SPACE Newsletter

NEWSLETTER for February, 2007 President’s Corner

Treasurer's Report

by Michael Current February, 2007

by Greg Leitner For January, 2007

This short posting appeared on comp.sys.atari.8bit the other day. I thought I would share it here: From: "SoLo2" Subject: Atari XL Basic bug. Date: 24 Jan 2007 13:11:44 -0800 Hello! I was programming the Atari XL in BASIC, but using Atari800 emulator, version 2.0.2 under Linux. I came to the following bug, when using "COLOR 125" or "COLOR 155" in a high resolution graphics mode (8,11,15,...). First look at this simple program in graphics 15:

Six members showed up on a very cold January Friday evening for our SPACE meeting. Since we are now down to nine paid up members I think we had a superb turnout. It was a very interesting meeting in that Nolan announced the startup of the SPACE web-site. Thanks to all the support given by our President, Michael Current, and Nolan, our new Vice-President, we have a new source for SPACE. I already checked it out and it looks very professional. Nolan had a lot to talk about at the meeting and he wants to make a lot of changes and additions in the future. Kudos to both Michael and Nolan for their efforts. Log onto SPACEWEB.US Lance announced that an add on for the STE was in the works. it would plug into the cartridge port and give the STE the capability of having USB and Ethernet ports. This would be neat addition to the ST line of computers and I hope it will be available for the Falcon as well. Any member who has missed out on the last few months of our Dom should get them. Michael, our President, has supplied Glen with great material for some wonderful games, and you really need to see these games. Come to the next meeting and Glen can show you what you have been missing in the 8-bit world of gaming.

1 GR.15+16 2 COLOR 1: PLOT 0,125:DRAWTO 50,125 3 COLOR 2: PLOT 0,155:DRAWTO 50,155 4 GOTO 4

Now on to the SPACE treasury for the month ended January 31, 2007: Beginning balance as of January 1, 2007:

845.09

Works fine. And paints 2 lines, horizontal in 2 different colors.

Receipts for the January SPACE meeting: Doms

15.00

Now I try using very high COLOR values, the same I use for the height of each line:

Expenses for January: Room Rental-last 6 mos. for 2006 BBS for January 2007 Web-site-first year registration Total expenses for January 2007

150.00 10.00 3.50 163.50

Ending balance for January 31, 2007:

696.59

1 GR.15+16 2 COLOR 125: PLOT 0,125:DRAWTO 50,125 3 COLOR 155: PLOT 0,155:DRAWTO 50,155 4 GOTO 4 Well, this won't work. And paints a strange and rare picture, like a torch... Does anybody in the Atari World know why? Greetings, SoLo2

Our treasury went down considerably because of the room rental fee, but now we are caught up and will have another six months to improve our outlook for 2007. We will definitely have another auction or two this year, and if the doms are anything like they have been we will see more sales in that area as well. Please come to the February meeting and support your Club. Keep those memberships up to date and buy the doms each month. See you all next month.

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Secretary's Report By Steven Peck For January, 2006

No minutes were receiver from the Secretary.

******************************************** BBS Corner By Nolan Friedland For February, 2006

************************************************** If anyone has any comments, suggestions, ideas, or submissions for the BBS Corner column or the SPACE BBS web site, you may email them to me, Nolan Friedland, at the address shown on the back of this newsletter under the "CLUB OFFICIALS" section.

******************************************** A-T-A-R-I Answers, Tips And Relevant Information by: Paul V. Alhart 1993.4 New screen fonts for AtariWriter+ Welcome to the New Atari Classics. I trust you are all happy to find your favorite column, A-T-A-R-I, is still here. I have been writing the column using my trusty word processor for so many years now, that it just seems natural. But it wasn't always that way.

needed. Best of all, it allowed me to create my own custom printer driver that could access all those neat functions of my new printer. I have been using AtariWriter ever since. Another advantage of AtariWriter Plus is that it is disk based. This means that unlike the old AtariWriter cartridge, it is much easier to change the code and make custom modifications to the program. This month I am pleased to present two short type-in programs that will allow you to replace the character set used by AWP with any standard 9 sector character set. NOTE: These programs are for 48K version of AWP only and will not work with AWP130 or the 80 column version. For even more fun, create your own custom set using one of the many font editor that are available for the Atari. WHAT A CHARACTER A little background is in order. The character set we are talking about is the one you see on your monitor or TV screen and has no effect on what is saved to disk or sent to your printer. AWP uses a redefined character set. This means that the standard Atari character set you see when your computer is first turned on is replaced by AWP with its own custom character set. Figure 1: shows the standard ATARI character set as well as the redefined set AWP uses. Note that the only changes AWP makes to the original character set are found in row 3. The Atari graphic characters are replaced with the characters AWP uses to mark editing commands such as paragraphs and carriage returns. With the following type-in programs and a font editor you can change any or all of the 128 characters to suit your own taste. I personally like the standard ATARI text characters but found the editing command characters of row 3 too hard to spot in a long document. I redrew these character to take advantage of atrifacting. Now all my editing commands are reddish gold and easy to spot. Although the AWP disk is copy protected, the file we want to modify (AP.OBJ) is a standard disk file that we can work with. It is important to make a back-up of this file. If something should go wrong, just copy this file back to your original AWP disk and you are back to square one. LET'S GET GOING

Back in the early 80s I wasn't even sure what a word processor was. I knew about food processors from ads on TV, but couldn't relate to word processors. Then I bought my first computer. A shiny new Atari 1200XL complete with the AtariWriter cartridge. It wasn't long before I wondered how I ever got through school without a word processor. My friends just wondered how I got through school at all. Come to think of it, we didn't have calculators, spell checkers, or microwave popcorn when I went to school either, but that's a whole 'nother story. I learned all about the wonders and trials of word processing on the trusty old AtariWriter cartridge. It wasn't till a few years latter when our User Group held a "Word Processing Night" that I learned about some of the newer word processors available for the Atari. I tried most of them, but with AtariWriter as comfortable as an old shoe, I resisted change for some time to come. The addition of a new (non Atari) printer to my system signaled the beginning of a change though. This new printer had so many neat new features and I wanted to use them all. The minute I got the printer home, I pluged it in and booted AtariWriter only to find that my new printer wasn't listed on the printer menu. I quickly learned all about the "Control O" codes as well as the hassle of having to use them all the time. AWP (AtariWriter Plus) TO THE RESCUE The logical move for me, was straight to AtariWriter Plus since most of the editing and formatting commands were exactly the same as those used by my friendly old AW cartridge. AWP also had several added features as well as a spelling checker that I really

Step 1: Make 2 backup copies of the file AP.OBJ and put them away in a safe place. Step 2: Make another copy of the file AP.OBJ to a freshly formatted work disk that also contains DOS. Any DOS that supports the standard Atari NOTE/POINT functions will do. If in doubt use Atari DOS 2.0 or 2.5. Step 3: Type in the 2 short BASIC programs (AWF.GET & AWF.PUT) and save them to your work disk. Step 4: RUN the AWF.GET program. This program reads the redefined character set contained in AP.OBJ and uses the information to create a 9 sector font file called AWP.FNT. Step 5: Use a font editor to customize this character set or just replace it with your favorite 9 sector font file. Be sure your new customized character set is saved back to the work disk with the file name AWP.FNT Step 6: RUN the AWF.PUT program. This program will install your new character set into AP.OBJ. Step 7: Copy this modified AP.OBJ file from your work disk back to your original AWP disk. NOTE: Your original AWP disk can NOT be Write Protected for step 7 to succeed.

Step 8: Reboot your system using your now modified AWP and enjoy. If something went wrong or you just don't like the results, copy one of those back-ups you made of AP.OBJ back to your AWP disk. This will restore your AWP disk to its original condition. 1 REM ATARIWRITER+ FONT GETTER 2 REM by: PAUL V. ALHART 3 REM 4 REM 10 TRAP 130 20 OPEN #1,4,0,"D:AP.OBJ" 30 FOR I=1 TO 277:GET #1,A:NEXT I 40 OPEN #2,8,0,"D:AWP.FNT" 50 FOR I=1 TO 512:GET #1,A:PUT #2,A:NEXT I 60 NOTE #1,Q,W 70 FOR I=1 TO 260:GET #1,A:NEXT I 80 FOR I=1 TO 256:GET #1,A:PUT #2,A:NEXT I 90 NOTE #1,E,R 100 POINT #1,Q,W 110 FOR I=1 TO 256:GET #1,A:PUT #2,A:NEXT I 120 POINT #1,E,R 130 CLOSE #1:CLOSE #2

1 REM ATARIWRITER+ FONT PUTTER 2 REM by: PAUL V. ALHART 3 REM 4 REM 10 TRAP 180 20 OPEN #1,12,0,"D:AP.OBJ" 30 FOR I=1 TO 19:GET #1,A:NEXT I 40 GET #1,A:GET #1,B:IF A<>255 OR B<>39 THEN ? "NEED AtariWriter+ (48K VERSION)":GOTO 180 50 NOTE #1,E,R 60 FOR I=1 TO 256:GET #1,A:NEXT I 70 OPEN #2,4,0,"D:AWP.FNT" 80 FOR I=1 TO 512:GET #2,A:PUT #1,A:NEXT I 90 NOTE #2,Q,W 100 FOR I=1 TO 256:GET #2,A:NEXT I 110 FOR I=1 TO 256:GET #2,A:PUT #1,A:NEXT I 120 POINT #2,Q,W 130 FOR I=1 TO 4:GET #1,A:NEXT I 140 FOR I=1 TO 256:GET #2,A:PUT #1,A:NEXT I 150 NOTE #1,T,Y 160 POINT #1,E,R:POINT #2,Q,W 170 FOR I=1 TO 256:GET #2,A:PUT #1,A:NEXT I 180 CLOSE #1:CLOSE #2

********************************************** From: Michael Current [michael@mcurrent.name] Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 7:53 PM Subject: ST>Closing of CPS Electronics --Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 12:24:42 -0800 Hi all, As the Founder of CPS Electronics I have closed the biz as of 2007. As such I am selling stuff on Ebay under http://stores.ebay.co.uk/exxos-surplus-electronics I keep listing items so check back. Theres a load of stuff not listen yet. Drop me a line if you like. As one of the developers for PeST all information is no longer online via cps-electronics website. Remaining PeST's are currently being sold on Ebay. I have setup a website http://pest.atari.org/ Which will list sales distributors and info(when I get around to updating it).

I have setup a new website www.future-technologies.co.uk though at this time it is unknown what will be placed there. Currently you can view a about me page at http://www.futuretechnologies.co.uk/video/ Other files of interest are slowly being ported over to stos.atari.st website. Documents such as my 1.44 controller will all vanish of my pipex account at the end of this month. Currently I do not know where past projects will be uploaded to. I will imagine such items will be placed on the new PeST site in the future. I will try and retain as much info and pages as possible Thats all for now, happey new year to you all! Chris ********************************************** From: Michael Current [michael@mcurrent.name] Sent: Friday, January 12, 2007 7:54 PM Subject: EMU>SainT 2.0 released - Many new features --Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 12:25:45 -0800 It happened 12/21/06: 2.00 * Great speed up for video recording ! * Video recording support both 25 and 50Hz rate * Screen is now 400*274, no more black lines at top and bottom in fullscreen (in GPU mode, enjoy fullscreen demos !) * More pixels detail in "sound output debug" graphical view * CPU rendering finally compatible with 16 and 32bit rendering, should run in windowed mode on more machines ! * CPU rendering enanced, SainT should work on software DirectX machine (some laptop) * faster and cleaner low-pass filter routine * removed old code path for dynamic texture * removed all old-fashioned CPU rendering modes (blend, interlace) * fixed "msvcr71.dll" missing message. * Again a new 68000 prefetching routine * fixed nasty bug if any shifter write at the very end of the frame URL: http://leonard.oxg.free.fr/SainT/saint.html AUTHOR: BigNick0 AUTHOR URL: http://www.atari.org/ [This news item courtesy of Atari.org - http://www.atari.org] ********************************************** ********************************************** ********************************************** **********************************************

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