Apple Orchard v4n7 1983 Oct

Apple $3.25 US. OCTOBER 1983 Wabi The Premier Magazine for Apple Computer Users SSS q TI IE, Z | _ SPEEDIES | APPLE Apple III Drivers ™ | Reading Text Files WPL AT LAST: THE WHOLE TRUTH ABOUT FLOPPIES. Amazing book reveals all! How to keep from brainwashing your disk so it never loses it's memory. How fingerprints can actually damage disks. Unretouched Kirlian photographs of UFO's (Unidentified Floppy Objects)! The incredible importance of making copies: the Department of Redundancy Depart- ment—and what goes on when it goes on! Power- ful secret methods that scientists Claim can ac- tually prevent computer amnesia! Alll this, and much more... In short, it's an 80- page plain-English, graphically stunning, pocket-sized definitive guide to the care and feeding of flexible disks. For The Book, ask your nearest computer store that sells Elephant™ disks, and bring along one and one half earth dollars. For the name of the store, ask us. ELEPHANT MEMORY SYSTEMS® Marketed exclusively by Leading Edge Products, Inc., Information Systems and Supplies Division, 55 Providence Highway, Norwood, MA 02062. Call toll free 1-800-343-8413, In Massachusetts, call collect (617) 769-8150, Telex 951-624. =CRETS OF PERFECT MEMOR’ \ND ONE HALF EARTH DOLLAR Why Buy a Whole New System when what You Need is a Professional Keyboard ? FEATURES: © Plug-in EPS PROMWARE™ Modules reconfigure keyboard for popular software packages, virtually eliminating complex command sequences. ™ 12 Special Function Keys give up to 48 commands for popular software packages when used with EPS PROMWARE™ Modules. ™ PROMWARE Modules available for WORDSTAR VISICALC*, APPLEWRITER II*, DBASE II*, PASCAL and other packages. ®™ Configure your own function keys when writing your Own software. ® Unit comes with special BASIC and DOS commands which saves keystrokes. ® Interface Board plugs into keyboard socket on motherboard, no I/O slot required. Full Word Processing layout— convenient and time saving. Word Processing Edit Keys (Delete, Insert, Find, Replace). CAP-LOCK, Working SHIFT Key. Auto-Repeat on all keys. Full cursor control with UP and DOWN arrows improves speed in spread sheet and word processing applications. 21-key Numeric Pad allows easy data entry. Works with APPLE II’s, APPLE Il + and FRANKLINS. Optional Softswitch allows added flexibility by enabling both the Apple and EPS keyboard to ™ 6 ft. cord and telephone style jack provide operate interchangeably. ‘, convenient placement and portability. Ne ® Latching cover secures extra PROMWARE™ we Modules and Command Templates. & (ou TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS @ APPLEFEST @ Full ASCII character set e Parallel output ey © Microprocessorcontrolled _e No additional power required Booth #518 | @ pincumatcnesaPrlell © 19'4x9"x3" w requirements @ S!Zibs. The EPS Keyboard... To order, please call or write to: Executive Peripheral Systems, Inc. 800 san Antonio Road, Palo Alto, CA 94308 (415) 856-2822 EPS and PROMWARE are trademarks of Executive Peripheral Systems, Inc. *Trademarks of Micro Pro International, Personal Software, Apple Computer Inc., and Ashton-Tate. Articles 10 A Look at the Future - Don Norris Apple Software Developers Conference 18 One User Wonders What Happened to USER 1 on the //e- Dan Fischer ‘A missed signal. 22 Installing an Apple /// Driver - Mike Kramer Software interfaces made easy. 24 Changing an Apple /// CP/M Driver- Mike Kramer And while we're at it 30 The Speediest Apple - Neil D. Lipson, P.E. Combine the ingredients and stand back! 36 The Accelerator I - Barry D. Bayer The board that leaves IBM's in the dust | | 38 WPL: The Sleeping Giant, Part 1 - Richard Loggins The powerful language hidden inside your Apple Writer. b 44 Data Management - Malcolm Slovin First report from a new Special Interest Group. 4 50 Plot and Counterplot - Peter C. Weiglin Two new plotters hit the market. E 54 The Incredible Jack - Barry D. Bayer | t And Master of None? 58 Personal Resource Projection - Joe and Chris Jasper | How much will you be worth? 64 IAC Disks of the Month - Barry D. Bayer F Education and Machine Language disks. 68 Everything but the Kitchen Sink - Joyce Conklin A book to help teach BASIC. iI 70 The Documenter - Woody Liswood The Computer-generated flow chart. | 74 Use of the Disk Interface Card with Your Own Software - John Uhley Part 3 - Spiral Protection Systems Lin + =, Coming Next Month... Apples and the Law Direct Textfile Readout | Language Comparisons Koalapad, Videoterm reviews Apple pchard Vol. 4, No. 7 October 1983 Entire contents Copyright © 1983 by International Apple Core, Inc. Peter C. Weiglin - Editor and Publisher Donna Caldwell - Managing Editor Morgan P. Caffrey - Senior Editor Nicole Lefcourt - Editorial Assistant Val J. Golding - Editorial Associate Rick van Genderen - Design Director Contributing Editors: Mark L. Crosby - New Products “Dr. Wo” - Pascal/Languages Editor Neil D. Lipson, P. E. A. S. (Woody) Liswood Barry D. Bayer Jim Linhart - Miscellaneous Cartoonery Dawn Brown - Circulation Manager Karen Vanikiotis Zinsmeister - IAC Staff Jay Eisenberg - Advertising Director JE Publishers’ Representative Company 6855 Santa Monica Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90038 (213) 467-2266 Boston - (617) 437-1700 Chicago - (312) 445-2489 Dallas - (214) 660-2253 Denver - (303) 595-4331 New York - (212) 724-7767 San Francisco - (415) 864-3252 Address for all subscriptions, correspondence, advertising material, manuscripts, etc.: Apple Orchard 908 George Street Santa Clara, CA 95050 (408) 727 - 7652 APPLE ORCHARD (ISSN 0277 - 1950) is published monthly by the International Apple Core, Inc., 908 George St, Santa Clara, CA 95050. Second Class Postage paid at ‘Santa Clara, CA and additional entry points. Subscription Rates (U.S. funds): $24.00 for 1 year, $45.00 for 2 years in the U. S,FPO & APO; $30.00-1 yr., $55.00-2 yr, in Canada; $36.00 (surface), $48.00 (airmail) in Mexico, Central America, Caribbean Islands, Phillippines, Samoa; $36.00 (surface), $60.00 (airmail) in South America, Europe, North Africa; $36.00 (surface), $72.00 (airmail) in Asia, Middle East, South Africa, Australia. APPLE ORCHARD is a publication of the International Apple Core, a worldwide federation of Apple computer User Groups, The opinions expressed herein are those of the authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of the International Apple Core. While we appreciate the co-operation of Apple Computer, Inc. and other sponsoring members, the IAC and APPLE ORCHARD do not necessarily represent the views of any of these companies. Our existence is derived from the thousands of Apple users, and it is their interests which we serve. 4 Apple Orchard Textfile Yes, we look a bit different this month; we hope you recognized us. Apple Orchard is in the process of revising and improving its graphic layout The next few months will bring even more changes. Rick Van Genderen has been working with us to make it happen against some “interesting” deadline problems caused by the magazine's growth in size and readership. Another new item in this issue is the Direct Help Card, which is opposite Page 88. It is designed to do what its name implies: get help for you on a product advertised or included in our The New Stuff column. Circle your interest and mail in the card. Our features this month include a search for speed. The intrepid Neil Lipson wondered what would happen if he used some of the products designed to speed up use of an Apple in combination. The amazing results appear on Page 30. We edited out his claim that his rig now can read files before writing to them. For more details, the Accelerator board for the Apple Il is checked out by Barry Bayer on Page 36. Note the IBM comparison with the ll. Note also that the Apple ///'s6502 chip operates at almost twice the speed of the Apple II's, which makes the unadorned /// much faster than the IBM. But nobody knows that. We do know a little bit about Apple the Company's future, thanks to Don Norris’ report on a recent Software Developers’ Conference sponsored by Apple. Watch the secret mice scamper across Bruce Tognazzini. Speaking of secrets, there's WPL, or Word Processing Language, which can be found hiding in every Apple Writer Il, //e, or///. tis amazing how many people haven't tackled WPL yet, and thus only use a third of Apple Writer's capabilities. Well, here's the first article in a Richard Loggins tutorial series on WPL It'sa real eye-opener, because WPL greatly extends Apple Writer's capabilities to meet your unique word processing requirements. For Apple /// owners specifically, we have two articles this month on drivers, in native mode and in CP/M. For everybody, a personal resource projection program can help chart your future, while one of two new plotters could make the charts prettier. And more. And, of course, there is The New Stuff, which is the most comprehensive new product listing and description you'll find anywhere. These items too are tied into the Help Card as an experiment (Yes, we used to call that column something else, but let’s face it, the old title just wasn’t as descriptive. Besides, Weiglin the Editor thought it was time we backed off the Apple puns just a bit The main thing is that you'll find the info.) We look forward to hearing from you. @ Correction. New Spell Perfect™ from LJK does what your second grade teacher wanted to do, It corrects your spelling.Used with Letter Perfect™, it checks your work against an expandable dictionary. Gives “sounds like” suggest- ions. Counts words. Add words. Technical terms. States and towns. ‘i a pesca You can do it all, all-in-one dictionary. When it comes to practical software for Ataris, Apples and look alikes, Spell Perfect is simple to learn. And hard to beat. Ask your dealer for a demonstration, or write LJK for by more information, LK, INC. + 7852 Big Bend Blvd, St. Louis, MO 63119 * (314) 962-1855 © LK Inc. 1983, Ask Us/ Tell ds Address your questions, answers, and comments to: Apple Orchard 908 George Street Santa Clara CA 95050 We recently installed a small computer system in our (medical) office. Paper- work is down, but some of our patients seem less friendly toward us. How com- mon is this? Can it be lessened? —T. G., Los Angeles Once you have a computer system in your office or store you will notice a problem you probably did not anticipate. Your computer is getting in the way of secretary-patient or — clerk-customer contact This relationship degenerates when the patient talks to your employee, who, at intervals takes time out to bang on the keyboard. The patient or customer is left watching the unattractive back of the computer terminal, a foreign, threating experience at best It may be practical for two staff members to handle this pro- blem: one person talks to the patient keeping eye contact while the other enters data in to the computer. Another technique is to avoid putting the computer between the patient and staff member. Position the terminal on the side of the desk/counter. This allows the patient to directly watch your staff and be watched in turn. A third technique is to have a small monitor facing the patient or customer, and requesting that he or she check the data for accuracy as it is entered. Thus, the client participates. We'd be happy to hear about any other solutions. —Ellis J. Neiburger, D.D.S. |My activity at times requires me to send textfiles over a modem, usually on the Source. These files should have a car- riage return at least every 80 characters, but my Apple Writer /// files don’t have those returns because they're justified on printout. Is there any way I can put in those carriage returns without having to do it one at atime? —L. F., Anderson, IN 6 Apple Orchard Saceucens Kah 4 i. Yes, there is. While it’s not highlighted as a feature, Apple Writer /// (and a number of other word processors) can be made to print to a Disk ASCII file instead of a printer, with the format, including carriage returns, inserted as for aprinter. One hitch with Apple Writer: the target file name must already be present in the directory when you do this. So, first SAVE the file to disk under its “print” pathname (e.g, “.d2/PRINTLTR”. Must be different from the storage name). Now use CTRL-P, set the print parameters (LM 0, RM 75, etc.) and replace the print destination (PD) “.PRINTER” with the “print” file pathname. At that point, you're “modifying” the “print” file. Clear memory and Load the “print” file. If you make the carriage returns visible (CTRL-Q;6) you'll see the fomat- ted document. That's sometimes helpful asa preview too. When transmission time comes, send the “print” file. —P.C. Weiglin We got a computer system that was touted to do everything. It falls short of our expectations. Shall we junk it? How do we go back to manual simplicity? — F. K., Chicago First, consider that just because you have been using a full system, you must de-computerize completely, even though your frustrations impel you in that direc- tion. Better to take a few steps back. Instead of doing all your office functions via computer, do only a few. . . like client mailing lists or word processing, appoint- ments, etc. There is no rule that requires you to use the computer for every func- tion. Just sit back and get a simple program or two and use it Perhaps sometime in the future there will appeara full office program that you can use and enjoy... but until then, you can still bene- fit from computerization. What happens when your system works perfectly but the hardware has glitches that render life unpleasant? Cut out the defective unit, wind down and sit back until a functioning improvement or re- placement is made... then get it and start up. The important key is that computeriza- tion is for your benefit and when it ceases to work well... change. You are not committed to use your system all the time and times do change. If it pays to stop computerizing fora while, do so. You will be able to pick things up a little later on. —Ellis J. Neiburger. BASIC Compare /// BASIC Compare /// is a program which will permit you to compare two Apple /// Business BASIC pro- grams (preferably two versions of the same program) and print the differences ona printer, display on aconsole, or send to disk. If you do much programming, you will soon find out how useful this can be, especially if you follow the good programming practice of not over- writing the old version of a pro- gram with the new. Requires Apple /// Business BASIC. Program by Mike Kramer. Send $25.00 to: INTERNATIONAL 908 George Street Santa Clara, CA 95050 612% Sales tax for California Residents Microsoft SoftCard systems introduce your Apple to thousands of new programs. More powerful Apples. When you plug a SoftCardm system software manufacturer. The very first. Today, into the Applee II, 1! Plus, or lle, you're adding the ability to Microsoft software is running on several run thousands of CP/Me-80-based programs. Word proc- million computers, worldwide. essing, data-base management, analysis and forecasting / 3 With a reputation for dependability programs—SoftCard gives your Apple access to eg and consistent product thousands of software tools for use in your business ve, beet = §~—enhancement. or home. i aa Ask your dealer. Ask about the Premium capabilities. Apple |! or || Plus owners ; : superior application programs the who want even more can add the Premium P SoftCard and Premium System make System. In addition to CP/M-80, it provides an ‘ d available to your Apple—high quality 80-column upper-and-lower case video card hake . programs for almost every area of home, and a 16K RAMCardm. Apple Ile owners pt 2 business and professional use. Then ask for a can have CP/M-80, 80-column video, “4 Vays 4 demonstration of the complete SoftCard, and 64K of RAM ona single card— o/ Premium System, or SoftCard Ile. And introduce the Premium SoftCard lle. , bf your system to some of those thousands of new Two computers in one. Any : i 3 programs. of these systems turn your Apple ¢ ‘J. into twocomputers. Onethatruns = : BETTER TOOLS FOR MICROCOMPUTERS Apple software and another thatruns ¢ 4 CP/M-80. Which means you'll double the utility of your computer. ™ MICROSOFT CORPORATION 10700 NORTHUP WAY Complete solutions. The SoftCard, Premium System, and Premium SoftCard lle have everythin you need. Easy-to-install circuit boards. The CP/M-80 BELLEVUE, WASHINGTON 98004 operating system. Microsoft® BASIC. And the utilities you Microsoft and the Microsoft logo are registered trademarks, and need to manage CP/M-80 files. SoftCard and RAMCard are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Why Microsoft? Microsoft was the first microcomputer FLOPPY DISKS SALE *$1.19 ea. Economy Model or Cadillac Quality We have the lowest prices! ECONOMY DISKS Good quality 54” single sided single density with hub rings. 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We accept Visa and Master BOX 550, BARRINGTON, ILLINOIS 60010 Phone 312/382-5244 to order t_ Card 80 Columns x 24 lines Green text display East to read - no eye strain Up front brightness control High resolution graphics Quick start - no preheating Regulated power supply Attractive metal cabinet UL and FCC approved 9” Data Monitor e 15 Day Free Trial - 90 Day Immediate Replacement Warranty 9” Screen - Green Text Display $ 79.00 12" Screen - Green Text Display (anti-reflective screen) $ 99.00 12" Screen - Amber Text Display (anti-reflective screen) $119.00 Display Monitors From Sanyo With the need for computing power growing every day, Sanyo has | stepped in to meet the nemand with a whole new line of low cost, high ® SANYO quality data monitors. Designed for commercial and personal com- Official Video Products puter use. All models come with an array of features, including up- of the Los Angeles 1984 Olympics front brightness and contrast controls. The capacity 5 x 7 dot characters as the input is 24 lines of characters with up to 80 characters per line. Equally important, all are built with Sanyo’s commitment to technological excellence. In the world of Audio/Video, Sanyo is synonymous with reliability and performance. And Sanyo quality is reflected in our reputation. Unlike some suppliers, Sanyo designs, manufactures and tests virtually all the parts that go into our products, from cameras to stereos. That’s an assurance not everybody can i , give you! EST SERVICE IN VER 500 PROGRAM PRO ONE DAY EXPRESS MAI © Ada $10.00 for shipping, handling and Insurance. Illinois residents © please add 6% tax. Add $20.00 for CANADA, PUERTO RICO, HAWAII | 1 orders. WE DO NOT EXPORT TO OTHER COUNTRIES. 1 1 Enclose Cashiers Check, Money Order or Personal Check. Allow 14 [ days for delivery, 2 to 7 days for phone orders, 1 day express mail! § | Canada orders must be in U.S. dollars. Visa - MasterCard -C.0.D. 4 LOWEST PRICES « 15 DAY FREE TRIAL 90 DAY FREE REPLACEMENT WARRANTY REE CATALOGS TECTO ENTERPRIZES ~«toveourcustomens) BOX 550, BARRINGTON, ILLINOIS 60010 Phone 312/382-5244 to order A Look at the Future... Apple’s Independent Software Developers Conference on a very extensive and thorough series of workshops and seminars for independent software develpers. The quality of the information presented by Apple at these four-day workshops makes it very obvious that Apple is com- mitted to supporting and working with the independent software developer. The goal is a broader range of better products for all of us. T wice a year, Apple Computer puts The most recent of these conferences took place between August 8 and August 11. System Failure $06 is in the Apple /// astack overflow, which is exactly how | felt after attending the sessions. How do you handle a2 to 3 inch high (paper) stack of information from a four day conference; a stack which could have been even higher if | had picked up everything available and been able to attend every workshop. John Sculley, Apple’s new Chief Exec- utive Officer, sounded the general theme. His comments in general: Apple’s market positioning is to be the best, not the biggest. Apple would be marketing on a performance basis and not on price. The latter strategy has been pursued by a couple of other computer companies with some disasterous financial results. Technical The conference began Monday after- noon with informal sessions on various topics. Of particular interest to me was the session on integrated software, which has become one of the microcomputer industry's buzz words in recent months. (Various manufacturers are claiming that their approximation of Lisa’s integrated approach is “imminent”. Sure it is.) 10 Apple Orchard by Don Norris This brought up the question of just what is meant by integrated software. Is it having several functions built into one piece of software, such as a spread sheet, database, and text editing all in one package or the ability to move data from within one program to a different pro- gram? The developers present indicated that there was no uniform standard in the industry for data transfer. (Nor for much of anything else—PCW) The only thing close to a standard means of file transfer and format is an ASCII text file. Everyone generally agreed that while it was not perfect it represented a starting point New tools are being developed to make software authors’ jobs easier. An example is a new language called Classcal, which has evolved as a result of the Lisa technology. It is a marriage of Simula and/or Smalltalk (plus some other lan- guage) and Pascal, and is designed to support object-oriented programming. Improvements have also been made to existing languages, particularly Pascal. Because these languages are loaded into memory rather than being resident in ROM as they are in some machines, they are easier to upgrade and debug. This gives greater latitude to the programmer, you do not have to make a hardware change when a bug has been cured or an improvement (enhancement) is made to the language. On the question of Rodents on the //e: Evidently rodent (mouse and beyond) technology is being developed for the Apple I-/// product family. This led to an interesting situation later in the morning when several developers started asking specific questions about the device of Bruce Tognazzini, who was trying valiant: ly to maintain data security about the new concept Bruce was unaware that El Presidente had let the mouse out of the bag, so to speak. Marketing The most startling news was in the area of market penetration: only 7% of the potential market for personal computers has been penetrated. As to whether the Apple //e or /// had been eclipsed by other machines, the answer from John Sculley was that we have not seen the last model of the Apple // or ///. There will be continuing product improvements, not phaseouts, in the product family which includes the // and the ///. You will see more and faster products in this family in the future. Particular attention was paid to the Apple ///, in light of industry rumors about the machine's future. A special team has been put together to address the marketing needs of the ///. Apple Vice President Ken Zerbe said the /// had been suffering because it was always under the direction of people with other commitments or people yet to be hired (called “TBH” in Apple land), or was assigned to a department which also had several other responsibilities. Conse- quently, the /// got lost in the shuffle. Many Apple /// owners had expressed the feeling that they were orphans, and now we know why. We were orphans. That should change. Future product enhancements will greatly enhance the portablity of dataand software within the //e and /// product family. Demonstrations Wednesday afternoon, various soft: ware and hardware vendors and develop- ers demonstrated new products they were going to unveil or already had on the market. Most of these can’t be revealed here, but of note to Apple /// owners were high density 5-4 inch floppy disk drives from Rana with 652K Bytes and Micro-Sci with 572K Bytes. Both of these drives can be daisy chained onto the ///. Tim Gill of Quark, Inc. demonstrated Version 2.0 of Catalyst. This new version is much easier to install and to use. It features an inverse cursor over a menu item. The user can then scroll to the program he wants to use, and merely press ‘RETURN: to run the desired pro- gram. Previously to use Catalyst you had to add every driver you might need for any program onto the Catalyst Boot Diskette SOS. Driver file. This meant that when using VisiCalc, the RS-232 driver and any graphics drivers would have to be on the boot diskette and loaded into memory even though they would not be needed by the program. Another addi- tion to the Catalyst Menu is the ability to exit to Lobotomy (Apple Il Emulation) Mode and turn your 256 K Apple /// into 48K Apple Il without rebooting. One question asked of a software developer was, “Why aren't you develop- ing software for the ‘other horse’ (pre- sumably Baby Blue) as well?”. The reply was that Blue provided no developer support, saying only, “Here is the gray box, you write your software for it” Another developer criticized Apple's low disk storage capacity, saying that he was working with IBM because, “I will not put on the market software for an Apple which requires multiple disks when I can market for the other machines on one diskette, thus making it much easier for the ultimate user.” Regarding the ultimate end user and disk storage, this was stated to be an item of great priority within Apple now since nifile and Duofile have been laid to rest They required too much power, and were too expensive to manufacture. All types of mass storage media are being investi- gated; Apple does not appear to be sleeping. Lisa Thursday was Lisa day. Lisa is the first in a family of personal computers to be released by Apple based on the 68000 CPU. Developers are being encouraged to write software for Lisa and to take advantage of its powerful integrated soft ware and ease of use for the end user. In this way the developer would have a head start on working with the new machines as they are introduced. A prime example of the kind of soft ware that has yet to be developed for Lisa is a spelling checker. Most of the material that was handed out at the conference was prepared using Lisalt contained several spelling errors. It was one more reminder that the imperfect human re- mains in control, but the tools continue to improve. An overiding theme of the conference was for developers to “leverage” their efforts with Apple by taking advantage of the research and development Apple has done regarding improved user interface and enhancements to programming lan- guages. Ease of use is an important part of Apple's marketing thrust and was stressed repeatedly during several of the workshops at the conference. The Apple folks stressed their commitment to inde- pendent developers as being necessary to Apple’s success. e October 1983 11 Now you can back up your protected software. Copy II Plus is the most sophisticated bit copy pro- gram available. It handles synchronized tracks, half tracks, nibble counting, bit insertion and other pro- tection schemes. It also includes a comprehensive and instructions on how to back-up dozens of popular programs. A disk system and speed check assure your drives are running in top condition and a nibble editor will allow you to repair dam- aged diskettes, analyze protection schemes, etc. ENTRAL POINT Software, Inc. a The Ultimate APPLE’ u COPY II PLUS discussion of disk format and protection techniques, ad usly [0 simultane jsicale IS and ive a screen Gy petlex Ne well | 16 Vita rer. AN. modes 2° reflex lity Program The last DOS utility disk you will need. Fully menu driven, the Copy II Plus utilities include a catalog display with binary file addresses and lengths, a disk usage map, and the ability to verify and compare files for differences. It can copy, lock, unlock and delete files and DOS can be copied, or removed from a disk to free up space You can change the greeting program on a DOS disk, or initialize a disk from scratch. The Copy II Plus sector editor will allow you to view and modify data in either hex or ASCII format. For your convenience, Copy II Plus is not copy protected for backup. Available at fine computer and software stores or direct from: PO. Box 19730-203 Portland, OR 97219 83 g»> (503) 244-5782 (Plus $2 s/h) Attention current Copy II Plus owners; Return your original disk with $19.95 for an update to Version 4.0. Attention IBM PC owners: Call us about backing up your protected software with Copy II PC! APPLESEED” Apple Compatible Hardware for Dedicated Applications Design and program a system on a standard Apple computer and then market it with the low-cost APPLESEED system... Designed for use in systems where a full Apple computer may not be necessary or desired, the APPLESEED Bus system retains all the essential features of an Apple system, including mother board compatibility with almost every plug-in board available for the Apple ][. Programs are developed in assembly language on a standard Apple ][. Upon completion, a set of EPROM’s are blown and inserted into the APPLESEED Bus system, which then takes control of program execution. You buy only what you need for your application; gone are the built-in keyboard, the consumer- oriented packaging and graphics subsystems. Cost, size and power consumption are substantially reduced while flexibility is greatly increased. Compatibility with a multitude of sophisticated programming and hardware add-ons, widely available for the Apple ][, has been fully retained, providing a wide range of options for designing customized systems. (Applesoft” PROM’s are not included.) A sampling of APPLESEED Bus components: CPU BOARD The 6502 has been removed from the mother board and included in this card, which also contains the clock circuitry for the system. 64K RAM BOARD 64K of dynamic RAM with provision for control to be used in the normal Apple ][ conventions; deleting COOO-CFFF and software control over the DOOO-FFFF area. EPROM BOARD Jumper selectable for 2716 (EPROM) or 34199 (PROM); blow 2716 assembly language programs and then run them in this EPROM board. Jumpers allow selection of software on/off, initialize on/off and other controls. UART BOARD Software/hardware select all standard EIA baud rates. The board supports four 6850 UART’s which allow four independent input and output EIA lines. Each UART is fully programmable for parity, bit length, baud rate, etc. UNIVERSAL BOARD The APPLESEED Universal board contains the following: One 2716 socket for an F8 PROM, one 2K x 8 bit RAM (0-7FF), one UART channel for serial communications, 8 parallel INPUT lines (TTL), 8 parallel OUT- PUT lines (TTL), device decode for one additional standard slot-dependent board, support for standard Apple ][ style keyboard, and a power supply connection. Each feature is independent and any combination may be used simultaneously. The Universal board is designed to be used with the APPLESEED CPU board. TEXT BOARD The TEXT board is designed to add the conventional TEXT (page 1 and page 2) to an APPLESEED system. The board generates composite video to plug into a standard monitor or T.V. modulator. The board provides 40 columns X 24 rows in each page and is not slot dependent. MOTHER BOARD 10-slot motherboard is fully compatible with most Apple add-on cards currently available. Please call or write for prices and more detailed information on these and other APPLESEED Bus products. DOUGLAS ELECTRONICS 718 marina Bivd. ¢ San Leandro, CA 94577 » (415) 483-8770 APPLE is a registered trademark of Apple Computer Corporation GENERAL LEDGER MADE EASY. How would you like to have the most powerful General Ledger system ever produced for the Apple II* Plus and the IBM' PC? Mé&R’s SUP’ R LEDGER is just that...asystem that up until now was available only for large com- puters. How would you likea system that is so easy to use that in less than 4 hours you can have the system up-and-running? It’s true! Thanks to our simple, concise user’s guide the mystery of operation is quickly solved. Is it possible to have all of this and still have a program that can accommo- date 200 separate accounts, up to 1400 separate transactions in any given time period, and provide information on 10 separate cost centers? Yes! SUP’ R LEDGER offers all of this and much more. Send for details. SUP’ R LEDGER) #Apple Il Plus is a registered trademark of Apple Computers ‘Mé& R ENTERPRISES 910 GEORGE STREET SANTA CLARA, CA 95050 (408) 980-0160 IBM PC isa registered trademark of International Business Machines PROTECTING YOUR PROTECT YOUR APPLE* KEYBOARD PLEXA-LOK PROTECT YOUR EXPENSIVE INVESTMENT OFFERED FOR THE FIRST TIME PLEXA-LOK COMES WITH A 30-DAY MONEY BACK GUARANTEE IF NOT SATISFIED! PLEXA-LOK slips up and over the keyboard — then gently snaps into position. + Your valuable computer is protected from objects and spills directly on top of keyboard which could cost hundreds of dollars to repair! + PLEXA-LOK allows your secretary to go on break without having to worry about visitors accidentally destroying their hours (and your $) of work. Introducing the APPLI CENTER Model 12, an opening and closing cab- thet for the Apple Il. Unlocked, the APPLE CENTER opens up to allow you quick and easy access. Locked with the : key, the APPLE-CENTER shuts tight to protect yo! » Apple and 2 disk drives. Apple and your monitor Both voltage si in a filtered cooling fe + ENHANCES looks of + PROTECTS keyboard + ALLOWS computer to ‘rom dust your system remain on while unattended “TM APPLE COMPUTER ine INTRODUCTORY SPECIAL MON-FRI 9:00:00 APPLE Il $1995 ‘APPLE Il $24.95 =o : (applexcenter ) 2 =. POPPLE —1.50ena Call or write for additional information: Aor sess Ot frpa ues Bl DOSS INDUSTRIES a ontnental USA 5 Doster ngs Wekome (209) 754-1800 CA Resets Ad 6% Tax 1224 Mariposa, San Francisco, CA 94107 (415) 861-2223 Apple is a registered trade mark of Apple Computer, Inc. Plantins seed... st me The Badmouthers “Tell me; When is Apple gonna do anything right??” We keep hearing it (1) The Apple /// isa total disaster. (2) Lisa is a computer for which there is no real market; (who needs a $10,000 work station?). (3) MacIntosh will be eclipsed by the time it comes out And (4) the Apple //e should have happened a year sooner. (5) Unifile and Duofile are trash. (6) Apple rejected VisiCalc. (7) Applewriter, Quickfile, and other Apple software products are not the products of choice in their areas, Garbage, compared to what's available on CP/M or the IBM PC. (8) And there's no new software for the Apple. “Everybody” in software development is developing for the PC first (9) Steve Jobs is a megalomaniac, a lightweight who got lucky. The good news is that (10) with him “playing” in Macintoshland he’s out of the way and the grownups can run the company. (11) John (“The Fizz’) Sculley was hired because “Camp Runamuck” was in trouble. (12) What can you say about a company where the artistic design group controls product marketing strategy? Or (13) where the decision process makes the most-asked question “How come | didn’t know about this, when it's supposed to be my responsibility?” (15) “Apple people are devoted all right; haven't seen such dedication to a common purpose since Jonestown.” (15) Apple doesn't support its dealers. (16) Apple doesn’t screen its dealers, or train them. (17) Look at the large store chain that told Apple to visit a good taxidermist. (18) Apple doesn't support its customers, either; there used to be a hotline, but that stopped. They (19) killed mail-order to fatten profits. And service (20) ranges from nonexistent to just bad. In short, (21) Apple is a company that has already seen its best days. That's just a sample; the computer press is full of this kind of incendiary editorial driftwood, just as other segments of the press, radio, and TV are in hot pursuit of circulation through sensation and the broadcast of colorful negative innuendo and opinion. Well, sensation and attack may sell papers, but they don't satisfy the need for solid and helpful information. Here's the reason why Apple Orchard has existed without an “industry gossip” column: we have felt that most of the people who own Apple computers don't know about the politics of Apple, and care even less. The magazine's primary function is to help people do more with their computers; the Silicon Valley Soap Opera doesn't really contribute to that goal. We devote the space to new product coverage, which does help you. As to the good and bad decisions, sure, we'll call’em the way we see em; our loyalty as an independent publication is to you, the Apple user. But our responsibility is to present what facts there are, good or bad fora commercial interest, when the facts and context can be verified, and when it helps you. Frankly, we don't think you're well-served by the magpie cries of the gossipy sensationalists as they seek to feather their own nests. One more thing: if even a significant part of the bilge water referenced above were either true or relevant, would Apple ever have attained Fortune 500 size in five years? FRM gL October 1983 15 From the IAC Office... Ken Silverman, Executive Director There still seems to be a gross misconception about user groups and software piracy. A number of software vendors, authors, and retail stores perceive that most user groups are nothing more than a place where commercial software is copied. This perception is totally false. User Groups demonstrate commercial software, write reviews, and comment on the pros and cons. They are a resource center for prospective buyers, a place were you can get an honest answer from people who are using or have tried a specific program. This also applies to hardware; “what should | purchase in a printer” is a good example. A User Group is formed to help, educate, and inform - software copying is not part of that. The IAC, since its inception in 1979, has stood against the copying of any commercial/ copyrighted software. It is even one of the two conditions under which a member user group can be terminated from the IAC. In the past 4 years, we have issued warnings, which were complied with. The IAC has not had to terminate a group for this offense - that’s quite a record for a user group membership of over 450. This entire subject is regrettable and in the long run takes its toll in the form of higher prices and “protected”, harder to copy, software for everyone, Manufacturers generally accept that copy- ingis inevitable, and accordingly market their products at a higher price to recoup their costs before they lose money to copies. The so-called "copy protected disk” can be copied by someone with sufficient skill and expertise. But for the most part, this added difficulty reduces the number of copies that could be made. The “copy protected” program can be a burden on the legitimate purchaser in the form of delays, when a replacement is needed, and in some cases, of additional charges, when trying to obtain a backup. There have been many forums presented on this subject at computer shows. Many plans have been proposed to prevent copying while supplying the purchaser with ways or means of a backup so he always has access to his software. Each author or manufacturer has their own scheme. Again, this is regrettable, but it is something brought upon ourselves by knowingly accepting and using, from whatever sources, bootlegged programs. Available from the IAC: Apple /// Software Apple-CON (verter) from Apple Computer, Inc. Converts Applesoft programs to Business BASIC... . $ 10.00 RS232 Drive, slot selectable . 10.00” DOS to SOS Converter . 10.00 File Cabinet /// ........ 10.00 CP/M —} SOSText Mover....... 25.00 BASIC Compare ///............ 25.00 Apple ][ Software Pascal Attach-BIOS disk........ $8.00 Hi-Res Games (9 on disk) ... 8.00 Applesoft Tutorial ...... 8.00 Machine Language Tutorial . 8.00 Pinball Games ............. 8.00 Educational Disk ............... 8.00 IEEE Pascal Attach Diskette..... 8.00 © California residents add 6¥2%sales tax. © Any orders to be shipped outside of the U.S., Canada, or Mexico must include additional shipping costs of $2.50 per disk and $3.50 per back issue ordered. 16 Apple Orchard & Apple Orchard Back Issues Vol.2 No.1 .. -. 2.50 Vol.2 No.2 .. +» 2,50 Vol: 2 NO; 4 wscesissessnconnes 2.50 Vob3! Noy de sere save cterersidiorerarerwveere: 20 Vol.3 NO.2 ..cscecececeeveees 2.50 Vol.3 No.3 .. 2.50 Vol.3 No.4 .. 2.50 Vol.3 No.5 .. 2.50 Vol.4 No.1 .. 2.50 VoL 4 No.3 .iccssescsccvessss 2,50 Vol 4 No.4 scevecescecesosses 2.50 Vol4 NO5 scsssssstvaeweess 2.50 Allow 2-3 weeks for delivery No Tax Required on Back Issues International Apple Core 908 George Street Santa Clara, CA 95050 The 68000 DREAM MACHINE THE DTACK GRANDE: Above is a photograph of the prototype for the DRAM version of our Apple compatible 68000 board. We have modestly named it the DTACK Grande because it has a Grand(e) amount of memory: a megabyte! That's called a full gallon here in California. (You can buy one with on- ly 128K if you like.) This one has a 25MHz Xtal oscillator which we divide by two to generate the 12.5MHz clock for the 68000. DTACK is not grounded; there is one wait state. Refresh is performed in software, with a hardware assist so that the overhead is exactly the same for a megabyte as for 128K (4%). Thus the effective speed of this board is equivalent to 10MHz with no wait states. Which makes our one megabyte 68000 exactly twice as fast as another one megabyte 68000 system that you Ap- ple types may have heard of. The other one doesn’t work with Apple II's, of course. Ours does. Because the refresh is interrupt-driven, this board is in- herently capable of multi-tasking so all you print spooler and type-ahead buffer fans should /ove this board. We think it will make a dandy RAMDISK. Oh, yes: it has a big, fast 68000 microprocessor (we almost forgot while we were admiring all that memory!). TRUTH IN ADVERTISING: Many of you have seen that ad with the tricycle falling apart which asserts that the iAPX 286 is faster than the 68000. Here are the facts: 1) The board pictured above, with one wait state, can perform a 32 bit add in less than half a microsecond and an 8MHz 286 can’t. 2) Intel is currently running ads offering 6MHz 286 boards, projecting delivery of 7.7MHz boards early next year. What 8MHz 286? 3) The 68000 has exactly seventeen more 32-bit registers than the 286. That’s because the 286 doesn’t have any. 4) Back to that tricycle ad: have you noticed the fine print that says the speed of the 68000 has been “ad- justed”? 5) AMD and Intel like to compare against a slow 8MHz 68000, burdened down with a memory management chip for multi-user systems. We are offering 12.5MHz 68000s for single-user applications. BIG difference! Apple, Applesoft and Apple Il are trademarks of Apple Computer Company. 6) The 68000 can linearly and directly address up to 16 megabytes of RAM. The 286 can’t. That’s important when you have a megabyte of RAM! However, since we believe in ‘truth in advertising’ ourselves, that prototype pictured above doesn’t work yet. We have not yet programmed the PAL memory decode chips or the bootstrap PROMs. This ad is being written on 23 May '83, so things may have changed by the time you read this. THE ‘STUFFER’ BOARD: In our last ad we told you about a ‘block DMA’ interface we were developing. The production boards just walked in the door and we will be shipping that interface this month. It works with both the static and the dynamic RAM 68000 boards we make. (However, it was designed before the Apple Ile was available, so it is not compati- ble with the Ile.) SOFTWARE: All the stuff we mentioned in our previous ads is still available. We are well along the road developing HALGOL, a high speed BASIC-like language that runs at close to 68000 assembly language speeds - and that is very fast! Right now we are finishing up the BIOS. That stands for Basic I/O System. It turns the 6502 in the Ap- ple into an I/O handler exclusively, and lets the 68000 take over and run things. SHOULD YOU BUY OUR BOARD? Our board is still not suitable for persons who just want to turn on their computer and run canned software. You must have some interest in doing some programming yourself, or you will not want to buy one of our boards. We still provide lots of 68000 source code on unlocked, easily copyable disks. Three disks with demo programs and source code are shipped with each board. Aside from that, we can only think of a million reasons why you might like to buy one of the boards pictured above. DIGITAL ACOUSTICS 1415 E. McFadden, Ste. F Santa Ana, CA 92705 (714) 835-4884 One User Wonders What Happened to USER 1 on the //e by Dan Fischer Hidden away on the old Apple Il motherboard was a pair of solder pads affectionately referred to as “the USER 1 Jumper.” They were not flagged on the silk screen but they were pictured in the Apple Il Reference Manual (Page 99, if you doubt me). “If you connect a wire between these two pads, then the USER 1 line on each peripheral connector becomes active. If any peripheral card pulls this line low, ALL internal I/O decoding is disabled. The I/O SELECT* and the DEVICE SELECT* lines all go high and will remain high while USER 1 is low, regardless of the address on the address bus.” The USER 1 line was connected to pin 39 of each of the I/O slots if you installed the jumper. (I don’t know of anyone who did.) The other end of the line was held high bya pullup resistor. It served as a chip enable for the 74LS138 at chip location H12 (pin 6). (Chip locations are referenced by a combination of letter and number, just like the grid squares on a road map.) Although I know of no one who installed this jumper, | do know of two card manufacturers who use USER 1. The Mountain Computer CPS Multifunction Card includes a jumper that runs from the card to a little socket that snuggles under the 74LS138 at H12. The jumper accesses the USER 1 line without benefit of Apple's “USER 1 jumper.” By pulling this line low the CPS card can “ phantom’ its functions over other cards. The other card that uses USER 1 is Prometheus Products’ Versacard. The card also phantoms functions over slots where it does not reside. But the Prometheus card doesn't do it by pulling USER 1 low. The VERSACARD presumes a user is smart enough not to try to put two incompatible functions in the same slot. VERSACARD generates its own I/O SELECT* and DEVICE SELECT* for the slots where it is phantomed. And it recognizes the function of USER 1 and responds to it. If USER 1 goes low the VERSACARD does not generate its I/O SELECT* and DEVICE SELECT* signals. So along comes the Apple //e. It needs to improve on the Apple Il. (Hey, what's progress for, if not improvement?) There was only one pin on the Apple Il bus that wasn't used and Apple wanted to add two more signals. One of the new signals is ENKBD*. It is normally low and enables the normal keyboard. A peripheral board may lockout the keyboard by pulling this signal high. The other new signal is UPSYNC which is high during operation code fetch. It is a signal directly derived from the 6502. Used in conjunction with RDY a board could single step the 6502. Unfortunately, however, UPSYNC replaces the old USER 1. 18 Apple Orchard Well there goes the old compatibility. USER 1 just doesn't exist in the //e. The VERSACARD is in trouble because it disappears every op code fetch. (Easy fix, just cut the trace to pin 39.) But it may not be so easy for the CPS card. (Or maybe it's easier.) There being no USER 1 line any more, the CPS card could just ignore it, not attempt to disable I/O decoding. It just might work, ... BUT! Have you noticed that there are two 8K ROMS in the //e where there used to be six2K ROMs in the Apple IP In the Apple Il, the resident BASIC and the MONITOR occupied the addresses from $D000 to $FFFF, 12K of addresses, (6 * 2K = 12K). Have you wondered about what the extra 4K might be used for in the Apple //e? Have you wondered how to address it? Well so have |, but that is beyond the scope of this article. Suffice it to say that some of the extra 4K of ROM is phantomed over the I/O SELECT* areas. Any board that directly decodes these addresses may get into serious trouble when the MONITOR uses them. It is no longer so simple as to just decode the addresses. “SON OF USER 1” to the rescue! Remember pin 6 on the 74LS138 at H12? You know, USER 1. Well, it's been replaced by a new signal called CXXX. CXXX is generated by the //e's Memory Management Unit (MMQ). It is high whenever the address bus is addressing addresses between $C000 and ADDR: o-—=USER i —BDEN— —CXXX ES UBS USER 1 74L$138 Figure 1 APPLIED ENGINEERING THE BEST PERIPHERALS FOR THE BEST COMPUTER The TIMEMASTER Finally a clock that does it ALL! Hii © Designed in 1983 using I.C, technologies that simply did not exist when most other Apple clocks were designed. and time to 1 millisecond! The only clock with both year and ms. Powerful 2K ROM driver — No clock could be easier to use. Appleclock (but you'll like the TIMEMASTER mode better). Basic, Machine Code, CP/M and Pascal software on 2 disks! at the same time. (Many examples are included) ° the nearest millisecond. The TIMEMASTER includes 2 disks with some really fantastic time oriented programs (over 25) plus a DOS dater soit will automatically add the date when disk files are created or modified. This disk is over a $200.00 value alone — we give the software others sell, All software packages for business, data base management and communications are made to read the TIMEMASTER. If you want the most powerful and the easiest to use clock for yourApple, you want a TIMEMASTER. Just plug it in and your programs can read the year, month, date, day, Full emulation of most other clocks, including Mountain Hardware's Eight software controlled interrupts so you can execute two programs On board timer lets you time any interval up to 48 days long down to PRICE $129.00 Super Music Synthesizer Complete 16 voice music synthesizer on one card. Just plugit into your Apple, connect the audio cable (supplied) to your stereo, boot the disk supplied and you are ready to input and play songs. It’s easy to program music with our compose software. You will start right away at inputting your favorite songs. The Hi-Res screen shows what you have entered in standard sheet music format. Now with new improved software for the easiest and fastest mu: input system available anywhere. We give you lots of software, In addition to Compose and Play programs, 2 disks are filled with over 30 songs ready to play. Easy to program in Basic to generate complex sound effects. Now your games can have explosions, phaser zaps, train whistles, death cries. You name it, this card can do it. Four white noise generators which are great for sound effects. Plays music in true stereo as well as true discrete quadraphonic. Full control of attack, volume, decay, sustain and release. Will play songs written for ALF synthesizer (ALF software will not take advantage of all the features of this board. Their software sounds the same in our synthesizer.) Automatic shutoff on power-up or if reset is pushed. Many many more features. PRICE $159.00 ° e @ The only Z-80 card with a special 2K “CP/M detector” chip. © Fully compatible with microsoft disks (no pre-boot required). @ All new 1983 design incorporates the latest in I.C. technologies, Z-80 PLUS! © Red“CP/M WORKING” LED indicator, the Z-80 Plus does not interfere with non-CP/M programs. © An on-card PROM eliminates many |.C.'s for a cooler, less power consuming board. (We use the Z-80A at a fast 4MHZ) @ Does EVERYTHING the other Z-80 boards do, plus Z-80 interrupts. Don't confuse the Z-80 Plus with crude copies of the microsoft card. The Z-80 Plus employs a much more sophisticated and reliable design. With the Z-80 Plus you can access the largest body of software in existence. Two computers in one and the advantages of both, all at an unbelievably low price. PRICE $139.00 COMING SOON: The Z-80 Plus for the Apple III Viewmaster 80 There used to be about a dozen 80 column cards for the Apple, now there’s only ONE. © TOTALLY Videx Compatible © 80 characters by 24 lines, with a sharp 7x9 dot matrix © On-board 40/80 soft video switch with manual 40 column override © Fully compatible with ALL Apple languages and software — there are NO exceptions ‘© Low power consumption through the use of CMOS devices @ Allconnections on the card are made with standard video connectors, no cables are soldered to the board @ All new 1983 design (using a new Microprocessor based C.R.T. controller) JUST COMPARE! VIEWMASTER 169 YES YES YES YES YES Yes YES. SUP'RTERM 375 NO YES NO NO NO yes YES WIZARD80 245 «== NO-NO. Yes YES_--NO ves ves VISION80 375 YES. YES. YES YES NO No NO OMNIVISION 295 = NOYES NO NO NO yes YES VIEWMAX80 219 © -YES—YES Yes YES NO NO YES SMARTERM 360 -YES_—YES. YES NO NO Yes NO VIDEOTERM 345 = NO-NO NO YES YES No YES The VIEWMASTER 80 works with all 80 column applications including CP/M, Pascal, WordStar, Format II, Easywriter, Apple Writer Il, Viscalc, and many others. The \VIEWMASTER 80 is THE MOST compatible 80 column card you can buy at ANY price! PRICE $169.00 MemoryMaster I © Expands your Apple Ile to 192K memory © Provides an 80 column text display © Compatible with all Apple Ile 80 column and extended 80 column card software (Same physical size as Apple's 64K card) @ Available in 64K and 128K configurations @ Bank select LED's for each 64K bank @ Permits your Ile to use the new double high resolution graphics @ Automatically expands Visicalc to 95 storage in 80 columns! The 64K configuration is all that’s needed, 128K can take you even higher. le 128K RAM Card © Complete documentation included, we show you how to use all 128K. Ifyou already have Apple's 64K card, justorder the MEMORYMASTER with 64K and use the 64 from your old board to give youa full 128K. (Theboard is fully socketed so you simply plug in more chips.) MemoryMaster with 128K $249 Upgradeable MemoryMaster with 64K $169 Non-Upgradeable MemoryMaster with 64K $149 Our boards are far superior to most of the consumer electronicsmade today. Alll.C.'s are in high quality sockets with mil-spec. components used throughout P.C. boards are slass-epoxy with gold contacts, Made in America to be the best in the world. All products work in APPLE Ile, Il, I+ and Franklin (except MemoryMaste. Applied Engineering also manufactures a full line of data acquisition and control products for the Apple; A/D converters and digital 1/0 cards, etc. Please call for more information, All our products are fully tested with complete documentation and available for immediate delivery. All products are guaranteed with a no hassle THREE YEAR WARRANTY. Send Check or Money Order to: APPLIED ENGINEERING P.O. Box 470301 Dallas, TX 75247 Call (214) 492-2027 7am. to 11p.m. 7 days a week MasterCard, Visa & C.0.D. Welcome All Orders Shipped Same Day. Texas Residents Add 5% Sales Tax. Add $10.00 If Outside U.S.A. Dealer Inquiries Welcome. SCFFF AND when the MONITOR's CX Space is off. This signal allows I/O decoding just as USER 1 inhibited it The //e has a 74LS138 located at BS. It functions almost identically to the 74LS138 (the “138” to its friends) on the II Plus. Cards like the VERSACARD which used to read USER 1 can use a jumper to B5 pin 6 to read CXXX. Cards like the CPS card which used to pull USER 1 low have a slightly harder time of it. They must put some logic between CXXX and the 138 that will disable their own address decoding and pull pin 6 of the 138 low when CXXX goes low. Their logic must not attempt to pull CXXX low when they wish to inhibit I/O decoding. As long as the 74LS138 at B5 is socketed it won't be too hard to add a small circuit, such as the one pictured in Figure 1 to mimic the functions of USER 1. May the FORCE be with us if Apple ever decides to eliminate the socket under the 138. To implement the above circuit, the 74LS138 at B5 would have to be removed and inserted in a small circuit that would break the CXXX line and provide a jumper to the peripheral board needing the functions of USER 1. The new board would contain the 7400 and the 7408 chips diagrammed in Figure 1. CXXX high and a high from the board’s address decoding would pull low the USER 1 signal. This could be used by the board to enable its chips and outputs. It would be ANDed with CXXX and fed back thru the jumper to disable Apple //e on- board I/O decoding, Using this circuit I/O decoding would be inhibited either when CXXX went low or when CXXX was high and the peripheral board had decoded an address in its area. It sure is nice to know that some problems remain to be solved, isn't it? Mountain Computer says that they have a jumper with circuitry for $5.00 that allows the CPS card to function in the Apple //e. e Input/Output Made Easy! The uD-1000™ 1/0 System for Apple II* simplifies computer control. Software support allows control of all inputs and outputs using simple BASIC variable names. System includes two boards shown, cables, 60-page manual and disk. Special introductory price Apple Interface Board 1 Adjustable Reference User Interface Module 2 8 Channel A/D 1. 4 Analog Input Generators 8 Analog Inputs 2 8 Digital Input Switches 8 Digital Inputs 3-8 Digital Output Indicators 4 Uses 9-V Battery. No External 8 Buffered Digital Outputs Gold Plated Connector Plugs ous Power Required into Your Apple 5 Jacks to User Circuits 7 Digital Buffer 6 Parallel Jack to Computer 8 Peripheral Interface Adapter [UCR CRIMEN ETON E™ Innovative Microcomputer Enhancement Systems 4860 East 345th Street * Willoughby, Ohio 44094 © (216) 953-8414 “Apple Ilsa registered trademark of Apple Computer, Inc 20 Apple Orchard When you’re ready to expand...will your system let you? One of the most dramatic changes in the Apple Ile compared with the I+ has been the lower cost of doubling your available text area for use with spreadsheets, word-processing and other business programs. But buying a conventional 80-column card for your Ie can still be an expensive enhancement. You're faced with the stark choice of buying a card with no on-board memory now (and being left with a costly piece of junk later when you want to upgrade) or paying today’s high prices for a card with 64K RAM which you may not even need yet. Now Dark Star offers you a better choice... The NOVA-80” eighty-column card for the Apple Ile comes with eight empty sockets which accept standard RAM chips. You benefit from the increased versatility of 80 columns now and can simply plug in 64K RAM when you want it. NO CUTTING OR SOLDERING! Suggested Retail Price........$89.95 If you want that extra power right now....no problem! For just $60 extra, you can have the SUPER NOVA-80™ with 64K RAM ready installed. Suggested Retail Price.......$149.95 If you want yet more power, our RAMrod™ series of large memory expander boards are coming soon. The RAMrod cards will give your Apple up to half a megabyte of low-cost memory and let you take advantage of the new generation of high-powered software becoming available now without the need to buy a new system. For more information on the Dark Star Systems range of products, just leave your name and address with our 24-hour answering service at (413) 584-7600. We regret we cannot return all calls. TO ORDER: Mail check payable to Dark Star Systems. Add $3 for shipping in the U.S. ($15 elsewhere). Mass. residents add 5% tax. COD costs £5 extra (not available outside U.S.) aark Star SYSTEMS P.O Box 140, Amherst, MA 01004 Apple is a reg. trademark of Apple Computer. Only one copy system lets you backup _ 64K programs in 20 seconds flat... _..the Snapshot Copykit for Apple Ile and II+ While other manufacturers have been making wild promises, we've been quietly developing the superior copy system you've been waiting for: the SNAPSHOT COPYKIT. THE FLEXIBLE CARD - The SNAPSHOT COPYKIT isa board for all systems. It sits in any slot on the Apple Ie, I+ and II as well as software- compatible machines like the Basis 108 and the Franklin Ace. So, you can upgrade your system without paying for another card. Although NO LANGUAGE CARD/16K CARD IS REQUIRED, the SNAPSHOT COPYKIT can be used with any memory card andall peripheral cards. The SNAPSHOT COPYKIT is the only copy card that stays up-to-date. Because all its software is in RAM, rather than inflexible ROM, the new enhancements we continyally develop are made available to you at nominal cost — immediately. THE USER-FRIENDLY CARD - We refined backup techniques for two years to make the SNAPSHOT COPYKIT just right for you, whether you're new to the Apple or a seasoned pro. Other copy cards force you to use complex, unreliable procedures and repeated booting of ‘utility disks’ to copy programs larger than 48K. Outdated ‘nibble copier’ programs involve frustrating trial-and-error parameter changes. Only the SNAPSHOT COPYKIT backs up all 64K memory-resident programs (and most larger programs too) with one simple menu and one press of the trigger. THE POWERFUL CARD - The SNAPSHOT COPYKIT gives you back the power over your computer that copy-protected software took away. You can interrupt a running program, copy it, list it (even ifit’s ‘unlistable’), disassemble it, step and trace it, modify it and resume running it. The program is not disturbed in any way and never knows it was interrupted. You can view its graphics, print them (if you have a graphics card) and much more. You can even temporarily suspend one program while you use another. All backups are automatically BRUNnable files that you can move to hard disk. Our state-of-the-art compression facility lets you put a number of backups on one floppy. With powerful features like these, it’s no wonder that BYTE magazine called SNAPSHOT “The Ultimate Unlock System”. The SNAPSHOT COPYKIT has many more features for programmers, gamesters and others. Write for our info packet or leave your address and questions with our 24-hour answering service at (413) 584-7600. We regret we cannot retum all calls. All SNAPSHOT owners receive out’ Technical Hot-Line number for instant technical guidance. PRICE: $139.95 (Snapshot Two is still available for the Apple II+ and Franklin Ace at $119.95. 16K Card required; please specify brand when ordering). TO ORDER: Mail check payable to Dark Star Systems. Add $3 for shipping in the US. ($7.50 to Canada, $15 elsewhere). Mass. residents add 5% tax. COD costs $5 extra (not available outside U.S.). SYSTEMS P.O. BOX 140, Amherst, MA 01004 Apple is a reg. trademark of Apple Computer. i” Installing an Apple /// Driver or What Have I Gotten Myself Into? by Mike Kramer Houston Area Apple Users Group THE INITIAL SHOCK When my office Apple /// arrived a little over a year ago, everyone was anxious to see what it could do. This naturally included seeing it print something. After impressing everyone with being able to enter a simple VisiCalc spreadsheet without reading the manual, | lost all credibility when it wouldn't print anything on the Epson printer. After they left, | got out the owner's manual and discovered that Apple /// software normally comes configured for serial printers connected to the builtin serial port. For me to print on the Epson printer connected to the Universal Parallel Interface Card (commonly called a UPIC) in Slot 1, | needed to install and configure a parallel driver. What's more, | needed to do this with every boot disk I had or would ever have, that would use the parallel card. What | didn't realize at that point was that the source of my “difficulty” was in fact one of the outstanding features of the Apple ///. That feature is Apple ///'s ability to execute programs written with little regard to what kind of output device would be used (also known as device-independent I/O). Without the programmer knowing ahead of time where program output will go, output from Apple /// programs can be directed to a printer, the screen, anamed diskfile, etc. atrun time. The price we pay is having to generate appropriately configured drivers into any new software we get. Not much ofa price when you know how, and you should know howto install drivers if you intend to use an Apple ///. This is particularly so since generating drivers for the Apple /// is not something the typical store person knows very much about (there are exceptions, however). So after this rambling introduction, get out your Standard Device Drivers Manual and, if you have one, the UPIC Parallel Interface Installation and Operating Manual, and let's find out how to do it What is a Driver? First, let's review what a driver does. The Standard Device Drivers Manual describes peripheral devices such as the keyboard, video display, speaker, and input/output (I/O) ports as the “senses” of the computer, ie., the eyes, ears, etc. These senses are connected to the Sophisticated Operating System (SOS) by device drivers which perform four functions: - Process data generated by programs and send it to the devices as output. -Process data generated by the device and send it to programs as input - Permit programs and SOS to control the device and the driver itself. 22 Apple Orchard - Permit programs and SOS to read the status of the device and the driver. Most of you don't need to be concerned with the specifics of what the drivers do, but it should help your understanding if you're generally aware of what they do and why they are there. System Configuration Program One of the disks provided with the Apple /// is the System Utilities Disk, which includes the System Configuration Program (SCP). This is the tool for adding or removing device drivers, or changing the parameters that control their operation. You may have noticed when cataloging disks that every bootable disk has three special files named SOS.KERNEL, SOS.DRIVER, and SOS.INTERP. SOS.KERNEL is SOS itself. SOS.INTERP is the machine language “‘interpreter’ which runs on bootup. This can be Business BASIC, Pascal, Apple Writer ///, VisiCalc, etc. Unless you become very, very good with the Apple /// you will never create your own SOS.INTERP. SOS.DRIVER contains the system configuration, including the drivers and their control parameters, the number of disk drives connected, the video display character set, the ASCII character codes assigned to each key on the keyboard, and the slot assignments for any interface cards plugged into the connectors inside the Apple. Reading a Driver File First, let's find out which drivers are in fact currently on a boot disk. Place your System Utilities diskette in the built-in drive and boot it Next, run the SCP by moving the cursor to the third line and pressing RETURN. To look at and possibly change any of the information defining how your Apple /// operates, tell the SCP to READ in the SOS.DRIVER file from the diskette of interest by placing the cursor over “Read a Driver File” and pressing RETURN. Why not read in the SOS.DRIVER file from the Utilities diskette itself and configure it (you are using a backup copy of the original disk, aren't you?), so that you can list directories on your printer rather than always listing on the screen. The SCP defaults to .D1/SOS.DRIVER, so all you have to do is press RETURN. To read from a disk in the external drive, change .D1 to .D2 before pressing RETURN. After a few seconds, the current driver configuration will be displayed on the screen as shown on Page 12 of the Standard Device Drivers Manual. Note that each driver has a unique name beginning with a dot (looks suspiciously like a period). A driver can have any name as long as it begins with a dot (period) followed by a letter, is not more than 15 characters long, and contains only letters, numbers, and periods. Also note that an asterisk in front of a driver name means that driver is included in the driver file but is inactive. When flagged as inactive, that driver is not loaded into memory on bootup and cannot be accessed during program execution. The benefit of doing this is that you don’t use up memory with drivers you are not currently using. When you have finished reading the driver names press ESC to return to the SCP menu. Editing Driver Parameters Next select the “Edit Driver Parameters” option on the SCP menu. The driver file you read into memory earlier probably had a driver named .PRINTER. Ona new boot disk, this is most likely a serial driver. You can find out what it is by moving the cursor to highlight PRINTER and pressing «RETURN». You will then see a display which lists the device name, the type, the subtype, the activity status, comments, and driver configuration block information. At this point you are interested in whether the device is serial or not. You can usually assume .PRINTER is serial if the slotis indicated as “n/a”, which indicates. PRINTER has been assigned to the built-in port Unfortunately, few people bother to use the comments line to document in English how the drivers were configured. If you are installing a parallel driver, you will probably name it -PRINTER, since this is generally accepted as the name of the most commonly used driver. Rather than delete the serial driver from the disk, give it another name such as .SPRINTER and deactivate it You may wantto use it later when you get your serial letter quality printer. While you're at it, use the comments line to indicate that this is a serial driver. Adding a Driver File Assuming you're adding a parallel driver, insert the disk included with the UPIC card in one of the drives (we'll assume Drive 2). Press «ESC» twice to exit the Edit Driver Parameters display and return to the SCP menu. Once again select the “Read a Driver File” option. This time, when asked for the pathname of the driver file, type “.D2/PRINTER.DRIVER”. This will cause the parallel printer driver file to be read from the UPIC disk. Note that PARALLEL.DRIVER on the UPIC disk is intended for communication between computers using a parallel interface and should not be used here. Note that the new driver's name has been added to the end of the list of drivers and that you may have two drivers with the same name. Press «ESC» to return to the SCP menu. Configuring the New Driver The next step in this adventure is to configure the parallel driver for your particular printer and tell SOS in which slot your parallel interface card has been installed. To configure the driver, once again select “Edit Driver Parameters”. The driver name will be .PRINTER, so you will probably have no need to change it. It will also be active. You should make an entry in the comments line to indicate what printer you are using. Now for the hard part: tailoring the values in the Configura- tion Block for your printer. The Configuration Block can contain up to 255 values arranged in up to 16 rows of 16 values (the last row has 15). These values are used with serial drivers to specify baud rates, with the Silentype to control heating of the dots in the print head, etc. With the parallel driver, five values are used to tell the driver (1) what control signals in the cable are to be monitored, (2) what the normal values are, (3) whether the printer generates its own line feeds, (4) the polarity of the printer handshake signals, and (5) the printer response timeout To find out what these values should be for your printer, look on Page 19 of the UPIC manual. Enter these values into the Configuration Block. If you do not see your printer listed, try using “O00 00 00 00 0A”. Press «ESC» to return to the parameter list When you are satisfied that they are all correct press «ESC» to return to the SCP menu. Changing System Parameters All that remains is to tell the system where the parallel card is installed. This is done by selecting the “Change System Parameters” option. You will be shown a list of the current system parameters. Select the “Peripheral Slot Assignment” option to list the slot assignments. Most assignments will say “n/a’’, indicating built-in slots. To change a slot assignment, enter the number of the driver as shown on the display. When you are asked for the slot assignment, type it in. If you are unsure of the slot assignment, look at the openings in the back of the Apple and see which one has a filler plate labelled “Universal Parallel Printer Interface”. From the rear, Slot 1 ison the right Note that it's possible to have two or more drivers assigned to the same slot This would be done, for example, if you wanted to use both a dot matrix printer as a draft printer and a letter quality printer from the same program using the same “interface and a switch box. Press «ESC» to return to the listing of the Current System Parameters. Press «ESC» to return to the SCP menu. Generating a New System The final step is to generate a new system that incorporates the new configuration information and install it on the disk. Select “Generate New System”. There are two functions performed in system generation, validation of the configura- tion and storing of the new configuration on the disk. When validation is successfully completed, you will be asked for the name of the file where the new configuration is to be saved. You do not have to name the file SOS. DRIVER at this point In fact, you can create a disk containing nothing but system configura- tions for different applications and transfer these to your boot disks as needed. They do have to be named SOS.DRIVER to be loaded on bootup and used. If you decide to store the driver file on your disk under the name SOS.DRIVER and afile exists under that name, the SCP will ask if you want to replace it If you answer yes, the old SOS.DRIVER will be lost. You might want to name it NEW.DRI- VER at this point and preserve the original SOS.DRIVER file. When System Generation is complete, select the “Quit” option. If you have not performed a new system generation, a warning will be given and you will have to indicate that this is in fact what you want to do. Ifyou preserved the original SOS.DRIVER but want to try the new configuration, enter the Filer section of the Systems Utility and rename SOS.DRIVER something like OLD.DRIVER. Then change the name of NEW. DRIVER to SOS. DRIVER If all went well, you should be able to print on your parallel printer when you reboot using the modified boot disk. If the printer doesn't work, start over and pay close attention to which parallel driver is read in, what slot is specified, and what Configuration Block information is entered. If the printer prints, but does strange things, the Configuration Block is likely to be the problem. So there you have it No longer will you wonder why your printer does either weird things or nothing at all when you tell it to print, and you'll enjoy the flexibility of configuring drivers for anything and everything. October 1983 23 Changing an Apple /// CP/M Driver File by Mike Kramer Houston Area Apple Users Group under Apple /// CP/M is similar to that under SOS, it requires more steps and the steps required are not intuitively obvious. This discussion attempts to summarize those steps, but is not intended as a substitute for the manuals. A Ithough the procedure to add, change, or delete a driver Because of constraints in the CP/M system, the peripheral driver file is named DRIVER.SOS rather than SOS. DRIVER. As supplied by Apple, the CP/M system knows about the console, Silentype, and serial drivers. It is totally ignorant of parallel devices. Your task is further complicated by the fact that CP/M only knows about four physical devices, consoles (CON:), tape readers (RDR:), tape punches (PUN:), and system printers (LST:). It permits up to four logical devices per physical device. Your driver file, however, can have as many drivers as you want within memory constraints. You just can't access all of them easily. A further complication is that apparently you can't look at the contents of the driver configuration blocks once the driver file is placed on the CP/M disk. You can see what drivers are included and which are assigned to the CP/M logical devices. Preparing the Driver File The first step in adding to or changing the CP/M DRIVERSOS file is to boot the Apple /// SOS Utilities Disk. Since the procedure for preparing a driver file is well documented in Chapter 2 of the Standard Device Drivers Manual it will not be discussed here. The main point to remember is that you start the procedure under SOS, not CP/M. Further, you should store the driver file on the CP/M Utilities Diskette under the name DRIVER.SOS. If you name it SOS.DRIVER you would overwrite the SOS.DRIVER file on the utilities diskette, which you may not want to do. Transferring Driver from SOS to CP/M Insert the CP/M System diskette in the built-in drive (Drive A.); insert the CP/M Utilities Diskette in the external drive (Drive B:) and boot the system. Next type “SOSXFER’” to run the SOS-to-CP/M file translation program. After an asterisk appears, type the following: B: DRIVER. SOS = A: SOS. DRIVER Ifyou do not wantto change the driver file on the CP/M System diskette, you will need to specify a different destination name on the left side of the “=" which would have to be used through the rest of the procedure described below. After you specify the source and destination files and press - RETURN the screen will then display: 24 Apple Orchard Insert SOS disk into drive A: Insert CP/M disk into drive B: Press RETURN to begin When the transfer is complete, the message “Transfer complete” will be displayed. For more detail on the use of SOSXFER, see Page 74 of the Softcard /// Installation and Operation Manual. Configuring CP/M 1/0 Replace the SOS disk in Drive A: with the CP/M System Diskette, press Control-C to do a warm start, and run the configuration program by typing “CONFIG”. CONFIG will list the names of all the drivers in the DRIVER.SOS file, along with the current CP/M device assignments. Likely the device assignments will show that CON:=CO1 and that CO1:s. -CONSOLE. Also, it will probably show that LST:=LS1 and that LS1:s.PRINTER. If you named the parallel driver PRINTER then you are all set. If you wanted a Silentype to be the system printer and it is listed as LS2: you would just type LST:=LS2: When the device assignments are as you want them, type END. ora ControFC. You will then be asked if the changes should be made permanent If you answer “YES”, they will be written back to the built-in drive. See Page 52 of the Softcard /// Installation and Operation Manual for a sample display and detailed explanation of the use of the CONFIG utility. Transferring DRIVER.SOS to Other Disks Place any diskette on which you wish to have the new DRIVER.SOS file placed into the external drive (B:). Leave the CP/M System disk containing the new DRIVER.SOS in the builtin drive (A:). Press Control-C to tell CP/M a disk was changed. If you don’t, you will get an error when you try to write to it. Next erase the DRIVER.SOS file on the disk in the external drive with the following command: >ERA B: DRIVER. SOS Next, transfer the new DRIVER.SOS from the CP/M System disk with the following command: >PIP B: DRIVER. SOS=DRIVER. SOS When this operation is complete, you should have a disk with the desired I/O configuration, assuming that you did every- thing correctly. If you want the same I/O configuration on another disk, just PIP it 4 PLATO COURSEWARE MAKES SERIOUS EDUCATION FUN. Control Data PLATO® course- ware brings new excitement to education. Through such action concepts as darts, pinball, hangman and highly interactive graphics and texts, PLATO challenges kids to reach their learning goals. PLATO coaxes and guides stu- dents. PLATO rewards them with the feeling of accomplishment. PLATO courseware is being used in classrooms across the nation. Now you can bring this quality education home. You'll find PLATO lessons at selected retail outlets where quality software is sold. All PLATO micro courseware is available for the Apple II Plus and Apple Ile. 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The Speediest Apple Review by Neil D. Lipson, P.E. up your Apple Il Plus or Franklin Ace 1000. I did not try these techniques on the //e, but most of them should work as well. The following items will be covered: T his article will be the first part of a series on howto speed Ramex 128K card by Omega Microware Microseeds Fastload Diversi-Dos Synetix SSD Disk Emulator David-Dos Saturn Accelerator I] Routine Machine by Southwestern Data Systems Arithmetic Processor by California Computer Systems All of these products have a speed-improving impact on your Apple; one or more of the processes will execute more rapidly than ona standard machine. What! wondered was, what would happen if more than one of these devices were used at the same time? Let me tell you that the results are spectacular! First, let's look at some general results; then we'll go into many techniques and describe in detail exactly what I did, and how you can accomplish the same results. High Speed DOS In my previous article, Speeding Up DOS (Apple Orchard, November-December, 1982), we covered some methods for fast disk access. Here’s how to go one step further. | used the Saturn Accelerator Il with the normal preboot supplied with the program. | then inserted the Synetix SSD disk and ran the disk emulation program. Some Hi-Res pictures were then loaded into the emulator. Once this was done, | used either Diversi-Dos or Fastload from Microseeds in the patch mode to “patch” the DOS to make it faster. For the most part, DOS then ran instantly. | could load Hi-Res pictures that normally took 10 seconds per picture in about 1/10 of a second, or 10 frames a second. This is twice as fast as without the Accelerator Il. GR od ee Bt The same thing, using the Ramex 128 card instead of the Synetix SSD, gives about the same results, with the proper patch to the operating system. The Ramex 128 can, of course, also be used for high speed VisiCalc as well as generally extending memory. | used a custom patch, but understand that many of the fast DOS people are developing their own patches. Inaddition, the Saturn software worked well on the Ramex card. The card is quite versatile. 30 Apple Orchard High Speed Applesoft and 6502 Operation I then tried the following combination: the Accelerator Il, the CCS Arithmetic Processor and some programming tricks, Applesoft ran up to 250 times faster. The Accelerator Il made everything in the 6502 mode run faster, including games. Did you ever try to play Choplifter at a three-times-faster speed? One of the slowest things to do on a computer is sorting. Even with the high speed sort programs, it still takes a while. Well, those days are over. I tried the Routine Machine sorting routines with the above hardware. The sorting routines are only a small part of Routine Machine, which we'll discuss in more detail later. With the Routine Machine, and the Accelerator, sorts that normally took 5 minutes with my old Applesoft routines were done in about 6 seconds. Routine Machine has small machine language programs that append onto the main Applesoft program, and you use them accordingly. The package is amazing, and this is just one of many of their packages which we'll cover in future issues. One aspect of Applesoft and DOS that drives everyone crazy is slow loading and saving of text files. There are numerous ways to speed them up. If you have a random access file, use DiversiDOS. In quoting from their manual, DiversiDOS contains an optional faster way to specify the record and byte parameters when reading or writing a random access text file from Applesoft BASIC. CALL 1005 sets these parameters to the values in the Applesoft variables name “RE” ‘and “BY” respectively. The following example wil illustrate how to use this feature: Standard DOS way: 10 PRINT CHR$(4) ;"OPEN RANFILE, L500" 20 BY =0 30 FOR RE = 0 TO 100 40 PRINT CHR$(4) ;"WRITE RANFILE, R"; 50 PRINT "TEST DATA" 60 NEXT 70 PRINT CHRS (4) ;"CLOSE RANFILE" Diversi-DOS way: 10 PRINT CHR$(4) ;"OPEN RANFILE, L500" 20 BY=0 30 PRINT CHR$(4) ;"WRITE RANFILE" 40 FOR RE = 0 TO 100 50 CALL 1005 60 PRINT "TEST DATA" 70 NEXT 80 PRINT CHR$(4) ;"CLOSE RANFILE" The CALL 1005 is over 60 msec faster that the standard DOS PRINT command, which amounts to about a 2 to 4 times speed decrease. The counterpart to Diversi-DOS is David-DOS. David-DOS, though, speeds up sequential text file loading instead of random access text files. Therefore, you choose the DOS that fits your needs. To accomplish this, use the TLOAD command. TLOAD speed loads a random or sequential text file starting at $1000 or any address you choose with the “A” parameter. If you want less than the whole file, use the “L” parameter, otherwise, TLOAD always loads the whole track & sector list allotted to the file. This is necessary because DOS never records the last byte of a text file. We can’t look for the first “O” as the end mark because we also load random files and they don't use an “0”. Therefore, TLOAD without “L” loads the entire last sector even if the file ends in the middle of the sector. You can, if desired, make TLOADS to exact length with “L”. Understand? Well, if you don't, examples are given in the documentation with the program. Now let's go through each item and see what it does, and consider the advantages and disadvantages. 1. The RAMEX 128 card by Omega Microware This card gives tremendous flexibility to do disk emulation, expand RAM and even act as a large print buffer using Diversi- DOS. Italso has a high speed VisiCalc load (20 seconds), which is a pleasure, instead of having to wait up to 10 minutes. It's hardware compatible with the Saturn card, so the Saturn software will work properly with it The only incompatibility is with the Rana controller card and Super Expander Plus. This appears to be a problem with the Rana controller, which will hopefully be corrected in the future. In addition, you must understand that the card only holds 128K, which is not quite a full disk. This does not include DOS, but the real problem is if the DOS is deleted and the space is used for something else, it just won't fit This is a minor problem, however. 2. Microseed Fastload This is a good general program that allows fast loading of binary and Applesoft programs. It also has a patch program to “patch” DOS when using it with the Synetix Disk emulator. Itis compatible with almost every piece of software and is consider- ed excellent for general use. It will not, however, speed up text files. 3. DiversiDOS DiversiiDOS has one of the most unusual marketing approaches known to man. They tell you to give their program to everyone, and if the recipient likes it, then he sends them about $25. They will send you a sticker to put on your drive. Because the program is so reasonably priced and packed full of features, it is selling well. Bill Basham, head of DSR, Inc. isa programming genius in every sense of the word. The instructions are on the disk, and will print out automatic- ally if you want. Because DiversiDOS modifies DOS, any program that has a “trick” DOS may not work properly with the RAMEX 128 rt be QTE Synetix SSD Disk Emulator October 1983 31 program, so be careful. This also applies to protected pro- grams. There is a super fast back-up program on the disk thatis a breeze to use. Some of the more interesting features are the keyboard and print buffer utilities on the disk. This allows you to type on the keyboard while, for example, the drive is running, and not lose any characters. The print buffer is something else. | covered this point in great detail in my buffer article (Apple Orchard, April 1983), but for a short explanation, the computer must wait until the printer is finished printing before it sends more material. With the buffer option, the program is stored in the RAM card in Slot 0. If you have a Franklin, it comes with 16K there. If you replace it with the Ramex 128, you have a 128K print buffer! That can be more than 15 minutes of printing, which means you can use the computer for other purposes while the printer prints away. The buffer is set up to work with a variety of printer cards and RAM cards. Even the PKASO card is included, which is about the best parallel card on the market. But be careful, because the program disables some of the features (temporarily) on the card, DOS errors are given as numbers and this is also in the instructions