Australian Apple Review The Vol 1 No 4 1984 04 Gareth Powell AU

Registered by Australia Post Publication No NBG6313 The Australi ian Apple Review The Independent Magazine Vol 1 No 4 April $3* * Recommended retail price News Bill Gates = adventurer’s Corner Life in a pubb le gum from onvaieh »ple Lette Reviews! =e. ~ FJ mg: =: nil _ 5 CompuMusic 103 ST JOHNS ROAD - GLEBE NSW 2037. - TELEPHONE 692 9875 APPLICARD™ ULTRATERM™ The next generation in CP/M® cards.for your Revolutionary video display peripheral, Apple® featuring extra speed_and additional features from-40 to 160 columns and 2448 optional memory enabling it to act as a lines. pseudodisc. ULTRAPLAN™ Acomplete spreadsheet program. 6MHz 64K, CP/M® 2.2, softvideo features, APPLI-DISC s/ware, 64K DOS pseudo Ultra Term .... .... $588.70 disc ..................{————. $527.30 w/UltraPlan .. $770.05 UltraPlan .. +». $276.75 6MHz w/128K RAM extender, CP/M® 2.2, Seti: softvideo features, APPLI-DISG s/ware 192K 88 CARD® This card upgrades the Apple to DOS pseudo disc ...............-- $801.50 the speed, power, and larger memory space of a 16-bit system. 64K and MBASIC are standard, SOLID COLOUR FLOPPIES CP/M-86 is also available .......... $801.50 enabling rapid identification, coding and filing EY ASH isc Emulator for Apple 5%” single sided, double density, 40 TPI, ee ee for DOS 3.3, CP/M timeless warranty. and Pascal supplied with the card. Run pro- Price per disc ................ Sam $5.50 ea grams up to 10 times faster. 144K Disc .. ee $630.00 DEALER ENQUIRIES WELCOME 288K Disc .. $907.00 ‘the ultimate in affordable digital synthesizers’ aImM alphaSyntaur A 16 oscillator, 8 voice polyphonic computer music system that can: CREATE * sounds: envelopes : effects PLAY * full polyphony : 3000 note sequencer RECORD « 16 tracks : full multitrack functions COMPOSE « play it and print it in 8 note polyphony, EDUCATE + aural visual education programs for classroom and home VICTORIA Music Junction, 204 Camberwell Road Hawthorn East 3123 Telephone: 82 7331 Brashs 108 Elizabeth Street Melbourne 3000 Telephone: 63 6701 Troy Music 568 Chapel Street South Yarra 3141 Telephone: 63 6701 WESTERN AUSTRALIA QUEENSLAND DEALER ENQUIRIES WELCOME Zenith Music North Australian Audio Video SOUTH AUSTRALIA 309 Sterling Hwy 336 Flinders Street Allan's Music Claremont 6010 Townsville 4810 Gawler Place Telephone: 383 1422 Telephone: (077) 72 4747 Telephone: 223 5533 The Australian Apple Review ae wine stoassr & NY function keys for the Apple It’s for the Macintosh Confe Contents 3 HARDWARE REVIEW Colour your Apple rainbow - the C. Itoh colour printer 4 INTERVIEW Bill Gates — Software Supremo 7 FOR ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS Starting from Scratch Li WORM IN THE APPLE Confessions of an Apple addict News Australian Apple Review “Top Rear, 4 Carrington Rd, eeandwick NSW 2031 Phone: (02) 398 5111 blished by Gareth Powell Ltd or: Gareth Powell Director: Avrilie Goldsworthy oduction Managers: Brenda Powell, Gary Williams otographer: Gary Williams bscription Manager: 1a Spathos i ertising Enquiri Craig Hoskinson, Patricia Barr eth Powell Pty Ltd, op Rear 4 Carrington Rd, GORDON & GOTCH LTD SYDNEY 13 COMPETITION The great Apple game contest 16 BOOK REVIEWS 1? GAMES Life in a bubble gum factory 20 PROGRAMMING Tips and Techniques 24 LETTERS 26 ARTICLE Confessions of an Apple Addict 28 PROGRAMMING Special Function Keys for the Apple 30 GAMES Adventurer’s Corner ol SOFTWARE REVIEW It's raining programs for Macintosh 35 INTERVIEW A new look at Apple —- John Cavalier 3” HARDWARE REVIEW What's New, Pussy Cat NEW ‘APPLE’ STYLE JOYSTICKS NOW AVAILABLE APPLE STYLE JOYSTICK ADAPTOR Allows you to use all popular joysticks available (ie those made for Commodore, Atari etc.) interface housed in neat ‘hobby box $14.95 with cable (ine) ‘JP80 Printers’, SOCPS F/T Feed- Epson workalike $449.00 ... INCLUDES APPLE/WOMBAT PRINTER CARD & CABLE MONITORS Hi Res Green Screen, 20MHz $199.00 inc COOLING FANS Fits all APPLE II's ll Plus and IPE $59.00 ins DISK DRIVES QUALITY TEAC SLIMLINE Model $299.00 in) Cards and Cable. Phone for best price in Australia DATA PARTS BALLARAT (053) 31 3399 BENDIGO (054) 43 4866 SHEPPARTON = (058) 21 7155 ALBURY (060) 21 8080 * MAIL ORDER * DATA PARTS - 11 Edward Street, SHEPPARTON 3630 FREIGHT FREE IN AUSTRALIA EDITORIAL his issue is our fourth. We have now settled into regular monthly publication and our advertising and circulation are both increasing steadily with each issue. Which means we must be doing something right. Because we are an Apple magazine - although totally and absolutely independent - we are often in a position to know what is happening at Apple well in advance of public release. Indeed, sometimes we know what is happening in Cupertino before Apple executives in Australia. And sometimes we know before any of them. However, despite rumours to the contrary, we didn’t know that the Lisa would be named the computer of the year and Zardax the software package of the year, we merely made an intelligent guess. Quite correctly, Apple ask that we do not reveal all the goodies that are coming your way in advance of the release date. It would ruin their chances of obtaining publicity in other media. But we think it is fair enough if we say this: From all the plans that we have seen at Apple, all the ideas that they have explained to us in great and careful detail, we have managed to gain a very clear insight into the future. It is a future where the Apple will blossom as never before. Apple have got together a cohesive policy which will mean not just the survival of the company in one of the most competitive industries in the world of commerce, but the securing of a niche for itself where it will effectively be totally secure from the opposition. For months we wondered whether Apple would follow everyone else in the headlong lemming rush into MS DOS - an operating system that became an industry standard over- night. Apple are one of the few companies to have resisted that siren call They have not attempted to say “Anything IBM do we can do cheaper”. Instead, they have stuck to their policy of producing two unique styles of machine (which for simplicity we will call Apple and Lisa) which cater for very well defined sectors of the marketplace For a time, we were among those who doubted the wisdom of Apple’s decision in avoiding MS DOS. We now know that we were wrong. Many of the companies that followed the MS DOS trail will not survive to the end of this year. In our next issue we will be able to be much more specific about one of the new developments at Apple. It is a totally new machine which, we truly believe, is going to set the industry back on its heels. So that you can understand the impact it made on us, we ordered the first one to come to Australia for our own personal use. And we paid with money. There's food for thought in that. Anyone who has listened to the doomsayers of the industry and written Apple off have made a major error of judgement. Put money on ig Duncan McCann here is no doubt that in the very near future the day of the monochrome printer will be They will then be as common as and white tellies. Leading the charge into the brave world of colour printers is C. Itoh arguably, make some of the a dot matrix printers in the world. _ & may be, of course, that you do know of that company under that = But they make the printers for Apple, and for Digital and we 3 go on. They also are respon- for every printer in our company ty = have used C. Itoh printers for years and, in our opinion, they exactly what computer peri- should be and rarely are - inexpensive and good- The new C. Itoh 8510 seven colour was on show at the PC show this year, and visitors watched @mazement the multi-colour Giures it produced. Soe at 180 cps (roughly two and a SP “Pes per second) it is up there in dster class. The printer is housed in an = off white case, with a fairly lar shape and no rough = The controls are mounted in a membrane on the front and top is fitted with a multitude of = allowing access to the more vital including the dip switches. allow us to modify certain istics of the printer, such as feed and the type character ene used. These can also be through programming in the the main cover is lifted a Switch makes printing cease @e unit is put offline. To = printing, replace the lid and select. This is very useful for pDlour your Apple rainbow - e C.Itoh colour printer t making minor paper adjustments or changing the ribbon. A large lever to the top left switches between friction and tractor feed. At the back you'll find the centronics connector and a re- movable panel for the optional RS-232 interface. Paper feed Tractor feed paper enters through a small slot in the rear and friction feed through the usual slot on the top. Very little noise escapes through these points, making printing a relatively quiet job. The ribbon cassette on _ this version has three colours, a black and white version of the printer is also available. The 8510 has a useful 2K buffer so that once the whole file is in the printers’ temporary storage area you can continue workina while it prints. The print colour defaults to a pleasant blue in well formed 8 x 8 or 7x9 characters. It has plenty of print modes, from super and, sub-script to bit-image colour graphics. Everything you would ever want to vary is variable and there is also a draft print mode for extra speed and less quality. The manual is a direct translation (as from Japaneserthe information is all there, but it's very difficult to find even during daylight hours. Overall, it is highly reliable and walks all over most other printers for speed and quality. For the home user, a great colour graphics machine, easy to use and plenty of pace. Business people will love the colour for reports and the near letter quality print for letters. a 3 Bill Gates — Software Supre B. Gates Ihnen? Sehr gut, danke ill Gates is, within the meaning Be the Act, a genius. He is a child of the computer revolution, which has millionaire. He came to Australia for the PC show in Sydney and gave a talk on Microsoft and its software at the University of New South Wales which was a masterpiece of lucidity. If Bill Gates ever wished, he would become, beyond peradventure, a great educator. He looks and acts the part. He dresses in American sloppy collegiate style. He has floppy hair, glasses and a disconcertingly clear gaze. When he is asked a question he listens carefully, pauses to consider all its aspects and then gives a fluent concise answer which is often disarmingly honest. We interviewed him for The Australian Apple Review when he was here and, of course, we attended his lecture. (Do not take that word “lecture” to mean it was in any way dull. The reverse is true). Microsoft are emerging as book publishers. They need seek no further for a certain best selling author than Bill Gates. He is a natural He was, and still is, intimately involved in the deviopment of the Apple Macintosh and his company has supported the project right from its inception. He waxes quite philosophical on the subject. made him a_ multi- Major change “The Apple Macintosh, together with Microsoft software, represents a major change in how people are going to view and _ interact with computer programs. The Macintosh is a blend of Apple's knowledge of what personal computing should be, what the semiconductor industry has made possible, and Microsofts ability to get the most out of a computer. Microsoft expects the Macintosh to become very widely used and we are committed to being in the forefront of providing software that takes full advantage of all the 4 features and power of the Macintosh. We believe that as much as one half of our 1984 and 1985 application program revenue could come from the sales of Microsoft Macintosh programs”. The most important event for Microsoft this year, and indeed for many years to come, will be the launch of “Windows”. This is not, in itself, a software program. It is a two part system. One part is installed in the computer, one part is installed in the software. The two parts of “Windows” together supply a window capacity like Macintosh or Lisa to almost any program. Which makes the job of programming infinitely easier — there is no need to continually keep reinventing the wheel. And it offers the potential, at the very least, for some matching standards in software. In the initial stage the machine part of the program will - unlike the Macintosh — not be in ROM. “We're being a little more timid about putting programs into ROM than Apple was with the Mac. We want to wait until ‘Windows’ has been out nine months before we tell manufacturers to put it in ROM. We want to make sure that we picked exactly the right stuff.” Window workings Bill Gates explains how “Windows” works. “The program developer gets a tool kit that includes a lot of utilities that help to describe their menus in an easy fashion, then converts them into compact efficient binary form. “Windows’ creates a virtual inter face between the application and the screen. One of the goals of ‘Windows’ is that irrespective of screen or the output device being used the same application will run in the same way. “Every programmer has to imple- ment, say, drawing a circle. That's built into ‘Windows’. You don’t want programmers to have to reinvent the wheel. “For example we've built in a Bill Gates number of print fonts as part of the: ‘Windows’ package. These fonts may not be enough for some applications so in the ‘Windows’ development kit we have put a bunch of other fonts. lf a programmer wants to use them, he takes them out of the developers kit and put thems on the diskette with their application.” Rich library “We put in a pretty rich set of things in ‘Windows’ itself, but we also came up with a few things people might want to do which we couldnt justify putting into the software in the machine - you don’t want ‘Windows™ to get too big. So we put these it into a library as part of the developer's kit “We've got software divided into three pieces: the part that you can assume is in the machine, the stuff that we've made available in the developers kit so that it only has to be written once, and finally the application specific stuff that the programmers develop.” With “Windows” Microsoft is offering software programmers the opportunity to conform to preset standards without feeling unduly @=siicted. Microsoft, according to Geles, believe strongly in encour 22mg conformity to a set of Sndards, once those standards eve been throughly tested in the 2! world. Discussing this Bill Gates said, “There will come cases where people wm consciously say to themselves, DK | won't use the standard way. That forces me to implement it all @yself, but it's worthwhile for my “pplication. Alternatively, if theyre ‘Geng it the standard ‘Windows’ way ey just call up a sub-routine out of ws’. This an evolutionary way @ getting standards rather than cing them on people. “Eventually, of course, we would “We to see it in ROM. The beauty of Seeing it in ROM, is it is part of the echine.” Recently, Microsoft launched in Stalia their word processing oaram “The Word” which is shortly Be made available for the cintosh. _ When we tested it we suggested =: its capabilities outstripped the ent capabilities of the machines which it was designed, including Mac. operation, Linda Graham ee Getes, Chairman of the Microsoft Corporation, with the managing director of the Gates did not disagree. “We hada choice. To produce a word processor that imitated a dedicated word processor or do something that was perhaps more innovative. We de cided to take the latter approach. “Other people have taken the approach of imitating the word processor, for example the ‘Multi mate’ package.” In his lecture Bill Gates brought up the intriguing possibility of what he referred to as “softer software”. With softer software, Gates said, “the fundamental idea is to record the way that the user uses the program. Keep that data — not every key stroke, but its functions and form. And then automatically the program will modify itself using that database to suit the specific user.” Laser technology Finally, we talked to him about our current obsession - getting the microcomputer to link with a Laser printer and thus do away with the tedium of typesetting. In his talk he had stated that a laser printer could produce 200 dots per square inch under present technology and that the finest printing only used a thousand dots an inch. What we couldn't get clear in our mind is how a letter on the bit mapped screen of the Macintosh, looking as if it was constructed in a series of steps, especially in the larger point size display typefaces, could produce a nicely rounded and smooth type. Bill Gates smartly disabused us of the idea that this was going to be a graphics dump. What you see on the screen is not what you will get from the printer. “The command says select this font, for example New York 72 point, and it says ‘oh gee, let's go find the real New York 72 point font. And then outputs that information to the printer. Not the image that is on the screen. “We have these laser printers at work which are part of our network. All internal memos are done on the laser printer and its super nice. People use fonts like crazy. Micro- soft's use of typesetters has been cut by a factor of four. Our brochure and ad department still go to outside typesetters.” Bill Gates very much reminds us of an old country ballad with the lyrics “I know where I’m going, and | know who's coming with me”. He indeed knows where he is going. o The perils of progress It isn’t easy if you are at the cutting edge of the new technology. Every- one at Microsoft in the US has a microcomputer work station which are all interconnected. Electronic memos fly fast and furious. Which can mean a hold up when you are working on one project and find that curiosity impels you to read 23 memos your machine is holding in store for you - none of them important. The biggest problem, according to Bill Gates, was that when the lights of one car in the carpark were left on, a memo was circulated to everyone about that car. Inefficient and time consuming. So now they have a database with every car registration number listed and any memo regarding that car can only be routed to the personal computer of the person owning the vehicle —- and to no one else. We always knew there was a good reason for inventing data bases. Whenis ISO. CPS faster than 200 CPS? hen you have this little of your IBM personal computer, C.Itoh beauty on hand. Through- has two special versions designed just for put speed is what counts: the IBM PC. C.Itoh’s new low profile dot So make sure you ask the throughput matrix printer is a high speed performer, of your new printer. And take a close look prints out with a throughput of 100 LPM at C.Itoh. It answers all the questions. (draft mode with pica character). You’d expect to lose visual quality? No way! C.Itoh’s print resolution is sharp, defined, unbeatable — throughout the print head’s 100 million-plus character life. 8510S is rugged, sturdy as . it is fast, built to take the punishment with heavy duty castings and high quality metal parts throughout. Plastic parts are all high stress. It’s a colourful ~— character: there’s even a colour model which gives you up to seven Siours with high resolution graphics of 144 x 160 dots per square inch on all models. And if you want to use all the features For further information contact your Warburton Franki Data Products office. A DIVISION OF THE ANI CORPORATION LTD (INCORPORATED IN N.S.W.) ww © ADELAIDE (08) 356-7333 © BRISBANE (07) 52-7255 ¢ HOBART (002) 28-0321 © MELBOURNE (03) 699-4999 © PERTH (09) 277-7000 ¢ SYDNEY (02) 648-1711 © AUCKLAND N.Z. (09) 50-4458 © WELLINGTON N.Z. (04) 69-3016 WEF/RB1/84 ———— FOR ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS # you have just started using an Apple you may find yourself slightly confused. Understandable, cause there is almost a conspiracy ‘astence to make first time users ain ignorant of what goes on in machines. Even the Apple Users’ Clubs tend ‘be meeting places of the initiated. scause all of us went through the © trauma that you are going gh, we thought a series spelling the basics of computing would no bad idea. ® you are already expert in pro- ‘ing and write neat sub-routines ‘Zssembly this article is not for you. = are other articles in this issue = suited to your tastes. ‘But if you are not quite sure how a er works, this article may be some assistance. Depending on response, we may expand it in er issues. ‘Computers are all based on the = principles and are basically %y simple animals to understand. is generally accepted that the the concept of the computer from Charles Babbage in 1834 he outlined the principle of an fecal Machine. Rumour has it he worked it out to help his ata, Augusta Ada, Countess of who was Ada to her friends Lord Byron's half-sister, beat the ‘Bectricity was not available and were problems with friction and machine never worked. But in this was acceptably the first er. This computer, like every computer that has followed, d on its ability to tell the e between “1” and “0” - and g else. first working computer arrived = the Second World War and used in the United States to codes and work out the of naval guns. These worked with valves -those things your Dad used_to in the family wireless. The es were huge, used a endous amount of electricity, changing the valves as they ‘out was a full time job. computer started to become = with the invention of the transistor. The transistor — which sadly also made the wireless portable - is an electric switching device invented primarily to make telephone exchanges easier and more reliable to use. It allows minute amounts of current to be switched on and off at great speed. (If we want to start wandering into a technical wilderness, we can discuss the fact that within a transistor differently treated surfaces can allow electric current to flow in specific directions, hence the term “semi-conductor? — but enough is enough). Chips This invention enabled Ted Hoff of Intel to satisfy a Japanese customer who wanted a calculator which had a built-in series of circuits. Ted Hoff did this with three chips and thus effectively invented the modern micro-computer. These chips, which are the whole key to personal computers, are now made out of silicon by heating sand. A rod of this super pure silicon is sliced, like salami, into waferthin — about half a millimetre - disks. These disks are made photosensitive and the circuit is put on to the surface chip in much the same way that a photograph is printed in the dark- room — but on an infinitely smaller scale. Series of disks can be’ wired together so that a large number of from scratch circuits can be incorporated into one chip. It is relatively common to put 40,000 circuits into a chip about the size of a largish spider. In the near future there is little doubt that we will see chips with millions of circuits built in. These chips are the heart of computing. Add a keyboard on at one end and a converted telly at the other and you have a computer. Add a cassette machine, or better still, a floppy disk drive, and you are in business. Now although this computer comes about through the wonders of modern science, it must be clearly understood that the computer is still a stupid, if immensely fast and efficient, animal. All it can understand is “0” or “1” — nothing in between, no shades and subtleties of meaning. “1” or “0”. In the Apple it is given the information for “1” through a 5 volt charge. “0” normally comes through as an absence of current. This is where the transistor comes in because it can switch the current on and off with great rapidity, thus controlling a stream of information which is moving at amazingly high speed. FOR ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS This “1” or “O” restriction could make writing a program for a computer a long and boring task. Take the case of numbers. Almost anyone can count from 1 to 10 with ease. But a computer — even a computer as smart as the Apple II — cannot count in this way. It only understands “1” or “0”. For the Apple, one is 00110001, two is 00110010, three is 00110011, four is 00110100, five is 00110101, six is 00110110, seven is 00110111, eight is 00111000, nine is 00111001 and ten is 00111010. Just try working out your telephone number with that little lot. Languages In the initial stages computers were indeed programmed in this cumbersome way, but very quickly languages were introduced (one of which is incidentally named Ada after the aforementioned Miss Lovelace and has been developed at the cost of two million dollars by the United States Defence Department) which allowed programs to be written much more easily. These languages either converted the “O"s and “1"s into a hexadecimal number (machine code program- ming, difficult but very efficient) or into something approaching the English language like BASIC or Forth. Do not confuse these lan- guages with Operating Systems (which we will come to in a minute), in the Apple called Apple DOS. Personal computers (as opposed to business computers) started a decade ago with the introduction of the Altair and the Sol. These machines were the province of dedicated computer enthusiasts — frequently called “hackers” - who spoke to each other in incompre- hensible jargon and were of neces- sity dab hands at wielding a soldering iron. Personal computers became ac- cessible to the general public with the birth of the Apple (midwives Wozniak and Jobs). Here was a machine which would work straight out of the box. And would work whether you knew anything about programming or not. Although there have been many machines since this original design, it is still one of the all time classics and it is going to take a considerable amount of pressure to 8 ever get us to change. In the years since, personal computing has gone quite mad with new machines popping up - and frequently popping down again just as fast — almost every other day of the week. The Apple remains constant. None of this changes the way in which the computer works. Every piece of information that you feed it, every calculation that it makes, every answer that it gives you is made up from an original message combining “Q” or “1” in thousands, millions, of different permutations. When you load a program from a disc or a cassette or when you type a message into the Apple's keyboard (which is exactly the same as the keyboard of a typewriter) that message is converted by an Inter- preter built into the Apple into groups of “0"/"1" messages. Operating System These messages go into the Central Processing Unit, which acts upon them in strict accordance with a set of rules which have been programmed permanently into it called the Operating System. This Operating System may be exclusive to a family of computers, as in the case of Apple, or can be fairly wide spread, as in the case of MS DOS. The results of its deliberations are then sent to the video screen where you can look at them, or to.a printer (an electric typewriter in drag) which will show you the same result more or less neatly typed out. Where absolute beginners get confused is the jargon that is used by the cognoscenti. We are quite sure this is deliberately done to confuse and mislead the general public by hackers who want their hobby to remain mysterious. Some definitions to help you. The language the computer understands — all those “O00"s and “111"s—is called “binary”. Eight of those numbers (which are individually called “bits”) hang together to become “bytes”, “VDU", “VDT", “CRT” - the terms seem to be interchangeable — stand for Visual Display Unit, Visual Display Terminal or Cathode Ray Tube. In every case they are referring to the modified television tube which shows you the end result. This is also sometimes called a “monitor. Monitors made specially for the job are better than converted television sets. Information storage Perhaps the biggest area of confusion for beginners concerns the storage of information typed into the Apple. Where, they want to know, do Apples store the information typed in? We know that programs can be loaded into the Apple — but where are they stored? We know that when we type in @ basic BASIC program or a letter to our favourite aunt congratulating her on her fourth marriage or a letter to our bank manager complaining about the miserliness of our overdraft — the Apple must store it somewhere — but where? Let us go back a step and remember that computers only accept instructions that are “1” or “O”, “Yes” or “No”. This means that for a fairly simple routine there are an awful lot of “1"s and “O”s running around loose. When you type any information into an Apple it goes, in the first instance, into the Random Access Memory which is known as RAM. It would perhaps be better for everyone: if they called it a Temporary Information Storage Space. Because that is exactly what it normally is. Do not confuse it with ROM (Read Only Memory) which is a part of the memory that contains the permanent instructions to the Apple on how to behave. The Temporary Information Storage Space, the RAM, is Temporary because all the information you have typed in will disappear if you switch off the computer or press the reset button. Before you do that you have to shift the information from the RAM to a more permanent information storage centre which we will discuss in a moment. (I don’t want to confuse you, but there are two ways of making the Temporary Information Storing Centre into a Permanent Information Storage Centre. A battery back-up built into the machine means, in effect, that you never switch off the memory. Look for something like this to be available on Apple before the end of this year. The other way to achieve this is very cunning. You glue a hearing aid Gettery on to the top of each RAM ‘hip and wire it to the front two legs @ the chip, disconnecting those two S95 from the socket from which they Sormalily get their power. This is quite = prevalent practice amongst the opie computer hackers of Hong ti means that anything you type in ® the Apple stays in the Temporary formation Storage Space until you ‘Ser run out of memory and @veowrite it, or you tell the Apple to “Wire the slate clean and start again. "Expected life of the batteries is of the “Geer of 120 years, using a ‘ethematical formula based on the ower drain) temporary storage area in the iter is measured in Ks. At the se of arousing the wrath of all Somputer advertising copy writers, will state pedantically that this surement does not exist in the tific sense. But use has ised its existence. Like Topsy it growed. Furthermore, K does not mean B00. It means 1,024. To understand why this is so you Save to look at a small, painless ece of mathematics. The decimal system that we use is enient if you are counting on fingers and toes, because ten is formal allotment. But 10 is basically a rotten number we never fancied Bo Derek @y) because it will only divide by and 10.8 or 16 are much easier for a computer to mani- because it only has two es, “1” or “0”. These two ponses are called Binary. ‘Bn example. As 1K is 1,024 you divide it by 2 continuously. It $5 512 to 256 to 128 to 64 to 32 to ® 8 to 4 to 2. It is a number - by 32, 16, 8 and 4 which is emely useful. © you start with 1,000 you get 500 250 to 125 to 625 to 3225 to 16.125 and on into the realms of complicated numbers with lots of figures after the decimal point. Hexadecimal (using 16 as a base instead of 10) is altogether easier to manipulate if your starting number is two, binary, “1” or “0”. It would be much more convenient all round if computer programers were born with eight fingers on each hand. The RAM (Temporary Information Storage Space) on the Apple is 48 K standard on the Apple Il+ and 64K standard on the Apple lle. But exactly how much is that? Easiest way to think of it is with a byte representing one letter of the alphabet. If there are 48K in your storage space, in theory you can put in nearly 50,000 letters, which is about 8,500 words depending on the way that you write. Sadly, the RAM (our temporary information storage system) also has to hold the information from any program that you have loaded in. If you load in a word processing program like Zardax or Sandy's you are taking up some of the RAM space on the computer. How much space, depends on the complexity of the program and the ingenuity of the programmer. The Apple Ils, of course, work off an 8 bit chip which theoretically restricts the RAM capacity to 64K. Extending the RAM There are neat and devious ways of getting around this restriction. For example, the rotund Harry Harper produces a RAM card which will give you an extra 256K RAM if you want it, although it does not necessarily work with all programs. This restriction on the amount of memory beyond 64K will only worry a you if you are doing accounts or financial spread sheets of a complex nature. And if you are, you should be using a Lisa with a 32 bit chip where you can have virtually unlimited RAM. Summing up, RAM is under normal circumstances only tem- porary and is restricted in size by the nature of the Apple that you are using. Where then do you permanently store the jewels of literature that you have written? The program that will solve the puzzle of the Universe and everything else? A horse racing program better than the one we offered in the last issue? Basically there are two ways to do this (ignore bubble memory for the moment as it is not available for Apples and it is unlikely that this is ever going to change): Both involve recording the infor mation on to the equivalent of magnetic tape. Cassettes For example, you can save your writing/program on to an ordinary cassette tape in an ordinary cassette recorder. Best if you use brand name cassettes and a half-way reasonable tape recorder. But it is not crucial. The Apple allows you to type in an instruction that will save the program/ writing on to a cassette. The command is “SAVE”. The information is then fed on to the cassette tape in a series of tones which sound like messages from outer space. The cassette will store and preserve that information for posterity. Loading the information back in to the machine from the tape is just as simple. The key word is “LOAD”. Before anyone starts shouting that cassettes are old technology and FOR ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS why are we wasting valuable magazine space writing about them, consider this. The Apple Ils are the biggest selling machines Apple will have for some time to come. Macintoshes, like Apples, take some time to grow. By far the most common way of saving and retrieving information in personal computers in Australia is by cassette. True, Apple users tend to be more disk conscious than other users, but there are still a large number of users there who stick with cassette storage for at least some of the time. However, it is true that cassettes have several disadvantages to counteract the fact that they are the cheapest form of information saving device for a computer. The major problem is that they store the information in a long queue — one item after the other. Suppose you have written a program and stored it on a cassette tape about three quarters of the way through, it is going to take you a long time to load the program because you have to work your way up towards it. This is not to say that cassette tape storage is unusable on your Apple. We use it every day of the week for special situations. It is just that it can be very slow and inconvenient. Floppy disks A quantum leap faster— and much more expensive — is the floppy disk drive. The disks are called floppy because in the main they are, indeed, quite flexible. The disks are rather like extended play 45 rpm records but the surface is smooth, not grooved. Try and imagine.a round piece of recording tape. The great advantage of these disks is that the recording head can nip back and forwards over the disk as it rotates and drop down very precisely on to a preselected spot. This means that if you want to load a program you can get it in seconds as opposed to minutes on a cassette recorder. When Apple started, all its disk drives and disks were five and a quarter inches in diameter. This is called standardisation. Yes, there was a slight hiccup at the beginning when they changed the formatting of their disks from 13 to 16, but even 10 then it was a situation that could be coped with. Note that the measure ment is not metric. The computer world resists metrication and other new fangled ideas as if they were the black plague. Floppy disks are contained in a cardboard case which has a notch cut in the right hand side. A pin has to drop into the space left by the notch to allow the recording head to come into action. It took me about six months to realise that recording material nor mally has two sides and if we cut a notch in the opposite side of the cardboard we would be able to use the reverse side of the disk. Which would save me precisely half the money we spent on disks. This we have done for seven years and never had a failure. Disk manufacturers issue dire warnings that this leads to the equivalent of foot and mouth disease in computers but we have never found it so. All the material for this issue of the “Apple Review’ is, as a matter of interest, contained on the backsides of disks. And we are not in,the habit of risking losing all that copy by using dodgy recording material. We do, of course, back-up — make a copy of - each disk three times. One is a working copy, one goes in a large walk-in safe. And one is kept at other premises. This is known as the “belt and braces” method of disk storage. One of these five and a quarter inch disks can contain an immense amount of information on one side. You can put about 12,500 words on one side of a standard disk. If you are in the habit of writing copious amounts of material, then that will give you a rough guide as to how much memory you have to play with. An average novel would take about ten sides of a disk. If you are thinking of storing figures we know from experience that you can get a VisiCalc Cash Flow forecast and a Profit and Loss Forecast for a medium company on to a disk five different times before you run out of space. That is for the current standard five and a quarter inch disk But Apple never stands still, and now the Macintosh and the Lisa have three and a quarter inch Sony disk drives. These disks are not floppies, as they are encased in a hard plastic and metal case. Various suggestions have been as to what to call them — most of them unpublishable in a family magazine such as this. They may be superior to the floppies that everyone has got used to because of their storage capacity. but they have some disadvantages worth thinking about. The disks are damn expensive - about four times as much for comparable storage space. They are not widely com patible with other machines. Then there are hard disks which are nearly always used in a business environment. They work on precisely the same principles as all other disks, but they have infinitely expanded memories — 5, 10 or 15 Megabytes are quite common - and they are much faster. It used to be commonly said that if you need a hard disk then you shouldn't be using an Apple II ~ and there is some truth in that. If you are looking at major commercial use then perhaps you should be thinking of the Lisa which is designed specifically for the commercial market. Disk failures Whichever storage system you use it is worth knowing that the two greatest enemies are magnetism and cigarette smoke. If you bring a magnet close to your stored information you will have no stored information. Do not experiment to find out if this is true. One of the biggest dangers comes from those containers used for paper clips. You shake the container and clips pop up stuck to the magnetic rim. It is not widely known that the paper clips themselves then become magnets. If you drop one on a disk you will stuff the disk up permanently. lf you smoke cigarettes, as sure as Jobs and Wozniak invented little Apples, you are eventually going to lose large amounts of information. In our editorial offices we use Apples all the time. We had been having an immense amount of trouble with information going walk- about off disks until we banned all smoking. The problem stopped overnight. It is the microscopic particles from the cigarette smoke that destroy infor mation on the disks. If you can’t stop smoking for the sake of your own health, think of the health of your computer. o ow that we have got into our f N stride with four issues pub- lished, it is about time we Slaried to encourage some more fader involvment. What has occurred to us is this. Many professional programmers "Rave abandoned the Apple I! for the 18M PC and its many clones. The ‘@ass was always greener on the iSther side. As time goes by they will no doubt um to the true faith, but until that ‘Gey dawns there is going to be a ssening of the flow of Apple Sofware. That does not mean there be any shortage of new pro- . Perhaps it would be more wate to say that what was Aginally a deluge will now become yer in full flood. To fill this gap we see the readers The Australian Apple Review ing boldly forward. We gave considerable thought to the that we should give as we want encourage as many entries as ible. Therefore to every contestant that and has a program published by us we will give one years free sub- scription to The Australian Apple Review. Each month we will choose the program of the month from those submitted and will award the winner $100. The grand final will be held at the end of te year and the winners announced in January. First prize will be hardware to the value of $2,000 and software to the value of $1,000. The reason we don't specify either the hardwarwe or the software is that we want some feedback as to what the most accptable, the most suitable prizes for our readers would be. Entry date for each issue will be the first day of the previous month. What we will be looking for above all is originality of concept. It is absolutely pointless reinventing the wheel. Programs abound that are merely imitations of other, more suc- cessful programs. To start the ball rolling how about a peripheral fault detection program? The scene is that your printer is playing up. You boot a program and The great Australian Apple game contest select from the menu “Printer”. Then a questionnaire comes on the screen which you have to answer. When you have completed the questionnaire you press return and a description of the probable problem and the most likely solution appears on the screen, with a graphic representation of the area of the printer where the problem lies. Is such a program possible? We think so. And at least it is original. So let us have originality above all things. When you submit your programs please let us have a print out. No- thing else. Without a print out we can- not tell whether the program will work. Without a print out we cannot judge any program fairly and properly. It is perfectly acceptable and reasonable for you to enter a pro- gram every month if you want to. You will still be eligible for the monthly prize and all of those programs will be eligible for consideration for the grand prize at the end of the year. Let's have those letters and programs rolling in. a Have you seen the other Gareth Powell Computer Magazines? The Australian PC Review and The Australian Commodore Review Available from newsagents and computer stores, or by direct subscription ($18 for six issues, $36 for 12 issues of each magazine) from Gareth Powell Pty Ltd Top Rear, 4 Carrington Rd, Randwick, NSW 2031 13 by Graham Black SECRET PASSWORD 40 50 a) Bo PRE SHOR MIDS FLINE ~ eb ~ HOME THE "@PPLE" REM REM ~ BODY OF PROGRAM REM NT "ENTER PASSWORD "x REM REM - CHECK TO IS PART IN LINE 100. NEXT (PWS,I,1) = ANS THEN X$ = XB + THE LOL THEN GO TO AT LINE 610. PWS THEN 1 = 300 FASSUE $10 HOME S20 PRINT "YGU GOT on 0 END COMMENTS: Th pr passwor attempt HOME CLEAR 4 agram will nountil dis defined TF at the then sert the fa rrect pas z 0 5 owing FOR. ..f 82 and 470 :- means: DOES means: CLEAF the CURSOR in hand corner of the mea CLEAR ALL means: END means: ABs need the LET command room in meme and every inte the habit a limit the number PRINT PRIN 1 0s INT ON “you 3 WRONG. THE 1oth LINE More powerful than an expanded Apple Ie plus compatibility-for less than half the cost! ‘- | Sel DICK SMITH ELECTRONICS ° Head Office & Mail Orders; P.O. Box321 North Ryde 2113, Ph: 888 3200 Cat X-7501 , Stores throughout Australia DICK SMITH PERSONAL COMPUTER A752/0W BOOK REVIEWS Teach yourself word processing on the Apple by Anne Reynolds. Boolarong Publications. Far be it from us to discourage small publishers. We are after all, small publishers ourselves. And far be it from us to point the finger at another publisher for errors of omis- sion — the publisher of this magazine when working on The Metal Bulletin was responsible for a cor rection of a correction of a correction. And he got it wrong. However, Boolarong Publications do appear to have missed the mark by a country mile with this book. On opening it, you are faced with a mistake sheet (it sounds better if you call it “Errata” but it is still a mistake sheet). It lists at at least 18 major mis- takes. And it does not by any means cover all of them. On the next page the authors note is signed by “DipT, AdvDipT, BEd” which we presume is the unmarried name of the author Anne Reynolds. A strange name that. Possibly originat- ing from the Uttuck region of Inner Mongolia. The book is based on “Zardax” which is put out by lan (ex-Dominie) Phillips. If you buy Zardax you get with it one of the best manuals ever written, rivalling that of the Micro- writer and the new Sandy's Ile pro- gram for the lucidity of its ex planations. Compared to the “Zardax” manual this book simply does not fly. Disregard the inaccuracies and the less than felicitous design, and you still have a book that would put the first time user off using “Zardax” or indeed any word processing program. No touch of lightness, no sense of adventure, no humour enliven. its solid pages. Most worrying aspect of all is that in the description of the book it states “For secondary school students”. It is not the sort of book we would like our children to read. Apple Basic Made Easy by David A. Gardner and Marianne L. Gardner. Prentice-Hall, $25.50 Anyone who writes a manual for the Apple is up against a big hurdle before they start. The documentation for the Apple is so well written that 16 you have to be fantastically good just to equal that standard. To be better you really have to have a very clear understanding of how the Apple works plus an ability to pass that information along in a lucid style. The two authors have all of these skills and in abundance. It would be silly to say that this is the best book ever published on Apple programm- ing because we haven't read them all. But it is certainly the best book we have ever come across. If you follow through the lessons you will find there is no pain involved and at the end you will be writing in BASIC. The book is written very intelli- gently — if the authors think you are gettiong bored or the lessons are getting difficult they insert a light and easy bit to encourage you. The book is illustrated with funny (in both the funny ha-ha and the funny peculiar sense) drawings by Warren Smith who has a strange sense of humour which we like very much. Despite its price we cannot recommend this book too highly. If you are an absolute beginner and you want to program in BASIC this is indeed the book for you. The 3-D Animated Apple by Phil Cohen. Prentice-Hall, $14.95. This is not, perhaps, as excellent a title as the previous one, but it has a lot going for it. It teaches you how to make full use of the graphics on the Apple II with BASIC although there are some small side excursions into Binary. It starts off with simple shapes and then moves on to more refined techniques. It is not for the absolute beginner but if you have a reasonable grasp of programming then this title will help you get the most out of Apple’s superb graphic facilities. Useful programs included How to Write a Program II by Ed Faulk. Prentice-Hall, $23.95. We're into fairly advanced pro- gramming techniques with this title. It takes you beyond BASIC _ into advanced programming techniques and shows how professional pro- grammers use short cuts to get to the answers. Before you need this book you will have a pretty good idea what programming is all about. When you finish this book you should have a professional grasp of the subject. ADVANCED Microcomputer Graphics by Roy E. Myers. Addison Wesley, $13.95. This book can be of help if you truthfully don’t know the difference betwen rasters and pixels (We didn't, we had to look it up. Raster means that the display consists of a series of horizontal lines. Each line, which is a raster, is made up of a series of dots called pixels). The book takes you by the hand and walks you step by step forward into the line of magical graphics. It is written in a literate and pleasing style with sample programs every step of the way. In the United States the book is offered with all of the programs on a disk at $15. The address to write to is on page vii in the introduction. This is a sane and sensible approach to graphics. It may not have the whizz bang excitement of Apple Basics Made Easy but it nevertheless can lay claim to being a standard Apple text book. We liked it You may see floating around two books by Peter A. McWilliams. One is The Word Processing Book and the other is The Personal Computer Book. Not worth buying particularly but interesting because the author seems to have been bitten by an Apple when young and hates them. He undoubtedly is an Applephobe. However, to make up for it he loves WordStar. Now that, we find distinctly odd. is) Life in a bubble gum factory & Death in the Caribbean toa door. From Imagineering. Death in the Caribbean T his is a very interesting game see come from the strangely named Broderbund Software. Broderbund stands for “brotherhood” Sul we can’t make up our minds in Be office whether it is Dutch, S ome of the best games we ever that tests your imagination and patience to the maximum. You are supplied with a map which gives a layout of an island and the position of various man-made and natural features.The graphics show what is around you at any one time and position, and include trees, houses, animals, rivers, etc. The trick is to determine where you want to go and what you will need to get there. This means you must attack each obstacle at least once and @mkaans or German. Or why, indeed, @yone should choose that name for = company. The latest offering is “Gumball” which appears to be life in a gumball Gciory on a typical day. What this @ctoryy badly needs is a union @eaaniser. You spend your time Sting trucks up and down to Select gumballs as they fall out of e oroduction line. But when you get @me wrong and collect the wrong @oloured gumball does the foreman Game and help you see the error of our ways? Does he indicate to you ways in weich =you can improve your esormance? No. He does none of those things. = Gps your truck over, full of all your @evously collected gumballs and | Bakes you start all over again. This is plainly not a game that @Poinated in Australia. If a foreman Ge that in an Australian factory the Gesterd would be nailed by his ears learn what you will need to get by them. Unfortunately, as the title suggests, you will undoubtebly die innumerable times in the process. You are probably wondering why you are putting yourself through all this torture. If you can decipher coded messages, get past whirlpools and crevasses, and figure out why there is a swing on that tree, then you could find the fortune in bullion and retire knowing that you will never have to go through it again. The overall idea of the game is excellent, but | think it could be improved by making it slightly harder to die (you need more lives than your pet cat just to get by the first obstacle), and by deleting the part of the program that removes from your possession anything you have picked up on the way that you thought would come in handy. (There’s nothing worse than finding a nice shovel, carrying it halfway across the island to fill an ant hole, only to find the computer has taken it from you.) Interest is sustained because you never seem terribly close to the treasure and it becomes more a test of getting past obstacles and surviving than becoming rich. We in the office have been playing it intermittently now for a week and have only covered one third of the island without any luck. Actually, | don’t believe there is any treasure anyway, so | think I'll go back to trying to save the world from the invading cyborgies and be satisfied with the knowledge that I’m worth 24,000 of the little beasties per life. Death in the Caribbean is a game that can be played by a number of people at the same time (all offering suggestions). You do not need any paddles or joysticks, all you need is a monitor (preferably colour, but mono will do), a disk drive (48K of memory) and a keyboard. Sargon strikes again In Sydney there are about twenty taxi drivers, all of middle European extraction, who conduct a game of chess over the cab radio while they drive about their tasks. For this to succeed they must, of course, retain a perfect mental image of the board in their head so that they can follow the game's progress. It is not easy to balance a chess board on the dashboard of a cab. Probably illegal, as well. These drivers are in the higher echelon of chess players where the Capablanca and Ruy Lopez open- ings are discussed alongside Queen's Gambit Declined. We, ignorant sinners, never got past Fool’s Mate and Scholars Mate. But even these mobile afficio- nados would be given the game of their lives by Sargon - a chess program which represents the state of the art in game programming. We tried it out on a chess enthusiast who is of medium club level - which means very good indeed. He, innocent of his fate, played his first game in a relaxed manner. And lost. Coming back like @ tiger for revenge he played a second game. And lost again. Strategically — so we are assured — he played the better game. But Sargon never forgets a move, never lets human emotion get the better of it, never suffers from a blinding headache. And wins. There are several levels it will play from absolute beginners upwards. If you play chess this program will either immensely improve your game or cause you to kick the screen in thus showing man’s eternal do minance over machine. From Imagineering. TIPS AND TECHNIQUES by Graham Black ASCIO in this short ere = SS) Ta 90 You should ast CIl values. end up Now retype lines 10 Fun the preaar ef ASCII char 18 program toa "CHRS (Us T2) = with the AND and CODE DEMONSTRATION determine "SCHRS(I), letters O as follows see what happens. which number represents whi of the alphabet and their respecti You should get the full displ - AUTOMATIC ene CENTERING ROUTINE. ~ THIS IS ULAR ROUTINE - USED BY PROGRAMMERS TO DO ALL ~ THE HARD WORE FOR YOU. ~ CLEAR SCREEN AND HOME THE CURSOR REM ~ SET Wo TO EQUAL SCREEN WIDTH 9 REM - SET UF DATA STATEMENTS oo DATA 3 10 DATA THIS IS THE, APPLE //e,MICRO-COMPUTER 20 REM - READ NUMERIC DATA STA 30 REM - A = NUMBER OF DATA ST 40 REM ~ EACH STATEMENT MUST BE & So REM - BY A COMMA * BE ON A NEW DATA LINE. READ A REM ~ THE FOR...NEXT LOOF, WHICH RETRIEVES REM ~- EACH F CE OF DATA IN TURN, FROM THE REM - DATA § Te! TS. FOR I = 1 704A GN IT TO AS REM - GET THE DATA AND A: READ AS REM - GO TO THE SUBROUTINE GOSUB Hood REM - PRINT @% AT TAR POSITION T PRINT TAR(T) 3 A$ o FOR rT SEGMENT REM - END OF PRO ING SUE SsiTian EN CINT AIN TH (TAB) NECESSARY AND SUB : STRING (AS) AND THEN DIVIDE ROUTINE 19 TIPS AND TECHNIQUES END OF - MAIN FORT COMMENTS: This small program has been set up to automatically centre STRING ¢ VARIABLES. It also uses DATA statements, but these da not have to be used You can set @ach variable independantly if se desired. In which case y would need to delete lines oO through Oo, and insert the followi lines:- ) AS = "THIS IS THE": GOSUB GOSUB 1900 DAS = "APPLE //e": GOSUE BOSUE 1o¢ ) AS = "MIT COMPUTER’: GOSUB 5000: GOSUE Lodo 1oOoo TAR(T) 3 A% Each time you want to use the routine, you set the variable = contain whatever you want. There are many ways thi program can be written but the first methad is by far the most practicle, as it takes up 1 ro in memary. For it to fective it would need to be conde d 7 about the lines of c belo 2 DATA 3,1 1 TO A: THE, APPLE A$: GOSUB & O-COMPUTER: RINT TAER(T) sass ~ FORMULA F NORD ~ RN = RANDOM KEY FOR * FORMULA: RN kK 4 So REM — " s RN ® CN - 2 60 REM 7O REM ~ RN® = FORMULA IN LINE 140 BO REM 90 HOME 1oo CLEAR iio NUE CRND (1) # 9) + 4 140 180 CN 20 FORMULA VARTABRLES 4 REM ~- SET FRINT POSITION 170 VTAB 6: HTAR 16 180 REM — CALCULATE THE ANSWER iss REM - AND CONVERT RN TO A q REM - STRING VARIABLE RNS = STR (RN k CN ~ 2) REM ~ GENERATE AND DISPLAY REM ~ THE FORMULA KEY ALONG REM ~ WITH SOME FALSE ONES FOR C = 1 TO CN:CD = CD + is PRINT CD3"—"g: NEXT Cs PRINT CHR® (8)3" " REM ~ ERAISE LINE 10 AND iO REM ~ SET HTAE VTAE 1 CALL - G68: HTAB 8 270 PRINT NTER FASSWORD "3: REM ~ SETUF F TO ENTER REM PASSWORD FOR T = 1 TO LEN (RN®) REM ENTER FASSWORD AND FRINT REM A ACE GET ANS FRINT "oo"; CHRS (8)5 ao REM - IF THE ENTRY IS CORRECT REM - GO BACK AND GET THE NEXT REM ~ CHARACTER O IF MIDS (RN®,1,1) = ANS THEN X® = X# + ANS: NEXT 1 REM ~ IF THE FASSWORD IS REM - CORRECT, THEN CONTINUE REM ~ PROGRAM IF X# = RNS THEN PRINT: GOTO Soo Ri ~ GO BACK TO LINE 90 BOTA 9 END VTABR 22: HTAB 8 PRINT "CORRECT CALCULATION" ENTS: know that password pragrams are a dime a dozen, but here is one with a ifference, The formula in this pregram can be changed in several ways. You change the calculation, and you can change the randam key. You need femember only the formula, and when the program displa he numbers, you SSlculate the first number (RN * CN - 2) and enter the answer. The dditio numbers are anly there ta confuse anyone who would try to guess password. 21 4 There’s a calculator, a clock, a clipboard-evena — wastebin — all in symbol form. So, even if you’ve never gone near a computer before, instead of taking at least 30 hours to learn (as conventional personal computers do), Lisa takes less than 30 minutes. To tell Lisa what you want you just point to the appropriate symbol, using a palm-sized device called a “mouse”. . we Sen Move the mouse across your desk and the pointer moves across the screen. No longer are you totally dependent on the data processing department. Effortlessly you can turn figures into graphs, draw diagrams, paste worksheets into reports. And print out the lot while you get on with something else. It’s what computers should’ve been all along. Does it all sound too easy? Is it just some kind of high-priced executive toy? By no means. Lisa is nothing short of the world’s most powerful CE. ersonal computer, with the | | internal memory ofa mid-sized mainframe. You may even feel Lisa could replace your desk entirely. Except what would that leave ~ you to put your feet up on? = 4 The personal computer for the office. For more information, or a demonstration, phone, STD free (008) 221555 or Sydney 969 6222. No computer has ever been as efficient as this. In many ways, your office desk still remains the most productive way to work. Everything’s at your fingertips. The whole job’s laid out in front of you. And you can do 10 things at once. Yet, every computer ever devised has ignored this. Forcing you to work the way it wants. (Assuming you can plough through the manual and learn a complex language of computer commands.) New Apple Lisa is the very first personal computer designed to operate the way you do. All of its awesome power isn’t devoted to making electrons go faster, but to helping you go faster. By working visually. Complex computer commands are replaced with familiar pictures, or symbols. Files look just like file folders, memos like memos. Dear Sir, My apologies for not being a Wizard, but | found that after reading TAAR Vol 1 No 3 p. 16 “Numeric Keypad”, | was. still completely baffled as to how to convert a section of the Apple keyboard into a numeric keypad ... Please publish or send exact instructions for those less than expert. | have been yearning for a keypad for a whole now, and became excited at the title, only to be disappointed by the contents. Apart from this minor gripe, | think this is an excellent magazine (a bit too expensive?). Please include more programs, eg “Weekend Australian ‘Racing Program”, as these are invariably different and interesting, if not useful as well! If at all possible when reviewing programs, peripherals etc please include prices (eg the EPS keyboard). After reading the article on Dvorak vs QWERTY, | was interested in the looks of the Dvorak keyboard, and was surprised not to find it anywhere. What does it look like? An explanation at the back of the magazine in the way of a glossary etc would be useful, to explain such things as the speed of a baud, or what a “terminal emulator’ is. | am sorry about all the gripes, because | believe the magazine is excellent, and am _ considering subscribing! Hamish Stewart. Ed. The reason you couldn't understand the Numeric Keypad is because (shame on us) we omitted to publish the program with the article. Sorry - it’s in the next issue. We will try to put in prices where possible (the EPS keyboard costs about $580 including sales tax.) Picture of the Dvorak keyboard herewith. Dear Australian Apple Review, Congratulations on your indepen- dent magazine. It is certainly a pleasant surprise in view of the other advertising brochures which call themselves magazines. | was particularly interested in G. Powell's article in No 2. It provoked a number of questions since I'm planning on going to Hong Kong to buy an Apple Ile or /// or “fake equivalent”. Firstly, is it possible to write to Hong Kong to get their prices? Secondly, what about mainten- ance and servicing of fake Apples in Australia? Thirdly, is it worth buying real Apples in Hong Kong - are there any real discounts? Fourthly, | understand that copy- right will come down in favour of Apple Inc in relation to Wombats etc. How will this affect all of us with fake Apples from Hong Kong? OvUORAK SHTIPLUIRIED 24 Also | understand software can be had at very cheap prices in Hong Kong yet there was no mention in your article. Peter Botsman. Ed: (1) No, you can’t write to Hong Kong for a price list. (2) You can get fake Apples serviced in Australia, but the situation on this is not good. (3) There are no real discounts on real Apples in Hong Kong. (4) Yes, cheap software is available in Hong Kong (at the Golden Supermarket) of quite reasonable quality. Dear Sir, Congratulations on your enterprise in starting up your Apple magazine. | too have considerable faith in the potential of the Apple computer and feel that it has not been anywhere nearly fully exploited. Further to your reply to M.H. Knight in the December issue, | have found the need of a randomize function in Applesoft. However the reply given will not completely solve the problem. If the program concerned is called without any intervening pause for user input (INPUT or GET), the random number will not be ran- domized. Whenever the Apple is waiting for input, it cycles through a loop simply incrementing locations 78 & 79. The short menu program included below includes the randomize rou- tine. To ensure that the user does not anticipate the choice and thereby defeat the randomizing process, the “clear keyboard strobe” command “POKE 49168,0" is included in line 30. | have included two versions of the program - the first written using the package “PROGRAM DEVELOP- MENT SYSTEM” that | have pro- duced - the second being the resulting translated Applesoft version. The PROGRAM DEVELOPMENT SYSTEM consists of a number of programs, the main ones being EDIT, similar in response to the Editor in the U.C.S.D. Pascal system and MAFT (Make Applesoft From Textfile) for translating the resulting textfile into Applesoft. My system makes it much easier to produce efficient Applesoft programs. Walter D. Bartlett, Mount Nelson. Source Program written by EDIT 10 { -------------------- : ! MENU INCORPORATING ! RANDOMIZE FUNCTION ! WRITTEN BY: ! WALTER D. BARTLETT ! 19-MAR-84 DS=CHRS (4) :HS=CHRS(S): VTAB 3:HTAB 6: INVERSE: PRINT"PROGRAMS AVAILABLE NORMAL: PRINT: N=0: RESTORE 20 READ PROGS: IF LEN(PROGS) N=N+1: PRINT" N" .. PRINT: GOTO 20 30 PRINT" YOUR CHOICE C POKE 49168,0 40 GET CHOICES: CHOICE=VAL (CHOICES): ON CHOICE<1 OR CHOICE>N GOTO 40: PRINT CHOICE: RESTORE: FOR I=1 TO CHOICE: READ PROGS: NEXT: I=RND ( -PEEK (78) -256%PEEK(79)): PRINT D®"RUN“PROGS ARE THEN "“PROGS: 1 "HHS; : 50 ! ! CHOICES ' DATA "SPELLING GAME" , "NUMBER FUN" , "POLAR BASE" 60 ! ! TERMINATE LIST : DATA Running Program as translated by MAFT 10 TEXT : HOME :D® CHR® (4):H $ = CHR® (8): VTAB 3: HTAB 6: INVERSE : PRINT "PROGRAMS AVAILABLE ARE:": NORMAL : PRINT iN = 0: RESTORE 20 READ PR®: IF LEN (PR®) THEN N=N# PRINT " "N" 2. " PRS: PRINT : GOTO 20 30 PRINT " YOUR CHOICE [ 1"H SHB}: POKE 49168,0 40 so 60 USE NAMES IN DATA TO PRINT UP MENU, COUNTING NUMBER OF ALTERNATIVES. ASK USER FOR CHOICE BUT DON’T LET HIM ANTICIPATE. ACCEPT USER’S CHOICE DON’T ALLOW ILLEGAL CHOICE ECHO CHOICE FIND MATCHING PROGRAM NAME RANDOMIZE RUN CHOSEN PROGRAM GET CH®:CH = VAL (CHS): ON C H < 1 OR CH > N GOTO 40: CH: RESTORE : FOR I = 1 TOC READ PR®: NEXT :I = RND ( - PEEK (78) - 256 * PEEK (79))t PRINT D®"RUN"PRS DATA “SPELLING GAME", "NUMBER FUN", "POLAR BASE" DATA PRINT 25 ARTICLE Confessions (of an Apple addict) by Graeme “Phar Lap” Philipson saw my first Apple || computer in I 1979. This was only five years ago, but five years is an eternity in microcomputing. This Apple I! was at a microcomputer show in Sydney's Lower Town Hall, a remarkable event before virtually anybody had heard of small computers. The first articles had begun to appear in the press, but it was still less than a speck on the horizon. In those days | was_ selling computers for one of the larger and less innovative computer companies. | was very disillusioned, mainly because we were expected to sell those old magnetic stripe accounting machines for over $10,000. When | saw my first microcomputer | was dumbfounded. It could do everything some mainframes | had seen could do, and certainly a lot more than an accounting machine. The future, | realised, had arrived. The Apple | saw at that first ever computer show was running an early conversational program called “Eliza” (that's Lisa with a “Z” — the wheel turns full circle), designed to simulate a human conversation. It was a long way from the ideal of artificial in- telligence, in which the test is whether you can tell from the answers if you are talking to_a machine or not, but it was, in 1979, very impressive. | became an Apple addict. Apple the best There were other microcomputers around at that time. There was the first Tandy TRS-80, affectionately (and otherwise) known as the Trash-80, because of its excruciatingly cheap low-grade grey plastic appearance, and its nasty habit of not working very well. The other machine in the running was the Commodore PET, which never seemed to quite make it in this country. One of its main problems was the many different and non-compatible ROM chips that the makers kept putting in the machine without telling anybody. These machines weren't too bad, but 26 anybody could see that Apples were best. This is where it's at, | told myself. Immediately | resigned from my job and took up a position selling Apples for Rudi Hoess’s fledging Com- puterland/Electronic Concepts or ganization. These were exciting times. We saw public awareness of microcomputers double every few months, as it is still today. | now consider myself very fortunate to have been with Apples from such an early time: | remember the first Visicalc, the first disk drives, the first Corvus hard disk, the first execrable word processing and accounting programs. In 1980 | saw the first 80- column card, a very rudimentary device which gave barely legible spiderlike characters on the then very expensive video screens which were available. Apple Pioneers All the time | craved my own machine, but they were still quite expensive, out of reach to all but the most well-heeled or dedicated private individuals. Still, in the course of my job selling and demonstrating these machines | was able to indulge most of my computer fantasies. | gradu- ated from Little Brick Out to Sargon and Apple Bowl. | began to marvel at the capabilities of word processors and the power of spreadsheets. And | saw firsthand some of the things people were using Apples for: @ A small country building society used four financial terminals, e A professional punter used his Apple to store racing data and perform his involved calculations; e@ An amateur magician cross- referenced his tricks, and soon had a full-time job writing programs for other people; @ A doctor stored information on his patients. There were many more, and this was over four years ago. Micro- computers had definitely arrived, but most people had never heard of them. They were halcyon days for we Apple salesmen, there was no competition, either from other com- puters or from other Apple dealers. Apples as The end of innocence Then things began to get com- plicated. On a trip to the States in 1980 | witnessed the launching of the Apple ///, that ill-fated machine which signalled the end of inno- cence. With the release of that machine, and the entry into the market of all these other micro- computers, the Apple Il was no longer unique. There were other pretenders to the crown. Things really began to change in Australia around the beginning of 1981. The retailing explosion began, and everybody began selling micro- computers of one sort or another. The Apple || was still the biggest seller, though. It became enormously popular. The fledgling Apple Users Group became a very large organi- sation, and soon there were nearly a hundred Apple dealers in the country. With growth came problems. The very popularity of the Apple II led to problems with fakes and compati- bility. Dealers experienced big problems with discounting, and the newer machines coming out were starting to make Apple's technology look old. Still the one But still the Apple II, in its newer /le eS form, is one of the best selling computers in the world. This fact is testament to the brilliance of Steve Wozniak, the machine’s designer. The design is so simple and so flexible that peripheral cards can expand the capabilities to do virtually anything you want. These newer machines, the IBMs and Japanese jobs with their bells and whistles, are mo great advance on an Apple Il. They have more memory and a better keyboard and greater disk storage and 16 bits, but an Apple II will still do most of the things they will. Apple have announced more upgrades for the machine, and the word is that they plan to continue production for another five years at least. - | bought myself an Apple, or more correctly bought the bits and assembled a reasonable facsimile of one in a nice varnished wooden cabinet. | am still an Apple addict. When | left the jungle of retail computer sales for the only mar ginally loftier world of journalism and important to me now than ever. What do | do with it? Word processing mostly, with lan Phillips’ incom- parable “Zardax” program. | have learnt and demonstrated and sold and been demonstrated dozens of word processing programs on scores of different computers, but this little program on my old Apple |! is still as good as any I've seen. It doesn’t have some of the others’ fancy features or clever interfaces, but in terms of sheer usability it has few equals. Besides, I'm used to it and I'm very biased. I've got a stack of programs in my tray which | keep beside my machine, but | rarely have cause to use any of them. Visicalc gets trotted out occasionally, as does one of the small database programs. | use Zofarrys excellent “Cashbook” pro- gram to balance my chequebook. lve got a small collection of horse- racing programs which | keep for my own amusement. There's heaps of games, but games get boring after a Scrabble” (it still amazes me that a machine can play that game) and “Gammon Gambler’, but my favourite remains “Crisis Mountain’, never a big hit in this country but enormously popular in the States, and rightly so. The fact that my brother-in-law wrote the thing has absolutely nothing to do with it. No machine is as loved as the Apple II. Those that understand and appreciate such things love the elegance of its design and the sheer artistry of its original concept and execution. You can tell who they are — theyre the ones who dismiss the newfangled //e as a bastard half- brother and steadfastly stick with their old revision B motherboard. No machine has ever been, or will ever be, as significant or as long lasting. | like to think of it as the Model-T Ford of computing: it gave the power of a new technology to the masses, and radically altered our concept of the world. Such is the stuff that history is 27 commentary my Apple became more short time. | like “Monty Plays made of. a TIPS AND TECHNIQUES PAUSE ROUTINES Any one of these routines can be inserted where you want a program to pause. 200 PRINT RESS ANY KEY TO CONTINUE "ay: GET ANS: PRINT 400 INPUT “PRESS RETURN TO CONTINUE "3 ANS 100 110 SFACE BAR TO CONTINUE "y: GET ANS: PRINT 20 CHRS (27) THEN PRINT CHRS¢ GOTO Loo 700 V1 gio "PRESS y TO CONTINUE "ss GET ANS: PRINT pizo CHR (89) THEN PRINT CHRS(7): GOTO loo COMMENTS: (in the FAUSE ROUTINES do net need the SEMI-COLON after GET. CHR#(27) is bthe ASCII code for ‘SF » CHRS(89) is the ASCII code for the letter By « You can use any number between 65 and 90 to obtain a letter of the ‘aiphabet. 65 = A. 90 = Z a PROGRAMMING Special function keys for the Apple by Derek Chan ne of the reasons for the initial popularity of the Apple computer when it was first introduced in 1977 was the openness of its design. It was favoured by hobbyists (who were the only people interested in microcomputers in those days) because they could have easy access to the hardware and the internal software that controls the operations of the Apple. Conse- quently, opportunities abound for enthusiasts to modify and customise their Apple to their own liking. In this article, we shall look at how the Apple handles inputs from the keyboard, and use this knowledge to add some very convenient features to the Apple keyboard. These days, the keyboards of recently introduced microcomputers are loaded with user-convenient special function keys which provide single key stroke commands. Indeed, if one has a couple of hundred dollars to spare, one can purchase for the Apple an IBM PC look-alike keyboard which has separate special keys for DOS commands such as RUN, LIST, CATALOG etc. This is something very nice to _ have. However, if all you have is a few minutes to spare, the short machine language program in this article will provide you with such ieatures and more besides! What the program will do This program will enable you to type in commonly used DOS commands (CATALOG etc) and Applesoft reserved words (INPUT, FOR, NEXT etc) using the control characters. For example, typing controll will cause the word INPUT to appear exactly as though you have just typed it in from the keyboard character by character — but it only takes a small fraction of the time. Great news for the hunt and peckers! The list of keywords and the control characters which represent them are given in the Table. | have also included some hints to assist in 28 remembering which keyword is associated with the various keys. Putting stickers on the keys is fine in the short term, but eventually they tend to gum up the works (pun intended). Notice that not all the available control characters are used. Some are used by Apple for special purposes (namely control-C,D,G,H, J,K,M,S,U,X), while the remainder have been reserved for future program development in this series. To type in this program, first ensure that DOS has been booted, then enter the MONITOR by typing CALL -151 when you will see the prompt *. Now simply type in each line of the hex code as it appears in the Listing - begin each line with the line number, to be followed immedi- ately by a colon (:) and then the first 2 digit hex code and so on. After checking each line carefully, ter minate it with a RETURN and then continue on with the next line. If an error is discovered in an earlier line, simply retype the offending line. After entering the program, type 3DOG to return to Applesoft. Save the program on disk using the command: ] BSAVE CUSTOM KEYS, A$9500, L$FF To use the control character utility program, simply BRUN it from disk after booting DOS. Better still, BRUN it in your HELLO program. This program can be temporarily dis- connected by a RESET or a CALL 38164. It can be enabled by a CALL 38144. When BRUNed from disk, this program will be located in memory just below DOS at starting address $9500 (hex). It also protects itself from being trampled upon by Applesoft by resetting HIMEM This program will work on an Apple II plus with DOS 3.3, an Apple work-alike (provided it is sufficiently alike) or an Apple lle in the 40 column mode. It is incompatible with the Apple Ile 80 column firmware which uses many of the control characters to provide special 80 column functions. In a future article, the special features of the Apple Ile will be used to provide the control key functions mentioned here with more enhancements. How does the program work Inputs to the Apple via the keyboard are handled by programs in the ROM (Read Only Memory). One such subroutine, called KEYIN ($FD1B) has the job, among others, of returning the hex code of the input character in the A-register of the 6502 microprocessor. The program that calls KEYIN actually only jumps to the subroutine whose two byte address is stored in the two zero page registers KSWL ($38) and KSWH ($39) for the low and high byte respectively. These two memory locations are called Key SWitches (hence KSW). On a normal startup, the address of KEYIN ($FD1B) is stored in KSW (KSWL ($38) contains the low byte $1B and KSWH ($39) contains the high byte $FB) and this is how KEYIN is accessed. This arrangement, called an Input Link, may seem a trifle convoluted at first. However, by using this design instead of calling KEYIN directly, the creators of Apple have given us the flexibility to insert the address of our OWN program at KSW. We can then make the subroutine call to KEYIN - WITHIN OUR OWN PROGRAM. In short we can take over the control of the Apple from the standard routines in ROM. Now when KEYIN returns the input character in the A-register, we can proceed on to the next stage of our program depending on the outcome of tests on the content of the A-register. To illustrate the above idea, consider the following short as- sembler program located at $0800. This program is intended to do “something special” when contro-A is typed in at the keyboard, but do nothing otherwise: KSWL EPZ $38 KSWH EPZ $39 KEYIN EQU $FD1B 0800:A9 OC LDA #$0C = set input links 0802:85 38 STA KSWL = to $080C 0804:A9 08 LDA #$08 0806:85 39 STA KSWH 0808:20 EA 03 JSR $03EA < inform DOS 080B:60 RTS 080C:201BFD JSR KEYIN = get input character O80F:C9 81 CMP #$81 «ts it contro-A? 0811:D0 F9 BNE $080B = NO, return Dron + YES, do “something special” In line $0808 the call to $03EA is to inform DOS that we have changed fhe input link or else the Apple will “hang”. Upon return from KEYIN, the content of the X-register gives the position of the next character to be Stored in the input line buffer, and ‘an be used accordingly; otherwise Me content of the X-register should ‘Be restored upon exit from the users program. Imaginative application of the ‘eas discussed above will let you rave the Apple at your fingertips. Happy bit grinding! Key control V control L control R control F control N control Z control T control A control E control O control P control B control Y control | 4 control W Hint disk Volume List Run For Next Ztep Then CcAll pEek pOke Plot gosuB Y looks like a branch Input Applesoft treats ? as PRINT Wipes screen Window oO #9500, 9SFF 9500- 9508- 9510- 9518 9520- 9528- 9520- 9538- 9540- 9548- 9550- 9558- 9560- 9568- 9570- 9578- 9580- 9588- 9590- 9598- 95A0- 95AB- 9SBO- 9SBB- 95C0- 95C8- 9SDO— 95D8- 95EO— I5E8— 9SrO— 9SF8- oie Ag 20 94 Ag 9D 20 60 21 BO 84 88 C9 BA FO E7 C9 29 Adventurer’s Corner with Ed Mehrtens Zork | ork | is the first in a trilogy (although rumours persist of a Zork IV) by Infocom. Zork is so popular, there are even buttons available with the message “| AM A ZORK GROUPIE”, “I LOVE ZORK’, "ZORKERS DO IT UNDER THE RUG” and ‘’D RATHER BE ZORKING”. In Zork the object is to collect 19 treasures and place them in a trophy case. This plus other actions will get you a maximum score of 350. Of course getting or even finding the treasures is not easy and there are monsters to overcome. The first monster you will meet is a Troll, who will try to chop you into small pieces with his axe, then the Thief, who will rob you blind, plus others. There are puzzles and mazes to solve, secret passages to find, monsters to overcome and magic to learn. You will need the save game feature, and anyone claiming to have completely solved it on the first try had better have proof of his claim. For the adventure of your life, roll back the rug, check your sword and lamp then down through the trapdoor. Giving clues is always difficult, as just writing the answers would ruin an excellent game for everyone, so the method requires some effort on your part. The form was adapted from that used by Scott Adams. If you have a problem read the questions, and if your question is here it will be followed by a series of numbers. These numbers correspond to words in a table following the questions, so transpose the words for the numbers and you have an answer. Please note, only the more difficult parts are given and even then sometimes only enough to point you in the right direction. Draining the dam is one part where the whole sequence is not given: My thanks to Ted Harper, who provided most of the clues for Zork 1 Zork I clues (1) Can't open the egg? 35,1, 43,13,24. (2) Can't open the grate? 1, 55,4,9,1,49. (3) Want to kill the Thief? 39, 27,6's,31,19,52,8,29,16. (4) Trouble with the 45,11,33,15,22,56. (5) More trouble with the Cyclops? 637. (6) Want to kill the Cyclops? 31 ,19,46. (7) Looking for the Temple? 25, 54,9,38,3. Cyclops? 30 (8) Trouble with 20,8,57,3’s. (9) Dead and at Hades? 48,5,1,34. (10) Can't go between the two? 26,57 (11) The bat is a problem? 25,53 (12) Can't empty the dam? 58 9,1 30,3. (13) Can't remove the gold coffin? 13,24,30,1,34,22,48. (14) Can't find a boat? 36,5,1, 47,59,1,32. (15) Can't find a pump? 36,9,1 32. the mirror? 51, The Treasures Are you missing the: (16) Pot of Gold? 41,10,5,50. (17) Platinum bar? 6,44. (18) Emerald? 36,5,1,28. (19) Crystal skull? 25,7,42,22,17,5,14. (20) Chalice? 9,1,43's,23. (21) Scarab? 2,60,12,5,40,21. (22) Diamond? 25,18,9,23. (23) Scepter? 36,9,63. Code Words (1) the (2) dig (3) room (4) is (5) at (6) say (7) bell (8) two (9) in (10) scepter (11) likes (12) shovel (13) take (14) Hades (15) eat (16) wounds (17) candle (18) machine (19) can (20) are (21) cave (22) and (23) coal mine (24) it (25) use (26) rub (27) diagnose (28) buoy (29) serious (30) maintenance (31) you (32) dam (33) to (34) altar (35) let (36) look (37) Ulysses (38) dome (39) when (40) sandy (41) wave (42) book (43) thief (44) echo (45) he (46) not (47) base (48) pray (49) maze (50) rainbow (51) there (52) survive (53) garlic (54) rope (65) key (66) drink (67) mirror (68) play (59) of (60) with (61) machine (62) lair (63) coffin (64) wind (65) forest (66) clockwork canary a SOFTWARE REVIEW It’s raining programs for Macintosh ne of the problems we have Or when testing the Mac- intosh is that the only programs available for it in Australia heretofore have been Apple Writer, MacPaint and Multiplan. One of the problems we have faced when testing the Macintosh is that the only programs available for it in Australia heretofore have been Apple Writer, MacPaint and Multiplan. No one loves Bill Gates’ products more than we do, but he would be the first to admit that MultiPlan will not be the greatest thing since sliced bread on the Macintosh until those 256K RAM chips are retrofitted, giv- ing us a decent memory to play with. And while the powers of the word processing system are awesome, we have difficulty in seeing what Mac- Paint is for. Sure, it allows you to pro- duce beautiful doodles — but we do it better, quicker and cheaper with a pencil. Therefore, when we learned of the full range of goodies that will be available for that machine in the near future - many of them to coincide with the Australian release of the machine - we were overjoyed. Let us share that enjoyment. Thinktank First there is “ThinkTank”, a software package designed to help big business honchos (and would-be Bia business honchos) plan, or anise and devise strategies. It inter- ces with other Macintosh Programs. You develop a_ project using “ThinkTank” and then transfer it jlo a word processing program so Mat it can look pretty. Sounds good us. PFS The whole of the PFS family is Geing upgraded to Macintosh use. In ®uth, we don't go overboard for the PFS word processing system, but the test of their products are the state of He art PFS:File and PFS:Report are the siars in their galaxy. Macintosh personal computer system The president of the company res- ponsible, Fred Gibbons, says “The program will provide the user with the ability to utillse the mouse to reduce keyboard input and to move instan- taneously to any position on the screen or any position within a PFS form.” We think he is saying the mouse will mean less typing. Fantasy games have their enthusi- asts, and from SirTech (marketing director Robert Sirotek, we kid thee not) comes their best seller “Wi zardry’ fantasy game in Macintosh format. It has been totally rewritten to take advantage of the Mac’s sophis- ticated new features. Simon and Schuster, that august American hardcover publishing house, has an electronic publishing division who have produced a Typing Tutor Ill for the Mac, plus a typing tutor type game called “Letter Invaders”. From BPI will come four business accounting packages. Mark you, these will be for American business and accounting practices and they will need to be modified before they are released in Australia. Mastertype From Scarborough Systems comes “Run for the Money” by Tom Snyder. This is basically a Monopoly clone in electronic drag. From the same publishers will come “Master type” (the only educational program ever to sell more than 100,000 copies, says the press release), and “Songwriter’ which allows you to write songs whilst knowing nothing about musical theory or notation, thus encouraging a trend which: has become distressingly obvious in pop- ular music over the past ten years. They also have “PictureWriter” which they say “makes drawing and colouring fun for the children”. For this they need a computer? And colouring fun? On a black and white monitor? PR hype is all very well, but this is ridiculous. From the same colour blind publishers comes “Phi Beta Filer’, a database which is extremely simple to use, and “PatternMaker” which, logically enough, allows children to draw patterns on the screen. From Naru Enterprises comes a 31 TUTORIALS PARENTS! TOP — RATED SOFTWARE! DAY BREAK een. “SOFTWARE FROM MICRO NATIONWIDE Now you can choose from a variety of the most wanted pro grams-TUTORIALS, EDUCATIONAL GAMES. DISCOVERY ACTIVITIES, and more . . . all from MICRO NATIONWIDE PTY LTO. PRODUCERS OF FINE EDUCATIONAL PRO- GRAMMES. MICRO NATIONWIDE'S NEW DAYBREAK divi- sion offers superior programs designed for children of various ages and abilities at home! The programs are all self-directing. No adult supervision is necessary. Tutorial programs are all self-correcting Programs are all self-motivating All programs are level-adjustable. Parent or child can vary their complexity and create new challenges as the child progresses. The Programs Your Child Needs Most! AGE TITLE, ORDER NO and DESCRIPTION PRICE 3-5 DISCOVER! (DB-2000) — Directionality. colors, body parts with "spints.” Cue cards allow child to work independently. (not available on TRS-80) 37.95 7 &up PERPLEXITY (DB-3000) — Classic puz- zles challenge problem solving, logic and organisational skills. Several levels of diffi culty 37.95 7&up MATH BASEBALL (DB-4000 — Builds basic math skills. Several levels of difficul- ty 37.95 10 & up REGIONS oi the US (DB-5000) — Game- like program teaches major cities, land forms, products, and climates 39.95 98&up ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION OF WHOLE NUMBERS (08-4030) 37.95 9&up MULTIPLICATION AND DIVISION OF WHOLE NUMBERS (D8-4031) 37.95 9&up ADDITION AND SUBTRACTION OF FRACTIONS (DB-4032) 37.95 10&up MULIPLICATION AND DIVISION OF FRACTIONS (D8-4033) 37.95 128up SIMPLE ALGERBRAIC EQUATIONS (DB- 4055) — 3 programs of progressively diti- cult levels 39.95 Level | — one variable, one operation. Level li — one variable, two operations, frequent use of parenthesis Level Ill — variable on both sides Programs available on Apple II or Ile. When ordering, please specify computer model To order write or telephone, send cheque money order or charge to Bankcard, American Express, Visa or Diners Club Include card number, expiration date and signature Dealer Enquiries Welcome To order or to send for our free catalogue write to: FREEPOST 2, Micro Nationwide Pty Ltd, PO Box 653, Mona Vale, NSW, 2103, Or telephone (02) 99-1772 (02) 997-3317. 32 SOFTWARE REVIEW press release refreshing in its hones- ty. They say: “Although every software manufacturer will disagree with one or another aspect of Apple's stan- dards, the benefits of adherence so far outweigh the disadvantages that we may look forward to the Macin- tosh being the first computer that will, in fact, be as easy to operate as the sales demonstration implies.” They will be issuing a database, tentatively called “FileFinder’. Naru point out that because the Macintosh uses a 32 bit chip the limitations of the number of field and record storage types will be a function of the mass storage hardware, not the software. The people at Naru seem intelligent, amiable coves. We look forward with great anticipation to test ing their software. Macintosh MacWrite booklet Microsoft programs Microsoft have, of course, been in the forefront of getting programs up and running for the Mac. They have Multiplan; MicroSoft Chart, a busi ness graphics program; MicroSoft File, a database; and their own word processiing program “The Word” which we are still playing with and will review in a future issue. As well MicroSoft have produced MBASIC for the Macintosh, which takes full advantage of the large direct -addressing capability of the Macintosh's Motorola 68000 micro- processor. It is source code compat ible with all standard versions of MicroSoft Basic, which means that a whole slew of programs can be transferred with ease. From Megahaus comes MegaFin- der, another data base program. Lotus are making Lotus 1-2-3 avail able on the Mac (you could really do with the expanded memory for that). InfoCom will let you get as annoyed at Zork on a Mac.as you did on any other machine. They have a stack of other programs in the same mould. infuriating, intellectually stimulating, addictive. Macintosh instruction manual Human Edge (has it occurred to you that there must at some time be a Emit to how many software house mames the human imagination can conjure up?) have a set of programs Shortly to be released which are Basically designed to help the sales- man in his job. We take the unpopular view that selling is a pro- fession that requires intelligence, mental discipline and_ innovative ‘eas. Anything that can help we Greatly welcome. Habadec have transferred the Giary and the telephone directory to te computer. We always thought that Going these sort of chores elec- Bonically was silly until the Mac tame along. If the idea is that the Mac is part of the office furniture and temains switched on all day with the Screen suitably dimmed, then this _ Sori of program makes logical sense. Ai it needs is interfacing with a voice module and you can have messages Mee “Hustle along now and get @ressed - your wife is due in ten minutes.” f Desktop Software are introducing 2 database that can be programmed wath no previous skills, unlike, say, DBase |! which requires the abilities What's a revolution without a demonstration? A Lisa demonstration, that is. It’s our way of introducing you to Lisa, Apple’s revolutionary new personal computer. So powerful, it lets you control many major management functions at one time. And so simple you can run it with one hand (Literally!). All of which you’ll experience for yourself, at Zofarry Enterprises. So come and see Lisa. It’s the best step into the future. ZOFARRY ENTERPRISES PTY. LTD. Commercial Microcomputer Systems Corner of Burwood & Parramatta Roads, Burwood 2134 PHONE 745 1888 33 SOFTWARE REVIEW of a trained programmer to extract its full. use. Fast Track is part of a group of application packages’ which allow you to control inventory, manage your time better and redesign your office. “Look, D.S., don’t you think it would be better to put the bar over there behind the indoor plants? Then you can keep on serving your visitors the same lousy lukewarm coffee in card- board cups.” We like it. Who wants to be a millionaire? With “Millionaire”, “Tycoon” and “Baron” you can grind the faces of the poor into the dust and become as rich as ... Wozniak and Jobs. Has it ever occurred to you that the per sonal computer industry produces more millionaires who are reasonable human beings than any other? Sure, there are some horrors. But compare personal computing with advertising and retailing and the honchos of the silicon chip come out covered in glory. One program it is unlikely we will see here unless it is heavily modified Underneath of Apple mouse camel - _ = -_ _ / _ Aurora Systems “is a decision sup- port tool designed to help the finan- cial service industry cope with the deregulation”. For Australia many changes will be needed. They will have to delete the whole section on ethics as a start. For farmers Finally, from AgDisk are coming 23 programs for farmers. Cut to scene of manure covered farmer slowly strangling mouse as screen reads “C'mon Elmer, time to slop out them hogs.” The first Mac book as far as we know comes from Dilithium Press and it is “Presenting the Macintosh” by Merl Miller. And the first add-on to be announced comes from Tecmar in Cleveland Ohio with an expansion board to provide additional serial ports. Apple are spitting into the wind if they think they will ever produce a machine that someone, somewhere is nat going to modify. Even if they have to use a hacksaw to open it up to get their new board in. That is the way of human nature. And not, in is CRTplus, which according to new competitive climate caused by itself, a bad thing. DIRECT SUBSCRIPTION The Australian Apple Review Please enrol me for ... issues subscription to the Australian Apple Review, commencing with the ... ... issue. | enclose postal order/cheque for$...... Name:... Address:. . . Postcode ... (Please print in BLOCK letters) Rates within Australia Subscription rate for 6 issues $18.00 Subscription rate for 12 issues $36.00 The Australian Apple Review Top Rear, 4 Carrington Rd, Randwick, NSW 2031. 34 by Gareth Powell pple, rightly or wrongly, have A had the appearance of being run by a bunch of laid Back college graduates who were great at designing machines - but not too hot on administration: Now there is a new look at Apple. They have seen that the personal computer market is not going to be roses, roses all the way. They now Seem to clearly understand that designing genius needs to be Sacked up by marketing competence and administrative know-how. No single person exemplifies, that mew direction of Apple so well as John Cavalier. His official title is Vice President, Apple Computer Inc, in charge of sales and marketing for the Americas, the Far East, Australasia and Africa. For Apple he is a very unusual sort ‘of executive indeed. He is no longer ® his twenties. He wears suits. And he has had considerable experience jm the marketplace as President of Atari Products Company, a division of lari Inc. In appearance John Cavalier Woks like a cross between Hoagy Carmichael and a_ disappointed Bloodhound. He _ speaks fluently, expertly and cogently. He does not Tesitate to agree that there have Geen, and there still are, faults in the Apple organisation. But he is very Persuasive when he speaks of what % being done to right these faults. Speaking to John Cavalier, you fealise for the first time that Apple have started to acquire the adminis- ®ation and marketing know-how that fas made IBM's entry into the Personal computer market such a Great success. The Macintosh Plainly the first subject of great ©oncern is the Macintosh. In a limited Sense, the future of Apple rests on its fortunes. It was said that the first Hundred days would see whether the Macintosh was a success or not. John Cavalier said: “Our target wes to sell 50,000 Macs in the first hundred days. In fact, we have orders for 70,000 and we would have been able to sell more if we had been able to make them. Our new factory is building up to full speed and we will soon be running two shifts. Sales are spread evenly among universities, regular dealerships, with quite a few large orders from big businesses. We've seen success in a lot of different channels. As we've passed our target for the hundred days before the hundred days are nearly over the Mac can be considered to be a major success.” John Cavalier was not, however, as certain as to who was buying the machine, who the actual end user was. Obviously, the first major push was through universities, which have taken to the machine in a big way. But the other users are not so well defined “| don't think we know yet the precise purposes the Mac is being bought for — but if | had to guess I'd say as a personal business com- puter. My intuition tells me that. | don't think corporations are into it yet except for Peat, Marwick and Mitchell who place