Bermuda Race II. A racing simula¬
tion game. You have to learn the ins and outs
of sailing to win this race. (C/M)

#361: Game Disk No. 19. Two arcade
clones: Rocket Patrol (like Missile Command)
and Trifide (like Galaxian). (C)

#362: A Dudley Dilemma. An AGT Adven¬
ture, by Lane Barrow. In this game, you play
the role of a Harvard University student living
in Dudley House in his/her quest for know¬
ledge, adventure and a diploma. This award
winning game is a very clever, humorous and
challenging adventure in the classic style of
Infocom. (C/M)

#363: Tark, Priestess of the first church, in
her battle against the demon of dark desire,
an AGT adventure by Philip Kegelmeyer. An
extremely well written game based on a
“Dungeons and Dragons” theme (complete
with spells and hit points) where you play a
priestess struggling against the forces of evil.
(C/M)

#364: Rapture and Susan(R). Two more
AGT adventures: Love’s Fiery Rapture, by
Natasha Mirage. A torrid tale of what could
turn out to be THE perfect date. A parody(?)
of romance novels like those published by
Harlequin. This game demonstrates a very
clever way to translate a “Choose Your Own
Adventure” style game into an AGT game.
Susan, A Lustful Game, By Bill Larkins. You
attempt to score points with your girlfriend,
Susan. R-rated game for adults only. (C/M)
#365: Ring & Pork. Two more AGT adven¬
tures: Des Ring DesNibelungen, by Michael R.
Harris. You play the role of Siegfried in an
adventure based on the operas of Richard
Wagner-complete with a very tender and
loving Brunnhilde. A very unusual approach to
an adventure game. PORK, by David Malm-
berg. A parody of the Infocom game of
ZORK. If you were ever frustrated by ZORK,
playing this game is your chance to enjoy the
sweet fruits of revenge. (C/M)

#366: The Adventure Game Toolkit
(AGT) A shareware product that lets you
construct your own adventure games. Com¬
plete Docs included. Adventure games above
are all compiled versions of games created
with AGT. Programs on disk are ARC’d. (C/M)
#367: AGT Source Code. Includes
(ARC’d) the source code to 9 additional AGT
adventures: Colossal Cave Adventure, Cru¬
sade, Elf’s Adventure, A Fable, Ghost Town,
Paranoia, Odieu’s Quest, The Squynchia
Adventure, An Underground Adventure.
#368D: VIDI-ST No. 1. Two VIDI-ST digit¬
ized animation sequences of a dunk shot and
a pitch. Requires 1Mb. DS-disk (C)

#369D: VIDI-ST No. 2. A VIDI-ST digitized
animation, star basketball player (V. Johnson)
shooting a basket. Requires 1 MB DS-disk
(C).

Page 72

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

Current Notes ST Public Domain Library

October 1989

#370: NORAD. Watch your screen as 97
satellites and meteors trace out their paths on
your montior.

#371: Berthold's Pics No. 2. A second
disk of 8 terrific Spectrum pictures by John
Berthold. The Legend of the Lost Fuji, Msiau
Chou Descending Into the Mist, Fantasy
Figure 3, The Escape of Princess Mon-Haat,
Skate Riguel, The Story Teller, Eilean Donan
Castle-Scotland, Vlacherna Convent-Greece.
(Color)

#372: Magniwriter ST. (See CN#401)
#373: Strip Breakout (R). Breakout game
with a new twist. Breaking the bricks reveals
picture underneath. 27 screens. Adults only.
(Color).

#374: Codehead/C.F. Johnson Utility
Collection. Collection of shareware pro¬
ducts and three demos of commercial pro¬
ducts from Codehead Software and C.F.
Johnson. Includes Little Green File Selector
vl.4, Pinhead vl.3 and more.

#375: Darek Mihocka Utility Collection.
The complete collection of Darek’s ‘Quick’
utilities (Quick ST to compete against Turbo
ST, Quick Index to measure your ST’s perfor¬
mance are among the ‘Quick’utilities)as well
as his Megablit paint program and Megawatt
accessory.

#376: NeoDesk Icon Collection. A col¬
lection of 31 icon files for use with NeoDesk
2.0. Includes NeoDesk demo program. Files
are ARC’d.

#377: Official Atari Utilities Disk. In¬
cludes Atari’s latest Hard Disk utilities and
booter (version 3.01) which allows more than
4 partitions and partition sizes of up to 1
gigabyte. Also included is the complete set of
the ‘official’ Atari Rainbow TOS utilities and
patches. (Rainbow TOS is the name for TOS
1.4). Includes the Hard Disk Ship ACC, Mouse
Accelerator II and more.

#378: ELAN 1.5. Another nice programming
language environment from The Neatherlands
with sample source code and documentation
in TEX format.

#379: Utility Disk #31, Disk Utilities.
DCOPY 3.2A—the latest version of this terrific
all around utility. DISKVFY—verifies a disk to
find the bad spots on a disk. FLOORMT2-
-Floormatter is a nice formatting program that
runs in low resolutiuon. GEMLABEL—version
3 of a nice GEM based labeling program.
ACK2PRG—an updated version of a program
that shrinks the sizes of executable programs.

November 1989

#380: The Revolution Handbook. By

Donald A. Thomas, Jr., 1989 ARTISAN SOFT¬
WARE, this ‘handbook’ comes with a viewer
program that allows you to browse through
the handbook on the screen.

#381: VanTerm Version 3.8! VanTerm is a
full-featured terminal program for the Atari ST
(c) 1987 by Wm. A. Van Nest, Sr. Besides the
main VanTerm program (and its associated
configuration and help files), this disk also
includes DCOPY32.PRG (current version of
DCOPY) - DCOPY is faster than ARC, com¬
presses more than ARC, has all the ARC
functions of ARCSHL, plus it formats disk¬
ettes, prints file, reformats files of many

types, and more! (NOTE: this update replaces
the earlier version, #265. Send in your original
#265 and $1, and CN will be happy to update
your copy.)

#382: SUBCAL, Version 1.14. This is a
new, improved and expanded version of
SubCal. SubCal is a calculator with many,
many extras. It will compute arithmetic
expressions entered in a human-readable
form and will also compute definite integrals,
derivatives or solve equations. It will also
solve polynomial equations up to the second
degree. A simple plotting feature is included
as well. The new Sub Cal also allows for
vector and matrix operations (including solv¬
ing of linear equation systems). (NOTE: this
update replaces #322. Send in your original
#322 and $1, and CN will be happy to update
your copy.)

#383: The American PaSTime Baseball
Simulator, Demo Game Program -

V2.00D, October, 1989. The American PaS¬
Time Baseball Simulator provides a very rich
and accurate simulation of the game of
baseball, from the viewpoint of the manager.
Results are based on the actual statistics of
the players entered; variation from reality will
be approximately the same as the actual
variation players experience in real life.

#384: Geography Tutor Demo. Demo
version of the program, only the data base
and map for EUROPE can be loaded. Save
functions have also been disabled. Disk
includes data base of useful facts concerning
each European country. Not only can you
view these facts, but you can plot them on
the maps. You can also compare countries,
search facts to be plotted, order lists alpha¬
betically or by size etc..

Also included is a Reader Program
designed to help you read any text file. It lets
your screen behave as a printed page. You
can change to the next or previous page or
flip to a page of your choice. You can also:
search for text strings, show a table of
contents, print any part of the text with
references and notes, and save your print
selection to disk or printer or both.

#385: Double Click Software Share¬
ware Sampler Disk. DC FORMATTER 3.02-
-formatting program with a host of useful
options. MYSTIC FORMATTER 1.0—formatter
in desk accessory format. DC XTRACT-
-extract programs from ARC files. DC CLOCK
V3.3—places time clock in upper right corner
of screen. DC DESKEY VI.0—a desktop menu
selector using keystrokes. DC STUFFER V0.9-
-load in up to 32 desk accessories (DAs) into
GEM.

#386D: JIL2D(tm) Shareware Drafting
Package. A valuable drafting tool: you can
create, measure, dimension, save, and restore
drawings using JIL’s unique interface. You can
also make and use screen dumps, figure
libraries, and parametric macros, just to name
a few applications. System requirements:
monochrome ONLY, DS, at least 1 Mb of ram.
Includes MONOVIEW.PRG: (a short slide
show presentation of the JILCAD system
components.)

#387: Empire Map Collection. A collec¬
tion of ALL of the maps for Empire we’ve
been able to find—over 120 maps in all. This

disk does require the game Empire from
Interstel to be useful.

#388: Breach Scenario Collection. A

collection of many Breach scenarios, Breach
Cheat 2, and a squad leader editor. In order to
fit this collection on one disk the scenarios
are ARC’ed but ARC.TTP and ARC Shell II v2.0
are provided to extract the files.

#389: Game Disk #20: Star Trek. STOS
variation of the Star Trek game. This game will
NOT run on machines with TOS 1.4 installed!
#390D: Game Disk #21: Pile-Up. A
STOS variation of the Russian game of Tetris.
This game is on a DS disk and will NOT run
on machines with TOS 1.4 installed.

#391: Game Disk #22: Super Breakout.
A very nice variation of Breakout with an
editor. Requires a monochrome monitor and
it DOES work with TOS 1.4.

#392D: Spectrum Pics No. 6: People. 17
Spectrum pictures (Alf, Anticad, Bladel,
Clown, Donnaric, Ellen, Girl, Headroom,
Kissme, Lady clr, Laura, Lisaw, Madonna,
Match5, Sam4, Samfoxl, Terri.

#393D: Spectrum Pics No. 7: Space. 20
Spectrum pictures (Aliennat, Callisto, Deth-
star, Earth, Faces, FinhornS, Glass, Juggy,
Jupiter, Laserbee, Launch, Newtek, Outblue,
Prism, Stardest, Timextal, Trek, Trontank,
Voyager.

#394D: Spectrum Pictures No. 8: Cars

and more. 18 Spectrum pictures (Appleton,
Cobra, Convert, Decoy, Ferrari, Homer, Lily-
pond, Magnum, Mansion, Mazda,Ninja,
Porsche, Redrx7, Redwing, Ship, Taxi, Tut,
Tutmirr2.

December 1989

#395D-#399D: The TeX Distribution.

Compiled by Horace Mitchell. TeX system
requirements: 1Mb memory, double-sided
drive. The TeX Distribution has a core of four
double-sided disks and a fifth DS utility disk.
These disks replace the earlier CN TeX release
(#309D, #310D, and #31 ID). Send in your
earlier three disks and we will be glad to
replace them with #395, #396, and #397 for
$1 each.

#395D: TEX, and #396D: DRIVERS.

Disks 1 and 2 contain the files for running TeX
(and LaTeX) and for printing TeX documents
respectively. These two disks are sufficient for
trying out TeX. However, there are NOT
enough font files included on Disk 2 for a
complete implementation of TeX. Note also
that Disk 1 (#395) includes the 200 compac¬
tion program needed to uncompact the files
provided on all five disks in the set.

#397D: METAFONT. Disk 3 contains the
font generation program METAFONT, which
can create any font that the printer drivers on
Disk 2 need.

#398D: INITEX. iniTeX, a program for
customizing TeX plus the slide maker SliTeX
and the bibliography database BibTeX.
#399D: PICTEX. PiCTeX—a set of TeX
macros designed for the creation of figures
and graphs within TeX documents. MuTeX—a
set of TeX macros and fonts for typesetting
music scores. INPUT2 archive contains vari¬
ous style files for LaTeX that are not part of
the standard style set described in the LaTeX
manual.

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 73

Current Notes ST Public Domain Library

#400: GFA Tutorial. NOT a tutorial for
those of you already familiar with GFA Basic.
Just a plain and simple guide from square
one for learning the use of GFA.

#401: ST WRITER V3.4. Latest version of
this excellent word processor by Dr. Bruce
Noonan. Disk includes English, Spanish,
German, and MagniWriter versions, all
updated to version 3.4.

#402: Construction Estimator VI. 8 . Use

this program to help you estimate the quan¬
tity and cost of materials for various building
projects.

#403: Utility Disk #32. (Color) Note,
CHEETAHC, GEMRED, and SPEEDRDR also
work in monochrome and are on the mono
utilities disk (#404). CHEETAHC—handy pro¬
gram for copying multiple files from one place
to another. GEMRED—redirects the output of
programs such as screen output to a printer
or file. ADBASE14—an address database
program. DSKCHART—displays a chart of
disk usage. FFIND12—a disk library program.
SPEEDRDR—improve your speed reading.
#404: Utility Disk #33. (Monochrome)
PUBPAINT—a pd paint program from Ger¬
many—docs are in German. CHEETAHC-
-handy program for copying multiple files
from one place to another. GEMRED—
redirects the output of programs such as
screen output to a printer or file. SPEEDRDR-
-improve your speed reading.Note CHEE¬
TAHC, GEMRED, and SPEEDRDR also work
on Color and are on #403.

#405: DeskJet Utilities & Drivers.
ADDRESS2—Programs to address envelopes
with the HP DeskJet. COMPACT—a very
handy program for hard drive users to print
out directories on a DJ at 20 cpi (this program
also works with Epson compatible printers
using superscript). DESKJET.CFG—Word
Writer ST driver for the DeskJet. DJETBOOT-
-if the DeskJet is online when the system is
booted with this program in the AUTO folder,
then it will set the DJ to draft mode.
DJDEGAS—a program to print any DEGAS
.PI? picture on an HP DeskJet. DVI_DJ—DVI
output driver for the DeskJet and TeX.
EPS JET—not a great DJ driver but a workable
one to give graphics output comparable to an
Epson MX-80. FS DJET—a DJ driver for
installation within Fleet Street Publisher v2.0.
HPDSKJET—DeskJet printer driver for use
with First Word Plus. JETLAB11—a labelling
program for use with the HP printers that
supports two label sizes and has several nice
features. JETSET—an accessory to allow
easy configuration of the HP DJ. LASERJET-
-downloads softfonts to either a DeskJet or a
LaserJet. P OR SAV—two variations of a
program (one for DeskJet owners) that allows
one to print or save a screen in an average of
3 sec. SHTPDJ—printer control file for using
an HP DJ with Sheet. SHTPDJP—printer
control file for using a DeskJet Plus with
Sheet. STWHPDJ—ST Writer printer driver
for the DJ internal ffonts. TESTFONT—two
test softfonts for the DeskJet (Candyland and
Camelot).

#406: Utility Disk #34. There are three
utilities that work in both color and mono¬
chrome on this disk: ASSASSIN—a great help
in simplifying the modification of GDOS

ASSIGN.SYS files; BOOSTV09—a beta version
of a program that works very well in allowing
one to select which programs and DESK-
TOP.INF files are used at bootup; DESK
MANAGER v2.7—another update to another
great program from C.F. Johnson and pro¬
vides a GEM interface for the user to select
various bootup options.

#407: SHEET Demo. SHEET is a 4-in-1
integrated package. It is a spreadsheet pro¬
gram, database manager, charting program
and BASIC interpreter. The charting program
can generate graphs on screen. If you have
GDOS installed, you can set the output to
meta-file or printer. The charting program can
also generate BASIC commands for drawing
the graph. The demo version has Save and
Load WKS disabled.

#408: Ani ST. (Color) By Jim Kent, Program
Copyright Dancing Flame, 1987. Documen¬
tation Copyright Antic Publishing 1989. This
program and documentation may be freely
distributed. You may be familiar with the
program previously marketed by Aegis as
Aegis Animator. Jim Kent, who wrote the
program, has received the rights to it back
from Aegis. Citing an inability for people to
find the program, he has entered it in the
shareware market under the new name Ani
ST. The suggested contribution is a smile.
The only change made in the program is a fix
to a problem the program had running with
GDOS. A color monitor is required.

Ani ST excels in what is known as
metamorphic polygon animation (polymor¬
phic for short). In this type of animation you
draw an initial shape and move it into another
shape. The computer generates the in-bet¬
ween shapes automatically. You can do this
over a painted (.NEO or .PI1) background or
you can cut out pieces of a picture (CEL’s
and MSK’s) to move along a path, color cycle
the result, then fade to black as the polygons
shrink in the distance.

#409D: CYBER ANIMATIONS: VISITOR
& FROGGIE. VISITOR is a 230-frame, 15-
second loop animation in the Cyber Paint
.SEQ format. It was produced with CAD-3D
2.0 and the Cyber Control language with
image processing in Cyber Paint.

January/February 1990

#410 Spectrum Color Clip Art. This clip
art, by Steve Marshall, is designed to allow
Spectrum users to add detailed figures to
their own creations. Includes Animals 1,2,3,
Citybld, Country, Mountains, Skies, Trees,
Western 1,2, and Vehicles. Also includes three
sample complete pictures: Meadow, Street,
Scenel. (C)

#411: SpiritWare Concordance, V2.0, A

Bible study tool that makes maximum use of
mouse, windows, and menu capabilities of
GEM to provide user with a fast, easy and
powerful way to access words and phrases
that appear in the scriptures. Includes text
from Romans 1 through Philemon I. Color or
Mono, requires 1Mb.

#412: File Compression Utilities. ARC

6.01— MUCH faster version of ARC. ARC-
SHELL 2.1— GEM shell for both LZH and ARC
makes it much easier to use compression
utilities. LHARC 51— slower than ARC but

produces smaller files. ARC<->L2H—converts
ARC files to LZH or LZH files to ARC.

#413: Utility Disk No. 35. CHECK 1A—
basic system check for color STs, does
memory checks, shows memory sizes, drive
and printer status, and checks video and
audio hardware. CHEETAH2—very fast file
copier, great for moving files across hard
drive partitions. Works with floppy drives as
well. TRASHCAN—a Neodesk accessory, a
recoverable trashcan gives Nel-desk a trash
can that can be opened and files un-deleted
even after writing to disk or rebooting. DIARY
1.7—full features text editor as a desk acces¬
sory.

#414: utility Disk No. 36. DC SHOWIT-
-complete replacement for GEM show rou¬
tine. views text files and uncompressed Neo
and Degas pics. STARSTRK—screen saver,
fills screen with moving stars. LGSELECT16B-
-latest version of little green item selector by
Charles F. Johnson. SUPERBOOT 6.0—Allows
user to configure auto program, desk acces¬
sory, desktop information files, assign system
files and much more before machine boots.
Now works properly with TOS 1.4. SWITCH
630—allows Atari laser printer users to shut
Diablo emulator on and off freeing printer
port.

#415: How to do Hardware Mods. Con¬
tains various text files for those who like to
modify their hardware. 25MGUM—how to
upgrade a 520ST to 2.5MB or 4MB, plus
programs to test the upgrades. MEGA2T04-
-How to upgrade a Mega2 to 4 MB. TOS14-
-How to install TOS 1.4 6 chip set in a Mega
ST. BLITZ—make your own analog disk
copier. BLITTER UPGRADE—how to add a
blitter to your rev B motherboard.

#416: Clip Art and Time Works Bor¬
ders. four houses in GEM format, 5 houses
in PI2 Degas format, 1 Atari Logo in GEM
format, 10 borders in Timeworks DTP format,
and 4 IMG pictures of dragons and wolves.
#417D: Saturn. Spectrum animation of
Saturn. Requires 1 MB memory, color, and
double-sided disk.

#418D: Sequence Files. Three anima¬
tions: SKULL sequence—skull done with rez
render. DALEK—animated Dalek from Dr.
Who science fiction series. ZNETART—Z-Net
logo bouncing off mirrored walls. Includes
Animate4 sequence file player. 1 Mb required,
DS drive.

#419: Game Disk No. 23. (Color): BLAS¬
TER—fast defender-like game. INVADERS-
-very hard variation of an arcade classic.
ST-TETRIS—variation on Tetris game..

Order disks from CN Library,
122 N. Johnson Rd, Sterling, VA
22170. Disks are $4.00 each.
Add $1/(6 disks) for S&H up to a
max of $6.00. Quantity discounts:

10 disks for $35

35 disks for $100

50 disks for $150

Page 74

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

Current Notes Spectre Public Domain Library

These disks contain Mac programs for use
with the SPECTRE Macintosh emulator. Disks
are $4 ea (10 for $35). Order from CN Library,
122 N. Johnson Rd, Sterling, VA 22170. Add
$1 for every 6 disks for S&H. A “D n next to
the disk number, indicates a “double-sided”
disk, e.g. S3D. (Disks require 128K ROMS)

SI: MacWrite 5.0 Demo— (Cannot print/
save but can load and read doc files.)

S2: MacPaint 2.0 Demo— (Cannot print/
save files but can load, view & create them.)
S3D: Red Ryder 9.4— Powerful telecom¬
munications program. Docs, utilities included.
S4D: Aldus Freehand Demo— A Video¬
works II interactive demonstration of Free¬
hand drawing program.

S5: Games #1— Banzai, Monopoly 4.0,
ATC 4.0, Mines, New Daleks, Brickies 4.0
S6D: PowerPoint Demo— (64K ROMs
Compatible) Fully working demo version of
this popular Mac program for planning, com¬
posing, and creating complete presentations.
S7: Games #2— Space Bubbles, Stratego,
Investigator #1, Towers of Hanoi, Marienbad.
S8: Image Studio Demo— (Does not
save) A photo retouching lab, modify digit¬
ized images in 65 grey scale levels.

S9: Telecom #1— Stuff It 1.51, Stuff It Users
Guide, Freeterm 2.0, Freeterm 2.0 Documen¬
tation, TermWorks 1.3, Packet III ver 1.3.
S10D: Stacks #1— Concentration, Hyper-
Gunshy, Dinosaurs, AutoStack, Home 1.2.
S11: Utilities #1— MacEnvy, Benchmark,
DiskTimer II, Samplelt 1.21, Samplelt Docs,
Apfont 3.2, HierDA, Fever, OnCue 1.3 DEmo,
ScreenDump II, Findsweel 2.0 Demo
S12D: Full Impact Demo— Great spread¬
sheet program. (No save feature.)

SI 3D: Stacks #2— VisualStack, Chem
Flash Cards, DisplayPict 1.4, Indigo Gets Out,
AutCat, Animal Stack, Comic, OnTheBeach,
Name That Plane.

S14: Utilities #2—Big Das runner, Mac II
Icons, DiskParam, Utilities 1.5.1 Guide, Un-
stuffit DA 1.5.1, Auto Unstuffit Installer 1.5,
Repair 1.2, ICON Designer, Viewer 1.5.1,
SuperClock 3.1, SuperClock Doc ToMultiFin-
der, Interferon 3.1.

SI 5: Games #3— Darts, MacCamelot,
BricklesPlus, Gravitation 4.0, Swamplord
SI6: DAs #1— NekoDA, BezierDa and
Docs, SnapShotDA 1.2, Adventure, VirusDe-
tective, BreakKey, SysErrTableDA, PinUp
Clock DA, Freemem, New Scrapbook DA
SI 7: Sounds #1— SoundMaster w/22
sound files for use w/VI.9 of Spectre.

SI8: Graphics #1— IDmata, DAfx 1.32,
3dEDIT, Fly Saver, Kaleidoscope, Optical,
Pattern Blocks, Rae, Turbo View 1.01, Mac¬
Paint Shortcuts, Desktop Shortcuts.

S19D: Hyper Utilities #1— Deprotect
Stack, XPICT, Moving Cursors Tutorial, But¬
ton Manager, Stack Compacter, Field Line
Numberer, CardMover, Six Little Goodies, MH
PowerScripts Sample, ShowDialogl.5.

S20D: MacDraw II Demo— VideoWorks
format provides tour of latest features.

S21: Utilities #3— File Scan, Jaws Icon,
File Master Icon, File Monster Doc, Snapshot
Installer, Black Hole 6.0.2, Looney Tunes
Icons, Dog Trash Icon, Shredder Icno, UD SI
M1.1, Virus RX I.4a2, System Font. Some
icon files require ResEdit for installation.

S22: Sword of Siegfried— Graphics/text
adventure (requires vl .9 of Spectre).

S23: Sounds #2— Sound files may also be
used w/SoundMaster on #S17. (10000 Mar¬
bles, Any Sound 1, Any Sound 2, Bad Disk 1,
BVad Disk 2, Beep, Beep Sound 1, Disk
Sounds 1-4, Don’t Worry Be Happy, Ka-
Chung!, Rolling Your Own, Type Key 1, Type
Return 1, Type Space 1.)

S24: Games #4— Dragon 2, Zoony,
MazerLazer, and demo of ShufflePuck.
S25D: MacMoney Demo— Personal
finance program, prints but does not save.
S26: Fkeys #1—23 fkeys and fkey related
applications (Analog Clock, Clock, CopyDisk
3.0, Craps, F-KEY Installer, FadeKey,
Filelnfo, fkey, Fkey File Installer, Fkey-DA
Sampler 2, Fkey View 2.5, FullMoon Calender,
InfoKey, LaunchKey, MacAlmanac, Pipeline,
ResCViewer 4.5, SafeLaunch 2.2, Spa-
ceWarp, StripTease, Unpack, Ver Reader 3.0
and Windows.

S27: Games #5—3D Checkers V2.0, Bal¬
listics 2.0, Consternation 1.0, HangMan, Peg
Puzzle Pak, UnBreakout.

S28: DAtabase Builder Demo— Full fea¬
tured database in a Desk Accessory.

S29: Sounds #3—Talking Moose 1.21 and
9 sound resources for MacCD (#S23) or
SoundMaster (#S 17)—Archie, Bad Disk 3,
Beep Sound 2, Disk Sound 5, Disk Sound 6,
Key Click 1, Oh Yeaaahh!, Mac Sound 1, and
Startup Sound 1.

S30: Utilities #4 —Init Cdev, Assassin,
BundAid, Curse the Finder, Easy Icon, Finder
Cursor Icons, Finder Icons, HD Mini-Icon,
IconManager 1.1, JerryCan, Murphy Init,
NeVR Init, ScrollMBar CDev, System lcons+,
Version Sleuth 1.0, What, and Windows.

S31: DAs #2— Address Book 1.1.2 w/docs,
Artist-h 2.01 w/docs, Blackjack, Calc 3.0,
Calendar 1.7, Catch, dCAD 3.0 w/docs,
Diskinfo 1.2, Maxwell 2.2a, MegaCalculator,
SuperHelp w/docs, VirusDetective 2.2.1 w/
docs, and windows.

S32: VideoWorks w/Sound —6 VW ani¬
mations w/player, sound resources, and
MacinTalk (1 Mac to go, Apollo, Marbles,
People Wall, Shortstop, and The Cauldron.)
S33D: HyperUtilities #2— GetString
XFCN, HyperScrap, LockField, Pluckstring
XFCN, Recover, Script Lister, Script Access,
Stack Analyzer, Stak-X Demo, Unity, Virus
Encyclopedia, XFCN miscellany, Zoomer
XCFN).

S34: Excel Templates #1— Macro,
Amort, Sch, Apod 1.0, Budget, Checkbook,
Clock.CH, Clock.MS, Clock.WS, Commands,
DB.Form, Excel Budget, Expenses, Exps,
Inc, IRA, Load Calc Master2, Load MaxTime
2, Matrix, MortAmt.MS 3.0, Replace, Savings
Account, BioChart, BioRhythm.

S35D: HyperStacks #3— Atoms, Bird
Stack II, Helicopter Stack, HyperIRA, Scan
Stack 3.

S36: Sounds #4— Includes A Wish, I don’t
know, I know you are, Mecca jumbi, Need
Input!, Unacceptable, Ax Headroom, Cheap-
Beep, Ayaaaah!, Boom!, aooooh, game over
man, monkey, and vulcan mind.

S37D: HyperStacks #4— StackArt Vol. 1
(100 clip art pics).

S38: Games #6— Cairo Shootout 1.2a,
Puzzl 1.1, and Stunt Copter 2.0.

S39: Utilities #5—Init Cdev 2.0, About
lOnit Cdev 2.0, Moire Cdev, Moire Screen

Saver Docs, Moire Cdev to Init, Hierda .9983,
RAM check, SnapJot, SuperClock 3.4, Time¬
piece, Virus Detective 3.0.1, Wind Chooser
1.0.1, Why 1.0.1, QuicKeys demo.

S40D: HyperUtilities #3— Christopher’s
XSTAK4, How a Virus Works, IConjurer, and
Progress XCMD 1.1.

S41: Productivity #1— Albun Tracker
2.0.1, Amortize 2.4, Check Book 2.0, Road
Atlas, and Smallview 1.3.

S42: Productivity #2— Address List 1.5.2,
BiPlane 1.0.1 (spreadsheet), Doctor 2.35
(makes self launching documents), and Mac
Mailing 1.4S (maillist program).

#S43: VideoWorks w/Sound #2— Hello
Amiga, MacPaint Vid, Movies 3, MylstVid,
Trash, Vamp NY 1, and China Doll. Requires
V 1.0 or higher of Spectre.

S44: Utilities #6— Black Box 1.5, Com
plete Delete, Earth Init, FFDA Sampler, File
Fixer, IconWrap Init, Macify 2.5, MacSpeed,
Repair 1.4, Rescue, Scrolling Menu Installer,
Shredder 6.0, SystemVersion, TextDiff, TFin-
der 2.2, ToMultifinder 2.3, vaccine 1.01, and
Version Reader 2.2.

S45: Graphics #2— MandeIZot 1.4.1, Micro
Swarm, Notebook 1.0, NoteNote5, Pyre-
Works, ScanPaint, SelectPaint, ViewPaint 1.7.
S46: Everyman 1— Graphics/text adven¬
ture. Requires VI.9 or higher of Spectre.
S47D/S48D: Phoenix— interactive adven¬
ture game based on the movies 2001 and
2010. Requires Spectre VI.9 or higher and 2
DS drives or Hard disk.

S49: Lawn Zapper— arcade type game.
(Requires VI.9 or higher of Spectre.)

S50: Dungeons of Doom, V5.4. Inter¬
active adventure game based on Dungeons
and Dragons.

S51D: Postscript Fonts #1—11 post¬
script fonts: Archimedes Border, Bills’ Ding¬
bats, Classic Heavy, Classic Italic, Classic
Roman, Draftman, Faust, Gordon, Style, Tiny
Helvetica, and Toulouse Lautrec.

♦ ♦♦♦♦♦

NOTE: The following disks from our library
of Magic disks for use with the Magic Sac
Macintosh emulator also work with Spectre.
M5: Disk Librarian (includes complete
listing of CN Magic & Spectre libraries), Ml2:
MacBillBoard, Ml9: Pinball Construction Set
Games, M29: PCS Games #2
Adventure Games: Ml7: Dungeons of
Doom 4.0, M23: Vampire Castle, M24: Deep
Angst, 1 Mb, M31: Black Wizard, M36: Castle
of Ert, M40: Hack, Version 1.03, M41: Radical
Castle, M63D: Mountain of Mayhem, M65D:
Deep Angst II, M66: Intruder.

Font Disks: M13: Fonts #1, M14: Fonts #2,
M16: Fonts #3, M32: Fonts #4, M35: Fonts
#5, M42: Fonts #6, M44: Fonts #7, M50:
Fonts #8, M61: Fonts #9, M64: Fonts #10,
M67: Fonts #11

Clip Art Disks: M33: Clip Art #1, M52: Clip
Art #2, M55: Clip Art #3
Commercial Demos: M37. Mac-A-Mug
Pro Demo, M38: Video Works Player #1,
M39: Demo Disk #2: Anatomiser, DeskPaint,
and SuperPaint, M54: Design Demo Disk,
M59D: Demo Disk #3: Kaleidagraph, Geo¬
graphies II, M62: Demo Disk #4: Math
Blaster, Blob Manager Demo.

HyperCard Disks: M48D: HyperStacks #1,
M49D: HyperStacks #2, M56D: HyperStacks
#3

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 75

Members of registered clubs may subscribe to Current Notes at a discount rate ($20/year or $38/2 years). To add your club to the list, send an
initial subscription list of 10% of the members or 6 members whichever is less, to CN Registered Clubs, 122 N. Johnson Rd., Sterling, VA 22170.
For more information, call Joyce (703) 450-4761. NOTE: Canadian Atari clubs are also eligible and Canadian club rates are $28/yearor $54/2 years)

ALABAMA

Huntsville AUG, Levin Soule, 3911 W. Crest-
view, Huntsville 35816 (205)534-1815.

ARIZONA

Tucson Atari Central, Sam Furrow, 2116 E. 1st
St,Tucson,85719 (603)323-3410

ARKANSAS

Little Rock Atari Addicts, Keith Steensma, 28
John Hancock Cir, Jacksonville, 72076 (501)
985-2131.

CALIFORNIA

Atari Bay Area Computer Users Society, Bill
Zinn, PO Box 22212, San Francisco 94122
(415)753-8483.

San Diego ACE, Tom Briant, PO Box 203076,
San Diego 92120 (619)581-2477.

Santa Maria/Lompac ACE, Mike Jacobson 608
N. Pierce, Santa Maria 93454 (805) 925-9390.

CONNECTICUT

Atari User Group of Greater Hartford, 503-B
East Center St, Manchester 06040 (203)

623-8833.

Dover Users of STs, Al Beddow, 4434 Vermont
Dr, Dover 19901 (302)697-3830

ST Atari Road Runners, Glen Werner, 1160
South Curtis St, Wallingford 06492.

ST Atari Users Society, Brian Rufini, 176
Burnside, E. Hartford 06180 (203) 289-7903.

FLORIDA

Atari Boosters League East, Hadley Nelson,
P.O.Box 1172, Winter Park 32790.

IDAHO

Rattlesnake Atari Computer Enthusiasts, Bon¬
nie Walden, 301 Birch St, Mountain Home,
83647(208)587-7476

ILLINOIS

Central Illinois Atari Users Group, Robert
Handley, 1920 East Croxton Ave, Blooming¬
ton 61701-5702 (309)828-4661.

Lake County ACE, Dwight Johnson, PO Box
8788, Waukegan 60079 (312)623-9567.

ST Information Group, Joe Lambert, P.O. Box
1242, Peoria, 61654 (309)346-4326.

INDIANA

Atari Lovers of Uliana Equaled by None, Jeff
Coe, 706 Center St., Crown Point, 46307
(219)663-5117.

Eli Lilly Corp Center ST Users Group, Karl
Werner, Eli Lilly Corp Cntr, Indianapolis 46285
(317)276-3020.

IOWA

Midwest Atari Group-lowa Chap, Gordie Meyer,
PO BOX 1982, Ames 50010 (515) 232-1252.

KANSAS

Ft. Leavenworth Atari Group, PO Box 3233, Ft
Leavenworth 66027.

Lawrence Atari Comp. Club, Robert Drake, PO
BOX 1415, Lawrence, 66044 (913)842-5961.

Wichita ACE, Marilyn Merica, 501 Trotter, Maize
67101 (316)722-1078.

KENTUCKY

Atari Exchange of Louisville, Don Garr, PO Box
34183, Louisville 40232.

LOUISIANA

Only ST Users’ Group, William Sammons, 2144
Emerson St, Gretna 70056.

MARYLAND

Atari Users Regional Assoc, Bill Brown, PO Box
7761, Silver Spring 20910 (301) 279-7537.

Frederick Atari Computer Enthusiasts, Buddy
Smallwood, PO Box 2026, Frederick 21701
(717)485-4714.

Maryland Atari Computer Club, James Hill, 8591
Wheatfield Way, Ellicott City 21043 (301)
461-7556.

Meade Atari ST, Bob Johnson, 1616B Forrest
Ave, Ft. Meade 20755

Southern Maryland Atari Users Group, San
Schrinar, 2032 Alehouse Ct, Waldorf 20601
(301)843-7916.

MASSACHUSETTS

Nashoba Valley Atari Computer Users Society,
Dave Burns, PO Box 456, Maynard 01754.

MICHIGAN

Michigan Atari General Information Conference,
(MAGIC), Mike Lechkun, 4801 Martin Rd,
Warren 48092-3491.

MINNESOTA

SPACE/MAST, James Schulz, PO Box 12016,
New Brighton 55112 (612)533-4193.

MISSOURI

ACE St Louis, Joan Ryan, PO Box 6783, St.
Louis, MO 63144 (314)645-6431.

Warrensburg/Whiteman Atari Computer
Owners, Les Lynam, PO Box 199, Warrens-
burg 64093 (816)747-2543.

NEW JERSEY

Jersey Atari Computer Group, 8 Crescent Rd,
Pine Brook 07058.

NEW YORK

ACE Users Group of Syracuse, Bernice Futter-
man, PO Box 658, Sylvan Beach 13157 (315)
762-4878.

Atari Computer Owners of Rochester NY, Bruce
Nelson, PO Box 23676, Rochester 14692 (716)
334-5513.

Capital District ACE, Joe Bogaard, PO Box 511,
Delmar 12054

Rockland Atari Computer Users Group, Richard
Bloch, 29 Riverglen Dr., Thiells, NY 10984 (914)
429-5283.

NORTH CAROLINA

Blue Ridge Atari Computer Enthusiasts, Bill
Traughber, 106 Alpine Way, Asheville, NC
28805 (704)298-0179.

Charlotte AUG, Joe Venturelli, PO Box 240313,
Charlotte 28224 (704) 366-4320.

Peidmont Triad AUG, Nora Schwier, PO Box
1073, Greensboro,27402(919)674-9196.

Triangle Computer Club, Donald Nelson, Rt. 3,
BOX 760, Hillsborough 27278 (919) 942-2764.

OHIO

Cleveland ACE, John Savarda, PO Box 93034,
Cleveland 44101-5034.

Miami Valley ACE, Bruce Hansford, P.O. Box
24221, Huber Heights, 45424 (513)439-1993.

PENNSYLVANIA

Allentown Bethlehem Easton’s ACE, PO Box
2830, Lehigh Valley 18001 BBS 215-868-
4856.

N. E. Atari Team Users Group, Allan Zaluda, PO
Box 18150, Philadelphia 19116-0150.

Spectrum Atari Group of Erie, Earl Hill, PO Box
10562, Erie 16514 (814)833-4073.

Southcentral PA ACE, Richard Basso, PO Box
11446, Harrisburg 17108 (717) 761 -3755.

SOUTH CAROLINA

Greenville Atari Computer Enthusiasts, Mary
Anne Terminato, 19 Alpine Way, Greenville
29609 (803)292-2690.

SOUTH DAKOTA

Rushmore ACE, Gregg Anderson, 3512
Lawrence Drive, Rapid City, SD 57701 (605)
348-6331.

TENNESSEE

Chattanooga Atari Owners Symposium, Phil
Snider, PO Box 80101, Chattnooga 37411

Knoxville AUG, Bill Brosey, 953 Roderick Rd,
Knoxville 37923 (615) 693-4542.

TEXAS

DAL-ACE, Rachel Duke, PO Box 851872,
Richardson, 75085-1872 (214)429-6134.

ST Atari League of San Antonio, David St.
Martin, 3203 Coral Grove Dr, San Antonio
78247(512)496-5635.

VIRGINIA

Greater Richmond Atari Support Program,
Thomas Marvin, 1420 Yale Ave, Richmond
23224 (804)233-6155.

Northern Virginia Atari Users Group, Bonnie
Little, PO Box 4076, Merrifield 22116 (703)
444-2419.

Southside Tidewater Atari Tech Users Society,
Dick Litchfield, 1805 St. Regis Circle, VA
Beach 23456 (804) 468-6964.

Woodbridge Atari Computer Users’ Group,
David Waalkes, 1302 Oregon Ave, Wood-
bridge 22191 (703)490-1225.

WASHINGTON

Seattle Puget-Sound ACE, Nick Berry, PO Box
110576, Tacoma 98411 -0576 (206) 759-1473.

STDIO, Ralph Plaggenburg, 904 N. 33rd PI,
Renton, 98056 (206) 228-5303.

WISCONSIN

Milwaukee Area Atari User’s Group, Dennis
Wilson, 3301 S. 93rd St, #108, Milwaukee, Wl
53227(414)546-0282.

Packerland Atari Computer Users Society,
Peter Schefsky, 2714 South 11th Place,
Sheboygan, 53081414-457-4519.

CANADA

Montreal Atari Club Atari de Montreal, PO Box
5418, St. Laurent Station, Ville St. Laurent,
H4L4Z9

The Montreal Atari ST/Mega Group, Jonathan
Seldin, 4235, ave. Wilson, Montreal, Quebec
H4A2V1

Page 76

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

In response to many concerns voiced
by our customers, we have decided to
revamp our XL/XE selection of library
disks. After considering many of the
options available to us, we have decided
to start a new XL/Xe library containing
all new titles and a few old ones all put
together in a new, consistent format.
This format means that the disks will be
easier to use and will contain more
quality software.

Due to the amount of work involved
in releasing fifty new disk titles, the
new disks will be appearing at a rate of
hopefully five or six a month. The old
library will still be available and a list
may be obtained from the Mail Order
Librarian.

To prevent confusion between the
old and the new libraries please use the
new three letter and number code to
identify orders from the new library.

Attention all programmers! NOVA-
TARI is always seeking contributions to
its library. If you’ve written something
you think others would enjoy using or
you have something we don’t; by all
means send it in. Please remember that
all submissions should be public domain
or shareware. Disks accepted into the
library will be exchanged for library
disks on a one for one basis. Please
indicate your choices when you send in
your submissions. Please send your
submissions to:

Jeff King,

10033 Clearfield Ave.,

Vienna, VA 22181

And now the library:

DMOI - Classic 8-bit Demos (A collection of 7 demos
from the early days of Atari.)

DM02 - 8-bit Graphics Demos (4 of the more recent 8-bit
demos.)

DM03 - Video Blitz (130XE Required) (One of best 8-bit
demos ever released.)

DM04 - German Sound and Graphics (An excellent art
and music demo.)

DOS1 - DOS 2.5 (The standard Atari DOS.)

DOS2 - Rainbow DOS (An interesting graphics dos.)

DOS3 - Desktop DOS (A demo of an ST-type desktop for
the 8-bit.)

DOS4 - DOS 4.0 (A developemental DOS never officially
released by Atari.)

DOS5 - DOS 2.6 (Very similar to DOS 2.5)

DOS6 - MachDos 3.7a (An Atari DOS alternative.)

DOS7 - Mydos 4.50 (One of the best Atari DOS substitutes.)

DOS8 - DOS XE (The DOS released by Atari to provide
support for the XF551 drive.)

GRA1 - Video 130XE (Requires a 130XE. An image
acquisition and processing system. Requires Computereyes to
acquire images.)

GRA2 - Video 130XE Images (4 images for use with the
Video 130XEprogram.)

UTL1 - Screens (An impressive windowing utility.)

UTL2 - Help Key Routine (Include the HELP key in your
own programs.)

Disks are S3.00 each with $1.00 shipping per 3 disks.

Send all orders to:

Thom Parkin,

701 N. Sterling Blvd.,

Sterling, VA 22170

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 77

CURRENT NOTES II989 INDEX

Atari News/Commentary/
Tutorials

Atari News Stores

Atari And Disneyland, Ariel.R (Jun, p.67)

Atari And Its Dealers, Ariel.R (Jun, p.16)

Atari Enthusiasts In Poland, Amborski.T (Mar,

p.20)

Atari Expo In Detroit, Hill.H (Jun, p.66)

Atari Honcho Reveals Oz Game Plan, Farrar,D
(Sep, p.27)

Atari In Berlin, Creighton,J (Mar, p.18)

Atari In Europe, Update ‘89, Creighton,M (Jul,
P-34)

Atari In Israel, Creighton,M (Sep, p.26)

Atari ST On National TV, Elmore,D (Jun, p.18)
Atarifest ‘89 - People Power On Target,
Barnes,J (Sep, p.52)

Atarifest ‘89: Comdex For The Common Man,
Barnes,J (Jun, p.67)

Atarifest 1989, Elmore,D (Nov, p.12)

Comdex 1989, Goff.R (Dec, p.12)

How Word Perfect & Atari Saved Our Lives,
Sommers,F (Jul, p.51)

List Of Atari Stores, By State, Waters,J (Sep,
P-06)

NAMM Show News, Tos 1.4, Whitman,L (Sep,
P-64)

PC89: Atari Chief Urges More Choices,

Macrae,M (Sep, p.27)

Producing The Fuji-Ya Entry, Frank,D (Nov,
P-17)

Summer CES ‘89, Osterman.K (Jul, p.18)
WAACE Desktop Publishing Contest, Price.W
(Nov, p.17)

What Did Atarians Think About The Fest?,
Waters,J (Nov, p.16)

World Of Atari-Detroit Edition, McGuire,D
(Sep, p.18)

Atari Press Releases

Atari Introduces Color Entertainment System
(Jul, p.08)

Atari Introduces New Calculator Line (Jul, p.10)
Atari Schedules 20 New Games For Delivery
(Jul, p.09)

Portfolio Arrives (Oct, p.05)

Commentary

Is This Really Progress?, Barnes,J (Feb, p.54)
Power Without The Noise, Baggetta.A (Nov,
P-64)

Humor

America’s Stealth Computer, Grace,D (Dec,
P-66)

Does Your Computer Have A.I.D.S.?, Grace,D
(Apr, p-51)

Interviews

An Interview With Matt Singer, Hill.H (May,
P-42)

Tutorials

130XE Emulator And Xformer Serial Cable,
Mihocka.D (Mar, p.70)

Freeware & Shareware, Mihocka.D (May, p.58)
Hard Disk Drives, Price.W (Feb, p.22)

Hard Disk Myths/Mysteries, Troy.D (Oct, p.30)
Hard Disks: Build It Yourself, Troy.D (Dec,
P-24)

Hard Drive Backup Technologies, Barnes,J
(Dec, p.46)

Hard Drive Features, Troy.D (Nov, p.31)

Is My Atari IBM (Mac) Compatible?, Csullog.G
(Dec, p.18)

Know Your Clip Art, Rapson.M (Jun, p.52)

My Compiler Can Beat Your Compiler!, Wrot-
niak.A (Mar, p.32

CN Departments

Editorials (Joe Waters)

Evolutionary Changes in CN, (Feb, p. 6)

Atari’s Computer Competition (Mar, p.06)
Laptops & Integrating PC/Atari Text (Apr, p.06)
Comdex New Products Recall ‘87 Comdex
Products (May, p.06)

Atari and Its Dealers (Jun, p.06)

Hard Drive Troubles (Jul, p.06)

New Products Around the Corner (Sep, p.06)
The Atari Portfolio: A First Look (Oct, p.04)
Atarifest ‘89, Author of the Year (Nov, p.04)

An Issue Full of “Specials” (Dec, p.04)

Junkyard Pussycat (John Barnes)

Bring Back the Personal Touch (Mar, p.30)
Little Tidbits to Pass on to Atarians (Apr, p.54)
Spare Me from the Missionaries (May, p.32)
Atari Users Unite! (Jun, p.28)

Living With Your Laser Printer (Jul, p.52)

The Underdog of the Month (Sep, p.38)

The Online Confectionery (Oct, p.32)

A Visit to Santa’s Workshop (Nov, p.24)

The Life Of A Computer Critic (Dec, p.36)

Marshall Artist (Steve Marshall)

The Graphic Arts (Apr, p.36)

Personal In-Room Comm. (May, p.26)
Opportunities In Computer Graphics (Jun,
p.24)

Prof. World Of Computer Graphics (Jul, p.28)
Designing And Marketing A Game (Sep, p.32)
Gift Ideas For The Computer Artist (Nov, p.32)
Taking a Look at Pixer Fixer (Dec, p.22)

Atari’s Small Miracles (XL/XE)

GTIA Test, GTIA2, GTIA3, GTIA4 (Feb, p.63)
Graphic, Joydraw, GrSText (Mar, p.60)
Rainbow1,2,3, Graphics (Apr, p.62)

Stars 3-D, Pattern, Graphics 8 (May, p.65)
Plane, Pretty, Bassnote (Jun, p.62)

Brian’s Theme, Bounce, Ball (Jul, p.64)

Ira Calc,Graphics 9-11,Freakout (Nov, p.44)
Box10,Trynine,Cnorbit,Cnscroll (Dec, p.64)

ST Toolbox (J. Andrzej Wrotniak)

Schopenhauer’s Law Of Entrophy (May, p.20)
Raising Your Computer Literacy (Jun, p.27)
Scientific Computing On The ST (Jul, p.40)
Tempus II; Pinhead, Packer, QS1.45 (Sep,

P-44)

TOS 1.4, Copy Protection, Turbo ST
1.6,QStart1.5 (Oct, p.36)

Software That Stinks (Nov, p.34)

Christmas Shopping Spree (Dec, p.28)

ST Update (Frank Sommers)

A Year Full of Hope? (Feb, p. 8)

TV, PostScript, Laptops, Misinformation (Mar,
P-08)

A Leaner, Meaner Atari (Apr, p.10)

Euphoria, Atari Style at Spring Comdex (May,

p.10)

Management, Merchandisers, Machines, and
Marketing (Jun, p.10)

TOS/TT Mystery, Dealer Frustrations, Portfolio
(Jul, p.12)

Satraps, Summer Noises, Re-Aligning Realities
(Sep, p.12)

TT’s & STE’s & TOS 1.4’s & Wall Street & Fleet
Streets (Oct, p.10)

A Feast at the Fest, the Revolution, Lawsuits
(Nov, p.08)

pc-ditto II? TT? STE? Lynx? Portfolio, Comdex
(Dec, p.08)

Small World (Dave Small)

Numbers (Feb, p.18)

Dear Diary (Mar, p.14)

The Most Eligible St Bachelors (Apr, p.34)

Ban Semi-Automatic Computers (May, p.22)
Unix: Horror Of The Future (Jun, p.36)

Road Trip (Jul, p.34)

Hacker Memories (Sep, p.24)

This And That (Oct, p.14)

Hacker Time (Nov, p.52)

ST/Mac Connection (Jeff Greenblatt)

Spectre 1.75 Released (Feb, p.14)

Magic/Spectre Tips (Doug Hodson)

#1: Atari To Macintosh Jump (Mar, p.36)

#2: The Printer Connection (Apr, p.18)

#3: Spectre Speaks (May, p.18)

#4: Bye, Bye Floppy Flipping (Jun, p.20)

#5: Stuff It Or Pack It! (Jul, p.22)

#6: Mac Resources, Part 1 (Sep, p.28)

#7: Mac Resources, Part 2 (Oct, p.18)

#8: Mac Resources, Part 3 (Nov, p.23)

#9: Mega ST Shielding Problem (Dec, p.26)

Starting Block (Richard Gunter)

Hard Needn’T Be Terrifying (Feb, p.16)

Painful Necessities (Mar, p.24)

Managing Your Hard Drive (Apr, p.30)

My Favorite Utilities (May, p.38)

Very Local Communications (Jun, p.40)
Computer Shopping, Part 1 (Jul, p.32)
Computer Shopping, Part 2 (Sep, p.42)
Michtron’s Turbo Kit (Oct, p.24)

Codehead Utilities Disk (Nov, p.18)

Christmas Gift Ideas (Dec, p.34)

Stuck in a Rut (“Sam Wright”)

Intro Column For Adventurers (Feb, p.53)

The Lurking Horror (Mar, p.28)

Transylvania (Apr, p.56)

Uninvited (May, p.36)

Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking For Love
(Jun, p.31)

Talespin (Jul, p.66)

Deja Vu ll: Lost In Las Vegas (Sep, p.36)
Adventure Game Toolkit (Nov, p.28)

Maniac Mansion (Dec, p.31)

Page 78

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

There and Back Again (Robert Millard)

Heroes Of The Lance (Feb, p.56)

Sinbad And The Throne Of The Falcon (Mar,
P-26)

Kings Quest IV (Apr, p.48)

War In Middle Earth (May, p.30)

A Murky Crystal Ball (Jun, p.34)

CES: The Chicago (Big) Blues (Jul, p.20)
Demon’s Winter (Sep, p.48)

Deathbringer (Oct, p.20)

The Troubled Times Of Lore (Nov, p.21)

Best Of The Quest II - Buyers Guide (Dec,

P-38)

XE/XL Update (Len Poggiali)

SpartaDOS X Arrives, Video Game News (Feb,
P-12)

British Titles, Michael Katz Interview (Mar, p.12)
7800 Game System, New Products (Apr, p.12)
Is Anything New? Happy Math, Draw7 (May,
P-14)

Atarian, Label Master, New Carts at Last (Jun,
P-14)

Letters!, AtariwriterSO, Diamond Trouble (Jul,
P-16)

Winter Challenge Released, Atarian News
(Sep, p.16)

Paperclip 80? Burying Commodore hatchet
(Oct, p.54)

XE Upbeat, Looking Back, Diamond News...
(Dec, p.60)

Product Reviews

7800 Game System

Cracked, Poggiali,L (Nov, p.46)

Desert Falcon, Poggiali,L (Jul, p.62)

Hat Trick, Poggiali,L (Nov, p.47)

Mario Brothers, Poggiali,L (Jul, p.62)
One-On-One Basketball, Poggiali,L (Jun, p.64)
Pole Position II, Poggiali,L (Jun, p.64)

Book Reviews (Hahn.P.)

Educational Commuting (Nov, p.55)

Getting Your Words Perfect (May, p.61)

Writing Better Spreadsheets (Jun, p.56)

ST Reviews

Adventure Game Toolkit, Wright,S (Nov, p.28)
Air Warrier, Heininger,M (Sep, p.58)

Aladin, V 3.0, Hand,B (Jul, p.46)

Baal, Sapienza.J (Nov, p.40)

Battlehawks 1942, Abram,R (Nov, p.42)
Calamus DTP, Price,W (Mar, p.48)

Carrier Command, Abram,R (Jun, p.50)
Codehead Utilities Disk, Gunter,R (Nov, p.18)
Computer Guide To The Solar System,

Moes.B (Oct, p.38)

Construction Estimator, O’Massey (Dec, p.68)
DBman V, Barnes,J (Apr, p.40)

Deathbringer, Millard,R (Oct, p.20)

Demon’s Winter, Millard,R (Sep, p.48)

Deskjet Revisited - The HP Deskjet Plus,
Wallace,J (Dec, p.52)

Devon Aire, Miller,B (Oct, p.46)

Devpac ST, Eitelman.S (Oct, p.50)

DynaCadd, Greenblatt.J (Feb, p.32)

EZ-Grade, Moes.B (Feb, p.48)

El Cal, Anderson,C (May, p.40)

Elite, Creighton,M (May, p.48)

Falcon, Abram,R (Apr, p.38)

Final Assault, Elmore,D (Apr, p.66)

Fire Zone, Crook,C (Oct, p.52)

Flash Cards, Moes.B (Apr, p.43)

Flexcessory, Maxwell,D (May, p.62)

Fun For The Young Set: Kid Programs, Miller,B
(May, p.56)

Function Z, Rudolph,S (Oct, p.42)

GFA Class, Speedreader, Assistant Chef,

Miller,B (Dec, p.70)

Generation Gap Plus, Ford.R (Mar, p.58)

Graph Maker, Moes.B (Jul, p.44)

Hero, Miller,B (Jul, p.38)

Heroes Of The Lance, Millard,R (Feb, p.56)
Hisoft Basic, Eitelman.S (Jul, p.48)
Hole-ln-One Minature Golf, Elmore,D (Jul,
P-39)

Home Casino, Elmore,D (May, p.52)

Jug - The Titanium Man, Sapienza.J (Nov,

p.62)

Kidpublisher, Moes.B (Mar, p.56)

Kidshapes, Moes.B (Mar, p.57)

Kings Quest IV, Millard,R (Apr, p.48)

Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking For Love,
Wright,S (Jun, p.31)

Lost Dutchman Mine, Elmore,D (Sep, p.50)
Lost In Las Vegas, Wright,S (Sep, p.36)

Lurking Horror, The, Wright,S (Mar, p.28)
Manhunter: New York, Elmore,D (Oct, p.40)
Maniac Mansion, Wright,S (Dec, p.31)
Masterlink, Seward,E (Nov, p.56)

Mega Touch, Abram,R (Sep, p.65)

Mega Tweety!, Crook,C (Jun, p.47)

Moniterm Monitor, Johnson,C (Sep, p.62)
NORAD, Price,W (Oct, p.48)

NeoDesk V.2, Wrotniak.A (Feb, p.41)

Orbiter, Abram,R (May, p.54)

Packer, Wrotniak.A (Sep, p.44)

PageStream, Anderson,C (Feb, p.45)
Pagestream Update, Anderson,C (Mar, p.54)
Pinhead, Wrotniak.A (Sep, p.44)

Pixer Fixer, Marshall,S (Dec, p.22)

Populus, Smith,P (Sep, p.66)

Project Neptune, Elmore,B (Nov, p.61)
Prospero C Compiler, Wrotniak.A (Apr, p.44)
Quick Start 1.45, Wrotniak.A (Sep, p.44)

Quick Start 1.5, Wrotniak.A (Oct, p.36)

R/C Areochopper And IMG Scan, Lambert,J
(Feb, p.58)

ST Word Processors, Wallace,J (Apr, p.28)
STOSS: The Game Creator, Marshall,S (Mar,
p.42)

Sinbad And The Throne Of The Falcon, Mil¬
lard,R (Mar, p.26)

Sky Map, Moes.B (Oct, p.39)

Sonus Superscore, Whitman,L (Jun, p.60)
Space Station Oblivion, Sommers IV,F (Feb,
p.52)

Spitfire 40, Abram,R (Mar, p.46)

Starglider II, Gunter,R (Feb, p.50)

Stellar Crusade, Creighton,M (Jun, p.42)
Syquest 44 Mb Removable Cartridge HD,
Barnes,J (Oct, p.28)

TOS 1.4, Wrotniak.A (Oct, p.36)

Talespin, Wright,S (Jul, p.66)

TeX On The Atari ST, Mitchell,H (Dec, p.43)
Techno Cop, Miller,B (Jun, p.48)

Tempus II, Wrotniak.A (Sep, p.44)

The Best Atari Software, Moes.B (Apr, p.22)
The Magic Playground, Moes.B (Feb, p.66)
The Planets, Moes.B (Oct, p.39)

The Troubled Times Of Lore, Millard,R (Nov,
P-21)

Touch-Up, Creighton,M (Apr, p.14)

Tower Toppler, Osterman.K (Mar, p.59)
Transylvania, Wright,S (Apr, p.56)

Turbo 16, Creighton,M (Nov, p.58)

Turbo Kit, Gunter,R (Oct, p.24)

Turbo ST 1.6, Wrotniak.A (Oct, p.36)
UltraScript, Sommers,F (May, p.46)

Uninvited, Wright,S (May, p.36)

War In Middle Earth, Millard,R (May, p.30)
Word Quest, Moes.B (Sep, p.53)

Word Quest 2, Moes.B (Nov, p.38)
WordPerfect - Update ‘89, Creighton,M (Oct,

p.22)

Zany Golf, Abram,R (Oct, p.44)

XE/XL Reviews

Airball, Adkins,P (Dec, p.63)

Alternate Reality - The City, Emery,L (Feb,

p.28)

AtariWriter 80, Beville.S (Oct, p.60)
Battlezone, Drake,J (Feb, p.60)

Bismarck: The North Sea Chase, Adkins,P
(Mar, p.67)

Blazing Paddles, Hallen.L (Mar, p.68)
Choplifter!, Godbey.J (Oct, p.65)

Crime Buster, Poggiali,L (Sep, p.54)
Crossbow, Poggiali,L (Sep, p.54)

Crystal Castles, Shutt.B (Oct, p.65)

Dark Chambers, Godbey.J (Jul, p.60)
Diamond GOS, Peters,R (Sep, p.56)

Fight Night, Pietrafesa.J (Feb, p.60)

Food Fight, Poggiali,L (Mar, p.62)

Gauntlet, Pietrafesa.J (Mar, p.72)

Happy’s Programs—Math, Poggiali,L (Jun,
p.65)

Hollywood Hijinx, Williams,A (Feb, p.62)

Into The Eagle’s Nest, Godbey.J (Jul, p.60)
Labelmaster & Multicolumn Lister, Adkins,P
(Oct, p.67)

Magniprint II+, Peters,R (May, p.66)
Necromancer, Adkins,P (Apr, p.64)
Newsroom Clip Art Collections, Godbey.J
(Mar, p.66)

Rescue On Fractulus!, Godbey.J (Mar, p.62)
Saracen, Godbey.J (Mar, p.65)

Sparta DOS-X vs DOS XE, Cowen.T (Nov,
p.48)

Star Raiders II, Peters,R (Apr, p.64)
Starquake, Henry’S House, Panther, Rojo,A
(Feb, p.65)

Tomahawk, Firewick.C (Apr, p.58)
Turboword+, Beville.S (Jul, p.56)

Video Title Shop, Russek.J (Mar, p.64)
Winter Challenge, Rojo,A (Jun, p.58)

XEP80, Di VitO.T (Oct, p.63)

Zybex, Transmutter, Rojo,A (Feb, p.64)

Current Notes in 1989:

525 of our 808 pages were filled with Atari
news, reviews, tutorials, and commentary.
Hope you enjoyed the coverage. We look
forward to even more in 1990 with each issue
containing 84 pages of Atari information! -JW

January/February 1990

Current Notes

Page 79

Current Notes U.S. subscription rate is $24 ($42/ 2 years). Canada 2nd class, $32/year. Surface rate to other countries: $39/year. AIR
MAIL rates: Canada/Mexico, $42; Cent. Amer., Caribbean, $51; S. America, Europe, N. Africa, $61; Mid East, Africa, Asia, Australia, $71. Foreign subs
payable in US $ drawn on a US bank. Send check, payable to Current Notes, to CN Subscriptions, 122 N. Johnson Rd., Sterling, VA 22170.

Page 80

Current Notes

Vol. 10, No. 1

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a OQ Board w/chipa-$290

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ICD Host Adaptor - $94.77

Turbo 16- Fast Tech Accelerator - $275
Spectre GCR- $219 Roms- $129
PC Ditto II - $250

PC Speed (Michtron Version)- $369
PC Speed (European Version)- $319

Floppy Drives

Master 3S 3.5” double sided- $139
Atari SF314 3.5" double sided- $169.95
MFD1080 Switchable 3.5” & 5.25”- $315

Teakwood Disk Cases

3.5"- 90disks- $26.95
3.5"-135disks- $38.95
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|| MISC HARDWARE |

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169.00

Tweety Board

39.00

Turbo Outrun

25.50

WORD FLAIR

62.00

Video Key

69.00

European Magazines

nm WT ^1.1 4 0/\

Chase HQ

24.50

Hi soft C

59.95

Cordless Mouse

89.95

Stunt Racer

27.00

Goodbackup Utility

19.95

Monitor Master

34.00

ST World 4.80

ST- Action 3.95

Iron Lord

29.95

Spectrum 512

45.00

Anson 5 1/4

149.95

ST- User w/ disk 6.50

Double Dragon II

25.00

STOS

40.95

Spectre GCR

239.00

ST- Format \\7 disk 6.50

72 HOUR MEMORY EXPANSION!!

Send us your 520STFM or 1040ST CPU and in 72hours you could have a 2 or 4 meg
powerhouse! Our technicians will install a memory card expandable to 4 meg within 24
hours of recieving it! Then we’ll throw in UPS 2nd day air service at NO EXTRA CHARGE
so you can have your enhanced system within 72hours!!(excluding weekends)_

2 MEG BOARD INSTALLED $329,95

4 MEG BOARD INSTALLED$459.95

Up grade to Rainbow Tos 1.4
$75.00 INSTALLED!!

Retail store and order lines are open from 9:00ani to 10:00pm central time /one. Please call our customer service line @ 817-577-3470 for
any defective returns. We honor all manufacturer warranties. Our staff is dedicated in providing our customers with the best pricing and
service possible. Write to us at: Computer Emporium 5033-E Rule Snow, N. Richland Hills, TX 76180

TOTALLY COMMITTED TO THE ATARI ST LINE OF COMPUTERS