SPACE Newsletter - August 1988

August 1988

AUGUST • 1988

SPACE Meeting Friday, August 12th at 7:30pm MAST Meeting Friday, August 19th at 7:30pm At the Falcon Heights Community Center 2077 Larpenteur Avenue West

MAST+ Programmers Meeting Monday, August 22nd at 7:30pm At First Minnesota Bank Building - second floor Lexington and Larpenteur, in back of building

Minnesota Atari ST

DISCLAIMEUl

Published by the St. Paul ATARI Computer Enthusiasts (SPACE), and Minneso:a ST (MAST) group, an independent organization with no business affiliation witr ! Corporation. Permission is granted to any similarorganization with which SPACE exchanges newsletters to reprint material from this newsletter. We do, however as, credit be given to the authors and to SPACE/MAST. Opinions expressed are ~r:sc the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the SPACE/MAST, club c"' club members or ATARI Corporation.

SPACE/MAST BULLETIN BOARDS SPACE/MAST East (XE)· BBS Phone: (612)-774-0135

Sysop: Bruce Haug (Home Phone: 774-6226) SPACE/MAST West (S'l') • BBS Phone: (612)-560-9254

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

President Larrry Vanden Plas 636-2415 Vice President John Novotny 699-2422 Secretary Ernie Costello 455-6515 Treasurer (SPACE/MAST) Bob Siede 489-3982 Disk Librarian Joe Danko 777-9500 Greg Peasley 473-6510 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

533.4·;:; 545.5-= 433-3'2 537-54-!_ 646-1r_ 482-79· · 545-676:

NEWSLJD'l'TER ADVER'l'ISING RA'l'ES: 1/2 page - 4' vertically x 5 1/8' horizontally - $ 15/mo., $140/yr. Full page - 8' 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

AUGUST • 1988

~ ~oJ])o£o@oml ~

BYTES from the l<;J, SPACE PBES

by Larry Vanden Plas Thanks to all of you who contributed to the party celebrating SPACE's sixth birthday. Thanks to both User Frie~dly and Wizzard's Work for donating prizes. Check out their offerings and let them know you appreciate their support of SPACE. This month's meeting will include a swap meet. If you haven't done so yet may I remind you to figure out what you might want to sell or buy. Feel free to bring a friend. Your friend may have software they no longer use or be in need of what someone wants to sell. In last month's BYTES and at the meeting I mentioned the Graphics Operating Environment (GOE). I have been able to get more information and an address. Merrill Ward, 255 N. C1elo Road, Suite 222, Palm Springs, CA 92262 will send a demo disk of the GOE for $5. The demo may be used as a $5 credit toward the purchase of GOE when it becomes available. A mouse is required for the demo .. The_ final GOE will allow for a mouse, Joystick or keyboard input. I h~pe to get the demo in time for our meeting on Fnday the 12th. The product has so many similarities with the ST that they are calling it the ST, Jr. More news on other developments will have to wait for the meeting. I hope you will be able to join us. Doors open about seven.

NOTICE: The August SPACE Meeting will feature a Swap Meet - So bring that computer gear and lets make a deal or two

A V

AfterLast Night

by John Novotny,8-Bit VP The party is over, so this means the start of another year for SPACE. Where we go from here is up to all of us remaining (and maybe some new?) 8bitters, and with summer going by, there are always hopes of activity picking up. As for me, it seems that another newsletter deadline comes without having spent much time computing. One of the topics to cover here is "What's happening at next month's meeting". First, check Larry's colum_n. Also, as mentioned at the July meeting, you are invited to bring in your 'home brew' programs. This is mainly meant to seNe as a forum for discussing software ideas, problems you may be having, and solutions you feel are neat that you would like to share. Also, if you are not a programmer but have ideas of what software you would like to see, maybe this is just what someone needs to inspire them to write a program. I plan to have some stuff of mine there, but priority will be given to the general membership. Remember that what you have does not have to be fully developed or debugged. I think time for discussing program ideas should be alloted at each meeting, so bring your ideas and opinions. Another thing its time to mention is that HiTech Expressions is a fink. My reason for saying this is that it been about 4 months since I sent for a "free· ($2 for shipping & handling) graphics disk for their Award Ware program, an offer from their Print Power program package - it has not arrived yet! Anyone have better luck? I also sent in the program registration .. they have no~ responded to this with any information either. Is it time for another write-in campaign? (or forget it). Anyhow, just thought you should know. Also, I did have time to finally look at the Turbo Basic package we have in

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER

the SPACE library, although not actually do anything with it. It would be interesting to me if someone would review this package, either in an article here, and also at a meeting where we could have a question-answer session. I did get it loaded and try a some of its new commands, and am interested in doing more with it someday. One thing I ran into was that you can enter DOS as with ATARI BASIC, but you cannot return to CARTRIDGE for re-entry. There must be an address for re-entry with the DOS 2.5 M-command .. anyone know? Also, the Compiler is touted as being able to handle most ATARI BASIC and Turbo Basic programs. Let us know of your experiences here also (one statement I am curious about compiling involves the USR function). Next topic, something about word processors. Again, I think we should devote a meeting to a discussion of word processors, mainly for comparing features available. I know I am in a minority by mentioning Speedscript as a vi9:ble word processor for ATARI, but I paid real money for this, and it was my first WP. Its lack of certain features inspired me to write a printer driver having features I wanted, so it was good from that standpoint. Currently, I would like to have a simpler method of extracting sections from documents to separate files, and will be adding this to another program. If you beat me to this, or know of a utility to do this already, I'd appreciate if you let us know. That wraps it up for this month. Come to the August meeting and we can touch on these topics some more.

SPACE 8-bit Disk Library News

by Joe Danko Librarians: Joe Danko and Greg Peasley *****AUGUST 1988 DOM***** DOS SYS 037 AUTORUN SYS 001 DUP SYS 001

MENU 054 RAMBOOT DOC 027 RAMBOOT COM 004 SLOTMACHBAS 102 LCCOMP BAS 020 PAINTER BAS 076 BOOT25 COM 004 ALFV14 DOC 099 ALFV14 COM 027 ALFXV14 COM 030 MAPLFRAGBAS 069 SALISBURBAS 130 HELP DOC 016 010 FREE SECTORS RAMBOOT.COM Use this utility with DOS 2.0/2.5 and a RAM expansion in an 800XL or 130XE. It allows certain programs that have a lot of disk activity when running to access the neccessary files out of RAM instead of the disk. SLOTMACH.BAS ATARI BASIC one-armed-bandit. Use your joystick. LCCOMP.BAS ATARI BASIC program intended to calculate capacitance or inductance values in electronic circuits design. There is a quirk caused by the MENU program custom display list that distorts the opening screen. Just add this line to the program: 20 GRAPHICS 0. This is a good lesson in programming. Don't assume the machine is in exactly the mode you need for correct execution. PAINTER.BAS ATARI BASIC paint program in Graphics Mode 7. Use a joystick. Hit the return key to get a menu when you get the paint screen. BOOT25.COM This handy little routine will write the DOS 2.5 boot sectors on a disk in D1 :. If you have no RAMDISK to run from and only one drive you will have to load it with no execution, change disks and then execute from location 5180 hex. 2.0/2.5: 'L' option DOS 'BOOT25.COM/N' after the filename. Change the disk. 'M' option '5180' SPARTADOS 'LOAD BOOT25.COM' Change the disk. 'RUN 5180' I use it to build DOS2.5 disks from SPARTADOS. ALFV14:ALFcrunch package version 1.4 All the latest fixes to the newest

AUGUST • 1988 and best ATARI 8-bit file compression software. It is no longer restricted to MEMLO = $2000 or less when it loads. ALFV14.DOC: Documentation ALFV14.COM: ALFcrunch multiple files into a single compressed file. ALFXV14.COM: Expand an ALFcrunch file into the original component files. MAPLFRAG.BAS: ATARI BASIC Music program. Maple Leaf Rag by Scott Joplin. SALISBUR.BAS: ATARI BASIC war simulation game. *****EXTRA DISKS**** In addition to the DOM this month there will be seven additional disk sides for sale: 1. REDDESK TEXT ADVENTURE. Compiled text adventure based on finding the various components for the REDDESK BBS. 2. PAD13: An ACTION! compiled public domain paint program that will run under most any DOS. It operates in mode 15 and can use a joystick, KOALA or ATARI tablet. It has built-in instructions and help. 3. INSIDE ATARI BASIC: All of the programs from the tutorial book of the same name. I believe we have a copy in the paper library. 4. THE NOISY GIANT: A story for small children with animation and sound effects. Boot with BASIC. 5. CAVEMAN JOE: Another story in the same format as number 4. 6. IMPROVED 'C' COMPILER: A new public domain compiler for the 'C' programing language that must be used with one of the existing linkers and runtime libraries included with 'C' packages for the 8-bit ATARI such as ACE 'C', DEEP BLUE 'C' or LIGHTSPEED 'C'. The ACE 'C' package is available from the SPACE library. This improved compiler supports additional functions unseen before for 8bit ATARI such as 'STRUCT' to make your 'C' programs more transportable between system brands. 7. BADO: another graphics master-

piece from our own John Novotny. This assembly program will generate new fonts to use with CURSIVE, Glen Kirschenmann's high-speed banner printing utility. *****ANALOG #63***** This month the ANALOG disk includes a full-featured spreadsheet program complete with the source code. *****WHAT TO LOOK FOR NEXT MONTH: 1. Several FRACTAL graphics. 2. A new disk-based database . 3. ANALOG #64.

Sam Tramiel Speaks ......

This letter was posted by Sam Tramiel right before the last MAST meeting. It is recommended reading for all Atari owners. It is not often that a president of a company writes a letter to its owners and even uploads it as well. Check this out....Jim TO ATARI USER GROUPS AND ALL ATARI ENTHUSIASTS: I was disappointed to read the negative letters and articles regarding comments made by Neil Harris at the West Coast Computer Faire. We at Atari feel that our computers are the clear technological leaders in their classes. The XE/XL line is superior to the Commodore 64, and the ST series beats any '286 or 8088 MS DOS machine; it also beats the touted Macintosh (68000) machines, and even surpasses the Amiga in all areas except for internal sound. The educational, productivity, and entertainment software available for the Atari machines makes for an excellent combination which yields many uses. My family knows, as we use an 800XL, an XE Game Machine, and a 1040STf. Neil was only saying that the future will bring EVEN MORE POWERFUL computers which will be easier to use, and I am sure he is right. This statement is not meant to belittle today's models or users. Continued on page 12

1ml MASTBBS ~

AUGUST • 1988

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER

Usage Report

By Steve Pauley, Sysop Jure 24th the MAST BBS swit:;hed over to new software called Phoenix. In one month the board has handled more than 1000 calls. Not bad for mid-summer. The following is a little summary of the board's activity thru 8-2-88. Total Number of Callers 300 Baud 1200 Baud 2400 Baud Number of Messages Left Average Calls per Day (July) Hour of Most Calls Hour of Least Calls Day of Most Calls Day of Least Calls Total Number of Downloads Xmodem Xmodem/CRC Y/Xmodem-1K Most Popular Downloads 1 DCOPY288.ARC 2 PORN.ARC 3 BUBBLE.ARC 4 BOMBS.DOC 5 PENGY.ARC 6 ARCSHL96.ARC 7 DCACHE.ARC 8 SOB.ARC 9 ITEMS.ARC 10 ARC521.ARC Total Number Of Uploads

1,089 26 (02%)

727 (67%) 336 (31%) 271 32

9pm-1am 2am-5am Sat. Mon. & Tues. 421 70 (17%) 267 (63%) 84 (20%)

per day even higher, like around 50-70. We love to have new uploads to the board, but before you upload a file make sure it does not exist on the board already or that it is not a very old program, that no one will have a use for. Use the 'M' command to find the same or similar files on the BBS. If you have a doubt, leave a message to everyone and find out first if there is any interest in the program before you spend the time uploading. If you upload a new version of a program already on the board, leave a comment to the sysop telling which file it is to replace. By the way, the time you use to upload a file is not subtracted from your time on the board. If you download 30 or more files without uploading anything, you will receive a "Download Warning Ratio" message. These means that it is about time you contribute to the BBS. If you download more than 40 files without any uploads Phoenix will take away your download access automatically. One more thing on downloads, If you are going to be downloading a lot of files, try to do this during the low activity hours of the BBS.

..L, Children

•

I pulled these statistic from the automatic report generator that the new Phoenix BBS has. I will make the full report available as a bulletin on the board for those of you who are interested. The report will update it's self daily automatically. 30+ calls per day for the first month of the new BBS was much higher than I expected, but I hope we can get the calls

WillPlay

By Phil Seifert Amusing ..... that is what I think of the last meeting of M.A.S.T. Not only do I get caught with my britches down and nothing to say, but the moment Jim arrives and takes over the meeting, the power goes out. I wonder if that was an omen? I don't know about you guys, but, Jim looked awfully sinister up there with a flashlight shining on his face. Thanks have to go to whoever provided the maniacally laughter in the back. It was much appreciated, heh heh heh. Of course, with the power off, things couldn't get really any worse, could they? I mean, I think my hard drive was not writing anything when things got shut down. Well, we certainly did find out how long the emergency light's battery in the

, .·

meeting hall lasts, one hour. It was a coincidence that went out as we were trying to hold the raffle, right? I don't know about you guys, but I don't want to be around for Halloween. There are other amusing things going on this time of year. After all, this is the time period Atari always announces their advertising plans for the fall and winter selling months. I was not disappointed. Atari is planning on advertising a grass roots campaign of advertising in conjunction with their Business Computer Centers (BCC for short). You know, those are the stores who sell the Megas, Laser Printers, etc. The ones who are supposed to have outside sales support, and move lots of machines. Lots of machines, Atari is now supposed to be qualifying more dealers to be BCC's and they are supposed to commit themselves to purchasing $400,0000 worth of merchandise. Gee, this would be nice, wouldn't it? I mean I would certainly jump at the chance to sell a computer that is not advertised on a national basis by its parent company. I would sell a computer that really does not have the developer support in this country. Where does Atari come off telling a dealer who wants to sel I the Mega that he should risk more money than Atari is willing to spend itself in advertising nationally? With the purchase level Atari is requiring to be a BCC (and you must be one in order to sell MegaST's), you would have to be an established store with lots of backing. Sounds like Apple dealers and IBM medallion dealers. Does Atari seriously think they can get those types of retail establishments to carry their product? I think Atari must do some major rethinking on their marketing plans AND SOFTWARE DEVELOPER SUPPORT plans. This is probably one of the biggest things hurting the ST market, a bad reputation (sometimes very deservedly) and until this is changed, Atari is not going to make much headway in trying to compete with IBM and Apple. There is a severe lack of good business & engineering type

El software geared for the U.S. Without good support from the company, why would any American developers write software for such a small market? Money is what makes the final determination of where a software developer chooses to write for. The reason I brought the money aspect up is there is some talk on Usenet about Tom Hudson not starting to develop software for the IBM machine. He would make more money than he could just writing for the ST. The author of Degas & Cad-3D is not going to be abandoning the ST, but he certainly will not be spending as much time on it as he used to. Other interesting information I ran across on Usenet was Dave Small and Data Pacific have finally parted their ways. Remember this was the company that brought out the Magic Sac and Translator One. I guess they had a disagreement on what to market as products. I understand that Mr. Small is currently working on a new device to allow you to run Mac 128K ROM software. He has run into a few problems, but is still working on it. Remember, August is our game challenge month. There will be several machines there to make your claim to be better at a game than someone else. I will warn you guys, though, I have been getting pretty good at Missile Command and Megaroids. This will be held after the main part of the meeting. Those of you who attended the meeting found out who our first inductee into the M.A.S.T. Hall of Fame was. The nominee was Bob Floyd. This was to honor his contributions and support for M.A.S.T. He was presented with a very nice plaque and well deserved thankyous from the officers of the group. We do appreciate the support we are given by our members. Thanks again, Bob.I must do my monthly reminder, we are looking for a new newsletter editor to take the position after our elections this fall. Steve Pauley has done an outstanding job with

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER the newsletter but he must vacate his position to attend to other job and family duties. If you are interested in being the newsletter editor, please come talk to either Jim Schulz, myself (Phil Seifert), or Steve Pauley. We have started the search a little early as this is usually one of the mo:·e difficult positions to fill. Thank you for your cooperation. Speaking of filling positions, have you all considered becoming an active member in the group? We do have the elected positions of President & Vice President and I know at least one of them will be up for grabs. There are other positions also; disk librarian, membership secretary, etc. If you think you can help out with the club, please consider these. I am sure you have noticed the newsletter is a little smaller than usual this month. Of course, summer has a lot to do with this. We could use some articles from the members. Give a review of that hot piece of new software. Speaking of reviews, some are starting to appear for the new Publishing Partner Professional and they are not pleasant. It seems that Softlogik shipped out beta versions that really were not usable with all the bugs. They had taken a survey on Genie about whether they should ship it right away or wait until they got it much more clean. I guess the vote was ship as fast as you can, people were anxious to see this thing. It has alotof great features, but if most of them don't work, well ....... Someday, I am sure, they will get done with the program. I think it would have helped quite a bit if they had been more specific in their cover letter with the program, informing everyone that it is only a beta version and not really ready to be used. Atari seems to like TimeWork's Publisher. I would too, if I were them. This is the first half decent desktop publishing system to use their GOOS stuff. This could be extremely useful if used in conjunction with Fontz from NeoCept. This program is supposed to have the ability to

convert fonts from different sources such as the Macintosh to GOOS. I am going to have to take a look at this program sometime. Other programs I would like to see in action are Shadow (background downloading terminal) and Centipede. I guess I am a sucker for the old classic arcade games. So far I have been very pleased with Megaroids, Joust, Missile Command and Crystal Castles. Bring on Pac Man and Space Invaders! There is a whole generation of users out there who probably have not played them in the arcade!!! As far as MIDI software goes, there is an interesting new sequencing program I am taking a look at now. It is called Creator. Maybe I will give a review of it at a later time. I just wanted to bring this to your attention if you are into MIDI stuff. Well, I will call this an article now. I look forward to seeing all of you atthe next meeting. Bring your favorite joystick!!

W V

AUGUST• 1988

r 11 I► I

WhatisA Database

By Phil Seifert What is a database? A database is a collection of information. It does not have to be stored in computers to be considered a database. Probably one of the simplest forms we all have is our telephone books. Another database is the public library. You get the idea.What do databases all have in common? For one thing, they have information. But the most important thing is they are organized in such a manner that finding the information you are looking for is much easier than searching for it random. The telephone book, for example, is sorted by last names. Lets go over some of the terminology of databases. We know the whole construction of items of information is called a database. The bricks to the database consist of information pertaining to that one item. This is called a record. Within the record we have fields, what the bricks

J 1:·

f11

are made of. Fields contain the actual information we are looking for. Examples of fields taking our telephone book as the database are last name, first name, address, and telephone number. Almost all electronic databases use these terms, database, record, and field. There are exceptions, such as Zoomracks refering to records as cards. There are differenttypes of computer generated databases. The simplest form is the file manager. This is a program geared up simply to store all the information in one file, divide it into records, and retrieve the information. Most databases will call this retrieval a report. That is what it is in essence doing for you, reporting any information to you. The better programs will allow you to design your own report format. An example of this would be a name& address list. You could have it report back to you in the form of mailing labels (very useful for sending out Christmas or Channuka cards) or it could report back to you in the form of a telephone number list. You get to tell the computer to look up the information. You could tell it to only give you the people who live in Vermont. Some databases will even allow you to tell it to ignore anyone who lives in Vermont but display everyone else. This is called filtering. By now, you should be getting the idea that a database is a very powerful tool that can be used by everyone and it is. Businesses use them very heavily. Remember getting those Now & Then catalogs with your name printed heavier than the rest of the type? This is an example using a database (the mailing list they have) and combining or merging this with their text they are sending. This is called mail merge or form letters by most databases. Many word processors for the Atari ST will allow you to include a list of different text to include for the multiple copies of form letters you might be sending out. This list is prepared in one of two ways, either manually on the word processor (and that is not fun at all!) or by

having a database report it back to you in the required format of the word processor (much more fun!). This is where having a flexible database comes in handy. One that does not allow you to make your own report forms is not going to be the easiest to integrate with your word processors (unless it specifically makes the correct form, which usually only happens when both programs are from the same company). So far, we have been talking about file management type databases. Most of these types of programs use only the computers internal memory for storing the information. In the Atari ST, that is a lot of storage (especially if you have a meg of RAM or more). The information is saved to disk and loaded from the disk when you tell it to. Some databases store the information directly on disk and only keep in memory enough information to retrieve it. On the simpler systems they only keep what is called a key field, the field that the database is orgranized or sorted on. Then, they would just look up the key field index, note what spot on the disk that record starts at and presto, in comes the information we are looking for. There is a more powerful database than the file manager, the relational database. What is to its advantage are;1) It can handle more than one database file at a given time.2) It is usually totally flexible in the report facility, you can design your own reports formats quite easily.3) Most relational databases come with a Database Programming Language. You could actually write your own program to handle the information any way that you would like. Set up your own menu screens, reports, data entry screens, etc. This is called a turnkey system.4) Most importantly, you can relate (hence the name relational) fields common to the different database files. This way, you can set the record pointer for several files by searching only in one. Much easier than searching each file for the same field information.

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETT'.ER Hopefully, you are getting ideas on how to use your own database. Or maybe this will get you thinking about using one for your own applications. There are some very good ones to choose from on the Atari ST. For file managers, there is BASE TWO and DATAMANAGER ST. On the :·elation al side, there is SUPER BASE & DB MAN. There is also another interesting one called ZOOMRACKS, it is currently not relational but will handle multiple database files. I currently use DBMAN to organize my mailing list and also my movie collection. It is nice to be able to find all the comedy films quickly and listed together. I have printed the movie list by names and by catagories. Eventually, I will expand my system to include lead stars, etc. There are many things I can do with this. All it takes is a little imagination and some organization, but let the database do the orgranizing for you.

YourS'l' llii9 Com.ea Alive I by Richard Leinecker Computer Spectrum, Inc. There haven't been many books published with the home electronics hobbyist who owns an Atari ST in mind. Your ST Comes Alive! is a simple 200 page book filled with projects that look fun to put together. There is a disk that comes with the book which provides software examples to actually USE the projects. The first 32 pages or so are an adequate introduction to practical electronics with little theory. Other introductory chapters provide information regarding the Joystick, MIDI, Parallel and Cartridge Ports, along with some ideas for their use. There is a short chapter on using ST BASIC to access these ports. After that comes the actual projects. You can build a light pen, a speech synthesizer, learn about simple networking systems, build an analog-to-digital converter, and other projects.

The text is easy to read, and there are a number of diagrams. Some of them will require a little thought and practice in order to get the wiring just right. Anyone who is thinking of trying aprojectthat uses the Parallel port, for example, should be warned to turn the machine off before inserting or removing a project. Some sources for electronic parts are given in the appendices, and there is a nice little index provided. Who will benefit from this book? The electronic hobbyist who wants to do interesting projects with the Atari ST will benefit. So will someone who just wants to know how to do some fun things with the Atari ST. I estimate the age limit for the projects would be 11 and up, with the younger experimenters being supervised by an adult.

A V

Whatia Shareware?

Every month, MAST comes out with a large number of interesting and useful programs on the Disks of the Month. Many of them are in the public domain, but some of them indicate that they are "shareware". What does this mean, and how should you use these programs? A shareware program is one which is distributed through non-commercial channels. The author generally figures that more people would like to "try before they buy", and provides a nice, usable product. In return, if you LIKE the program, and find it useful, the author would like to see some sort of compensation. Generally, the shareware fees asked are quite low - $10-$20 in the majority of cases. You get a program which would probably have cost $40-$50 if sold commercially. In a lot of cases, shareware doesn't seem to bring the author any money at all. People either don't want to send the low shareware fee, or find the program interesting once or twice and then never use it again.

AUGUST • 1988 Some shareware programs that seem to be VERY useful and popular are: TINYSTUF and TINYVIEW (reduces the size of a graphics file) HDSCAN and DISKSCAN (some nice disk utilities from Todd Burkey) PICSW7 (converts pictures from to other formats, including Macintosh, the Atari ST) SHEET (spreadsheet program) VDOS (replacement for GEM Desktop, good with hard drives) Those are the ones that come immediately to mind. You'll find each of them on one of the MAST DOMs. Here's a rule of thumb to determine when and if you should send in the shareware fee to an author: If you find the program useful more than three times, or if it saves you many hours of toil and torment, it is probably worth the shareware fee. How can you tell if a program is shareware? It will generally be mentioned in either the documentation for the program or in the "about" dialog box when you run the program (if it is a GEM program). What advantages are there to paying the shareware fee? Sometimes a program author updates the program, including useful features which are not available in the public release. One which comes to mind is TINYSTUF, which has been updated at least twice to my knowledge. Another are the HDSCAN and DISKSCAN programs, which add many nice features for a $20 fee. Another advantage is that, with each shareware fee received, the author is receiving encouragementto writer MORE programs of interest. And that is something we need to encourage in the ST community.

Did you know you can buy blank 5 1/4" and blank 3 1 /2" Disk at both SPACE & MAST Meetings?

..fa

August ST meeting is

..,. GAMES NIGHT!

Be sure to bring your ST and your favorite games to the August MAST meeting. We hope to demonstrate all sorts of games that evening, giving you the chance to try out the "neat game" before spending the money to purchase it. If you've discovered the best arcade game for the Atari ST, bring it with you and give other folks a chance to play it. I'll be bringing many of my favorite games, and I hope you will too. Dave Meile

PSB Notesfrom illll theEditor

by Steve Pauley Thanks to everyone for writing stuff for the newsletter. September Newsletter Deadline for · Articles and Ads - August 28th If you would like to write something for the September newsletter, you must upload it to the SPACE or MAST bbs by August 28th. 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. Ads should be accompanied with your check for payment. Check inside front cover of this newsletter for rates and sizes.

News from the

•

MAST Pres

By Jim Schulz It's August and time for the more of the best of MAST!!! This month, we will have to keep this short as Steve is hovering over me for an article and my boss isn't far behind. Let's see, what's up ..... First off, last month ... Then, this month ... Finally, next month... What about last month??? Boy, what a strange meeting .... With 20-

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER

30 new DOMs to copy and having a crisis at work just when I am about to walk out the door, things were not good for me. Just when I was about ready to tell the troops about the latest and greatest DOMS and news, the lights went out!!! And boy, was it dark!!! We survived off of an omergency light until that went out just when the raffle was about to start. If it wasn't for Cory's friend's light (sorry about the name), we would have went outside where it was worse yet. How about everyone in the parking lot with their headlights on ala MASH??? That might have been our next option. But we did have time to honor our first member of the MAST Hall of Fame, Bob Floyd. It was nice seeing Bob again after all of these months. But Bob was busy .... He is the proud father of a two-month old baby. Now let's see who do honor next year. That shouldn't be a problem. I think the verdict is out on MAST Member Appreciation night. If we had less DOMs, I showed up on time, and the lights stayed on things might have been much better. Not to forget anything, we also had Phil's Database seminar and the ANTIC animation video before the lights went out. Thanks to Dave Meile for filling in for Al last month. Hopefully, this month will be more sane. Let's see what about this month .... This month, we will try a gamefest where the members bring their favorite games and computers and they show them off to the members. In addition, our resident court jester and gamesmaster, you know who .... (he told me not to use his name as much this month) will challenge all comers in Missile Command, Oids (a game that he doesn't own), and Pengo among others. So watch out Steve, he's gunning for you in more ways than one. Good luck in your quest to knock out the big one!!! Also, if it arrives, in time, we will have a chance to try out and game test a new joystick from Wico. Wico has sent me a letter and will send us a free joystick if we pound on it and give them our options. Also, we will have pictures taken of the group as well. More on that later .... In

addition to all of this, we will have more DOMs and more news and rumors as well .... Lotsoffunforall!!!! Coming in the months to come ..... In September, we will have the second MAST swap meet. Bring your old, used, or unused ST software and hardware along with original documentation to sell or trade with fellow MAST members. The last swap meet was a big success so come early and trade good!!! In October, we will start the yearly procedure of election of officers. Currently, we have two positions available, Vice President and Newsletter Editor. More positions will likely be opening for the fall in the months to come, including President as well. If you are interested in helping out, please drop me line or stop by and talk after the meeting. Volunteers are always welcome so please stop by and volunteer. More is planning also for the months of October and November. So stayed tuned for the best from MAST. Also on the Monday following the MAST meeting, we will have the monthly MAST+ programmers meeting. Last month, we had another very good meeting so we are sorry you missed it. With Dave, Dale, Todd, and Chuck doing all of the talking and preparation, we always have a good meeting. Thanks goes out to Chuck for opening up last month and getting the key in Al's absence. Expect more of the same good conversation next month. As always, MAST+ meets at the First Minnesota building at Lexington and Larpenteur at 7:30pm on the Monday following the MAST meeting. I hope to see you all there!!!!! Disk sales ..... Disk sales were a very slow last month compared to the month of May and June. Disks are still in very short supply and rather expensive as well. So I have disks, boy do I have disks!!! The double-sided disks are still $1.15 each until this batch runs out. So if you want disks, buy now and beat the price rise again. I should have enough disks for everyone so if you want more than 20 to 30 give me a call and I will bring extra to the

AUGUST • 1988 meeting. In addition, MAST is still selling pin-feed 3.5' over-the-top disk labels for $2.00 per 100 at a price which can't be beat. Also, I have extra blank disk labels for anyone who wants them and empty disk boxes as well. If the disk boxes aren't wanted this month, they go in the dumpster. So if you need extra boxes, this is the month to speak. Newsletter.... This month, we are again a very thin on articles. I have been extremely busy over the last few weeks so I have had no time to anything. Luckily, both Phil and Dave have come through with articles as well to help out the cause. We could use practically anything ST related for the newsletter. Help Steve out and contribute. Finally, come November, we will again be looking for a new newsletter editor. If you are interested, please see Phil or I for more information. Please check with Steve to find out what is really involved in putting a newsletter together. Please help!!!!! BBS ..... Let's see what's going on the MAST BBS. Lots of uploads and special requests as well. And news as well ..... Five new ST Reports with the latest in ST news as well as other goodies, too. Also check out the special Word Perfect deal. If you have any questions or comments on the BBS, please feel free to ask Steve or me. Reaction has been good to the Phoenix BBS software and Steve is trying harder each day to make it better. So be patient more is coming soon. Lots of good news stuff!!! As always, feel free to leave your questions and I'm sure you will get an answer. A great source for ST news, rumors, and downloads and of course MAST news as well ..... Miscellaneous stuff .... The ST Applications group deal is on. We now have enough commitments for a group price of $30.00 a year. If you were waiting, now is the time to sign up. I will mail in the subscriptions after the meeting. ST Applications is one of the best ST magazines around and now with ST Business inside, it is even better yet!!! I will bring a few sample issues to the next meeting .

m Volunteers..... I needed one volunteer and I got two. That's more than I expected. Kent Schumacher has volunteered to act as out User Group Exchange Coordinator to get our name, newsletter, and DOMs exchanged with other user groups. John Pritchard has also volunteered and his new position will involve some mailing and publicity work for the club. Like I said, volunteers are always welcome!!!! Something different raffle ... Last month, I was hoping to start a raffle to see which of the following programs would arrive first: ST Talk Professional, Publishing Partner Professional, Zoomracks Ill, and Tackle Box ST. Tackle Box ST and Publishing Partner Professional both arrived with ST Talk Professional available for betaing. So it looks like the raffle is off. But stay away from Publishing Partner Professional!!!! This is the buggiest program that I have seen!!! Even for beta!!! UIS 11 .... After waiting for months for the new copies, I finally called and got brand new copies for all who ordered them. It seems that they cancelled the checks, but totally lost the orders. I am very happy with the new UIS and recommend it to all. ST Informer apologized for the delay. If you ordered a copy through me or need an update to an older copy, please see me at the next meeting. Thanks for waiting. Compuserve freebies... Have you ever wanted to get on Compuserve??? Well, I have a number of free signon packets with $15.00 worth of free time for the taking. See me at the meeting. User Groups .... After many calls and letters, Atari now recognizes us as an ST user group. But they are now tossing their list and starting over because of the age of the list. I now have a three page application form to fill out with a number of requirements as well. One of these is a picture of the user group to show them that we exist. So at the next meeting, we will have pictures taking serious and otherwise to prove to Atari that we do exist and have members.

SPACE/MAST NEWSLETTER

Word Perfect Group Deal .... Word Perfect is offering user group members a copy of Word Perfect for only $155.00 instead of the $300.00 list price. DOMS .... So what do we have this month???? This is the quick and dirty version .... Let's see, two new games, Bubble and Dice, the second half of the ST News disks, an update of ST Xformer now with XE support and double-sided disk support as well, an ST Xformer utility disk with Turbo Basic and more .... , another new version of ARC, now totally GEM based, a new version of the SHEET spreadsheet program now with a BASIC programming language, a super new reminder program, a rather funny little animation demo called ASSAULT with a salt and pepper shaker, a fully functional demo of a Bible display and search program with the complete books of Mark, Romans, and Revelations, Little Smalltalk V2.0 with source code on two disks (an update on disk #1 for old SmallTalk owners), and a double-sided Keno game which sounds too good to be public domain. Also expected at the meeting is a new doc disk with a new version of Diskscan and menus as well using README. Also another new version of Uniterm as well. All sorts of other good stuff is planned as well, including another disk special so check out the MAST BBS for more info. Well, that's a wrap for August!!! Lots of stuff planned with more to come. The envelope ..... Where is the envelope???? Oh ... there it is ... I found it in that box over there .... This month's best looks like UIS II which has just about everything that you would want from a file selector and more, Road Runner need I say more .... , Shadow, the background downloader, and Macro Mouse, which now allow me to make demos of the DOMs without being there. This program is strange, but very well done ..... Well, the envelope closes for this month. I hope to see you all at the August MAST meeting and the August MAST+ programmers meeting as well as on the MAST BBS. Happy computing!!!

Sam Speaks .. .Continued from page 3 While I am communicating with you, let me clear up a few things and also ask for your help. The DRAM shortage is still with us and it is inhibiting our distribution in the U.S. We hope this will get better in the 4th quarter of '88. In the meantime, we wil CONTINUE TO SUPPORT ATARI COMPUTER presence in the U.S. We will ~ vertise this fall to keep our presence in the U.S. I ask all of you two things: first, please do not pirate software. Talk your friends out of it also. The software community is suffering and complaining, please police pirating so Atari software companies can thrive. The other favor I ask of you is to be the evangelists of the Atari world.Tell your friends, associates, teachers, etc., how great the XE/XL and ST are. LET'S WORK TOGETHER TO MAKE THE ATARI MACHINES A STANDARD IN THE U.S. Sam Tramiel, President, Atari Corporation

L1 BIBBON BE-INKING

Jim Scheib - 721-4185 The club can re-ink most printer ribbons (black) for a smal I 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. Itch Prowriter and compatibles (NEC 8023A/C)- Citizen 120 0Panasonic - 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 & be sure to have your ribbon(s) in a plastic · bag.

AUGUST • 19 88 UTER EN'l'HtJSIASTS ST. PA UL AT AR I COMP I ST & M IN NE SO TA AT AR

•

I Home up s of ow ner s of ATAR ind ep en de nt user gro rpo se pu the for s ter pu com I SPACE an d MAST are local owners of ATAR by zed pu ter ani com org n ted bee res s Computers. It ha . It is op en to all inte d sharing of information an nce ista ass f sel l tua of mu iled to your monthly new sle tte r ma enthusiasts. s in the gro up s inc lud e hip in disk(s) ers ma do mb me blic of pu , its ses nef Be tions, gro up pur cha tra ons dem re re library twa twa sof , sof al home, BBS access library, edu cat ion pri ces, reference bo ok n and atio low at rm re info r twa ate sof gre nth g, mo of the al contacts/learnin son per s, stio n title que , 20 r lers ove dea (8-b1t only) wit h nte d pri ces from ARI, software at dis cou AT of rld wo the on s re. awarenes find ou t mo . Co me to a me etin g to and answer session, etc to the 8-b it ATARI gs are de vot ed pn ma nly etin me E AC SP er ATARI The SPACE· 8BIt Group 800, 600XL, BOOXL, 65XE and 130XE. There is oth gro up , E AC 400 SP the as The h ll. suc we computers E meetings, as 16 -bi t news at the SPAC mm uni ty Center, Co ts igh He con Fal related news an d som e ay of ea ch month at the en at ab ou t 7:10pm. meets on the sec on d Frid ue, at 7:3 0p m. Doors op en Av ARI r teu 2077 We st Lar pen primarily tow ard s the AT meetings are de vot ed ated news items covered, ST MA The p ou Gr ATARI rel MAST - ST computers . There will be nth at the third Friday of ea ch mo 520ST, 1040ST & MEGA the on ets me up gro ST . Doors MA 0pm The 7:3 s. at e, new it enu 8-b bu t no t 7 West Larpenteur Av 207 r, nte Ce ty uni mm Falcon Heights Co er's open at ab ou t 7:10pm. ST also has a pro gra mm the ing Language User Sig MA MAST+ - Programming a more tec hnical discussion reg ard ing programmmg the ow up has meets on the Mo nd ay foll gro up meeting. This gro of languages. The gro up near lar pe nte ur e enu Av ton ing ST computers in a var iety Lex on First Minnesota bank . The entrance is in MAST meeting at the op ening at ab ou t 7:20pm rs doo h w,t 0, 7:3 is e Avenue. Meeting tim ay to the sec on d floor. g an d lea ds to a stairw the ba ck of the bui ldin Vanden an d location, call Larry confirm a me etin g time to or n, atio rm info re For mo -4193 or Jim Schulz (MAST) 533 Plas (SPACE) 63 6-2415

ic at io n em be rs hi p Ap pl SP AC E/ MA ST M _ Oate._ _ _ _ _ _ ________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ __ Name_ _ _ ________ ________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Address._ __lip_ _ _ _ __ _ _ _ _ State_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Cit y_ _ _ _ _ _ __ ________ Equipment/System Us ed _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Phone _ _ _ _ _ __ ________ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Areas of lnt ere s._ AC E_ M AS T_ Check one or both: SP hip Ca rd Given?__ Ch an ge ?_ _ Me mb ers Renewal?__ Ad dre ss plication. - Please enclose with Ap Dues: $15.00 pe r yea r ghton, MN 55112 Bn w P.O. BOX 12016, Ne T, AS E/M AC SP to: il Ma

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