Apple 2000 Vol 4 No. 5 1989 10 BASUG GB

ee THE NATIONAL APPLE USERS GROUP bi ‘OCTOBER 99) 7 VOLUME) Hewlett Packard's NEW DeskWriter Laser Quality for £775-00 300 DPI Printing at 1/3 the Price You purchased a Macintosh for its ability to produce quality output. The problem is, if you can't afford a laser printer, at £2000 upwards, your only real alternatives, have been dot matrix printers or regular trips to the local print bureau. Why settle for dot matrix output when you really need laser quality? The H.P. Macintosh Compatible DeskWriter™ provides your own in-house, truly personal, laser quality printer. * 300DPI resolution * 4 Scaleable Fonts supplied:- Times, Hely,Courier & Symbol * Fonts supplied up to 250 Point Sizes * Inklet refills, are £13 approx * Approx. 500 pages per refill * SO GOOD, MOST DEALERS WONT SHOW IT!!! Cut iL COSTS u even more * includes Sheet feeder and 16k buffer. * 14 pounds portability * Unbelieveably QUIET !!! * 12 MONTHS FREE ON SITE MAINTENANCE * HIGH QUALITY / LOW COST this Christmas, treat your office to a DeskWriter for as little as #Buy now and until December 31st you can trade-in “YOUR OLD" (must be working) : Imagewriter I for(£50) or II for(£100) = +P&P+VAT Send Ad SAE for Free Info Pack Hewlett Packard's Superb PaintJet™ £895- 00 +P&P+VAT includes H.P.Driver, cable & Fonts High Colour Quality at very, Low Costs!! Birminghams own Macintosh LOW- COST CENTRE Supreme Mac Software Ltd. 28-29 Old Saltley Mill, Adderley Road Ind, Est. Birmingham B8 IAN. Phone 021 327 0666 / 0808 Fax 021 327 0110 Al 1 prices exclude VAT and carringe. Macintosk- Imagewriter-Hewleit Packard-DeskWriter are all trmdemarks. Apple2000 The All Apple User Group Committed to All Apple Users including Macintosh Apple2 October 1989 Apple2000 P.O.Box 3, Liverpool, 121 8PY ei Ge 2145 Fax. O12 @69 G47 CONTENTS Chairman's Corner Letter Box Fractal lorer - A review Sensible Writer - A review FileMaker Revisited Hardcore Pips AUG Sweden - Two reviews DeskJet Printer - A review Pot Pourri - Four games reviews Mac Inker - A review C - An example Applied Apple Spreadsheeting ChessMaster 2100 - A review Programmer's Introduction - A review SofiCat Corner ProDOS Filetypes GS System 5.0 - A review Ilgs Software Selector Hyperstudio - A review Partition Experiences The Nibbler MacChat The Portable Mac The Macintosh IIci The Portable Data Modem Sensible Grammar - A review Artificial Intelligence The Software Encyclopedia Network News Vaporware TN # 242 Fonts and Script Manager TN # 217 Font Icons Universal Military Simulator Review Confessions of a Computer Caprice MacSeptember 89 Mac Library Local Groups Members’ Small Ads. Advertisers’ Index Ewen Wannop . EE Littlewood 6 David A Beale 8 José A Accino 9 John Sharp 10 12 Keith Rookledge 14 Robert Hornby 15 Dave Ward 17 Dave Miller 19 Paul McMullin 20 Dave Ward 22 Alan Boyle 24 Jon Gurr 25 26 Dave Ward 28 John Kishimoto 30 Dave Ward 35 Elizabeth Littlewood 37 38 Norah Arnold 42 46 48 49 Geoff Wood 50 Anna O'Connell 54 58 60 Murphy Sewell 64 66 67 Ceri Fisher 68 John Jotting 72 Ewen Wannop 74 76 78 80 80 There are a number of ways to contact Apple2000. Force users who have a query about the service can contact the adminis- trator, John Lee, directly for help and advice. Call him on the number opposite or send a message to his box on the Force. If you wish to order goods or services from Apple2000, call Irene on Gmi-Siil lle or (during office hours) call Alison on (iti “sii, Both have Ansafones, in case they're not around. Alternatively you can Fax. to (fifi sabe iiai0iF write to the PO Box or (if you use comms) you can leave orders on TABBS addressed to the SYSOP. If you are experiencing problems with Apple hardware or software Dave Ward and Tony Dart run the Hotlines and will try and help you. We are very interested in the activities of local user groups, and if you have any information which you would like publicised John Lee would like to hear from you. Moans and Groans - We don't get many of these, but the Editors have broad shoulders, so send these to them via the PO Box. A little praise for a few of our authors wouldn't go amiss. Send all comments, and contributions, via the PO box, especially suggestions about what you would like to see in your magazine. (1 yple2000 supports users all the Apple computers. The ITT 2020, I, Il, Il+, //e. //c, //c+, Ugs, ///, Lisa, XL, Mac 128, 512 MacPlus, SE, SE/30, Mac Il. Ilex, Iix, Ici and Portable. Contributions and articles for the magazine are always welcome. We can handle any disk size or format, Please send to the PO Box, L21 8PY. NOTE: In general the front half of the magazine is for the Apple II, Apple IIgs and Apple /// The back half for the Macin- tosh and Lisa. Look out for the descriptive page icons. Key: Apple II, //e and //c Apple /// Apple igs Macintosh, Lisa Macintosh II & * Relnivnrs neti ttl Contact | Points The Force and Local Groups John Lee Voice GEFS aaaisil Administration Irene Flaxman 051 928 4142 Fax 051 949 0307 Adverts / Admin. Alison Davies Apple II Hotlin reve Ward cOpaeme Tyme ua Mon-Fri 1900-2100 Macintosh Hotline Tony Dart Ges Me Mon-Fri 0900-1700 1900-2100 TABBS Ewen Wannop - SYSOP October 1989 Apple2000 _ Chairman's Corner Autumn is the time of year when Apple2000 recruits most of its new members. Many of you read- ing this issue will be seeing our magazine as the first issue you receive with your ‘welcome’ pack. Some of you will be receiving your annual renewal notices with this copy of the magazine. 1990 will be our tenth anniversary, we plan to make it a bumper year for you all. Those who have been with us for some time will know the format and layout of the magazine, but are you really getting the most from your membership? In addition to the magazine and news letter, we offer a comprehen- sive shopping service, software library, Bulletin Board, Telecom Gold system and two HotLine help lines. All these systems are run by volunteers. It is this that is our greatest strength as we spread our knowledge and expertise through a network that has grown over the last 9 years. We rely on the quality of input that you all tact and through the articles that you write for the magazine. If you do not think something is good enough, ask yourself if you could help better it in some way. You can start by writing to us and telling us how it can be improved, or better still write an article. We can then all benefit from your own experience. If you have expertise or just plain persistence and would like tohelp in the running of the group more directly in some way, make it known to one of the committee. They will guide you into a direc- tion where your efforts can be of most help. Macintosh Prices It was very much welcomed by all when we learned of the recent drop in Macintosh prices. How- ever, I for one, in common with other commentators, was in- trigued as towhy only the prices of the Mac+ and SE models were dropped. Why only the lower entry that Apple wish to make it easier for people to enter into the Mac workplace, or is the answer more sinister, that they intend to drop these machines once stocks have Tun out. The Mac-+ is an old friend and would not be missed if the price of the SE was a sensible one. But the loss of the basic SE would be abad step. The price of an SE/30 would have to be lowered a great deal for it to be the entry level machine. We now await the introduction of the portable Macintosh (not yet released at the time of writing). By the descriptions we have had al- teady, this is hardly a lightweight portable, at around 17 pounds it will make your knees ache on those long intercontinental flights! I gather the display is quite something. A paper white LCD display that can be viewed in low level light. It does not seem so long ago that we saw on Tomorrow's World' a prototype display made in the UK that could display as well as this. I wonder whatever happened to that one? Finally A final word to all our new read- ers. The magazine is laid out in two parts. The first part is mainly, but not exclusively, for the Apple Ilseries, the second part is mainly for the Macintosh. Check the icons at the foot of the pages, you may find something of interest in both sections! \\ give, both through personal con- end ofthe Macintosh market? Isit Ewen Wannop é it itori is: Annual subscription rates are £25.00 for UK residents, The Editorial team is: £30.00 for E.E.C. residents and £35.00 for other overseas metab <j Apple II Macintosh Apple2000™ is a trading name of BASUG Ltd, a non- Ewen Wannop Norah Amold profit making independent company limited by guarantee. The contents of this journal are copyright of BASUG Ltd and/or the respective authors. Permission is granted for non- commercial reproduction providing the author and source are properly credited and a copy of the relevant journal is sent. The opinions and views expressed are those of the vari- ous contributors, and are not necessarily supported by BASUG Ltd. This journal is published bi-monthly by BASUG Ltd as a benefit of membership in February, April, June, August, October and December. The copy date is the Ist day of the month preceding publication. Advertising rates are available on request. Apple™ and the Apple logo are trademarks of Apple Computer Inc. Macintosh™ is a trademark of Macintosh Laboratory Inc and used with the express permission of the owner. Telecom Gold™ is a trademark of British Telecom ple. The FORCE™ and Applic2000™ are trademarks of BASUG Noe Irene Flaxman Many thanks to all those who work behind the scenes and who receive no personal credit. These people are the stalwarts of Apple2000. Additional thanks to Walter Lewis of Old Roan Press (051-227-4818) for our printing service, and to Ian Shep. of Sharp Studios (051-227-2788) for our cover lesign. Apple2000 are Founder Members and Wholehearted Supporters of the Apple User Group Council yy 2 Apple2000 October 1989 APOLOGY In the July edition of Apple Slices, The Editor included a letter which purportedly had been written by Mr. Nicholas Hunter. We wish to make it clear than no such letter was received from Mr. Hunter and apologise for any incon- venience caused to him. Apple Il Letterbox Manchester Dear Boffin, Since the appearance of GSOS for the Apple IIGS, I've completely lost track of the many file types which have been created or redefined since ProDos. Could you list some of the changes made since ProDos 1.6? John Kishimoto Q Your wish is our command. See Eee 26 fora list of current . You will also find details in the Apple Technical Notes on disk 2GS014. These Technical notes are also avail- able on TABBS for downloading. The Boffin 3 SCSI Letterbox (eb Gtiatinvaatiaie Cline tues raat (iasveedtenea! Tieng in ees Dear Boffin, SCSI Hard Disk Units & Tape Papunee etc., etc.. ank you for you reply tomy letter. You peri had to oye editing job on the letter and it was generally OK but you missed some twiddly aspects of my previous correspondence with “the Nibbler*. I have responded to the various points in a series of four Appendices to this letter. P.C.Weedon, C.Eng., MIEE. Appendix A Seagate ST 251N SCSI Hard Disk Units. This appendix addresses the sub- ject of SCSI Hard Disk Units: you rather mis-understood my previous letter. I had originally intended to connect both Disk-Drives on the SCSI Bus, at addresses 6 & 5 respectively. However, after some initial problems, Ionly put them on one-at-a-time. This was principally due to connecting cable aspects with some suspicion about the capacity of my Power Sup- ply Unit. ‘The second point arising from your letter is rather embarrassing. I had already bought PD Disk 188 contain- ing S.F.& I. Ido not have an address for Seagate in the UK. I would be pleased if Apple 2000 Core or Membership could ad- vise me. As I mentioned in my previous let- ter. the ST251N drives have been formatted using software routines by Fractal. Ido not have any documenta- tion on this initialisation software or an address for Fractal; I would be grateful for any light Members could throw on this matter. I would be pleased to discuss this matter with any other member of Apple 2000 who might have relevant experience or expertise. Appendix B SCSI Test-Sets. This appendix addresses the sub- ject of SCSI Test-Sets; you rather mis- understood the point in my previous letter. I was not asking for informa- tion on these Test-sets but rather raising the subject of DIY construc- tion, I do know of at least one SCSI Test- Set the Ancot Model DSC . 202. As far as the Apple hobbyist is concerned, it suffers from at least two snags: i) It is American, and I know of no UK outlet. ii) It uses an Infernally Bigotted Machine to display its output and as a control panel. The first of these is likely to lead to an clevated price beyond the reach of individual hobbyists. It was my idea that the design and build of an SCSI test-set might make a suitable project for a sub-group of Apple 2000 members which would endow the group with a useful bit of diagnostic equipment for loan to members in need. The design could also be written up in the Magazine for the benefit of those Mem! were interested in DIY. The unit could be based upon one of the standard SCSI Transceiver chips such as the NCR 5380 or equivalent plus a suitable processor chip and could interface with the outside world via an RS 232 or 422 link to a dumb Terminal. It would not need to imple- ment such features as balanced lines if it were only to be used on Apple or Macintosh systems. The unit should be capable of operation as a full SCSI device in its own right or as an “eaves- dropper", simply monitoring SCSI bus traffic. Some internal firmware would be required but surely Apple 2000 could muster the talent to get that written? The first step would be to study ANSI X3.131.1986 which governs SCSI protocol; the second to compile a design specification. Would any members be interested to establish a working party to run such a project? Ts who Appendix C SCSI Tape-Streamers. Thanks very much for the copy of the article by Dr.Kenneth Buckholz, I found it very interesting. Noting that the project was based upon the 3M brand MCD-40 DM/ SCSI Tape Cartridge transport mechanism, I wondered whether it was possible to obtain unit in the U.K. I therefore made enquiries through a friend within the 3M organisation with a view to obtaining a technical data-sheet and information on availa- bility and price. The reply was that 3M have transferred the manufacture of these drives to a firm called, guess, Irwin. Of course. 3M have not relin- quished manufacture of the Car- tridges themselves. My friend at 3M did provide some data on these which I reproduce below. There are some bits of Tape Streamer equipment on the Surplus Market and some members may be tempted to buy the drive mechanism with the intention of wrapping it ina DIY SCSI Interface and some DIY Back-up software. If you reckon you can, please write to me. I'm inter- ested. BUT buy the drive with your eyes open, some of them are of very Please submit all letters and articles to the magazine on disk wherever possible. The disks will be returned to you when the magazine is published. If you have a modem, send us letters, articles and Public Domain programs either to BSG005 or to TABBS (ies FARR) October 1989 Apple2000 limited capacity by comparison with the modern Hard Disk units. The key parameter is the number of tracks, unless your other is building tape read/write heads! The attraction of back-up with a Tape Cartridge is being able to set it going and to go off and mow the lawn or wash the car while it does its stuf This means that the C: capacity must match that of the Disk being backed-up. Having said that, a drive of limited capacity, if cheap enough, may be useful in the early stages of a DIY project as a test-bed. On the subject of Back-up Soft- ware, does any member of Apple 2000 write Macintosh software at the hobby level? I've been a member of the Group since the last MacUser Show and I have yet to see any visible signs of UK. hobbyist-written software. Perhaps you are all selling it and buy lICXs! Ido have a PD package called TAR (Tape Archive & Retrieval) but it does not seem to be very well documented. Has any member had any experience with it? I would be grateful to receive any data, leaflets, data sheets etc. origi- nals or photocopies, relating to Tape- Streamer units and would refund postage to senders. I would be pre- pared to act as librarian to others for this sort of product data. Late Extra I phoned Hard-Times, the shop mentioned in Dr.Kenneth Buckholz’s article, They still have some stock of the 3M brand MCD-40 DM/SCSI Tape Cartridge transport mecha- nism, (I didn’t ask how soary): They seem to be willing to despatch to the U.K., charging toa Credit Card. At the TAPE CARTRIDGE DATA. Product. Len, Width Capacity Tracks Size (feet) (inches) (Megabytes) DC2000 205 0.25 40 24 DC1000 185 0.15 10/20 8/12 DC100A 140 0.15 67 2 DC600TD 600 0.25 134 32 DC600XTD 150 0.25 33 32 DC600A 600 0.25 60 16 DC615A 150 0.25 15 1 DC600XTD/HC 600 0.25 134 32 DC615XTD/HC 150 0.25 33 32 DC600HC 600 0.25 67 16 DC615HC 150 0.25 16 16 DC300XL/P 450 0.25 45 9 DC300XL 450 0.25 4.3 4 DC300A 300 0.25 2.9 4 2.415 x 3,186 x 0.570 inches. 2.415 x 3.186 x 0.470 inches. 4.0 x6.0 x0.665 inches. the carriage and packing costs would. While I am pretty close to having placed an order, I have not yet got the joods in my hand. iter Weedon QO Thank you Peter for your extensive letter. lam sorry I misunderstood you in certain points, I think your reply amply makes up for it. I do not have the UK address of Seagate though I do know that they have an office here. Perhaps someone can help with this and the many other points that Peter raises, I have published your address in full so that any member who wishes can take up the challenge that you have laid down. Please let us know how things progress. I have also printed the Tape Data Basic Letterbox Edinburgh Dear Editor, Reading my A2-Central today. I learn that Apple have made a monu- mental boob with the new Basic 1.3 on the GS/OS System 5.0 disk. It ap- pears that an RTS was left out of the code thus causing BLOAD's to imme- diately do a BSAVE to disk. If the load is to a piece of protected memory, the result is a trashing of the file on disk as no valid data is saved back. I understand Apple have asked that this Basic is not used at all. You should use the old Basic 1.2 from the System 4.0 disk until a new Basic 1.4 is released. (F time of writing this don’t know what that you supplied. The Boffin @ Scott Freeman «¢€ (TITTT A BBB BBRB s5s5)\)| T AA B BB BS The T A ABBBB BBBB SSSS T AAAAAB BB B s Apple2000 T A A BBBB BBAB SSsS The TABBS message system is more than just a Bulletin Board. With a shopping mall where you can browse the Apple2000 catalogues and order the goods you require; a library containing over 1300 files for the Apple II, IIgs and Macintosh; news files update twice weekly bringing you the latest in world computer news and of course NewsBytes™; a private and public E-mail service; file transfers that can be enclosed in private or public mail; message areas covering many topics including the Apple II, the IIgs and Macintosh; Xmodem, 1k Xmodem and Ymodem file transfers; multi-speed access at all common speeds; 24 hour operation; and much, much more make TABBS the Bulletin Board System <Weekl <HDelp files for TABBS THE APPLE 2000 USER GROUP BULLETIN BOARD SYSTEM V21, V22, V22BIS, V23 24 HOURS 8-N-1 <1> Apple }[ folder <2> Apple IIgs folder <3> Macintosh folder <4> Apple2000 folder <5> Developers folder <6> Public areas <D>ownload Libraries <Mai lbox <tPews Columns <S>hopping Mall Update premier Apple Bulletin Board serving Europe. Give TABBS a call today. iy Ring TABBS on @iaaipF43097 at any speed through V21, V22, V23 to V22bis 8N1 TABBS is available 24 hours a day ss y 4 BBs Apple2000 October 1989 AY pis Mac, 89 nates Usef! ‘Group. Stands | Special Interest Groups Trade Stands Bring and Buy : Auction® Notice Boards - “Consultants Lectures Refreshments Saturday 2 sth ‘BAWA Centre Filton - Bristol ~~ \ The.venue is the Sports facility of the!local Bristol Aerospace and Rolls noyee facto- ries, located in Southmead Road, Filton, two miles from! the. M32 Hambrook Juneter Private facilities User groups may book 'private' Syndicate/Lecture rooms for their AGM or use as informal meeting room - as may special interest groups - whose members may be dispersed nationwide. Accommodation Local hotel list available for people staying overnight. Partners Good local shopping and theatres are available. Bristol's historical waterfront is interesting and the lovely city of Bath is only 12 miles away. Special Interest areas At the ‘Special Interest’ areas, attendees may leave notes, making informal prespective timings for discussion groups not covered by main topics. These ‘areas’ consist of cosy ‘alcoves’ around the main exhibition area. Business and Trade leaflet table If you do not have a stand, but have a service to offer, this is where you leave your card/leaflet or details of your group. Auction An auction will be run by professional auctioneers. A catalogue will be available prior to the sale. Prebooking admission tickets Admission £3.00. Stands costs on request between £20 and £50 depending on size and location within the hall. All trade and other enquiries to: Bebe) 693119 (evenings) Apple/Mac 89, 198 North Road, toke Gifford, Bristol, BS12 6PH October 1989 Apple2000 5 Fractal Explorer” Eee ee a) EE Littlewood takes a look at the mathematical and graphic capabilities of the llgs Introduction Ever since | first saw an article on Heighway’s dragon I have found frac- tals and space-filling curves a fasci- nating subject. These of course are not the same thing although they often appear so as id twist and turn over the surface. In fact fractals can not be drawn as they “live” between the conventional dimensions of our real world. What one can do is drawa representation of them or at least of those which lie between one and two dimensions. There are fractals of higher dimension but these are very convoluted indeed and would be ex- tremely difficult to represent. A space-filling curve such as Hilbert’s curve, though looking like a fractal, is not in fact a fractal because it doesn't live ‘between’. What are fractals? Fractal geometry is an attempt to simulate the geometry of the real world which does not in fact consist of those straight lines and smooth curves found in classical Euclidean geometry. Each system has of course its place in attempting to make sense of the world about us. There are two varieties of fractal and pecpanl: the most famous of the regular fractals is that of Koch's Snowflake. Another well known one is Sierpinski’s Carpet which makes a very beautiful picture. The regular fractals and the space- filling curves are often referred to as dragons and can quite easily be con- structed by: following a code, or set of rules which is repeated each ‘genera- tion’. The programming of these makes a good example of the use of recursive techniques in program con- struction. This pro however, Fractal Explorer. does not deal with these but with those fractals known as the domains of attraction. For an explanation of these, I feel one would need to read Mandelbrot's book (see Bibliography). What you get I had the IIGS version of this pro- gram to review and so the program I Teceived was a compatible version (which one would et these days) on a 3.5 inch disk which was not copy protected. It was very easy therefore to move a copy onto my hard disk and run the program from there. The documentation provided con- sisted of a small booklet approxi- mately a folded BS in size with a soft card cover. Unfortunately, I did not think that the contents of the booklet were attractive either in layout and presentation or particularly informa- tive to the user. As far as layout ts concerned, the booklet tends to give the appearance of typed and photo- copied text and on page 4 for example the text stops short with an unfin- ished sentence. suggesting that proof-reading and general care for detail was not given enough atten- tion. None of this prevents the pro- parent image is created by imple- menting the expression Zn+1 = Zn2 + C where Z C are complex num- bers. It even goes so far as to explain what a complex number is. I found that those of my friends who were not already familiar with these found the explanations quite incomprehen- sible, in other words unless you were familiar with the mathemat- ics of complex numbers, this was pointless. Ifyou were already familiar, the explanation was su; luous. The program There are two parts to this program, one being the creation of new fractal pictures, the other being a display proy which will run a slide-show of the pictures on the disk. Dealing with the creation of new pictures first: as I said above, | felt that the manual expected too much of an ordinary user and yet did not go far enough if it was setting out to be educational. Not that it matters really to the user, but there remains some doubt in my mind as to whom this manual is addressed. The pictures are created on the basis of the Mandelbrot set. (Benoit Man- delbrot is a French mathematician who could almost be considered the guru of the fractal world.) Once the ‘parent’ picture is created. one can zoom in on a portion of it and then create a new picture. The process can be repeated over and over as often as pam from doing what it sets out todo more on that later) but I feel that good documentation is indicative of good PI ming. The documentation describes the algorithm used to fen erate the pictures. It does NOT tell you what a “Domains of Attraction Frac- tal” is and quite rightly so in my opinion as it would be impossible in so limited a space. It does however talk about Complex Polynomial Itera- tive Functions and explains that the wished. Be warned however that the time taken to create a picture in- creases as the depth of zooming in- creases. Some pictures may in fact take 20 hours or more to be devel- oped; if you had for example chosen a zoom level of 10 this is the time scale you ought to expect. Although the initial Mandelbrot Set Picture was provided on disk I decided to recreate it as a time test. This initial picture can be considered as having a zoom 6 Apple2000 October 1989 value of zero and it took approxi- mately 2 hours 10 minutes to create. Once created, the pictures, which are $C1 type, may be used in the slide- show or exported and used in Apple IIGS paint programs such as Paintworks. If the pictures are modi- fied by a paint program one can not then create new fractal pictures from them. It is however the recommended way to provide printouts of the pic- tures. Since the times involved are so great, it is reassuring to know that it is possible to halt the process and then continue it at a later date. 1 am not sure though that I would leave the program running overnight as sug: gested in the manual, for that !would want an automatic save, say every hour or every so many iterations. In addition to the creation of pictures based on the Mandelbrot Set, one can also create Julia Set pictures. These are derived from a Mandelbrot pic- ture, zoomed or otherwise, but you are warned that trying to derive them from a zoomed Mandelbrot Set or indeed a previous Julia Set will give unpredictable results. Julia Set pic- tures are calculated using an expres- sion similar to that of the Mandelbrot Set but instead of scanning the values of C, this value is chosen by the user, and then the values of Zare scanned. This is the other way round to the evaluation for the Mandelbrot Set. Fractal Explorer is in my opinion prim: a slide-show program as I doubt whether many people would be willing to tie up their computer for such lengths of time even with the facility to suspend the production and continue it at a later date. There are a number of pictures, 16 in fact, already on the disk for you to use in the slide-show. It 1s possible to set one’s own parameters in order to run the slide-show as wished. The effects are varied and the show is in fact beautiful in a quite fascinating way. Some of the variations possible are:- «Colour Complement Picture * Exclusive Or the Palette Cycle the colours up or down through the Palette *Select a Palette * Colour Fill Mode *Set the time for display of each picture «Number of times to repeat the slide-show. Some of these are also available while the show Is cunning As I said earlier, the program deals with the domains of attraction and eine attractive samples of these fractals is mostly a matter ofluck. The pictures on this disk are good ones. [See picture 1 - A Fractal Picture zoomed 8 times and reminiscent ofan animal claw] If you wish to use your own crea- tions, it is necessary to set them up named Frac.picGSl through Frac.picGS18 for the slide-show pro- gram to operate correctly. Inciden- tally, the programs are written in Basic though the iteration and draw- ing program is an assembly routine. I said that I didn’t think the docu- mentation was very well produced. I must also say that I didn't think the on-screen presentation was very at- tractive either. Although this was a 11GSversion of the program, the menu screens were very dull looking text screen versions, no attempt being made to use the windowing and pull- down menus of the IGS interface. Once again I was left with the impres- sion that not much care had gone into the presentation of this program. Conclusion In conclusion, it is difficult to see who would want to buy this program. It fs not in fact educational although perhaps a college would be prepared to give the necessary time to create some of the pictures; a business user certainly wouldn't. As for using them as a start point for a paint program I am sure a creative artist can manage perfectly well without waiting a pos sible 10-20 hours for inspiration to arrive. The picture on the disk created in this way [see Pic 2 a Fractal picture modified with Deluxe Paint] is un- doubtedly attractive but could easily be done without this program. We are then left with the home user as a possible buyer. Perhaps it is now appropriate to mention that a Public Domain program exists which will produce all the Mandelbrot Set pic- tures this program produces (the Julia Set being promised in the next version) and it operates ina true IIGS environment. The PD program is writ- ten in Pascal and the time taken to produce the parent picture is ap- proximately 2 hours 30 minutes. The difference in timing is not too great, given that all these pictures are going to take a long time to produce. We are left therefore with the slide-show program. The difference between completely free and £39.95 for aslide- show fs in my opinion far too great to contemplate and therefore I couldn't recommend this program as value for money, even though the performance of the program is at an acceptable level. Book references made in manual: Mandelbrot, Benoit. The Fractal Geometry of Nature. W.H. Freeman and Co. Pietgen, Heinz-Otto. The Beauty of Fractalgg Springer-Verlag. Gleick, James. CHAOS Making a New Science. Viking Press. E. E. Littlewood in Product : Fractal Explorer Publisher : ECLAT Micro Available from : MGA Softcat Pear Tree Appledore Kent TN26 2AR (0233) 83571 Price : £39.95 é¢ ede é¢ Value : Performance : Documentation : October 1989 Apple2000 Sensible Writer 1.01 David A Beale reviews a budget priced WYSIWIG word processor This is a personal review of a moder ately moderately priced word-proces- sor (£59.95 available from Business Sense Computing Ltd, 48 Priest- popple, Hexham, Northumberland, NE46 1PP ) which I have not seen advertised within the Apple 2000 magazine. Despite its simplicity it seems a very powerful word-proces- sor with the following features. It has amail merge function and an address envelope function, but I think its greatest plus is that you are not lim- ited to an 80 column screen width as it can scroll horizontally as well as vertically. You can have a maximum of two documents open at once and you can also copy information from one document to another. It also has an Append facility to allow docu- ments to be joined into one large document. It has a Sensible Writer format and also has the ability to read Appleworks files and has two Text file types (which I do not know the differ- ence between!). It also has a configu- ration menu for different printers (it allows the user to enter codes to enable underlining and bold proce- dures if your printer ts capable of doing them) and for loading the soft- ware onto hard disk, It also has the ability to be able to format disks and lock documents without exiting the pro; . It also allows you to exit toa Spell checker program. I do not have one to try this feature. The Manual The ring-bound manual is split into a tutorial section which uses data files on the supplied disk and a refer- ence section. I find it has adequate indexing. I know the program can run on an extended Ile and IIGS - I do not know about compatibility with other machines as I do not have access to them. It comes in Prodos 8 v 1.2 format and the 5 1/4" disk version can be read on both Apple Disk II drives and the Profile double-disk drives on a IIGS. The IIGS version comes on 3 1/2" diskette. Features Aunique feature of this word-proc- essor Is that It uses a menu driven system (like Macintoshes) which can be used without a mouse on the Apple 8s &@ Ile. Without a mouse you obviously Have tos ear thee ptoardeqniver Ients to be able to access them. The program permanently displays seven menus and a ‘window’ in in- verse video on the screen. within which you enter your text etc. At the top of the window it displays the file name (new documents are named as untitled) whilst the bottom of the screen displays the current page number and a highlighted text with Style and Selection. Moving around the screen Without a mouse you use the ESC key to highlight the menu, the right and left arrow keys to move horizon- tally through the menus and the up and down menus to access each sub- command. Some dialogue boxes such as the File and Open dialogue boxalso require the use of the Tab key as well. Pressing the Return key allows the command to be selected. If Return has not been pressed, then another press of the ESC key can take you out without a selection. The menus also have an Open Apple letter command as well to select them. The menus also display current choices (equivalent to the tick mark on the Macintoshes) with an inverse D sign. A checker- board box appears beside commands which cannot be selected. Obviously with the IIGS you have the option of using either the mouse or the key- board. Rulers The program uses the system of Master and local rulers. It has a Master nuler with markers to control features such as overall page widths. The Master and local rulers allow you to change the format of following paragraphs. It has a paragraph in- dent and left hand page marker with left, right, center and fully justified text markers. It also has single, line- and-a-half and double line spacing marker although this does not show up on the screen. It also has left tab markers which can be used to create tables. Unfortunately it does not have centre or right or decimal tabs. It also has a ruler coverage option which highlights the text covered by a par- ticular ruler format. This is depen- danton the cursor location within the body of text. The rulers cannot be physically moved but are associated with paragraphs. Only paragraphs following an inserted ruler will take on its new settings. Headers and Footers You can also use headers and foot- ers although these are not displayed on the monitor. Within the headers and footers you also have the ability to set up ruler settings. It allows you to type in @page to display the page number, @time to display the time and @date to display the date, Editin, On the text side it has an undo feature and it also has a moveable insert cursor which can also become an overtype cursor, Text can be high- lighted for deletion or for applying a text style such as bold. italic or under- line (if your printer is capable of doing this).It has a find and also a search and replace facility which can search for part of a word or whole word and can also be set to be case dependant. You can also insert manual page breaks (which shows up in the text as Forced Page Break and uses = sign across the screen to denote this) and also specify a title page for your docu- ment as well as set the starting page number, It also has a go to page number command. Italso has a Show Return command which shows paragraph breaks. You can scroll through the text using ue arrows or you can use Open le anda aber to move tana te document eg Open Apple 9 takes you to the end of the document and Open Apple 5 to the middle of the document etc. It also has a ahead facility which can be turned off by pressing a Control key combination. It also dis- plays the keyboard commands as well as the Open Apple commands dis- played in the menus. Ithas the equivalent of an informa- tion window which shows the soft- ware publisher as well as details of how much memory you have avail- able for your document as well as the document size in K and how many Pages long the document ts. is program can also read Apple- works word-processing files without any problem. Printing As regards to printing, the number ofcharacters per inch that you specify alters the page width when printing.The smaller the number of cpi you specify the wider an overall ruler width can be displayed in the Master and local ruler settings. The other slightly annoying thing I found is that if] changed these an @= would be printed at the top left of the printout!I assume this is the control codes for the printer. The mail merge function is easy to use. An example of this comes on the Apple2000 October 1989 program disk. It uses what I call a data document with all the data sepa- rated by Returns. The data cannot be spaced out across the screen horizon- tally so you will get a very long docu- ment you have lots of data! The master document contains the field names surrounded in backslash symbols. Addressing Envelopes The address envelope is a neat little function. This can print an address on an envelope on either small or large sized envelopes without the need to retype in the address again. If you have an address at the top of the page with at least two Retunrs after the last line, this is used for the ad- dress, It will format the address on the envelope fe it will add a few linefeeds and center the address on the enve- lope. I am not sure what size of enve- done constitutes a small or large enve- lope. Conclusions I think from this review you can see that this is a very powerful but simple to use word-processing pro; C. It is WYSIWIG but remember it can- not display headers and footers on the screen. With a mouse it is obviously easier to select items from menus and to use, but on my Apple Ile I find the keyboard quite adequate for selecting commands from the menus. Com- to Appleworks, It is stored on one disk only and data can be kepton this same disk or you can use data disks. I find I can more quickly gener- ate documents on this than I can using Appleworks. It seems very in- tuitive and easy to use and I bet most people could discover how to use this adequately without any reference toa manual. The program requires an Apple //e, //c or llgs with or without a mouse. David A Beale é info Product: Sensible Writer 1.01 Publisher : Sensible Software Available from : Business Sense Computing Ltd 48 Priestpopple, Hexham Northumberland NE45 1PP Price : £59.95 Value : dd Performance : dddd Documentation : City FileMaker Revisited Ihave read Mick Knapp’s article in the April issue about “Diverse Databases”. I was very interested because many times | also need to transfer files between both machines. However, I think that it isn't a good solution to remove all the commas or quotes from the file (Surely they are there because they are needed!) and then reinstall them later. A better way would be to use the normal TEXT file format to export data to FileMaker. The only eed need is a way to insert a TAB character between fields. To do this, I use this little program to read the text file as created by AppleWorks and to write another one with the correct TEXT format to be sent later to the Mac and read by FileMaker. 10 REM — FILEREADER — 20: 100 ONERR GOTO 500 110 : 120 D$ = CHRS (4) 130 AD = 768:N = 50 140 FOR I = AD TO AD + N: READ J: POKE I,J: NEXT 150 : 200 210 220 230 240 250 : 300 F2$ = F1S + *.2” 310 PRINT D$”OPEN”F1$”,S”S”,D"D 320 PRINT D$”OPEN”F2$”,S”S”,D”D 330 NR = 0 340 : 400 410 : 420 430 440 450 = 460 PRINT DS’WRITE”F2S 470 NR = NR + 1: PRINT “Reg.”NR” “RES : purposes 480 PRINT RES : 490 GOTO 400 495 : 500 INPUT “NAME OF FILE: “;F1$ INPUT “SLOT NUMBER: “;S INPUT “DRIVE NUMBER: “;D INPUT “NUMBER OF FIELDS: PRINT “;NE PRINT D$;”FRE(0)”:RES = “”:FIELDS = 0 PRINT D$”READ”F1$ CALL AD,BS:RE$ = RE$ + BS$:FIELDS = FIELDS + 1 IF FIELDS < NF THEN RES = RES + CHRS (9): GOTO 420 REM Only for control REM Only for control purposes PRINT DS”CLOSE’ 510 PRINT “END OF FILE” 520 END 530 : 600 DATA 32,190,222,32,227,223,32, 44,213,162 610 DATA 255, 232,189,0,2, 201, 0,208, 248, 138 620 DATA 32,213, 227,160,0,165,157,145,131,200 630 DATA 165,158,145,131, 200,165,159, 145,131,165 640 DATA 157,162,0,160,2,32,226,229, 76,149 650 DATA 217 The program is in a “brute force” style and works in a straightforward manner: Lines 120 to 150 install on page $3 a common “input anything” routine (this one Sipe taken from Paul Irwin’s Amp-L-Soft, published on Nibble Express, ‘ol. es 200-230 request the file name, slot, drive and number of fields ineach record. Line 300 ads a ~.2” to Input file name to create a name for output file. Each field is read on variable B$ and appended to the output record. Line 440 ads a TAB to each field, excepting for the last one. When the total number of fields in each record is reached, the record is written to output file in line 460. Lines 470-480 show the record on screen for control purposes only and can be supressed If you like. Ifyou don’t really have a Null-Modem cable (with transmit and receive wires reversed), you can do the same thing with your normal modem cable only setting the card to printer mode. The Null-Modem ts already built-in on the SuperSerial Card jumper block (Terminal or printer ee or in the printer connector on Serial Pro card (Thanks to Michael Brown on TABBS for his help about cables!). José A. Accino October 1989 Apple2000 Be: Hardcore Pips Our dip into the BASUG archives this month brings two articles from John Sharp's Beginners Pages INT IT A PROBLEM There have been a number of begin- ners writing in requesting help with binary files, so this month let us begin with a look at what possible files you might have on a disk. If you catalog a disk you will get something like this:- 002 HELLO 020 DRAGON MAZE * 004 PROGRAM 1 * 002 FILE 1 003 TEXT FILE * 005 ANOTHER FILE PHwrHD You may nek get all these on one disk, and indeed you may not even have seen a T or R or even B on your disks. Leaving aside the first column of AJI,R,T,B for the moment, what does the rest mean. Well the * tells you if a file is locked. If it is locked, you cannot write to the disk with the same program name. That {s you cannot wipe out your Progam on the disk by overwriting it. The number is the number of sectors the program takes up on the disk. As a rough guide each sector is 0.25K. The name to the right is just that, the name of the file. Isay file because it is that rather than a program. It is only when entered cor- rectly into the Apple that it becomes a program, if it indeed is. A file with aT in the first column, ts not a program. It might be a TEXT file to EXEC or it might be as the prefix suggests a TEXT file. A TEXT FILE is a bunch of data ready to be read into a program, e.g. a set of records, such as a set of names and addresses. If you want to see what is in a TEXT file then type:- MON I,0,C <RETURN> EXEC XXXXXKX <RETURN> where .0xxxxx is the name of the TEXT FILE you want to look at. As each bit of data is printed, since you are doing the equivalent of typing in directly from the keyboard and press- ing return, you will get SYNTAX ERROR, just as you would if you typed a command the APPLE does not understand. You can slow down the Screen printing by using CTRL-S. It tends to be a little noisy because of all the beeps and syntax errors, but can be a very useful tool. You could use the READ TEXT program on the master disk. The Aand I program file names are fairly straightforward. They corre- spond to APPLESOFT and INTEGER proj files respectively. Unless you ae eniyeunnine disks that boot and take over the machine, you will be familiar with both of them. The problem arises, however, with B {and R) files. B stands for BINARY FILES. R stands for RELOCATABLE FILES which are a special type of Binary file. You will see some on the DOS 3.3 TOOLKIT disk. They are roduced from the APPLE ASSEM- LER on this same disk. So apart from a slight difference. they are basically the same of file, a sav- ing ofa batch of machine code to disk. This can have various functions once it Is in memory and this causes the problems for beginners. The first type of file it can be is a program, written in machine code to make it run faster. A program ex- ample is a FID, MUFFIN or MASTER CREATE (on DOS 3.3 MASTER), and UPDATE 3.2.1 (on the DOS 3.2 MAS- TER). In order to get these to run as programs, simply BRUN FID or what- ever the program name is. Before going further, the number 034 or whatever is the number of sectors the file takes up on the disk. It only helps you (and the DOS) to keep track of how much of the disk you are using. This is dealt with in the DOS manual so! will not go into it here. For those mebers with tape only it wil help to explain waht these numbers mean in the software library lists. As a rough guide, four sectors equals 1K of program. The next ty of file is a Hi-Res Picture that has been saved. The length of memory taken up by a Hi- Res Picture is 34 sectors; so if you see B * 034 BASUG LOGO on a disk catalog, you can be fairly confident that it is a picture. There may be other binary files coinciden- tally 34 sectors long which are not pictures, but the name usually tells you they are not . Alternatively. there are now ways of compressing pic tures, soa picture can be less than 34 sectors. You then need a special pro- gram to put them back on the Hi-Res Pages correctly. If you try to BRUN a Hi-Res picture, anything could hap- pen. Normally you will just halt in Monitor. Try a few and see. You will not do the Apple any harm, just con- fuse it. The third type of binary file is a set of data used in a program. It fs a little bit like a text file except that it is totally machine code and wouldn't mean algae Seana to the program that uses it. The best example is a shape table which is a set of points and directions. Iflooked at other than a shape table by the program you are ee it ts oral (eee eee & pro; er put some indi- cation Sect ae MARTIANS.OBJ or MARTIAN.SHAPE to let you know it is used in another pro; . The DOS 3.3 TOOLKIT fonts for example are labelled BYTE.SET, ROMAN.SET etc. to make this clear. It is as important as putting REM statements in if you wish to let others know what is going on. On some of the software libra disks there are binary programs wi just a single letter or a pair of letters: these are fairly obviously used by another program, and the author has made them too short to make you think to run them; the name just doesn't mean anything. Another type of set of machine code might be data as for example in the copy program on the 3.3 Master disk. The copy programs look like this:- * I 009 Copy * B 003 COPY.OBJO * A 009 COPYA There are versions for you to use for copying disks if the BASIC you are using is INTEGER (the first one) or APPLESOFT (the last one, which has an A tagged on the end since two programs cannot have the same name on the same disk otherwise there would be confusion when it came to running them.) In between is a machine code set of data for the other programs (both of them) to use. Ifyou list these programs you will see a line that has a_print”BLOAD COPY.OBJO"at line ... Why no DS=CHRS (4) , well there is an invisible CTRL-D. You could see this if you used something like The APPPLE- SOFT PROGRAMMERS ASSISTANT on the DOS 3.3 TOOLKIT, or the PROGRAM LINE EDITOR. The most confusing programs on the 3.3 Master it would seem are cataloged as:- B * 050 FPRASIC B* 050 INTBASIC They are in fact APPLESOFT (or Floating Point BASIC) and INTeger BASIC, respectively. If you have a language or RAM card, then these files be loaded onto the language card and the card locked so that it appears to be an INTEGER CARD or oo Oo Apple2000 October 1989 APPLESOFT ROM CARD. If you have an APPLE II PLUS, look at the HELLO program, by just loading it. LINE 210 has “BLOAD INTBASIC,A$DO00". ain there is an invisible CTRL-D. The A$DO00 means load it at position DOOO in memory, which is on the language card. When a binary file is saved, It is necessary to tell DOS the start and ending locations of the program. This information is saved onto the disk. When you load the program back, it will be loaded into the same position, unless you tell it otherwise. The A$DO00 in this BLOAD statement tells it not to load it where it was saved from. This is in fact in the middle of memory and it will load there if you just BLOAD INTBASIC. If you try to BRUN INTBASIC, then since it is not written to run in this location, but on the language card, it will cause you to peas your machine has developed a fault. John Sharp (February 1982) ‘Typing programs in from magazines or Maer, them yourself is not the easiest o! oe at the beginning. Soa few tips for a beginner are always welcome. The most important thing you should do before you start is type NEW. Otherwise you will have a number of lines of another program you don't want. If you have not typed NEW, as you type in your program, you will eae ae of Le Heh lend TO} es writin; es wil tnevsarne number. Others you will leave. Your program will then be trying to sort out the logic of the previous program and of yours as well. This is tedious to sort out as you a to go through the listing line by line. Ifyou are typing from a listing then, providing it is correct, your program will run without an: pobiews: If not there are two possibilities. If you are typing in from a listing and you have confidence that it is a correct listing, then you could go through it charac- ter by character to see if you have made an error. Ifyou have done this or you are writing your own pro; then there area nlmber of aepugeing tips you can follow. These are not foolproof, so it is worth looking at common problems with copying list- ings. The first thing you should do ts run the program. This will tell you that the program does run without syntax errors being present. That is of course providing you access all the lines. Sometimes you might not take a par- ticular option and so miss going through a subroutine or even one particular line. Then it becomes diff- cult to find that error. Ifyou have done this and thereisa problem, you will be presented for example with:- ?SYNTAX ERROR IN 45 and you could go back to the listing and check line 45 character for char- acter. It could be that a simple mistyping of INPIT instead of INPUT has been made, The most common type of error is a missed character. In paces the colon “:" and “semico- lon *;” are the crucial parts of many lines, so it is worth looking at what ey do. Consider the following program :- 10A = 51 20 PRINT “APPLES ARE” 30 PRINT A 40 PRINT “PENCE EACH” This would print :- APPLES ARE sl PENCE EACH If you wanted to print APPLES ARE 51 PENCE EACH itis necessary to add a semicolon to the end ofeach line because a semico- lon means carry on printing where you left off last. Normally a program would not present the information on three lines but as a single line :- 10A=51 20 PRINT “APPLES ARE”; A ; “PENCE EACH” Now consider the case of an input statement :- 10 INPUT “HOW MUCH DO APPLES COST “;A This would set the cursor after the question. If the question was putafter a PRINT statement as follows, and the INPUT separately then it is still pos- sible to place the cursor waiting for the input next to the question by adding the semicolon:- 10 PRINT “HOW MUCH DO APPLES COST “; 15 INPUT A Sometimes it is necessary to do it this way, and continue on the same BASIC line. Thus lines 10 and 15 would come together as 10 PRINT “HOW MUCH DO APPLES COST “;: INPUT A Another common error ts to leave out the “$* sign at the end of a string variable or put one in when there should not be one. The variable “A” is a numerical variable. The numerical variable “A$" is a string - a set of characters. Mistyping would not give an error of syntax because the com- puter sees no problem. So the error comes up further in the program. Suppose as follows there is meant to be a string response in line 100 and the following is typed in:- 100 INPUT “A RESPONSE “;A a lot more program 810 PRINT MID$ (A$,2,1) This time nothing is fed back in the way of errors. When line 810 is reached, an attempt to print the sec- ond character of A$ is met with a blank. because although you meant A$ to be created in line 100, it wasn't. A response to a numerical variable ‘was made. If you had tried to enteran alphabetic character then the re- sponse ? REENTER would be made by the computer. The opposite problem of adding the “$”" when it shouldn't be there gives a response as follows:- 200 INPUT “THE NUMBER “;AS 210B=20*A Gives a value of zero for variable B, since no value has been assigned toA. If you tried :- 220 B = 20 * AS you would be greeted with :- TYPE MISMATCH ERROR IN 220 This means the type of variable (a string) is wrong. This would also arise if the “$" was left off in the following case:- 300 ? LEFTS (A, 3) Taking the third from the left char- acter of a number is not possible directly. This time there would be a syntax error and so the computer would drop back into immediate mode, John Sharp (December 1982) The MiniPics used in the Apple2000 so gisrs are provided by courtesy of ADVERKIT International, Bower- dene House, Number One Bower Terrace, Maidstone ME16 8RY Tel; (0622) 687654 October 1989 Apple2000 @e@u AUG Sweden We bring you reviews of the Beagle Font Editor and Program Writer from the Apple User Group Sweden BEAGLE BROS NEW FONT ED! IS HERE AT LAST It can make any type of character In nearly all European languages, except of course English, there are characters, special to the language in question, which are not found on a standard Apple Il |. In the Swedish alphabet there are three characters, J. [ and \, which often cause trouble to Apple-users in Swe- den. Now. however, the problem is solved, thanks to Beagle Brothers’ “GS Font Editor”. A Swedish Apple- user is now able to create, without dif- ficulty, the characters }, { and | for all fonts of “Superfonts” or “Publish it!”. You can even enlarge the fonts to 127 points, more than two inches high... One of the last days in May the ordered and eagerly awaited parcel from BB. containing the “GS Font Editor” reached our “Beagle Buddy” - Andreas Wennborg of Gothenburg - after a long period of uncertainty and waiting. But it was well worth waiting for With their “Timeout"-series the Bi le Bros. Company has given to Apple-users - and to “Appleworks" - a very useful collection of software, an all-round tool which now is still more easy to use, with “Font Editor”. In all fairness it should perhaps be mentioned that there already existed one (or more?) “GS Font Editor" made by an American, John G. Thomas; his editor reached Sweden through “A2 Central". After improvements by. among others, Christer Skoglund in AUG it worked fairly well. Still, it had its limitations especially when used with large fonts. In the absence of anything better it had to do. About BB:s “Font Editor”: it is easy to learn how to use it, and there is no trouble to work with it - but you must have a mouse, although many com- mands have “bypasses’, e.g. for com- mands such as “copy”, “paste”, “cut”. When you start the program you get a schedule of “Chicago 12", called a “basic font”. All characters in the font are displayed on this “main screen”. Many “GS-fonts” contain up to three character sets, and if the special characters you want are in one of these, the only thing you have to do is to move them to their right places. Ifthe characters you want are not in any of the standard sets, then you must create them. As an example we will use the Swedish letters *)", “(“ and “|". Letters “a” and “o” are used as a basis for further development. Next step is to ste Dley. on the monitor screen a magni “editing picture” of the basis of the character you want to make. Next, the dots above “a” and “o” are created, pixel by pixel. To one side of the screen you may observe how the dots are growing; also displayed is the ap] nce of the character in six different faces: ordinary, italics, semibold, shadowed, underlined and outline. Unfortunately the new letter will not be presented on the “main screen”. To one side of the screen, however, there is a “samples window" where the appearance of the current font is displayed, including the new character. You can also write it there using the keyboard. In case you should like to save the new font to another disk than the one where you made it you must hold in readiness a disk with the same name as the first one. Still, the most imposing feat of the “Font Editor” {s its “scale font” that makes it possible to magnify fonts from 12 points to 127 points - pro- vided the RAM is large enough (there is a limit at 32k, larger fonts must be divided into two files, for instance large printin one and small print inan othen. Unfortunately this feature does not always work correctly and I don't know why. Some fonts are easy to magnify, others not. Magnifying seems easier to perform than dimin- ishing. I am certain that BB:s pro- grammers will get rid of this bug in the next version of the pro, a Aword about the manual. In their usual excellent manner, BB:s manual writers explain almost everything in an casily understandable and simple way - with a little joke or a tip to the lazy Apple user sprinkled over the pages. CONCLUSION: “Font Editor” enables those who use a non-English language to have a large choice of fonts to their “Super- fonts” and “Publish it!" programs. The position regarding other DTP-pro- rams is unknown to me. The only isadvantage in “Font Editor", from my point of view, is that it requires a mouse - rather a small flaw I should say, although I am a firm believer in using the key-board. N-G Bullen Berglund Q PS, This review ts of the first, de- lighted impression of “Font Editor” ter only two days’ use. Of course there may, in the future, emerge more details one should like to change - but I doubt it. The first impression is often the right one. Regarding mouses, I have been converted toa keen mouse- user and I am now able to make it draw straight lines, horizontal as well as vertical. Translated by Paul Mitlid «é PROGRAM WRITER Surely most Apple-users interested in programming have, at some occa- sion, tried to edit a BASIC-program with the help of the Line Editor resi- dent in APPLE and felt frustrated by its many imperfections. For instance, an entire line has to be rewritten when only a few characters have been changed. To INSERT new characters is almost impossible without using the ESC-key to move the cursor; I'm sure you have stumbled on this un- gainliness some time. Further, if you copy a line with the help of the arrow keys and you reach the end of a line and want to proceed on the next, then the Line Editor puts a lot of blanks into the BASIC-line, All such troubles have now come to an end, thanks to an editor program called PROGRAM WRITER. PROGRAM WRITER Is a full-screen editor program which permits you to make any change you want in your BASIC program, swiftly and without trouble. You can add and delete lines, renumber, copy, list, scroll forward and reverse, line by line or page “th page. You can even use a mouse wi it. PROGRAM WRITER Is available in six versions, three for ProDOS and three for DOS 3.3. The most complete version, called EDITOR, has all com- mands and consequently occupies a fairly large part of the memory. Ver- sion EDITOR.SMALL is shrinked to economize with the memory and has fewer commands. Version EDITOR.LC, is intended for Apple- owners having a lan; fe card: this version occupies oniyiia language card; the rest of the memory is avail- able for the program to be edited. o 2 2B Apple2000 October 1989 BIDMUTHIN TECHNOLOGIES Apple II1/Mac Specialists CORPORATE POWER FOR SMALL BUSINESSES Bidmuthin Technologies Ltd. is one of the best Level 1 Apple Service Centres in the country. Our fast, friendly and efficient service department is growing rapidly and all our service staff eve trained by Apple (UK) Ltd. We can offer you complete Macintosh systems at competitive prices, as well as a first class after sales and repair service ...from reviving a dead mouse - to rectifying a complete systems failure. Enquiries on 01-907 8516. ¢ AUTHORISED APPLE DEALER ° AUTHORISED APPLE II DEALER ¢ AUTHORISED EDUCATIONAL DEALER ° MACINTOSH SYSTEMS TO SUIT ALL REQUIREMENTS ¢ NETWORKS - SET UP AND TROUBLE-SHOOTING ¢ DATA TRANSLATION ¢ MAINTENANCE CONTRACTS ¢ UPGRADES ¢ FULLY TRAINED ENGINEERS « MAC WORKSHOPS LST SS SS Se a eee eee eee Bidmuthin Technologies Ltd. Brent House, 214 Kenton Road, Harrow, Middlesex HAS 8BT. Tel: 01-907 8516 Fax: 01-907 4398 Most commands in PROGRAM WRITER are similar to their equiva- lents in Appleworks’ Word Processor and are therefore easy to learn and use. PROGRAM WRITER's set of commands may be exchanged for others of your own invention. There is also a powerful set of macros which may be changed according to your wishes. You enter PROGRAM WRITER into meters in ProDOS by ula Es EDITOR’, in DOS 3.3 “BRUN EDI- TOR”. To call PROGRAM WRITER you push the “&" (ampersand) key twice followed by a RETURN. Ifyou already have your BASIC program in memory, the monitor screen will be filled wi BASIC lines; ifyou haven't, the screen. will be blank. You must enter BASIC program first and then PROG! WRITER. Since you have a FULL SCREEN editor you don't need to push the key or copy all characters the way you had to in the past; you may Just move the cursor to the line where you want to make corrections and then position the cursor on the characters you want to change. When you have carried out your alterations, move the cursor to the next position he want to modify, WITHOUT JUCHING the RETURN key! You proceed in this manner until you have edited the entire proman When you have hed editing your program you push OPENAPPLE- the Q to leave PROG! WRITER. You then SAVE your pro; toa disk or diskette in the usual way. Birre Genberg, AUG-Sweden Translated by Paul Mitlid «¢ Product: GS Font Editor Publisher : Beagle Brothers Price : £39.95 inc VAT Product : Program Writer Publisher : Beagle Brothers Price : £37.95 inc VAT Available from : MGA Softcat Pear Tree Appledore Kent TN26 2AR (0233) 83571 All MGA prices include VAT and Post and Packing in displayed prices A = OPEN-APPLE A-.: moves the cursor to the ¢1 A-A: automatic line numbering -I: inserts a new line A A A- AL: A-M: displays all entered macros A-N: A-O: for inserting CTRL and ESC A AQ A-R A A A F (QUIT): to leave PROGRAM A-X: changes between 40 and PROGRAM WRITER editor commands: A-1 to A-9: moves the cursor relative within the program ‘A-# (RENUMBER): renumbers the program completely or partly ‘A-,: moves the cursor to the beginning of a BASIC-line of a BASIC-line A-C (COPY): copies part of a BASIC line to the clipboard A-D: deletes one or more program lines A-E: changes the cursor from insert- to replace-mode A-F (FIND): finds a specified text in the program H (HARD COPY): copies all characters on the screen to the printer J (JUMP): jumps to a line with a specified number converts the character under the cursor to lower case removes spaces in a line between keywords, variables, etc (PASTE): moves text from the clipboard to a BASIC-line WRITER (REPLACE): exchanges one string of text for another -T; divides a BASIC-line into two lines -U: converts the character under the cursor to upper case -W (WORD):searches or replaces complete words A.V: lists all variables in the program characters per line A-Y: deletes all characters from the cursor to the end of the line A-Z: deletes PROGRAM WRITER from memory HP DeskJet Printer A review by Keith Rookledge HP DeskJet Printers represent one area where there ts alot of choice both in terms of cost and quality. We all aspire to a Laser Printer but this rep- resents the top of the range in terms of price. ¢ Hewlett Packard DeskJet rep- resents an alternate which Is very af- fordable and this short review deals with this instrument. The unit comes, as we all expect, well packaged. It is easy to assemble requiring connection to the mains, computer and insertion of the ink car- tridge. There is an excellent manual and in addition, the unit I have came with an additional font cartridge which was an Epson emulator. Cut sheet paper is placed in the hopper in the front of the unit and the oaty other action required was to set up the dip switches for the English operation mode. Ihave a IIGS and after changing the printer options the unit was up and going and even printed £ signs! The unit is small, the footprint being 12 by 19 inches and in addition operation is almost completely silent- no more daisy wheel clatter if you get one of these. There is a buffer of 16K. and the unit can be connected to either a serial or parallel port. The speed of operation is not as fast as a laser printer and depends on the density of the page being printed. A normal A4 sheet will be printed at the rate of 1- 4 sheets per minute. The unit comes with a built in font, good old Courier and in addition there is an excellent range of Font car- tridges which are very easy to change. Fonts are selected using a series of buttons on the top of the unit. The ink cartridge cost just over £12 and is reputed to produce over 3 million characters, so it seems a lot less expensive than a laser printer in terms of consumables. In conclusion | can only say that this represents the best value for money In terms of printers that I have found. The quality of the output is excellent and the unit is very easy to use. I can only say I was very im- pressed. Keith Rookledge e info Product ; DeskJet printer Publisher : Hewlett Packard Available from : Bidmuthin Technologies Brent House 214 Kenton Road Harrow. Middx. HA3 8BT (01) 907 8516 Price : £595 ex VAT (one font) Value : edddd Performance : éddde Documentation: ¢ééé¢d¢ 4 @& GB Appie2000 October 1989 Pot Pourri of Games REE eS ee Robert Hornby (aged 12) takes a look at four classic games both in the air and on the ground Sky Fox Is one of the best games out for the Apple with superb 3D. All the terrain is set in the background, mainly mountains and a sun and at the front of the screen coming for the mountains are tanks. These start out as blurs but as they come closer can admire it. The tank ts brilliantly drawn with a flag showing black and yellow colours. The aeroplanes are pretty well drawn but are not as good as the tanks but this is made up when when they get closer. These mother- ships send down and launch tanks and planes. The game starts when you choose which level you want to play. There are two choices you have to make one is if you want to be a cadet or some thing higher. When being a beginner you should play a cadet but when your a lot better you can play Ace of the base. The next thing you have to choose is whether you want tanks. planes or even both together. You can also have motherships put in if you want, there are 15 you can choose zoom in on areas and also get your score and reports. While on this screen, you can try and press a key which will get you on to an old well known game (No, I shall not tell you what the key is!). After this screen you can go into your ship and blast off down the launch tube. The launch tube isa bit like Elite’s buta bit better, The ship itself has two cannons, 5 heatseeking missiles which can actu- ally be controlled by you. On the ship you can also have the dreaded fuel gauge which goes down very slowly in this game ey must have found a way of conserving enerey i Also on the ship you have a shield which when destroyed, you blow up. The last thing on your ship is a scanner which shows whats approaching you. Once there on top of you, you can change to a target which shows you the range and where you are. Once launched you come out onto the brilliant landscape which seems to scroll as you fly along. You then change to auto pilot who will find the eneny ships for you. Once found you can biast them out, as you doso small explosions are seen and heard. Your altitude stays at a hundred unless the Joystick is moved up or down. When it is pulled back you go up. If you go up they open fire, explosions appearing around the screen draining your energy. The motherships are and look terrible. They are just blurs even from altogether. Once you have done this a map will appear showing you where you are and where the enemy forces are. While on this chart you can to 999 feet you go through the clouds. Once through you will be at- tacked by the aeroplanes. These aero- planes will make running raids. PlusDisk SC the first completely electronic disk drive for the Macintosh PlusDisk SC is a major leap forward in storage technology. It combines the _ lightning-fast performance of an internal RAMDisk with the permanent storage and convenience of a Hard Disk. Unlike a RAMDisk, PlusDisk SC doesn’t use any precious internal memory. Unlike a Hard Disk, PlusDisk SC has no moving parts or noisy fans and consumes virtually no power (it uses a small mains power pack when in use). PlusDisk SC easily outperforms all other disk drives (PiusDisk has an ac s time af ZERO Milliseconds compared with 7 lilliseconds for the average Hard Disk drive)! PlusDisk SC is 100% compatible with ALL Mac software and SCSI utilities. PlusDisk SC totally eliminates disk delay frustration forever! Starting up applications takes only a fraction of the normal time (eg Excel or Word in under 5 seconds). Quit any application to the desktop in/ess than 1 second! Because the Mac spends a large amount of time on disk-based operations, PlusDisk accelerates total system performance to a higher level. PlusDisk SC has an inbuilt power source to maintain your data in special fast access, low-power RAM chips for ultimate reliability and superior performance. The power source is recharged automatically when you use PlusDisk. Even if PlusDisk is not in use or plugged in at the mains, its contents are fully protected for a minimum of 3 months, effectively making it a permanent storage device! PlusDisk SC connects straight onto the SCSI port on any MacPlus, SE or Il any time, using plug-in 256K modules, right up to 4 Megabytes. ADD THE LIGHTNING TOUCH TO YOUR MAC WITH PLUSDISK SC from £348.00 It comes complete with 1 Megabyte and can be expanded at Available from your Mac dealer or direct CRTECHID October 1989 (Prices exclude VAT) CIRTECH (UK) Limited, Currie Road Industrial Estate, Galashiels, Selkirkshire, TD1 2BP, Scotland Telephone: (0896) 57790 Apple2000 15 ‘These raids are highly dangerous and you should make sure you attack from the rear or you are a gonner. When you push forward on the joys- tick you will go down when you reach O feet you hear a scraping sound. Once you have wiped out the level you will be told your score how many tanks, planes and motherships were destroyed and also what your losses were. When needing refueling you head towards the base which is su- perbly drawn. You should go down to 0 feet and when your at or over the base reduce speed to 0 mph and you will enter the base. This game ts one of the best games out and as it is very cheap it is a bargain. « As the cover says, “There are some places in the galaxy you don't go alone”. This is very accurate for I wouldn't go to LU-426 the allen planet without the marines. This is where the story starts. You are different pocpe in different levels. The first evel you are the drop ship flying the marines through the turbulence that awaits. This is quite hard for the passage ducks and turns, but after a minute or so you land on the planet and deploy the marines. You now get an access code to this level. Level tow is an arcade escape maze guiding 4 marines to safety. The marines are in sublevel 3 of the Atnosphere process- ing plant. But you have found aliens, well they have found you! Guide them through the plant until you find the A-P.C. (drop ship). A captured marine can be saved by another marine if he is in the same room or passage. The third level is where you have been cornered, but you have a chance to flee to safety. That is ifyou can hold them off long enough to cut your way through a steel door. The aliens drop down from the ceil- ing and By tush past you. But you can hold them off by using your flam- ethrower which can kill an alien if in range. The fourth level is where you have to escape through an airduct maze and get to the drop ship. This level is like PacMan, so you will be chased by aliens. The aliens have captured Newt (a girl found at the plant) and you have to save her. Guide your man through the passages until you find Newt. Rescue her and take her back to the drop ship fighting offaliens as you go. But one problem. you only have 17 minutes and only 99 shots on your laser. If you complete this level you can have a face to face confrontation against the mother queen. You have got the advantage, aPower Loader and an Exoskeleton that works like a fork lift truck. Using your joystick punch her until her power indicates all green (from red). Grab her and put her down through the airlock. You have com- pleted the game. The game at the start gives mission background and weapon identifica tion chart. The game comes with a ten ge exterminator guide giving you hints and tips on each level. The graphics are good but on some levels could be better. The opening music also is good and the lasers fire great. This game is great fun for all different kinds of players, boxer fans, arcade fans, simulator fans and also PacMan fans. This is probably the worlds hardest game, areal challenge foranyone. The game starts when you choose which elevator to take. The right takes you to the game and left to the edit page. The edit page is where you can create 49 new levels allas Seer as the game. First build the walls an: then the boxes, be careful though you don’t put them in a place you cannot move them from. Then choose the room you want to store them in. Making sure there is enough room. Once finished you can have a practice or save it. The Bamme is fun to play and one level an take up to 30 mins to complete (including snacks). Guide your man through the rooms until you have moved all the boxes in the right place. The graphics are good but could be improved. The sound Is pathetic, partly because there isn’t much. The game is okay but could be improved. The cover also does not show the games true self. The game is good for people who like strategy games but not for people like me who like fast action. «¢€ Elite is one of the longest held games and still one of my favourite. Elite is in a world of its own. Elite is a simulation where you are flying your Cobra MKIII round hun- dreds of planets trying to reach a gold of Elite, A fighting rank is the highest order. You join the game after you have just passed your flight exams. You are issued with a Cobra MKIII trading ship with front pulse laser and cargo hold. Also you get 100 credits enough to buy some form of cargo ranging from food to narcotics (illegal drugs and tobacco). Once you have bought your cargo you can seta course for a certain planet within a 7 light year jump. Once made you can launch from your space station and start your trading. 5-4-3-2- 1 - Hyperspace! You come out near toyour planet and from there you can make several jumps towards the space. but if any other craft is in the area you will not be able to make the jump. The other crafts are usually bounty hunters and you can be attacked at any time during your trip. There are many kinds of crafts big and small and all want to make their status grow. Your status starts as harmless, but the more ships you destroy the higher your rating gets. Once docked you can sell your cargo. Soon you may have enough cash to buy some more equipment ranging from missiles to military bases ani pom docking camps to galactic hyperspaces. Your journey come toterrible ends at peels point being destroyed by bounty hunters or by police craft if you trade in illegal goods. The Srephics for this game are good but could be improved. The price value is reasonable at £19.99. Elite is . great game and will bring hours of jun. Robert Hornby (aged 12) « All the games reviewd by Robert are availble from: MGA SoftCat Pear Tree Appledore Kent TN26 2AR (0233) 83571 Sky Fox (Apple II) £14.95 Sky Fox (Macintosh) £19.95 Aliens £14.95 Soko Ban £24.95 Elite (normal price) £14.95 Elite (while stocks last) £9.95 All prices include VAT and P&P MGA SoftCat announce a whole new way of communicating your message: | CHEST-TOP | PUBLISHING! Why limit yourself to mere paper? Now you can use your computer to print ! personalised T-Shirts! Use our special heat-transter ribbons together with | a design program which reverses the print-out, to | make a transfer sheet out of your ordinary printer paper which you simply iron onto whatever takes your fancy. ‘tutable sofware « avaiable for: ‘Apple I, Macintosh, IBM-PC, BBC, Archimedes, Apricot, ‘Ammstrad POW, Atari ST, Commedore-54, and Amiga 64 different printers supported | MGA SoftCat ‘Tel: (0233) 83294783571 Fax: 83561 ea Apple2000 October 1989 Mac Inker Dave Ward revives his ribbons in a cost conscious and quality control exercise The MAC INKER I purchased a dedicated MAC INKER for the ImageWriter II single coloured cartridge some 12 months ago, from MGA Microsystems. On hearing that I was about to present a review of this product John Gurr kindly offered to loan a kit that would allow my MAC INKER to re-ink the multi-coloured ImageWriter Il ribbon. MAC INKERS are available for just about all the printer ribbons on the market today. These can be pur- chased as dedicated units or one ma urchase a Universal unit which al- lows one to purchase kits for most types of printer ribbons. This Univer- sal unit is more expensive than a dedicated unit but becomes relatively cheaper if you are re-inking two or more different types of ribbons. Ink is available in a variety of colours in 20z and pint polybottles. First let's look at the dedicated MAC INKER for the reg plies Il single colour cartridges. I o1 use black inked ribbons and therefore only use black ink to re-ink my cartridges, other coloured ribbons can be re- inked with the same or very similar coloured ink or you can purchase blank ribbons to ‘re-ink’ to any avail- able colour. The MAC INKER that I purchased consisted of a black plas- tic table with a motor mounted below, an inking capstan, a plastic syringe for transferring ink, a pint bottle of black ink and two instruction leaflets. To re-ink a ribbon cartridge the table should be placed on a flat sur- face preferably covered with papers to absorb any stray ink! The motor drive spindle is extended through the table into a plastic plug that locates into the socket in the bottom of the ribbon cartridge. When the ribbon cartridge is located correctly it is kept static by small lugs that just fit into ‘holes’ in the top of the table. The ribbon should then be wrapped around the hollow ‘capstan’ that will hold the reservoir of ink. This ‘capstan’ has a small hole towards the bottom that allows ink to seep through into the fabric of the ribbon. The instruction leaflet tells one to place the cartridge on the table and then wrap the ribbon around the ‘capstan’ and then add the appropri. ate quantity of ink into the reservoir with the syringe. It is suggested that this reservoir is half-filled but the temptation is there to put in a little more - DONT, The instructions are quite clear about putting too much ink into the reservoir but I suspect that most users will fall into this trap for the first few times. As soon as the motor is started the ribbon passes the hole in the ‘capstan’ at a rather pon- derous rate but you will soon see a thin wet line of ink in the middle of the ribbon. Ribbon lengths vary but it takes between 25 and 30 minutes for the ribbon to do a complete circuit . At this stage you should remove the cartridge and any excess ink from the reservoir should be transferred from the reservoir back into the stock bottle. The instructions now give one three options as to how to proceed:- 1) Try using the ribbon immediately. This is not really recommended, though because the ink will not have spread evenly over the fabric to give even density of printing. 2) It is suggested that the ribbon be run through the MAC INKER for another 60 minutes with no ink in the reservoir as the motion of the ribbon tends to spread the ink out through the fabric. Using the rib- bon immediately after this treat- ment gives reasonably dense even printing. 3} The recommended method. how- ever, is to simply leave the cartridge for 24 hours and then use it. This seems to give the best results. The above method involves one watching the MAC INKER whilst it is working which ts rather tedious par- ticularly if you wish to re-ink more than one cartridge. Many users get around this problem as follows:- The instruction leaflet suggests that you mark a spot on the top of the ribbon with one of the white liquid correction fluids so that one can cas- ily tell when the ribbon has completed a single revolution. If on the first occasion you re-ink a ribbon you can time the process so that on subse- quent occasions when you re-ink that particular cartridge and you won't have to watch the ribbon revolve! Timers are available or could quite easily be made. The colour MAC INKER This cartridge contains a 22mm wide ribbon (compared with the 12.5mm wide single colour cartridge) divided equ into four coloured bands with yellow at the top followed with red, blue and black at the bot- tom. The MAC INKER kit for the multi-coloured ribbons consists of a special ‘capstan’, two black plastic rails that fit onto the base to give better stability to the cartridge and ancillary equipment such as four syringes and empty bottles. Bottles of each colour of ink will be required, too. The inks are available in 20z and 160z (pint) poly-bottles. Changing the single colour ‘capstan’ to the multi- colour ‘capstan’ is very easy. This ‘capstan’ has 4 small pple. spaced accurately so that when the ribbon is threaded round it the ‘nipples’ touch each colour band centrally. This time instead of filling the inner part of the ‘capstan’ there are four aluminium reservoir (wells) above and behind the ‘capstan’ which are connected to the ‘nipples’ by narrow clear plastic pipes so the ink will be gravity fed. To re- duce ¢ of ink through the ‘nipples’ when the inker is not in use there are four aluminium pegs with pins at the bottom end which locate and block the small holes in the bot- toms of the wells. Setting up the multi-colour MAC INKER ts quite easy. 1) First make sure that the pegs are in position in the wells to prevent ink See paie: 2) Use the syringes to transfer suffl- cient ink to just half fill each well. 3) Place the cartridge onto the base and wrap the ribbon around the ‘capstan’ 4) Make a mark upon the ribbon with white correction pen fluid to mark the start. 5) Start the motor and then gently pull out the pegs. Air locks in the pipes do not appear to be a problem. 6) Allow the ribbon to complete a single revolution which takes about 25 minutes and then carefully re- place the pegs. stop the motor and remove the cartridge. MGA Microsystems kindly supplied 8 used cartridges for testing. I tried five of these but was not impressed by the results, although these will be discussed below. Just in case I had was doing something wrong I asked William Watson to try the equipment on the remaining cartridges, plus some of his own; his results were much the same as mine. Testing a cartridge immediatel after inking does not, as cted, produce a good result as the inks have not had time to flow through the fab- ric. Even after 24 hours the results are not much better. However, the longer the cartridges are left the bet- October 1989 Appie2000 SaSBegcgauv “CORTE CHIN. ) CIRTECH (UK) LTD. Currie Road industrial Estate. GALASHIELS a | The sparkling new storage solution — Diamond hard disks Diamond high capacity SCSI hard disk drives have been developed by Cirtech especially for the Mac and Apple IL computers. These super slim, fast drives are supplied ready formatted for immediate use and give you the top performance and value you’ve come to expect from Cirtech. Their stylish good looks in colour-keyed platinum grey prefectly complement your system. * Available in 32, 48 and 100 Megabyte sizes. * High performance drive system — 28 mS average access time * Dual SCSI connectors for simple daisy chaining of other SCSI devices * Supplied complete with fully shielded SCSI cable * Slimline case is fully screened for minimum radio interference * Has the same footprint as the Mac SE and Plus * ~~ Whisper quiet drive system with very low power consumption Mac Versions: Connects directly to the SCSI port on the Mac SE, Plus or Il. ‘Supplied ready formatted for instant use. Aj Il Versions: Pre-formatted and complete with a Cirtech SCSI interface for use on the IIGS, He or 11+. Support soft- ware included for up to four SCSI devices. Fully compatible with GSOS ProDOS, DOS 3.3, Pascal and CP/M. Diamond drives for flawless performance! 32 Megabytes 48 Megabytes 100 Megabytes Mac £475.00 £545.00 £845.00 Apple II (including SCSI interface) £520.00 £390.00 (Prices quoted exclude VAT) Check your Apple 2000 Catalogue for details of special members offers Selkirkshire, TD1 2 Tolex: 9312130256 (CI. G) Mailboxes: . Scotland Telephone: (0896) 57790 CPDOO} (Telecom Gold) AAHSSS (Source) MACINKERS are manufactured by : Prices: Inking units: Computer Friends, Inc. 2341M ImageWriter I/II Dedicated Portland OR 97229 MACINKER £A2. Universal MACINKER base £60.00 Telephone :- (503) 626-2291 234U ImageWriter I/II adapter kit (for use with universal base) £8.50 Available from : MGA Microsystems Peartree Appledore Ashford Kent TN26 2AR Telephone 0233-83571 Multicolour adapter kit (use with universal base/2341M) £40.00 Epson MX/FX/RX 80/100 adapter kil (for use with universal base) £8.50 MAC INKER Ink: Black - 1 pint Any colour - 20z Any colour - 1 pint Mulitcolour ink - set of 4 @ 0.50z sBRees Apple2000 ter the results and in fact after 10 days or so produces passable colour print al- though they were a shade rer than the new rib- ns. One would of Geta expect pi ms to be com- uunded when dealing with four colours. For instance the inks flow at slightly dif- ferent rates so that the density of ink in the ribbon bands may vary slightly thus producing subtle changes in the mixed col- ours such as green, purple and orange. Working with the single colour MAC INKER isa rela- tively clean operation pro- viding some care is exer- cised. However, we found the multi-colour MAC INKER to be rather messy and a supply of tissues or Tags is recommended. The aluminium pegs are only Smm longer tian the wells; they should be much longer to prevent ink being trans- ferred to ones fingers. The inks still seep albeit very slowly from the ‘nipples’ producing a multi-colour pool at the bottom of the ‘capstan’ this must be cleaned up before inking otherwise the black band will become multi-coloured! Inkwhich finds its way onto ones hands is easily re- moved by washing. Ink on clothes does not appear to be so easily washed off so care should be taken. Ink conclusion! Single colour ribbons re- inked with the MAC INKER are better than the origi- nals. The job is simple, clean (ifyou want it to be so) and very accommodating of errors on the users’ part. The only error one can re- ally make is to over-ink the ribbon. Multi-colour ribbons are, as might be expected, more difficult because one is re ally re-inking 4 parallel rib- bons. The re-inked ribbons are of lower quality than the originals and the job al- though appearing as easy as the single colour ribbons is in fact rather messy and does not accommodate any user errors. I would like to thank Wil- liam Watson and also Jenny Green of MGA for the loan of the multi-colour adapter. Dave Ward « October 1989 ee an example This example accompanies the article on C by Dave Miller in the June Apple2000 The Jollowiné example is taken from ‘BCPL and C’. by Glyn Emery, published by Blackwell Scientific Publications. It is a simple letter processor and illustrates simple file handling. Astandard letter, stored in the file ‘letter’ is to be adapted for sending to several recipients. Their names and ad- dresses are stored in the file ‘addresses’. Copies of the am- mended letters are accumulated in the print file ‘mail’. The back-slash character is used to mark insertion-points in the letter where the user can type in suitable text. The insertion ts terminated with a press of the RETURN key (the carriage return is not inserted into the text). The final output is limited to 50 characters per line maximum via a simple wrap-around technique. #include <stdio.h> /* include I/O library */ fdefine newpage ‘\14’ /* octal 14 = ASCII 12 = CTRL-L i 4 fidefine insertion ‘\\’ /* 1 back-slash */ #define wrap 50 /* wrap at 50 characters */ #define bell ‘\7" /* octal 7 = ASCII 7 = CTRL-G */ /* global variables */ static int linecount = 0; /* static var initialised to 0 Sf char next [70]; /* 70-character string */ PILE ‘addresses, /* define file pointers for */ *letter, /* the three defined files */ *mail; output (c) /* integer function to output characters */ /* note that ‘int’ assumed before func. name 7 /* if omitted */ char c; /* parameter */ /* send the chars to the output inserting required new lines */ /* increment line count and test against wrap, ¢& = ‘and’ */ /* set ‘c’ to new line if line count > wrap and c = space */ if (Linecount++ > wrap && ¢ == +‘) c= ‘\n’; /* if ‘c! new line then clear linecount */ if (c == ‘\n‘) linecount = 0; /* return the result code from writing the character to the */ /* mail file */ return (pute (c, mail)); more_text() /* copy letter upto insertion-point */ /* note dummy parameter list */ { char c; /* local variable */ do /* loop until insertion-point or end of file met */ /* read char into ‘c’ return */ /* 1 if insertion-point reached - note func. exits here */ (via ‘getc’) from file and if (c = gete (letter) == insertion) return 1; /* copy char to output file after checking for wrap-around */ putchar (output (c)); } while (c != EOP); /* end at end of file */ main () /* main program - always called ‘main’ */ { char c; /* local variable */ /* open the files via I/O library */ /* ‘fopen’ opens the files and sets the file pointers 8 /* to address their associated file buffers */ addresses = fopen (“addresses”, “r"); /* read */ letter = fopen (“letter”, “r"); /* read */ mail = fopen (“mail”, “r*): /* write */ /* read into the array ‘next’ the next item from the address file */ /* “(char *) next’ addresses ‘next’, ‘sizeof (next)’ returns the */ /* size of ‘next’, ‘1’ indicates that only 1 line is to be read */ /* the function ‘fread’ ters read, 0 */ /* means end of file */ returns the number of charac- while (fread ((char dresses) ) { *) next, sizeof (next), 1, ad- /* write out the address just read to the terminal and to the */ /* output file - discard any returned value from function */ /* ‘fwrite’ */ fwrite ((char *) fwrite ((char *) next, sizeof (next) next, sizeof (next), 1, stdout); 1, mail); linecount = 0; /* zero line count */ /* read in the letter and copy it to the output file until an */ /* insertion point be reached or until end end of the letter */ /* be reached */ while (more_text()) /* note no parameters */ { putchar (bell); /* insertion point reached - ring bell */ /* read a character from the keyboard and copy this to the */ /* output file until a new line entered */ while ((c = getchar () } f= ‘\n") output (c); putchar (putc (newpage, mail)); /* issue a form feed */ rewind (letter); address */ ) /* all done - close /* reuse the letter for the next files and end */ fclose (addresses); fclose (letter); fclose (mail); October 1989 Apple2000 BSfe@EaH Applied Apple Spreadsheeting EEL I ee (3) Paul McMullin continues his series and creates an Electronic Calendar within a spreadsheet In the previous article in this series we made heavy use of one of the built-in spreadsheet functions, @IF, to help us extract and organize data In tables. This time around we will be seeing how we can use a spreadsheet pro- gram as an electronic calendar, and todo this we will be relying on another built-in function, @LOOKUP. Some spreadsheet programs have built-in functions for the specific purpose of handling date manipula- tions. Most spreadsheets for the Apple II do not. Date functions are lacking even on the recently an- nounced version 3.0 of Appleworks. As always, though, where there is a will there is a way, especially if you have an Apple II! By way of example let's take the case of astud owner who has a lst of the birth-dates of the year’s crop of foals. Now for this particular breed of horse we will as- sume that there is an age limit for registering young foals. On the other hand it is much more efficient if he can wait do the job in batches. The owner wants a quick and simple method of taking the dates of birth and determining the last possible date forregistration foreach foal. Ifhe can use the same technique to deter- mine other key target dates (weaning, weighing. worming. vaccinating etc) then so much the better. Pe shows one solution to this problem as it would appear on the screen when in use. A real spread- sheet could be organized slightly dif- ferently. The cells with calculations might be placed on the same row as the data for the foal so that they could Fig.1 The data for one foal are in row 18, the desired interval for calcu- lation is in cell J15, intermediate calculations are shown in cells K20 and K21, and, finally the desired month and day are shown In cells K23 and K24. In this case a foal born on April 19th 1989 would be 105 days old on August 2nd. T Js Koa 15|Registration by day —> 105 16] 17|Foal No Month Day Year 18! 122 4 19 1989 19) 20| Start Days since Jan 1 110 21! End Days since Jan 1 215 22) 23) End Month 8 24) End Day 2 25) ae 3 old on April 9th 1990. In this case a foal born on December 10th 1989 would be 120 days be easily replicated down the sheet to provide the result for a large number of animals. Once the basic technique has been mastered it could easily be adapted to provide a series of different target dates for the rearing of the foal, all on one report. Hopefully this has got you interested in how this is achieved even if you do not own a stud! The simplest way of achieving our aim fs to use a “Lookup Table”. The usual example ofa use for such tables is in checking freight or postage rates because these are often not linear but “jump” at discrete intervals. The same is true for the days within the months of the year. There is no direct linear relationship between months and days since the start of the year. This is because of the irregular occur- rence of 28,30,and 31 day months. Figure 2 shows a lookup table which can conveniently be placed at the top of a spreadsheet. Cells in both row 4 and row 5 include references to cells C4 and C5 to take into account situ- ations where the current or next year are leap- . Cells from column G up to column R have formulae con- sisting of the value shown +C4 (cur- rent year). Cells from row S over have the day sum +C5 (following year). The actual formulae used to determine whether the current or following years are leap-years are : >D4:@1F(I18/4=(@INTII18/4)), 1.0) (current year) >D5:@IF((118+1)/4=(@INT((I18+1)/ 4)).1,0) (following year) In other words if the current year shown in cell 118 ts divisible by 4 with nothing over then its a leap-year. For next year just add 1 to cell 118. See Fig 2. So now we have our calendar lookup table ready. Remember that once it is prepared it can be used in any number of similar spreadsheet applications. Now we can do our desired calculations using fairly simple formulae in 4 easy steps: 1. Calculate the number of days from the beginning of the current ar to the start date (birthday) cell K20). The formula is @LOOKUP(G18,E4...P4) +H18, We are looking up the current month in row 4 and from it Steed the nua of days ela since the new year at the start of the month. Then we F I ~J Kame 15|Registration by day 120 Paphos pee ment 16! i s 2. Add the number of days of the A eens a re sas desired interval to the number as 3 calculated in step one to find the number of days elapsed from the 20) SUSE) DAVRAS NCO RE Ee eee beginning of the current year to a Rnd Deyecesnoe cen as the desired date (cell K21). The 23 End Month 4 peter ir 15 and is self x End Day 9 3. Lookup the month of the desired 261 date (cell K23). The formula is @LOOKUP(K21-1,E6...AB6). 2 Sag Apple2000 October 1989 Fig.2 Calendar lookup table. Rows 4 and 7 have simply the months | to 12 (with lateral repetition in row 7). Rows 5 and 6 have the days elapsed since the beginning of the year at the beginning of each month. —CaD Enea [eee Jae KL Quan R=. . .mAA-=AB=AC= 3! Calendar Lookup Table ALO Glee ae eo .6), 7 olor Mor te 5] 0 © 31 S59 90 120 151 182 212 243 273 304 334 365 396...669 699 6| 0 31 59 90 120 151 182 212 243 273 304 334 365 396...669 699. 0 7 TieCmtseee rs ke TomeuNoE LOR, 12 1 2....31 22° 0 Essentially we are doing the Table 1a. Comparison of a number of spreadsheet programs. Pro; pegoess ere eRe included are Visicale le (VD, Standard (Visa) and Advanced Visleale (VI/ 4. Calculate the day number of the desired date (cell K24). The formula is K21-@LOOKUP(K21- 1,E5...AB5). We are looking up the number of days in previous months then subtracting this from the exact number of days desired to find the remainder Le. the Ey of the month which we see! Note that the range specified in the @LOOKUP formulae for