SPACE Newsletter - January 1988

January 1988

•

JANUARY • 1988

SPACE Meeting Friday, Jan. 8 at 7:30pm MAST Meeting Friday, Jan. 15 at 7:30pm At the Falcon Heights Community Center 2077 Larpenteur Avenue West

MAST+ Programmers Meeting Monday, Jan. 18 at 7 :30pm At First Minnesota Bank Building - second floor Lexington and Larpenteur, in back of building

Minnesota Atari ST

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER

~ &Jo~o&o@o~

DISCLAIMER

Published by the St. ~aul ATARI Computer Enthusiasts (SPACE), and MInnosota Atari ST (MAST) group, an independent organization with no business affiliation with ATARI Corporation. Permission is granted to any similar organization with which SPACE/MAST exch_anges_newsletters to reprint material from this newsletter. We do, however, ask that credit be given to the authors and to SPACE/MAST. Opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SPACE/MAST club officers club members or ATARI Corporation. ' '

SPACII/MAST BULLIITll'l BOARDS SPACE/MAST East (XII)- BBS Phone: (61 2)-774-0135

Sysop: Bruce Haug (Home Phone: 77 4-6226) SPACE/MAST West (ST)· BBS Phone: (612)-560-9254

Sysop: Steve Pauley (Home Phone: 560-5529)

President Larrry Vanden Plas 636-2415 Vice President John Novotny 699-2422 Secretary Joe Danko 777-9500 Treasurer (SPACE/MAST) BobSiede 489-3982 Disk Librarian Joe Danko 777-9500 Paper Librarian Jim Scheib 721-4185 Newsletter Editor (SPACE/MAST) Steve Pauley 560-5529

President Jim Schulz Vice President Phil Seifert Secretary Dan Stubbs Disk Librarian Jim Schulz Paper Librarian Neil Palosaari Membership Chair Allen Frink Demo Coordinator Phil Seifert

537-5442 (W) 559-4690 433-3708 537-5442 646-1272 482-7911 (W) 559-4690

.blEWSLi.-'l"tER ADVEB'l'JSING BATES: 1/2 page - 4.25' vertically x 5.5" horizontally - $ 5.50 1/2 page - 8.5' x 5.5' - $10.00 Send to : Steve Pauley• 2547 - 83rd Court N. • Brooklyn Park, MN 55444

JANUARY• 1988

A. BYTES from the V SPACEPBES

by Larry Vanden Plas I hope you had a good Christmas and New Year's. Thanks to Jerry Maleckyj, we finally were able to place a computer system with the Child Life program at St. Paul Children's Hospital. Jerry donated an Atari 130 XE, color monitor, 1050, 1027 and XM301 with AtariWriter, SynCalc, SynFile+ and much more. It was a joy to see the director's reaction as she began to understand some of the possibilities of a computer. She and her staff, as well as the children they serve, are anxious to learn to use computers. We are looking for people who would like to share their knowledge of the computer and people who would like to donate computer equipment to Children's Hospital. Leave a message on the BBS for me, send me a note at the P.O. Box or catch me at the meeting if you would like to participate. Let me hear about your suggestions for this project also. During the holidays I was introduced to a program that allows two people to play an interactive game on two Atari 8-bit computers which communicate through their number one joy stick ports. This program is under development, but perhaps we will be able to see a demo at a meeting in a few months. During the January meeting Joe Danko will tell us about setting up and using RAM disks to speed up operations and reduce wear on your disk drive. Part of the demostration will involve putting a spell checker on the RAM disk and using it to ckeck a text file. Phil Seifert plans to demostrate the XE Game System. The double sided, double density, reinforced hub (DS/DD/RH) 100% certified blank disks with sleeves have arrived and they will be sold for 35 cents each on a first come, first served basis. Doors open at

7:00 PM. Thanks to Ernie Costello for volunteering to be secretary. Let me or any of the officiers know what you are interested in or are having problems with.

4', Notes from the ~

~;A~ff

o"Yofny There are a lot of ideas from the new officers of how to make the club more interesting and useful to the membership. Getting more articles from our members is essential. Also, more discussions of what we as individuals are doing with our computers, making our knowledge available to others (one of the stated goals of the club). For my part, I am starting a series of articles about ML routines I have written over the last couple of years. These routines I hope have general applications, or at least will demonstrate some useful techniques in assembler programming. Here goes. One of the nice features of ATARI BASIC is the ability to pass parameters to ML routines using the USR statement, and the ability to return a value to the USR call variable. Routines implemented to make use of these features, and routines written to reside anywhere in available memory, feel like they belong in the BASIC program because they don't require any special tricks to use them. Let's look at a simple ML routine that is useful for doing multi byte reads and writes (Buffered 1/0) on disk. It is nothing more than the familiar JSR $E456 with some trimmings. The following example shows a fairly straight forward application of BIO to read a file of unknown length into a BASIC buffer B$. (It assumes the BIO code has already been loaded into buffer BIO$) 100 REM setup big butter 110 L=FRE(0)-512:DIM B$(L) 120 REM identify file to read 130 OPEN #2.4,0,<Dn:some-file> 140 U=USR(ADR(BIO$),2,7,ADR(B$),L}

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER 150 REM check entire file read 160 IF U<L then 190 170TRAP 190:GET#2,A 180 <do-whatever-buffer-too-small> 190 <do-whatever-with-file-in-BS> A brief explaination of lines 160 and 170. Since we went to read a file of unknown length into a buffer of finite size (L), it may be too long, or it may fit exactly. If the GET is able to retrieve a byte, then its not the end, and we advance to line 180. In this example, the routine BIO performs as follows: a) It is relocatable - you let BASIC decide where he wants to put it. b) It returns the actual transfer count in the BASIC variable U. c) It requires the following parameters be passed in the call statement, in the order listed: 1. The CHANNEL # 2. Function (7 =READ 11 =WRITE) 3. The buffer address 4. The transfer count. So let's look at the BIO source code to see how it works. 10 ;ROUTINE TO DO BUFFERED 1/0 20 ;BASIC CALL:U= USR(ADR(BIO$),chan,func,ADR(B$),count) 30 ;ON RETURN, U = actual transfer count 40; 50 •= $0600:AN ASSEMBLY ADAS ;IGNORE PARAM COUNT PLA 60 ;HI-BYTE CHAN# PLA 70 ;LO-BYTE CHAN# PLA 80 ;CONVERT TO INDEX ASL A 90 ;... INTO THE IOCB 100 ASL A ;... NEED CHAN# 110 ASL A ;...TIMES 16 120 ASLA 130 STA $CB ;SAVE IOCB INDEX ;NEED INDEX REG 140 TAX ;HI-BYTE FUNCTION 150 PLA ;LO-BYTE FUNCTION 160 PLA 170 STA$0342,X ;TO IOCB WORD 2 ;HI-BYTE BFR ADAS 180 PLA 190 STA $0345,X ;TO IOCB WORD 5 ;LO-BYTE BFR ADAS 200 PLA 210 STA $0344,X ;TO IOCB WORD 4

220 230 240 250 260 280 270 290 300

310 320 330

;HI-BYTE COUNT PLA STA $0349,X ;TO IOCB WORD 9 ;LO-BYTE COUNT PLA STA $0348,X ;TO IOCB WORD 8 JSR $E456 ;CIO UTILITY ENTRY LDX $CB ;RESTORE INDEX STY $CB ;STATUS TO ADAS 203 LDA $0348,X ;TRANSFER COUNT STA $D4 ;RETURN IN U-PARM LDA $0349,X ;HI BYTE STA$D5 ,... ;RETURN RTS

Operation can be summarized as follows: 1) the passed parameters are moved from the hardware stack to the IOCB for the OPENed channel, 2) the Operating System is called to do the transfer, 3) the transfer status is saved in address 203 (1 = successful), and 4) the transfer count is moved to locations from where BASIC transfers it to the call variable. If you have questions about any aspects of this, I will be available after the business part of most SPACE meetings. Also, if you have further insights to share, please do so. The format for this series can be either in greater or less detail, depending on your response.

SPACE Disk Library

,~~~;i/a~JIGreg Peasley The Disk of the Month Something new this month is a HELP program. This will be found on all future DOM. RUN this BASIC program and get information on all of the month's software. <MENU> - Runs automatically when disk is booted with BASIC. This gives the SPACE logo and menu. <POLYMENU.PLY> runs with BASIC to select the rest of the <????????.PLY> files. <MOO ROOT.PLY> <PARTFRAC.PLY> run with BASIC indiof under control or vidually <POLYMENU.PLY>. A group of math programs to do complex polynomial calculations. It is necessary to keep all of the <*.PLY> files

JANUARY • 1988 together. <SPACE.FNT > is a special character set. To eliminate the special character set read the beginning of the program when LIST'd. Any redefined character set may be used if it is named <SPACE.FNT>. <LASTRUMP.BAS> runs with BASIC. Joystick card game remeniscent of BRIDGE. <TEASER.BAS> runs with BASIC. A brain teaser game that is a combination of RUBIC'S CUBE & TIC-TAC-TOE. <PACHINKO.BAS> is passive amusement. Load it up and watch the ball negotiate the maze. To get machine language programs to run: 1.Reboot with no cartridges or hold down <OPTION> if XL/XE. 2.At the DOS menu load the desired program with the <l> option. 3.Reboot with BASIC installed and/or don't touch <OPTION> To get back to the SPACE menu. There have been many unreadable disks returned lately and to try to improve the situation we plan to rewrite ALL of the existing disks so bear with us until we get this all cleaned up.

♦ SPACES-BIT

fyl!~~s Well the BBS has finally decided to let me be the BOSS!! At least there have been no problems for 4 weeks now. Let me or one of the officers of SPACE know what types of programs you want more of available for downloads ... I'm just your SYSOP, someone has to let me know what to do ... PLEASE I don't want to do THAT ... WHAT DO YOU WANT!! Some people have complained that MONOPOLY was still outthere, well it was off the BBS for 4 weeks due to room on the MIO, when we got the HARD DISK, I received 3 requests for MONOPOLY, so I put it out there. I think as long as I don't run out of storage space, I should leave the programs on the BBS. Why did we buy the hard drive ... WE NEEDED more storage! PLEASE leave E-MAIL to SYSOP when you UP-LOAD a program, and let me know where you got it, and just maybe

how to load and run it.. Some of the Uploads I get are really a puzzle, for me , maybe not for you. See You January 8th 8-BIT SYSOP

L1 BIBBON BE-INKING

Jim Scheib721-4185 The club can re-ink most printer ribbons (black) for a small fee. There is no longer a reason to use a faded ribbon! Ribbons that can be re-inked are: $1.00/ribbon Spool to spool (all types) - Epson MX-80 and compatibles - Epson LX-80 and compatibles - C. ltoh Prowriter and compatibles (NEC 8023NC) - Citizen 120 D Panasonic - small ones that turn counterclockwise: $2.00/ribbon - Epson MX-100 and compatibles. Other ribbons can be attempted, too. But if you prefer, you can buy an adapter ($8.50 + $3.50 shippi_ng and handling) for the club and receive half that amount in credit towards reinkings. See Jim Scheib at the SPACE meeting, or Jim Schulz at the MAST meeting. Please pay in advance and be sure to have your ribbon(s) in a plastic bag.

Notes From the Editor WELL here goes my second issue of the newsletter. As you may have noticed at the last meeting I was running around with a camara taking pictures of club officers and helpers. I was going to put pictures of each person beside their monthly columns, but I guess that will have to wait until the next issue. Well at least I think I have the right month on this issue. As you can see we are very short of 8bit articles this month and it will only get worse unless some of you spend a little time and write something for the newsletter. In addition to thanking the officers this month for contributing stuff for the newsletter, I would like to thank Ted Hollman for his article. Well done and thanks to all. MAST Sysop/Editor, Steve Pauley

II W

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER STABTKey-A Handy

V Macro Program from John H. Jenkinsand START Diskzine Overviewed by Ted Holman Have you ever typed away on a report or article that mentioned the same item over and over again, and wished that your software had the ability to paste in those repetitious names and phrases for you so that you wouldn't have to retype them over and over? Or have you wanted the ability of your word processing program to action menu commands previously only accessible by your rodent? Well, now there's an inexpensive solution from Antic on their current START Diskzine (The cover says "Volume 2, number 2 Winter 1987" while the inside of the diskzine and the disk itself says "Vol. 2 nr. 3")! STARTKey is an powerful accessory program that auto-loads a macro.max file that you have pre-designed, and which lets you access your favorite GEM word processing program's menu commands and activate them! STARTKey also can insert often-used text strings (text phrases) at the touch of a key or series of keys! The advantage of using STARTKey is clear to those who use 1STWORD (1WD), which has no keyboard commands as an alternative to constantly having to run up to the menu bar with the mouse. Having used 1ST WORD for about a year before moving on up to WORD WRITER, I felt hampered by the lack of alternative.quick keyboard commands. Instead, one has to run up to the menu bar to activate it, then run halfway down the menu to click activate the desired function! Whew! How about just hitting a key or a couple of keys instead?! By using STARTKey, you will enormously increase your speed in using 1ST-WORD. FromthefirstCONTRO LOto open a file to a CONTROL P to print out your file, you'll be glad that you have the added alternative of having keyboard commands to action menu commands -

and to paste in words, phrases, numbers, etc. that you often use. While WORD WRITER (WW) has a multitude of alternative keyboard commands, it also benefits from some additional macro commands, such as CONTROL E to bring up the ERASE a file selector box, and CONTROL SHIFT ALTERNATE D to erase the remainder of a file from the cursor point onwards. (Useful for erasing a screen so that it can be used for a new file.) I have also added CONTROLS to bring up the SEARCH selector box, CONTROL R to bring up the SEARCH AND REPLACE selector box, CONTROL F to bring up the FOOTERS selector box, CONTROL H to bring up the HEADER selector box, CONTROL L to bring up the PAGE LAYOUT selector box, and CONTROL SHIFT S to resave the current on-screen file. Altogether, I have added 13 macros to access menu commands, as well as 55 text string macros to the numeric keypad! (And have printed up a listing of which text string is located where, so that I can refer to it until I have learned just which one is where!) STARTKey comes with these associated programs: SPOTMENU.PRG SKCOMPIL.TTP SPOTMENU.PRG is a most helpful program that analyzes the .RSC file of any GEM menu-based program, and prints out a listing of each menu command's location values for that program, so that you can refer to them when you type up your macro file to action them. An example: In WORD WRITER (WW) version 1.10, the location value of ERASE a file is 0004 001E. If you want to access this command from the keyboard from whatever key or combination of keys you wish (say CONTROL E which is logical and easy to remember) you would write the macro command with this easily written instruction in an ASCII text file with your word processor: c-e menu wwriter Continued on page 11

JANUARY• 1988

OOo~o~o ~

~ MASTDec87

?t\~,$~~ ~:

Unfortunately, family holiday commitments prevented me from attending the regular MAST meeting this month, but I have some notes taken by Dick Stubbs. Thank you, Dick! The meeting was called to order by Phil Seifert. Phil announced that there would be no demos, but the Midimaze Tournament would be held after the meeting. Prizes were: 1. Ultima II, 2. a Solar calculator, and 3. a Mouse Mat. It was reported that Atari is shipping the MEGA 4's and thatthe MEGA 2's were in stock with Slitter chip. The laser printer is also being shipped. Chuck Purcell commented that there have been problems with the Slitter chip in Europe. Jim Schultz reported on the DOM's. . There were reports on the BBS and from the Treasurer. The Treasurer reported $434 in the MAST account. In the news and rumors department, Atari's emphasis on advertising game machines was discussed. OSS Personal Pascal v. 2.02 has been released, PCDitto v. 3.00 with monochrome monitor support has been released. Michtron has a multitasking program, Supra is shipping a 10 Megabyte floppy drive. Atari will not attend the coming Consumer Electronics Show and finally Atari is reported to be moving production to the U.S. At the Programmers' Meeting presentations were made by Chuck Purcell with some new information from Europe. Dale Schumacher discussed some of his recent work. John Stanley showed some public domain programs for owners of PC-Ditto. This was followed by general discussion.

•

News from the Pres

By Jim Schulz I would first like to wish all MAST members a Happy New Year. Yes, as the months roll on, MAST also rolls on. I have quite a bit this month, so let's get going. First up, last month's meeting. I would first of all like to apologize for the mish-mash of a meeting that we had last month. The holidays catch up with all of us around Christmas. In addition to getting things ready for the meeting and finishing things up at work before I took vacation, I also was trying to fight off a flu bug as well. It seemed like everything had to come to a head at the same time. Next month, we will again return to the normal meeting format with your chief bottle washer and his court jester. I would also like to thank all who showed up at the last meeting. It was nice to some of the old faces back as well as some new ones. Since we are in the apologizing mood, I would also like to apologize for the mixup on last month's DOMs. More will be discussed in the month's DOM article so I wouldn't repeat it here. Although one rather disturbing note did arise out of the bad DOMs last month. Someone accused me of intentionally making bad disks. I would like to point out to all members including this member. I make roughly 100 to 150 disk copies each month on my drives as well as the club drives. I check what I can and try my best to give good disk copies for the disks of the month. That is the best that I can do. The disks of the month are not a commercial effort and are only done with volunteer work. As I have said in the past, to put out one month's set of DOMs usually takes about 80 hours of time in downloading, assembling, testing, editing, and copying. For all of this, I get nothing. I always am looking for constructive criticism on the club and the disks of the month. Let me close by saying that if I intentionally made bad disks, I would not stick around

JANUARY• 1988

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER for the backlash. I wasted a whole day of my vacation recopying and manually checking every disk before the programmers meeting. Bad disks cost me more time and effort than good disks do. Enough said. Speaking of DOMs, the question has again come up: Do we really need a DOM??? Sales of the DOMs have been down and members seem more interested lately in waiting for the files to appear on the BBS than buying a prepackaged, tested disk of public domain software. The disks of the month are put together with the best of stuff found each month and not all months are the best. My feeling has always been that it is easier to buy a premade disk of software with tested known quantities than to spend your time and effort downloading stuff only to find out that its not what you wanted or incomplete. Disks of the month sales also support the club and pay for the cost of the meeting hall, the yearly birthday party and other events in the works. What's wrong with the DOM and what needs changing??? Let me know or make your opinions known in this month's survey at the meeting. Before we move on, I have to take one stab at our friends at Atari. This past month, I received my bimonthly (or so) issue of Atari Explorer. On the cover, the headline reads: "Will Piracy kill the ST?" Yes, that's right. Now I don't fault any magazine for printing or writing such an article, but I do question the philosophy of Atari itself for even thinking of publishing this article. Maybe the headline should read: "Will Atari kill the ST?" Atari has received alot of backlash from this article including dealers dropping the ST. I think Atari has got its wheels reversed. Atari in the Atari Explorer should be promoting its products, not bashing them; Promoting, though, not to the extent of being a press release for future Atari products, but a positive voice on the current products available and the Atari produced hardware. I would be real surprised to see

IBM, Apple or even Commodore even think of publishing something that would mention the demise of their own machines. Atari wise up or you, yourself, will kill the ST. Now on to club business, I would like to thank one and all for participating in the first MAST Midimaze tournament. I would also like to thank Wizard's Works for their donations of prizes and Phil for his work in getting the systems hooked up and everything organized. Watch for news of second Midimaze tournament coming this summer .... Also this month is survey month so bring a pen or pencil to the meeting and tell us what you like, dislike, want changed or what added. Surveys will be available at the meeting and for filling out a survey, you will be eligible for one of two Atari calculators which will be given away. Please come and voice your opinions on MAST. February is the second anniversary of MAST and means it is again birthday party time. Phil is in charge this year and has all sorts of goodies planned in addition to the food and door prizes. So mark February 19th on your calendars for the MAST party. And for March??? Current plans are to hold a swap meet. A swap meet is where members bring there old original software with docs and sell it, swap it or otherwise get rid of it. This is a good chance to get some good bargains on used software. So a lot is planned for the months ahead at

MAST!!!!! Newsletter..... I would first like to thank Steve for his very well done newsletter last month and for all the work done to paste this thing together. The final newsletter, I think, was a bit more than everyone expected. But with the new newsletter format, MAST now has more space to fill. We need more reviews, tutorials, gripes, or just about anything. As I told one member, you don't have to write every month after you write the first time. Once every three months, once every four months, once every six months, or even once in a while. All are appreciated. I

hope to soon see the resurrection of Chuck's Notes as well when things settle down for Chuck. So contribute and make the SPACE/MAST newsletter one of the best Atari newsletters in the country. Disks .... I am patiently waiting for 250 double-sided disks to arrive. They seem to be overly slow delivering and are currently having a hard time finding a good supply at a cheap price. I will, one way or the other, have disks for sale at the meeting. It will either be double-sideds for $1.10 each or single-sideds for $1.00 each. Check at the meeting to see what is available. BBS .... Yes, the BBS is still rolling on with lots of conversations going on this month making one of our busiest months yet. Coming this month, more ZMAGs and more ST Reports and the latest news on this month's CES show. Also the ST Reports go weekly starting in January so look for more ST news. Also look for two new BBS newsletters as well about bulletin board and computers in general. All sorts of new stuff this month on the MAST BBS at 560-9254. Now for some assorted notes.... First, MAST and SPACE now have its own PO Box. We now have a central location for all correspondence. If you refer to MAST, please use the new PO Box number on the back of the newsletter. I will still get the mail, but at least we now a means of continuing to get mail and offers and deals from president to president. Second, I would like to thank Steve Pauley for designing our new membership forms. Now we have something that looks just as good as the newsletter with meeting maps as well to spread the word about MAST. Finally, starting with the February meeting, all memberships to MAST and SPACE will be $15.00 a year. This is only $1.00 increase and is the first increase in about three or four years. If you want to get in on the old membership fee, come and sign up or renew at the January meeting. So what's up for this month. In addition to

the usual fare of news and rumors, and disks of the month, we will have the latest news from this month's CES show in Las Vegas and demos of the latest and greatest software from Phil including Star Trek and Dungeonmaster. Also we will survey the troops to see how MAST stands and what needs changing. Also this month, on the Monday following the MAST meeting, the MAST+ meeting will include more stuff from Chuck and Dale as well as a demo by Bill LeDuc of the Universal File Selector. We had a good meeting last month so come and check out the MAST programmers meeting. So that's it for this month, except for the envelope .... In the envelope ... First, Star Trek. They said it would never come out and it's here and better than ever. Digitized voices, digitized pictures and more. A mustforTrekies and non-Trekies alike. Second, Dungeon master. This one has been coming out for over a year and it finally made it. It was well worth the wait. Check this one out at the next MAST meeting. More .... Well, that's it for this month. A slow month for new programs. But wait until next month. Well, that's it for January. I hope to see you all at the January MAST meetings and on the MAST BBS. Until then, happy computing.

M.ASTDisks

li::I of the Month

By Jim Schulz Yes, Christmas is over and it's MAST disk time again. But before we look at what's in store for this month, let's take a quick look back at last month's selection of disks #37 - ST Writer 2.31 (Latest version of PD Word processor) #124 - Public Domain C (C Compiler with Libraries and Docs) #200 - ST News Disk (ST News Magazine from Europe) #201 - December DOM #1 (Utilities) #202December DOM #2 (Applications) #203 - December DOM #3 (Games)

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER #204-DecemberDOM#4(GFA, Music, C and Communication Files) #205 - Gulam Shell 1.00 (Unix-like Command Shell Interface) #206 - Demo Disk #26 (Demo of Athena II CAD drawing program) #207 - Music Disk #6 (Christmas Music demo with 3D pictures) #208Christmas Demo (Animated Christmas demo of Santa) That was last month's selection of disks. Now before looking atthis month's selection, let's look at some DOM business. First up, what happened last month???? Well, last month was another in my series of bad disk copying months. After finally getting all of the drives aligned correctly, one of the single-sided drives decided to belly-up when copying the December disks. Why??? I don't know. But it did belly-up in mid-copying. This month, I used a new copy program from the DOM which makes multiple copies of enhanced density disks. The first that I have seen. Just to make sure that it copied what it said, after making all of its copies I manually checked every disk. These disks were the ST News Disk and the Demo Disk. All of these turned out good. So the drive was still good at this point. Then I started the mass copying. Somewhere in here, something went awry. This is still being checked into. Sunday morning was the first that I heard of bad disks. Two messages on the BBS later and one phone call and it looked like another bad month had come. Monday, my first day of vacation in a year, I spent recopying and checking all of the disks on my own drive. All the disks looked good. Please note that this month all of my master were also good. Just one more chapter in the continuing disk drive saga..... So what's the next step. If you got a bad disk, you can do one of two things. First, you can hold your bad disks and swapthematthemeeting. Second, ifyou can't make the meeting or need them

before the meeting, return the disks to me at the address below via First Class mail or less and I will send you new disks the day after I receive your disks and refund your postage. This is the best that I can do. I am sick of disk problems and hope that this is it for a while. Now, in the future, I will be releasing this month my disk checker/checksum program via the MAST BBS and the documentation disk. This program reads each sector on the disk and generates a checksum. If the disk reads completely through and your checksum matches the master, you have a good disk. I have been using this program for about a year now and it looks good. Also, time permitting, the disk checksum will also be placed on the DOM label for checking new disks not in the checksum database. This is the best way that I know to check for bad disks and this has worked for me. More on this at the meeting. Prices .... This is the current pricing of the DOMS. All current months disks and the two previous month's disks (November and December) sell for $6.00 each. All disks older than three months (preNovember) are $4.00 each. The MAST Newsdisk and the doc disk are $2.00 each. Also updates of old disks are only $2.00 with the return of the original disk. Speaking of doc disks ...... Yes, there will be a doc disk this month. As soon as this month's newsletter articles are put to bed, this is the next thing on the list. The doc disk, in addition to including a list of all files on all disks, will also include the disk checker/checksum program. The disk file listing will include begin to include descriptions and will use the disk directory program from a previous disk of the month. All of this for the incredible low price of $2.00. A must for all MAST owners. Finally, DOM demos..... We need DOM demos. Each time, I show off the disks after the meeting. The disks sell. I will again try to demo some of the better programs off of the disks of the month this

JANUARY• 1988 month to show off what's available. Remember DOM sales support the club. So that's it for this month's news ..... so on to this month's selection of the best in public domain software. ANALOG Disks-This isarepeatfrom last month. Just when I about to start downloading, their BBS had a disk crash and was down for a week.Good timing. ANALOG disks are disks of ANALOG ST programs organized by issue and will now include ST-LOG programs as well. ANALOG places their program in public domain in the month of the issue. I will see how far that I can get, but expect at least two disks this month. As I said before, you don't need to own the magazines to run the programs, but it helps for more detailed instructions. These disks will include a hodgepodge of utilities, games, applications and tutorials. DBASIC - This is another repeat from last month. In the mix of disks, this disk with its strange format got misplaced. It is now found and ready for this month's DOM. DBASIC is strange BASIC with its own disk format and its own way of doing graphics. Get the last version of this very interesting BASIC. This is an update so it is $2.00 with your original disk or for a special price of $4.00. MicroEmacs 3.9 - Yes, another repeat. This is new version with new source and the latest docs with macro files compiled by MAST's Chuck Purcell to ensure that all works right. Chuck has spent the last month working on trying to get rid of a number of miscellaneous bugs and it is now complete. Check out the granddaddy of the editors. This month, I will update the program disk and both source disks. This update will be free with your original disks. Dlibs and DJEmacs -Yes, one more repeat. Dlibs was being updated as the MAST DOM went to press so this is the latest version available. Dlibs is a public domain C libraries with source written by Dale Schumacher for use with the developer C and can be modified for other Cs

II as well. If you don't own C, check it out anyway as all library calls are also valid for OSS Pascal. DJEmacs, my name, is an Emacs editor written by John Stanley and Dale from the source code for the Emacs editor with help. This editor also includes source. This is the editor which everyone has been talking about, even ANALOG. Check it out and see what your missing. Microspell - Yes, from the author of MicroEmacs, come a spell checker as well. If you wanted a complete spell checker for a public domain price than this is for you. Comes with complete documentation and a dictionary file as well. A must have for all writers. Pictures, Pictures, Pictures - Yes, it's again time for pictures. This month, we will again start churning out the picture disks with two new disks of Tiny Pictures with the new TinyView for mono and color owners and two new disks of Spectrum 512 pictures for color owners with up to 512 colors per picture. You asked for them, and now they are here. Pictures for everyone. Cyberpaint Demo - Or should I say movie??? This demo has to be seen to be believed. This color demo was shown at last month's programmers meeting and blow the socks off of all who saw it. Check it out during the meeting and pick it up before you leave. This demo require a double-sided drive to run, but can be loaded from two single-sided disks. Both formats will be available with the double for $6.00 and two singles for $8.00. A must have. Eamons Adventures - These are a series of public domain adventures created for the ST and originally converted from the Apple. Currently there are about five adventures available with player editors, docs, hints and a whole lot more also available. This month, we will shootforthe first series of adventures with more to follow in February. Music Studio Players - This month, this seems to be the hot program to make. I have seen to less than four public do-

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER

main Music Studio players. It's about time. I will place at least three of these on the DOM this month with one including documented source code. Expect music disks starting in February. Well, that's the start for this month. With the holiday season upon, programmers are hotly uploading new programs daily so expect another good mix of public domain software this month. Remember this is just the tip of the iceberg for this month. Also check the MAST board the week of the meeting for the most up to date info on the MAST DOMs. As always, if you can't make the meeting, disks are available by mail directly from me for $6.00 each plus $1.00 for postage for the first 6 disks. My address is: 3264 Welcome Avenue North Crystal, MN 55422 Also starting this month, a bulletin will be posted on the MAST board after the meeting listing the new disks by number as well as ordering information by mail. Also if I run out of a disk, pay for it at the meeting and I will send it out in about a week by mail for free. That's it for January. Lots of good stuff for this month and planned for the months ahead so stay tuned. I hope to see you all at this month's MAST meeting and on the MAST BBS.

II ~dren

fy"Wi1f~3t

Another year has come and gone. Many things have been announced and released this year. Now is the time for my picks for the Kid's Korner Awards. (I couldn't think of a better name!) Most Exciting Game - One Player division. This is a tough one, but, I would have to go with Barbarian from Psygnosis. It is hard to pass up the digitized sounds and good graphics.Most Exciting Game Multiple Player Divison. Does anyone need to ask? Midi Maze wins hands down

no problem. Most Exciting Adventure. This is also a tough one to choose, but, I think it is Bard's Tale from Electronic Arts. There would be some debate from owners of the new Beyond Zork from lnfocom. Most Promises Given. Atari Corp. Need I say anymore? Luckiest Guy. Kurt Schumacher, the winner of the Midi Maze Tournament at the last MAST meeting. Most Useful Application for the ST. Using the ST for Midi processing. This is the ONE area the Atari is recognized as being a major player. Hopefully, other things will come forward as being something that should be done on the ST. Most Interesting Announced New Product from Atari. Hmmm, I am not sure. It could be the Abaq or the CD Rom (Yes, just when you thought it was safe to go out again during the day, Atari reannounces the CD ROM). I suppose from a sheer computing standpoint it would the Abaq. Too bad this thing would not be practical for home use. Longest Speaker at the MAST Meeting. Jim Schulz! Longest Speaker on the Telephone. Phil Seifert, right Jim? BestDocumentation for the ST. Tacklebox ST. This is how the official guides from Atari should have been. Easy to use, plenty of examples, and low cost. One of the more eagerly awaited programs has now come out. Star Trek the Rebel Universe from Simon and Schuster. For $39.95, live the role of Capt. Kirk and calm the rebellion. Using actual digitized pictures and sounds from the old series, this game is perfect for the avid Trekkie. The ultimate, right now, in Star Trek games on computers.Beyond Zork is living up to its billing. This game is good. Has the old wry sense of humor of Zork, excellent parsar system and now even auto maps the game for you. Too bad this is the last of the lnfocom games for the ST.Yes, Dungeon Master does exist. Many of us have been waiting for that

JANUARY • 1988 program for a long time, in fact, I think it would have qualified for the Sub Logic Arrival on Time award this year. This is a game that was announced and had demonstrations for over a year and a half ago. I hope it lives up to its billing.Publishing Partner is being upgraded. The older versions are now available for just $89.95 and any person who owns an original Publishing Partner will be offered an upgrade. New features include object rotation, object grouping, and text routing around graphics. The best desktop publishing program for the ST is now getting even better. Can hardly wait to get my upgrade. Speaking of upgrades, there is something else that should be considered for Publishing Partner, new fonts. I have used all the different fonts that are currently available (No, Bruce, I don't have Font Pak #2 yet) and found some of them are very nice. A company called The Font Factory puts out most of them. They sell for $29.95 with three fonts in each package. I think #1 and #3 are the best of the sets. Also, The Font Factory puts out some clip art and they do look quite good. About the only thing I can think that Publishing Partner needs is more public domain fonts and clip art. It is getting easier to make fonts now with a program called The Font Partner. A much better editor than the one released by Soft Logik. That is all for this month, I hope to see everyone at the next meeting, after I have finished licking all my wounds from the Midi Maze tournament.

.J... MAST Jan. Program •

Demonstrations

Phil Seifert, Demo Coordinator Ok, now that things have settled down after the Midi Maze tournament (though my blood has notstopped boiling yet), we can get back to regular demonstration business. First I would like to thank Dave Meile for bringing a series of graphics demoes that he put up on all the machines

m that were set up for the tournament. It looked very impressive to me, and to others, I am sure. Thank you Dave! This month, for demoes of software, I have planned the following programs. Space Quest - an animated graphics adventure game by Sierra ala' King's Quest. Star Trek the Rebel Universe - a great adaptation of Star Trek to the ST. Beyond ZorkThe last of the lnfocom games for the ST. Cyber Paint - a painting program specifically for CAD-3D Cyber Studio. Remember, these are the scheduled demoes, if anything else should pop up, they may be changed. If you have anything that you would like to demonstrate the the group, let me know at the meeting or leave a message to me on the MAST BBS (560-9254). Next month, at the February MAST meeting, there will be a very special demonstration, but I will keep that secret for now. See you at the meeting.

STARTKeyContinued from page 4. 04 1E macend (macend tells STARTKey that the macro instruction has ended) When you later use WORD WRITER, pressing CONTROL E will bring up the ERASE a file selector box, just like your mouse does, so that you can erase a file. This command in WORD WRITER was previously unavailable from the keyboard - now it can be available to you. I use the DELETE TO END feature of WORD WRITER a lot, and since Timeworks did not include a keyboard alternative to accessing this command, I made one easily with this command: csa-no menu wwriter 05 29 where the CONTROL, SHIFT, & ALTERNATE keys all must be activated in conjunction with the numberic keypad key. Since this is a potentially overly powerful and irretrievable command, I deliberately made it

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER

hard to action by accident. Later I changed my mind, and decided to relocate this command to the letter D, so I changed this macro instruction part of my overall (multiple) macro file to: csa-d menu wwriter 05 29 You can also make up text phrases and store them on virtually any key. Since I don't use my numeric keypad for anything else than storing Nordic letter characters (accessible from another program), the keypad is a natural and convenient place to store STARTKey's text macros. {Supposedly you can access foreign letter characters from STARTKey, but how to do it isn't spelled out - if you know, tell me!) You can use either the regular unshifted numeric keys, or use them in conjunction with the SHIFT, ALTERNATE, or CONTROL keys - or any combination of them - which gives you a LOT of possible names, words, and phrases, that you can store and use! Text string macros take this form: :You can have an optional :comment line as long as it :and each successive line after :it - is preceeded with a COLON. sa-n5 "diskdrive· macend Now when the SHIFT, ALTERNATE, and the 5 key on the numeric keypad are pressed, the word diskdrive will be typed in for you. Think over what words you have to type often, and put them where you want them! A macro would also be a great way for storing often mis-typed words. For me. that's "that" and "also·, which consistently tend to come out as being "tht" or "taht" and "aslo". Now there's a cure for that too! (Unfortunately, I have used up all my spare spaces on the keyboard, so these typo-free word keys will just have to wait until I get tired off some of the phrases already extant on them or have no further need of them, then I'll change the auto boot-up file and add them.) When you have made all the macro commands you want, save your text file in ASCII (with an easily identifiable extender

such as .ASC or .TXT) and then compile it with SKCOMPIL.TTP. When SKCOMPIL.TTP runs, all you need to do is type in the name of the file you wish to compile and the name that you want the compiled file to have (such as WW_MACRO.MAX or MACROS.MAX) in this form: WW_MACRO.ASC -o WW_MACRO.MAX (The "o" is a lowercase letter o, not a zero.) STARTKey only recognizes macro files that end with a .MAX extender. If you use a file name otherthan MACROS.MAX, you will have to manually install a macro file after the program loads. However, You could have a whole series of different macro files, each with a specialized argot (vocabulary) of often-used terms that you need to type in your reports, letters, etc. and load them as you need them for your specific project or report. STARTKey can load another macro file at any time while you are in your GEMsupported program. It can also be turned on or off or go to passing on extended keycodes from within your GEM-supported program. OBSERVATIONS: STARTKey works only in conjunction with programs that have RESOURCE (.RSC) files. There is a bug with STARTKey: When making a macro text string of my name and address, I discovered that it won't print out one of the a pair of the same number when they stand together. l.e my zipcode 55406 prints out as 5406. I checked this carefully and found that it isn't just the number 5 but is true of any paired number. STARTKey cannot action accessory menu items, nor can it action a promgram's menu commands that are toggled (ticked/check marked) in nature, such as choosing AUTO JUSTIFY or DOUBLE SPACING in WW for example. For some reason, it can also not action certain other commands that one would expect that it would, such as the RESTYLE

•

JANUARY • 1988

command in 1WD, which is unfortunate, since it is an important command that is used a lot. STARTKey's author John H. Jenkins and START Diskzine thoughtfully made available the source code: SKCOMPIL.C, STARTKEY.C, SK.H, KEYS.H and SKAUTO.PAS so that the programmers amongst us can improve the program if they wish. (Would it be possible to modify STARTKey so that one can add text string macros in real time when we are word processing, and the idea for a macro - or the need for one arises? How about it. you programmers? I've had this program less than a week, so there are some nuances I'm bound to not be aware of, but I wanted to share the discovery of this powerful and helpful program with you. Let me know what you discover with it or some similar program, and what helpful macros you have come up with! In general, I'd like to hear from you word processing STers out there! Let's swap word processing discoveries, tips, shortcuts, etc! Call me at 729-2349 (voice only) The START diskzine also included some macro files for those of you who want to use the GEM version of STWRITER. There were also some macro instructions for 1ST-WORD, including one that will bring your cursor to the end of the document. (The information for that last macro would not be readily available to the casual user.) This article was brought to you by the following macros: WORD WRITER key menu word processing, START diskzine, STARTKey and mouse. These are just a few of the 55 macros that I have installed on the numeric keypad + 13 menu command macros installed on the QWERTY keyboard. Thanks to STARTKey, word processing with 1STWORD and even WORD WRITER is even more powerful and easier than bofore!

Battles of Midi Maze by Anonymous (er, one who dldn't Win, actua.lly)

A long time a.go, when joysticks were fresh. There ca.me a. gathering to find out who was best. The cha.llenge was given forth, the battle started, At Midi Maze, a. game not for the fa.int hearted. Sweaty palms, glassy eyes, a.nd curses were given. Anyone in Kurt's way was soon not for the living. Down the mazes, coursing through the twisty halls, The foolish gamesters a.voided other happy face ba.lls. Many STeeds were ridden hard that cold December night. Unfortunately for some, they were not up to the fight. One champion was required, Just for bra.ggtn rights. And the Victims always knew who put out their lights. For it was Kurt Schum.a.ch.er, who emerged the fina.l champ. With Todd Burkey and Kent Schumacher rounding out the ca.mp. Congratulations were given to them in the meeting ha.11. A resounding ccy of "Have a. Nice Day" was heard by a.11. Gee Phil you Muse better than you dodge and shoot. (ed)

S•P•A•C•E / M•A•S•T P.O. BOX 12016 New Brighton, MN 55112