Disassembler /

Disk

Bonus

A ittiL-

®

iJAJ

J J

H r

^-iij-j'jjj^jjju;^yjj?iji];\jj^

^

8-Bit

Power

Tools

Pocket Memo Calendar

Lightspeed C

70.70

12728"

Since 1981

Lyco Computer

Marketing & Consultants

Air orders processed within 24 hours.

L Great Value ^

Panasonic.

Office Automation/f^^t/]\

\Jri

The easier the better!

10911 Model II

^i*^

as<

192cps Draft IjP

32 cps NLQ Y

;lff

^%

$189.''

\us.

;S^J

Great Performance Great Price

AATARr 520ST-FM

COLOR SYSTEM

Built in 3.5" Drive

512 Color Monitor

Fast 8 Mz. Processor

$749.

95

/(Includes SC 1224 Monitor)

PRICE GUARANTEE

Since 1981, we have led the industry by continuing to offer the lowest national prices while providing quality service. N/lany companies have come and gone trying to imitate our quality and service. If by some oversight we do not have the lowest prices advertised on the products you desire, then we would appreciate the opportunity to rectify this oversight.

PRINTER PAPER

1 000 Sheet Lazer $1 6.95

1 000 Mailing Labels $8.95

200 Sheets OKI 20 $8.95

Transparent Labels $4.95

Banner Paper 45' Roll $1 0.95

TO ORDER, CALL TOLL-FREE: 1-800-233-8760 New PA Wats: 1-800-233-8760

Outside Continental US Gall; 1-717-494-1030

Hours: SAM to 8PH/I, Mon. - Thurs. 9AM to 6PM, Friday 10AM to 6PM, Saturday

For Customer Service, call 1-717-494-1670,

9AM to 5PM, Mon. - Fri.

Or write: Lyco Connputer, Inc.

P.O. Box 5088, Jersey Shore, PA 17740

Don't Miss Our Other Value Packed Pages In This Issue!

PfeSSe Notei •full manufacturers' warranties #00 sales tax outside PA prices show 4% cash discount; add 4% for credit cards APO, FPO, international: add $5 plus 3% foj priority 4-week clearance on personal checks we check for credit card theft sorry, compatibility not guaranteed return authorization required due to new product quarantee, return restrictions apply price/availability subject to change prepaidorders under $50 in Continental US. add £3.00

1-800-233-8760^

Software discounters

S.D. of A.

For Orders Only- 1-800-225-7638 PA Orders- 1-800-223-7784 Customer Service 412-361-5291

Free shipping on orders over $100 in continental USA ^

No Surcharge for VISA/MasterCard

Your card is not charged until we ship

ABACUS BOOKS

ST Di§k Drives $19

ST Gem Prog. Rcf $15

ST Graphics & Sound. . . .Call

ST Internals $15

ST 3-D Grapliics $19

ST Tricks & Tips $15

ACADEMY

Typing Tutor ST $23

ACCESS

Leader Board GoH &

Tourn. Disk (D) $9.88

Leader Board Golf & Tourn.

Disk #1 ST $16

Tcnili Frame ST $25

Triple Pack; BH1, BH2, Raid

Over Moscow (D) $14

ACCOLADE

Bubble Ghost ST $23

Hardball ST $25

Mini Putt ST Call

Pinball Wizard ST $23

Test Drive ST $25

ACTIVISION Cross Country

Road Race (D) $9.88

Ghostbusters (D) $9.88

Music Studio ST $33

Music Studio (D) $23

Pitfall/Demon Attack (D) $9.88 AEGIS

Animator ST $44

Art Pak#1 ST $19

AMERICAN EDUCATION

Biology (D) $12

Grammar (D) $12

Science (D) Call

U.S. Geography (D) $12

U.S. History (D) $12

Vocabulary (D) $12

World History (D) $12

ANTIC

A-Calc Prime ST $25

A-Chart ST $19

Base Two ST $39

Cyber Paint 2.0 ST $49

Cyber Studio ST $59

Flash ST $19

Phasar 3.0 ST $59

Spectrum 512 ST $44

3D Breaklhru ST $25

ARTWORX

Bridge 5.0 (D) $19

Bridge 5.0 ST $23

Linkword French (D) $16

Linkword French

1 or 2 ST $19 Ea.

Linkword German (D) . . . .$16

Linkword Russian ST $19

Linkword Spanish (D) ... .$16

Linkword Spanish ST $19

Strip Poker (D) $21

Strip Poker 2 ST $25

Female Data Disk 1(D) ... $14

Male Data Disk 2(D) $14

Female Data Disk 3(D) . . .$14 Female Data Di5k#4 ST . . . $14 Female Data Disk#5 ST . . .$14 AVANTE GARDE

PC Ditto ST Call

BATTERIES INCLUDED

Degas Elite ST $39

Thunder: Writers

Assistant ST $26

BRODERBUND

Karateka (D) $9.88

Loderunner (D) $9.88

Print Shop (D) $26

Print Shop Graphics

Library#1, #2, #3 (D) $16. Ea.

P.S. Companion 64K (D) . . $23 Super Bike Challenge ST . .$14 CENTRAL POINT

Copy 2 ST $23

CINEMAWARE

Defender of the Crown ST $33

S.D.I. ST $33

DATA EAST

Ikari Warriors ST $25

Karnov ST $25

Lock On ST , $25

Platoon ST Call

Speed Buggy ST $25

DATASOFT Alternate Reality;

The City (D) $19

The City ST $26

The Dungeon (D) $26

Battle Droidz ST Call

Bismarck ST $26

Cosmic Relief ST $23

Global Commander ST . . .$26 Hunt for Red October ST .$32

Tomahawk 64K (D) $21

Video Title Shop 64K (D) .$21

Roadwars ST $21

Rockford ST $21

Scrabble ST $26

Scruples ST $26

Slar Fleet 1 ST $35

EPYX

Ballblazer 64K (D) $6.88

Baltleship ST Call

Boulder Dash Const. Kit (D)

or ST $14

California Games ST $33

Champ. Wrestling ST $14

Dive Bomber ST Call

Dragonriders of Pern (D) $6.88

Final Assault ST $33

Impossible Mission 2 ST. .$33

Melrocross ST $16

Pilstop 2 (D) $6.88

Spy vs. Spy 3:

Arctic Antics (D) $14

Street Cat ST $16

Summer Games (D) $14

Technocop ST Call

Temple Apshai Trilogy (D) .$14 Temple Apshai Trilogy ST .$14

Rambo XL $29

US Doubler:

with Sparta DOS $49

without Sparta DOS ... $29 INTERSECT

Interlink ST $25

Revolver ST $33

ISP

Maslerplan ST $59

ST Account 2.0 ST $89

Vip Professional ST $95

LDW

Basic Compiler 2.0 ST . . .$59

Club Backgammon ST .... $23

Vegas Craps ST $23

Vegas Gambler ST $23

MASTERTRONIC

Action Biker (D) $4.88

Chopper X ST $14

Ninja (D) $4.88

Ninja Mission ST $14

Speed King (D) $4.88

The iJSt VB (D) $4.88

Vegas Poker & lackpot(D) $4.88

MICROPROSE

F15 Strike Eagle (D) $23

F15 Strike Eagle ST $25

Gunship ST $33

Silent Service (D) $23

Silent Service ST $25

MINDSCAPE

Balance of Power ST $33

Blockbuster ST $25

Bop & Wrestle 64K (D) . . .$19

Captain Blood ST $33

De |a Vu ST $33

'Deeper Dungeons (D) . . .$16

Gauntlet ST $33

Gauntlet 64K (D) $23

Harrier Combat Sim. ST . .$33 Indiana Jones & The Temple of Doom ST .... $33

Infiltrator 64K (D) $19

Into the Eagle's Nest ST . .$25

Paperboy ST Call

Road Runner ST $33

Shadowgate ST $33

Super Star Hockey ST $33

Uninvited ST $33

MINDSCAPE INC

Gauntlet

This is it. The game every- body's been waiting for. Gauntlet, the most successful arcade game of all time has come home.

Atari ST $33 Atari XL/XE $23

DAVIDSON

Math Blaster (D) $32

Spell It (D) $32

Word Attack (D) $32

ELECTRONIC ARTS Software Classic Series:

Archon 2 (D) $9.88

Lords of Conquest (D) . . $9.88

Movie Maker (D) $9.88

Music Const. Set (D) . . .$9.88 Pinball Const. Set (D) ..$9.88 Seven Cities of Cold (D) $9.88 Super Boulder Dash (D).$9.88 ELECTRONIC ARTS

Alien Fires ST $26

Arcficfox ST $14

Bard's Tale ST $32

Chessmaster 2000 (D) $26

Chcssmaster 2000 ST $29

Empire ST $32

Lords of Conquest ST .... $14

Marble Madness ST $26

Mavis Beacon Teaches

Typing ST $32

Music Const. Set ST $32

Winter Games ST $14

World Games ST $14

EQUAL PLUS

Financial Plus ST $129

FORESIGHT

Draphix ST $119

FTl

Dungeonmaster ST $25

Dungeonmaster Hints $9

Oids ST $23

Sundog ST $23

GAMESTAR

Champ. Football ST $25

GRIBNIF

Neo Desk ST $19

HIGH-TECH EXPRESSIONS

Astro-Grover (D) $6.88

Award Ware (D) $9.88

Big Bird's Spc. Deliwry (D) ibm Ernie's Magic Shapes (D) $6.88

Print Power (D) $9.88

Sesame St. Print Kit (D) . $9.88

•All Hi-Tech req. 64K!

ICD

PR Connection $59

MICHTRON

Airball ST $25

Airball Const. Set ST $16

GFA Artist ST $49

CFA Basic Book ST $25

GFA Basic Int. ST Call

GFA Basic Compiler ST. . $39

GFA Companion ST $33

Goldrunner 2 ST $25

Int'l. Soccer ST $25

lugglerST $33

Karate Kid 2 ST $25

Leatherneck ST $25

Master CAD ST $129

Slaygon ST $25

ST Replay $69

Stuff ST $25

Tanglewood ST $25

Time Bandit ST $25

Tune Up ST $33

MICROLEAGUE

Baseball (D) $25

Baseball 2 ST $39

Box Score Stats (D) $16

General Manager (D) or ST . $19 1987 Team Data (D) or ST $14

•Requires Gauntlet! NEOTRON

Fontz ST $23

Word Up ST $49

OMNITREND

Breach ST $25

Breach Scenario Disk ST. .$16

Universe 2 ST $33

ORIGIN

Autoduel (D) or ST $25

Moebius ST $25

Ultima 3 (D) or ST $25

Ultima 4 (D) or ST $39

PROGRESSIVE

Superbase Professional ST$189

PR05PER0

First Word Plus ST Call

QMI

Desk Cart ST $69

RAINBIRD

Black Lamp ST $19

Carrier Command ST . . . .$29

Guild of Thieves ST $29

linxter ST $25

Starglider 2 ST $29

The Pawn ST $19

Universal Military

Simulator ST $33

SCORPION

Foundations Waste ST ... . $25

SIERRA

Black Cauldron ST $25

King's Quest

1, 2, or 3 ST $33 Ea.

Leisure Suit Larry ST $25

Mixed-Up Mother Goose ST$19

Police Quest ST $33

Space Quest 1 or 2 ST $33 Ea.

Winnie the Pooh ST $16

SIMON & SCHUSTER

Star Trek ST $25

SOfTRtK

Turbo ST $33

SPRIMGBOARP

Certificate Maker ST $25

CM. Library#l ST $19

Newsroom 64K (D) $33

SSI

Advanced Dungeons &

Dragon; Heroes of the

Lance ST $26

Phantasie 1, 2 or 3 ST ... $26

Questron 2 ST $32

Rings of Zilfin ST $26

Roadwar Europa ST $29

Roadwar 2000 ST $26

Stellar Crusade ST $39

War Game Const. Set (D) .$19 War Game Const. Set ST . $23

Warship ST $39

Wizard's Crown (D) or ST $26

SUBLOGtC

Flight Sim. 2 (D) or ST $33 Ea.

FS. Scenery Disks Call

let ST $33

THREE SIXTY

Dark Castle ST $25

Warlock ST $23

THUNDER MOUNTAIN Tau Ceti: The Lost

Star Colony ST $9.88

Top Gun ST $9.88

Winter Challenge ST . . .$9.88

Wizball ST $9.88

TIMEWORKS

Data Manager ST $49

Desktop Publisher ST $87

D.P. Clip Art ST Call

Partner ST $33

Swiftcalc ST $49

Word Writer ST $49

UNISON WORLD

Art Gallery: Fantasy ST . . .$19

Art Gallery 1 or 2 ST .$19 Ea.

Print Master Plus ST $25

P.M. Fonts & Borders ST . . $23 VERSASOFT

dB Man V4.0 ST $149

MARK WILLIAMS

C Source Dedugger ST . . . $44

Mark Williams C ST $119

WORD PERFECT

WP Word Processor ST . . $199

ACCESSORIES

Animation Station (D) ... $49

Bonus 5'A SS, DO . $4.99 BX

Bonus 5 'A DS, DD . . $5.99 BX

CompuServe Starter Kit . . . $19

Disk Drive Cleaner .... $6.88

Dow Jones Starter Kit ... . $19

Epyx 500 Xj Joystick $14

Indus CT Drive Call

Supra Hard Drives Call

WIco Bat Handle $17

Wico Ergostick $19

P.O. BOX 111327 - DEPT. AT - BLAWNOX, PA 15238

•Please Read The Following Ordering Terms & Conditions Carefully Before Placing Your Order: Orders with cashiers check or money order shipped immediately on in stock items! Personal & Company checks, allow 3 weeks clearance. No C.O.D.'s! Shipping: Continental U.S.A.-Orders under $100 add $3; free shipping on orders over $100. AK, HI, FPO, APO-add $5 on all orders. Canada & Puerto Rico-add $10 on all orders. Sorry, no other International orders accepted! PA residents add 6% sales tax on the total amount of order including shipping charges. CUSTOMER SERVICE HOURS: Mon.-Fri. 9 AM-5;30 PM Eastern Time. REASONS FOR CALLING CUSTOMER SERVICE-412-361-5291 (l)Status of order or back order (2)if any merchandise purchased within 60 days from S.p.of A. is defective, please call for a return authorization number. We will not process a return without a return auth. #! Defective merchandise will be replaced with the same nnerchandise only. Other returns subject to a 20% restocking charge! After 60 days from your purchase date, please refer to the warranty included with the product purchased & return directly to the manufacturer. Customer service will not accept collect calls or calls on S.D.of A.'s 800# order lines! Prices & availability are subject to change! New titles are arriving daily! Please call for more information. NEW, MORE CONVENIENT ORDER LINE HOURS: Mon.-Thurs. 9:00 AM-7:00 PM Fri. 9:00 AM-5;30 PM Sat. 10:00 AM-4;00 PM Eastern Time.

American Techna- Vision

For Orders Only - 1-800-551-9995 CA. Orders / Information 415-352-3787

"Providing 8 Bit support with one of trie Worlds largest inventories of Atari replacement parts"

No surcharge for VISA/ MasterCard

Your card is not charged until we ship

800 4 PIECE BOARD SET

Includes Main Board, Power Supply Assembly, CPU Module and 10K Revision B Operating System Module. All boards are new, tested and complete with all components. $ <^ q 50

=28^

400 3 PIECE BOARD SET

Includes Main Board, Power Supply Assembly and CPU Module. All boards are new, tested and complete with all components. .

$■1950 400 MentrsmKevtiosrd $12.50

800 10K "B" O.S. Module

Older BOO unite need the revision "B" Operatino system to run newer software. Type the followirig peek in BASIC to see which revision you have. PRINT PEEK(58383). ^.

If the result is 56 order now! x7

800/400 MODULES NEW PARTS COMPLETE WITH IC'S I a- ^^ cr>* 800 Main Board 1$ fj* 800/400 CPU with GTIA >5 800 10K"B" OS. Module CAT^u 400 Main Board IzMV^n .400 Rower Supply Board

CX853 16K Ram Module $14.50 800 Power Supply Board $14.50

INTEGRATED CIRCUITS

CPU CO14806

POKEY C012294

PIA C014795

» .^„"GTIA CO14805

»y1 50. ANTIC C012296

tl. -CPU CO10745

' -PIA CO10750

FACH 'CPU C014377

•^^^■^ DELAY C060472

2600 TIA . . CO10444

PIA C012298

•CPU 6507

PIA 6532

RAM 6810

CPU 6502B

1050 O.S. ROM $13.50

2793 1050 FDC $19.50

1050 5713 STEP DRIVER . . $5.25

0021697-086 C012296 except or 130XE

^C011299C 810 ROM ...... $10.00

1050 MECHANISM

Factory fresh TANDON mechs. make difficult repairs a snap. Units are complete with Head, Stepper, Spindle motor, belt etc. Just plug in, no difficult alignments or adjust- ments requirecT « yi -7 en

CROSSCHECK GAME

A strSegy Crossword gamo from Dateeott. Siiwpen your wits wtn this exciting gama tfial provides ttie ullimale challenge for crossword aid word-game tans. Alcws up to four players or teams to corrpele. Clues vary from easy to difficult, making Crosscheck a game the whole family can play. Works VMth all 8 bit ^ . .— m Alwi.4a<DISK $"10 50

XL 40 PIN LSI CHIP SET

A Complete set of 40 Pin Large Scale Integrated Circuits for your 800XL, 600XL or 1200XL computer. Great for quk:k repajrsl Set contains one each of the * . ^.^ qc I following: CPU, GTI A, $ 1 f-v ^^^ I ANTIC, PIA AND POKEY. ''-'

REPAIR MANUALS

SAIvIS Service Manuals for the following units contain schematics, parts listings, labelled photographs showing the location of checkpoinls and morel A special section gives oscilloscope and logic probe readings allowing you to narrow the malfunction down to a specific chip or transistorl 800, 800XL, 130XE, 400, 1025

and 1050 $19.50 each

520ST Service Manual. $37.50

MISC. HARDWARE

13 Pin Serial I/O Cable .... $5.95 1050 Track 0 Sensor . . . $8.50 Paddle Controllers (Pair) . . $6.50

1030 Power Pack $9.50

Fastchip for 800/400 . . $15.50 800256KUpgrateWoRam. $8935 Supra2400 Baud Modsm. . $159.95 SlickStick Joystick . . . $7.95 850 or PR IVlodem Cable $14.50 850 or PR Printer Cable $14.50

P;R: Connection $65.00

Printer Interface $39.95

I/O 13 Pin PC mount . . . $4.50

I/O 13 Pin Plug Kit $4.50

ST 6' Drive Cable $14.00

820 Printer Mechanics. . $9.50 Joystick Extension Cable $5.00 30 Pin Cartridge Socket . $4.50 810 Door Latch Assy. . . $15.00

1027 Transformer CALL

U.S. Doubler $29.95

ST Modem Cable $14.50

STDtivBOonnectrplug. .. $650

XiyXE POWER SUPPLY PACK

eOOXL,600XL, 1XXE 6SXE, IKE GAME SYSTEM

$3500!

130XE KEYBOARD each

Complele Replacement Keyboard Assently. Just Plug h. Abo (or 65XE

POWER PACKS

Exact replacement transformer for 800/400, 1050, 810, 1200XL, 850, XF551 and 1020 units. Re- places older "weaker" units. Atari part#C017945. $ ^y| 50

14'

PROGRAMERS REFERENCE GUIDE

While written for the 800, this out of print manual has tons of hard to find programming information that applies to all 8 bit Atari computers. A must for the serious programmer! 4: '4 yl 95

494 PAGES *T'"^''

M4'

COMPUTER BOOKS

Hxkerbook $5.00

InskJe Atari Basic $5.00

Atari BasB Ref. manual. §5.00 How to 6502 Program. . . $5.00 Programmers Ret. Guide $14.95 Basic- Faster & Better... $22.95 Assembly Language Guide $19.95 XE Users Handbook .... $17.95 XL Users Handbook .... $17.95 Advaiced Programming $1950 Write Your Own Games. $5.00 Mapping the Atari $18.50

SERIAL I/O CABLE

High Quality, 13Pin $5.95

MAC-65 CARTRIDGE

6502 Machine language Macro- Assembler. First class tool for serious programmers. . . $59.95

ATARI 850 INTERFACE

Bare PC Board with parts list and

crystal $7.50

Board & all plug in IC's . . . $39.50

PR: CONNECTION

Serial'Parallel Interface for connecting rrradems and printers $65.00

BASIC CARTRIDGE

Exact replacement for 800/400/1205XL $15.00

EPROM CARTRIDGES

I6K Eprom Board with case. Specify dual 2764 or single 27128 s^le. Gold contacts $6.95

SOFTWARE

Pac-Man Cartridge $4.00

Deluxe Invaders Cart. . . $4.00 Journey to the Planets . . $4.00

Dig Dug Disk $9.95

Pole Position Disk . . . $9.95

Choplifter Cart $10.00

Silicon Warrior Cart. ... $12.50

SpringerCart.. $5.00

Fun with Art Cart. $10.00

Donkey Kong Cart $5.00

Eastern FrontCart $10.00

PILOT Language Cart. . .$17.50 Cut & Paste W.P. Disk . $17.50

DropZone Disk $12.50

Edt/Asm Cart, vtfo man. . . $15.00

Home Wing manager $750

Clowns & Balloons Disk . $7.50 Musics Pilot Ed. Disk. . . . $5.00

Chambers/Zorp Disk $5IX)

Pathfinder Disk $5.00

Match Racer Dsk $5.00

Encounter/Questar Dsk. $5.00

Baja Buggies Disk $5.00

Commutation Disk . . . $5.00

Stratos Disk $9.95

Fractions Tutorial Disk. . $5.00 Decimals Tutorial Dsk. . . $5.00

Reading Skills Dsk $5.00

Fun in Learning Dsk $7.50

Fun in Numbers Dsk . . $7.50 Honey Craze Math (D) $7.50 The Factory Dsk .... $20.00

Gorf Cart. 800/400 $4.00

Atlantis Ca-t 800/400 . . $4.00 Wombats Adventure (D) $5.00

MAC-65 O.S.S $59.95

ACTION O.S.S $59.95

■DATASOFT DISKS - Gre^ Prices - ai<eal Software

Mercenary Dsk $12.50

The Goonies Dsk $12.50

Conan Dsk $1250

Saracen Dsk $9.95

Crosscheck Dsk $12.50

Never Ending Story (D) $12.50 Gunslinger Disk. XL^XE $9.95 Letter Wizard Work Processor with Spell-Checker. (D) $32.95

600XL64K UPGRADE

Easy to Install Internal modif'icalion allows SOOXL to run dtek drive and al 800XL software. Includes all parts and detailed Instructions. Soldering required to instal 3 lumpers.. $29.95

SERVICE RATES

Flat Servk» Rales tielcw include

Parts & Labor, 60 D^ Warrant/.

800 Computer . . . $49.50

850 Interface $39.50

810 Disk Drive . . $69.50 1050 Disk Drive . . $75.00 800 Keyboard only. $25.00

Include $7.00 return shipping and surance. Include $4,00 shipping r BOO keyboard repair only.

CALL TOLL FREE 1-800-551-9995

IN CALIF. OR OUTSIDE U.S. CALL 415-352-3787

AMERICAN TECHNA-VISION

Mall Order: 15338 Inverness St., San Leandro, Ca. 94579 Repair Center: 2098 Pike Ave., San Leandro, Ca. 94577

Terms: NO MINIMUM ORDER. We accept money orders, personal checks or C.O.D.s. VISA, Master/Card okay. Credit cards restricted to orders over $20.00. No personal checks on C.O.D. - Shipping: $4.00 shipping and handling on orders under $150.00. Add $2.25 for C.O.D. orders. In Canada total $6.00 for shipping and handling. Foreign shipping extra. Calif, residents include 7% sales tax. All items guaranteed 30 days from date of delivery. All sales final..

Ptk:«» aubjiict to changa »H>out notca. Sand SASE tcr tM prica W. AUrl to tag. »«l«ii>k o( Aun Corp.

Mystery at the Birthday Party. Page 28

Flower Garden. Page 40

Cover Photography: Georgia Solkov Model: Dwight Been

SUPER DISK BONUS! ^ntk Disassembler PUIS 2 DISK EXTRAS... —Deluxe Adventure ||eator "" —Lightspeed C fractals

The ATARI Resource

FEATURES

NOVEMBER 1988, VOL. 7, NO. 7

20 DR. BRILLIANT'S INCREDIBLE ATARI BRAIN TRANSPLANTS

by Lee Brilliant, M.D. All about 8-bit memory upgrades 26 RAMDISK SENTRY by Glenn Smith

Save your flies re-install without re-formatting type-In Software D

28 MYSTERY AT THE BIRTHDAY PARTY by Neal Engeldow

Family fiin with your Atari no progrmming required 31 SUPER SIEVE by Denis DeVries

Prime numbers found lightning-fast type-In Software D

33 DOC PRINT-PRO by Roland Fetzer

Onscreen documentation printed minus garbage 35 8-BIT TOOLBOX by Charles Cherry and Chester Cox

The Mouse, Disk Emulator, Print Buffer, 8-Bit Projects Book, Picture Plus

39 LOTTOPIK by Dr. John Ferguson

Pick the winning numbers with your Atari type-In Software D

40 FLOWER GARDEN by Allan Moose and Marian Lorenz ^^ Instant "rose equation" graphics for 8-bit type-In Software B

44 LIGHTSPEED C by Matthew Rotcliff Move up to high-level programming 47 PRINT SHOP SHAREWARE BONANZA by Charles Cherry Icon Printer, Video Jukebox and four more. . .

DEPARTMENTS

GAME OF THE MONTH 14 DIMENSION WIZARDS by Bernard Crozier

FEATURE APPLICATION 16 PERSONAL POCKET CALENDAR by Jim Hodny

I SUPER DISK BONUS I

type-In Software I type-In Softtvare I

27 ANTIC DISASSEMBLER by David Kibler

[extra SUPER DISK BONUY) 34 DELUXE ADVENTURE CREATION KIT by Stephen Stout 18 PRODUCT REVIEWS Calc Magic, Spell Magic, RAMbrandt

SOFTWARE LIBRARY

65 SEVEN EASY-TO-TYPE LISTINGS

ST RESOURCE

50 STELLAR CRUSADE by Steve Panak ST vs. PC Review

54 ST NEW PRODUCTS

55 TEDDY BEAR MATH by Stephen Everman and Paul Pratt I ST Disk Bonus: | Bouncing Bruin Teaches Addition

58 ST GAMES GALLERY

10 I/O BOARD

1 1 NEW PRODUCTS

63 SHOPPERS MARKET

78 CLASSIFIED ADS

79 ADVERTISERS INDEX

80 TECH TIPS

^^tic— The Atari Resource (ISSN 0745-2527) is published monthly by Antic Publishing. Editorial offices arc located at 544 Second Street, San Francisco, CA 94107. ISSN 0745-2527. Second Clxss Postage paid at San Francisco, California and additional mailing offices. POSTMASTER: Send address change lo Antic, The Atari Resource, PO. Box 1919, Marion, OH 43306. Subscriptions: One year (12 issues) 128. Canada and Mexico add S8, other foreign add $12. Disk Edition (12 issues with disks) 559-95, all foreign add S25. (California residents add 6'/2 % sales tax for disk subscriptions. Editorial submis- sions should include text and program listings on disk and paper. Submissions will be relumed if stamped, self-addressed mailer is supplied. Antic assumes no responsibility for unsolicited editorial material. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Antic is a registered trademark of Antic Publishing, Inc An Information Technology Company Copyright ©1988 by Antic Publishing. All Rights Reserved. Printed in USA.

A«^^ic

James Capparell

Publisher

John Taggart

Associate Pttblisher

EDITORIAL

Nat Friedland

F.ditor

ChaHes Jackson

Tichnical and Online Editor

Gregg Peoilman

Assistant Editor

Heidi Btumbaugh

Programs Editor

Carolyn Cushman

Editorial Coordinator

ART

Undo Topscott

Creative Services Director

Gregory Silvo

Art Director

Jim Worner

Associate Art Director

Georgio Solkov

Phnto Editor

Julianne Ososke Collateral Printing Coordinator

Kote Murphy Advertising Production Coordinator

CIRCULATION

Manny Sowit Director

Amber Lewis Subscription Coordinator

Dennis Swan Distribution Coordinator

ADVERTISING

Phoebe Thompson Western Region (408) 356-4994

Michael Mooney MidWest Region (312) 679-1100

John Gorland

Eastern Region (617) 749-5852

Gail McColl

Sales Coordinator (415) 957-0886

ANTIC PUBLISHING, INC.

Jomes Copparell

President and Chairman of the Board

Donald F. Richord

Richard D. Capparella

Directors

Lee Isgur

Advisor to the Board

John Taggorf

Associate Publisher

John Cody

Controller

GENERAL OFFICES

(415)957-0886

544 Second Street, San Francisco, CA 94107

Credit Card Subscription and Cotalog Qrders

(800) 234-7001 Visa or Mastercard Only

Dealer Sales (800) 234-7123

SUBSCRIPTION CUSTOMER SERVICE

(800) 347-6969 Antic, P.O. Box 1919, Morion, OH 43306

EDITORIAL

Antic Readers Speak

The July 1988 Antic Editorial Survey revealed some signifi- cant shifts among our readers' concerns even though the overall picture of a "typical" Antic reader remains much the same as was first seen in the September 1985 survey. (Re- sults of that previous survey were published in the January 1986 Antic.) The main difference between the 1988 and 1985 surveys lilrai seems to be that now the pendulum swung back towards the majority of readers being primarily interested in Antic's own ready-to-use programs both type-ins and disk bonuses. Back in 1985, the most important parts of the magazine for a majority of readers appeared to be reviews and new product information.

Here are some of the numbers that led to this conclusion 50.3% of readers counted in the survey said they wanted more type-in programs and 52.9% wanted more disk-only bonus programs. But only 28.1% called for more non- program articles. Looking at the most popular specific categories, a solid 52% wanted more new product information while 48.5% wanted more product reviews. But an even higher 68.1%, wanted more type-in practical user pro- grams (55.8% called for more disk-only practical programs) while 67% wanted more type-in utility programs (55% voted for more disk-only utilities).

In general, readers want more or at least the same amount of just about everything they find in Antic. The two glaring exceptions are ST coverage (52.6% want less) and Atari-unrelated coverage (52% want less). And as we promised in last month's editorial about the early survey trends, the magazine has already taken a number of steps to give you more pages of Atari 8-bit pro- grams and news plus a monthly double-sided disk packed exclusively with 8-bit material.

Just as in 1985, the 1988 prototype Antic reader is an intermediate (66.1%) BASIC programmer (93. 9%) who owns an Atari XL/XE computer (58.5%) with a disk drive (87.4 %>), printer (84.2%) and modem (57%). An ST plus an 8-bit Atari is owned by 10.8%, and additional computer brands primarily PC compatibles are also owned by 10.8%.

There now seem to be a number of splits emei^ing between various ele- ments of the Antic readership. Most markedly, there is a highly vocal division between readers who want either less or more game programs. In the type-in action/arcade game category, 32.2% wanted less and 37.1% wanted the same amount as now ^wanting more was in third place with 26.9%.

Special thanks go to two Atari users groups, MACE of Michigan and APES of Louisiana, who sent in mass responses from their members. The 1988 survey compilation program was written by Technical/Online Editor Charles Jackson (who also wrote the 1985 compiler). Editorial Coordinator Carolyn Cushman compiled the results.

Antic would like to thank the 343 readers who responded to the 1988 editorial survey, a turnout that was hardly any less than the 1985 participation.

Nat Friedland Editor, Antic

A.NTIC, THE ATARI RESOURCE

^

Tramiel

Write-in

Overview

In the May 1988 Sixth Anniversary issue of Antic, we asked readers to send letters to Atari's chairman of the board, Jaclc Tramiel.

In the following weeks we received 54 photocopies of con- sumer letters and 43 copies of re- plies from Atari. About 65 % of the reader letters provided store ad- dresses and phone numbers. Atari generally replied to these letters that a nationwide dealer network was being established.

The other most frequent topic, appearing in 46% of the consumer letters, was a list of the Atari equip- ment owned by the writers. About 40% of the responses from Atari included a list of available 8-bit merchandise; 35% said that the suggestions or information provided by the consumer were being forwarded appropriately; and 33% simply thanked the con- sumers for their suggestions.

Comments in the reader letters ranged widely from "You don't care" and "Deliver what you promise" to praises of "Great job."

Unfortunately, the Antic readers who took the trouble to write let- ters could have been more specific in telling Tramiel what they really want. Few of the writers actually discussed what would influence them to buy more Atari products, or even specified something that they wanted to buy. From this. Antic has learned that next time we try a campaign like this, we must try to make it clearer to readers that better results might be obtained by telling Atari how you use your equipment to help you, as well as just listing what you own.-GREGG PEARLMAN

Survey '88 Results

EXPERIENCE LEVEL

KEY: MORE

SAME SUHHIiiim LESS I

PROGRAMS

0

20

40

60

TYPE-IN PROGRAMS

Practical Uses

Utilities

Short Tech Tips

Educational

Graphics

Business

Music/Sound

Beginner's Easy

Personal Finance

Action/Arcade Games

Strategic Games

Adventure Games

|i«

NOVEMBER 1988

BONUS DISK

0 20 40 60

DISK BONUS PROGRAMS

Practical Uses

Utilities

Graphics

Educational

Business

Action/Arcade Games

Personal Finance

Music/Sound

Adventure Games

Strategic Games

LANGUAGES

ARTICLES

20 40 60 80

ARTICLES W/O PROGS

8-bit Coverage

New Product News

Product Reviews

Disk-Only Bonuses

Contests/Challenges

User Group Bios

Printers

Online

Company/Personal Bio

ST Coverage

Atari-Unrelated Prod

0 20 40 60 80 100

Basic

Assembler

AaiON!

Logo

C

Forth

No Languages

EQUIPMENT OWNED

0 20 40 60 80 100

8-bit only

XL/XE only

ST and 8-bit

XEGS

Mega

1 1 1 1

I 1

■""^BH

.

PERIPHERALS OWNED

0 20 40 60 80 100

1 1 1 1 1 1

Modem

Printer

All Three

1 1 1 1 1 1 II 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

S^H^^H^^H 1

1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1

Differences in interests between longtime Atari users and relative newcomers were shown in the write-in comments. On many of the same topics, different readers wrote in that they wanted either more coverage or less coverage. A

ANTIC. THE ATARI RESOURCE

ComputerVisions

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A

STORE HOURS TUE - FRI 10am - 6pm

SAT - 10am - 5pm CLOSED SUN -MON

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ASSEN REV BASIC REV MPU 6507 PIA 6532

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1771 FDC 1050 ROM

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OR 3.00 IN QTY OF 10

A 800 CPU 6502 RAM 6810 A 810 ROM C POKEY 800 ANTIC PIA 6502 OS ROMS (499B-599B)

OR 4.00 IN QTY OF 10

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NEW PRINTED CIRCUIT BOARDS WITH PARTS

800 MAIN WITH CHIPS 10.00

800 16K RAM 10.00

810 SIDE WITH D/S 15.00

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810 POWER 15.00

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MISCELLANEOUS

400/800 POWER PACK 10.00

800/810 POWER PACK 15.00 KLM 400/800 POWER PACK 5.00

1030 POWER PACK 10.00

800XL/XE POWER PACK 20.00

2600 POWER PACK 5.00

520ST POWER PACK 50.00

800 KEYBOARD 40.00

800XL KEYBOARD 25.00

130XE KEYBOARD 35.00

520ST KEYBOARD 75.00

1040ST KEYBORD 85.00

314/354 POWER 35.00

1040 POWER PCB 75.00

ATARI 810

ATARI 810 on Plate ATARI 810 W/HAP BSC 810

DISK DRIVES

140.00 (130.00) 100.00 ( 90.00) 220.00 (210.00) 140.00 (120.00)

ATARI XF551

199.95 INDUS GT

225.00

PRICES IN BRACKETS DO NOT INCLUDE I/O OR POWER PACK

DERE ATARI

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FIELD SERVICE MANUALS

ATARI 400/800, 810 ATARI 800XL, 850,

1025, 1050 SAMS 800,800XL,

130XE, 1050 SAMS 520ST

25.00 EACH

20.00 EACH

19.95 EACH 35.00

RUN MAC SOFTWARE ON YOUR ST

HAGIC SAC 119.95

TRANSLATOR 279.95

MAC ROMS 39. 95

PRT DRIVERS/FIKDER 44.95

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ATARI 800 100.00 MPP-1150 INTERFACE 54.95

ATARI 800XL 119.95 MPP-1151 INTERFACE 74.95

ATARI 130XE 149.95 ATARI 850 125.00

DIAGNOSTICS

1050 DIAG. DISK 20.00 810/1050 DIAG. CART 25.00

SALT 800XL CART 25.00 SALT 400/800 CART 25.00

5-1/4" ALIGNMENT 40.00 3-1/2" SS ALIGNMENT 50.00

HAPPY ENHANCEMENT VER . 7.1 810 OR 1050 - $99.95

ST INTEGRATED CIRCUITS

DISK CONTROLLER WD1772 25.00

PHOTO COUPLER PC900 2.95

YAMAHA SOUND CHIP 10.00

6850 ACIA 3 .95

68000-8 CPU 27.00

KEYBOARD CHIP 15.00

DMA CONTROLLER

MMU

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GLUE CHIP

68901 MPF

26.00 28.00 26.00 28.00 16.00

ATARI XE GAME MACHINE $139.95

INCLUDES MISSILE COMMAND, FLIGHT SIMULATOR II, BUG HUNT, LIGHT GUN, JOYSTICK, BASIC, AND 64K OF MEMORY WITH A REMOVEABLE KEYBOARD. ADD A DISK DRIVE AND PRINTER FOR A COMPLETE HOME COMPUTER SYSTEM!

WE CARRY A FULL LINE OF CARTRIDGES FOR THE XE

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All merchandise has been tested and reconditioned and is in like-new condition except where noted. 30 day warranty .

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$7.95

INCL HANDLER DISK USE WITH BASIC & BOOKKEEPER

ATARI

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$24.95 - IN BOX (29.95 WITH RECON KEYPAD)

DISKETTES

AS LOW AS 20 CENTS

10 FOR $4.00

100 FOR $29.95

1000 FOR $200

MOST ARE UNNOTCHED

WITH OLD SOFTWARE

SHIPPING INFORMATION - Prices do not include shipping and handling. Add $5.00 for small Items ($8.00 Min. for Canada). Add $8.00 for dislt drive. Calif, res. include 7% sales tax. Mastercard and Visa accepted if your telephone Is listed in your local phone directory. Orders mav be pre-paid with money order, cashier check, or personal check. Personal checks are held for three weeks before order is processed. C.O.D orders are shipped via UPS and must be paid with cash, cashier check or money order. International and APO orders must be pre-paid with cashier check or money order. $20.00 minimum on all orders. All sales are final - no refunds - prices are subject to change. Phone orders accepted TUESDAY THROUGH FRIDAY from 10:00 am to 6:00 pm PST.

Wo carry a complete line of ATARI products and have a large public domain library. Write or call (or free catalogue. (408) 749-1003 TUE - FRI 10AM - 6 PM

PRICES SUBJECT TO CHANGE WITHOUT NOTICE

ALL SALES ARE FINAL

I/O BOARD

CODEMAKER FIX

There is a minor problem with Text Screen Codemaker {Antic, }\Ay 1988). As the pro- gram stands, it adds an increment to the line number (LN), even if there's a blank line. For example, if you set the line num- ber to begin at 100 with an increment of 10, but you start your text on line 5, the the first line number of your source code will be 140.

To correct this problem, remove the LN = LN-fIN from line 20255 and add it to line 20275, so the new lines read: 20255 FOR Y=0 TO 22:C=Y*CC-Hl 20275 LN = LN-l-lN:GRAPHICS O-.POSITION LM,4-? LN;

Gary Golaszewski Nanticoke, PA

COLDSTART

In your June 1987 Tech Tips you published a USR caU—USR(52487)— which ostensi- bly causes a coldstart reboot. I assume this works only on an XL or XE, because it makes my trusty 800 crash, leading me to believe that the published call is illegal. Clay HalliweU West Plains, MO

Thanks for letting us know. It turns out that the statement X = USR(52487) was a misprint! The correct statement is X= USR(58487) which refers to COLDSV, the coldstart entry point.— kHT\C ED

SEGA CREDIT

Matthew Ratcliff would like to credit Paul Wilson of the St. Louis Atari Computer En- thusiasts for the Sega Light Gun modifi- cation discussed in his First Look Inside the XE Game System (Antic, August 1988). The correction to the modification is needed. The Sega gun's trigger contains a normally-closed switch. The XEGS re- quires replacement with a normally-open switch which should be easily found at Ra- dio Shack stores. To exchange the switches, follow the instructions in the ar- ticle.—ANTIC ED

GUAM'S NOT FOREIGN!

1 live in Guam. Recently 1 ordered soft- ware from a mail order company, that ad- vertises in Antic. But instead of software, the company sent back my order along with the message that "international and APO orders must be prepaid with U.S. money order"

Guam isn't international! It's a United States Territory, specifically included in the United States domestic postal coverage. The civilian residents of Guam are not foreigners. My address is neither an APO or FPO address. It's a normal, domestic United States Post Office box number in a place where U.S. law applies. At least I've never had any trouble when ordering from The Catalog.

For trivia buffs, I want to mention that there are at least three other sovereign na- tions now included in the United States domestic postal system, as well as two Commonwealths and three Territories. Na- tions: Republic of the Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia and Repub- lic of Palau. Commonwealths: Puerto Rico and the Northern Mariana Islands. Terri- tories: United States Virgin Islands, Ameri- can Samoa and Guam.

Richard Davis Agana, Guam

NEWSROOM COMPATIBLE?

I have an old Atari 800 that has been up- graded to 288K. Can I use Springboard Software's Newsroom on my machine, or, if not, can the program be modified? Ben Brockman Las Vegas, NV

Sorr)i, it's not a matter of memory SIZE that prevents Newsroom from working on the Atari 800 it's because of differ- ent memory LOCATIONS used in the XL/XE models, and we don 't know of any modifications. But by the way, Spring- board says they are still working to over- come the incompatibility problems with the Atari 850 interface reported by some users.— AH\\C ED

BAD SIGNAL

If you happen to want to simulate bad tel- evision reception, type in the following short program:

10 CHBAS = 756:SDMCTL = 559:CRSIN H = 752

20 X = PEEK(CHBAS):Y=PEEK(SDMCT L);? CHRS(125):POKE SDMCTL,0:POKE CRS1NH,1

30 POKE CHBAS,212

40 FOR 1 = 2 TO 37:FOR J = 2 TO 21: POSITION IJ:? 'A":NEXT J:NEXT I

60 POKE CHBAS,212:REM START IT!

70 POKE SDMCTL,Y:FOR 1=1 TO 5000:NEXT I:? CHR»(125):POKE CHBAS, X:POKE CRSINH,0

Douglas Blackwell Scarborough, Ontario Canada

ATARI MAGAZINE

In your editorial in the July, 1988 issue of Antic, you state that "At this writing, Antic is the only magazine covering all Atari computer models every month." In West Germany we have the German- language Atari Magazin for all Atari com- puters. It was first published in January

1987 as a bi-monthly, but since March

1988 it has been published monthly.

Hans Christian Boas Hannover-Muenden West Germany

It was just about "At this writing" that Atari Magazin went monthly. Thanks for updating us.—AHT\C ED

Antic welcomes your feedback, but we regret that the large volume of mail makes it impossible for the Editors to reply to everyone. Although we do respond to as much reader correspon- dence as time permits, our highest pri- ority must be to publish I/O answers to questions that are meaningful to a substantial number of readers.

Send letters to: Antic I/O Board, 544 Second Street, San Francisco, CA 94101.

ANTIC, THE ATARI RESOURCE

COMPUTER EAIRES INTRODUCE THE UNITED COASTS OF AMERICA.

The Computer Faires— the longest running, largest, most important shows on their respective coasts for professional small systems users.

These knowledgeable enthusiasts can be found only in these two regions of the country. And they can find the products and services they need through programs only Computer Faires offer:

Vertical Market Matching unites specialized sellers and buyers: companies offering systems and software for vertical markets and people involved in finance, medicine, manufac- turing, law. education, engineering, construction and other vertical markets.

Product Matcliing makes it easy for attendees to find exhibitors displaying upgrades, add-ons. and enhancements for key product groups.

And in the Computer Faire Conference sessions, the industry's gurus and insiders share information on the latest techniques and insights.

To be sure you experience the best of both coasts, fill out and send in the coupon immediately, or call (617) 449-6600. extension 5028, to reserve your exhibit space.

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$79.95 $29.95 RAMDISK "WRITE-PROTECTORI" $29.95

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Previously we listed these products under our FIRESALE ad but many of our customers feared that the software items might be smoke or water damaged. They're NOT! All of the items listed below are BRAND NEW.. .only their literature or packing may have slight cosmetic imperfections. All items are fully warrantledl Quantities are limited! No rainchecksl

1. PILL (without cose)

2. SUPER PILL [without case)

3. XL FIX ROM

4. ULTRA MENU/DOS

5. DISKCRACKER (Newest version)

6. ELECTRONIC PHANTOM SECTOR MAKER DELUXE

7. RICHMANS 80 COLUMN WORD PROCESSOR B. MIRACLE (Disk only Version of Impossible) 9. IMPOSSIBLE for 800 or 800XL

10. XL MATE

11. COMPACTOR

12. KLONE II (Generic HAPPY backup)

13. SILENCER

14. BUCK PATCH (MASTER) 16. BUCK PATCH DATA DISKS 1 & 2

•Order 5 items or more and we will pay the freightl

These SPECIALS are for C.S.S. customers only - NO DEALER DISCOUNTS NO RAINCHECKS

- LIMITED QUANTITIES

LIMITED

NORMALLY

SPECIALS

$70

S19

80

22

70

19

30

19

50

19

60

35

60

29

70

19

150

69

30

15

30

15

100

75

30

19

50

25

20

10

NEW PRODUCTS

Return the favor. When you call a manufacturer or supplier about a product you 've seen advertised or otherwise mentioned in ANTIC, please tell them so. This will help us to con- tinue to bring you the latest informa- tion about products that will make your Atari computer an even more valuable investment in the future. —ANTIC ED

NAPOLEON IN RUSSIA II, GRAPHICS COMPANION^

(entertainment software) (Datasoft) Electronic Arts 1820 Gateway Drive San Mateo, CA 94404 (800) 245-4525 48K disk

Graphics Companion II ($19-95) is an advanced version of Graphics Com- panion that's designed for use with Video Title Shop. With a VCR, a video camera, your Atari and these two packages, any home video production can be given a real shot in the arm. Companion 11 includes six new charac- ter fonts plus new clip-art for school, business, sports, outdoors, holidays and more. Borders can surround entire background "canvases" or just a few words of text. All of these new fea- tures can be used with the Video Title Shop scroll, fizzle, fade, cycling and paint functions.

Napoleon in Russia— Borodino 1812 (824.95), received an Antic rave review when it was first released by Krentek as Borodino! This outstanding watgame recreates the pivotal battle which led to the overthrow of Na- poleon.

CASIO SF-4000 _i^.^—

(electronic diary)

Casio, Inc.

570 Mt. Pleasant Avenue

P.O. Box 7000

Dover, NJ 07801

(201) 361-5400

$109.95.

The Casio SF-4000 is a "digital diary'

with a large, six-line LCD screen that displays any fiill month from 1901 to 2099. The schedule display indicates month, date, day and year. You can en- ter names, phone numbers, schedules, appointment notes, etc., into the SF- 4000's 32K memory. The search func- tion gives you six different ways to re- trieve and store information in se- conds. The SF-4000 also functions as a full-featured calculator with indepen- dent memory, percentage, square root and full-floating decimal. The SF-4000 is 5/8 X 3 X 5 inches, weighs six ounces and operates on three lithium batteries.

ADVANCED RACING SYSTEM .i^.^_^«M-

(handicapping software) Software Exchange 2681 Peterboro Road P.O. Box 5382 West Bloomfield, MI 48033 (313) 626-7208 $64.95, 48K disk

Use your Atari to handicap thorough- bi«d, harness, quarter-horse and grey- hound ($74.95) racing. These Ad- vanced Racing System packages use past performance data including race length, post position, speed ratings and variant, times, odds, class, posi- tions at die 1/8, 1/2, 3/4, stretch and finish positions. At most, you'll enter 17 data items per horse or dog to per- form the statistical analysis for fore- casting the outcme of a race. These systems are claimed to have 70% to 80% success.

THE CONVERTER ^■^^■^

(print utility) No Frills Software 800 East 23rd Street Kearney, NE 68847 (308) 234-6250 $19.95, 48K disk

The Converter lets you convert Print Shop, Newsroom and Hi-Tech's Award- Ware and Print Power icons in the fol- lowing directions Print Shop to Hi- Tech, Print Shop to Newsroom, Hi-Tech to Newsroom. The Converter also lets you enhance your Print Shop icons to improve their appearance for the "larger format" picture programs.

JUMPSTART ^..i.^^^

(hardware) logic One P.O. Box 18123 Cleveland, OH 44118 $16.95, Atari XL/XE

Jumpstart lets you restart your XL or XE at any time without interrupting power. At the touch of a button, you can release any lockup or crash, or stop games or programs for an instant reboot. Jumpstart requires no tools or soldering.

MONTY PLAYS SCRABBLE »

(electronic game) Ritam Corp. P.O. Box 921 Fairfield, lA 52556 (515) 472-8262 $9995

If you can't get enough of high- powered Scrabble competition, Monty Plays Scrabble ($99-95) is a Scrabble- only game with a 24,000-word vocabulary that's expandable to 56,000 words with two Advanced Vocabulary Modules that cost $2995 each.

New Products notices are compiled by the Antic staff from information provided by the products' manufac- turers. Antic welcomes such submis- sions, but assumes no responstWAiy for the accuracy of these notices or the performance of the products listed.

NOVEMBER 1988

11

When you want to talk Atari

XL/XE HARDWARE

INTERFACES

ICD

P:R Connection 61.99

Printer Connection 41 .99

Supra

1150 39.99

1151 (1200 XL) 40.99

Xetec

Graphix Interface 38.99

Atari

850 Interface 109.00

COMPUTERS

CMO PACKAGE EXCLUSIVE

Atari 800XL & XF551 Disk Drive

w/5 Undocumented ROMS Asteroids, Defender, Missile Command, QIX, Star Raiders $279

Atari

800XL 89.99

130XE 139.00

XL/XE ENHANCEMENTS

Axlon 32K Mem. Board (400/800) .19.99 Atari 80 Column Card 79.99

MODEMS

Atari

8X212 300/1200 (ST) 89.99

XMM301 42.99

Anchor

VM520 300/1200 ST DIr. Con 119.00

Avatex

1200 HC 89.99

2400 159.00

Supra

2400 Baud XUXE or ST 169.00

2400 Baud (no software) 149.00

MONITORS

Magnavox

CM8505 14" Composite/RGB/TTL 199.00

ST HARDWARE

ATARI 520 ST FM ^^^^ RGB/Color System $789

Includes: 520 ST FM with 3V2" drive,

mouse & 1224 color monitor.

SMI 24 Monochrome Monitor. . . .179.00

SMI 224 RGB Color Monitor 329.00

Gail For Current Information On The Entire ST Linei

DRIVES

Atari

ST 314 DS/DD 219.00

XF551 Drive (XUXE) 179.00

SHD204 20 Meg Hard Drive 599.00

Supra *.**«,^

30 Meg Hard Drive $689

I.B.

51/4" 40 Tracl< (ST) 219.00

51/4" 80 Tracl< (ST) 279.00

LCD.

FA»ST 20 Meg 629.00

FA»ST 30 Meg 869.00

FA»ST Dual Hard Drives Call

Indus

GTS 100 31/2" DS/DD (ST) 199.00

GT 1000 51/4" DS/DD (ST) 209.00

GT Drive (XL/XE) 189.00

Supra

FD-10 10MB Removable Floppy

w/SCSI 899.00

20 Meg Hard Drive (ST) 579.00

20 Meg Hard Drive (XL/XE) 689.00

PRINTERS

Atari XDM121

LQ (XL/XE) $1 89

XM-M8OI XUXE Dot Matrix.... 199.00

XM-M804 ST Dot Matrix 199.00

XDM 121 Letter Qlty. XL/XE 209.00

Brother

M-1109 100 cps Dot Matrix 169.00

M-1509 180 cps Dot Matrix 389.00

HR-20 22rps Daisywheel 339.00

Citizen

120D 120 cps Dot Matrix 149.00

180D 180 cps Dot Matrix 179.00

Premier-35 35 cps Daisywheel . . 549.00 Epson

LX-800 150 cps, 80 col 189.00

Hi-80 4 pen plotter 269.00

FX-850 264 cps, 80 col Call

FX-1050 264 cps, 132 col Call

LQ-500 180 cps, 24-wire Call

LQ-850 330 cps, 80 col Call

LQ-1050 330 cps, 132 col New

NEC

P2200 pinwriter 24-wire 379.00

P5200 pinwriter 24-wire 599.00

P5300 pinwriter 132 col 799.00

OI<idata

Okimate 20 color printer 1 29.00

ML-182 +120 cps, 80 column . .229.00 ML-320 + 300 cps, 80 column. .379.00

ML-390 + 270 cps, 24-Wire 539.00

Panasonic

KX-P1080i 144 cps, 80 col 169.00

KX-P1091i 194 cps, 80 col 199.00

Star lUlicronics

NX-1000 140 cps, 80 column . . .179.00

NX-15 120 cps, 132 column 319.00

Toshiba

P321-SL 216 cps, 24-wire 499.00

WE SHIP 90% OF ALL ORDERS WITHIN 24 HOURS

SELECT FROM OVER 3000 PRODUCTS

COMPUTER MAIL ORDER

you want to talk to us.

XL/XE SOFTWARE

AcC6SS

Leaderboard Golf 13.99

Accolade

Hardball 19.99

Atari

Atariwriter Plus 35.99

Filemanager 1 1 .99

Music Painter 11.99

LOOSE/UNBOXED XL/XE ROM CARTS

$3*9 ea. or 5 for $1499

Includes: Space Invaders, Star Raiders, Missile Command, Asteroids, Pac Man, Galaxian, Defender, Qix

Atari Program Exchange

Misc. Programs (cassettes) at 1.99

Broderbund

Graphics Library I, II, III 14.99

Printshop 26.99

Datasoft

Alternate Reality (City) 23.99

221 Baker St 20.99

Electronic Arts

Auto Duel 29.99

Firebird

Guild of Thieves 19.99

Silicon Dreams 19.99

Jewels of Darkness 19.99

Microprose

Top Gunner 16.99

F-15 Eagle Strike 21.99

Silent Service 22.99

Origin Systems

Ultima 4 36.99

Roklyn SPECIAL

Anti-Sub/Journey to Planet . . . (ea.) 3.99

Strategic Simulations

Colonial Conquest 24.99

Gemstone Warrior 1 1 .99

Sublogic

Scenery Arizona 14.99

X-Lent

Typesetter 22.99

Printshop Interface 21.99

ACCESSORIES

MD1-M SS/DD 51/4" 8.49

MD2-DM DS/DD 5V4" 8.99

MF-1DDM SS/DD 3V2" 11.99

MF2-DDM DS/DD 31/2" 18.49

Sony

MD1D SS/DD 51/4" 6.99

MD2D DS/DD 5Va" 7.99

MFD-1 DD SS/DD 3V2" 1 1 .99

MFD-2DD DS/DD 3V2" 17.99

Allsop Disk Holders

Disk File eO-SVA" 9.99

Disk File 30-3V2" 9.99

Curtis

Emerald 39.99

Safe Strip 19.99

Universal Printer Stand 14.99

Tool Kit 22.99

ICD

BBS Express (ST) 52.99

Sparta DOS Construction Set 28.99

US Doubler/Sparta DOS 47.99

Real Time Clock 48.99

RamboXL 29.99

US Doubler 28.99

ST SOFTWARE

ACCOLADE

Ghost 528^3

Abacus

PC Board Designer 119.00

Access

Leaderboard Golf 22.99

Activision

Hacker II 28.99

Antic

CAD 3-D 29.99

Avant Garde

PC Ditto 59.99

Batteries Included

Degas Elite 37.99

ST SOFTWARE

Dataeast

Speed Buggy 24.99

Electronic Arts

Gridiron Football/Auto Duel, (ea.) 26.99

Isgur Portfolio 1 19.00

Firebird

Silicon Dreams 19.99

The Sentry/Tracker (ea.) 12.99

Infocom

Beyond Zork 34.99

Metacomco

ISO Pascal 59.99

Microprose

Gunship 28.99

F-15 Strike/Silent Service (ea.) . . .24.99 Miles Software

ST Wars 24.99

Mindscape

Road Runner 36.99

Mark of the Unicorn

PC Intercom 79.99

Mark Williams

C 119.00

Paradox

Wanderer (3D) 24.99

Progressive Computer

Graphic Artist 1,5 119.00

Psygnosis

Barbarian/Deep Space (ea.) 25.99

Soft Logik Corp.

Publishing Partner 54.99

Strategic Simulations

Questron II 37.99

Sublogic

Flight Simulator II 33.99

Timeworks

SwiftcalcA/Vordwriter (ea.) 45.99

Partner ST 29.99

TIMEWORKS Desktop Publisher

Word Perfect Corp

Word Perfect 4.1

$7999

.179.00

In the U.S.A. and in Canada

Call toll-free: 1-800-233-8950

Outside the U.S.A. call 717-327-9575, Fax 717-327-1217 Educational, Governmental and Corporate Organizations call toll-free 1-800-221-4283 CMO, 101 Reighard Ave., Dept. B6, Williamsport. PA 17701

MMC

MICFIDCOMPUTER MARKETING COUNCIL erf Ov Drva Ma-teunq tesoc-auin im

POLICY- Add 3% minimum $7^0) shippi" ™d hand" LaTger shipments may require additional charges. Personal and company checks require 3 weeks to clear For faster deUve^, use your credit card or send cashier's check or bank money order. Credit cards are not charged unW we sh,p. P«""fy'^«"'«,;„«^'^«"'^„^,f ^!^ Pf"^^ t^ AM or ces are U S A prices and are subject to change, and all items are subject to availability. Defective software will be replaced wrth me same item only. Hardware l^lbe replaced or repaired ^ discretion within the terms and limits of the manufacturer's warranty. We cannot guarantee compatibility. All sales are final and returned

shipments are subject to a restocking fee. We are not responsible for typographic or photographic errors.

B611

TYPEIM

GAME OF THE MONTH

SOFmRE

Dimension Wizards

Two-player challenge from Trinidad. By Bernard Cozier

The gods have adjourned af- ter casting the warring colonies of black and white soldiers into a state of sus- pended animation and scattering them across 20 different dimensions. \bu and your opponent ^wizards both must press your joystick but- tons to begin teleporting soldiers from your own colony back into a more fa- miliar dimension.

Type in Listing 1, DIMWIZ.BAS, check it with TYPO II and SAVE a copy before you RUN it. If you have trouble typing the special characters in lines that appear throughout the program, don't type them in. Instead, type in Listing 2, check it with TYPO n and SAVE a copy

When you RUN Listing 2, it creates these hard-to-type lines and stores them in a file caUed LINES.LST. To merge the two programs, disk users LOAD "D:.BAS" and then ENTER "D:LINES.LST." Be sure to SAVE the completed program before you RUN it.

Wizard 1 is the white cursor. Wiz- ard 2 is the black. Two joysticks are required. After both buttons have been pressed, a sound will indicate teleportation to another dimension.

The site of a previous battle will ap- pear onscreen, with one to four dead warriors from each colony and four tohine "frozen" soldiers.

Vital statistics for Wizard 1 are dis- played at the top of the screen. The

14

/ffi

BWWfffWgfiii'PW*" ! . -,

Dimension Wizards is a challenging fast-action game for two players. Dodge the lightning bolts of your op- ponent while you desperately strive to teleport back home soldiers who Tvere banished from an Earth war by displeased ancient gods. This BASIC program works on 8-bit Atari com- puters w^ith at least 48K memory. A disk drive and two joysticks are also required.

same information categories are dis- played at the bottom of the screen for Wizard 2. These include the score, re- maining strength of the wizard, the number of lives each must save and

the current "charge" of your lightning bolt which you'll fire against your op- ponent, hoping to nail him for 50 points.

Each wizard must try to touch his

ANTIC. TUn ATARI RESOIRCE

soldiers, whether they're dead or just frozen, thus returning them to their own dimension. Touching a dead warrior gives you 15 points and touching a live one gives you 30.

TRICKS FOR WIZARDS

After all the soldiers of one color have been returned to their home dimension, their wizard teleports to the battlefield in the next of the 20 dimensions. The other wizard must follow soon if he doesn't want to lose more men to the enemy.

Reaching your men isn't easy. Standing in your way are members of the opposing colony, frozen in place. You've got to move them out of the way, but the tremendous power of your touch will kill them. The prob- lem here is that this decreases the number of lives your opponent must save. But at least you get 15 points the war still goes on back in your home dimension, and every enemy

you kill helps toward your goal of winning.

Your opponent might not appreci- ate your wanton slaughter of his men, so he may get back at you by firing lightning bolts. A hit gives your op-

Teleport soldiers

back into a

more familiar

dimension.

ponent 50 points and decreases strength on both sides. However, even though your wizard can float above the obstacles, your lightning bolts can't pass through so your oppo- nent can hide behind the obstacles.

BOLTS OF DEATH

By touching a Pedestal of Power or a Shrine of Strength, you can increase (by twos) your lightning bolt charge to 9 and your strength to 99. This can help you prolong the game. Or you can bring a quick end to the game by firing extra-strength lightning bolts.

But after each bolt is fired, your charge drops back to 1, so try not to accumulate and waste Pedestals of Power unless you're deliberately preventing your opponent from using them.

When you reduce your opponent's strength to zero, the game is over The number of teleportations is tallied up, and whoever teleported the most is the wirmer So even if you kill your opponent, you could stJJJ Jose. A

Bernard Cozier is the first Antic author from Trinidad, West Indies.

Listing on page 67

Coming in December 1988

ANTIC

.•'»^ . i«^ t^^

*''>*'"^^M'*"

iCS

^e

st

^fl

ctts

50V

ttJ*'

DISK BONUS:

Antic Music Processor a spreadsheet of sounds

The most useful program for the Atari since Print Shop!*

FORMS GENERATOR

for the Atari 800, 800XL, 65XE, 130XE

Designed by Jeff Brenner, columnist lor Co,7?ptjfer Shopper magaztne, of "Applying The Alari" fame, and author of book and magazine articles in COMPUTE!, ANALOG and others LOOK WHAT YOU CAN DO WITH FORMS GENERATOR: Purchase merchandise by mail? Next time, send a customized purchase order form! Does your home or business ever need statements, in- voices, proposals, job worit orders, gift certificates, etc.? No problem! Use FORMS GENERATOR'S scrolling spreadsheet- style screen to design almost any form to suit your exact needs. What you see on-screen is what you get on paper! Use the text mode with any 80-column printer, or the high-res graphics mode with the Epson, Gemini/Star, Okidata, Panasonic or Prowriter for remarkably realistic forms. BUT THAT'S JUST THE BEGINNING: Once you've designed a form, you can program FORMS GENERA TOR to make all calculations automatically! Imagine: after you enter quantities, descriptions and prices, FORMS GENERATOR moves about the form calculating ex- tended prices, subtotals, and even the sales tax! Like magic! (Sample invoices included). You can also use FOAMS GENERATOR ior record keeping, since you can save filled forms to disk!

Read what our customers have written "Excellent easy to use and ran periecl(ly) " T W. Wetherslield. Connecticut: "I was most impressed with your FORMS I3ENERAT0R program "J E King. Soutli Carolina: "Love it'" C R Cortland. Ohio Our "down to planet Earth" price: Only $23 95 (product #ATA611).

For CQD. Orders CALL (516) 932-5330

Or send coupon below.

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Tiuenty-Fifth Centun^'"

D YES' Please rush me FORMS GENERATORtP'Oiuct | HATA611) with complete documentation. 90-day tree

replacement warranty, full customer service support and I

20-page Atari soflware catalog I am enclosing $23 95

$2.74 (for first class shipping and handling.) |

DCheck/IVIoney Order enclosed DC O D (addS2 50) J

Dt^asterCard O Visa I

c5\''

Softujore Division Dept. AT 1

2M fifth t^enue

Suite 501

Neuj Vorl< N V 1 000 1

'The Print Shop and A, Corp . respectively.

Address

City

Card No. Signature

-Zip

-Exp Date _Phone tt _

New York Slate residents add 8% sales tax tan are registered trademarks ol Broderbund Soltware and Alan Prices and availability subject to change without notice

TVPEIN

SOFTWARE

Personal Pocket Calendar

Wallet-size appointment monthly. By Jim Hodny

Personal Pocket Calendar creates handy appointment calendars and datebooks that are just the right mini- size to carry around conveniently.

Personal Pocket Calendar creates a pocket-size 4.5x5 inch monthly calendar and diary that will remind you of two appointments for each day of the month. Your reminder notes can be viewed, changed or deleted whenever you wish. Entire monthly calendars and notes can be stored on disk, reloaded, viewed onscreen, or printed on just about any Epson- compatible printer.

After you print a mini-calendar, it can be cut out and carried in a wallet or purse. On the calendar grid, you'll see each appointment or memo marked with an asterisk (*) on the date square. The complete memos or appointment notes are compactly printed alongside the ca.lendar.(Ifyou enjoy the convenience of Personal Pocket Calendar, you'll probably also like Appointment Calendar, a January 1986 Antic program that prints full-page monthly calendars showing your appointment notes in- side the day squares.— ANT \C ED)

Type in Listing 1, APNTCAL.BAS, check it with TYPO II and SAVE a

16

copy before you RUN it. GEniNG STARTED

If you have a printer other than an Epson or compatible, you may need to change lines 860, 880, 890, 910, 920, and 960 (which turns double- wide printing on, then off) to your own printer's codes for these func- tions. The program contains REMarks explaining which printer function must be changed on each of the above lines. Your printer manual should show the fimction codes you need.

The main menu has eight selec- tions. Normally you'd get started by pressing the [1] key to select "Create A New Calendar." At the question "Create calendar for what month? " you type a number between 1 and 12, representing your choice from Janu- ary (1) to December (12). If the num- ber of the month you select has one digit, you must press the [RETURN] key but this is not necessary if it's a two-digit number.

At the Year prompt, enter a four- digit year, such as 1988. The message

"Creating calendar please wait" will appear. When the main menu reap- pears, press [6] to display the chosen month. Then press any key to continue.

Press [4] to save the present calen- dar to disk and you'll see the words "Saving calendar." When the main menu reappears, press [7] to see that the calendar has been saved to disk and also how many more calendars can be saved to that disk. Then press any key to continue.

MEMO MAKER

To create or edit memos, press [3]. At the question "Appointment for which date?" type any number up to the number of days in that month. At the "Enter appointment/memo" prompt, type any amount of charac- ters up to the limit that fits in the boxed area. Then press [RETURN] and you'll be back at the date prompt. If you type the same date as before, you'll see your current appoint- ment/memo displayed. Type in a sec- ond note and press [RETURN].

The date question will appear again, so type the same date. Now you will see both previous appoint- ments/memos. You can only enter two appointments. So if you now type a third one, you will be prompted to select which of the earlier notes to replace. Or you can press [ESC] to go to the main menu. Press [CONTROL] [CLEAR] to delete

ANTIC, Till- ATARI RESOURCE

19BS J tJl_ Y

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lOOX edit, listings du« Fll«« Si In««rta Du*

Filam Du* Tr«n«iltlt -F 1 1 •■ Layout Listing*

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lOOX Board* Du* Cov*r to Fila Hou**

D**ign a«*ting w/Cdit

Ad Projvctlon Du* Start Map

Filas Back

Btart 1/4 pag* layout*

Sand Fila*

Exact-size sample printout of an Antic production calendar, as matte with Personal Pocket Calendar,

the contents of the current box and try it again. You will be prompted to press [RETURN] when you are done.

Press [6] . \bur calendar will be dis- played with two asterisks in the date that you chose previously. Press any key to continue.

With your printer turned on, press [5] . The calendar will now be printed with the appointments and memos you listed.

Press [8] to exit the program. You'll be asked if you want to save your cur- rent calendar. Since you made some changes to the previously saved calen- dar, press [Y]. This prompt will also appear when you choose to create or load another calendar with main menu selections [2] and [3]. A

Jim Hodny is an elementary school prin- cipal from Newfolden, Minnesota. He has owned Atari computers since 1982 and is making his first appearance in Antic. Listing on page 70

GET YOURS FAST

Super Bonus Program!

Found only on the disk, it's too large a type-in program to fit in the magazine.

Plus all 172K of this month's Antic programs on disk. Great 8-bit software without typing!

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(800) 234-7001

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The ATARI Resource

Product Reviews

Calc Magic, Spell Magic, RAMbrandt, reviewed by Stephen Roquemore

SPELL MAGIC

spell Magic (AP0144) is a spelling checker that was originally designed by Blue Collar Software to work with their Word Magic (AP0130) word processor. However, it will work just fine with files created in AtariWriter Plus, Paperclip, or the word proces- sor in HomePack. Spell Magic has a 34,000-word dictionary and you can add any number of personal diction- aries that each contain up to 10,000 words. With online help screens and simple menus, you can begin using Spell Magic right away.

Spell Magic displays your file in the upper half of the screen while it's do- ing its thing, so you can check spell- ing "in context." It will update your personal dictionary automatically while checking. It works with one or two drives and provides word count statistics when done.

I highly recommend Spell Magic to those with the original AtariWriter (which didn't have a spell checker) and HomePak. Owners of early ver- sions of Paperclip who didn't up- grade to the new version with its own spelling checker could also benefit from this little dandy.

RAMBRANDT

RAMbrandt (AP0157), by Bard Er- mentrout of the Pittsburgh users group, is a paint program that has been popular for some time. It is sub- titled "The Atari Design Studio," and well it should be with so many fea- tures that I can't even list them all. You can use a joystick, KoalaPad or Atari Touch Tkblet to create your own works of art. You can even use the

joystick with either touch tablet.

RAMbrandt supports the best Atari graphics modes (7, 7+ , 9, 10, and 11) except for Graphics 8. Boxes, circles, ellipses, "rubber-band" lines, free- hand plotting, zoom and mirror (ver- tical, horizontal or both) are all avail-

You

can use

up to 128

colors in any

mode and animate

up to 32 frames

at any

speed.

able, as are fills in solid, pattern, random, and user-defined patterns. You can define your own brushes, plot text with user-defined fonts, de- fine Quilts and Tiles and paint or fill with any of these.

You can use as many as 128 colors in any mode, generate colors in several different ways, animate your pictures up to 32 frames at any speed. In Window Mode, you can rotate, flip, wipe, animate, scale, cut-and-paste, or rubber-stamp all or any part of your picture.

The program provides printer sup- port for Epson, Star/Gemini, NEC, C. Itoh and compatible printers, plus the

Okimate 10 color printer. It will load picture files from Computereyes, Micro Illustrator, Micro-Painter and Movie Maker files. It can even use the 130XE RAMdisk.

If you are at all interested in com- puter art or graphics, you really can't pass up this little jewel. It even ex- ceeds the capabilities of some similar programs for the ST. I highly recom- mend it.

CALC MAGIC

Calc Magic (AP0177), by Metamor- phosis Development, is well-known as a nice little spreadsheet program for 8-bit Atari computers. It requires an Atari XL or XE computer and 64K of memory. It offers the usual capabili- ties of any spreadsheet, but is quite easy to learn and use. It uses multiple menus like SynCalc, but has a built-in English set of commands that make it a bit easier to work with.

Calc Magic scrolls very quickly and seems to be programmed for quick re- sponse to user requests like recalcu- lations. With the built-in "program- ming language," you can quickly build templates to reduce the amount of typing required. Commands can be selected from pop-up menus. Spread- sheet files can be saved in DIP format for transfer to other spreadsheet or database programs which support DIE files. This program offers a lot of power for a small price. I highly recommend it to anyone who doesn't need a full-power business-level spreadsheet. a

$19.95 each. The Catalog, 544 Second Street, San Francisco, CA 94107. (415) 957-0886.

18

ANTIC, THE ATARI RESOURCE

■>* s*

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:hh^«5^

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Dr. Brilliant's

ATARI BRAIN

TRANSPLANTS

All about

8-bit memory upgrades.

By Lee Brilliant, IVI.D.

Why not an Atari 800 with 256K to 1Mb of useful inter- nal memory? Why not a 512K XL? Or why not put your XE into six-figure RAM with a full megabyte of add-on memory?

Many experienced Atari users seem endlessly fascinated with the potential of beefing up the memory capacity of their trusty 8-bit computers especially if they are like me and have invested hundreds (if not thousands) of dol- lars and hours into Atari 8-bit equipment and software.

When Antic asked me to try writing the definitive article about 8-bit Atari memory upgrades, I evaluated commercial packages and public domain schematics for every Atari model made. I covered every upgrade prod- uct I could find. As a key part of my research, I personally made hardware upgrades on two Atari XLs and three 800 models.

3|

20

•^

*^***«iy| \

.j'MMlMi!~

AVAILABLE UPGRADES

Upgrades are now available for ev- ery Atari computer ever made. But if you own a 400 or a 600XL you should unload it on your kids or your mother-in-law. The 400 and 600XL are harder to upgrade and less flexi- ble because of their small size and lack of a video monitor port.

If you own an Atari 800, there are at least eight public domain upgrades and the commercial Magna Systems RAMcharger you can install. For the 800XL and 1200XL there are three professional upgrades from Magna Systems, ICD's RAMbo XL and the Newell 256KXL.

For XEs, the only commercial up- grades I know of come from Magna Systems, but there are several in the public domain. New from Innovative Concepts is the RAMdrive + XE-GMl (reviewed in Antic, August 1988), which converts the XE Game System into a 128K computer that is 100% compatible with the 130XE.

Sources for commercial upgrades and a tested public domain upgrade are provided at the end of this arti- cle. Prices for the commercial prod- ucts arc often subject to some changes because of continuous fluctuations in the prices of memory chips.

The author and Antic Magazine are not responsibile for any damages which might result when readers carry out electronic construction projects described in this article. Any original factory warranty remaining on your Atari is voided when you open the computer case.

MEMORY BACKGROUND

Before starting to discuss the specific memory upgrades available, we need to introduce some informa- tion about the way that the 8-bit Atari handles memory chips.

The most commonly used type of memory chip is Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM). DRAM stores information as single bits in micro-miniature capacitors. Think of these chips as paper cups with holes

UPGRADE SOURCES

RAMBO XL

ICD

1220 Rock Street

Rockford, IL 61101

(815) 968-2228.

553995 without RAM chips

256KXL

Newell Industries

602 East Highway 78

WyUe, TX 75098

(214) 442-6612

839.95 without RAM chips

MAGNA SYSTEMS 147-05 Sanford Avenue, Suite 4E, Flushing, NY 11355 (718) 939-0908 8225 approx.— 256K for 800, plug-in board includes chips 8195 approx.— 256K for XL, in- cluding chips and installa- tion(Phone for other RAM prices)

PUBLIC DOMAIN 800 UPGRADE 800 Plus 256K (Rev D, Ver. 1.6) David Byrd

Ad Astra, January/February 1987 (For version with corrected PC board layout, send stamped self- addressed return envelope to: Lee Brilliant, C/O Antic Editor, 544 Second Street, San Fran- cisco, CA 94107)

in them over time, the chip will lose its memory unless you keep refilling the capacitors. This process is called refreshing and is an important factor in upgrade design and implemen- tation.

Your computer arranges memory bits in a grid of row^ and columns which are "decoded" and brought out to address pins on the chips. Each standard RAM is arranged as a single row of bits like 64K X 1— or 256K X 1 in the quarter-megabyte RAM chips. Eight RAM chips together give a one- byte-wide line of memory 64K (or 256K) long. With a little manipulation of address decoding, you can rear- range the memory into any shape you want.

The original Atari arrangement is 64k of memory space in one block, with RAM in the first 48K and the operating system and hardware ad- dresses in the top I6K. Newer Atari computers like the 800XL and 65XE start with a 64K block of RAM hav- ing the upper I6K available as RAM or the OS. When two banks of mem- ory share the same address space, you can only select one at a time in a proc- ess called bank selecting. Any nimi- ber of banks can occupy the same ad- dress space in RAM, but only one at a time. In the I3OXE and all upgraded computers, the additional RAM is banked into the second I6K of the ad- dress space. (See Figure 1.)

ATARI MAPS

Power does not come without a price, however. The Atari's 6502 CPU chip has only 16 address bits to con- trol 64k of address space. To control the additional RAM banks, more ad- dress bits are needed. When only the 800 was available, Axlon came out with a 128K upgrade that used 8CFFF (decimal 53247) as a hardware ad- dress to control the banks. Current 800 upgrades still continue this tra- dition.

In the older 8-bit models, the space SCOOO to 8CFFF was unused. But when the newer XLs put RAM there, the Axlon standard had to be dropped. It's a real shame, too, be- cause with the Axlon standard you could access 16 megabytes of banked RAM!

When the 1200XL was released.

22

ANTIC, THE ATARI RESOURCE

Atari stole joystick ports 3 and 4 (also caUed PORTS of PIA, the Peripheral Interface Adapter) and connected them internally to control the extra memory that was banked along with BASIC, the operating system, ROMS, hardware and various LEDs.

Atari removed these LEDs from their plans for the 800XL. This left five of the PORTB pins unused. So when the 130XE was released. Atari assigned four PORTB pins to control the additional memory. Bit 4 of PORTB selects the CPU to work in the extended RAM banks, while bit 5 does the same for the ANTIC chip.

When these bits equal 1, the respec- tive integrated circuit is restricted to the main bank. Bits 2 and 3 select one of the four 16K banks, all of which have the same address of S4000 to $7FFF (decimal 16384 to 32767). A 2 56k computer needs two more bits to select all the banks, but we have only one free in PORTB. All XL up- grades take bit 5 of PORTB from ANTIC to use in bank selecting, so ANTIC can't use extended RAM in- dependently of the CPU.

800 UPGRADES

The Magna Systems one-megabyte RAMcharger received an excellent re- view in the July 1987 Antic. The Ma- gna Systems Axlon-compatible up- grades range from 256K to 1Mb and are super-easy to install on an Atari 800. The Magna RAMchaiger is actu- ally a self-contained plug- in board. All you do is take out the two screws holding the top lid covering the fac- tory RAM cards (right behind the car- tridge slots). Pull out the middle RAM card and pop in the RAMcharger, making sure it doesn't touch the neighboring cards. Now screw the lid back on and the installation is finished.

I found a few quirks in the RAM- charger's address decoding. The board not only responds to the ad- dresses in Axlon range but also to some zero-page addresses, which might make some programs incom-

patible. Magna can compensate for this by either defeating the bank selecting with a switch or by install- ing a jumper wire to the ROM board in slot 1.

If you're an Atari 800 do-it- yourselfer, you can make your own 256K quarter-megabyte upgrade from public domain instructions. I per- sonally did two of these and had no problems with the David Byrd up-

personally

made hard^vare

upgrades on

two XLs and

three

800's

grade listed with this article.

Some users who have built public domain upgrade projects report memory losses because of poor de- sign in the refresh circuits. With the first upgrade I performed, I didn't no- tice any problems, but I was able to produce memory dropout under cer- tain circumstances. The Byrd upgrade I list did not exhibit any dropout, but it could be that the RAM chips I used have long retention times. In any case, if you build a do-it-yourself upgrade, use the best chips you can find.

MYDOS will configure the 256K upgrades as a 2,000-sector RAMdisk and can recognize a full megabyte on the 800. These upgrades are fully Axlon-compatible and will give you an edge on any program that recog- nizes Axlon RAM. The problem is that few software products are doing so. For example. Springboard's News- room and BASIC XE from ICD/OSS

only work on an XL/XE.

Nevertheless, adding Axlon RAM makes your 800 compatible with Print Shop Companion, and SynFile + will boot with 288K of free RAM. By contrast, you only get 128K on XE and XL upgrades. For this rea- son alone, I doubt that I'll ever get rid of my upgraded 800.

XL UPGRADES

The three commercial upgrades from Magna Systems, ICD's RAMbo XL (reviewed in the July 1986 Antic) and the Newell 2 56KXL— deliver high quality at a low price. I also know of one 256K public domain XL upgrade project that was being sold direct by the author {At this writing, Antic could not verify a current address for the PD author. If the information later becomes available, we will print it in I/O.-AWIC ED)

Installing an upgrade for the Atari XL requires dismantling the com- puter, removing the RAM chips and one decoder chip, and making attach- ments to several other points on the circuit board. All the XL upgrades set up the RAM as a 64K main bank with 12 16K banks in the S4000 to $7FFF window.

It is harder to upgrade a computer in which the chips are not socketed and many 800XLs have their chips soldered in. But while de- soldering the original RAM chips makes installation more time- consuming, it's still not too difficult for a person who is reasonably dex- trous and has a fair amount of ex- perience in constructing electronics projects.

You can either do it yourself or get manufacturer installation of the ICD RAMbo XL or the Newell 256KXL. But Magna Systems insists on install- ing all the XL/XE upgrades it sells. The price includes installation and you must send your computer to them.

130XE UPGRADES

Magna Systems and the public do- main both offer 320K, 576K and

NOVEMBER 1988

23

1088K upgrades for the Atari 130XE. So far there are no commercial pro- grams designed to utilize this extra RAM for anything except a RAMdisk. Unless you really need a RAMdisk larger than 1,600 sectors, I see little use for this much RAM.

The 130XE's additional RAM banks need more control bits than are free in PORTB. So you lose the self-test routine (no big deal) with 576K. You lose buUt-in BASIC with 1088K, but you can get around this by using a cartridge-based BASIC.

COMPATIBILITY?

With so many different types of up- grades available, there are some con- cerns about compatibility. I tested David Byrd's public domain 800 up- grade, RAMbo XL and the Newell 256KXL for compatibility with Paper- clip, SynFile -1- , Print Shop and Print Shop Companion, Typesetter, News- room, DOS 2.5 and MyDOS 3.2B.

No matter how much memory is crammed into an Atari 800, it could still not be expected to handle the 130XE-only versions of PaperClip or Typesetter although it could run the older versions. (There is no 800- compatible version of Newsroom.) On the plus side, an 800 has I6OK more RAM with SynFile + than an XE compatible.

The XL upgrades will run all XE software, and both the RAMbo XL and the 256KXL ran every program I tested. However, RAMbo XL gives you 700 more text lines in PaperClip than Newell. While MyDOS works for all of the upgrades, it must be recon- figured for each one. MyDOS came configured for the Newell, but to reconfigure it for the other upgrades isn't easy because of the unclear manual.

There is one subtle difference be- tween Newell and RAMbo involving the ANTIC chip. All upgrades use pin 5 of PORTB, so you cannot indepen- dently set ANTIC to the extended RAM or the main bank. This leaves only three options— place ANTIC

ATARI 400/800

ATARI 600XL/800XL/1200XL

O.S. and Hardware

BASIC or RAM RAM

RAM

RAM

48 K 40 K 32K

16K

permanently in extended bank (un- desirable), place it permanently in main bank (like Newell and Magna), or tie it to the CPU so that the CPU and ANTIC are always in the same bank (like ICD's RAMbo).

With the Newell/Magna method, If you try to page-flip the screen through RAM banks, you'll be disap- pointed. However, you can use the en- tire main bank RAM space for graphics and the extended banks without fear of "seeing" data on the screen.

RAMbo lets you place multiple screens in banked RAM and flip to them. Wliile there are theoretical ad- vantages to both systems, it actually makes little difference because you rarely place ANTIC into the bank ac- cess window. Usually the screen RAM is in the 16K bank above the access ^vindow.

I accidentally discovered that with RAMbo you can switch all banks into the window, including the 64 K of main RAM. The first bank includes DOS and your programming, the third bank contains BASIC and the last 16K is under the operating system. This can be a real boon to a BASIC programmer You get 24K of extra

RAM

O.S. and Hardware

BASIC or RAM

RAM

RAM

RAM

48K 40K

32K

16K

RAM space for graphics or data, be- sides the 12 banks used by the RAMdisk.

INSTALLATION TIPS

Installation of the 800 public do- main upgrade requires you to build a circuit board or "dead bug" installa- tion of four ICs on one of the I6K memory boards, plus some modifica- tion to the ROM board. Magna Sys- tems RAMcharger boards are simple to pop into the Atari 800, but you may need to add one extra jumper wire to the ROM board.

All of the 800 's chips are plugged into sockets. So are most 1200XL chips and some of the 800XL chips but not XE chips. Do-it-yourself up- grades usually aren't recommended if the factory chips are soldered to the board, but there are solutions. RAMbo XL is comparatively the easiest to in- stall, requiring only one or two jum- pers, one cable to the PIA chip, and removal of the RAM chips and one other IC.

The Newell upgrade calls for five wires to go to PIA and three jumpers elsewhere. Newell should have in- stalled a ribbon cable like the RAMbo to make the five connections to the

24

ANTIC, THE ATARI RESOURCE

Upgrade Formats

RAM

48K 40K

32K

16K

O.S. and

Hardware

BASIC or RAM

RAM

RAM

RAM

$C000

$8000

$4000

$0000

12 3 4

5 6 7 8 9 10 n 12

13 14 15 16

1 1 1

4 Banks of

16K

XE

1 1 1

1 1 1 1 1 1 1

12 Banks of 16K 256K XL Upgrade

1 1 1 1 1 1 1

1 1 1

16 Banks of

16K

800 Upgrade

1 1 1

Figure 1 ATARI MEMORY CONFIGURATION

PLA^. To make connections to the PIA, you can pry it out of the socket and bend up the pins. I attached a 5-pin piece of a l4-pin IC socket to the end of the ribbon cable to press onto the PIA instead of soldering. If it's sol- dered in place, you can simply solder right to the side of the pins without removing the IC. The older ANTIC can't refresh the 256K chips, so Newell requires you to replace it if it has an older part number (C012296 instead of C021697). The Magna and ICD products don't require this.

If you use a small wattage iron (about 25 watts) and keep soldering times below five seconds, you will not damage anything. If your chips are soldered, you can either desolder them all at once or use my secret shortcuts!

The only chips you really must re- move are eight RAMs and one l6-pin IC. The rest of the connections can be "tack-soldered" to the pins on ANTIC, to the circuit board, or to wherever else is necessary.

After chips are removed, they're useless, so you can just cut them out and toss them. Cut the pins close to the plastic body with a pair of fine cutters. Now you can remove each pin

individually, which is easier than 16 pins at once.

Afterward, open the circuit board holes by heating the solder pads un- til the solder melts. Poke the hole open with a round toothpick or em- broidery needle, remove the heat, then remove your probe. When all the holes are open, insert sockets and sol- der from the bottom with fresh sol- der. When all necessary chips are re- moved and sockets installed, installation can proceed normally.

New chips retain their memory longer, so when you turn off the com- puter you must wait as long as 20 se- conds to reboot, or you may get strange results. If you are in BASIC, you can POKE 580,1 then press [RESET], or type BYE and press [RESET].

CONCLUSIONS

The 800XL upgrades offer the widest software compatibility. If you need a large database, it might be bet- ter to upgrade an older 800 for use with SynFile + . One main reason for upgrading an Atari is so it can emu- late the 130XE with software that uses the extra RAM. All upgrades men- tioned here do that job, but the ICD

gives you PaperClip files with 700 more lines. Expanding a 130XE gains you nothing with commercial soft- ware, but if you need a huge RAMdisk for a BBS, contact Magna Systems.

Don't try do-it-yourself memory in- stallation if you have electrophobia. You might be able to get a member of your local users group or school electronics shop to do it for you, if you don't want to pay shipping and installation chaiges to have your up- grade manufacturer do the work.

The bottom line is this bare up- grade boards cost about %iO and right now your cost for 256K worth of chips will be around SIOO. Add these prices and you come very close to the cost of a new Atari 130XE. Chip prices are widely expected to fall within a few months, but until then a memory upgrade only delivers a slight cost ad- vantage over getting a new XE. But if you want a larger RAMdisk or larger database files than a standard 130XE supports, then an upgrade may be worth the extra time and money. A

Dr. Lee Brilliant is a physician in theScm Fernando Valley area of Los Angeles and a well-known Atari 8-bit programmer/ author.

NOVEMBER 1988

25

TVPEIN

SOFTWARE

RAMdisk Sentry

Save your files, re-install without re-formatting. By Glenn Smith

RAMdisk Sentry is a short program that re-installs a locked-up RAM- disk without formatting it thus retain- ing any files that were present in the RAMdisk before rebooting. This BASIC program works on 8-bit Atari com- puters w^ith disk drive and enough memory to support a DOS 2.5 RAMdisk.

Don't you just hate it when for some mysterious reason you can't access your RAMdisk files? And don't you just hate it lots when you save your only copy of a file to your RAMdisk press the [RESET] key and reboot your computer, thereby destroying everything on the RAMdisk? If any of this sounds familiar, read on.

Many of you have noticed by now that when you boot DOS 2.5 with the RAMDISK.COM file present, it always formats the RAMdisk which may not be what you had in mind. RAM- disk Sentry works automatically when you load it from DOS. It re- installs a RAMdisk without formatting it. This means any RAMdisk files ex- isting before the reboot will remain in the RAMdisk. The RAMdisk Sentry

program also tells DOS whether or not the RAMdisk contains DURSYS. NOTE: RAMdisk Sentry won't re- cover a RAMdisk if you turn off your computer It works only if the com- puter remains powered up and only if you are using Atari DOS 2.5.

GEniNG STARTED

Prevent lost RAMdisks. Type in List- ing 1, NOFORMAT.BAS, check it with TYPO II and SAVE a copy before you RUN it. The BASIC listing will create a file called RAMDISK.OBJ, which can be loaded from the DOS menu using the L selection, or renamed AUTO- RUN.SYS. Listing 2, the MAC/65 source code, shows assembly lan- guage programmers how the RAM- disk is installed.

If you decide to use the program as an AUTORUN.SYS, make sure your original Atari RAMDISK.COM file is not on the DOS disk, because RAM- DISK.COM will format the RAMdisk and erase all the files. If you rename the RAMdisk Sentry file to RAM- DISK.COM, it will be executed just like the original, except that it won't format the RAMdisk and any AUTO- RUN.SYS will also be executed.

These automatic loading methods work best if you plan to reboot your computer without turning it off You can do this by returning to BASIC, typ- ing a POKE 580,1 (setting the col- dstart flag) and pressing [RESET]. Or you can do it from DOS by typing M (run at address) followed by E477 (the coldstart address). The computer will boot as usual, except that the RAM- disk will still contain aU of your files.

I use the reboot method when switching between Turbo BASIC and Atari BASIC. This way, I never have to save my BASIC programs to a floppy disk until I know they work. It also saves time because I load Turbo BA- SIC from the RAMdisk each time I re- turn from Atari BASIC. I also use it when I somehow manage to destroy DOS and have no choice but to reboot. A

Glenn Smith of Grand Junction, Colorado is the author of Class Scheduler from the September 1988 Antic.

Listing on page 73

26

ANTIC. THE ATARI RESOURCE

DISK BONUS

Antic Disassembler

Super tool for assembler explorers. By David Kibler

This month's Super Disk Bonus is a fast, powerful machine language disassembler written entirely in MAC/65 assembler code. Program- mers will enjoy the ease with which Antic Disassembler turns bi- nary files into source code listings that can be examined to teach you new techniques.

Antic Disassembler works on 8-bit Atari computers with at least 48K memory.

PROGRAM GUIDE

When I first began programming in machine language, I searched for a disassembler that could do it all. I wanted a software tool that would disassemble binary files and show me the actual source code, so that I could discover those neat little programming tricks used in many public domain programs that were circulating at the time. I also wanted to get a hard copy of the disassembled listing.

But I mostly wanted a program that would do this fast. Well, I never found one, so I wrote Antic Disassembler.

GEHING STARTED

Copy ANTICDIS.EXE from the Antic November 1988 Disk onto another disk which has been for- matted with DOS 2 or DOS 2.5. (Make sure this disk has the

DOS.SYS file on it). FinaUy, rename ANTICDIS.EXE to AUTORUN.SYS.

To start the program, turn off your Atari and place your Antic Disassembler disk in drive 1. Re- move all cartridges pf L/XE owners should hold down the [OPTION] key) and turn on your Atari. Antic Disassembler will automatically load and run.

Antic Disassembler gives you three options disassemble from memory, from a file, or from disk sectors. Simply type in the right number at the Choice> prompt andpitss [RETURN].

If you're disassembling from memory, the program will ask for the starting and ending memory addresses. This and all other nu- merical input in the program can be entered as either hexadecimal or decimal values. To enter hex, pre- cede the input with a dollar sign (S).

If you want to disassemble from a file, the program will ask for the filename. You must enter the de- vice as well as the filename, or you will get an error message. The file will be stored in memory before the actual disassembly, so the size of the file you can disassemble de- pends upon the amount of mem- ory in your computer.

Finally, when you disassemble from disk sectors, you will be asked

for the beginning sector number, the number of sectors you want disassembled, and the location in memory that you want these to be disassembled from. This hst op- tion is best used when you know where this code is placed after the computer loads it from the disk. If you don't give Antic Disassembler the correct address here, all direct jumps in the code will be incorrea and the disassembly will be useless.

If you type [P] directly after your choice at the main menu, the dis- assembly will be printed on your printer and displayed onscreen.

If you type [D], your disassem- bled listing will be written in a disk file. \bu need a lot of room on your disk if you choose this option be- cause the output file will become very large quite fast.

When the program is disassem- bling, you can use the [CONTROL] [1] toggle to pause the output. To stop the output, just press the [START] key. (Makes sense, doesn't it?)

Youi November 1988 Antic Disk will be shipped to you within 24 hours after your order is received. This month's disk features Antic Disassembler plus every type-in program from this issue and two special extra bonus programs,' De- luxe Adventure Creation Kit and the Lightspeed C Fractals Demo. A

NOVEMBER 1988

27

Family fun with your Atari no programming required.

Recently I was able to kill two birds with one Atari and I thought that Antic readers might like to know how I did it. My first problem, a general one shared by all home computer owners, was to justify the time and money the hobby absorbs like a black hole.

Most parents would recognize my specific second problem My daugh- ter, Asha, wanted to celebrate her ninth birthday by inviting a dozen friends over for a guaranteed good time. One solution would have been to let her guests play with my com- puter They undoubtedly would have fought over games and access and quite likely would have broken my trusty Atari into 64,000 bits.

By Neal EngledoTS^

However, I thought there must be a better way. So I turned to my wife, who never has problems finding things for me to do. She observed that our daughter had been reading chil- dren's mystery series books featuring detectives such as Nancy Drew and Encyclopedia Brown, and she sug- gested a Mystery Party.

Great, I said, thinking once again I had put myself in a position to prove that genius is 1 percent inspiration (hers) and 99 percent perspiration (mine). We decided to take something from Asha's room and hide it. Then we'd put together a series of clues that would lead the kids to that object.

First, I had to make the invitations. Inside each invitation we explained

that the young detectives helping search for the missing treasure would be rewarded with cake and other goodies.

With Print Shop and Print Shop Companion I devised a Sherlock Holmes icon and a question mark border for the cover This took three times as long as it should have, but I came up with a reasonable facsimile. Of course, I later found a better Sher- lock on one of the Print Shop Library disks.

The next step was to figure out what to hide and where to hide it. We chose a small crystal unicorn Asha keeps on her bedside table. My wife cut a hole for it in the bottom layer of the birthday cake. Now we had to

NOVEMBER 1988

29

figure out clues that would lead the kids to the cake. That was fairly easy we hid small bags filled with cake ingredients such as flour, choco- late, sugar and an egg. We hoped the kids would find them, put two and two together and come up with chocolate cake.

The next step was a little harder. We didn't want the kids to scavenge for clues like they would for Easter eggs— we wanted to challenge them. So we designed some puzzles that directed them to the locations of the clues. When the kids arrived, we handed them the first puzzle. They figured it out and found the first clue attached to which would be an- other puzzle directing them to the second clue, and so on.

Realizing that 12 detectives work- ing on a single puzzle would be like 12 cooks stirring the soup, we divided the kids into four teams. Each team would have its own set of puzzles and clues. So we hid an egg for team A, an egg for team B, etc.

That meant that we needed 16 puz- zles to provide each team with four sets of clues. 1 thought it would be impossible especially for someone who can't solve Zork with a clue book. But with the help of an ordi- nary dime-store variety puzzle book, I came up with four types of puzzles. We used crosswords, scrambled words, a reverse alphabet code and re- buses (combinations of pictures and letters that form words). I created four crosswords, each directing one team to its egg, and four apiece of the other types for the other clues.

As all computer enthusiasts know, when you have gizmos interacting with do-dads it's time to break out the old CPU. I really needed an outliner, but since I don't have one, out came the Paperclip word processor First, I ]^ted the places where I would hide the clues:

1 . The FIREWOOD pile

2. ASHA'S BED

3. The BARBECUE grill

. . .and so on

After listing all 16 clue locations, I began working on the puzzles. On the outline, under the location for each egg, I listed the hints and answers that would eventually spell out the loca- tion's key word. I printed out the hints and drew in dashes for the kids to write the answers. One letter in each answer was in a block. When all the answers which were staggered were filled in, all the blocked letters lined up vertically, spelling out the lo- cation of the clue. Here's how the fire- wood clue looked on my outline:

We hid my daughter's unicorn in the birthday cake.

1. FIREWOOD

A. Indians hunted it (bufFalo)

B. Underwater boat (submarine)

C. Someone who shoots arrows (aRcher)

D. Birds that honk (geEse)

E. A bird that hunts (haWk)

F. State where oranges grow (Florida)

G. Game with clubs (gOlf) H. Blow out on birthdays

(canDles)

All the clues in this category had eight letters, so each team would need to put in the same amount of effort.

The second type of puzzle was eas- ier to set up. I gave directions in a re- verse alphabet code. (A = Z, B=Y, C = X, etc.) The clues had several words, such as "In the front seat of Mr. Engledow's car."

I found Paperclip's global substitu- tion feature useful with this puzzle, changing words that were used more than once, such as "the" into "gsv."

The third puzzle was easy too, but

like the crossword you have to be careful. I hid the location amid a string of garbled letters. I gave the kids an example apxuyft)feet2^)bMzpucatljh and they had no trouble figuring out what to do. The problem arose when words slipped into the puzzle by ac- cident. (Did you notice the "cat" at the end of the example?) The best way to avoid this is not to use vowels.

The fmal puzzle was the most fun. Using a drawing program, I did a se- ries of rebuses. One, for instance, was "On top of the cookbooks." For the word cookbooks I drew a picture of an ice cream CONE, subtracted the letters NE, added a picture of a HOOK minus the letters HO and added a pic- ture of an open book followed by a letter S. Then 1 printed them out in mirror image. To do the rebuses, I used my KoalaPad software for the drawing and The Catalog's Picture Plus for lettering and to flip the fm- ished work.

The birthday party, the real reason for the effort, was a roaring success. The only complaint was that the search wasn't long enough. The kids took about half an hour to figure everything out. If I do another mys- tery party, I'll add at least two more clue-and-puzzle combinations. The kids had a wonderful time, and de- spite admonitions that they were not competing, members of each team huddled quietly in isolation while figuring out the puzzles, squealed with glee when they found the solu- tion, and raced to find each clue and puzzle.

As icing on the cake, so to speak, the cost of the entertainment aspect of the party was a little time and a few sheets of fanfold paper In addition, when my son turns nine in two years, entertainment for his party is in the bag, or at least on the disk. A

Neal Engledow is a copy editor at USA Today. He has owned an SOOXLfor three years and calls himself ''an inept pro- grammer always looking for new ways to use the Atari."

30

ANTIC, THE ATARI RESOURCE

Super

Sieve

Prime numbers found lightning-fast. By Denis DeVries

TYPEIN

SOFTWARE

5

uper Sieve is a brief but lightning-fast Sieve of Eratosthenes prime number finder. It tests numbers to see if they are prime and also finds "nth" prime numbers. This BASIC program works on all 8-bit Atari computers of any memory size, with disk or cassette.

Prime numbers, those unbreakable in- tegers that seem to pop up randomly, have interested mankind for thou- sands of years. The Greeks first stud- ied them around 200 B.C. Since that time, primes have come to be impor- tant in communications and security coding. So they still have practical value as well as historic and aesthetic interest.

NOVEMBER 1988

The ancient Greek mathematician Eratosthenes who was also first to calculate the earth's correct circumference proposed a mechan- ical sieve to filter prime numbers by sorting out all multiples of those num- bers that were not themselves multi- ples of other numbers. Thus he kept 2 but threw out 4, 6, 8, etc. His sieve then kept 3 and rejected 6, 9, 12, etc.

This "Sieve of Eratosthenes" was an excellent idea but, as so often hap- pens, the visionary inventor found it impossible to build the device with technology available during his life- time. Today any computer can do the job and a "sieve test" has become the standard benchmark for rating com- parative computer speeds. Your Atari 8-bit computer can find any of nearly a 1.5 million prime numbers in a few minutes, usually in just seconds.

SEARCH FOR SPEED

In the past, prime number research on microcomputers has suffered from one or two serious problems. Either the programs used were pretty pokey or they were severly limited by the memory size of the hardware. My Su- perSieve program doesn't suffer on ei- ther count. It can find any prime number between 1 and 16,777,216 (that's 256 cubed) and put much more expensive machines to shame with its speed. It does so by using a small sieve array (255 bytes) over and over again and doing it with a USR machine lan- guage call from BASIC.

I wrote an earlier all-BASIC pro- gram that found each prime number and listed it to the screen. On an Atari with the screen turned on, the first million numbers took eight hours to process. This version runs the same data in 4l seconds. Numbers going by that fast are impossible to read so we turned the screen off and got down

31

the time to under 28 seconds. Super Sieve processes more than 35,700 numbers per second!

One communications use for prime numbers is closely related to com- puters, specifically the high resolution two-color screens that are common on home machines. The search for extra-terrestrial life requires that we send and receive messages to and from civilizations that we know noth- ing about. If we draw a two-color pic- ture on a TV screen with dimensions of 317 X 191 pixels— nearly an Atari Graphics 8 size— we can repeatedly send the message picture with confi- dence that a civilization technically on par with ours could easily figure out that the 60,547-bit signal was, in fact, a 317 X 191 display

Coding and decoding methods now use products of primes as a key. The message can't be decoded with- out the two correct primes and large prime numbers are not easUy found.

Super Sieve

processes over

35,700 numbers

in a second.

USING THE PROGRAM

Type in Listing 1, SIEVE.BAS, check it with TYPO II and SAVE a copy before you RUN it. Listing 2, SIEVE.M65, provides the MAC/65 source code for assembly language programmers to study. It is not neces- sary to type Listing 2 in order to use the program.

SuperSieve will offer you three choices; test a number to see if it's prime, find an "nth" prime number,

or exit the program. Choice 1 brings quick rejects if you try to test an even number, or a multiple of five, or something larger iban 16,777,213. Any other positive number will be tested.

If your test number isn't a prime, SuperSieve will tell you what the next larger prime number is. Select choice 2 if you want to find the 4th, 97th, 1,400,032nd, or some other prime. Running time depends on the size of your test number.

The attract mode comes on while the screen is off, so you will see vari- ous colors during the run. If you de- lete line 150, SuperSieve will test even numbers and multiples of five, telling you what is the nearest larger prime number. A

Denis DeVries is an Engineering Manager for the City of Seattle. He debuts in Antic with his first assembler routine.

Listing on page 75

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Doc Print-Pro

SOFTWARE

Onscreen documentation printed minus garbage. By Roland Fetzer

Have you ever tried to print hardco- pies of onscreen documentation that looks fine when displayed in 40- column video but becomes a mess when you print it on paper? The text gets all crammed against the left mar- gin and there are no page breaks. When you separate two sheets of pa- per, sometimes a line of text is cut in half. Even worse, sometimes there are no provisions at all for printing the screen documentation.

Doc Print-Pro puts in top and bot- tom margins and page numbers and it centers the 40-column text. Best of all, it works on any printer, because it has no printer control codes.

Doc Print-Pro also makes it easier for you to read onscreen documenta- tion. When you view a file, the screen displays about 18 text lines at once. Just press any key to scroll to the next screen.

Doc Print-Pro is a short program that makes good-looking printouts of documentation files which were printed to disk with a word proces- sor Most online text and onscreen text files are formatted this way. How- ever, the program cannot read a nor- mal word processor file.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM

Type in Listing 1, DOCPRINT.BAS, check it with TYPO II and SAVE a copy before you RUN it. If you want Doc Print-Pro to RUN automatically when you insert the disk, SAVE it with

Doc Print-Pro is here to save you from crummy-looking paper copies of onscreen documentation files. This BASIC program works on all 8-bit Atari computers of any memory size, with disk drive.

the filename MENU and copy the AU- TORUN.SYS file from any Antic Monthly Disk.

In screen mode, the program opens the disk file in line 240. In line 250 it counts the number of times the buffer is accessed. If that number is 18, then it goes to the scroll routine in line 470.

The print section starts on line 350 and counts how many times the print

buffer is accessed. If it's 57, then it goes to the page-printing routine in line 490 and prints a page number. A

Roland Fetzer has been teaching mathematics for 30 years, and computer science for six years, at Brooklyn junior high schools. He is an original Antic sub- scriber who owns every issue of this magazine.

Listing on page 74

Same page of screen text printoul— with Doc Print-Pro enhanced version at LEFT.

NOVEMBER 1988

33

r7^:^v?>

Make your computer sparfcU ivltfi Diamond!

"Trn

The Diamond Operating System is here for your Atari XI^E/GS computer. With the Diamond OS your computer will have a complete windowing environment just lil<e the Atari ST(tm). Diamond includes icons, windows, drop-down menus, dialog boxes, a mouse pointer, and desk accessories. In fact Diamond is so powerful it even breaks the 64K memory barrier and allows for up to 16 Megabytes to be accessed. Diamond is the future of the Atari XL7XE/GS computers so now the choice is clear. Crysta/ c/sar. Diamond is truely a Gem!

^DW Available Diamond OS-

Our powerful Operating System and DeskTop software in one package. This software is required to use ottier Diamond based programs.

$29.95

Diamond Paint-

A fantastic painting program that utilizes the Diamond environment. Includes draw, block move, line, k-line, \x>x, circle, and airbrush features and many more. Also accepts Degas (tm) pictures from the Atari ST(tm) and MacPaint(tm) pictures.

$29.95

Diamond Write-

An amazing word processing program that includes cut and paste, an 80 column display, and a complete spell checker.

$29.95

Diamond Publish-

A complete Desktop Publishing system! Allows text to flow from column to column, text wrap around graphics, and the creation of multiple page documents.

$29.95

Diamond Programmer's Kit-

Includes complete documentation for the Diamond environment and includes a resource editor to easily create icons, drop-down menus, and dialogs, and programming samples in both Basic and Assembly language.

$29.95

To order send either a check or money order or call for COD orders. Please include $2.50 for shipping.

Reeve Software

29W150 Old Farm Lane

Warrenville, IL 60555

(312) 393-2317

DISK BONUS

Deluxe Adventure Creation Kit

By Stephen Stout

Deluxe Adventure Creation Kit (CREATEDL.BAS) is an enhanced follow-up to my original Adventure Creation Kit (Antic, March 1988). It incorporates many suggestions that came from the Creation Contest (October 1988 Disk Bonus) as well as from other users of the first version.

Games made with the original Adventure Crea- tion Kit are 100% compatible with this Deluxe version. Both Kit programs run on Atari 8-bit computers with at least 48K memory and a disk drive.

The most significant Deluxe upgrade is that now you can link as many as nine different adventure games into one giant game. It's very simple to do. Just give each adventure the same name with a number between 1 and 9 at the end such as GAMEl, GAJVIE2, GA1V1E3, etc. When you win GAMEl, the program will automatically load GAME2, and so on until GAME9. When there are no more games, the program will say "You Won!" and return to the editing menu.

I also added some animated graphics. In the Deluxe Adventure Kit, the graphics don't only scroll as in the original version. Now the water moves, the snake's head and tail shake, etc.

You can now flee from monsters during a battle by pressing the [SPACEBAR] , instead of fighting to your sure death. Naturally you will receive no bonus Hit Points or Strike Points if you flee, and the monster you were fighting will regain its original strength.

I also added some editing changes: [U]ndo restores the adventure map, erasing the last change you made. [E]rase All clears the current adventure in memory. This replaces the old [RESTART] feature.

[?] (Print) gives you a choice of Epson, ProWriter or Seikosha GP-250X printers. Also, pressing [ESCAPE] aborts printing. Finally, when you kill iT\onsters you don't get as many additional points as before, and you can't get more than 40 Hit Points or 15 Strike Points. A

ANTIC, THi; AlARl RESOn(t:E

8-Bit Toolhouse

The Mouse, Disk Emulator, Print Buffer, and more.

Your Atari 8 Bit Comes Alive.'

ATARI 8 BIT COMES ALIVE!

Did you ever get the urge to open your Atari and attach some esoteric piece of hardware to it? If you're like me, you hesitated due to your inex- perience with electronics or your awkwardness with tools.

Your Atari 8 Bit Comes Alive is a 207-page book, with a disk that has 18 BASIC programs plus source code for all the machine language subrou- tines. This package offers you the chance to experiment with less fear. Though soldering is often required.

no detailed soldering is needed. I could just "slop it on" and still have these projects come out right.

When opportunities for damage do exist, the book carefully takes us by the hand and leads us to the desired result. (Just remember that you void any Atari Corp. warranty left on your computer, as soon as you open up the cflse— ANTIC ED)

Richard Leinecker's book presents lots of projects, although most of them are "merely" of the experiment sort. How often will most of us find a practical use for a home-built oscil-

lator? However, there are a few projects which you can get real use from.

Building your own light pen not only could give you a sense of accom- plishment, it can fill a gap left by the lack of available commercial pens. As an added benefit, your home-made light pen can be used in place of the Atari Light Gun (available only with the XE Game System!). The pen you'll build works in Graphics 7, which is a nice drawing mode.

The book starts out assuming you really know nothing about elcc-

NOVEMBER 1988

35

tronics. Detailed definitions and illus- trations of basic equipment such as solderless and perforated breadboards are given. Necessary test equipment such as a multimeter and logic probe are defined in clear, understandable English. Schematics, incredibly, are made understandable. Schematics were the one thing which used to lose me almost immediately in electronics before.

Projects include connecting the joystick ports to sundry devices such as door alarms, event detectors and device controllers. From the examples given, it would seem that almost any- thing electrical can be controlled by your Atari.

This book is not meant to be merely read. It should be used and kept

This

book presents

lots of projects,

although most

are "merely"

experiments.

handy during each experiment and project. The sort of experimental kits you wished you could afford as a kid (Remember "Brainiac" and the "33 Electrical Experiments" packages?) are far outclassed by the unsung little Atari which sits upon your desk. All it ever required was the specialized knowledge provided by this outstand- ing book.-CHESTER COX

$25.95, 207-page book with 48K disk. Computer Spectrum, distributed by Hori- .21JVT Computers, 695 S. Colorado Boule- vard, #10, Denver, CO 80222. (303) 777-8080.

The Mouse

THE MOUSE

I'm a little tired of articles and let- ters telling how to use the Commo- dore mouse with the Atari 8-bit com- puter There's a mouse made expressly for the Atari. It's called the Mouse (original, no?) and behaves as well or better than the Commodore mouse.

Just as the Commodore mouse does, this Mouse acts like a joystick. Plug it into either joystick port and start using it. A true mouse (such as the ST's) scrolls across your screen in an entirely different, smoother man- ner. The pixel-by-pixel jumping of a joystick seems a bit jerky in compari- son. Knowing the limitations enables us to use the Mouse for tasks at which it works best.

Its best use is, as you might have guessed, with drawing programs. RAMbrandt works delightfully with it. As a matter of fact, RAMbrandt per- mits you to use the Mouse (in place of a joystick) and a touch tablet at the

same time. Detailing with the Mouse is easier for those of us with unsteady hands, especially when the magnify- ing option is used. Blazing Paddles, Micro Illustrator, Micro-Painter and its public domain clone in fact, every art program I tried works better with the Mouse than with a joystick.

Not all games work well with the Mouse. Playing Star Raiders with it is sheer suicide! But games which re- quire instant locations are much more fun. Missile Command becomes al- most winnable, Chessmaster becomes simpler. Software which has an inter- face similar to GEM works very well. Ogre, Gunslinger, Phantasie, and Lords of Conquest seem to have been made for the Mouse. XLEnt's First Word Processor is the only WP that takes advantage of the Mouse, a fea- ture I wish Paperclip had.

The Mouse looks pretty much as you'd expect a mouse to look palm- sized, sloped in the middle, two but- tons that each read just like a single

36

ANTIC, THE ATARI RESOURCE

joystick button. It's all in XE gray color and very sturdy. My Mouse has been dropped a few times since Christmas and I've taken it apart to check it out. The rolling ball is exactly the same as the ST mouse ball. In fact, I switched them a few times with no changes in performance.

A mouse seems to be relatively ex- pensive. IBM users pay up to S200 for theirs. So we get off cheap with the

Just as

the Conunodore

mouse does, The

Mouse acts as a

joystick.

$59.95 price tag (frequently dis- counted to 849.95). It makes draw- ing with your 800/XL/XE downright pleasant.-CH ESTER COX

$59.95. Horizon Computers, 695 S. Colorado Boulevard, #10, Denver, CO 80222. (303) 777-8080.

DISK EMULATOR

Many Atari owners have more than one 8-bit computer. Some, like me, couldn't bring themselves to sell their faithful (and high-priced) old 800s when they bought an XL or XE. Others found used machines for less than $100 and couldn't pass up the bargain. Now B.L. Enterprises has come up with ways for you to put those extra Ataris back to work! PBR Print Buffer Routine turns your second computer into a printer buffer of just under 40K. DER— Disk Emulator Routine turns it into a RAMdisk.

PBR is a very workable printer buffer. The file you print goes quickly into the buffer and your computer thinks the printing is finished so you and the computer can go on to other tasks. Meanwhile, the buffer continues sending your information to the printer. Multiple files can be chained for sending to the buffer and will be printed in succession.

Through no fault of the manufac- turer, PBR is inconvenient to set up for use. The Print Buffer Routine con- sists of a disk for the first computer, a cable to connect the machines through their joystick ports, and a car- tridge for the second computer.

Difficulties arise because the first Atari must be told to send the printer data out of the joystick port instead of the SIO port.

This configuration requires a small chunk of code to be squeezed some- where into the main computer. If the main computer is an XL or XE, you can run the Translator or FIX-XL (not included). That frees 4K memory to hold the code. Then you boot your printing program. This should work with almost all software, but you have

Cable used by Disk Emulator and Print Buffer

Disk Emulator and Print Buffer cartridges

to boot three disks to get there. If your main computer is an 800 or 400, the process may be even more compli- cated and the system will be incom- patible with more software.

PBR has several special features. With the console keys on the second computer, you can send a form feed, a single line feed, or a double line feed. You can also abort the printing and clear the buffer. It would be nice to also have commands that pause and restart the printing, print multi- ple copies and abort printing without clearing the buffer.

DER, the Disk Emulator Routine is much easier to use. Just plug in the special SIO cable (the DER computer must be last on the daisy chain). Then insert the cartridge in the DER com-

NOVEMBER 1988

37

puter to turn it into a solid-state disk drive. It's much faster thian a regular drive, but because it's limited by the 19,200 baud rate of the SIO port, it's slower than a built-in RAMdisk.

A 48K computer gives you 293 sec- tors of RAMdisk space, a 64K com- puter gives you 403 sectors and a 128K computer gives you 914 sectors. The best part of this RAMdisk is that it retains its information v^^hen you turn off the main computer but not If you turn off the DER computer.

B.L. Enterprises recommends Atari DOS 2.5 for the system. A quick check shov^^ed that MyDOS and DOSXL also work, although TopDOS, SpartaDOS and SuperDOS don't. (Ac- cording to the manufacturer, the newest version of DER does support SpartaDOS. Also supported are DOS XL and SmartDOS.-kHWQ ED) The DER drive can be configured as drive 1-8 and you can boot from it.

Some bonuses are included. The first is a quick Ttanslator if your main computer is an XL/XE and your DER is a 400/800 it actually copies the operating system from the 400/800. The second bonus is a sector copier that uses all the memory in both com- puters. The final bonus is a routine to move DURSYS and MEM.SAV to the DER drive.

B.L. Enterprises has hinted that since DER is programmable from the main computer, future software up- grades (like a RAMdisk printer buffer) may be forthcoming.

Both products work as advertised and increase your system's productiv- ity. DER gets an enthusiastic recom- mendation, PBR a more reserved one. If PER fits your work style, you'll love it, otherwise you may find the setup routine annoying.

Finally, can you use both of these products at the same time? Yes. . .if you have three computers.— CHARLES CWERRY

$39.95 each. PBR and DER both require two 48K Atari computers and one disk drive. B.L. Enterprises, P.O. Box 7881, Louisville, KY 40207.

PiaURE PLUS

You must like nice pictures in vi- brant colors after all, you own an Atari 8-bit computer. Undoubtedly, if you enjoy drawing on an Atari, you have your favorite art program. How- ever, there are those great pictures done with other art programs which your program can't read.-

Picture Plus is a package of utili- ties by Chet Walters. It loads at least eight different kinds of picture files and will then save to any of the eight types. It's one of the few products which will load light pen files.

Picture Plus also enables you to manipulate a picture in strange and ar-

With Picture

Plus, I'm

able to use any

picture in

any format.

cane ways while it's in your Atari's memory. The picture can be rotated, flipped upside-down, moved about, merged with another picture, recolored (almost instantly), or rain- bowed with scrolling bright colors at different parts of the picture. You can change the color registers and/or lu- minance. Text can be added or over- laid. The 130XE RAMdisk is directly supported and I've been experiment- ing with the SpartaDOS 256K RAM- disk to good effect.

Picture Plus directly supports Ep- son and Prowriter printers, and it has options to customize it for any other printer you might have. Detailed in- structions and software support are given for printing in four colors us- ing colored ribbons or carbons on a normal dot-matrix printer. There is

also an option to switch to low-res graphics on your printer and create huge posters.

Three extra programs are included on the Picture Plus disk. One, PICLOAD.BAS, can be added to your homemade BASIC programs to load Micro Illustrator or Micro-Painter pic- tures, distinguishing between the two. EXPAND. BAS converts any font on disk to double its original width. Most useful (okay, most fun!) is PIC- SHOW.BAS, a slide-show program which loads and displays any Micro- Painter or Micro Illustrator pictures with a time delay of your choosing. It can rainbow your pictures, add a gong to let you know when they change, e\'en permit you to switch disks in the middle of a run. With lit- tle effort, I changed the program to read files from a RAMdisk, saving my drive during displays.

A word should be said about the documentation. All of The Catalog's 5 1/4 inch disks have the documenta- tion included on the disk with a util- ity for printing it on paper. Too often the manuals are obscure or skimpy. This, happily, is a major exception the programmer actually writes a good manual! One read-through and you will be able to access any feature of Picture Plus with no difficulty. All commands are arranged in a logical order. Walters has a chatty style that makes the manual seem like a per- sonal demonstration. I demand a lot from documentation. I want it to in- clude every possible answer to every possible question I might have. This manual does.

With Picture Plus, I'm able to use any picture in any format. On its own. Picture Plus is almost essential for my printing work. Bundled as it is with another useful program Lister Plus, which prints any special pro- gramming symbols displayed on your screen), the $19-95 price is an incredi- ble bargain.-CHESTER COX A

$19.95, 48K disk. The Catalog, 544 Sec- ond Street, San Francisco CA 94107. (800) 234-7001.

38

ANTIC, THE ATARI RESOURCE

TYPE IN

SOFTWARE

lOTTOPIK

Pick the winning numbers with your Atari. By Dr. John Ferguson

'se the Atari's random number generator to create ready-to-use lists of Lotto number choices. Your odds against winning may still be impossible, but at least you won't need to agonize over which numbers to pick. This BASIC program works on all 8-bit Atari computers of any memory size, with disk or cassette.

Win millions! The dream is wonder- ful, even if the odds are nearly im- possible. . .

. . .Nevertheless, most states now have their Lotto games, and playing them has become a national pastime. Playing is easy, but choosing "lucky" numbers can really be agonizing. People play "favorites," birthdays, ages, addresses, telephone numbers, hunches, or just close their eyes and point.

One thing is for sure any set of numbers is just as likely to win as any other. The people rumiing lotteries go to great lengths to ensure this. On the other hand, prizes are divided among those that choose the same winning numbers, so your best chance of winning remote as that may be is to pick numbers other people don't. Such numbers have an equal oppor- tunity to win, but pay more.

The question is, what are those less- used numbers? How do you avoid all the psychological biases that lead to picking numbers that are too popu- lar? The obvious answer is to match the way the lottery numbers are cho-

NOVEMBER 1988

sen in the first place use a purely random system. The catch is that picking numbers randomly, even with your own ping-pong balls, is not very easy.

However, your Atari computer has a built-in function that generates pseudo-random numbers. LottoPik is a short BASIC program designed to pull these numbers out of the com- puter and display them for you in an easy-to-read, printable format.

So get lucky. Type in Listing 1, LOT- TOPIK.BAS, check it with TYPO II and SAVE a copy before you RUN it.

WHAT LOnOPIK DOES

Actually there are a number of use- ful steps that LottoPik carries out for you. Of course, it first must calculate a random integer within the correct range. Then LottoPik does this five more times to create the set of six numbers in the Lotto format. It also makes sure that none of the six num- bers are duplicates.

Making it easier to read and trans- fer the numbers, LottoPik sorts and displays them in ascending order. The

program also uses a string function to convert the numbers into a consistent two-digit form, just to keep things neat. Since a Lotto card usually lets you play as many as five games at once, the program repeats the above steps five times and displays all the numbers needed to complete a single card. To display another full set of numbers, press [RETURN]. Finally LottoPik lets you print the results, us- ing a simple driver that should work with any printer.

Choosing "lucky" numbers can be agonizing.

LottoPik is very easy to use. But be- fore you RUN it, change the variable X in line 5 and make it equal to the highest number which can be chosen in your state's Lotto.

I haven't won yet, but I have had my money's worth of fun. I hope you have better luck. A

Dr. John Ferguson is a marine biology professor at Eckerd College in Florida. Ax) expert on starfish, he published Beer Party Atari m the May 1985 Antic.

Listing on page 77

39

FjJfEU

dAKDEN

Instant "Rose-Equation" Graphics

Use The Classic Mathematical

"Rose Equation" To Create An Endless

YvRiETY Of Flowerlike Images For

Screen Display Or Printout

The basic Program Works On 8-Bit

Atari Computers With At Least

3ZK Disk Or 24K Cassette.

By Allan Moose And Marian Lorenz

40 /)/K'-/« Sojhvaie D

Major advances in computer graphics have been achieved during the past 20 years and we sometimes forget that a simple line drawing program based on a mathematical function can produce pictures of un- expected beauty. This article demon- strates how to grow a flower garden of graceful symmetric designs with your Atari.

The popular Cartesian coordinate system identifies a point on a plane by giving its distances from two per- pendicular axes. These axes are usually labeled X and Y.

Perhaps less well known is the po- lar coordinate system. This system lo- cates a point by giving its distance from the center of the coordinate sys- tem, plus an angle. For example, a fighter pilot crying out "enemy at six o'clock, nine miles out" is using a form of polar coordinates. The dis- tance here is nine miles and the angle is 180 degrees (six o'clock).

The distance, usually labeled r for radius, is the distance from an origin, O. Tlie angle, often labeled Theta (0) or Phi(<J)), is the angle between the horizontal axis and a line drawn from the origin (O) to the point (P). See Fig- ure 1.

The rose equation, r=R*sin(n), is one of the most popular illustrations of polar coordinates.

In this equation, R is a constant that determines the size of the graph and n is an integer A graph of this equa- tion has n petals If n is an odd integer and 2n petals if n is an even integer. Figure 2 shows the graph if R = 80 for n = 2 and n = 3.

The program accompanying this article draws polygons inside an n-petaled rose. This program is ideal for experimentation and you will find yourself spending hours "growing flowers."

GEHING STARTED

Type in Listing 1, FLOWERS.BAS, check it with TYPO II and SAVE a copy before you RUN it. When RUN, the program will ask you to type values for N and Alpha (the angle increment). Then your Atari will draw your flower

When it's done, type [S] to save your flower as a Micro-Painter- compatible disk file called "D:PIC- TURE" the program doesn't save

to cassette, sorry. Type [P] to print your flower with any Epson- compatible printer, or type [N] to erase your flower and begin a new one.

HOW IT WORKS

1 . Type in values for N and Alpha.

2. Next, the program initializes Count, Countstop, Delta and Deltainc. Countstop is a value that stops the program when the figure is com- pleted. Delta is an "angle monitor." It prevents the program from drawing degenerate figures made from a sin- gle point or just a few lines. Delta in- sures that the ending point meets the starting point. Otherwise, the pro- gram continues drawing.

3. Now the program gets the start- ing point for a drawing sequence. It sets the angle Theta = Delta, computes the points Phi="rr*(Theta)/180 and R = Radius *Sin(N* Phi). Finally it converts these polar coordinates (Phi, Theta) to rectangular coordinates and stores the result in Xold and Yold.

4. Next, add Alpha to Theta. If Theta is greater than or equal to 360 replace Theta by Modulo (Theta) to keep its value between 0 and 359. An explanation of Modulo is given later in the article.

5 . Compute N * Theta. Reduce it by Modulo 360 and store the result in Phi. Compute R = Radius *Sin(Phi).

Polar Coordinates

Horizontal Axis

R=80n=2

FIGURE 1

R=80 n=3

FIGURE 2

42

ANTIC, THE ATARI RESOURCE

6. Change the polar coordinates (Theta, R) to rectangular coordinates called Xnew and Ynew.

7. Draw a line from (Xold,Yold) to (Xnew,Ynew).

8. Increment Count.

9. Check Theta. If Theta = Delta, go to step 10. Otherwise set (Xold,Yold) = pCnew,Ynew) and go back to step 4 .

10. If Count is greater than or equal to Countstop, stop plotting. Other- wise set Delta = Delta -i-Deltainc and go back to Step 3.

PROGRAM NOTES

The radius in steps 3 and 5 depends on your computer For an 8-bit Atari use Radius = 80.

The Modulo function (Mod) returns the remainder after a division. For ex- ample, 45 divided by 6 is 7 with a re- mainder of 3. The results of 45 Mod 6 would be 3- This is known as modu- lar arithmetic. Unlike ordinary arith- metic which uses an infinite range of

numbers, modular arithmetic num- bers repeat after a given cycle. The program uses the Modulo function to make sure that the angles Theta and NTheta stay between 0 and 359- EXAMPLES:

359 Mod 360 = 359

360 Mod 360 = 0

361 Mod 360 = 1

EXPERIMENTING

Observe how a drawing evolves when N remains constant while Al- pha ranges from 1 to 360 degrees. For small values of N, you will find similarities in how the figures evolve as Alpha varies from 1 to 90 degrees. A smooth line drawing at small Alpha values becomes wider and more lacy as Alpha increases, until the design fills in and a squarish figure appears in the center Continuing beyond 90 degrees up to 180 degrees will, in a sense, reverse the figure's evolution.

Also try large values of N and small

values of Alpha. Interesting loop-like figures are produced with N = 92, Alpha =16 or N = 206, Alpha = 28. However, to draw these loop-like figures you must change Deltainc to 1 and Countstop to 360 first.

N = 6 and Alpha =72 draws a rotat- ing star which evolves into a "flower" that bears no resemblance to the star which drew it.

You can also try reversing the values of N and Alpha. For example N = 200 and Alpha = 20 produces an interest- ing flower N = 20 and Alpha =200 also produces an interesting design. Not all reversals make pretty flowers, but the possibilities for creating a gar- den are endless. A

Allan Moose and Marian Lorenz are teachers on Long Island, New Ibrk. Their mathematics-oriented programs have of- ten appeared in Antic Most recently was Got-A-Minute Graphics in February 1988. Listing on page 67

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Lightspeed C

Move up to high-level programming. By Matthew Ratcliff

Most serious Atari 8-bit users learn BASIC and many try assembly lan- guage, but the trend in the computer industry and education is toward high-level languages such as Pascal, C and Ada. The current language of choice for the Atari ST and most other personal computers is C. If you're ready to move up to the structured programming world of C, for just a small investment, Lightspeed C ($34.95) is just your speed.

Floating-point is slightly quirky in

Lightspeed C.

This C compiler comes on several disks and includes Lightspeed DOS as well as support files for SpartaDOS. A runtime library is required for SpartaDOS, but it's integrated with Lightspeed DOS. Everything you need to create an executable C program is provided with the compiler, linker and optimizer You can use the C pro- gram editor (CEDIT) to create your own programs or develop them with an editor of your choice.

Lightspeed C supports floating-

point and trignometric functions and provides many other features, such as a fast graphics package, that you would not expect to find in such an affordable program.

Floating-point is rather quirky in Lightspeed. All your variables must be

declared as six-character strings in- stead of "float" values. For example, in standard C we would declare and multiply two floating-point numbers as follows:

float X, y, z;

X = 1.75;

/. Complete Mandelbrot Set, generated with a Lightspeed C program.

44

ANTIC, THE ATARI RESOURCE

\

y = 3.45;

Z = X * y;

printf("%f TIMES %f is %f\", x, y,

2);

Here's how you do it in Lightspeed

C: char x[6], y[6], z[6]; atof(x, "1.75"); /* Ascii to floating-point */ atof(y "3.45"); /* conversion */ fmul(x, y, z);

printf("%f TIMES %f is %f\", x, y z);

I had few problems using Lightspeed C to create a sophisticated fractal generation program, which is floating-point intensive. The listings for this fractal demonstration are bo- nus files on this month's Antic Disk, details are explained at the end of the article.

The biggest problem with floating- point in Lightspeed is there is no sup- port for floating-point compares (in IF and WHILE statements). It talses some unusual string manipulation techniques to handle the job.

INTEGRATED ENVIRONMENT

The most impressive feature of Lightspeed C is its totally integrated programming environment if you use the C editor CEBIT is virtually identical to the editors in MAC/65 and BASIC XL in that you use line num- bers for referencing, and auto-entry is supported. From here, the power of Lightspeed becomes apparent.

Pressing [BREAK] to exit the auto- entry mode invokes the Lightspeed syntax checker. The code you just en- tered is immediately checked for syn- tax errors, saving you valuable time

2. Extreme close-up of the image on the oppposite page.

in debugging compile errors. The syn- tax checker isn't smart enough to check for multiple line statements, however, occasionally reporting bo- gus errors. For example, the follow- ing would result in a syntax check er- ror with an "unbalanced parenthesis" indication:

1200 X = ((a + b) 1210 * {c + d));

The code above is correct, how- ever, and won't generate a compile er- ror This is not a bug in the syntax checker, just a limitation in that it only checks syntax by physical lines and not logical lines.

Line numbers are used only for reference. CEDIT lets you list a code block to the display and then use the cursor keys to perform full-screen editing. If new code needs to be in- serted, the auto-entry mode simply asks for the line to follow with new code. You need not worry about run- ning out of line numbers while insert- ing either, since CEDIT will take care of this automatically. This is an im- provement over MAC/65 or BASIC XL, which force you to stop code entry, renumber, and then continue in- serting.

Once your source code is complete, you can save it to disk or compile it with auto-save. CEDIT uses Light- speed DOS and SpartaDOS to full ad- vantage, simulating batch-command files. You can specify compilation of your source code, automatically fol- lowed by LINK (the linker) and RUN. If there's an error during compilation, enter the drive number containing CEDIT. Control will go back to CEDIT, with the errant line displayed as well as a descriptive error diagnos- tic. If no errors occur, the intermedi- ate file is LlNKed and then RUN.

Use the FASTER utility to optimize a compiled file. According to the documentation, FASTER can be part of the compile, link and run com- mand line. This confuses Lightspeed, however, and the linker attempts to link your program with FASTER. CCC

NOVEMBER 1988

45

and create a FASTER.COM file, thus trashing your FASTER utility. Gener- ally I just compile, link and run until the program is fully debugged. Then I run FASTER separately. After optimi- zation, relinking results in a smaller, faster program.

Using a RAMdisk or a hard disk speeds up the whole process con- siderably. Rurming Lightspeed C from floppies works just fine, but it's rather slow. You cannot compile directly to memory as you can with ACTION! or MAC/65.

SpartaDOS users will need RUN- TIME .OBJ on the same disk as the .COM file created by the linker. When the .COM program is executed, the runtime support library is retrieved from disk automatically. You can put the runtime and executable files on disks with Atari DOS 2.0 or 2.5, or with just about any other DOS disks, and run them if the LOMEM doesn't conflict with the memory require- ments of the Lightspeed files. Mem- ory use is reported by the LINKer program.

THE MANUAL

The Lightspeed C manual is well- written and complete, except for the notable lack of an index. All other C manuals I've used have a full alpha- betic list of the functions supported. Lightspeed has a handy command summary by category in the mid- dle of the manual. (It should have been printed on the inside cover for quicker access.)

Kemighan and Ritchie's C Program- ming Language is considered the stan- dard for all C compilers. Lightspeed C measures up quite nicely, consider- ing the 8-bit's memory limitations and a low-tech microprocessor like the 6502. Appendix A of the Lightspeed C manual covers all its differences and shortcomings relative to the Kemi- ghan and Ritchie standard a very honest and useful reference.

If you want to get into the more ad- vanced features of C, such as struc- tures, unions and multidimensional

arrays, forget it. Lightpseed C can't handle them. This is its most signifi- cant limitation.

Lightspeed C makes the transition from BASIC to C painless with equiva- lent functions for PEEK, POKE, GRAPHICS and more. The most-used procedure of C has to be printf— print formatted output. Lightspeed sup- ports it fully, including output of floating-point numbers.

If your application is too large to fit in memory, it can be broken up into separate modules. Lightspeed C lets you chain between programs, with a command line DOS such as Sparta- DOS or their own Lightspeed DOS.

File input/output conforms closely

Lightspeed

C has found a

permanent home

on my hard

drive.

to the standard. Lightspeed provides full support for Player/Missile Graphics and an advanced graphics manager package with functions like mbox, mfill, circle and more. DCOPY comes with Lightspeed to help man- age your files.

I have found Lightspeed C to be complete and extremely user-friendly. I have been programming in C on the ST, PC and mainframe computers for a couple of years now, and I find the Lightspeed programming environ- ment among the most elegant. With all the other "bigger computers" you must manage your file creation with a MAKE facility. Lightspeed C auto- matically generates your MAKE files for the linker

You won't be able to write ex- tremely large applications in Light-

speed without a lot of chaining, since its smallest runtime library is over 7K. Lightspeed C is a welcome relief from the tedium of assembly language pro- gramming and chaos of developing large BASIC programs.

Lightspeed C has found a perma- nent home on my hard drive and is currently my 8-bit language of choice for utilities and graphics develop- ment. Try it you'll love it.

DEMOS ON DISK

To grow your own fractals you will need MANDEL.COM, MANVIEW. COM and RUNTIME.OBJ from this month's Antic Disk. A complete frac- tal picture is also on the November 1988 disk. Choose selection 5 from Side A of the Antic Disk to read com- plete operating instructions. And for full explanation of how fractal images are created on your computer, see the April 1986 Computer Mathematics issue of Antic.

RUNTIME.OBJ comes from the Lightspeed C support library and is used here by permission of the man- ufacturer. It loads automatically when you execute either of the other two programs.

MANDEL.COM generates the frac- tal pictures, a slow process with any computer and software. Each com- pleted image will require four hours or more. Load the program from DOS and select your parameters by follow- ing the prompts. Sample values are in- cluded at each prompt to start you off, or you can select values following the instructions in the HELP file on Side B of this month's disk.

MANVIEW.COM is used for dis- playing finished fractal images. Load it from DOS and follow the prompts. Press [RETURN] to move to the next picture and press [ESC] to return to DOS. A

LIGHTSPEED C Clearstar Softechnologies P. O. Box 140 Harrells, NC 28444 (919) 532-2359 $39.95, 48K disk

46

ANTIC, THE ATARI RESOURCE

Print Shop Shareware Bonanza

Charles Cherry reviews Icon Printer, Video Jukebox and four more . . .

If you produce useful products at reasonable prices and make them easy to use, I'll write raves for you. One 8-bit Atari pro- grammer who qualifies is Chris Ware- ham of Shepherd Software. You may recall my enthusiasm for his Billboard giant-barmer program in the February 1988 Antic. Well, Chris has followed that up with another six interesting shareware and public domain offerings.

The most significant are Icon Printer and Video Jukebox (SIO each), utilities for Broderbund's ever- popular Print Shop. Icon Printer prints 49 icons per page. It dumps an entire disk of icons to your printer au- tomatically, complete with names, in disk order or alphabetical order. As a bonus. Icon Printer lets you rename icons. Like all of Chris' programs, the user interface is clean and simple.

Icon Printer is set up for Epson FX printers and compatibles, but can be modified to support almost any printer Even if you only use Print rarely, you need a program like this. There are lots of utilities for Print Shop icons, but Video Jukebox is the first I've seen that addresses the pro- gram's Screen Magic capabilities. Ba- sically, it converts Micro -Painter and Micro Illustrator screens to Screen Magic format and back, meaning that you can capture Screen Magic kaleido- scopes for your paint programs and add fancy Print Shop lettering to your

NOVEMBER 1988

microscreens.

Video Jukebox does other things that are less useful but more fun. It displays pictures while running the Atari rainbow in the background incredibly dramatic with the Print Shop kaleidoscopes. The rainbow can be changed by pressing any key com- bination, producing more variations than I thought possible.

Video Jukebox can play music while the picture is displayed, affect- ing the speed of the rainbow in strange ways. The overall effect can be amazing. Pokey Player, the excel- lent public domain program, is used to produce the music and is included on the disk along with 34 songs. I would say that the easy-to-use Video Jukebox is another must-have for Print Shop junkies and a very useful tool for people who want Print Shop fonts in their microscreens.

F-15 Construction Set (S7) lets you design new flight maps for MicroProse's F-15 Strike Eagle. It re- quires the original game and is a little tough to set up. But after you've got it working, you can easily modify the existing missions, save them and play them. There are a few restrictions such as not having more targets than the original mission, but you get enough flexibility to keep up with world events.

DO-Disk ($7) is the only clunker in the batch. It's basically a sector reader— not a sector editor that lets

you search for a character string, or map (trace) the files. The results can be printed either onscreen or on the printer But DO-Disk can't change the data on the disk, it can't even display the data in hexadecimal format. Any decent sector editor will run rings around DO-Disk.

Interestingly, DO-Disk includes a "mini" sector editor L. Fogassy's public domain Modify Utility. It's more useful than the DO-Disk, and together they're almost a complete system. Still, you'd be better off with a full-featured sector editor.

The final product is a public do- main nutrition tracking program. Eat WeU, Live Long, Prosper! (S5), based on a public domain BASIC pro- gram by Vance Houston and translated into ACTION! You enter your statis- tics (age, weight and sex), and then Eat Well asks what you ate (or plan to eat). You choose your answer from a list of almost 500 items (you can add to the list).

Try the programs. If you like them, send the money to Shepherd Soft- ware. All of them, even the DO-Disk, are easily worth the low price. Do yourself a favor and introduce your- self to Chris Wareham's work. By the way, the latest version of BUlboard ($10) is much easier to configure for various printers. A

48K disk. Shepherd Software, 1215 West Jackson, Spearfish, SD 57783.

47

mcMffi

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ASTROLOGY - Create astrological charts easily just by entering birthdate and

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ATARIORACLE - The electronic OUJI board. Requires Atari Basic.

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BLUE TEAM BRIDGE - Tournament level computerized bridge simulation.

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BUMPOMOV'S DOGS -A two-player game. (AP01 12) $12.95

BURGERS - A game for young children. (APO109) $12.95

CHOP SUEY Action-packed martial arts competition simulation. (APOI 62) $1 5.95 COLOSSUS CHESS 3.0 - A variety of of simulation modes available. Requires 48K

RAtvl. (AP0161) $15.95

COLOURSPACE - A "visual synthesizer." (AP0167) $15.95

CRIBBAGE AND SEVEN CARD STUD - Two-for-One card games.

(AP0173) $15.95

DIGGERBONK - Great fun for kids of all ages. (APO107) $12.95

DOG DAZE DELUXE - Excellent 3D effects. (APO1 11) $12.95

DRAGON'S QUEST - A fast and fantastic graphic adventure game. Requires Atari

Basic. (AP0139) $15.95

GALAHAD AND THE HOLY GRAIL - Designed by one of Lucasfilm's top game

programmers. (APO1 10) $15.95

KING TUT'S TOMB AND CONSTRUCTION SET - Forty-eight different tombs, or

build your own. (AP0149) $15.95

KLONDIKE SOLITAIRE AND SEVENS (FAN TAN) - Classic strategy card games.

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LORD OF THE ORB - Rescue the Living Orb of Fortune. (APO103) $15.95

MARS MISSION II - Explore life beyond the vertical caverns of Mars.

(APO120) $15.95

OMAR - A chess, checkers and Chinese checkers combination game.

(APO140) $12.95

PHOBOS - Destroy the Ivlartian Command Center. (APO1 19) $15.95

PUZZLER - An infinite number of on-screen puzzles. (APO150) $12.95

RAID ON GRAVITRON - A point-of-view space battle with outstanding 3D effects.

(AP0121) $12.95

SARATOGA - This is "the" war simulation of the American Revolution.

(APO104) $15.95

SNARK HUNT - An APX Award winner. Requires Atari Basic. (APO105) $12.95

SPACE WAR - A two-player galactic shoot-out. (APO101) $12.95

TAXICAB HILL - A delightfully chaotic game. (AP0137) $15.95

WEAKON - Enter the amazing world of inner space. (AP0122) $15.95

XTAL (CRYSTAL) - Mission: to destroy a planet-threatening ion radiation storm.

(AP0158) $15.95

PRODUCTIVITY

CREATIVE PROCESS 1.8 - An indispensible outline processor. (AP0151) ..$19.95 DEEP BLUE C COMPILER AND MATHLIB - The all purpose ST language and

math library. (AP0188) $19 95

FLOATING POINT PACKAGE AND EXTENDED D.D.T. (EXDDT) - A powerful

combo for assembly language. (AP0189) $19.95

INTERLISP/65 2.5 - A subset of the standard "INTERLISP" dialect of LISP.

{AP0191) $19.95

RAMBRANDT - The ultimate paint software on two disks. (AP0157) $19.95

SPELL MAGIC - Check documents generated by other word processing programs,

and in context with the document display feature. (AP0144) $19.95

TELECOMMUNICATIONS

BAtKTALK 1.2 - The Atari becomes a communications droid with the macro command feature. (AP0154) $19 95

CHAMELEON CRT TERMINAL EMULATOR 4.03 - One terminal becomes five in a matter of minutes. Requires 48K RAIi^. (AP0113) $19,95

EDUCATION

EARTH VIEWS - An electronic globe with a variety of map formats and views.

(AP0141) $19,95

MAPWARE - Add maps to your programs. 9,000 pairs of coordinates available.

Requires Atari Basic. (AP0134) $19.95

MEMOREASE+ - Learn to memorize efficiently and quicl^ly. (AP0163) $19.95

ORBIT: A TRIP TO THE MOON - On board computer, graphic display control panel

and variable Earth and Lunar views. Requires 48K RAIVI. (AP0168) $15.95

SPACE BASE - A must for telescope owners. Requires 48K RAM.

(AP0142) $19.95

SPEEDREAD+ - Learn to read faster with less effort. Requires 48K RAI^.

(AP0164) $19.95

UTILITY

BASIC VIEW -A must for all programmers. (AP01 92) $19.95

DISK SCANNER - A complete disl< editor for single and double density drives.

(AP0145) $5.95

ENHANCED POKEY PLAYER - Input and edit music. Tutorial included. Requires

Atari Basic. (AP01 47) $15.95

THE ENHANCEMENT DISKS - B/Graph's utilities. Requires Atari Basic.

(APO190) $19.95

ENVISION - Create stand-alone pictures or produce Basic and Assembler Source

Codes. Requires Atari Basic, lVlAC/65, SynAssembler, Epson-compatible printer.

(AP0185) $19.95

GRAPHIC SHOP - Use most Atari picture files for Print Shop signs, banners,

letterheads, etc. Requires Print Shop. (AP0156) $19.95

PICTURE PLUS 3.0 AND LISTER PLUS 1.5 - The complete graphic utility set.

Requires 48K RAM and Atari Basic. (AP0179) $19.95

PRINTER DRIVER CONSTRUCTION SET - Make AtariWriter compatible with every

printer. Requires AtariWriter. (AP0131) $19.95

SCREEN PLOT - Print color micro-screens on most plotters. {AP0135) $5.95

SHERLOCK 1050 - Restore crashed disl<s with the trace option feature.

(AP0155) $19.95

SOLID OBJECT MODULE - Create 3D objects easily. Requires 48K RAM and

RAMbrandt. (AP0182) $15.95

PUBLIC DOMAIN

PHOTO GRAPHICS (PD001 7) $10.00

ANTIC FORTH (PD0020) $10.00

THE FIX XL (PD0026) $10.00

CROCKFORD'S WHIMSY (PD0033) $10.00

VT100 TERMINAL EMULATOR (PD0037) $10.00

CUES EDPACK #1 (PD0044) $10.00

CUES EDPACK #2 (PD0045) $10.00

HEAVY METAL ART (PD0060) $10.00

ASTRONOMY & METEOROLOGY (PD0063) $10.00

130 XE ARTSHOW (PD0065) $10.00

DOS 4.0 (PD0067) $10.00

130 XE HI-RES DESIGNER {PD0070) $10.00

RAMBRANDT COLLECTION (PD0073) $10.00

STEVE DONG'S GALLERY (PD0074) $10.00

1030 EXPRESS {PD0081) $10.00

850 EXPRESS (PD0082) $10.00

MPP EXPRESS (PD0087) $10.00

TEKTRONICS 4010 GRAPHICS TERMINAL EMULATOR (PD0083) $10.00

All software listed worl<s with Atari XL and XE systems.

HOW TO ORDER BY MAIL

Send check or money order to; Antic Software, #ML8A, 544 Second Street, San Francisco, CA 94107. $20.00 minimum order. Please include $3.00 shipping and handling per order. California residents please add 6.5% sales tax.

o

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£ R

T O

L L

F R

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IIOO.234-7001

VISA or

MASTEBCABD_

Today!

The guide to ST game software

November 1988

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Stellar Crusade

ST vs. PC Reviewed bv Steve Panak

I've been waiting for this one. Ever since I reviewed Interstel/EA's Empire, the premier space wargame for the ST, I've waited for someone with the guts to try and top it. And while SSI has achieved this lofty goal— at least in some aspects— with Stellar Crusade, this simulation is particularly demanding. Only seasoned, committed generals need apply. J This intermediate-to-advanced-level game simulates, in great detail, an expansionist poIic>' in a galactic arena. The most advanced level of play has two competitprs(one can be the unforgiving computer)first exploring and then coloniz- ing star systems. Slowly the players build up to the degree of economic strength necessary to control the entire star cluster Mineral-rich planets become mining colonies, while those with good soil will feed the millions of workers }'Ou en- gave in your war machine factories. After you obtain a few choice planets, you'll start designing your star ships,

arming them with varied offensive and defensive weapons. Group the star ships into fleets, led by com- manders of your choice. The ultimate goal is nothing less than galactic domination. Good luck.

Stellar Crusade's complexity level demands a warning label, as I reali2ed upon my first load. A veteran of hundreds of games in three computer formats (Atari 8-bit, ST and PC), I rarely have any trouble learning to play a game. Yet I couldn't even suc- ceed in starting to play Stellar Crusade on its first load.

BEAUTIFUL GRAPHICS

Graphically, Stellar Crusade is beau- tiful. The main display contains a map of the galaxy, while an intuitive com- mand interface lets you examine each star system to check its manpower and production levels. Of course, your information is only as good as your last contact you might have lost the system to enemies by now.

The generous manual attempts to

explain the operation of this complex game, but be prepared to invest a sub- stantial amount of time learning to play. PC and ST versions play identi- cally, and both can be copied to a hard drive. To help you test the waters

Graphically

beautiful, with

an intuitive

command

interface

without drowning, some of the in- troductory scenarios support only battle and/or exploration phases, leav- ing the full game, with its complex economic phase, to the all- encompassing Long Campaign. If you

get through this one, you're ready for anything.

PC AUTO-MODE

The PC version supports all IBM- compatible graphics modes, with Hercules monochrome being the closest in resolution to the ST. Instal- lation is a snap because Stellar Cru- sade automatically selects the correct graphics adapter as it loads. Note that a stock 8088-based PC slows play with its lengthy screen updates. At least an 8 megahertz machine is recommended, along with a mouse.

Overall, 1 recommend Stellar Cru- sade, but with this caveat: It's tough to learn, demanding to play and re- quires a substantial commitment of time. However, if you make that com- mitment, you won't find a more detailed outer space simulation on this planet, or any other.

$54.95, color ($49.95, IBM). Strategic Simulations Inc., 1046 N. Rengstorff Av- enue, Mountain View, CA 94043. (415) 964-1353.

w

HACK BACK

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The Alpira Systems HACK PACK contains oil our

finest pfoducts tor making Bacl<-up copies.

Analyzing, Understanding and Protecling your

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lor the special price ot Just $99.95

Atari Soflware Protection Techniques Vol I & II

These Book and Disk packages detail the most advanced copy proleclion methods in use today They ouide vou Ihrough Ihe methods used to cieate the protection as well as the copying techniques to get

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ALPHA SYSTEMS Is constantly innovating lo provide more power for your S-bit AlarJs

around Ihem Ttiey include inlotmotion on Phreoking Hocking On-line secunly Block boxes deslmcting programs Pirate bulletin board systems Logic bombs New piracy lows Hardware data keys Weak sectoring (Phontom, l^uzzy and unstable sectors) Overfilled tracks Ct?C errors Bonk Select cartridges and (i/lUCH, MUCH MORE, The disks include automatic program protectors. Protection Sconners, directory hiding ond more, BOOK I and DISK I $24.95

BOOK II (Advanced protection) and DISK II $24.95 Special Otter, Order l>otlt sets tor Only $39.95

CHIPMUNK , ^ ,

Automatic Disk Bock-Up System, Moke perteclly running unpiolected back-up copies ol hundreds ot Ihe most popular Atori programs. Chipmunk's sophisticated programming Automatically tinds and REMOVES copy proleclion tiom most Atari programs. Back-up even heovily protected progroms with ease f^inolly, o back-up system that needs no special hardware or skills (II you need a lull list ol whot Chipmunk copies, call or write lor our tree catolog) $34.95

Scanalyzer Automatically scon & anolyze commercial programs Unlo'ck programming secrels and

leoin from the masters $29.95

Impersonator Cartridoe to Disk bock up system, Creole mnning back-up copies ol any cartridge

(uptolBK) $29.95

PARROT II

^ An All New PoiTOt sound digitizer for your Atori, Porrot II is o Tophislicoled new hnrdwore device that plugs into your joystick port, Porrot II has two inputs. One tor a micraptmne and one tor a powered source such as a tape player, radio or Compocf Disk. The Powerful Parrot II sollware lets you record sounds into your computer and ploy them bock on any Atari Parrot II turns your computers keyboord into a musical instrument with nine dilteient sounds covering three octaves each. The sounds can be onything, a dogs bork, o piono, a complete drum set, 0 symphony or your own voice,

Poriol II tels you modify the sounds on a graphic display to create brand new sounds and special effects Best ot all, the sounds and voices con be put inio your own progroms thai con be used on any standard Atari, Explore ttie world ol digital sound ond music, ONLY $59.95 Pre-Recordsd Sound Disk Ivtore pre-recorded sounds for Parrot $4.95 FARROT M Demo Disk (Does not require Parrot to run) $5.00

^^S^ CHEAT

Get more from your gomes with CHEAT Tired ol spending days trying to beat o gome' Tired ot getting stuck lUst when you need another lite' Ctieol is on innovotive new product that gives you the chance vou need lo beat your tovarife games Cheat works with hunOreds ot Atari gomes to give you unlimited lives or power End the tfusfrofion and get hours more enjoyment from your gomes {Coll or write Alpha Systems lor our Iree cotolog with o lull lisl ot the piograms thai work with Cheol) ONLV $24.95

BASIC TURBOCHARGER , ^^ ^ ^^, ^ ,

NOW for the tifst time o BASIC programmer con get the power, tlexibllllY and incredible speed ot mochine longuoge BASIC TURBOCHARGER is o book and disk package that contains over 1 50 ready to use machine language routines Complete instmctions show how to add them to your own BASIC programs la get these feotures ond more: Smooth Scrolling Ptayer/Missile control Load & Save Picture tiles Sorting ond Searching Speciol Ettects Graphics Increaible Speed IVIuch, Much More Over 1 50 programs You've heard ol the power of Assembler now harness it tor your own needs S24 95 ^^__— ^^.^.^«m«^^_ ^

S24 95._^..^_^ „„„„„ 216-374-7469

-.trtf^ B/\B M tir\r^uv.n ° 'd^' Pnced, multi-player trivia game that mixes questions

*T\^iJ POP-N-ROCKeK ^^,|tn ,eoi songs (digilized

*^«ith Parrot), Be the first to identify Ihe songs and answer the music trivia questions, Pop-N-Roclim comes with Ihree data disks and lels you odd new questions so it will never gel old. You con use o Parrot Sound digitizer to odd new songs too! Use any kind ol music from Rock lo Classical to Nursery Rhymes, A now concept in entei tainmenf ond o perfect add-on lor Pariot, $24.95

COMPUTEREYES & MAGNIPRINT II +

Turn your computer inlo a digilol portrait studio This complete packoge lets I

you capture, save & print digital images trom youi Video Camera, VCR

or TV COMPUTEREYES hardware plugs directly into your joystick ports tor

easy use. Print your picture on a 6 foot poster $119.95

ComputerEyes camera system

Comes complete with everything obove, plus a block and white video , ■- '.,^1^"

camera and connecting coble, $329.95 IkiiimnaiM

Graphics 9 Software - Add 0 new dimension to your COMPUTEREYES q,;^, wau. $|zed POSTERS.

pictures - copfutes images in 1 6 shodes of grey $12.00

Magniprint II -1-

Easily the most powerful print program available today Print graphics from almost any lormot in

hundreds of shapes, sizes, ond shades Supports color priming and lets you Creole giant posters.

Magniprint II + lets you stretoh and squeeze, invert, add text, adjust shading ond much mare.

Works with EPSON, NEC, Ciloh, Pcnosonic, Gemini, Star, XMM80I , and compatible printers, (850

interface or equivotent required), S24.95

Graphics Ttansformer ^ . , ^

Now you can combine the most powerful feotures of oil your graphics programs. Create print shop

icons from 0 Koala pod picture, tram a photo digitized with ComputerEyes, or any picture file,

Graphics Transtotmer lets you Shrink, Enlarge and Merge pictures for unequoled llexibilitv. $22.95

YOUR ATARI COMES ALIVE _ .,

SAVE IvtONEY Finally on ailernotive lo buying expensive computer add-ons. Your Atari Comes Alive shows you how lo built them yourself. This 'Haw-To' book and disk package gives you complete step by step instiuctions and programs needed to built and control these exciting devices and MORE: Light Pen Light & Motor Controllers -Alarm Systems Voice Recognition C"".'"nm=ntni t;on«nr= •Data Decoders More thon 1 50 pages, Ifour Atari Comes Alive

Environmentol Sensors

$24.95

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Foreign orders odd $8,00 shp & tiidg. Call or wnle lor Iree calalog, Cuslomei Sen/Ice Line (216) 467-5665 M-F 9-3,

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