SPACE Newsletter

FEBRUA RY Bytes

From

the

Pres.

I was amazed by the number of people at our last meeting. I must apologize for the hectic nature of the meeting and its lateness, but with the recent events at I plan to Atari it couldn't be helped. I know we start promptly this month. signed up a lot of new members and sold a lot of disk of the month's. I heard that the beginner's group went well and so we this month. ~ill b• doing that again Demo's sufiered a bit, but we have a new plan to separate the various groups after the business part of the meeting. There is not much news from Atari this month, but what do you expect after last month? There are a few articles in the Antic from this month newsletter magazine, plus I will post a few more at the meeting. I will have copies of last month's meeting handouts for those that didn't make it to the meeting. articles Incidentall y, the Antic tell about "Infinity", the new integrated software package highlighted at the CES show. This was a very amazing program, for an 8-bit computer, but not nearly the measure of Lotus as stated by Antic. Also, a very interesting program called these in is covered •silent Butler• It articles. I saw this at the CES, too. can type out checks using your own everyday checks. We will have a Swap Meet this month. So, bring your old programs and equipment to sell or swap, or buy someone else's old all bring to sure Be program.

1985

documentati ~n and original materials along. aid pirating of We do not want to software. Someone left a nice program in the •kitchen• area at the last meeting. If its yours, please see me at the meeting (or call me at home) to claim it. You must tell me what it is before you get it back. On the games front, the sequel to •Miner 2O49er• has just been released. It See is titled •Bounty Bob Strikes Back•. my mini-review plus a demo at the meeting. I've also heard that •Mario Brothers• will be released by Atari, hopefully in the near future. Downloaded From Compuserve ANTIC SPECIAL BULLETIN, REPRINTED BY PERMISSION. COPYRIGHT 1985, ANTIC PUBLISH ING INC. CES-ATARI FINAL WRAP-UP by NAT FRIEDLAND, Antic Editor SOFTWARE BREAKTHROUGHS LAS VEGAS Atari's CES software was in its own hardware as the right as spectacular star The display. on breakthroug hs attraction was undoubtedly INFINITY - which is the next generation of sleek, powerful integrated programs. CONTINUE D-->

Infinity has specs that are more than a match for Lotus 1-2-3 and Symphony. Yet it can run in as 1 ittle as 64K (even on the old 800) with only the loss of a few extra features. And incredibly, it will be sold at only $49.95 for 8-bit Ataris, the 16-bit version will be about $70. The Tramiel Atari Corp. has shown that it is serious about holding software prices to $49.95, which is what virtually all the advanced productivity software described in this article will cost. I realize that Infinity sounds almost too good to be true. But Antic has seen it in operation. On one disk it contains a spreadsheet, relational database, a word processor that looks 1 ike MacWrite, a telecommunications package, graphics, icons and pull-down menus, and integrated printing. It runs in virtual memory, which means that file size is more dependent on disk capacity than on RAM. Infinity will support the upcoming Atari local area networking <LAN) capability. And it includes multitasking -up to 6 simultaneous operations on the ST series, 3 on the 130 XE and 2 on the 65XE. Vincent Garafolo of Cambridge's Matrix Software, developers of Infinity, explained that they were able to get so much into a 64K memory program by two-step "optimizing• of the assembly language compilation. This procedure is usually only used in advanced military and government software. •Most software companies don·'t do optimization because it's so tedious, even though it's possible to drastically reduce the size of most programs," explained Garaf o 1o. "You don't have to be a programming genius to optimize. You just have to be willing to put in a few hundred hours of boring, painstaking 1 ine-by-1 ine analysis." Other impressive new software from Atari includes Silent Butler, a personal finance program that balances multiple checking and credit card accounts, and tracks tax deductions. It's most unique feature is the ability to print on your own personalized checks, using a plastic check-holder that fits into your printer.

Beginners' BASICs 12 by Bob Floyd '-'

Well, here's the second installment of Beqinner·'s BASICS and I still don·'t kn01,oJ much about using the translator disk because I have an 800 and don't need a translator. So, I won't be able to say much about it as promised. (Perhaps someone else can cover exactly how to use the translator disk for cartidges and disks.) What I do know is why a translator disk became necessary. Way back in the early days, Atari opened up their operating system so that software developers could write programs more easily. Atari warned locations \1,e., machine them which language subroutines - using these saves on program size and development time) were safe and which weren't. The "unsafe" locations were subject to change on future Atari computers. This warning went unheeded by many software developers and some wrote software based on unsafe locations. So, there should have been no surprise when the new XL computers were not compatible with all non-XL software. Instead, Atari ended up taking most of th~ blame for incompatibility. All of the recent software is compatible with all Atari computers, so most of you probably have not needed the translator disk. Since the translator uses 16K to simulate the old operating system, you must have more than 16K to use it. So, a 16K 600XL would not be able to use the translator because there would be no memory leftover for the Also, there is no translator program. available on cassette. You can purchase a translator disk from Bruce Haug, the disk 1 ibrarian, for only $4,00. SAVE and LMD are used for transferring programs between the computer and storage device. Storage can be on disk or cassette, but for now let's assume disk. To save a BASIC program type: SAVE

0

D:FILENAME.Exr·

This saves your program on disk drive #1, since the D: refers to the default drive, which is #1. 'FILENAME' refers to a 1 to P character combination of letters an~ numbers with the first character being a letter. The '.EXT' is optional. It is known as an extender. Typically people use extenders 1 ike '.BAS' for BASIC programs, '.OBJ' for objective files (machine

language), ·',LST' for LIST files <see next few paragraphs) and '.TXT' for text files The extender (like in word processing). may be 1 to 3 characters in any combination second The and numbers. :,f letters To retrieve '-"quotation mark is optional. your BASJC program from the disk, type: LOAD "D:FILENAME.EXT" The program will computer memory.

be

loaded

back

into

You can then LIST the program. To see it on the screen, simply type LIST, or L. , This which is an abbreviation for LlST. To 1 ist only will 1 ist the whole program. a portion of the program ,type: LIST 135,225 or, L. 400 The first statement will list lines 135 through 225. The second will 1 ist 1 ine 400 only. LlST is also used for 1 isting to the printer. Simply type: LIST •P:" or, L. "P:",135,225 '-"The first statement lists everything to the printer, whereas the second statement 1 ists only lines 135 through to 225 to the printer. The printer is known as device "P:" and is accessed as shown above. The graphic Atari handle cannot printer characters properly, so the output may be erratic if graphic characters are used in There are some commercial the program. programs available that will list programs with all the correct looking characters to a graphics (dot-matrix) type printer 1 ike NEC or Epson. I have written a program of this type that will be available in SPACE·'s March disk of the month. The cassette, disk drive and RS-232 ports can also be used this way with the LIST Of these, I will only cover command. LlST'ing to the disK drive, since that is fairly useful. The command would be: LlST •D:FILENAHE.EXT" :,.. . L. "D:FILENAME.EXT" ,400 ._,,,The first statement 1 ists the whole program to disk under the name FILENAME.EXT . The second statement 1 ists only 1 ine 400 to that name on the disk. The ENTER command can be used to retrieve a program LIST'ed th disk as follows:

ENTER "D:FILENAME.EXT" The 1,,ihole ENTER'ed.

program from

the

disk will

be

And not~, finally down to the heart of the issue. Why should we bother to LIST to a disk when we can SAVE? To answer this Programs takes a 1 ittle more information. •tokenized• are stored in the computer in form. This means that the program, as you see it, does not reside in memory. Only a representation of the program is there. This saves memory and improves program speed. The LIST command exists for our our we can view convenience so that program. In other words, LIST translates we can in to a form the tokens back understand. Tokens are not the same as machine language. They are just codes for things like addition, subtraction, various program functions 1 ike absolute value, variables, etc. The computer can recognize the difference betwe~n programs stored in LIST format versus SAVE. You will get an error message if you mix up LOAD with ENTER. LIST files are useful for transferring to other files such as word processors, bulletin boards, etc., because they are readable. That is, they are in ASCII (or Atari ASCII) form, which is ATASCII universal. LIST file are also useful for For programs. existing merging with instance, if I 1A1rote a program that uses a NEC printer, it pr·obably would not work on The simplest way to handle an Epson. revisions for other printers would be to leave the original program intact and write a bunch of short programs (one for each A printer) to merge with the original. person could then LOAD the original program and then ENTER the appropriate correction This program to merge with the original. usually only takes a few program 1 ines, It is not possible with proper planning. to merge prograrns ~~ i th the LOAD command. This is because LOAD erases any existing program in computer memory before LOAD'ing. ENTER does not erase an existing program, but will replace existing lines if new ones have the same 1 ine number. I hope this has been helpful and not too confusing. If so, please ask questions I ran out of room and time at the meeting. this month to cover DOS, so I will save that for next time.

January Meeting Minutes by Joanne Floyd The last SPACE meeting was held on Bob Floyd, the president, January 11. reported on the new products demonstrate d by Atari at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. Among the new products shown were the XE series of computers which have 64K RAM (65XE, 65XEP, 65XEM> or 128K RAM (130XE> and which are compatible with the 400/800 and 600/800XL series, and the ST series of computers which operate with 128K RAM (130ST> or 512K RAM (520ST) and are similar in functioning to the MacIntosh but Several new include color capabilitie s. also were printers and disk drives new the demonstrate d. Three handouts about the at computer systems were distributed and meeting. If you missed the meeting would like further information about the new systems, extra copies of the handouts are available from Bob. In the Old/New Business section of the meeting, Bob reported that the AtariWriter printer-dri ver constructio n set will be Antic new release by offered as a members that magazine. He also requested BEGI~ER'S a follow his lead in writing 8'\SICS column with tips for new BOOXL owners. Bruce Haug, the vice president and disk 1 ibrarian, reminded members that he will make copies of old disks of the months Max Feuer, the treasurer, on request. reported that the c 1ub has $481 in i ts account and that present membership is 86. Dick Johnson, the treasurer of TAIG and jointly board the bulletin SYSOP of operated by SPACE and TAIG, reported that the bulletin board now has an increased message capacity of 60 messages (the old capacity was 30) and that there are many were than to download more programs programs these previously available. Among on 1 isted articles Antic are Compuserve. At the end of the meeting, Frank Haug and Jon Nelson led a beginner's group for new BOOXL owners in which they answered questions and demonstrate d how to use the translator disk, a program i11hich allows older Atari 400/800 programs to be run on the BOOXL. <These disks are av.ailable from Bruce Haug for $4.) Three demos were also shown. Mark Vallevand demonstrate d a 1050 disk drive with the doubler modificatio n SpartaDOS. from Spartan software using a Homepak, d demonstrate Dick Johnson

combination database, wordprocess or, and telecommun ications package which he highly <A group purchase of this recommends. package is available if enough club members are interested. See article elsewhere ir Tiggemar~ Chris newsletter. ) this disk. RAM state id sol a demonstrate d

DISK

OF

THE MONTH

The disk/tape of the month contains The tapes programs from the club 1 ibrary. for disks the and $3 can be purchased for from profit small a $4, The group makes t~11ard go these i11h i ch of the sa 1e group the things the of supporting some contains usually disk/tape Each does. Most of these eight to twelve programs. utilities and some with programs are games are obtained programs The in. demos mixed groups and user other with from trading members. local from from submissions a receive will program a submit who Members a What free! month the of tape disk or deal!! --THIS MONTH'S PROGRAMS-1. LEFTY - Schematics for converting a joystick for use by lefty 2. SHARKEY - Eat good fish, avoid green fish and hazards 3. DRAW7 - Drawing via joystick with special features 4. TAPECPY - A tape to to tape copier. Written by a S.P.A.C.E member 5. VOLCANO - Can you survive the eruption? <TEXT) 6. MAGIC - An art demo 7. BJACK - A very good black jack game 8. MAZE - Multi-level or single level visible or invisible maze 9. BUTTAPED.ISK - Copies a bootable tape to disk 10. BUDGET - Financial aid to help you balance your budget 11. STATESGA.ME - States and capitals game For those of you who are new to the D.O.M. here are some operating hints. After you are finished with one program and you whan to bring in another,sim ply hit the break key, and then type in RUN "D:SPMENU". This will return you to the space menu. Not a 11 of the programs on some of the~C older D.O.M.'s work I would 1 ike someone to make a 1 ist of these, and then ask for a volunteer to fix the problems and then I will make up a new disk.

-~

--~

Bounty Bob Strikes Back Big Five Software Reviewed by Bob Floyd

and bypass certain prize on screen 1 of these more screens 1, 2 and 3. I assume better get l as secrets will be revealed and better.

Bounty Bob is back and he wan ts to get even with Yukon Yohan and Nuclear Ned. Yes, the 1ong awaited seque 1 to Miner 2049er has arrived, and in a 40K ROM to boot cartridge to boot (well, not actually) . The cartridge uses bank-sele ct to use only 16K at a time. So, it can run in an unmodifie d 400 or 600XL as well as the other Atari computers .

There is a game adjustmen t screen for adjusting the number of lives, bonus life frequency (yes, you can get a bonus 1 ife every 10,000 points), pause capabilit y, most the has also BBSB etc. score high extraordi nary title screen, screen screen and high score name entry be be seen to These must anywhere. the on believed. Try deleting a letter high score entry screen for a real treat. the graphic Some people may say that complexit y of these screens is unnecessa ry, but I think these screens reflect the attitude with which BBSB was written terrific quality and value, even at the suggested retail price of $50.00. I Know that it will mean good value for my wife and me since we will undoubted ly receive many, many hours of good entertainm ent from from Miner BBSB, just 1 ike we did now can you Incidenta l Ly, 2049er. $10.00 purchase Miner 2049er for just direct from Big Five Software.

Bounty Bob must again leap, climb and mutants to nwaddle" his way past the complete the mine framework. As before, he can get prizes and defeat the mutants for a short time. A few differenc es are that you can now control Bob ✓ s jumps somewhat for shorter jumps by pressing the trigger, waiting a few fractions of a second and then pushing the joystick left or right, A longer wait makes for a shorter jump - a Another necessity in some situation s. differenc e is that after you die, all the the prizes and completed framework on screen are restored. BBSB features 25 of all sorts incredibl e screens with diabolica l devices such as suction tubes, . grain elevators , gravity 1 ift, hydraulic lift, mobile_ suction unit, utility hoist these l haven ✓ t seen all and acid rain. devices yet since I haven ✓ t gotten past the fifth screen, but what l have seen is truly amazing. l was killed by a mutant as I the effect was entered a suction tube transport ers, slides, The amazing! cannons, moving blocks, pulverize rs, etc., from Miner 2049er are also in the sequel.

It BBSB is truly a ~11orthy sequel. uses the terrific graffics of before plus amazing enhancem ents. I hear that on'later screens, the mutants can use the slides and more start out The screens ladders. difficult than Miner, equivalen t to about screen 5 on Miner. What with 25 screens, you might imagine that it is impossibl e to play all 25. This would probably be true, except that you can enter secret codes to bypass screens. H~~ever, the secret codes are revealed one at a time after completin g after For instance, certain screens. some showing and 5 reaching screen -~roficie ncy, a way to warp from screen 1 to 4 is revealed to you after you ✓ ve been killed off. From then on, ::--ou can press "1" and "START" t oqe th er a f ter touching a

I think Bounty Bob Strikes Back may just be the best game of all time for the Atari. Perhaps it is just a sign of things to come for our machines. l certainly hope so. P.S. As a sign of things not to come, I that Electroni c Arts is don ✓ t really care taking a "wait and see• attitude on Atari. Most of what they do is convert Apple programs to Atari, and you know how bad How about some original that usually is. Wh i 1e they do have some Atari soft~11are ! good s-uff, Electroni c Arts certainly has had more than their share of "dogsu, too. high strung I wouldn ✓ t mind if these "software artists" are left holding the bag. Whooof!

HO'IEPAK GROUP PURC~SE by Dick Johnson Wizards Work has agreed to arrange a group purchase of HomePak the ne1.11 3 in 1 package that has been reviewed G the March Antic and January ANALOG, both of ~~hich The retail price of were very favorable . HomePaK of $49.95 and 1.11ill be at.•a1lable for 1

$35 plus tax a 30X discount. To order your copy send a check for $37.10 to Wizards Work, Post Haste Square, County Rd. 18 & 36th Ave. No., New Hope MN. or leave a check with an officer of your User Group. No checks will be cashed until we meet our goal of 20 purchases have been met and the order sent in. The cut off date for ordering will be Feb 27 and the programs will be available at the next club meeting or may be pi eked up fr-om Wizards ~fork after Mar 10th. A short rev i evi: HCttETERM the best of the 3. Supports the 835/1030 modems, uploads and downs any size file, will capture any size file in ASCII mode, uses Smart Macros ~llh i ch with some modems wi 11 support auto-redial, supports Binary downloads from CompuServ and many other features. Currently will not support the MPP1000 but a fix is promised. HCttETEXT very easy to use word processor which will work with any printer, using windows for Menu driven options which can be bypassed after you have become familar with them. The only thing wrong with it is the lack of memory for the text (6600 bytes, about 2-3 pages) but files can be chained together provide too for larger documents. HCttEFIND a simple database program ~llhich requires no previous defining of fields or files. This flexabily works against it, in that generic searches cannot be done and there is no report formating. However it can be used with HOMETEXT in a mailmerge type operation. Either the terminal program or the word processor alone is worth the $35 pr ice tag, with all 3 programs its a super buy. Shopkeeper is an easy-to-use small business accounting package that also tracks inventory and generally emulates an electronic cash register. It also compiles daily reports which will be automatically transferable to the upcoming (2nd quarter) general ledger module. There will be six modules in the series. Song Painter is a very user-friendly music construction program that replaces standard musical notation with self-exp 1ana tory colored 1 i ne· patterns and icons. Its three instrumental voices can be controlled almost entirely from the joystick.

In another Atari musical development, the in/out MIDI ports on the ST computers were being demonstrated driving the new Casio CZ101 $499 synthesizer.

Repr-inted fr·c,m Cin . . tar·i XL PEEKS AND POKES by Daniel J, Reitz Here is some useful stuff for those now programming on an 600/S00XL computer, POKE 731, 1 will turn of the keyboard "clicks 11 , POKE 731,0 turns them back on,

computer

POKE 622,255:GR,0 allows for fine scrolling in Graphics 0 screen <scrolls 1/8 line instead of a whole line at a time), POKE 622,0!GR,0 resets scrolling to normal, POKE 756,204 enables built-in international character set (use with control characters), POKE 756,224 resets your normal control characters,. POKE 621,255 disables the keyboard, POKE 621,0 enables the keyboard, POKE 729 with 1 to 60 for 1/60 second repeats on keys, The repeat default is set to 48 (ie, a key held down will start to repeat after 48/Wth, of a second, By setting it at POKE 729,1, a key will start to repeat after 1/60th of a second, · You may inclµde in your program a use for the HELP key, When the person using your program hits the HELP key, you can prompt them with suggestions or help in executing your program, (Such as displaying the keyboard commands to run the program, etc,) If the HELP key is pressed, PEEK<732) will return a value of 17, If SHIFT HELP is pressed, a value of 81 will be returned, If CONTROL HELP is pressed, you will receive a value of 145,

If you discover any more useful pokes or peeks, let me know,

~

SWAP

Come ~ £ET! along to

or

______________________

.......

"'-.':._·

Application Membership S.P.A.C.E. Name ____________ ____________ ____________ ____ Phone ____________ __ Date _______ _

Addr-e':.s____________ ____________ ________ c i ty ____________ _ Sta te ____ z i P------Equ i pmen t/System-Used ____________ ____________ ____________ ____________ _____ _ Ar-ea of inter-est ____________ ____________ ____________ ____________ __________ _ Special skills, inter-est, Optional i nfor-mat ion:

info which might be shared. ____________ _________ _

Occupat i c,n ____________ _______ Empl oyer____________ ___________ _

Dues: $10.00 peryear - please inclose checK with application. Mail application and dues to: St. Paul Atari ComputerEnthusiasts 748 AmberDr-., Shor-eview, MN 55112

WANT

ADS

possible for members to place in this newsletter. The ads may used hardware, used selling be for software, tutoring services, or just about The anything that has to do with Atari. rates are as follows: $1.25 216 Letters 6 Lines .25 36 Letters 1 Line It is

✓ want Ads ✓

The following is a 1 ist of advertising rates for vendors or individual members. Full page $18.00 7-1/2• X 10• 10.00 3-5/8" X 10" Half page 10.00 7-1/2" X 5• Half page 5.50 3-5/Su X 5u 1/4 page All advertisements must be paid for when they are submitted. Deadline for ad placement is the last Friday of each month. To place ad or for more info, ca 11 the editor.

Published by the St. Paul Enthusiasts Computer Atari independent an (SPACE), business no organization with Atari with affiliation is Permission . Incorporated similar any to granted organization with which SPACE to newsletters exchanges this in reprint material however, newsletter. We do, ask that credit be to the authors and to SPACE. those Opinions expressed are of the article authors and do the not necessarily reflect club SPACE, of views officers, members, or Atari Inc.

Editor Jon Nelson 487-2627 President Bob Floyd Treasurer . Feuer. Max 774-6226 Bruce Haug. , Vice-Pres Cass Lib. Bruce Haug . 774-6226 Bruce Haug , . DisK Lib. Secretary Floyd. Joanne 537-5442 Jim Schulz • • Paper/Ed. Lib. . SPACE/TAIG Bulletin Board • , • 544-9058

St. Paul ATARI Computer Enthusiasts 2589 Fisk St. Roseville, MN 55113

J. P. Scheib 3944 24th Av. S. Minneapolis, Mn.

Next SPACE Meeting: Friday, February 8 1 1985 8:00 P.M. Minnesota Federal Savings & Loan Lexington Ave. near Larpenteur Roseville, Minnesota

55406

484.~9027 483-3895 774-6226 487-2627