SPACE Newsletter - April 1988

April 1988

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APRIL• 1988

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

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

Minnesota Atari ST

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER

APRIL• 1988

DISCLAIM EB

Published by the St. Paul A TARI Computer Enthusiasts (SPACE), and Minnesota Atan ST (MAST) group, an independent organization with no business affiliation with ATARI Corporation. Permission is granted to any similar organization with which SPACE/MAST exchanges 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.

SPACE/MAST BULLJ!l'l'lll BOABDS SPACE/MAST East (D)- BBS Phone: (612)-n4-0135

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

Sysop: Steve Pauley (Home Phone: 560-2917)

President Larrry Vanden Plas 636-2415 Vice President 699-2422 John Novotny Secretary Ernie Costello 455-6515 Treasurer (SPACE/MAST) BobSiede 489-3982 Disk Librarian Joe Danko 777-9500 Joe Peasley Paper Librarian Jim Scheib 721-4185 Newsletter Editor (SPACE/MAST) Steve Pauley 560-2917

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

NEWSLJ!l'l"1'B ADVJ!IBTISING BADS: 1/2 page - 4' vertically x 5 1/8' horizontally - $ 15/mo., $140/yr. Full page vertically X 5 1/8" horizontally- $25/mo., $240/yr. Club members classified - 50¢ per 40 characters, $2.50 minimum per ad. Send to: Steve Pauley • 2547 - 83rd Court N. • Brooklyn Park, MN 55444

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BYTES from the

~ p SPACEPBES

by Larry Vanden Plas Please join me at the April 8th SPACE meeting to attack some computer fear. Computer fear-We hear a lot about it, but we don't often admit it affects even us. Wait, aren't we the ones who can make the Atari work magic to the amazement of our family and friends. Yes, we can do some wonderful things with our Atari computers using the hardware and software we have become familiar with. However, we must admit there is some hardware and software we are not familiar with. We often know that it would be helpful for us to be able to use this hardware and software. If you are like me, you wait till it gets easy to learn or you get a push because you need it for a project. Using a telephone modem-a device that lets you connect your computer to a phone line to communicate with another computer-is an example of helpful hardware and software we may be avoiding. I avoided it for quite awhile-even carried articles to the other end of town instead of using a modem. The change came when I had to get articles somewhere every month and my friends made it easy to learn to use a modem. I know enough to upload my articles each month, but I still have not downloaded programs from the Bulletin Board Systems (BBS). The theme for our April meeting is the BBS. We plan to have one or more computers ready to dial out to different BBS'. Maybe we will even have them talk to each other. Joe Danko is planning to offer a wonderful selection of public domain telecommunications software. Hopefully everyone of you who would like to try telecommunica-

II tions will get a hands-on chance. A BBS is a wonderful place to find the answer to a problem you may be having or get the latest news without waiting for the next SPACE meeting. Mark it on your calendar now. Thanks to everybody who brought low priced software to our meeting last month. Almost all of it cost less than $1 O and most got to try out the programs that looked most interesting after the meeting. Blank disk sales went so well that we do not have any to sell at the next meeting, but let us know if you want more and we will get more. We have started selling the Disk of the Month (DOM) through User Friendly and Wizard's Work. If you or a friend miss a meeting you can get the DOM without waiting for the next SPACE meeting, with a slight surcharge. Also with your SPACE membership card and cash you can get 30% off software or Epson printers at Wizard's Work. With checks you get 25% off. Restrictions on service apply. Ask Wizard's Work or me for more details. We need a dedicated individual to collect ads for the newsletter. Please call me, see me at the meeting or leave me a message on the BBS if you think you might be interested. Themes for coming months: MayAdvanced Applications, June-Games, July-Anniversary celebration. If you are interested in getting a $20 subscription to Current Notes for $17 let me know no later than the next meeting.

A PrintPower from V HiTech Expressions

a review by John Novotny Last month I talked to you about Award Ware from the same folks, and gave you some recommendations about that product. Since then, I've gotten their latest PrintShop like product called

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER PrintPower (which I misnamed last time as Print It). Well, the price being reasonable, plus an offer for free stuff with this one convinced me to try it. The free offer included a graphics disk for Award Ware, which I am eagerly awaiting. Incidentally, PrintPower allows using an Award Ware graphics disk, but not vice versa. The most important thing to remember about this product is that the disks are enhanced density. This isn't a surprise - it does say on the package that a 1050 drive is required. I don't feel good using enhanced density on my old 1050's (clunky sounding ones), but I also don't like ATARI versions of software with only half the graphics available to other brands, so I am not complaining. Again, the files are all DOS compatible, and the disks (trere are 2 - 1 program, 1 graphics) are not copy protected, so you are encouraged to make backups for your use. It takes advantage of 2 drive systems, and the second drive does not have to be drive

2. PrintPower capabilities compete with PrintShop. It makes cards, signs, stationary and banners using a variety of borders, graphics and character sets. Since I don't own PrintShop (can you believe that ? - maybe it is too easy to use), this is not a comparison. Some features of PrintPower follow. The program is fairly menu driven, with choices windowed, and selectable by positioning a cursor, or single keystroke entries. The manual is generic, with ATARI specific keys defined on a separate insert. Border and picture graphics are shown on a handy reference sheet. There are 40 borders , 60 pictures and 7 alphabets. The pictures are of nice resolution (probably a quarter of a G.8 screen). Borders are also quite nice, and many have special effects in the corners which add to the results. Borders can be 1/2 or 1-inch, and can be all around, top, bottom, top

& bottom, L, R, L & R (or none!). Picture graphics can generally be placed in a variety of places on the document, and can be printed in 4 sizes. Smaller sizes can be put onto a document in several non overlapping positions. The picture placement works like this: once you've picked the picture, a box of appropriate size is displayed on the image of the current work area of the document. Pressing the arrow keys moves this box to available positions, and pressing the SPACE bar sets it down (or lifts it off if it was set). When set, the area becomes shaded. You can only set it another time if you can move the box completely off graphics already set down. (I think you get the picture). If you change your mind, you can undo choices using ESC. This works up to a point - once you have finished a work area (such as one side of a card), the program advances to the next work area and you can't get back. There is an edit existing document option when you have gone through all selections which is nice. It appears each work area is saved to a disk file. You don't have a choice of file name, but 5 default files are setup to hold info about 5 different work areas. A 1 character file named LASTOBJ keeps track of these files. You can save these files (A.GSA thru E.G8A on the program disk) to another disk or with a different name to save more than one document (that's why DOS files are so nice!). Well, let's have a look at text. Along with the 7 character sets, many special effects are available with each. You can choose bold, italic, jazz (layered), outline, raised, and shadow. Each line of text has separate effects selection. In addition, you can mix fonts (on different lines), sizes, and justification (left, center or right), and mask or unmask when placing text over graphics. Quite enough power here - there is even a HELP screen, although a mite hard to understand until you have become somewhat familiar it. There is a nice

APRIL• 1988 default to all this, so you can produce results without knowing much about these. Text entry generally proceeds as follows: You type to a work window, and an indication of results go to the displayed output image. There isn't an indication of maximum line length until its exceeded (text color on the line changes from white to brown). The program won't allow you to advance to another line until you correct this. Each line is ended with RETURN, and the arrow keys allow you to move around to edit any lines. So it goes for each area of a document (a card can have four separate work areas). But the bottom line of all this is printing, and after all is said and done, you tell it to do just that. But don't hold your breath for the printer to start - there is much to do before that. And if you don't have anything better to do, just watch the action on the screen. The more features selected, the longer the show. However, once printing starts, it goes to the end without further delays - that's kind of impressive. One quick note about banners yes, you can do banners, and they can have borders, graphics, and multiple lines of text. Now, more notes about the overall package. Again, many printer types are supported, with setup done once and saved to disk. You can make your working copy and leave off the many small files unique to the different printers. Speaking of making working copies, I split both the program and graphic disks onto both sides of 2 single density disks. The program files lend themselves to having the functionallity for making cards, signs and stationary on one side, and those for banners on the other. The file used for converting Award Ware format graphics disks to PrintPower format wasn't put on eithet as this would be seldom used. The graphics files could also be split quite nicely. The graphics pictures directory identifies graphics to files, so I

created new directory files for the 2 sides of the new disk, each with about half of the graphics files. All borders and alphabets fit on the remainder of the one side, and all borders and all but one alphabet fit on the other. Wouldn't a double density drive work nice here ?! All of this is great fun for us amateur hackers, one of the finer uses for these products for some of us. You must be getting the idea by now that I feel this ain't too bad a deal in today's market of ATARI software. And since you can use Award Ware graphics, and you have a way of using your own graphics for that package (see last month's article), that capability is available to PrintPower with its adapt function. How can you go wrong?

After Last Night

V (fromtheVP)

by John Novotny The March meeting had lots of people volunteering info in response to problems etc, and some good offers and deals - look to the minutes for details. I checked out one of these deals at Best Byte Computers a week after the meeting, and there still were quite a few oldies at ridiculously low prices. Among these was Filewriter from Codewriter - can anyone tell me if I should spend time to learn this program? It was just one of several bargains I just couldn't resist. As far as our own bargains, Joe and Greg again had lots of good stuff on the March DOM, plus a special Textpro wordprocessing disk. This disk includes a file loader and spelling checker with memory resident dictionary along with some other goodies. The DOM includes a nice card game, font maker, ARC file analyzer, a printing utility, and another fairly extensive text adventure. And don't forget (or mention as some might say), a background music program - anyone know someone

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER

at MUSAK who can give us a new song? Kidding aside, lot's of good stuff, surely the best deal around. And well demo'd by Joe so everyone there got to see just what they were getting. Thank you Joe and Greg, and also those folks who brought their good value programs for the demo after - this rounded out the evening nicely. Looking ahead to April, the theme for the meeting will focus on the BBS. Special effort will be made to answer questions for current or potential users. We will have the ARC, deARC programs there and some examples of ARCed code to show how this works if anyone will need to see it. There should also be terminal programs. Then, thinking ahead to May, bring your thoughts about what utilities you may want to have shown. Remember, members make the meetings (or is it 'many mumbling mice make mightnight music - mighty nice' ?)

11!1 SPACE March

M'I Meeting Minutes recorded by Ernie Costello 1. The meeting was called to order March 11, 1988 at 7 :30 PM by President Larry Vanden PLas. 2. Treasurer's Report by Bob Siede. February income was $317.25 and expenses $308.92 leaving a balance of $336.18. 3. Vice President's Report by John Novotny. John reviewed last month's demos and asked for member input on what they would like to see demoed at future meetings. 4. Atari Fair. Larry introduced Tom Green, President of TAIG. Tom announced that preliminary plans were underway for a joint club sponsorship of an Atari Fair in August. 5. Offers and Deals. Joe Danko passed a OAK catalog around pointing out a 1200 baud Hayes-compatible modem for only $79. It was reported

that Best Byte in the Little Canada mall had Atari software for 50% off. A Computer Direct ad was shown offering a variety of Atari software at 3 for $10. Larry reviewed Wizard Works discount policy for members. SNJ in stock or specially ordered without demos or advice sells for 30% off for cash, 25% off for check or charge card. ST HNI is 22% off for cash, 17% off for cash or charge. Epson printers are 30% off for cash, 25% off for check or charge. If you ask for advice or demos the discount is 10% on any purchase. Joe Danko asked for pooled orders for some great utility programs for $13 called "The 8 Bit Basic Programmers Pal". The Roseville BEST store was reported to be selling the basic A cartridge for $10. 6. Service and Problems. In response to the question if it is possible to use one power supply to power more than one device, it was decided that it would not work unless a type of isolation transformer was used. Atari is offering to exchange broken 600's and 800's for reconditioned 800XL's for $50 and similarly exchange broken 810's for 1050's for $75. Wizard Works will help you do this. 7. DOM. Joe Danko demoed the new DOM menu with many helpful features. He also demoed the programs which covered a side and a half. Joe also announced that revised Text Pro 2.5 with some really versatile capabilities was avilable for sale tonight. He also alerted everyone who plans on using his SynCalc tax template to check the SPACE BB for an important correction.

SPACEDiskof the Month4/88

by Joe Danko Librarians: Joe Danko & Greg Peasley Before discussing the April DOM I would like to go over a few disks that were offered last month with no warning

APRIL• 1988

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SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER

in the news letter. I have been working with the shareware text editor, TEXTPRO, for some time and managed to get it into a more usable form in time for the March meeting. The SPACE library has had previous versions available but we wanted to offer disks that were simpler and more versatile. TEXTPRO is a powerful text editing system that has the same look and feel as SPEEDSCRIPT from COMPUTE!. The authors took off from there and added a lot of unique features. What sets it apart from everything else for the ATARI 8-bit is a built-in MACRO language that is only limited by the user's imagination and patience. TEXTPRO will not replace full-featured word processors such as ATARIWRITER, PAPERCLIP or WRITERS TOOL but is a good choice where you need to process text in a DOS environment. TEXTPRO is offered by the SPACE library in several versions: TEXTPRO 1.2 - the original, needs more support files but has the largest text buffer. TEXTPRO 2.5r - starts higher in memory to allow for resident handlers for communications, etc. All of the features are built in to the main program with no need for support files. This is a revised disk with more features and we will exchange for your old 2.5r disk and

$1. TEXTPRO 3.2r - same as 2.5r but tailored to run with SPARTADOS. Any of the versions offered will run by itself but the complete set of three provides a number of files not included on any one version. All versions of TEXTPRO will run with any DOS except MYDOS. They are designed to run with ramdisks and will operate best in an expanded memory, ramdisk environment. The new 2.5r disk and the 3.2r disks include a shareware SPELLING CHECKER system and a bunch of small DOC files to help explain how to use the many features, an improved self-starting MACRO/HELP file structure, and one

442 sector DOC file formatted to copy direct from disk to your printer or screen. The SPACE SOFTWARE LIBRARY has a lot more than DOM's. Along with TEXTPRO and modem programs we have specialized disks for education, business, mathamatics, childrens stories, PRINT SHOP icons and a lot more. This month the theme is communications, so the LIBRARY will have for sale the following modem programs: 1030 EXPRESS 2.1/850 EXPRESS 3.0 all on one disk. Included will be some new handlers for the SX212 which are untested by us. KERMIT-65 - a new version of KERMIT for ATARI 8-bit recently ported from COMMODORE. As far as I know, it only works with 850/PR. It features 3 screen modes, ATARI, 40 column sidescrolling 80, and a nice 80 column. DETERM - a new terminal program that is supposed to work with all ATARI modem systems. As this goes to press I am still trying to get it to work, so stay tuned. AMODEM 7.5x - I am still working on this one, too. The versions and handlers are changing so fast I can't keep up with them all. Apparently, the release of the SX212 has caused a flurry of activity amongst the AMODEM hackers. I could use some help in the future with testing these modem programs because I don't have a 1030 that works anymore or an XM301 or an SX212. At the April SPACE meeting we will attempt to DEMO modem software and I will show as many of the different programs as possible. Now, for the April 1988 DOM: * DOS SYS 037 * DUP SYS 042 * AUTORUN SYS 001 * MENU 054 * YOURSONGV 017 * YOURSONGBAS 122

APRIL• 1988 * GYPSY BAS 051 * GYPSY SET 009 * TAROT DAT 071 * NERM BAS 075 * BLAKJAK BAS 131 * SIMPASM BAS 051 HELP 014 * PLFIX BAS 009 023 FREE SECTORS

YOURSONG.BAS - Music written by Elton John and rendered very nicely using POKEY PLAYER. It uses the YOURSONG.V file. GYPSY.BAS - a TAROT reading program. It uses the files GYPSY.SET and TAROT.DAT. NERM.BAS - All I'm going to tell you is to plug in a joystick and push in the NORTH direction when it asks if you are ready. BLAKJAK.BAS - I know, I know, not another blackjack game!!! This one supports going DOUBLE and INSURANCE bets. It has nice graphics, too. SIMPASM.BAS - so you always wanted to write a little machine language routine to USR from BASIC. This BASIC program will help you do that. All input is in HEXIDECIMAL. Keyin END to stop. Some good reading on assembly language is in back issues of ANALOG in the BOOTCAMP columns and COMPUTE! BOOKS has a good publication on 6502 machine language. Take a look in the PAPER LIBRARY. PLFIX.BAS -you will need this if you want to run ATARI PLANETARIUM from your US DOUBLER modified 1050 disk drive. That's all for this month. If there is anything you need or want to discuss leave a message on the SPACE BBS {612-774-0135) or give me a call at 7779500. Please submit any original or acquired public domain software to us for possible addition to the library.

Newsfrom

lliif'I MAST the Pres By Jim Schulz The swapping from last month is over and we are again back to normalcy again. First, it's time to thank all who brought stuff to swap and those who did the swapping for making the swap meet a great success. Bob Floyd brought up the idea of a swap meet about a year ago and there was no interest and I was somewhat afraid that we still might have no interest. But I was sure wrong. We will plan to schedule one more swap meet later on in the year, probably in September to again clean out the closets of old ST software. Well, that was last month ..... what's up for this month????? Would you believe a normal meeting??? Yes, we have our standard meeting of lots of news and rumors, more DOMS and of course demos. In the news this month, we will hear first hand from Chuck Purcell on last month's Hannover show. I just talked with Chuck tonight and he is full of news from Germany on Atari and ST. Elsewhere in this issue, Chuck returns again for his view of the Hannover show and what Atari was and was not showing including news of the new 68030 Unix box. More goodies are prepared and you never really know what is going to happen in the month of April Fools, especially with my sidekick, the court jester of MAST. So come and check us out this month. In the months to come, a number of things are being planned including another Midimaze tournament and maybe an Oids tournament to see how really good Steve is and how really good Phil can be. We will see on this???? Also a number of other surprises are planned for the summer months so plan your vacations around MAST and make sure

to check us out. Disk sales ..... The blank disk sales were very hot last month and I sold out of all 150 double-sided disks that I had. That might be it for disks for a while. My dealer for disks is stone dry of 3.5' disks and the wait for all disks is 6 to 8 weeks. The supply is getting tight. I will be ordering some single-sided Sonys, but their price will be higher right now and so I will have to charge $1.1 0 for singles until my supply comes in. This price is still very good and to get this price I have to buy large amounts at once. I don't know if this is the disk shortage that was talked about months ago, but I am having problems getting good cheap disks. Also if you want disk labels, I have a box full of extra disk labels from the disks of the month. Please feel free to take as many as you want. No need to buy disks to get these. As always, all sorts of good stuff from MAST. Newsletter.... If all goes according to plan, we should have another good round of articles for this month's newsletter. Chuck's Notes was found by Steve last month and we should have more again this month. Also some comments by Dave Meile and maybe a review by Allan Frink if all goes well. This month's newsletter is pushed ahead a little so that we can beat the postage change on Easter. Also, what did you think of the expanded newsletter last month??? It was great to see so many non-officer articles. Would you like a larger newsletter??? If you would, let us know. One thing we need from the members right now is a volunteer. We need someone willing to call the dealers a week before the newsletter deadline and arrange for getting the ad and picking it up or somehow getting it to Steve. I don't think we have a problem getting the dealers to advertise, but the problem is to remind them and pick up their ads. If you are willing to help, check with me or

Phil and I am sure that we can use your help. Let's keep those reviews and articles coming and make this newsletter one of the best around. BBS ..... Oh, boy is the BBS busy lately. The last week or two, the message base has been hopping. If you have a question or comment, drop a message in the message base and I'm sure you will get your question answered. That's what one member did when he asked what was the best terminal program to use. Also, yes, the ST Reports will be up soon. I am currently getting them together and Steve will soon be creating a download base for them as well. Check these out for the latest in ST news and reviews. As always, lots of good downloads, news and information. Memberships... First, the membership records are now up to date. If you have a problem with your newsletter, need an address changed or need a membership card. See Allan or me and we will take care of you. This last week, I got a call from a member asking for a membership card. Yes, all members do get membership cards. If you did not get one when you signed up or renewed, please see Allan or me and we will get you one. They are good for discounts at the local ST retailers and some goodies in the near future at MAST meetings as well. Also, I now have postcards for sending out renewal notices. The first batch should be send in the next week. If you want to save us the trouble, check the back of this month's newsletter and watch your renewal date. MAST+ .... The MAST programmer's meeting has been very good the last couple months. Last month, it was proposed to start an independent ST programmers group. Dave Meile should have more elsewhere in this issue on this. Also, a discussion has started about changing the night of the

APRIL• 1988

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER

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meeting from Monday to Tuesday. Any and all input from the members would be greatly appreciated before we consider the day change. As always, expect a lot of good discussion and lots of information at the MAST programmers meeting. Miscellaneous stuff..... First, the survey results are in and part one of the results are elsewhere in this issue. Check it out and see how we look. Second, check out this month's magazine update article for the latest on the Current Notes group buy and an ST Applications group buy as well. Third, the next MAST newsdisk is right around the corner and should be ready this month. Check it out for reviews, news, and tutorials prepared by MAST's Dave Meile. If you would like to contribute to the next MAST newsdisk, see Dave. I'm sure that he can use your contribution. Fourth, this month, we will see the first of the ST News disks from the Netherlands. I currently have 13 disks so expect as many as I can get out. These are some of the best disks that I have seen, especially with the menu bar interface which creeps around the screen. Finally, I am still taking orders for the Universal File Selector program. The Universal File Selector is a replacement for the standard file selector plus a whole lot more. The authors are allowing owners of the program to buy additional copies for friends at $10.00 each. The only drawback is that updates come from the owner of the program. If you would like a copy, send me(not MAST) a check for $10.00 plus $0.50 postage and I will send you a copy when I get it from the authors. This is a great deal since the program sells for $15.95. I wholehearted recommend this program and use it every day. Ten MAST members have taken advantage of this offer. How about you???? Well, that's it for April. Lots of good stuff and more to come. But where's

the envelope????? It's missing this month ...... Yes, with no new software this month, I have nothing to recommend. I have been playing Dungeon Master and very much recommend it. A number of other programs are about to be released so let's hope the envelope is found for next month ..... I hope to see you all at the MAST meeting and the MAST+ programmers meeting as well as on the MAST BBS. Happy computing!!!

Bl!I Mast Meeting

Ml Minutes

by Dan Stubbs The March meeting of MAST was opened by Vice President Phil Seifert. After some general announcements, President Jim Schulz described the 19 March disks of the month. In addition to the usual fine assortment of public domain material, MAST now has disks from the magazines ANALOG and STLOG available. Read Jim's article for a description of these disks. After the DOM descriptions there was a informal treasurer's report by Phil: MAST has about $500 in its account. The News and Rumors section of the meeting included some of the following items: the Magic Sac with Translator 1 is now available at local dealers. John Stanley reported that he had just received a copy of AZTEC "C". Dave Meile reported on a new language for the ST called "NOVA" that was writted by local authors, Dave also reported on the updates available to those who have purchased TACKLEBOX ST a set of utilities for those who program in PERSONAL PASCAL. ZOOMRACKS is being upgraded to ZOOMRACKS II and ZOOMRACKS Ill is being developed. Dave Meile is preparing another MAST NEWSDISK which will probably be ready by the next meeting and will cost only $2. Also available are a set of newsletters written

in Holland. Jim Schulz reported that Atari is concentrating its marketing in Europe because of the low value of the dollar. A program called ST TURBO is going to be available that speeds up the test handling ability of the ST (doubles STWRITER's text handling speed), it will sell for $49.95. The Hannover computer show featured MEGA ST's and laser printers. MEGA ST's are being shipped with a new version of BASIC. Dave Meile reported on a new word processing program called "WORD UP" that has many advanced features (fonts, including MAC fonts, footnotes, graphics, etc.). The software demonstrations followed the formal MAST meeting with demos of SPACEQUEST, Universal Item Selector, Kisterm, Microsoft Write, Magic SAC and PC Ditto.

CeBIT88 Highlights

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Hannover,Germany

Reported by -C. J. Purcell I had the priviledge of attending the Hannover Computor Exhibition while working(at our exhibit). The major impression of the CeBIT fair is shear physical size of the facilities and quantity of exhibitors, the second impression is the constant downpour creating a sea of mud and the third reaction is the number of visitors to the ATARI booth at the far end of the fairgrounds. The major entrance to CeBIT contained IBM, Nixdorf, DEC, Commodore and many other exhitors, as well as our exhibit. At almost all times however, an airplane with a long streaming ATARI banner circled the grounds. Other visual hazards included stationary ballons for NEC, Canon and so forth. Covered passages lead from building one through 3, 4, 5, 6 and finally building 7 which contained the ATARI booth as well as another very large IBM exhibit. Enroute hazards

included Apple, NEC, Canon, more Nixdorf as well as innumerable exhibitors from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Canada, England, France, Italy and of course, the United States. Another set of covered passages led one thru building one to 2, 18, 17 13, 14 and 15 where I could find all the workstation vendors like SUN, Apollo, IRIS, Sony as well as some of my competition, but not all. On just two occasions did I have the time to make one grand covered circle thru all the goodies. I certainly did not see even ten percent of the goodies at that. What I did see was mostly Intel based 286 and 386 PC's and MC 68020 based workstations with very little ATARI attachments nor ATARI based software for the benefit of MAST clubmembers. The story is a lot different at the ATARI booth. There some 40 MEGA-ST computers were installed in several clusters mostly manned by invited independent developers of ATARI attachments and ATARI software. These products were quite tame and very expensive with the $0.67 German Mark. ICD had a flat-pack disk system for the MEGA-ST(say hello to Phil!). Various German technical magazine publishers(C'T, ST-Computer, 68000erSTMagazin) surrounded the ATARI booth providing an enclosure for all the crowds at the ATARI booth. The day before the show is press conference day when I did see the boss himself, Jack Tramiel, at the regular's table in the inner sanctum. He made the news in Germany by critising the U.S. government policies on DRAM volume pricing decisions. On Thursday I did see the ATARI designer Shiraz M. Shivji at the C'T booth, shook his hand and wished him well (private thoughts re his chances if he battles with Jack Tramiel. .... ). Finally, on Sunday when the crowds at the ATARI booth slimmed down, I asked about the ATARI 68030

APRIL• 1988

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER

•

prototype. Where was it located, could it be seen, etc. Well the prototype was right at the show, just upstairs, in a private room. After some consultation, I was allowed to see the system, and even touch it, with the careful guidance of the resident representative of the UNIX porting vendor, UNISOFT. This particular prototype was the software prototye, not the design style prototype. The system consisted of a 14 inch (MIRO?)monitor operating in mono mode, a VT220 type keyboard and an AT type CPU box with both a 30 Megabyte fixed Hard Disk and a 30 Megabyte removable Hard Disk, but no floppies. The design intent is to use this assembly in any of 3 modes, standalone UNIX, workstation UNIX and/or as a computational server to a MEGA-ST front end(the so-called Twin Turbo TT mode). Autoboot of the system revealed an MSDOS type dialog, eventually to give way to a (bourne)shell prompt. The UNISOFT porting rep. said that the goal is to install System 5 "REAL SOON NOW", as soon as the compiler vendor finishes preparation of the 68030 version of the compiler.(! wonder if the compiler vendor was/is Microsoft since the installed system seemed to be Xenix?). At any rate the demonstrated software and the UNIX tools used only the MC 68020 instruction set. Otherwise I was attracted to the Sony NEWS workstation with a pair of 68030's as well as a 68882, UNIX, XWindows, a CDC 268 Megabyte Disk and 1.44 megabyte type floppy disks. If Sony downscales this system, then ATARI will have to look very carefully at the TT strategy. The new Apollo 10000 workstation was not shown but certainly should be examined with care when information is available. I also saw an interesting prototype on press conference day which I recall was named the micro 1000. It was about one cubic foot, had lots of hype, and could not be

found during the remaining eight days that I looked. One other prototype which could have substantial utility in a TT mode was shown daily. This system is based on a tower configuration with a 68020/68881, two floppy disks and a hard disk; informatation is to be forwarded if and when available to Americans(ha,ha).

llfll lVI.ASTDisks

of the Month

By Jim Schulz Yes, it's that time again for more of the best from MAST and public domain. So let's check out last month's selection first. #37 - ST Writer V2.32 (Latest version of ST Writer with new drv load) #78 - Uniterm V2.0b 001 (Latest version of Uniterm with more speed) #101 - ST Xformer V1 .2 (Latest version of 8 Bit Emulator with bug fixes) #227 - March DOM #1 (Utilities) #228 - March DOM #2 (Applications) #229 - March DOM #3 (Games) #230 - March DOM #4 (More Games, and C and OSS Pascal files) #231 - March DOM #5 (Demos, Communication files and GFA programs) #232 - Demo Disk #29 (Oids game demo and playable game) #233 - Digitized Music Disk #3 (Digitized music from the Wall) #234 - Clicking Ball Demo (Amazing Spectrum movie of 2 clicking balls) #235 - Sheet V1 .3 (Public Domain Spreadsheet program with 4 Windows) #236 - Statistically Accurate Baseball (Baseball game on statistics) #237 - ANALOG Disk #4 (ST Programs from ST-Log Magazine)

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER

#238 - ANALOG Disk #5 (ST Programs from ST-Log Magazine) Well, that's what last month looked like. All of these disks are still available and in stock at the meeting. Let's first look at some DOM news and then on to this month's selection of goodies. DOM Organization .... After last month's meeting, someone commented that after hearing the descriptions of what's on the DOMs he didn't really know what to buy. Let me explain how the DOM are organized. Each month, I pull together the best utilities, applications, and games into their own disks. Then based on what else is available demos, communication files, GFA, C, PASCAL, and other files are added. If I was to buy disks, I would first buy the utilities and games disk and then start from there. The first four to six DOMs are packed to the hilt with stuff so these are usually the best bargains. The other disks are special disks. These are usually full disk programs or collections which are added as well. These are a mixture of programs and include some of the best public domain packages around. So pick and choose what you like. Many members buy a complete set of the first four to six and pick from the rest and others only pick one or two. It's up to you and I try to keep the selection at it's best. Double-sided disks .... Lately, I haven't been as good as usual identifying the double-sided disks. I try to place the program requirements on the label, but as time gets short things get forgotten. Starting next month, the size of the disk will be placed on the disk label. I will give you more information on this at the meeting. I apologize for those with single-sided drives and for your patience. Disk problems.... Last month, I had a strange rash of bad disks again. Not whole disks, just individual files. What is more bizarre is that my master is

good and the complete disks look good from checking. I have heard of two case so far with the TENNIS program from the games disk and the SHEET program. If you are having problems with a DOM, please let me know. I am looking into these and should have a fix at the next meeting. Each month, I copy roughly 120 to 150 disks so I try my best to make sure that they are all good. Prices .... All MAST DOMs are $6.00 each. In addition, the MAST news disk, the ST News disk and the doc disk are $2.00. Updates on old disks are $2.00 with the return of the original disk. Doc disks .... Yes, I missed it again last month, but it will return this month with Todd Burkey's great new DISKSCAN program. Check it out. For the $2.00 price, it can't be beat. ST News .... Yes, they also got lost last month. But they will appear this month and from what I've seen they are some of the best DOMs around. I currently have 14 disks so expect either a little or a lot this month depending on time. For the $2.00 member price, this is a steal. Dave Meile will demo one of these disks at the next meeting. Well, that's the news and now on to the public domain software ..... ANALOG - Last month, we had all four of the ANALOG disks available. Response was somewhat better, but still pretty weak. This month, I will kick out two more ST-Log disks as well. Lots of really good software here. A number of members have been asking about the Floyd the Droid. This will either squeak in this month's collection or will be included next month. Thanks for the interest. Sheet V1 .4 - Yes, the ST public domain spreadsheet program just keeps getting better. This new version now includes more docs, better screen updating and a new desk accessory version with one window as well. Check out the latest program to join the ranks of ST Writer and Uniterm. This

APRIL• 1988 update is available for $2.00 and your original disk. Shanghai - Game and demo time again. This is a playable demo of the game Shanghai from Activision. If you like solitaire games, you will like this program. The game itself is a little old, but the program is still one of the best around. Demo of the Month - Yes, it's that time again and boy do we have demos this month to choose from. If you saw last month's clicking balls demo, you saw the quality of what is out lately. Come to the meeting and see what gets chosen this month. DeskPac Plus - This is a multifeature desk accessory with a phonebook, appointment book, scientific calculator, notepad, file delete and copy, and a freeram indicator. All this plus the source code as well. This program was sold for the last six months and now the author has made everything shareware. Everything works and nothing is left out. This is really something special. This got bumped last month for sheer size. The program will be available on one disk with docs and two disks of source will also be available as well. Very nicely done. Game of the Month - Just like the demos, I again have a lot to choose from. Last month, we had a statistical baseball game and this month we could either have a look to the past or a look at the craps table. We have to see what happens as we near the MAST meeting ...... Tic Tac Toe and Hi-Q - Speaking of games, these are just two of the old favorite that have appeared for this month's games disk. I have played both and both are very well done as well. Check for these and more this month. Virus Detector - The word virus has been spreading through the ST world this last month. What is a virus??? A

m virus is a program which attaches itself to your disk only to explode and whip your disk at any time. We will have more about viruses in next month's newsletter. This program written by the author of Turtle will fix all self-booting viruses by cleaning the disk of the problem. This is a must have program for all ST owners. JIL Cad - Have you ever wanted a full CAD package for a cheap price??? Well, this is it. This program, originally to be released through Migraph, is a full-featured CAD program. This is shareware and a smaller version of a larger package. This program requires a monochrome monitor and a doublesided drive, but is well worth it. I saw it a couple of months ago and couldn't believe that it was shareware!!! AMS Converter - Do you have any of the old AMS music files laying around from your 8 bit Atari???? Well, you can now convert them to Music Studio files with this new program. I haven't tried it, but the initial response is good for this program. Check it out with this month's music files. ST Applications - As an incentive to try out the magazine, ST Applications has placed the whole February issue on disk. Articles and programs as well. Check this out and see if you like the magazine. For this special disk, we have a special price of $3.00 as well. Check it and check out the special disk discount in this month's Magazine Update. Well, that's a sample of what we have for this month with more coming every day. I have so much good stuff this month that I had better stop before I fill up the whole newsletter. Check out the MAST BBS the week of the meeting of the latest update on this month's DOMs. As always, I do my best to put out as much good stuff as possible given the time that I have available. Last month, I gave you as much as I could and only fell short three times. I

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER

will keep trying. But as always, expect the best from the MAST DOM. If you can't make the meeting and would still like to get ahold of the DOM or would like to get ahold of the DOC disk, my address is 3264 Welcome Avenue North Crystal, MN 55422 That's it for April. Yet another great month of DOMs with lots of good stuff planned for the months ahead. I hope to see you all at this month's MAST meetings and on the MAST BBS.

Magazine

Update

By Jim Schulz This is the second attempt at a monthly update of magazines and what is available when. So let's start with this month's list: Magazine

-------------

Issue Date

Received

---------------

-------------

ANALOG ANTIC Atari Explorer Compute! Compute! ST Current Notes ST Applications START ST Informer ST-Log STX-Press ST World

April 88 May 88 Mar/Apr 88 April 88 April 88 March 88 March 88 Spring 88 March 88 April 88 March 88 March 88

Mar 7th Mar 26th Feb 8th Feb 29th Feb 19th Mar 15th Mar 11th Mar 7th Mar 2nd Mar 9th Mar 11th Mar 4th

Now, how about some magazine news ...... First, ANALOG and ST-Log are now out and available everywhere again. They look as good as ever. All subscribers also got a letter as well explaining what went on as well. If you are still having problems, here are their new addresses: ANALOG/PO Box 16927/ North Hollywood, CA 91615 or ST-Log/PO Box 16928/North Hollywood, CA 91615 or call (818)760-8983. Second, the Current Notes special deal looks good. We are currently getting the final information

and we will have more to say at both the SPACE and MAST meeting. If you are interested, bring a check for $17.00 made out to Current Notes. More information at the meeting. Finally, ST Applications also has a special deal for user groups as well. With 5 or more subscriptions, a yearly subscriptions is $30.00 instead of $32.50. Check out the ST Applications disk and get in on another good deal. So that's the second month's list. I hope you find this useful. If you find this useful, please let me know at the MAST meeting or via the SPACE and MAST BBSs. Remember to check here next month for the latest dates on your Atari Magazines and the latest in magazine news.

Survey L1 MAST Results - Part I

User Profile and Hardware By Jim Schulz At the January meeting of MAST, I made up a survey and asked the members present to give us their views on how MAST was doing. The survey was divided up into three parts. The first part asked about the user in general. The second part asked about the hardware the user was using. The third part involved answering a number of questions about the strengths and weaknesses of MAST. These surveys were offered for two months to get the opinions of all who were willing to fill it out. The following is the results of the first two sections of the survey. We will examine MAST's strengths and weaknesses next month. Of all of the surveys handed out, 27 surveys were returned with 26 filled in and one left blank. Age of ST User: Here I divided the age groups up into 6 categories. Here are the results: Less than 19 - 0 20-29 - 3 30 - 39 - 15

APRIL• 1988 40-49 - 5 50 - 59 - 0 60 or over - 2 No Answer - 1 Sex of ST User: Here I got pretty much what I expected. Here are those results: Male - 25 Female - 1 ST User's First Computer: Here the results were a bit more one sided than I expected. Yes - 4 -22 No Following up on this question, if no, what other computers did you own? The following computers were mentioned. Please note, some surveys included more than one. 8 Bit Atari - 11 Apple II/Mac - 5 Radio Shack - 4 Commodore - 3 IBM AT - 2 Many - 2 Length an ST User: Here I asked, how long have you owned your ST? I divided the years up into 6 categories. Here are the results: Up To 6 Months - 3 7 - 12 Months - 5 13 - 18 Months - 4 19 - 24 Months - 9 25 - 30 Months - 3 Over 30 Months - O No Answer - 2 MAST Member: Are you a MAST Member? Here again, I got pretty much what I expected. Yes - 23 No - 2 No Answer - 1 So what does this first part tell us about the MAST membership??? Well, the common MAST member is male, under 40, has computer experience with more than likely an 8 bit Atari, and has owned for about 1 1/2 to 2 years. Now onto part two ...... Here, we

answer the question of what do all of the MAST members have???? ST Computer: What ST computer do you have? Here are the results: 520ST - 5 520ST Upgraded - 8 1040ST -14 ST Disk Drive: What type of ST disk drive do you have? Here, I counted the disk drive of the largest type (i.e. if you had a single-sided drive and a doublesided drive so I only counted the double-sided drive). I counted all 5.25' drives. Single-sided - 8 Double-sided - 19 5.25' - 2 ST Monitors: Which monitors do you have? Here are the results: Color - 22 Monochrome - 1O Monochrome Only - 4 Modems: Do you have a modem and what speed? Here are the results: Yes - 18 1200 - 14

2400 No

- 4

- 8 Printers: Do you have a printer, what type and is it Epson-compatible? Here, the printers were mostly Epson printers with 15 out of the 26, along with 4 Canon Inkjet printers. Here are the other results: Yes - 26 No - 0 Epson Compatible - 22 Hard Drives: Do you have a hard drive and what type? The hard drives were all Supras, except for one home-made and all of the Supra were 20 megs, except one. Here are the other results: Yes - 9 No - 26 Midi Keyboards: Do you have a Midi Keyboard and what type? The results were very surprising. Yes - 2 No -24

APRIL• 1988

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER

So what about part two??? Most MAST members have at least 1 meg of memory, a double-sided drive, a color monitor, a modem, and an Epsoncompatible printer. In conclusion, what does this all say about MAST???? Let's look.... First, MAST is a dynamic group continually adding new members over the last two years and having a wide range of experience. Second, most MAST members know something about computers, but their knowledge is at least initially limited by their use of only 8 bit Ataris, Apple lls and Commodores. Third, Midi keyboards are often talked about being used, but they are not popular among MAST members. Fourth, modems are popular, but not all members are using modems and 2400 baud modems have not yet caught on among members. Fifth, Epson printers are the most ST compatible printers for the ST and MAST seem to like them the best. Canon color inkjets are also popular from the sale on them about a yeaI ago and Mindtool's printer dump program. Sixth, many members still have single-sided drives, but they also have a double-sided drive as well. Singlesided DOMs are still the best way to continue for all to benefit. Lastly, monochrome monitors are used by many members, but most also have a color monitor as well. Well, that's it for part one of the survey reviews. This is probably the strangest article that I have written for the newsletter and I apologize for this. I tried to present the data collected that the best I could. Next month, we look at MAST's strengths and weaknesses. Until then, I'll see you at the MAST meeting. Well, that's it for part one of the survey reviews. This is probably the strangest article that I have written for the newsletter and I apologize for this. tried to present the data collected that the best I could. Next month, we look at

MAST's strengths and weaknesses. Until then, I'll see you atthe MAST meeting.

ST. PAUL ATABI COMPU'l'EB ENTHUSIASTS I: MDINBSOTA ATARI S'l'

SPACE and MAST are independent user groups of owners of ATARI Home Computers. It has been organized by local owners of ATARI computers for the purpose of mutual self assistance and sharing of information. It is open to all interested c omputer enthusiasts. Benefits of memberships in the groups include monthly newsletter mailed to your home, BBS access, software demonstrations, group purchases, public domain disk(s) of the month software at low prices, reference book library, educational software library (8-bit only) with over 20 titles, personal contacts/learning, greater information and awareness on the world of ATARI, software at discounted prices from dealers, question and answer session, etc. Come to a meeting to find out more.

PSB Notes from B theEditor by Steve Pauley

MAY Newsletter Deadline Articles: If you would like to write something for the May newsletter, you must upload it to the SPACE or MAST bbs by May 1st. If you don't have a modem maybe someone else can upload it for you. You can also mail your articles to me on a disk. I can read Atari ST, IBM and Mac disks, but not Atari 8 bit. Give me a call at 560-2917 evenings if you need more info.

SPACE· 8BIt Group The SPACE meetings are devoted primarily to the 8-b1t ATARI computers such as the 400, 800, 600XL, 800XL, 65XE and 130XE. There is other ATARI related news and some 16-bit news at the SPACE meetings, as well. The SPACE group meets on the second Friday of each month at the Falcon Heights Community Center, 2JJ77 West Larpenteur Avenue, at 7:30pm. Doors open at about 7:10pm. MAST - ST Group The MAST meetings are devoted primarily towards the ATARI 520ST, 1040ST & MEGA computers. There will be ATARI related news items covered, but not 8-bit news. The MAST group meets on the third Friday of each month at the Falcon Heights Community Center, 2077 West Larpenteur Avenue, at 7:30pm. Doors open at about 7:10pm. MAST+ • Programming Language User Sig MAST also has a programmer's group meeting. This group has a more technical discussion regarding programming the ST computers in a variety of languages. The group meets on the Monday following the MAST meeting at the First Minnesota bank on Lexington Avenue near Larpenteur Avenue. Meeting time is 7:30, with doors opening at about 7:20pm. The entrance is in the back of the building and leads to a stairway to the second floor.

Ads: All ads must be received by May 1st to appear In the May issue. The Ads should be accompanied with your check for payment. Check inside front cover of this newsletter for rates and sizes.

L1 RmBON RE-INKING

Jim Scheib - 721-4185 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 shipping 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.

For more information, or to confirm a meeting time and location, call Larry Vanden

Plas (SPACE) 636-2415 or Jim Schulz (MAST) 537-5442.

•

-------------------------SPACE/MAST Membership Application

Name_ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ __ _ Date_ _ _ _ _ __ •

Address._ __ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ City_ _ __ _ _ __ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ State___Zip_ _ _ __ Phone,_ __ _ _ _ _ Equipment/System Used._ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ __

Areas of lnteres.____ _ __ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ __ Check one or both: SPACc=__ MAST_ Renewal?__ Address Change?__ Membership Card Given?__

Dues: $15.00 per year - Pleaso enclose with AppltcatIon. Mail to: SPACE/MAST, P.O BOX 12016, New Brighton, MN 55112

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