Apple 2000 Vol 5 No. 6 1990 12 BASUG GB

Apple2000 THE NATIONAL APPLE USERS GROUP _£ Macintosh Classic Change up for better performance. Product Price (£) FileMaker Pro Retails for £225 Upgrade from FileMaker Il or FileMaker 4 75.00 FileMaker or FileMaker Plus 75.00 Other Macintosh databases* 95,00 Claris CAD 2.0 Retails for £675 Upgrade from Claris CAD 1.0 60.00 MacDraw II 350.00 MacWrite ll Retails for £175 Upgrade from MacWrite 5.0 45.00 Other Macintosh word processors** 55.00 Product Price (£) MacDraw II L.1 Retails for £325 Upgrade from MacDraw II 25.00 MacDraw 220,00 MaeProject Il 2.1 Retails for £395 Upgrade from MacProject 135.00 MacProject II 45.00 MaePaint 2.0 Retails for £95 Upgrade from MacPaint 30.00 nclude FileForce, MS Works, MS File, (BASE Mac, Double Helix **Includes MS Word, MS Write, Nisus, WriteNow, WordPerfect, FullWrite Professional Wouldn’t it be nice if you could trade in your old model whenever a new one comes out? With cars and alas, computers, this is not so easy to do. But with software, you can. Because we build ever greater levels of performance into each new generation of our Asa loyal user, you are eligible for our special upgrade prices, with huge discounts from current recommended retail prices. Simply call our hotline on 0800 899005 to obtain an official Claris Upgrade Kit, then upon receipt of your payment and old software we'll swiftly send you your upgrade. It’s our way of saying thank you for being a Claris customer- and as you can see above, even users of other software can benefit! Claris Product Upgrades Freefone 0800 899005* (Claris Corporation. All rights reserved. Claris, FileMaker, MacDrum, MasPaint, MacProject and MacWrite are trademarks of Claris Corporation Macintosh is a trademark of Apple Computer, Ine. All other brand names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners Claris International, Ine., 1 Roundwood Avenue, Stockley Park, Usbridge, Middlesex UBI11BG Telephone (081) 756 0101 For upgrade prices for the Republic of Ireland call Dublin (01) 767 814. Distributed in the U.K. by Frontline Distibution, Intec] Wade Road, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG24 ONE Telephone (0286) 463344 Apple2000 The All Apple P.O.Box User Group Committed to All Apple Users December 1990 including Macintosh Apple2000 3 Liverpool 121 8PY O51 Fa sic) Fax: #54 $23 4387 CONTENTS Chairman's Corner Letter Box Brace ppleXtras ProDOS 8 and ies oe Zaps and all that (Part 3) Heart Stopping Stress Test — a review Charlie Brown's ABC — a review Battle Chess — a review Trans Life — a Xmas story Compusec — a review The New Print Shop — a review MD-Basic — a review FASTDATA Pro — a review Master Series — a review GraphicWriter 3 — a review Real Programmers Communicating with Point-To-Point IIgs Virus ee Ilgs tem Disk 5.0 Series Ric Hyperstudio SoftCat Corner Apple II Peripherals : a descriptive list of Interrupts e Nibbler MacChat Apple's New Product Announcements Hint hints for Fontographer Findswell 2.0 Facts ReadForm and ReadSpell, MultiClip Ewen Wannop 2 3 Competition 6 8 Ewen Wannop 9 Adrian Campbell-Burt 10 Adrian Campbell-Burt 11 Doodlewit 12 Anon 13 Dave Ferris 14 Mavis Shardlow 16 Peter Stark 18 Peter Stark 20 Derek Blackburn 21 Jeremy Quinn 24 25 Helge Malmgren 26 Martin Landhage 27 Apple Tech. Support 28 GEnie 31 Jon Gurr 35 Apple Tech. Support 36 Apple Tech. Support a Norah Arnold 42 Apple Computer, Inc. 44 Judy Sutcliffe 56 Working Software, Inc. 57 Olduvai Corporation 58 Spellswell Dictionaries Working Software, Inc. 60 SuperSqueeze SuperMac Technology 61 Members’ Small Ads. 62 AppleXtras — Starting a New Year 63 Disk Express II — a review John Kishimoto 64 Hyperpress Technical Notes Icon Factory 66 What is ASNA? AppleLink 67 Pipe Dream, Welltris, Starflight — reviews Peter Kemp 68 WindoWatch Hi Resolution Wizzardware 71 Press Releases 72 Young Software Designer Awards Blyth Software Ltd. 73 Letter Box Letraset UK 74 4 SOL MacVonk 74 Ap) = Mac 6 ze Mac Lil Local Groupe 78 Members’ Small Ads. 80 Advertisers’ Index 80 There are a number of ways to contact Apple2000 Ifyou wish to order goods or services from Apple2000 or just leave us a message, call Irene on (iifill Stitt Hii (Ansafone during the day). Alternatively you can Fax. your order to lift ‘O40 or write to the PO Box. If you use commis you can leave orders on TABBS addressed to the SYSOP or contact us on AppleLink (BASUG. 1). Ifyou are experiencing problems with Apple hardware or software Dave Ward and John Amold run the Hotlines and they will try to help you. December 1990 We are very interested in the activities of local user groups, and if you have any information which you would like publicised, then John Lee would like to hear from you. We reserve the right to publish, without prejudice, any advice or comments given to members as a result of letters received, in the journals of Apple2000. 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. Apple2000 gee supports users of the Ape erenDUteS, The t 1, 0, +, //e, //c, //e+, Tgs, Ugs+. Hifh tise: XL, Mac 128, 512 MacPlus, Classic, SE, SE/30, Mac LC, II, Tisi, Mex, Ici, Ix, Ifx and the Mac Portable Contributions and articles for the magazine are al welcome. We can handle any disk size or format. Please send to the PO Box, L21 8PY. The pa half of the magazine for the Apple Il, ple ligs and Apple /// app bac! Ne hall is for the Macintosh and Lisa. Look for the descriptive page icons: Apple Il, //e and //c 2 Apple /// Apple IIgs Macintosh, Lisa Macintosh II Bt zy p-- Contact Points Administration: Irene Flaxman Apple |I Hotiine: Dave Ward Tole tame Fea Wise iran Usibim D cio) Macintosh Hotline: John Arnold Voice T.B.A. Mon-Fri 1900-2100 TABBS: Ewen LIN ey eared AppleLink: BASUG 1 1 Reviews: Elizabeth Littlewood Wee GET se Local Groups: John Lee Wie ORFS mai TimeOut & ProSel: Ken Dawson (eu 4a ated AppleWorks: John Richey ry std Chairman's Corner Apple2000 1980-1990 i MacUser Show The 1990 MacUser show is now over and we warmly welcome all those new members who joined us at the show. We would also like to thank allthe members who gave up their valuable time to help man the stand over the four days, and to all those members who made an effort tocome and say hello tous. Wemay not have had time to speak prop- erly with you, but I am sure you understand the pressure of the show. Our special thanks go once again to Derek Church for putting up a custom stand for us. For those of us who are seasoned. show people, this year's show was an odd affair. Apple did not have a stand at the show. Curious when you think ofthe momentous launch of the new computers only a few weeks ago. Perhaps they were caught out by the timing of the announcements and did not have time to book a stand! They did however support a ‘hands-on’ area for people to get to know the new machines that were shown, but only one Macintosh LC was espied at Olympia even then. We found that many callers at the Apple2000 stand were thinking about which machine they should get. and so we were able to help them thread their way through the bewildering talk from the dealers andmakeamoreconsidered choice. Ourcongratulations goto allthose who won a bottle of champagne as a result of our business card draw, and to the member who won the copy of SuperCard in the new members’ draw. Macintosh Hotline Tony Dart, who has beenrunning our Macintosh Hotline for the last two years, has been forced to give this up through pressure of work. Our grateful thanks go to Tony for his stalwart efforts over that time and wish him well with his ever growing business. John Arnold has agreed to take onthe réle ofthe Macintosh Hotline co-ordinator. We are waiting for British Telecom to provide a new ‘phone line, so please contact John via 051928 4142 intheshort term. The Hotline will always attempt to answer your problems directly, but if this cannot be achieved, we will direct you on to a suitable contact amongst the membership. For the full potential of this scheme to work, we need to have a list of experts who we can call upon. We do have a small list at the moment, but we need to build this up toinclude specialists inasmany areas as possible. It is you, the members, who make up the Apple —itisfromamongst you that we draw our experts. If you are willing to add your name to our specialist list, we should like to hear from you. Please write to The Macintosh Hotline’ C/O P.O. Box 3, Liverpool, L21 8PY. Please give your name, your ‘phone number, the times you are available, and your specialist subject. Special Interest Groups With the increasing complexity of software and hardware, and the wide range of applications now available, there is a growing need tohave our Special Interest Groups more clearly identified and better organised. Therefore, we also need volunteers on this front. We need to add names to the growing list on the first page of the magazine. These will be people who are willing to co-ordinate interest ina particular subject area. Wecan offer you space in the magazine to keep members informed of what is going on, and we shall (of course) add you to the Hotline list as well. Ihave often asked in the past for volunteers in this way. The group is primarily a self-help group and it relies on the efforts and goodwill of the membership to survive. This is our strength. The committee co-ordinate all these efforts, but it is increasingly difficult to provide all the services that are needed by our members. We need your help, as well! Ewen Wannop (Annual subscription rates are £30.00 for UK residents, £35.00 for E.E.C. residents and £40.00 for other overseas rs. Apple2000™ isa trading name of BASUG Ltd, a non-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 to BASUG Ltd. The opinions and views expressed herein are those of the various contributors, and are not necessarily endorsed 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 Apple Slices newsletter ts pub- lished in the intervening months. The copy date is the 1st 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 Editorial team is: Apple Il Ewen Wannop Macintosh Norah Arnold, Irene Flaxman Reviews Elizabeth Littlewood 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 go to Val Evans for designing our front cover, and to Walter Lewis of Old Roan Press (051-227-4818) for our printing service. Apple2000 are Founder Members and Wholehearted Supporters of the A Apple2000™, Apple Slices, AppleXtras, Mac2000 and Thi oceans dweller tag PENA gy lenend hg Apple User Group Council ‘This issue was prepared using Aldus PageMaker™ 4.0, \itticroSoft Word™ and Claris MacWrite™., yy) Apple2000 December 1990 Stonegrove Edgware Dear Editor, Terry Morris asks how to change the chessboard character (CHR$(127)], to the Mouse character for a carriage return. Hedoes not make itclear which version of AppleWorks he is using. The patch he describes for the $ to # change in the spreadsheet {s not the correct location for AppleWorks 3.0 (where itis $6A6. not $0A6), for the string he quotes. It may be therefore that he is using an earlier version, than 3.0 For AppleWorks 3.0 the simplest way of making the change and make several other patches is to use the AW 3.0 Companion, published by Beagle. The changes are extremely simple to make and to cancel. However if this program is not available, AppleWorks Forum, the publication. oft the National AppleWorks User Group, has published a series of patches for version 3.0 byJohn Link of Western Michigan University, and the developer of the ‘Superpatch’ program and an AppleWorks consultant. These include a change to the overstrike cursor and changing the carriage return checker character, and it is necessary for correct working to install both patches together. If this is not done the carriage return character will alternate with the inverse capital letter corresponding to the mousetext, when the overstrike cursor is on the carriage return. Change the overstrike cursor 1. Select the character from the Mousetext characters, using the low Sor value equivalent. (eg solid apple 2. Insert the AppleWorks system disk with APLWORKS.SYSTEM in Drive 1. 3. ape following, using the charac- tervalue you have chosen to substitute for the x’ in the poke to 769. POKE 768,169 POKE 769,x POKE 770,76 POKE 771,119 POKE 772,28 BSAVE APLWORKS.SYSTEM,TSYS, A$300,L5,B$C61 December 1990 To cancel the patch and restore Ap- pleWorks to its original condition, type the following POKE 768,173 POKE 769,245 POKE 770,16 POKE 771,41 POKE 772,127 BSAVE APLWORKS.SYSTEM,TSYS, A$300,L5,B$C61 Change the Return character 1. Select the mousetext character and use the high ASCII value associ- ated with the character. E.g the ‘bent arrow’ carriage return s 1 is 205. 2. Insert the AppleWorks system disk with SEG.AW in Drive 1. 3. Type the following with the ‘x’ replaced with the high ASCII of the character chosen, POKE 768.x BSAVE SEG.AW,TBIN,A$300, L1,B$9389 To cancel patch POKE 768,127 BSAVE SEG.AW, TBIN.A$300, L1,B$9389 My own copy of AppleWorks has the ‘bent arrow’ as a carriage return, along with several other changes, all made with the AW Companion. The only problem with the carriage return change is that the mousetext charac- ters are not highlighted fordelete strings ~ not a serious worry. Just to refer to another query in letter box, from A McElhatton of Malta. One of his many(!) problems was with PublishIt! v1.4. This has, of course been replaced with v3.0, which useon an //c, with 512K RAM, Although my own monitor and printer are black and white and I cannot therefore use any colour, I can confirm that the manual of version 3.0 also says that the black and white double HiRes screen is used for display, colour is only available in the pant outs. I can also confirm that Publishit! is capable of giving excellent results. Harvey Nyman é Scunthorpe ft Dear Ewen, I recently had the opportunity to acquire a mouse for my Apple //e. and, despite the fact that Apple intro- duced it in, I believe nineteen eighty four, there seems to be a she ie of inexpensive programs for it lable in this country. It therefore occurred to me that, given the right guidelines, it should be possible for interested members to modify their programs to operate with a mouse. Can we, through the a- zine, ask one of our more skillful members to help in creating the nec- essary guidelines for us? Possibly a Ba te step approach, hands on, as non-technical as possible? Even as a minority subject, I think it may be of interest to non-mousers. Harry Markham QI think the reason that there are not so many programs for the mouse is simply there were never that many mice around for the Il. The mouse and card for the Apple II were always ex- pensive as they used the Macintosh mouse. You will find that quite a lot of au- thors support the mouse in addition to the normal esoara: However they rarely use a full desktop environment or a program that can only work with the mouse. The exception ofcourse are all the drawing programs, which since 1984 have supported the mouse in erin to the joystick, paddles or Certainly we should have greater support. It would be nice to see a patch that would allow the mouse to be used with existing programs as well as guidelines for general use. Come on all of you, get your key- boards working ... Ewen Wannop « Academia Britanica Cuscatleca Apartado Postal 121 Santa Tecia El Salvador ft Dear Dave, I am encountering problems with one aspect of Turbo Pascal V. 3.0 Central America Fax: 282956 which is hindering progress with one Please submit all letters and articles to the magazine on disk wherever possible. The disks will be returned to you when the magazine is ublished. If you have a modem, send us letters, article: omain programs either to BSGO05 or to TABBS ((itip Apple2000 of our education courses. I wrote to Borland International ex- plaining the problem, but they were unable to help me. The problem is that I am unable to print Input/Output of a program run on any of our printers. Our system is: Apple //e 128k micros ipped wth 780 CP/M card, ImageWriter II dot-matrix printers The Turbo Pascal disk has been set up with the following system: Apple II CP/AM 60K V5.1.1 (C) APPLIED ENGINEERING I have tried putting the compiler directive $P128 at the top of the pro- grams (P.367 Turbo Pascal manual), thus: (*$P128°*) PROGRAM .... but to no avail. The LST commands work, but I don't wish to hays to a these lines to ro} Iwoul like to have ae Rabenpat echoed on the printer as well as the results. I would also like to maintain the screen formatting on the hardcopy. eae Pugh (Head of Computer Stud- ies) QO We have tried to find the answer for Chris, but so far we have not come up with anyt on Be If any member who has any experi- ence with Turbo Pascal or with his version of CP/M can help, can they please get in touch with Chris directly. I know that there used to be some problems with using certain printers and printer cards with CP/M, but do not remember having had problems with the serial ports before. Ed & Bideford Devon Dear Ewen and Girls, The DeskWriter Saga I sent you an article a fortnight on problems I had had with the DeskWriter and its’ outrageous con- ea i of Ink Cartridges and with Hewlett-Packard. You may be inter- ested to hear the continuation of the ja. **Hewlett-Packard’s engineer tel- ephoned on the Mo. my letter toyou, 3 Sept, and he was advised that I would be nt from 12 to3 pm and there would be nobody to admit him. He turned upat 12.40. He finally did make it next day, and did a 10 minute modification to the DeskWriter. He said that the pad at the resting position of the cartridge to absorb ex- cess ink off the printing face, absorbed all the ink from the cartridge as soon as the machine was used. I noted that the modification kit had obviously been designed for a DIY job by customers, with an elaborately il- lustrated step by Sep gue and that the covering letter to the customer was dated 27 October 1989, wellbefore my purchase. I wrote to H-P asking:- Why unmodified machines were sold after the date of the Retrospective Modification? If the Modification kits were una- vailable at the time of the sales. why were they not provided automatically to customers who had registered their machines? What recompense they were prepared to offer for the waste of £159.66 worth of cartridges because of their faulty design? H-P have just replied with the usual soporific letter (standard letter number 3, Susan, with the usual mail-merge) and have ignored questions. John Stanler FACT Bideford Devon Dear Ewen and Girls, Follows a little article on my experi- ences on CompuServe, which may be of interest to Apple 2000 members. To CompuServe or Not to CompuServe. When Apple 2000 advertised the cheap(ish) offer to become a member of CompuServe, and at the same time I heard that The Force was closing down, members being transferred on request to Telecom Gold's Club section - from which no doubt British Telecom will soon price them out -I took up the offer and applied for CompuServe mem- bershi; p. The first snag I found was the sheer difficulty in getting a circuit to CompuServe.. One of the penalties of living “out in the sticks” is that the nearest access node for Telecom Gold and Istel (for CompuServe) is Exeter which at 60 miles distant is hardly a local call. In fact it's a trunk call at the highest (b) rate. Node access for Telecom Gold is successful in 90% of tries, but Istel is very elusive and only 5% of tries are successful, 95% of calls returning “No Carrier”. Unfortunately, so far as the telephone system is con- cerned, each call to Istel is successful, for ringing tone ts replaced by modem tones and one call is booked on your telephone bill. So, each connection to Istel has so far cost me no less than 20 trunk calls before the actual connect Va MUNI HT he WE MN ty RACE Apple2000 ee WME TAA TA Bulletin //1/7 The Apple Bulletin Board System Board Speeds: V21(300) to V22bIs(2400) 8N1 24 hours System . >>>>> TABBS TOP MENU <<<<< i) <#>Endcall <.>Utilities <;>Time <G>oodbye <i> <2> <> <4> <5> Apple }{ folder Apple IIgs folder Macintosh folder Apple2000 folder Developers folder O The TABBS message system is morc than just a Bulletin Board. With a shopping enkite acess mall where youcan browse the Apple2(00 catalogues and order the goods you require; alibrary with over 75mb of compressed files for the Apple II, IIgs and Macintosh; the NewsBytes™ news files updated weekly bring you the latest in world computer news; 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 <6> <D>ownload Libraries <MPailbox <Nrews Columns <aA>dvertisment Hoarding <S>hopping Mall <Wrhat’s new on TABBS <H>elp files for TABBS premier Apple Bulletin Board serving Europe. Give TABBS acall today! \_ Pe, Ring TABBS on (@iRdVF4I797 at any speed through V21, V22, V23 to V22bis 8N1 TABBS is available 24 hours a day iS J 4 Bees Apple2000 December 1990 charges even start. It so happened that I was unable to make my initial use of CompuServe for about a month after I had formally agreed to the conditions, via the mo- dem. Itwas then that! found that! had been signed upasan Executivemember despite my refusal of that (expensive) status at my signing-up session. I promptly cancelled the option - I have no call whatever for an Institutional Broker's service, or fora weekly update of the anticipated earnings of 3800 companies, or for any of the trimmings of the Executive option, and I took a poor view of CompuServe putting me to the extra expense of the Executive option against my expressed wish. A look through the glossy literature revealed a strong recommendation to get hold of one of the Automated Pro- grams to facilitate getting around the system, and the Mac program, CompuServe Navigator could ob- tained by ordering Online (GOORDER). I tried, working my way through CompuServe's intricacies, only tohave my order refused - “Membership range not recognised". Perhaps it took time for the mem- bership details to filter through the system, so I tried again next day, and again the next day, with exactly the same result. I desperation I left a message outlining my problem with the Feedback box. A couple of days later, I got areply to the effect that they were sorry, but the European version of Navigator had been withdrawn for revision, which I assume was computerspeak for “the d—d pean didn’t work”. The Computer had been quite correct to refuse my order, for the membership number would have re- vealed me as a European customer and hence out of the range for the U.S.A. version, but wouldn't it have been nice to have had that explained. Then | thought I would try the Mac Group forum and called GO MAUG. and up came the MAUG menu. Did I want guidance? Yes. Out it came, sixtyfive pages gushing out, unstoppable. Every “I” dotted, and every “I: crossed. Instructions for a five year-old moron. Inever did get on the forum. It didn't seem worth the effort. I regret that I found the news service rather pathetic. There is a version Euronews, buteven in that thereseems litle ofrelevance to the European scene. Of course, it's possible to read the many newspapers and I'm sure that the Hawaiian Times or the Alaskan Gazette might make fascinating read- ing. There isn't a single newspaper from outside the U.S.A. It must be a very expensive pastime to read the newspapers via an Istel link. The facility of calling for a particular topic or item of interest seems to work excellently. I quickly learnt to use it to cut through the thicket of menus, sub- menus and sub-sub-menus when I was trying to order the Navigator pro- December 1990 gram. FIND NAVIGATOR brought me right to the correct menu within a couple of seconds, though it didn't do me good in the end. epene the innumerable forums and available on the system would take a lot of time, and without a gen- erous (or employer to pay my costs, the vast: continue to be out of my reach. By and . CompuServe is so U.S.A. orientated at resent that I can find little of interest for me, though a business customer might well come to a different conclu- sion. And someday, someone might use my MailBox. John Stanier FACI QComms is always a bit ofajungle. To access any new system you will have to gothrougha learning curve while you get used to the way it works, the not to do, and the actual routes or paths that are casiest to follow. CompuServe is no exception, but compared with Telecom Gold it is a joy to use. John has had an unfortunate experience, but judging by the many members now exploring and appreci- ating CIS, he is the exception. One of the pitfalls of the free mem- bership that Apple2000 members en- Joy 1s of course that they do not get a full instruction manual. Without this, you need to download the Help pages so you know how the system works. You can of course order the manual later when online. The Help pages do tend to gush down at you when you least expect It, but they do not cost you CompuServe time while they do. To stop anything from gushing at you, you send the magic Control keys. ‘O° cancels the flow, 'C’ cancels an opera- tion and ‘S'and‘Q' pause and startany flow. Remember there will be a delay while your command gets to the States and back again. John has had problems with Istel. We have all had these problems, dropped lines, unable to access CIS etc. For this reason, CompuServe have changed to the Telecom DialPlus sys- ag 8 November Slices) and you should use this from now on. There is no change to the charging structure. However, there will still be parts of the UK where it will not be a local call to dial up DialPlus. We can only beat at Telecom's door over that one. John mentions CompuServe Navi- gator, this ts not yet available as he mentions for Europe, but Compuserve Information Manager is. This program Ihave had the pleasure of using. It isa joy to just browse around familiar Macintosh windows rather than deal with abstract commands on a text screen. CompuServe is enormous, For this reason it can appear unfriendly at first. John's command GO MAUG should have brought up a menu with various Forums listed. A simple choice at that point would take him to one of the many Mac forums available. Ifyou Apple2000 are presented with an enigmatic prompt, pressing Return shows \¢ actual menu for you to choose Pont Once you get proficient at knowing where you want to go, simple key strokes get you there very quickly. At most points in the system you can type ahead ifyou know the choices you wish to make. I feel John’s experience is not typical. 1 would be interested to hear from some of those listed below how they have got on with the system. It would be interesting for beginners toknowwhich computeryou use, which comms packages you have tried, why you chose the one you have finally settled upon, and members I am sure would especially like to here about the unusual things you have fed to find while roaming the vast expanse of Compuserve. Ewen Wannop é Q We asked you to send us your Compuserve/Forum ID's. We now have some more added to our collection and these are printed below. There are still some of you that have not responded, We cannot contact you online unless we know who you are. Please send us your ID's either to the Apple2000 ID 76004,3333 or to the PO Box in Liver- pool or ofcourse to the Sysop of TABBS. Apple2000 76004,3333 John Beattie 100012,360 Gary Doades 100016,2353 Felim Doyle 100016,1151 Mateen Greenaway 100016,602 Dale James 100016, 1152 Bryn Jones 71307, 1457 Peter Kemp 100016,1172 Elizabeth Littlewood 100016,401 Mark O'Neill 100016,476 Jeremy Quinn 100016,560 John Richey 10006, 1037 Russell Ridout 72007,211 Arthur Robinson 73457.3614 James Southward 73767, 1336 Andreas Wennborg —_100012,342 Ewen Wannop 76224,211 O Many ofyou willalreas of AppleLink™ and ol be members Ts may be thinking of joining. For simple E-Mail it cannot be beaten. It will also keep ou up to the minute with what is appening at Apple headquarters. We would like you to send us your contact ID's to add to this list. Apple2000 Herts User Group + NA.HERTSUG Liverpool Group LIVERPOOL.UG eee okt BASUG.1 Rules of Engagement The first correct entry drawn from the postbag wins first prize. Please remember to indicate which of the two prize choices you would like, Only entries from current mem- bers of Apple2000 will be eligible. No member of the committee or the editorial team may enter. Our decision will be final. Only entries received in the PO box in Liverpool before the 31st of January will be deemed eligible. How to Contact You Name: .....0000+ seeeesecccesseseeceeen eee Membership Number: AAATESS: ....0ccccrerercereseeesesess: seeee Post your completed entry to: December Competition. PO Bax 3, Liverpool, L21 8PY. Choose Your Prize Ifyou were to win first prize, please indicate which prize you would like. Certificate Maker for the Apple II or Early Games for Young Children for the Macintosh. Please tick your choice: oO Certificate Maker and Library oO Early Games for Young Chil- dren Computer Logic? by Doodlewit There were five friends who had different computer systems and software and each was having a problem with their set-up. From the clues below can you determine the hardware, software and problem of each of the friends. Big Blue Orange Ancom Venture Comms Scriber Graphologist Virus Connections Colours Off Garbling No Input Calcit Pear Sugar Abel Cable Fable Mabel Table Virus Connections Colours Off Garbling No Input Calcit Venture Comms Scriber Graphologist Name H/W s/w Fault 1. The person who uses Calcit, who is not Abel, did not have any trouble with Input. 5 Mabel, who owns the Ancom does not use Scriber nor have problems with connections or acceptance of Input. Cable would love the adventure game, Venture, because of its clear colours if it wasn't for the problem he has, which is not on an Orange. Table was having problems with frequently garbled messages. . Big Blue's software starts with a big C. . The Scriber does not have off colours, which appear on the Pear machine, which is neither owned by Fable, who doesn't use Scriber, nor the person who has Graphologist. Para wo Apple2000 prize competition ‘daaoe 8 Apple2000 December 1990 NOTE ! NEW PREMISES December 1990 BIDMUTHIN A company really on the move! \ Due to growing demand (mainly from the staff, for more space to swing their cats) we're moving. So by the time you read this, we'll be at We've even got Chase House parking now. The Chase Pinner Middlesex HAS 5RX. Telephone 081-868 4400 So may we take this opportunity to thank all our cus- tomers for their support, which after all is paying for all this, and to wish you a Merry Christmas, and us all a prosperous New Year. Nearest tube station is Pinner, on the Metropolitan Line. From there its a five minute walk or a short cab ride (taxi rank at station entrance). The Chase lies at the junction of Marsh Road and Pinner Road, both part of the A404. If driving, take Junction 18 off the M25 directly onto the A404, or Junction 17 and follow the A412 to the ee A404. If all else fails, get near and call us for directions, preferably armed with a copy of the trusty A to Z. Apple2000 AppleXtras /XTRAS.P8.NO.6/ /XTRAS.P8.NO.6/ =AUTO10.EXE TXT 38 19-OCT-90 =A2FX.BXY SEO 37 24-JUN-90 =P819.SHK SEO 31 23-SEP-90 =BASIC141.SHK $EO 21 23-SEP-90 “MGPDUTIL. SHK SEO 56 6-OCT-90 =PP.SHK SEO 77° =16-OCT-90 =PCTFIX.BXY ‘TXT 8 27-JUL-90 /XTRAS.GS.NO.6/ /XTRAS .GS.NO.6/ BOOT. SYSTEM sys 1 6-JAN-90 TITLE $cl 65 27-OCT-90 =PRODOS: sys 32 8-JUL-88 PROGRAMS DIR 1 27-OCT-90 ‘CUSTOMRZ. SHK SEO 72 12-SEP-90 =ZZCOPY . SHK SEO 235 24-SEP-90 SBOOT.BXY BIN 62 23-OCT-90 =DESK.ACCS DIR 1 27-0cT-90 =FONTDA.BXY SEO 48 27-MAY-90 NIFTY3.BXY SEO 210 31-JUL-90 =TFFBAS .SHK $EO 28 23-SEP-90 =UWILIGHT. SHK SEO 123 24-SEP-90 =SHOWPIC. SHK SEO 42 27-OCT-90 UTILITIES DIR. 1 27-0cT-90 =LISTO21.D0C TXT 86 24-JUL-90 =LIST.CONFIG BIN 1 = 19-AUG-90 =LIST.SYSTEM sys 74 + 24-JUL-90 LIST. LAUNCH sys 3 13-JUL-90 GRAPHICS DIR 1 27-0cT-90 =GF3200.SHK SEO 36 2-0CT-90 =DTPAINTER.SHK SEO 105 27-OCT-90 =FONTS DIR 1 27-0cT-90 =CLAIRVAUX.10 $cB 7° «27-OCT-88 =CLAIRVAUX. 12 sce 8 27-OCT-88 =CLAIRVAUX.14 $ce 9 27-OCT-88 =CLAIRVAUX.18 $ce8. 13 27-OCT-88 =CLAIRVAUX. 20 $cs. 15 27-OCT-88 =CLAIRVAUX.24 $ce 20 27-OCT-88 =CLAIRVAUX.28 $c8 25 27-OCT-88 =CLAIRVAUX. 36 $c. 44 27-OCT-88 =CLAIRVAUX. 40 $c8 49 27-OCT-88 =WALL.ST.FONTS DIR 1 27-OCT-90 ~WALL.ST.9 $ce. 5 5-NOV-87 =WALL.ST.10 $ce 5 5S-NOvV-87 -WALL.ST.12 $cs 6 S-NOV-87 WALL.ST.14 sce 8 5-NOV-87 =WALL.ST.18 $cs8. 10 = S-NOV-87 “WALL.ST.20 sce 11 S-NOV-87 “WALL.ST.24 sce 15 5-NOV-87 =WALL.ST.28 $ce 19 5-NOV-87 WALL. ST.36 $ce 28 S-NOV-87 -WALL.ST.48 $ce 45 5-NOV-87 Q We make no Seances for including yet another version of Shrinkit on the P8 disk. Andy Nicholas continues to develop this excellent program. This new version for the Il, //e and //c is an auto- extracting program that will unpack the new style files that ShrinkIt GS prepares. You should no longer have any problem with vanishing filenames! ‘The new ProDOS 8 and Basic files on the P8 disk will not work with GS/OS version 5.0.2. « tA oe Apple2000 /XTRAS.P8.NO.6/ AUTO10.EXE Exec this file from Basic to luce an easy to use UnShrink program that will the newarchtves. A2FX.BXY This will allow to read the resources foun Mathiicah Se Viek sant sage theerin ciak: P819.SHK ProDOS 8 V 1.9 from the new ProDOS System disk. BASIC141.SHK Basic 1.41 from the new ProDOS System disk. Note these will not work with GS/OS system 5.0.2. MGPDUTIL.SHK Home brewed utilities for DOS 3.3 from one of our own members! Complete with assembly source files. PP.SHK An excellent peop selector and utilities package for the enhanced //e or //c. This program has been ‘written by one of our own friends from Sweden! PCTFIX.BXY Patches your PC Transporter files to allow IBM comms programs to run properly. /XTRAS.GS.NO.6/ Programs Directory CUSTOMRZ.SHK This pi allows you to create custom resources from your data files. Makes it easy to use resources from within your existing program formats. ZZCOPY.SHK Aco ram to end all copy programs! Has to be meen tobe lieved! Another fvander from those French GS whizz kids. SBOOT.BXY Handy utility that waits for a SCSI drive to be ready for booting. Handy for all those drives that are reluctant to start up. Desk Accessory Directory FONTDA.BXY The IIgs answer to Suitcase on the Mac. Allows you to install fonts, NDA's and CDA’s on the fly. Excellent for checking out a DA before you place it into the DESK.ACCS folder. NIFTY3.BXY NiftyList Version 3.0, the perfect memory peekert Revised to handle all recent Tool calls. TFFBAS.SHK CDA converts numbers from and to: Binary/Decimal/Octal/Hexadecimal. UWILIGHT.SHK Comprehensive Screen fader system. Comes with a selection of modules and details of how to write your own. SHOWPIC.SHK ShowPic NDA V4.7 displays standard Pic files. Utilities Directory LIST.SYSTEM Version 2.1 of the excellent List and file display pro; Updated to cater for the latest types of files, Graphics ctory GF3200.SHK Converts Graphic Interchange Format (GIF) picture files into 32000 colour GS screens. These picture files can be found on CompuServe and other sources. PND eT Painter V1.1, a compk .T iter V1.1, a complete paint package in a NDA. Works with standard picture pen compressed and FONTS Clairvaux and Wall Street fonts for use with GS/OS and P8 text programs. « un-compressed format. December 1990 Disk Zaps and alll that (part 3) Recovering from disaster - Ewen Wannop brings us the next thrilling episode in his series of articles So far, I have not been waylaid or beaten up for daring to suggest that you tinker with the important data on your discs. I can only assume you all took my timely advice and made backups before you put any of your valuable discs into your drives. Examining the Evidence I am going to deal with two subjects this time. Looking at files, and restor- ng a damaged Catalog track. We are still dealing with DOS 3.3 discs (Pro- DOS will come next time). Those of you who have the red DOS manual will find a great deal of useful information in Appendix C on how the disc is con- structed. I will be using some of this information during the discussion. However first to the files themselves. There are four basic file types under DOS 3.3, Integer, Applesoft, Binary and Text. Eac! is coristructed slightly differently, but all are pointed to in the same way by their Catalo; entry. So to find where a file lies, firs Catalog the disc with Disk Manager, and read off the Track/Sector list of that file. Enter the pair when prompted in the FileT/S list option. You will now have a list of all the sectors of that file found in the list. If the file is long, and exceeds the 122 sectors possible in thatlist, there will be at least one other list. To find additional lists you will need to look at the first Track/Sector list with the Patch option. There you will find at offset $1-$2 a link track/ sector pair. Make a note ofall the pairs you find, they are in ascending order, with the first sector first. The tracks are listed to the left, the sectors to the right. Now enter the Patch option and call up the first sector of the file. We are now ready to examine and or change the contents of the file. Read Those Text Files Text files are the simplest. They con- sist of ASCII characters with the hi-bit set, and unless they are randomaccess files, are simply sequential entries delimited by a carriage return, $8D. The end of file marker is denoted by the first occurrence of a zero byte. This may not be the last sector pointed toby the track/sector list, as DOS does not update the disc map if a file is subse- December 1990 quently written out toa shorter length. If the file is a random access file, then each record will finish with a carriage return as before, but there may be one or more zero bytes before the next record. In a random access file, you mustlook atall allocated sectors to see the full list of records. It is possible to have some records that are zeroed out completely. Basic Rules OK The next types of file, are the Integer Basic and Applesoft files. These are both constructed in the same way with the first two bytes of the first sector denoting the length of the program. DOS uses these to know how much to load into memory. We start with actual data at the third byte. This is in a tokenised form, with the basic com- mands appearing not as ASCII, but as token values to represent them. Ifyou have the Aoplesckt manual, then you will find a list of these tokens on page 121. It is thus possible to change them if you wish. However be care- ful, as the line numbers and pointers toeach line are also present, and it may be difficult to work out what is what. It is prob- ably more practical to simply change known ues, rather than to linker too muchwitha program. —— The kind of 5 thing that is most useful here, is to enter a number of spaces in a REM statement before the actual description. These will appear as the value $20 (the hi-bit ts not set here), and could be changed to the backspace value of $08. On listing the program. the line number will be erased by the subse- quent text being backspaced and printing over it. Apple2000 And the Animals went in Twoby Two Binary files are the last of file. The first four bytes of the first sector are significant. The first two are the address the file was saved from and will be loaded to, and the second pair are the length of the saved file. In both cases, as is normal in machine code data, the first byte encountered ts the low or least significant byte. You may change the load address and make the file load somewhere else, though be wary, as if the file is a binary program, the file may not run at a new address ifabsolute addresses are referred to. A binary file can of course be both a program, or data, and can consist of data using all eight bits of the byte. Now to restoring a damaged Catalog track. This Is the most frequent cause of an apparently destroyed disc, and will cause the dreaded I/O ERROR on any form of dise access. You will have been unable to back-up this type of damaged disc with the normal COPYA, but ifyou type in my version of COPYA as printed in the April issue of Hardcore, you will be able to copy tracks $0-$10 and $12-$22 to a blank disc. Copy $12-$22 first, with initialisation, and then $0-$10 without. Next copy usin, the Patch option of Disk Manager, the sectors that you are able to read. There will have been at least one sector that was unreadable. Getting out the Elastoplast Depending on which sector is dam- aged you will need to correct as follows. If it is a sector higher than $1, then enter at offset $1 the value $11 and offset $2 the value of the next lower sector number. This marks the sector with the track/sector pair of the next Catalog sector, and points DOS to the next sector. If it is sector $1 then leave it zeroed out, as this marks the Fite of t e Catalog sectors. If itis sector $0, then youhavea destroyed NET (Volume Table of Con- tents). Itis beyond the scope of this ar- ticle to de- scribe the recon- struction of the dise map which Is part of the VTOC sector, but we can restore the sector suffi- ciently so we can read the files. You must enter at offset $1 the value of $11, at offset $2 the value $OF, these are the pointers to the first sector ofthe Catalog. At offset $3 the value $04, the DOS release number. At offset $27 the value $7A, the maximum number of a ght T/S pairs of a T/S list (122). Finally at offset $6 the volume number. This usually has the value of $FE (254), but may be other than this. It is not too important what it is for our purposes here, as you can set it later to the value displayed on a Sr tneanaliihins Having followed is, You will have restored the Catalog to a readable form, and the disc to ap- parently normal. However there will robably be one or more files that have n ‘lost’ together with their Catalog entries. You should now scan the disc with the FIND T/S SECTORS option, and make a note of all the lists found. Catalog the disc and make a note ofall the T/S lists mentioned there. Elimi- nate all the found lists with those that already occur in the Catalog, and look at those that remain with FILE T/S LIST. If they seem to be valid lists. examine the first sector of each file pointed to, to see if you can ise the file, or determine what type of file it is. Having done all this, and now cov- ered sheets of paper with all your scribbles and all the data for the ‘lost’ files, we are ready to reconstruct the file entries. Brow: the Catalog eee pers consists of $23 bytes, and the first entry starts at offset $B from the start of the sector. Each addi- tional entry starts $23 bytes on from the start of the previous one, with a maximum of seven file entries for each sector. Have a look at a ‘good’ sector if you are unclear about this. Each entry is laid out in the following manner: Byte $0 Track number of T/S list $1 Sector number of T/S list $2 File type = $00 = Text $01 = Integer $02 = Applesoft $04 = Binary $3 through $20 Filename in ASCII with hi-bit set and padded out with space $21-$22 Sector count this is the number of T/S pairs found, low byte first You should now have restored the Catalog to normal, however, the disc map may not be up to date if you have restored a previously deleted file, or had a damaged VIOC sector. To pre- serve disc integrity, it is therefore necessary to initialise a fresh disc, and using FID, copy all the files to the new disc, using the wild card. All should now be well, and your disc should have been restored to its pristine condition. Next issue, I will leave DOS 3.3 and describe the layout of a ProDOS disc. Later on will look at PASCAL and CP/ M discs, Ewen Wannop é Good zapping . Woe Heart Stopping Stress Test! DSEni ce Sea el a eae hee ave oe ee Calmpute from Thought Technologies reviewed by Adrian Campbell-Burt Calmpute for all epole II's is a pro- gram that helps in the monitoring of stress. The package contains the bio- sensor, two manuals anda 5 1/4 disc, A battery Is required for the sensor. The sensor is connected to the games port on your machine. My stress level increased violently when I received the package for review. More of that later. There are five tests provided in the program, muscle tension, reaction time, most/least favourite and word asso- ciation test, a fifth test is in the form of a “Basic” car driving simulation, “ba- sic” being the operative word. These You can print the results of your tests to keep a record of achievements. Nitty Gritty...... Initially the sensor was faulty. It turned out that a variable resistor had been damaged and this was due toa design fault. Once I had replaced it I was able to run the programs. Some of the programs require you to calm yourself for 60 seconds, the time is displayed on screen. it flashes through in about 20. Now my machine is alIGS, so I switched the system speed toslow, no difference. Not exactly condusive to programs are selfexplanatory and just about do the job. Within the structure of the pro; you are supposed, through practice, tofind outyourstress points and lower your overall levels by repeating the tests, Are you alive! This package uses a hand-held sen- sor to read your ‘galvanic skin resist- ance’, le. app activity level. When given tasks, or, words to concentrate on, your nervous system reacts with changes to pore size and sweat gland activity. These minute changes are read by the sensor and the accompa- nying pro; displays the info on several different types of graph, bar and line, in report format. pe and display information ona moving graph thus reacting to your state of mind. CAREFUL! Apple2000 lowering ones stress levels. Printing within the program Is a dead ringer for heart failure, as you have to press the P key then the arrow key to send the screen to the printer while you are being “sensored”, this within the CalmScope and CalmBar grams. It was quite amusing to run the CalmScope and think “thoughts”, viewing the reaction a second or so later!!! Conclusion While the p1 could be of some benefit I feel that you could do better bor he a book , and/or a sensor for half the price. The real stress, that would turn your toes up. is the price, £99.00. AAAAAAHHHHHGGGGGI., Adrian Campbell-Burt ci December 1990 Charlie Brown’s ABC Adrian Campbell-Burt learns his ABC from the beginning Charlie Brown's ABC is a program forouryounger Hackers, enabling them to come to terms with the alphabet. Daddy's bit This program is Apple IIGS specific, requirements are 1 meg. Ram. at least one 3 1/2 drive, colour monitor and preferably an ImageWriter II. Discs ean be copied, thus allowing you to setup the system, te. the childs name within the program. Introduct: The program starts with an intro- duction by Charlie Brown, hisanimated graphic and voice. The graphics and sound of this program are really great. Both sons, Andrew and Jamie (aged 5 1/2 & 3 1/2), find the program great fun, the good thing is they are learning while having fun. Charlie Brown's voice is used throughout for letter and word pronunciation. After completing a test they can have a certificate printed in colour, this is one of the graphics with their name printed on it. Printouts can be obtained at any time with Open- Apple-P. The Lollipop Test The tests are in the form of a typed key response to the letter Charlie says. They are as follows, First ABC's, Game A, Game B and Game C. In most cases works fine, but there are one or two that do need careful listening to. The progression of the tests takes you through from a request fora letter to the first letter ofa word. This starts the child off with letter recognition from screen to keyboard, upper and lower case. The later “games” stretch the mind with the addition of a word and letter and finally just a word pro- nounced requiring a letter from the keyboard in response. Except for the last game, following a correct reply the “hacker" isrewarded with Charlie, Lucy and/or Snoopy etc. in animation; in the last game Charlie and All celebrate the correct answer. It Works! A winning combination of teaching, sound and graphics. I think all chil- dren (Peanut fans included) will havea great time with this program. Simple ey presses take the child through the tests, printing will uire Mum or Dad's help, but either should be there with young ones anyway. At£29.95 from MGA itis greatvaluel! Adrian Campbell-Burt HARD-TO-FIND, UNIQUE PRODUCTS FOR APPLE II ENTHUSIASTS from the most reputable fax/phone/mail order company serving the Apple Il community Apple Il books ‘ovary book in print hats News and solutions ‘0 you tred of Aegis Computers incessant message Wo camry In stock virtually lgs Batteries Stack Support ‘Stacks have arived in the Acris It kingdom and wore When your ligs loses track of ime and can’t ready tb ofc charter subscipdons to fw frst Arp fl that only the Macintosh is a serious computer? about the Apple Il, From Addison-Wesley Apple ‘sian about iyparmedta ts pubished 6 fmes a Thousands of prope Ike you subscribe fo our monthly manuals you as a sal ol slacks and Gsttuied on 3.5 disks. Apple Il newsletter, A2-Cemtral. I's a small, (Stech-Contrat ines fe last infomation on Agrie personalized concider wih | i Ot sae a ink a ee | hypanmedia develogments, auhoring tbs, dp at and xchange of meaning inkematon about be you're Intarested in. sounds, and samples ofthe best public domain and dust 8 pages hin, each lave lt probecionaly yporot eke oc many books. ‘shareware stacks we can find. Requires HyperStudo. and packed tght with anewors te fre questions Apple i _ SC-1_ Stack-Cemtral, six 3.5 cisks $42.00 vstes around the word av asking Is punched lor a Full Set Specials NO-001 Silde-On Battery forligs $14.95 three-ring binder, indexed each February, and Is ‘om HyperStudio ‘considered by many to be fhe singe most ‘You can got every issue of A2-Comtrad we've over Ch 3. 5 dri information resource in the Aneta Ii works. ‘years worth of Apgie Il igs, ticks, and leap 3. ves HyperStudio is the firet program to take full ‘A125 Gish subscription is also available, which _solullons to your problems—for just $39. Paper back For months you've been asking us to carry sdvantage ef the sound and graghics of fhe Aprie gt. Indudes bof a paper newsietar and fe hl text of fat lssues are bound and Indexed, Back issues on isk are "3S dives. For monte what you've wanied Ite HyparCarc-Bka, for thoes of you familar withthe insu ina ick fe for hit t searches, The remaitier tears wg sey seh a Faroe Macntoeh, but card can una fie Rear capabttes of ol the dik ie Mid wits programs kom cur subecrbers, Pro and nude et 3.5 chs wll ov 4 mogabytos of leaxpanaive ‘empty wast aval In a ctive we could support BUA Fin ce Wate Gee eth noe rs Ihe lige and no scripting language i required. You can Dir avhone'Ssata backer ot hope tas poe, cash slacks adaware by po ack. pds, and ofr hot FEN Indexed back issues, paper 3890 Pluge ine lige er le Plus dick daleychain. Ako works on W.005 HyperStudlo $129.00 A2NT AD-Centrat papa, tyr $28.00 PSD Back isave text on 3: $39.00 «alle with AMR%e dlak controler or on your Macintowh. SCWH-1 Special HyparSurtorStack Canwaigi39.00 A201 A2-Cemtral, 3.5 disk,1yr $84.00 FD-001 FastDats Pro, for searches $49.00 Avon Aumasconroiertorie ‘sso Network Connectors en gms eiite ADIT pnb mitral PO Box 11250, Overland Park, KS 66207 voice: 913-469-6502 Prosel 8 and 16 det tama. hen tn cotiewin ty |. pice USA fax: 913-469-6507 Proud a comprare dst uy pactaga Poca APPS connectors, hens work with inexpensive 1 Send me your {ull catalog FREE! f wort nb PeDOS 8 aneconmant Motel 6 ApRENe wie (ol eupled tet an Ales name (Onchuses Prosal 8) In the GS/OS arwtronment of the pespstalearpedb ath pnt corer cp LY Nigs. includes fle and cisk and back. ont perencapreavie theremngag 0E001 Modultet 8-pla $4.95 $40.00 © 0E.002 Modufet Spin $4.95 $60.00 INo Risk Guarantee! 1 you arent completely satisfied with your purchase, return! A2 Ci t pc lorgiengeedeopig eo enn refund your money in full. We back our productst WE I ve 10k on any produce you Duy from us. ss tes CULO surface hieping card rae B Stherwise, Request small and fhe portage to what a charge you. M29 Our 45-day unconditional guarantee means you take December 1990 Apple2000 Battle Chess Doodlewit takes on the forces of evil on the chessboard ‘This program for the Apple IIGS, from Interplay Productions, comes in a box which contains a single 3.5 inch disc and aslim manual and reference card. The slim manual ts basically an in troduction to chess - showing you the moves and the notation used in writing them down for posterity. Italso includes Seay historical games which can be an education in themselves once one has learned to play chess. The program is primarily for beginners and recrea- tional players. Facing the Enemy The game boots up and after the logo screen presents the board set up for start of play. The view of the board and players is in 3-D with the players bein, red and blue rather than white an black. The board itself being marbled green/black. Before you can actually play though a window sree asking uu to put in a partic white or hace move from a randomly selected historical game. It does only select from the games that are in the slim manual though! So you look up the move and type it in exactly as written and press return. Occasionally itasks for a second move. The randomly selected move providesasmallamount of protection as the disc is not copy protected. Having input the correct move you are now ready to play the computer. The default is human p! white (red) with the computer playing black (blue). There is a hidden menu bar which can be seen holding the mouse button down while pointing to the top of the screen. The options besides quitting, starting a new game, etc. allow you to set up the board for par- ticular positions (useful for oun or setting up games partway ugh). You can also save and load Bane po- sitions if you are unable to finish a fame. You can also switch from 3-D to -D and vice versa, decide who plays which colour, ask for suggested moves, takea move back and switch thesound off (although that loses some of the charm of Battle Chess). Drop Down Menus The other drop down menu ts to decide at what level the computer is to Ag lay. There are ten such levels. The it four are novice levels (1-4) and the last six player levels (1-6). The differ- ence between novice and player levels is that at the novice level the computer may from time to time make an inju- dicious move. The difference between levels is the amount of time that the computer ts allowed to ‘think’ before he has to make a move. At level 1 he is allowed 5 seconds and this is doubled for each successive level; therefore at player level 6 the computer can be thinking for 2 minutes 40 seconds before being obliged to move. There is also an option to set your own time limit but I never tried it as, being a recreational player, I think 2 minutes 40 seconds is too long. If you are gettin, fed up with waiting you can force the computer to move through an option from the menus. The final option that should be mentioned is that you can playremotely oe anes Ye eg rvaaig tie have a copy of the program and you both have modems. This option was not tried of course. Making the First Move Soon with the game. You make your move by poling to the square of the Piece you want to move and clicking and then pointing to the destination square and clicking. So P-K4 (the notation used in the manual), there is a delay while the computer sorts out the move then the pawn (in reality a nor ai net upand moves toits appointed place with its armour making asuitable noise. The icon then converts to a copy of The Thinker’ while the computer considers its move for up to the time allowed by the level you are operating at. The pieces have their own sounds when they move, includ- ing silence when the king glides along. The rook being an inanimate object gets transformed into a brick monster in order to be able to trample to its appointed place before once again be- coming the familiar rook (or castle). Pieces move politely out of the way of the knight if required to do so; re- member the knight is the only piece that can jump over other pieces. When a piece is to be taken then the attacker moves on to the square in the Apple2000 usual way and confronts his/her/its opponent. There is a short battle between the two contestants which varies depending on who the combat- ants are and which one is destined to win. The losing combatant then dis- appears from the board. It is this animation which differentiates Battle Chess from other chess games that I've played. It may be distracting for pur- ists but it does provide an entertaining aspect which gould be useful in en- Souragiog new players to persevere with the game. The animation only spelies) when playing in 3-D. In 2-Dit plays in the conventional way and is therefore much faster with its moves although the thinking time will be the same. On occasion it is sometimes difficult to have a clear view of the situation when in 3-D but a quick flip to the 2-D view clarifies the position. Asa recreational player I found that level 4 (40 seconds thinking time) player level gave mea reasonable game; novice level 1 was no problem. However it is not a master player. I gave it some situations from a Sunday paper chess column and in no case out of five did it find the ‘correct’ move that the player had found and was ited as the critical move. Neither was it able to solve a mate in 4 problem presented to it although it did manage to solve a couple of mate in 2 problems. In all these cases | had it operating at player level 6. However, the game does I believe satisfy what I would imagine its target audience to be. It is an excellent introductory program with the humour of Conibatb ts keep interest alive, par- ticularly for youngsters, but it will ee ene en ie for recreational and even, possibly, club players. There is of course the delay between putting in your move and the execution of the move but patience is a virtue that chess players (andothers) should cultivate. The only other quibble ibly is the price - at £39.95 I think it is too expensive, a drop of ten pounds would make it ood value. Doodlewit info Product : Battle Chess Publisher : Interplay Available from : MGA SoftCat 41 Cinque Port Street Rye East Sussex TN31 7AD 0797-226601 Price : £39.95 WYSIWYP Value : cde Playability : édde Documentation: ¢¢é¢¢é December 1990 Tama Trans. | exist in a galaxy which is part of a vaster Universe. I was formed on unit Alpha about a second ago. The: ae life ofa Trans is about two seconds although the effects they have may live through many genera- tions. Weessentially act as couriers for the overseers who control our galaxy. The information we carry is an erent part of our makeup. As couriers we are sent on a journey to a place where we shall impart our information. Invariably we return back to our home unit with some other information for the Overseer of our home unit. As a courier I merely carry information and I am told what to do. When I am told, I do it. Ours not to reason why. Whilst sitting in a queue, I thought I would write down my experiences, I had just been sent out from unit Alpha where I was born. For the trip I had some protocols to ensure my accept- ance at my destination and a rear guard to verify that all my bits had arrived. I was on my way to Cassiopeia along with others of my kind. The journey started with a perambulation down a thin corridor ull we got to the local modulation station. Here we were transformed in order to travel on the high speed circuit to a_ station near Cassiopeia which was a fair distance away. This was exciting. When we reached our destination station we were trans- formed back to our origi- nal state and continued along another thin corridor to Cassiopeia. Here my protocols made me accept- able to the local bureaucracy. Pre- sumably my rear guard had reported all present and correct because I was sent to a pool to await further in- structions. Cassiopeia was only a staging post. Very shortly I was sent on the remainder of my journey to Millecenta. On this part of the trip, those thin corridors again. I was ac- companied by other Trans which had are 4 d at Cassiopeia from other parts of the 4 Millecenta is the operational centre of the galaxy. It is to Millecenta that the Trans are sent with their informa- tion. Some never reach there. It was when I had been accepted at Millecenta that a strange thing hap- pened. I was duplicated! This was a new experience for me but quite painless. My alter-ego was sent to Audia. This duplicating ability was quite a common occurrence. Even the Bureau itself was duplicated. Butit was among the Datrecs that they turned it into a fine art. They even had a ceremony periodically when they all duplicated en masse and the atiphinaites ‘were sent off to one of the Dumpia Colonies. But the duplication was most no- ticeable when Trans and Datrees in- December 1990 teracted - not directly of course - only Tareas ie Bureau. If there was any hint it we were Boing to cause a shape-change to a Datrec it immedi- ately duplicated twice. One duplicate went to Audia and the other to Quilofil. If we in fact did cause a shape-chan; it duplicated yet again - this time =e once. This duplicate went to Audia. Because of this tendency to duplicate before and after a shape-change we called the duplicates B-Datrecs and A- Datrecs respectively. This was to try to avoid confusion. The Datrecs tended to reside on pe- ripheral units close to Millecenta and enerally were extremely volatile. But fn said that, Teas eta strict hierarchy and inter/intra family relationships when static. The volatility was because of the induced shape- changes caused by interaction with us Trans. We are individualists but we always ensure that Datrec order is not disturbed by our interactions. Possi- bly changed but order maintained. We in fact were nearly as volatile as the Datrecs. But. we were only couriers whereas the Datrecs were recorders. They maintained the Overseers’ his- torical record, which covered thou- sands of generations. So even though I might have changed I wasn't dupli- cated again after my initial entry. Trans Life After I became we, | was passed through the bureaucratic machine at Millecenta - occasionally interacting with Datrecs when permitted. Other times I would be in a pool or sitting in aqueue. Itwasn'tall workat Millecenta. The queues were well disciplined. You just waited your turn. No pushing or shoving. I'm sitting in a queue now waiting fora ....... — that was a happening! Yes, I'm the alter-ego. Let me continue the story. They don‘toccur very often but when it does the lives of some Trans and Datrecs are lost. Lignin the most serious consequence ofa happening is that the strict order ofthe Dances may disintegrate. Remedial action has to be taken. The first thing the Overseers want done is to ensure that the Bureau fs in good condition. If it is lost then the duplicate Bureau has to be initiated. Having done this they cut off commu- nication between Trans and Datrecs. Divide and rule. The Relief team is called in to ensure that any suspect Datrecs are replaced by known Datrecs who will remain in order. This is done by calling the B- Datrecs from Quilofil and command- ing that they replace their alter-egos. Normally a B-Datree on Quilofil is doomed - this is the only occasion Apple2000 when they survive. It is we Trans who doom the B-Datrecs we have caused; when we are sent home the Bureau destroys them. Who needs the dupli- cated ones, once the Datrecs we have interacted with are know tobe in order? However sometimes life is difficult. On this occasion all communications with Quilofil were hopeless. The Relief team couldn't reach it. They couldn't restore order so the Civil Guard was called in. Whilst order was being re- stored strong efforts were to restore communications with Quilofil. The B-Datrecs from Quilofil were now also suspect and any there were de- stroyed. The Civil Guard usually went to the latest Dumpia Colony and replaced all the current Datrecs with their earlier duplicates when order was known to be sound. Thena process of advancing history from this point back in time was used by calling all the A-Datrecs from Audia which had been sent since the ceremony tocreate thenewDumpia Colony. The duplicates were just re- duplicated for this work. A duplicate had to remain in case further troubles ensued. The last stage was to look for those B-Datrecs on Audia which hadn't received their Eru. These were also recalled. The Eru was something which all duplicates on Audia re- ceived when it was known that their alter-egos' inter- actions were complete and fe. After these B-Datrecs had been recalled interac- tions were again permitted. The Civil Guard was therefore able to recall those Trans that hadn't yet received their Eru. That was how I came to be active. Leaving another alter-ego in stasis on Audia. ‘Back’ in Millecenta I followed presumably the path my alter-ego had taken. Though I didn’t necessarily have to wait in the same queues. And of course I went further use I'm now at my home unit. I my way through the Bureau, interacting here and there until I was again duplicated. This was just before I was sent out on my homeward jour- ney. I had been considerably changed by this time although I couldn't pre- ciscly say how. The journey home via Cassiopeia was uneventful. The reverse of the journey you've already heard about although my passport was requested many times by the Bureaus. I suppose they needed to know where I was go- ing. Itishere that shall be disassembled so that my Overseer will get his infor- mation. ButI won't be entirely dead. I have an alter-ego on Audia and my fo down in history. interactions The end of a <f fe - back home on unit Alpha. Well, it looks like unit Alpha.... I think it’s unit Alpha.... was my passport changed by the Bureau... ro Compusec A review of a Portfolio Manager by Dave Ferris Introduction With all the recent privatisations there are a lot more shareholders around these days. Even if you don't have the capital to play the Stock Market in a big way, you can do as some colleagues and I have done and form an Investment Club. This is run like a do-it-yourself Unit Trust, we all put asmall amount of money intoiton a aula basis and hold meetings to decide how to invest it. We wanted a Portfolio Management program, until recently a spreadsheet was used to summarise the information. When I saw Compusec was available to run on my Apple, I wanted to review it. The Program Compusec comes on a single 5.25” DOS3.3 disc in a binder with a 120 page manual. It will run on a 64K Apple If, I+, //e, //c ora //gs (or even a///inemulation mode) with a single a A printer in slot-1 fe usefial e pl is compatible across the Wie gear machines by simply doing everything in 40 column, caps only mode. ¢ disc is not copy protected so a copy can be made for use as a com- bined promeniaats disc. The pro- gram must always be in drive 1 since the program, which is written in Applesoft Basic is segmented, loading vestors on the UK Stock Exchange, and even if a similar facility was available in this country the use of US ticker tape codes to identify the shares would cause a problem. e.g. Apple Computer is identified as AAPL. This won't cause too much confusion to an American investor, the prices quoted in newspapers use this code also, but they are meaningless here, and the program only allows 5 characters maximum to identify a share. What does that leave? The pi will:- QO Calculate, for stock, the com- pound growth rate between Earnings per —s (EPS) over different time ri pel . U Calculate payback period (years to earn back the market price), based on calculated or estimated growth. Q Shows unrealised Capital Gains and Losses with subtotals and also gives a statement of realised Capital Gains and Losses. Subtotals net CG/L for each security, even where differentlots have been sold on different dates. Q Shows average Cost Per Share for total holding of each share as well as average CPS foreach separate ee Q Allows viewing or printing of reports (printing only if you have a printer connected to slot i) QO Provides for automatic adjustment spaces in it. Whenever a change has been made to the portfolio you may choose to throw the changes away or save them. Selecting return to main menu from a sub-menu without sav- ing a changed file will warn you and request confirmation before discard- ing the updated information. The indi- vidual modules are described in more detail as follows:- QO Fetch Module This module allows you to enter market prices mant (from a news- paper or similar source) either for indi- vidual shares or for all by entering the rd CYCLE. is module also has a menu selec- tion for fetching quotes from Dow- Jones (hence the module name) but as pesvously mentioned this is not avail- able. Note: Prices must be entered in Pounds (or Dollars). Caution, the papers quote in pence below £10. Q Display Module This allows you to view or print a summary of the portfolio status (see Fig 1). The unrealised capital gain or loss uses the current market price and takes no account of trading costs that would occur if a holding was sold. It also has menu selections to view or print quotes, but these are dependent upon the automatic fetch feature which would have given bid/ask, high/low market values and trading volume (no. of shares bought and sold) for each holding in the portfolio. Q Buy-Edit Module This module is used when buying a new security or adding more shares to a current holding. It may also be used to delete a security from the portfolio and change the data for a specified security. When buying new shares you must choose a unique 5 character (maxi- mum) ident for it. which will be used to identify the holding in all future trans- actions. After the symbol, enter the number of shares, the purchase date and total cost. Note: the total cost is going to include trading costs. Sell-Edit Module aseparate module foreach mainmenu of cash figure when selection, 1) Pure! or sales of securities This module is used when sel a are made security, it also has menu options t So What does the program do for 2) Addition to, and withdrawals from —_ allow you to view, print or update the me? cash are made Unfortunately, not as much as the 3)Amistake tsmade 5 manual suggests. This is because the and a reversal of | Figure pro; is a US import, written for transactionshastobe investors using the Dow-~Jones sys- made ; * tem. As a result some of the facilities 1* Just aren't applicable. For instance The Program Mod- I* gains and losses are split into short ules [* and long term, but for the benefit of, When the program 1 and act to US Tax Law. starts up it displays 1* What! think is the main. point the Main Menu - See | 1* of the program in the States is com-_ Figure 5. | 1 pletely unusable in the UK. In the US, After selecting each | | Iwould beable tosubscribetoaservice of the modules ed | that allows the program to dialup the marked (*) you will | | Dow-Jones database via Tymnet and _ have to entera portfo- | PRESS OPTION THEN THE RETURN KEY | update the share values in any portfo- lio name, which un- | (PRESS THE ESC KEY TO END PROGRAM) 1 lio automatically. Obviously Dow- der DOS3.3 can be 1 I Jones figures aren't any for in- quite long and have we Apple2000 December 1990 Mn figi txt ane A EER essere aie wwe figdatat rig.t a a 10000. x Su ASDDAASAHRANSUNADUNUSSUSUUESSeseNONSOG) ww fig .tet ne LAST SALE: 00/00/90 REALIZED CORL FOR:POPULAR wenn ee totes an HOTT PRICES: 00/18/90 00:00 TASTEEN Fis es As Bt ES a a See Be (mat » to besintst Fee? rigd file detailing the realised capital gains or losses. To enter a sale specify the 1, date sold, number of units sold and proceeds (less trading costs & brokers commission), QAIll Portfolios - one security This allows you to summarise hold- ing of a single security across multiple portfolios - useful if you have more than one, for married couples with separate portfolios or if you are a bro- ker perhaps. O Create or Duplicate Module Creates a new portfolio or copies an existing one to a new set of files. O Payback Module This module is useful for comparing the performance of companies by cal- culating the time it would take to earn back the original cost of shares pur- chased (see 4). It has asub-menu that allows you to manipulate the payback data file. Op- tions are to delete a symbol, change data or add a new symbol, view or print Kets file sod are a. after Serna pa use ity proper! re- quire a little nds ty obtaining ores oho ee Teports), Sines it requires for Earnings per Share (EPS) n years ago, the number that n represents, EPS last year, EPS ex- pected for next year, market price and an estimated growth rate. Not all of these figures are rauiced as the pro- gram will either calculate growth or use Mea! Presson to ase Hos pS the number of years to low you be pokes intention is the subject ofa ion in the relevant chapter ofthe manual. which also contains the December 1990 standard caveat about the inherent riskiness of the stock market. O New Password/Phone# Module Displays the password and phone number for use in accessing Tymnet, which ts, as mentioned previously, not a usable function. This module can, however, be used to specify the slot and drive number for the program and data disc(s). Tesi In order to test the program I ran it over a period of nearly two months for a dummy portfolio of popular shares Kecen rately startingwith an, unfortunately, imaginary capital of #10000. I updated the market values from the newspapers once a week and printed a summary of holdings each time. After any sales I printed a sum- mary ofrealised Capital Gains/Losses. I also experimented with the payback module, though not having all of the information to hand, I didn't use it to its full ability. The pe: covered the onset of the GulfCrisis and it didn’t takea financial enius to decide to invest heavily in oil [BP - not Gulf or Q8!). The opening and closin shown in 1 & 2 and Gains statement in Fig 3. status is he Capital Results This sere | found ae what I want most from such a package - graphics, the ability to plotansiares perform- ance over a period and compare it with the FTSE-100 index or compare two shares over the same period. OK, perhaps! could live without the graph- Apple2000 ics, if there was some sort of historical st , other than the weekly hard copies of holdings status. As it was it took me 3 weeks to realise that British Steel was a bad idea. Conclusions This is, to the best of my Enomicd. the only such program available for the Apple // range in this country. There are others available in the US, but they will all suffer from similar problems to this one. contrast there are many programs of varying ability (and price to match) ger for eM PCs and clones (ptui!). The pro; was origi- nally advertised at B79.50 and is oy offered at £59.50. Most of what it does can still be accomplished with the spreadsheet. Dave Ferris info Product : Compusec Publisher : Compunetics Inc. Available from : MGA SoftCat 41 Cinque Port Street Rye East Sussex TN31 7AD 0797-226601 Price: £59.50 WYSIWYP Value : ¢ Performance : ede Documentation: ééé¢ a gt The New Print Shop PE PEI Mts a el Seca Ee Oe Nc A | Mavis Shardlow shows how she uses Print Shop to help her business I began as a user of PRINT SHOP and PRINT SHOP COMPANION. Lately though I have worked with PRINT MAGIC as it allowed more complex posters to be produced, so when I saw there was to be a NEW PRINT SHOP program offering a lot of extras which seemed to be a combination of all three, I looked forward to getting my hands on a copy. The version I re- ceived to review requires an Apple lle, llc, Uc Plus and also runs on IIGS. You also need 128k of memory, a monitor, preferably 2 disc drives, a printer and spare discs on which to save your creations. This is first time I have reviewed aoyih and the first you will notice is that you won't find any technical information or complicated jargon at all. That's because I don't ow any! Everything I know about my Apple //e and Panasonic Printer I have picked up as I went along. Be- sides PRINT SHOP, PRINT SHOP COMPANION and PRINT MAGIC, the only other program I have used is AppleWorks. Anyway - here goes. First things First i Firstly, the whole thing arrived we! ckaged and boxed. Besides the ual, the box contains 3 discs; the double sided Program, plus two Data Discs which give a good selection of new graphics. fonts, borders, letter- heads and full fe panel. Aprintout of these is included. There is also a sample of coloured paper and enve- lopes. The manual is very clear and easy to understand. Each section is well de- fined and gives very detailed steps with clear illustrations and examples. Setting Up my Printer Setting up for my printer was a case of trial and error as my interface card (CIRTECH) wasn't listed, but I found that EPSON APL(8 BIT) was compatible. As there is quite a long list of both ee and interface cards, there's und to be one which, with a little patience, you will find to match your own Apple. Once set up. I proceeded to try out the various projects available via the main menu. A wg These are: 1) GREETINGS CARD 2) SIGN OR POSTER 3) LETTERHEAD 4) BANNER 5) CALENDAR 6) QUICK PRINT 7) GRAPHIC EDITOR 8) SETUP OR CONVERT 9) EXIT PROGRAM 1) GREETINGS CARD - This willenable you to produce a range of cards for special occasions and newversion has the added advantage that you can have the fold at the side or the top. However you can only print to the front and one inside with “Give Your- self Credit” on the back, and I much prefer the PRINT MAGIC version which allows me to produce graphics and text on all four pages, which is useful for producing publicity leaflets. (See the examples on the next page) 2) SIGN OR POSTER - Again this has the advantage of tall or wide printouts available. The full page panels on one of the Data Discs which were included save time and effort in setting up too. 3) LETTERHEAD - as with the original PRINT SHOP, letterheads can be pro- duced for home or business use, but now a much fuller design and more text can be fitted in. 4) BANNERS - This is one part of the program I haven't tried as I don't have any needat present for producing them, but it seems to be similar to the origi- nal, though you can have two lines of text on horizontal banners instead of one. A vertical banner can now be produced as well as a horizontal one. 5) CALENDARS - An additional item which fs not available on the original PRINT SHOP, although it is on the PRINT SHOP COMPANION, and this version can create full YEARand DAILY calendars as well as MONTHLY and WEEKLY ones. You can create calen- dars from the year one to 9999, al- pat to redesigning the calen- dar ughout the ages, older ones may not be accurate. These can also be customised with your choice of fr hics and text, with special days ighlighted, 6) QUICK PRINT - This lets you pro- duce text which can then be saved as Apple2000 ifitwas a graphic. You can then insert these in or around or instead of any of the graphics set to 2p ‘ar on your cards and posters. Loo! Tor NSE! ‘on customising layouts and pick CUS- TOM GI iC where asked for your selection. 7)GRAPHIC EDITOR- This useful item lets you create and alter existing graphics in all sorts of and is similar to the one on the old version. 8) SETUP/CONVERTER - The SETUP is used for getting your computer, printer and program happily settled together. The CONVERTER lets you process old PRINT SHOP Graphics, Borders and Fonts to work with the new version. You cannot however convert any saved posters and cards etc. from the old version. The on! problem I have found with this is that I need to carefully label a new set of data discs and to keep them separate from the old version copies to avoid confusion. Unfortunately, you cannot convert graphics from other pro- frarnines such as PRINT MAGIC. (Al- ough, I can use PRINT SHOP graph- ics on PRINT MAGIC) What's New? The above programmes allow much more design possibilities than the old PRINTSHOP. The original lets graphics appear only in three sizes - SMALL, MEDIUMand LARGE, Positioning only allows for STAGGERED, TILED or CUSTOM, with the option of switching some of them off. The new version has a large number of layouts from which to choose and these can all be cus- tomised. Itis possible to place as many as 26 different graphics on a poster, though I think that a bit excessive. Customising also allows for changing sizes, flipping the pictures around, moving any or all of them to new positions, cancelling some. plus changing from standard print toSOLID, OUTLINE, 3-D, RAISED and SHADOW. Customising the graphics is fairly straightforward, but I would have pela cls a rele gt acrid on the full page and not have to switch to a small box showing the position of each graphic as a letter on my chosen layout. I have to keep moving up to “Review” to check how the whole pic- ture looks. However, with a little time and patience I can create a whole batch of background panels for my posters, then save them to discs for future use, so this is not too much ofa problem. Further Improvements Another improvement ts the number of different fonts you can use on a page. This, together with being able to alter the margins top, bottom and at the sides, lets you print much more detail than before. Switching between fonts is quick and easy. The fonts can be used as UPPER or LOWER case. As before, these fonts can be printed out as standard or customised like the December 1990 Greeting Card! FRONT = Change O = insert Gl = Modify SPACE EAR] = turn position on/off parrannc GET when done. Use - ous select position. graphics. The position of your paper can be checked before you print and you can rint ina DRAFT or FINAL form. The fatter compensates for a worn ribbon and both print out quite quickly. You can change the size you wish to print from very small (to produce business cards) through toverylarge strips which can be taped together to form large posters up to 10 x 10 pages. Following through the instructions for each stage of your project is straightforward and you can go back and amend any part of your design at any time. T like this new PRINT SHOP very much and if, like me, you need to produce large numbers of different designs for publicity posters you will foes this program is just what you need, Figure A Figure B The Verdict To sum up, PRINT SHOP is an easy rogram to understand and you can learn tocreate posters etc. very quickly. The manual ts clear and very detailed; asare the instructionson the programs which take you through each step of your projects. Mavis Shardlow « info Product : The New Print Shop Publisher: Broderbund Available from : MGA SoftCat 41 Cinque Port Street Rye East Sussex TN31 7AD 0797-226601 Price: £39.95 WYSIWYP ddddd ee édddd Value : Performance : Documentation : December 1990 CAMEO Cntertainments 70 HOOD STREET SHERWOOD NOTTINGHAM NGS 4AQ Telephone Notte (0602)692576/609827 0860 578459 fax No 0602 693157 available 9.00 a.m until 10.00 p.». every day CATLEO. oo ENTERTAINMENTS Chris & Mavis Shardlow 70 Hood Street Sherwood Nottingham NGS 4A0 Tdephone Nottm (0602) 692576/609327 0860 «578450. Find Us In Udlow a on LS ao o be Apple2000 MD-Basic Peter Stark reviews this aid to programming in Applesoft Introduction MD-BASIC's main purpose is to help people to write Applesoft pi which have a structured and well commented basis and are therefore relatively easy to understand and modify. With MD-BASIC, you first write ur program in the form of a text file ‘source code’), without line numbers, and then convert (compile) this into an 8-bit Applesoft BASIC pro; which you can run in the normal way. What is supplied, and what youneed MD-BASIC is supplied on an unpro- tected 3.5" disk, accompanied by a well-produced and informative manual of more than 100 pages. To run MD- BASIC, you need an Apple IIGS. Ear- lier versions of MD-BASIC required the APW or ORCA/M shells, but the cur- rent version is stand-alone. Features of MD-BASIC Unlike Applesoft, MD-BASIC does not need line numbers. To reference subroutines or other points in a pro- eee you can use suitably named Is (e.g. ‘"GET_RESPONSE)} instead, and GOSUB to these. Variables too can be given long names - another significant difference from Applesoft. The advantage of being able to use more descriptive names for variables and labels is that your pro; be- comes easier to followand understand. For conditional statements, MD-BASIC includes both IF-THEN-ENDIF and IF- THEN-ELSE-ENDIF. For loops, RE- PEAT-UNTIL and WHILE-WEND are provided, Constructions of these types can be indented in your source code if you wish, to make them easier to see. Central to the operation of MD-BASIC are various ‘compiler directives’, which are instructions that help MD-BASIC to compile source code into Applesoft pro; . The two most often used directives are ‘#define' (which is used to define constants and code macros) and ‘#include’ (which inserts a sup- plementary file into the compilation at a chosen point). Particularly valuable are the numerous ‘header files' which are provided on the MD-BASIC disk and which can be ‘#included’ in your programs. These can save youa t deal of typing. as they contain a lot of Ag definitions of functions etc. There are also some libraries of subroutines. The macros in MD-BASIC have many useful features, one being that they can make to call subroutines by name without having to use GOSUB. When compiling an MD-BASIC pro- gram, you have several options to oes from: One choice is whether to apply ‘optimisation’. With optimisation, the Applesoft programs produced by MD-BASIC are made as short as pos- sible. Their variable names consist of only one or two letters; as many statements as possible are packed into each Applesoft line; and the lines are numbered in ones. If however optimisation is off when you compile your source code with MD-BASIC, then the variable names in the resulting Applesoft program are of full length, each statement is on a separate line, and the lines are numbered in incre- ments of ten. igood general strategy is to do the initial preparation and de- bugging of programs without optimisation when compiling, and then finally to compile again, but with optimisation on. However, if you do Apple2000 this, you should take care to avoid having two variables which start with the same two letters, as problems will then at with ie por opes com use Al only felts account of the first two letters of variable names). A powerful text editor (MicroEMACS) is included with the MD-BASIC package, and can be used to edit your source code. Whenever you want to alter your pro- gram, it is advisable to all the changes to your source code, and to resist the temptation to change the Applesoft version directly. There are two ways in which you can include comments in your programs. REM commands in the source code will be retained in the Applesoft program produced by the MD-BASIC compiler. On the other hand, you can use an initial quotation mark to indicate comments in the source code, and these will then not appear in the Applesoft In this second way, you can include many explanatory comments in your source file without making the Fay er eS Applesoft program any er. Overall seed ns While Pepning to use MD-BASIC, I found it helpful to / res out all the sample source text that are pro- vided on the disk, and to work through these carefully. This helped me to see how MD-BASIC's various header files can be included in programs, and in general how source files can be con- structed. It is also worthwhile to print out the texts of all the header and libs files so as to see the full range of definitions etc. that these contain. The discussion of header and library files in the manual seemed rather sketchy to me, and I would have ap- preciated much fullerexplanations and rather more examples of source code. December 1990 The compiling of source files into Applesoft BASIC programs with MD- BASIC proved to bevery easy in practice (as did the reverse operation of decompiling: see below). Switching between a source file the corre- sponding Applesoft BASIC program (while you are in the process of writing and debugging a new program, or of modifying one which already exists) is simple and rapid. However, it would have been convenient to have had a CATALOG option on the main menu. The MicroEMACS text editor has many features. At first sight it can seem rather daunting. but I recommend you to try it, as in practice one can get on well with just a few of its capabilities. You can use a different text editor if you prefer, of course. Other facilities that are supplied with MD-BASIC MD-BASIC also has a decompiler which allows you to take an Applesoft program and produce an MD-BASIC source file from it. The source code can be modified or annotated as you wish, and then converted back into Applesoft. Where appropriate, line numbers in the original Applesoft program are converted into labels during decompiling (e.g. line ‘100’ is changed to ‘_100_". The decompiler allows you tochoose from various alternatives (for example, to put all BASIC keywords and/or all variable names into upper case). In addition, MD-BASIC includes AmperWorks, a useful collection of further commands which use Applesoft's ampersand feature. Full details are given in the 37-page Ap- pendix A of the manual. The MD-BASIC package also con- tains MDBASIC, an S16 file which is a simple program selector and which includes a rather good screen-blanking facility. Summary After a little practice, I found MD- BASIC quite easy to use and impres- sively effective. It has a lot of features in addition to the ones which I have mentioned here. If you like writing Applesoft programs, and have access to an Apple IIGS, it is well worthwhile for you to think about buying MD- BASIC, It will help you to avoid many of Applesoft's limitations, and will make program preparation easier and more enjoyable for you. Peter Stark é PS yder slot-in hard disk c Picci info Product : MD-BASIC Publisher : Morgan Davis Group Available from : Morgan Davis Group 10079 Nuerto Lane Rancho San Diego CA92078-1736 USA Price: $49.95 Value : Performance : Documentation : ard for the Apple // InSyder simply plugs into a standard slot in the Apple //e or IIGS — there’s NO power supply replacement, NO noisy fan and NO awkward cables! InSyder is fully compatible with GS/OS, ProDOS and the major operating systems. And with direct hardware access and full disk caching, InSyder supplies the performance demanded by the serious Apple user. “ ACTUAL SIZE! Available in 20 and 40 Megabyte capacities, InSyder also provides a full feature SCSI port, supporting external devices. You can even share an external hard disk with up to seven other users. An optional Printer Adaptor also allows you to connect a parallel printer without losing valuable slot space! InSyder 20 Megabytes — £488.00 InSyder 40 Megabytes — £588.00 (Prices exclude VAT) December 1990 MELROSE TD6 ORU Telep CIRTECH (UK) Limited, Monksford Stables, Newtown St Boswells, hone (0835) 23898 Fax (0835) 22471 | Apple2000 FASTDATA Pro Peter Stark looks at an unusual data search technique for ProDOS FASTDATA Pro is a program which I originally bought largely out of curi- osity, I have to admit. However, I was pleasantly surprised when this unu- sual product turned out to be remark- ably useful and powerful, and I now use it regularly. What does it Do? In essence, FASTDATA Pro enables you to search through files on ProDOS disks and find anystring of characters that you choose. FASTDATA Pro does this in an impressively short time, and you can easily search a series of disks if you wish. If you choose, your searches can be case sensitive (so that only the specified combinations of upper and lower case characters are matched). When defining your search requirements, you can use the question mark character ‘“?’ as a wildcard instead ofa specific character dat wish, and this widens the scope ofyour search. On any a disk, Pam can search individual files, or all files in a given directory, or the entire disk (even if the files are arranged in sev- eral levels of subdirectories). Just for example: almost the first time that I tried FASTDATA Pro, it was because I needed to find an AppleWorks file which I knew to be present somewhere on one of my 3.5" disks, and buried in a subdirectory, I could not remember the name of the file, or of its subdirectory, but I did at least recall that, in the file, | had mentioned a Mr. Whitaker and his telephone extension. To locate what! wanted, all | had todo was to boot FASIDATA Pro, make sure my data disk was in a drive, type ‘L (for ). then ‘+' (RETURN), and finally ‘Whit,ext’ (RETURN). In just a few seconds, FASTDATA Pro had found the file 1 wanted, and showed its pathname and the relevant lines on screen (with ‘Whit’ and ‘ext’ high- lighted). While it is actually carrying out searches, FASTDATA Pro displays the names ofall the files that are being checked. This first example was, in fact, a nice instance of FASTDATA Pro's ability to use logical operators (AND, OR, NOT) in terms of two or more sets of characters when searching if you so wish. (I should explain that the comma is used by =A FASTDATA Pro as the AND operator, the semicolon as the OR operator, and the exclamation mark as the NOT operator). Depending on your needs, FASTDATA Pro allows you to choose whether to search through files of one particular » or through all file types. The choices offered on screen are: Text; Binary; Directory; Apple- Works word processor; AppleWorks database; AppleWorks spreadsheet; Pascal; ORCA/M Source; Applesoft BASIC; System; and ‘All’ files. The matched information found ts dis- played on screen, but can instead be sent to a printer (or written onto a file on disk). Important Features Another important feature of FASTDATA Pro is that it allows you to decide which character to use as a ‘delimiter’. Essentially, a delimiter (or ‘block delimiter’) is a character which you yourself can choose, and which defines the end of each record to be searched. Usually, the delimiter is chosen to be a ‘carriage return’, but you can easily opt fora different char- acter instead. This opens up the in- triguing possibility of being able to create your own free-form databases, with records of variable and almost unlimited length. All you need for this is FASTDATA Pro and a word proces- sor. You just enter your blocks of data or other information into your word processor, ending each with whatever character you have chosen as delimiter. Then: save the file, boot FASTDATA Pro, type ‘B’ (for Block delimiter), enter your delimiter, and load and search your file. FASTDATA Pro provides a good number of other possibilities, including: cutting and pasting; the ability to split a file into two or more separate ones, and the chance to merge two files into a combined one. Introductions All Round FASTDATA Pro is unprotected, and runs on Apple Il+, IE, IIC, and 1IGS computers having at least 64 K of memory, | used the 3.5" disk version of FASTDATA Pro, ona IIGS operating in ‘Fast' mode, and was impressed by Apple2000 its speed and capabilities. A useful 36 page manual fs also supplied, and I found this a good guide to the use of FASTDATA Pro. After a few pages of introduction, the manual gives a tu- torial which is well worth going through as a way of getting the feel of FASTDATA Pro. The various individual commands used with FASTDATA Pro are then explained in more detail, and lastly the manual gives some useful hints and other advice. Snags ? Once I had Pro (which d: fot used to FASTDATA not take long), there were very few snags to be found. The program is menu- n, and is mainly operated through easily remembered single keypresses. (There is no provision for use of a mouse). Non- text ProDOS files can be converted into text files, if you want to do this. The manual also tells you how to convert text files into AppleWorks word processor files. As the manual points out, certain types of file contain non- text codes which FASTDATA Pro dis- plays on screenas apparently random text characters (‘garbage’). I found that this occurred with AppleWorks GS and Medley files, for example. However, for search purposes this is unimportant. Although I have not tried an exhaustive variety of file types yet, so far have only met problems in the case of ThinkWorks files. With these, FASTDATA Pro omitted a few of the original words, and changed the order of some of the original ThinkWorks entries. To Sum Up.. Overall, FASTDATA Pro is a product that I recommend, particularly ifyou have many 3.5" disks (or a hard disk), or if the idea of creating and using free-form databases appeals to you. Peter Stark ¢ info Product : FASTDATA Pro Publisher ; FASTFIND Co. Available from : FASTFIND Co. 28503 Coveridge Dr., #FL6 Rancho Palos Verdes CA90274 USA Price: $49.95 Value : édde Performance : édddd Documentation: ¢é¢é¢é December 1990 Master Series Derek Blackburn looks at a trilogy of programs from Bridget Software Letter Master-Graph Master-Record Master The three disks are produced by an American company, Bridget Software of Maryland, and connect loosely with each other. (Record Master can use Print Formatting files developed on Letter Master, Letter Master can pro- duce Reader's Digest type circular letters from Record Master address and name files, Graph Master can read Record Master files). However the programs can stand alone. Each comprises a disk which is not copy protected and an A4 lithographed manual, All were produced 1985/6 and it does show a bit; the programs are ambitious, trying to incorporate the best ofsome expensive commercial software that was coming out at the time. They get