SPACE Newsletter - May 1986

May 1986

MAY 1986

MAY

1986

This month's meeting s: FRIDAY, MAY 9, 7:30 PM SPACE FRIDAY, MAY 16, 7:30 PM MAST-SIG At the Falcon Heights Commun ity Center 2077 Larpent eur Ave. W.

IN THIS ISSUE : CHRIS TIGGEMAN'S Q-MEG

WILKINSON'S TECH NOTES MICHTRON'S BBS SYSTEM PRINT MASTER REVIEW TIPS ON THE ST

PAUL ATAR I COMP UTER ST. PRES IDEN T BRUC E HAUG , HOYT AVE . 1697 E. 5510 6 ST. FAUL , MN, (612)774-6226

page 4 page 5 page 8 page 9 page 10

ENTH USIA STS

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Frei the desk of the D.O.~. Frank Haug

BYTES FRO" THE PRES Well, how was the Swap "eet? ihe door prize IDEA was sine; 1aybe we collld do this twice a year? This aeeting we are ill going to be surprised, as the final arrange1ents have not been 1ade for a guest speaker. l sure wish acre people would indicate what they would like us to do at 1eetings. I did get a phone call this 1onth 1 but not in ti1e to get it in the newsletter. last 1onth we had quite a discussion on 1t0rd processors. I know I let it drag out fer quite a while, but I get questions like this all the ti1e, l new knew other people have the sa1e answers as I have. The u1n question to ask yourself when buying a progra1 is: What do I want the progra1 to do for 1e, and how often will I use this prograa? In the case of a word processor, which we discussed at the last 1eeting, it 1akes a difference! Do you write a letter once a week or do you write 10 letters a day? Do you write a school 25 page report once a year or once a 1onth? Al1ost all word processors will do the above. They are called 'word processors•, aren't they? The next question is cost. How 1uch do you want to pay? Do you really need all the whisles and bells to write a one-page letter per 1onth? SEE YOU THE 9th of "AY THE PRES

Nell, if you weren 't at the last 1eeting, or if you left early, then you didn't hear the announce1ent. The DON is holding a progra1ing contest. In the 1onths that follow we will be accepting USER-WRITTEN progra1s. The progra■s will fall under one of two catagories: Sa■es or Utilities. To clarify this: a graphic screen designer would be a utility, or anything of that or a siailar nature. If you don't know llhat a ga■e is, well ••• An unbiased group of judges will score the entries, The top so many in each catagory will recieve a prize iundeterained at this ti~el, Look in the folowing 1onths ' DON sections for sore detai ls, This is an effort to produce 1ore and better software for SPACE to trade with. So let 's have a contest ••• that 1eans 10re than four entries (1 don't 1ean five either!, And now•• , (drua-roll please! the prograas on the ftay DON. 1,BARSPLOT - ABar chart 1aker/saver/displayer - I'm trying to add a printer du1p to it as well 2.DESISNS - Nake a variety of user defined ge01etr1c figures 3,IQTEST - The old peg ga1e, on the atari - re1ove as 1any pegs as you can 4.SOTCHA - Sather all the ~oney ($) and avoid the gobbler. S.RECALL - Repeat the pattern of colors 6,TANKDUEL - Atwo-player Joystick tank ga1e As always, we will bring past DON ' s for sale .s ~el: as NAST DO"'s, DON'T FORGET THE CONTEST!!!! !! !!!!! !

Ribbon Reinke r by Larry Vanden Plas

UPGRADE YOUR SOOXL TO APOWERFUL 256K COMPUTER!

The ribbon reinke r is ready to serve you if you use spool to spool or long rectan gular Epson (MX,FX) or compat ible ribbon s. Place the ribbon (s) in a plastic bag marked with your name, phone number and printe r. Note if you are in a hurry and I will do what I can to hurry it back to you. The cost is only $1 per ribbon for members. Non-members may have their ribbon s reinked for $1.50. Prepay when you turn in the ribbon s. If you have an intere st in having other types of ribbons reinke d, please let me know because the reinke r can be modifi ed.

145 PER KIT INSTALLATION AVAIL.

FOR INFO.CALL TRIPLE "C" COMPUTER 482-4435

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APRIL SPACE MEETING MINUTES by Larry Vanden Plas The last SPACE meeting was held Friday, April 11, 1986. In "News/Rumors," President Bruce Haug reported that news from the computer shows in England and Germany had been downloaded from Compuserve and were posted outside the meeting room. The 1040ST is now in town at User Friendly and expected at other stores soon. Vice President Jim Schulz reported that a 3.5" disk drive prototype for the130XE had been shown. A box for the the 130XE which provides 80 columns and a parallel printer port was also shown. Atari will not be providing a hard disk for the 8-bit, but Supra plans to. The long-prom ised 80 column will come in a box which plugs into the serial port, not in a cartridge . MS-DOS and CP/M emulators are coming for the ST late this year. Disk Librarian Frank Haug reported that Fujiswan on the DOM will not load with Basic (load DOS without Basic). It will have to be loaded from DOS using the L. Binary Load option. Bioplot on the OOM plots on the screen and the 1020 is optional. GWIZ, a print utility for Koala graphics, by John Novotny is available for only $4. The Secretary 's report as printed in the newslette r was accepted. Treasurer Bob Siede reported that we have $1239.31, the best in a long time. MAST is in the black in less than 2 months including the meeting hall. Bruce reported that he had gotten a good report back on reinked ribbons. Larry Vanden Plas reported that he will try to be ready to reink Epson LX-80 ribbons by next month and try others as requested . (See reinker article.) Jim Siede reminded members to bring materials back at the next meeting. In order to circulate library materials members should keep them only one month. The BBS is up and running. However, the SPACE logo is not on it yet. The logo is to change every other month with TAIG. There is not a lot of traffic on the BBS. The Atari Barn West has a 10 MB Hard Disk, a good BBS to try.

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Newslette r articles are needed. Remember to have them in no later than two Mondays before the meeting date. An article by Chris Tiggman is coming in the next issue. Under offers and deals,_ LaBelle' s still had some Amdek color 100nitors for $99. East Saint Paul and Burnsvill e had good supplies. COMB was offering the T0WA, a QUME compatibl e 18 cps daisy wheel for $190. Under questions and answers, a potential Atari owner said he had a 200 page document to prepare. Could the 130XE do the job? Would the 40 column screen be a problem when he was preparing tables? Gordy from Wizard's Work explained that both PaperClip and AtariWri ter Plus offered an 80 column scrolling screen and he had done a number of tables with a 40 col screen once he put his mind to it. Files may be linked for printing if on a single disc. Double sided, double density (DSDD) disc drives and 10 MB hard discs are available for the 130XE. It is good to break such documents down into 35 to 40 page chapters. A chapter would be easy to fit on a single disc. Larry Vanden Plas asked about a program that would allow an Atari and printer to act like a typewrite r. Programs are available that allow them to act like a memory typewrite r, one line at a time. A member will bring the programs next meeting. A member was looking for programs to use the 256K in his upgraded Atari. Three programs are on the BBS under QXL. Under problems, Gordy mentioned that that quality of replaceme nt parts for the old equipment (e.g. 810 chips) was variable. He cautioned members not to throw the old equipment away -- it can be a source of parts. A member mentioned that only the ROM on the 810 is special, the rest of the chips are standard. John Novotny had a problem with a modem program, another member met with himm to resolve. The meeting ended with a door prize drawing, each paid up membership card received one chance. Prizes were furnished by B&D home Computer, Mindtools , User Friendly and Wizard's Work.

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24AB 24A9 24AA 24AB 24AC 24AD 24AE 24AF 24B0 24B1 24B2 24B3 24B4 24B5

QUARTER NEG, XL REBOOT FIX After doing •Y quarter aeg. 1e10ry upgrade, I noticed that I had to wait several seconds 110-15) when I powered the BOOXL down before turning the power back on in order to get a good clean reboot, This was too long, and l vowed to find a way to rid 1y coaputer of this problea, l talked with sate people that I know who are very fatiliar with 1e1ory chips and they could not offer any conclusive answers. The best we could cote up with is that the new breed of Drats 1ust hold their charge longer and therein lies the crux of the biscuit, It seeas with the XL/XE coaputers, that Atari gave us a true reset switch, This 1eans that everytiae the reset key is pressed, the coaputer stops whatever it was doing and juaps to the 1e1ary address painted to by the contents of RON address S3FFC and $3FFD hex. The OS software 1ust now decide if this is a power-up (cold-start) or a reset button (war ■-start). lt does this by looking at the signature bytes in rat at address $33D-$33F, If they are not SSC,$93 and $25 respectively than it assuaes power-up and does a cold-start which re-initializes the systea, If these bytes are correct it does a war ■-start and doesn't 1ess up the progra1 or whatever is in 1e1ory, which is good so1eti11es.

Nith the help of Ji ■ Schulz, our Vice President, I discovered that soaebody had coae up with a patch to the OS RON that fixes this proble■• Ted Burgers' fix involves 'stealing' the reset vector at $3FFC and $3FFD and checking the keyboard secondary buffer. This is a byte at S2F2 where the keyboard handler keeps the last key pressed to see if it should start auto repeating on the next key stroke. He uses 'shift esc reset· as his cold-start 1ethod. If the byte at $2F2 is $SC (shift escl then he trashes the byte at $33D and lets the interupt continue an its ■erry way, The OS then will see $33D is not SSC and will do a cold-start. Si1ple, but effective.

THE FIX: You will need access to an EPRON burner and a 2712B EPRON to make this fix. There are about 30 bytes of $00 in the OS ro1 at address $24AO. This area was reserved far j111p vectors, but was never needed. The XL/XE OS does a ro1 ch1cksu1 during power-up, He changed that routine to always pass the check. The changes ••••• EPROlt OLD ADDRS AA 3FFC C2 3FFD 3B 3F90

NEW AB POWER UP RESET VECTOR E4 POWER UP RESET VECTOR 1B DEFEAT THE RON CHECK

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The

AD F2 02 C9 SC DO 05 A9 00 SD 3D 03 4C AA C2

00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00

2486 pragra■

•••••

LDA S2F2 CNP H5C BNE EXIT LDA HOO STA $033D EXIT JltP RESET

load the last key buffer check it for 'shift esc· branch if it isn't load a zero trash the signature continue with the systea reset vector

Once in a while, if your system is 'locked up' it aav take two atte■pts to get a cold-start. The first attel!Jt gets the syste■ working, then the second actually does the cold-start. The fix works goad and now I never have to poxer-d01111 for a reboot. Thanks Ted Burger, wherever you are. Chris Ti ggemann 612-462-4435

Announcem ent: LR Data's STatus BBS is now open. All MAST/SPACE/STAG members are welcome to use it. The BBS is open according to the following schedule: M-T Fri Sat

6:00 P.M. - 7:00 A.M. 6:00 P.M. - 9:00 A.M. 7:00 P.M. - 7:00 A.M. Monday

You will find sections on the 16 bit Atari line, as well as info on the MichTron BBS system. Also, there is a computeri zed ordering section. You can reach the STatus BBS during the above hours at (612) 777-6376.

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consequence, I have r.ot been able to put in soae of the hard technical goodias Nhich I used to. Since aany of the topics ~hich I enjoy covering sen to have too li ■ited a readership for the aagazines, I have decided to put these 'Tech Notes• up on CoapuServe. I hope that I will be able to contribute one of these nasties at least once a aonth, but don't panic if a couple of aonths passes between appearances. I will not pro1ise where these notes will lead ae. I aay write about 8-bit topics, 16-bit topics, or I aay just give ay personal co11ents. This will be the real (unedited) ae talking, so you ■ay find ae 1uch aore opinionated than ay COMPUTE! col111ns would have led you to believe I a1. I will not say any generally nasty things about other software coapanies (I don't want to get sued>, but I aay put in pointed reaarks about things I don't lite. Take ■e or leave ae. Anyway, the point of all this is that not only can you have fun reading this stuff, but you can also publish it in any user group newsletter, put it on any bulletin board, or send ■e hate aail. I will NOT guarantee ANY responses, though. I a1 working too ■any hours as it is, and these Tech Notes are a labor of love ••• siaply because I aa tired of seeing inadequate and even wrong inforaation being published in both user group newsletters AND in national ■agazines. Read and II hope) enjoy. p.s: But PLEASE give OSS credit whPn you reprint! Thanks.

SUPPUE5 B & D HCmE1887camPUTEn E. HOYT AWE. ff, PMJL. ......, SStae 1sm-n•◄2211

5 1/4 SSDD FLOPPYS 10 FOR SJ:1¥[:1,,fO 3 1/8 SSDD~YS 10 FOR S . /8,'IO

DANGERS OF $0301 by: Bill Wilkinson, OSS Part One

ill Wilkinson's Tech Notes As ■any of you knoN, I Nrite a 1onthly col~•n far COMPUTE: 1agazine. In recent aonths, CONPUTE! has ~een forced to li1it ■y articles to one or tNo pagec; i1axi1u1l per 1onth. As a

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There is a real proble1 when it coaes to using Port B for soae applications: it conflicts with the use of 1030 and XN301 1ode1s!! The proble■ is a subtle one, and it caused us at OSS many headaches with BASIC XE before we finally found it. History: Way back when the original Atari designers were designing the serial interface !1 SI0 1 ) , they included two lines which had no i ■■ediate use, but which seeaed like good ideas at the time. If you are lucky enough to have a scheaatic of the 800 or a description of the pins !wires) in the serial cable, they are designated "Proceed" and 'Interrupt.• To 1ini1ize confusion, we will renaae that second line "Service Request" {an alternate naae we have seen in at least one Atari document) instead. Again, if you have a circuit diagraa of one of the 9-bit 1achines, you will find that these lines are connected to the IRQA1 and IRQB1 pins of the PIA !Peripheral Interface Adapter, a b820 or 65201, respectively. The use of these pins is progra11able, but the most co11on mode of operation is to set the■ up so that a change of state on the incoaing signal (e.g.! fro1 a noainal +5 to +0 volts) will cause an interrupt IIRQ> to the CPU. The idea of those original designers was elegant: one could build a peripheral which would go off and do its thing (even if it took a while) and then tell the computer it needed aore service by flipping the state of the Service Request line. I ■agine how easy it would be to design a printer spooler for a printer interface which worked that way! Perhaps the Proceed line could even be used in a ■ulti-computer hook-up. In practice, no Atari peripheral ever used either of these lines -- until the 1030 arrived on the scene land the XH301 is basically a redesign of the 10301. That direct connect 1ode1 uses the Service Request line for an i1oortant purpose: ~arr1er detect. That is, this line ■onitors whether a connection between the 1030 and the remote syste1 has been established (and, once established, whether the connection is dropped). Neat idea! With other 1ode1s, connected via an 850 interface, the computer 1ust continuously request a status of the 1ode1. Bad idea! Here's why: Once the connection is established (the carrier is detected>, the Service Request line changes state, and the PIA issues an IRQ !interrupt requesti, The 1030 handler is hooked into CIO's interrupt routine and receives control. So it clears the interrupt and sets up to recognize when the connection is dropped instead. Sounds good so far? Yeah, but how do you think the progra1 must clear the interrupt? By reading !i.e., PEEKing or LDAingl Port B, location $D301:: ! No Atari manual discusses this, by the way. An obscure comment in the original Atari OS listing -- and the fact that Me had worked with b820's six or seven years ago -- gave us one of those 'blinding flash' insights into the probiea.

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Words From The Chair by Bob Floyd ■e to report this ■onth. So, I'll for new ■uch isn't There a ■ini-review of "Print"aster" include and brief keep it Print"aster at the ■eeting. de■o'ing be I'll separately. Scott Hutchinson for you Thank New Secretary: 11rfte the■ up for the and ■inutes volunteering to take newsletter. Newsletter Articles: So far, it looks like the best way to handle NAST articles is to write the■ using 1 ST Writer• and then upload the1 directly to Bob Rhode ttte editor). Just call hia up and work out the detail~. It is best to keep the nu1ber of control codes ta a 1ini1u1 and transfer the file in its oriqinal for• (don't "print• to disk). If you don't ~ave a 1ode1, then give 1e a disk with your artir!a on it and I will upload it to Bob. ~tlendance: We had a good turnout at the last ■eeting with 38 present. We also have a aelbership base of at least 25 individuals or fa1ilies. We are trying to get this nuaber clarified in our SPACE database. Oklahoaan: Kevin Heinrichs of Weatherford, Oklahoaa has joined NAST. He is another 3N'er that saw ■y "AST article in the 3N coaputer club newsletter.

***MAS T*** After evaluat ing the cost of producin g the Mast DOM, the board members of SPACE have determin ed that we must increase the cost of the This will be necessa ry disk. in order to maintain the high quality and the quantity of program s that are on the The price increase is disk. Serve and other Comp-Uto due get most of to used BBS time s. program the The new price of the DOM will be $7.00. Back issues of past DOM's will be availab le for $5.00 at the May meeting only. Even at this price the cost per program is less then the cost of a postage stamp. The money earned from DOM sales will go toward the purchas e of an Atari ST compute r for the club.

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April "eeting Ninutes by Scott Hutchinson The last NAST ■eeting was held Friday, April 18 with Bob Floyd and Ji1 Schulz acting as co-chairs. There were approxi1ately 30 in attendance including several who signed on board as new SPACE-NAST 1e1bers. Exciting news was everywhere! Fro■ the Hanover show in England ca1e word of new 20 Neg and 60 "eg hard disk drives from Atari. Also, we heard rumors of $600 laser printers, Side Click !naturally a Borland Sidekick clone!, First Word+, 6 Ra1 Disk and 6 Protect. Fro ■ the West Coast Co1puter Fair co1es word of a Nae Emulator Cartridge, a two-user flight simulator, Nicro RTX (a multitasking operating syste1l 1 Toa Hudson's CAD 3D which should be in by "ay, a !choke) Apple II e1ulator 1 an i1proved ST Basic and Unix Syste1 V! Discussions by Ji ■ Schulz included the CPN E1ulator shown in Seraany, the "S DOS IB" eaulator expected in fall for about $300 1 the Supra 20 Neg hard disk claimed to be 3 tiaes as fast as Atari ·s, a blit~er chip on a piggyback board (look out A1iga) 1 and (just for me) Paperclip Elite including spelling checker and graphics fro■ Batteries included. Not to be outdone, Bob Floyd announced news of the level 2 update to 4X Forth, Version 1.1 of ST Talk, the "improved" version of Express which see■s to fix aost of the probleas the ■anufacturer claiaed didn't exist, nl!IIS fro1 Hippo including i1prove1ents to their •c• and announcing their hardware/software video digitizer package. The 'disk of the 1onth 1 included four disks this aonth with progra■s too 1any to 1ention in detail. Included 111 disk 11 were 1st Word printer drivers, applications and co11and files for H&D Base·and Forth DOT.TOS. Disk 12 contained utilities, edit files, an NS DOS shell prograa and a good copy progra1. Disk #3 had 1iscellaneous programs, including ongoing discussions of the noise problea with some 1achines when using the new RONS. Disk 14 had Tiny Basic, plus a whole slew of gaaes including Othello, Cribbage, Trek the Dragon and more! The folks fro1 User Friendly came over with a real 1040ST, a very nice package. In closing, there was a highly detailed treasurer's report which informed us that "we are in the black probably,• Old business included the anounce■ent that·ten people were needed to econo1ically get Analog programs on disk. Yours Truly would like to see us add anotner 30 ■embers to NAST, so bring a friend to the Nay meeting!

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llelts froa the co-chair By Ji ■ Schulz In this colu■n, I hope to provide those little news bits that happen and provide infar■atian that is better co■■unicated in textual for■ than at a hectic ■eeting of the "AST group. Ta start out, expect another load of new ST news in the next few weeks as the post1ordu1 of this week's Spring COMDEX software show in Atlanta is reported. Already announced is the first de10 of the ■ultitasking UNIX-like shell, Micro RTX, expect this to ship in the next two ■onths, This product will shut the 1ouths of the A1iga public about the superiority of 1ultitasking capability of the A1iga, Also expect to see ship dates announced for the ST version of Star Raiders and Millipede. These two pragra■ s were de1o'd by Atari at user group 1eetings in California. Star Raiders was supposedly a sight to be seen yet hard to describe. Another pragra1 llhich will get a lot of press will be CAD-3D fro■ To■ Hudson, the author of DEGAS. Yes, a full 3-D CAD syste■ for the incredibly low list price of $49,95. This pragra■ is shipping in aid-May so we ■ight have it available far de■oing at our "av aeeting. Switching gears, if you DNA a copy of Sundog, you ■ight want ta see if you get a hold of later version if you own version 3.00. In versions after 3.00, they have added Pac■an arcade gaaes in the fast food stores as well as the slot aachines. Something to look for if you are a Sundog or Pac■an. If you are a gaaer, Sundog is one ga■e that you 1ust own for your ST ga■e collection. More news is now starting to leak out about the now-infa■ous Atari TT Co■puter. The computer, code-na■ed the A■y, was recently written up in the newspaper called EE Times. Here are s01e of the highlights: The syste■ is now set to ■ake its official announce■ent in June, probably at CES. The systea specifications now include a 1024 x 1024 ■onochro■e resolution with a 68020 ■icroprocessor for a cost fro1 $1800 to $2500. Color versions of the TT will follow a couple 1onths later because of an internal lack of suitable color graphics software. The 68020 ■ icroprocessor is currently the leader in the ■ icroprocessor race but others still in the running are the Western Electric WE32000 and the National 32000. The National 32000 is supposedly a dark horse in the chip race because of poor results in the initial bench ■ark tests. Atari is currently pitting the 66020 suppliers against AT~T to get the best deal for processors and 1e1ory. Expect to see more about A1y in !lonths to co■ e. Finally, I Nill give you picks for the progra1s to look for in the co■ ing aonth. There are two progra1s, this ;onth, that are woth recognizing, They are 'CAD-3D' and Ti11e Bandits•.

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CAD-3D, the new progra1 fro• Toa Hudson, is one of those few progra1s for the ST that have to seen to believed. If the quality of this progra■ is anything like DEGAS, To■ Hudson will have another hit on his hands. The other progra1 is Time Bandits fro• Michtron. This progra1 is now shipping after 1any delays. This prograa, best described as a ■ulti-level arcade adventure ga1e, is another of those progra1s that have to be seen to believed. The authors of this progra1 were supposedly having so much fun writing this progra■ that they did not want to stop. Fro• 1y understanding the only li ■iting factor for the progra1 develop ■ent was 1e1ory. I have not seen this progra1 but, ru1ors say that this could be the first 512K ga1e for the ST. People who have seen this ga■e who don't own STs have decided to buy an ST after seeing this ga■e; it sounds that good, Whether it lives up to its press re■ains to be seen, but if I can get a hold of a copy of it by the aeeting it will be deao'd for all to judge. Well, that is it for this ■onth, See you at the SPACE aeeting and of course the NAST ueting for ■ore of the hotest news and ru1ors fro1 Atariland.

9? ADD

WILL GIVE YOU DIRECTION

WE HAVE PRODUCTS AND EXPERTISE

• -~ ~

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~ILJ ilJN ~

HOURS: M&W 11-7 T.TH-S 11-5:30

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Disk of the Month - Nay By Jit Schulz this aonth is how can I top the again The big question four disks fro■ last 1onth??? This aonth so far the public doaain software is in really short supply, but the quality of the software see■s to be very good. Progra1s already slated for this 1onth's disk(sl of the ■onth include: Neochro■e Version O.b - this clai ■s to be the last update before the official release within the next aonth(??l. It does not see■ to be too different than 0.5. AKandelbrot progra■ that uses the GEN interface and allows for storing and getting of the files generated. Kany tore options I have yet to explore. Anew print spooler progra■ that can be variable in size up to 32K. This is not a desk accessary. Anew non-desk accessary ra■ disk which works between resolution changes if loaded at boot ti ■e. This is also a variable size ra■disk and variable drive ra■disk progra■ which can also be run as a .TTP progra1 after boot ti ■e. New OSS Pascal files which include a co1pare progra1, a duap progra■, and a window de10 progra■• If this hasn't already caught your interest, I have left the best two progra■s for last: A3-D flight si ■ulation progra■ with two windows and two joysticks. You can fly your plane and track down the plane in the opposite window. This, written by a Twin Cities progra11er whose na1e I don't re1e1ber, is a preview of a forthco■ing ga■e. Abrand new ■ulti-featured LIFE progra■ written by our very own Steve Pauley: this progra1 has to be seen to be believed. This is the start of another great disk of the month. ~ore will be added in the next two weeks, so you can expect at least two packed disks full of public do■ain software fro• the last aonth. If this not is enough, I have collected a nice collection of special disks for this aonth. These disks include the following: Nicroeaacs - yes, the Nicroeaacs editor enchanced to include the 1ost often used functions on the ST function keys and nuaeric keypad. I a■ editing this file on the program right now. [And I aa editing his editing on Paperclip ••• -ed.] This is a very nice editor. TVX - If one editor is not enough, here is a second editor(sl. This is a very full-featured editor which includes a nu1ber of editors on the sa1e disk. As well as the editor itself, there is an editor to e■ulate the UNIX vi editor and the Nicroeaacs. Nice docu1entation files help you understand the editors to the fullest. Asecond disk will be offered with the source code for the hacker at heart. LISP - This is XLISP, the public do■ ain LISP interpreter. Along with the docu1entation and source code, there are a nu■ber of prograa files to take LISP though its

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paces as you learn the language. Set LISP and find out what is at the foundation of your ST LOSO. ????? - This one will remain a secret until the 1eeting. I have sent away for a very nice, quality program that should bloM your socks off when you realize this is in public doaain. You will just have to wait until the ■eeting to find out what it is. In addition to all of these disks, if time peraits, we will have a nuaber of squeezed DEGAS and NED picture disks. There should be so1ething for everyone in this aonth's ~AST disks. For those who didn't know, KAST has a disk of the aonth, llhich we sell for $7.00, which is packed full of public doaain software for the ST. All software programs are checked by me and docu■ented in a READ.NE file in each directory, so you are sure you get something that works. So far we have a library of twelve disks after three months, with ■ore to coae. For inforaation on any of the past disks, see ■eat the next 1eeting. For those who cannot 1ake the meeting and still ~ould like to get the DOK, I will ■ail the■ to you within one week of the meeting for the standard $7,00 plus $0.50 for postage and handling for each disk. Ny address is: 3264 Welco1e Avenue North Crystal, NN, 55422 As reported last 1onth, I aa getting reports of soae bad disks each ■onth. I make up to seventy disks for each ■eeting so a couple of bad disks can be expected, but not accepted. I a■ looking for a bettar copy prograa, able to handle this load of disk copying. If you get a bad disk, please bring it to the nezt aeeting for a replacement. Well, that's it for this ■onth. I will see you at the next NAST 1eeting with at least two full disks of the best public do■ain software to be found during the past aonth. NichTron's BBS progra1 David Hutchinson NichTron's BBS system is one of a class of BBS that is often seen on personal coaputers. Included with the BBS is the ability to set up sixteen different Special Interest Groups iSIS'sl. These SIG's are functionally identical to each other, but when one is in a specific SIS, one can only see files and messages within that specific SIG. With this type of arrangement, it is almost like having sixteen different BBS's available to you without having to use sixteen different telephone lines and personal cc1puters. progra■s

SETUP

Setting up the BBS is a rather difficult procedure, and the docu1entation does not ease the pain auch. io

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the installation, anywhere fro■ the required S files ta a 1axi1u1 of about 75 files 1ust be created and defined using the supplied BBS install~tion progra1 1 INSTALL.TOS 1 • The type of files that ■ust be created in order for the BBS to run at a 1ini1al level include an opening 1essage file, a daily ■essage file, a user log file, and a 1essage base file. Optionally, header files 1ay be written for the ["Jail and [Flile transfer sections of each 516. Contained within these 32 files will be aessages that will be displayed as soon as the NAIL or FILE TRANSFER options are chosen fro■ the ■aster ■enu for each SIG. Also, you may set up [NJews and [llnfo for S16 files for each of the sixteen SIG's. Again, if you choose ta set these up, you will have to create and edit 32 different text files. One nice thing that NichTron has provided the SysOp with is a co■plete copy of the user's manual on the BBS disk. Per■ission is granted far the use of these instructions •ith your BBS syste1. You can install these instructions in such a way that inexperienced users can read the■ at the touch of a key while online for the first ti ■e.

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co■plete

OPERATION Operation of the BBS is relatively si ■ple; if you have a hard disk you 1ust si ■ply double-click an 'BBS.PR&', and the bulletin board will run. If you own a one-■egabyte or four-■egabyte Atari, you ■ust first establish a ra1disk (for uplaad/dawnload/1essages>, and then load the ra1disk with files before executing the BBS progra1. It usually takes about S ■inutes to boat, load the ratdisk, and execute the BBS progra1. The operation procedure for 512K ST's with two disk drives is the sa■e as for the one aegabyte ST's, except that you need not load the ra■disk before executing the BBS progra■• When using NichTron's BBS progra ■ with a 'stock' 520 ST syste1, trouble arises. When the syste1 is fully set up, only approxi ■ately 45K of storage space ~e■ains on the BBS disk !which, by the way, usually stays in drive A during progra1 usage), so ■essages and progra■s soon fill the disk. When this happens, it is time to re-evaluate your cash-flow situation, and decide whether ta buy another floppy disk drive, wait for hard disks to beco■e widely available, or consider a rat upgrade. CONCLUSION The NichTran BBS syste1 is a very well thought out syste■, and relatively bug free. Extre■e care has been taken to insure that syste■ crashes will never occur. Setup can be an excruciating experience, but •hen it is over you have a nice BBS syste■ that can be relied an. If you are interested in tring this syste ■ fro■ a user's paint of view, read the announce■ent of the STatus BBS elsewhere in this issue.

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111 RAFFLE 111 Nast is going ta raffle a progra■ each aonth. The profit fro■ this raffle will go towards the pruchase of ca■puter equipment used by Nast. The progra■ to be raffled off this ■anth is 'PRINT NASTER' (see review in this ■onth's newsletter). The cast of a chance ta win is $1.00 or 3 for $2.00. If this does not produce ■oney for the group then it will be the first and last raffle.

THE PRES.

A■ ini-review of PrintNaster by Bob Floyd I don't really have ti ■e for a full review of this newly released 'Print Shop• clone for the ST. Sa, here's haw 'PrintNaster' differs fro■ "Print Shop•. I'll assu■e ■ost everyone is fa1iliar with 'Print Shop•. 1. All of the categories such as banners, greeting cards, etc. are included, plus weekly and aonthly calenders. 2. There is ■ore resolution (both on the screen and printout! ta the graphics, fonts and borders. 3. Yau are allowed ta choose 2 (instead of only ll graphics on signs or 4 on greeting cards. This requires a bit ■are planning to ■ake it look good. 4. There is a 'print previ111 1 capability on your screen so you can decide •hether to send your work to the printer. However, this is quite slow, considering we are using a 16/32 bit cpu. S. Printing speed (when ca■bined with the ever-present 'print preview"} is quite slow, but still faster than on the 130XE. Greeting cards with 4 graphics are the slowest. 6. Yau can ■ix text fonts. Lower case letters can also be used. 7. You can print out ■irrar iaages. This is handy far heat transfer ribbons for ■aking custo■ized T-shirts. 8. Ants, feet, cars and X ■as make the borders ■ore interesting. 9. The graphics editor is such 1ore versatile than 'Print Shop• with cut &paste, reverse, flip etc. The 1ouse is used, but not in the usual tanner (see 111). 10. There are 8 fonts, 11 borders and 122 (11 are backgrounds) graphics an the program disk. The progra■ supports ■ast graphics printers. Call 1e if you need to know about a particular printer. 11. The ■ause can be used for aenu choices (arrow keys also work). However, there is no 1ause pointer. Instead, the cursor bar aoves when the ■ouse is aoved. 12. There is a library disk now available ta add even ;are fonts, borders and graphics. List price is $4-0 far PrintNaster and about f25 for the library disk. I'd reco11end this progra1 highly, even with the speed proble1. I'll de1a it with sy printer at the Nay 1eeting. 1

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Sose Tips on the ST by John Dellar Original article acco1panied "ST-Talk" version 1.1 1 by John Del1ar, distributed by Quantu1 "icrosyste1s, Inc. Reprinted by per ■ ission of author and QNI. Voluae 11 Part 1 Since last June, I've given 1y ST quite a work out. At the beginning, it see1ed as if I was de1onstrating it 1ore than I was using it! Packing it up for a users' group 1eeting, bringing it to a store that was too anxious to •ait for their first shipaent, showing it to all sorts of curious people dropping by at •Y ho1e. Even the regional sales rep had never seen the 520ST before he looked at 1ine ..•

Over the past few 1onths, I've gathered 1any facts and learned a fe• tricks that I'd like ta pass on. As always, this infaraatian is best ca11unicated through Co1puserve and the growing network of ST-specific bulletin boards. You're welco1e ta give a copy to a friend who isn't fortunate enough to o•n a 1ade1 (yet!l. Hopefully, I'll compile another list like this in the future. Please forward to me any co11ents and tips of your own. Our BBS nulber is 315-457-7216 or drop a letter in the ■ail to QNI, PO Box 179 1 Liverpool, NY 13088. Enjoy! 1) Saving the 6El1 DeskTop I always see an ST boated at a stare and can't believe how aessy they keep their DeskTop. I shouldn't be tao critical - the top of 1y awn desk is pretty hard to find! The "Option• Nenu on the 6El1 DeskTop has ·a choice called 'Save DeskTop•. It creates the file called 'DESKTOP.INF' which re1e1bers what your DeskTop looks like (icon and •indow positions, screen resolution, etcl. The next time you turn an your caaputer, the DeskTap display will look just as you left it. For instance, I have ay disk icons placed at the botta1 left of the screen and the trash can at the botto1 right. I resize and aave ay windows·so that they are centered vertically next ta each other (text viewing). I go to the Options llenu and Save the DeskTop. Next ti1e I boot, everything looks fa1iliar and co1fartable to 11e! 2) Renaming the Icons I've found it 11ore appealing to have the disk icons naaed "Top Disk' and 'Botto■ Disk', corresponding to the position of my disk drives. Paint to a disk icon and click the batton to 1ake it dark (selected). Go to the Options Menu and select "Install Disk Drive•, Type the new name in the drive na1e field and click the Install button. Voila! Your icon is rena1ed. If you save the DeskTop, the na1e

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will be there peraanently. You can renane the trash icon by loading the DESKTOP.INF file into a text editor and renaaing it where it is shown in its special for1at. If you do this with ST-Writer 1 1ake sure the top and left margins are set to zero, then print to disk (do not use Save since ST-Writer uses a different format). 3l Installing an Aoplication Docuaent-Type

This sounds complicated but it's really a useful feature. For instance, you probably naae all of your ST-Writer files with a file extention ".DOC'. Nor1ally, you would load ST-Writer then load the document file. Here's how to do it .in one step! On the DeskTop, click once an the application program na■e (or icon) to aake it black (selected). Go to the Option Nenu and choose "Install Application•, In the field called Docuaent Type, enter the three characters for the file type associated with the application (DOC, for the case of ST-Writer). Then, save the DeskTop to make this a permanent choice. Fro■ now an, all you need to do is click twice on any docu1ent file (1 .DOC" on the na1el and ST-Writer will load autoaatically and the docuaent file will load into ST-Writer, waiting in the edit 1ode! Nake sure ST-Writer is on the saae disk as your docuaent files or this will not 11ork. 4) The Infa1aus <ESC) Key

The Escape coaes in handy for a couple of things. When you reaave a disk fros a drive and replace it with another, the DeskTop still shows the directory for the old disk. I spent the first two ;onths closing the window and re-opening it to see the directory of the new disk, Not so! Si1ply press the <ESC> key and the directory will appear far the new disk! Also, the Escape key is used ta erase text fields in SEN Dialog Windows. For instance, you·re entering the date in the Control Panel -- just hit <ESC> and the old date will erase and the cursor will go to the begining of the field. S) The Case of the Dead Neuse I've heard of missing 11ice and a sick souse or two. But there's no such thing as a dead souse! The ST keyboard allows you to ■ave the cursor around without using the little critter. Hold <Alternate) and the cursor arrow keys to ■ave the pointer in steps and use the <Alternate> and <Shift> keys together with the cursor keys for fine 1ove1ent. The <Alternate> key with the <Insert> key acts like the left aause button and the <Alternate} key with the <ClrHoae> key acts like the right souse button. It makes a lot of sense once you think about it!

The second part of this article will ·be printed in next month's newsletter -ed.

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