Hardcore Volume 6 No. 1 1986 02 BASUG GB

BRITISH-APPLE: SYSTEMS: USER-GR ‘GROUP Hereford & Worcestershire's gesolng s pppie Systematics ICE Symbiotics Special rates for BASUG members SEE US AT APPLE SHOW '86 =eltip somputers Campion House, Franchise Street, Kidderminster, Worcs,. DY11 6RE Telephone (0562) 744377 One to One box no. 15074001 Committee Members Vol 6: No 1 February 1986 HARDCORE Jim Panks Chairman | ‘pon i Spey The Journal of the British Apple Systems User Group | Graham Attwood Software Library PO Box 177, St Albans, Herts AL2 2EG Richard Boyd The Force Keith Chamberlain Membership oe a Ewen Wannop Special Release William Watson Steering Tom Wright Steering | | CONMNIS URALION _ Applez announce Mac\mosh Sheila Hirst — Plus. Administration Telephone Number SR Abate (NTE) TD BASUG BULLETIN BOARD Tony Game: A wolf in sheeps clothing. 1 1Meg RAM- 128k ROM - Double Sided 800k Disk New Keyboard +New SCSl Interface Ful feport on Apple launch - page 4) WARES (Cf) PTE (7-9p.m. MONDAY-FRIDAY) L HOTLINE DIY Workstation _ a ie : : Dave Ward: A useful piece of furniture. | errata | : 8 All you need to know, Founder Members of the Association of Computer Clubs COPYRIGHT : The Contents of this journal are copyright of the British Apple Systems User FLIPPER 1 Meg Apple ][ Board Wham the Apple al heads off in to space. Full review - page 7 Group, and/or the respective authors. However permission is granted for non-commercial reproduction by user groups, provided that the author and source are properly credited. The opinions and views expressed are those of the various contributors, and are not necessarily ‘New Bulletin Board | _BABBS Mika - - now In aclass ofits own. Report on this BASUG service, supported by the British Apple Systems User Group. | APPLE is the registered trademark of Apple Computers Inc. Telecom Gold is a trademark of British Telecom pic. THE FORCE is a trademark of the British Apple Systems User Group Ltd. Appleworks Feature. Setting up Flipper - Five Books - Hints & Tips | See Contents on page 2 | The Copy for this issue was prepared on a f[ is Te i Macintosh using PageMaker by Aldus - the | Disk Zaps (Part 1) S | artwork was printed on Imagewriter and i 0 : | Laserwriter printers. Thanks to A.M.P. Computers ' A beginners article on ‘Disk Manager | for use of the Laserwriter and Celtip Computers, | i Newsades | Kidderminster and Ivan Knezovich for help with | Pagemaker. The front cover and HARDCORE logo were designed and prepared by Stefan Mucha. Beginners BASIC A new series on using BASIC © | For the experienced and not to exoerionced, | Hardcore February 1986 | a | | Contents | Editorial | | } 1 ot E Editorial 2 Well | have rewritten this at the last minute, your Hardcore is Committee News \.Flaxman 3 packed with features this issue, | just hope the photographs Macintosh Plus J.Panks 4 come out all right !!!. Those were the days E.Wannop 6 Flipper 1MEG Ram Board-Reviow D.Ward 7 The new member of the Apple family has been officially Course News 9 released and with it a new air of expectancy over what Apple Membership & Subscription Changes 10 will do next. pendence ed asd During January the committee have been hard at work firstly sale ee liaising with Apple and also getting things ready for the Apple Cones Chess A revel Dewees 17 Show 86 in March and the A.G.M. in April. Details of all these Apple Users Conference 1985 ¥.Panks 20 events are published in the journal and you will also notice Apple /// News J.Panks 20 that you have the audited accounts for 1984/5. Living together (Part 2) N.Amold 21 Letters to the Editor 22 Here at my desk | feel that at long last the group has got DIY Workstation R.Boyd back on its feet after many upsets and like Apple we intend Wishbringer by Infocom T Austin to make 1986 a turning paint in our history. Nett oe esa As 2 Thanks to all those members that responded to the last x Hardcore with articles and comments. | hope that you will The new BASUG BABBS Gane vid forgive the 42 spelling/grammar mistakes that appeared and Local Group News NAmotd the two large errors in the Hotline Number and the date of the Apple // Image Digitising System Dr Bateman meeting at Bewdley. Yes - we all make mistakes and | can't Apple //c Book Review E.Wannop blame the computer - it was human error and | put my hands Apple //e Enhancement Kit K.Kishimoto up to it, Appleworks on the FLIPPER D.Ward 37 Apple /// Nice Machine - No support |. Flaxman 38 Now Apple have left the garage and are getting out in to the Pinpoint - news on new sAware 1.Flaxman 38 fast lane again | am happy to report that the committee had a ‘ennitzan overview E.Wannop 39 very worthwhile meeting at Apple (UK), where views were Beginners Article T.Wright 39 exchanged in a very constructive way. | hope to be able to oy ng report further in the next Hardcore. Mindwheel - An overview GWilday 4 Xmas Word Search Winner 4 Right | hope you all enjoy this issue and also hope to see as Hotline News a many of you as possible at Apple Show 86. Club News - AGM Notice - Apple Show 86 42 MacChat - Starts 43 MacPlus Software Upgrades J.Panks 43 EN Laserwriter Upgrade - In March 46 An experience with ExperLogo: N.Arold 47 Abus fix for MacDraw 1.7 NArnold 47 . Back Page Mutterings 48 April 1986 Issue Copy Date March 5th Many thanks to Blyth Software for providing the group with Omnis 2 for running the new database. Printed by :- Target Litho, Cottenham, Cambridge. Tel: 0954 51189 Please send any contributions to P.O.Box 177, St Albans. — Page 2 Due to circumstances beyond our control we did not publish the DS3 Authors name and the address of Greengate. We apologise to Colin Holgate for this error. The address of Greengate is: Greengate Productions, ‘Bed |(oheeamaznyyatzay) (Dives, |Herva|IH Treeiiegpitivee: (CHUL Sista: Pe MM aki ial Hardcore February 1986 Micro CoMPUurER ConsuLrants Lrp BASUG ACCOUNTS A FULL APPLE IIC SYSTEM Committee News YEAR ENDED 30TH JUNE 1985 This system includes: Along with this issue of Hardcore, all members will have Apple lic received a copy of the Club's accounts for the financial year i 1.7.84 to 30.6.85. pee llc and ic ! hope you will agree that they show a marked improvement Ext. Disk IIc on the previous years’ results, | hope, too that the charts at M llc the front of the accounts help you to better understand the jouse figures. Apple Works The accounts as presented are a straight copy of the Carry Case documents presented by our accountants, Buzzacott & Co. * Colour Modulator | prepared the charts from the data in the accounts, using a Bitstik. FOR ONLY £995.00 (inc VAT, Carriage and Insurance) The improvement in this year's figures is the result of the efforts of the committee during 1984/85, and the new committee which took office at last year's AGM are Special Prices For determined to continue this trend. BASUG Members The one item of cost that seems to me to stand out in the 1984/85 accounts is the Auditors’ fee, which has increased MACINTOSH over the previous year. The auditors’ fees in the accounts are always included as an estimate of the final costs, as the f 2 | full workload is not known until the exercise is completed. The costs of the 1983/84 audit were underestimated, the final charge for the year including some consultancy fees for advising the committee on such topics as a better accountancy system and Companies Act requirements in addition to the preparation of the statutory accounts. The ‘SPECIAL' BUNDLES difference between the estimated and actual fees has been charged in the following year, so that there appears to be an INCL LASERWRITER increase in costs in 1984/85. el [= a The subject has been discussed with the auditors, and we COLOURED RIBBONS AVAILABLE for have taken steps to ensure that as much work as possible is IMAGEWRITER PRINTER ex stock completed internally before data is passed to them for audit. They are satisfied with the standard of our present records, Authorised Apple Dealer and anticipate a reduction in their costs for the year a 1985/86. ware Level One Service Centre You can be assured that your committee are making every Call TODAY for further details effort to ensure that this favourable trend in Basug’s results continues, and that we are looking forward to providing an even better service for our membership. Ascott House, 227 Elliott St Tyldesley, Manchester | hope that you will find the enclosed accounts as + m298DG encouraging as I do. Tel: 0942-8928 1 8 Irene Flaxman - Treasurer - BASUG = Hardcore February 1986 | Macintosh Plus The IBM killer ! Macintosh Plus. The wolf in sheeps clothing. The Macintosh Plus is ready to do battle with any business machine, this new entry into the business market will prove at last that the Mac is no mere toy. The new main board has 1MB of RAM, 128k ROMS and the ability to talk to outside devices via a SCSI port (Small Computer Systems Interface) at a useful speed. The layout has been changed and working from left to right we have the speaker connection followed by the usual Mouse and External Drive. The new SCSI interface in the form of a DB socket is next and then comes the printer and modem port which are now in the form of DIN 8 sockets. These sockets are also used for AppleTalk connections. DIN 8 to the old DB9 adapters are supplied with upgrades. The new main board has 1MB of RAM as standard and allows the upgrade without board swaps to 4MB, the extra memory allows for several applications to be readily available in the Switcher environment. The 128k ROMs have allowed some enhancements of the Font Manager and Quickdraw routines, this together with the new Hierarchical Filing System (HFS) The new 800k drives are double sided and run faster. The keyboard has cursor keys, numeric keypad and a slightly different layout. The rear of the machine has now got the industrial standard SCSI interface which allows up to seven devices to be daisy chained and means that the Mac is now opened up to third party hardware. From the front the machine looks the same except for the new ‘Macintosh Plus’ logo. However turn it around and the back panel is different. Page 4 allows for an increase in speed of 30%. The HFS is not limited to any specific number of files and therefore is only limited by the amount of storage space available. The new ROMs also contain a RAM caching system which allows Users to allocate memory space as a disk cache. The RAM cache is operated from a new Control Panel and allows software code or data to be placed in RAM and reduces the amount of disk access. All the memory is configurable using the new system software. Hardcore February 1986 The new board allows the use of a quick interface called the SCSI, this interface operates at six times the speed of the external disk drive interface and allows up to seven devices to be daisy chained. The SCSI is the beginning of open architecture for the Mac, this approach will allow many more hardware products to be produced by third party manufacturers and will help make the MacPlus a third generation Apple ][. The disk drive is an 800k double sided device which runs twice as quickly as the old 400k drive. The new drive is compatible with the old one so there should be no worry about software already purchased. The new system allows the user to initialise one or both sides of a disk and means that old disks will now be able to hold an extra 400k. The keyboard contains 78 keys and is the same height as the old one. It now includes cursor keys and a numeric keypad. The layout of the keyboard has been changed slightly and keys have now lost the old icons to be replaced with letters like "Return". At the right hand side sits a numeric keypad similar in looks to the old add-on version. The cursor keys have been placed at the bottom right-hand side of the normal keyboard and these will make using spreadsheets and word processors easier. The return key has been enlarged and now looks more like the old American version. Other changes include the enlargement of the option and command key and the placement of the enter key on to the numeric key pad. The space bar is smaller to allow the cursor keys to sit to the right of it. The toel of the keyboard is almost the same as the old one, very crisp. Trying to compare is difficult because my own keyboard has taken a fair amount of punishment and is quite slack now. MacNormal 128k or $512k to MacPlus. Many members who already own Mac's will like the news of an upgrade path and | put the question of how Users with non-Apple upgrades would fair. Again Apple have good news, the upgrade path is available to those with 512k non Apple upgrades - however more of that later. The upgrade path is via three separate upgrades: 1, Macintosh Plus Disk Drive Upgrade, The first upgrade is to change the ROMs and the old drive - this allows full Software compatibility with the MacPlus and gives the benefits of a full upgrade without the extra memory and SCSI interface. You therefore get a new set of ROMs, a double sided 800k disk drive, a system disk and a manual, You need this upgrade to use the new 800k external drive. The cost has not been announced yet but in the U.S. it will be around $300. This will be the first upgrade kit and essential before anything else can be done. Page 5 2. Macintosh Logic Board Upgrade. The next step after you have had the disk drive upgrade is to have the second upgrade which is a logic board swap. This entails the New ROMs from the first upgrade being placed in a new logic board containing the 1MB. You also get a new tear housing containing the new SCSI interface, a cable adapter for the new DB8 sockets and a MacPlus Owners Manual. After this upgrade you have a MacPlus minus the keyboard. The prices are not announced yet but in the U.S. the price is put at between $600 and $800. 3. Macintosh Plus Keyboard. The last stage of this upgrade path is the new keyboard, this will allow you to use the cursor keys with new software. | Should point out that you can actually use this keyboard once you have the new ROMs. The price is again not fixed yet, but in the U.S. they are talking of about $125 - $150. Before you all get worked up about this remember US prices are nowhere near UK prices and hopefully Apple will try and stick to 1.4 dollars to the pound. Upgrade Policy. The obvious worry for non Apple upgrade owners has been in my opinion solved very well. At the Press Launch on the 14th January Apple said the prices for the new logic board will be structured . If you at present own a Mac 512k or an official upgrade then you will pay £?. On the other hand if you have a Mac128k or an unofficial Mac 512k you will pay a higher price for the upgrade. This approach certainly allows users of unofficial upgrades to come in from the cold and | think that Apple have approached the whole question of upgrades with a sympathetic view and look forward to seeing the new prices. Many of you will have read the exclusive review of the MacPlus in P.C.W. Wellin the next Hardcore you will be able to read a no-holds barred review, Apple have kindly offered a machine for review. | have used the machine for about an hour at the press launch, and was amazed at the speed increase when using the new HFS to load and save files. My first impression was one of quite delight, it is nice to see an Apple operating better, faster and with more ease than an IBM. So look out IBM - Apple have left the garage and are heading towards you in top gear. STOP PRESS | Prices look like being as follows: Drive & ROMS £220 MacPLUS Board for 512k £450, 128k or non-Apple 512k £550. Keyboard Swap £95. all req 15% V.A.T. Hardcore February 1986 THOSE WERE THE DAYS Confessions of a keyboard junkie Those were the days, the heady days back in 1980, when a disc was something you slipped ... that | first got smitten by the computer bug. | remember it well, | was sat down in front of a funny looking machine called a PET, and instantly | was hooked. When | got home, | devoured all the magazines | could lay my hands on, until the great day that | was able to bring home the large cardboard box with the red Apple on the side. Eagerly | unpacked the cream beast. It was an Apple J[, and it had cost me £950. It was not you appreciate an Apple ][+ or even an Apple Europlus, but the bog standard Apple J[ with Integer Basic. However | had been lucky, the dealer had given me as discount an Applesoft Language card so | could tun things other than Startrek. That was one of those hungry slots filled inside the machine! Luckily, | had bought a cassette machine already, so | was able to load and run the demo programmes packed into the box by Apple. Imagine my surpise when one of the demos actually played a tune .. | had no idea there was any means of making a sound inside the thing, remember my first experience was with a PET! Soon the 16K of memory became too small for me. | wanted to access that second Hi-Res page. You see all you got for your £950 was 16K of RAM... So off | went and bought two sets of 16K RAM chips, at £65 a set, and now had 48K of glorious RAM to play with ... more than anyone could ever need... Well you can imagine what happend next. After spending 20 minutes saving and loading that adventure program in NIBBLE to the cassette, | had to have a disc drive. That was another £275 for the drive, and £65 for the card, and then to cap it all, | had to pay £35 for ten discs! But at least the discs would last me a long time, or so | thought. It was not long before | saw someone copying a disc using two drives. That meant | had to have another drive. Off | went to London, and eventually found the house in a back street of Streatham, where | had heard there was a small new firm selling Apple peripherals. My first contact with Pete and Pam .. That meant another £250 and | had a second disc drive, It was all uphill from there on, more discs to feed the hungry drives. Z80 cards and 80 column cards to feed the hungry slots. 16K RAM cards to give that extra bit of memory. Lower case adaptors, serial cards and goodness knows what, they all poured in the front door looking for a home. The problem then was where to put all the cards, | only had eight slots! Page 6 Some years have passed since then, and Call -151 is firmly embedded in my subconscious. However, now they tell me, that you can get a portable Apple. It has a built in disc drive, and a spare one in case that goes wrong. A whopping 128K of RAM, who on earth needs that much! It has all the keys on the keyboard, no need to be clever now to get ‘[' on the screen. It even has a mouse to keep the crumbs from the insides! And no need | understand for you to find that elusive dealer that sells monitors, as one comes with it. All that for £999. | do not believe it. They will tell me next | can plug an extra 1 megabyte RAM in my Apple J[ if | like. Or even shrink the disc drives to 3 1/4 inches. Pigs will fly .... at least they will, when they have finished scrumping! Ewen Wannop //C ROM Update: How to recognise installation without disassembly. Question: How do you recognise whether or not the new ROM for Unidisk 3.5 is installed in the Apple //c without disassembling the system? Answer: When upgrading a //c, a dealer will affix a small sticker with a 3.5 disk icon on it over the disk connector of the llc. If the sticker is missing and the system is up, the ID byte can be read. On an upgraded //c $FBB3=$06, $FBCO=$00 and $FBBF=$00. Dead systems must be disassembled to check the part number of the ROM. The new ROM part number is 342-0033. The serial number of the first production //c with the new ROM is unknown. /Ic: New 256K ROM Add-On Kit WHAT: An upgrade to the //c ROM including: Support for UniDisk 3.5. Enhanced Super Serial Card compatibility. XON/XOFF handshake support. Disable keyboard during serial communication . Add/Strip line feeds after CR during transmission. Bug Fixes Interrupt handler . 80 column card The language card was not always reconnected properly. The Y register was not always treated properly. Additions Mini Assembler. STEP and TRACE added as debugging aids, WOW - WHAT NEXT _END Hardcore February 1986 FLIPPER 1 MEG RAM BOARD. A review by Dave Ward. Back in the distant past , to be exact , 1980 when | purchased My Apple ][ Plus 48K the extra 16K expansion card at that time would have cost a mere | £190. Of course 16K Ram expansions cards have slowly reduced in price to £70 or even less. Now Cirtech have produced a 1 Megabyte Ram card for £350 , yes £350. | have been fortunate during the last few weeks to have had one of these cards to ‘test’. The FLIPPER arrives in a small box with a small manual and a single diskette. The board is very heavy but only a little longer than a Saturn 128K ram card. Chapter 2 of the manual gives step by step instructions for installation of the card which is very thorough and easy to follow. The card may be placed in any of slots 1-7 on an Apple ][ Plus or Apple //e , however there are some exceptions which should be noted: 1> Slot 3 cannot be used in an Apple //e if an 80 column card is installed in the auxiliary slot 3. 2> If you have an enhanced Apple //e it is advised that you place the card in slot 7 as it can be auto-booted from there. 3> If you are going to use Pascal 1.3 you should place the FLIPPER in slots 4,5 or 6 so that Pascal 1.3 will recognise it as a Ram disk, Once installed it is suggested that you might like to try out the self -test program on the card. However , this can be done at any time providing that the machine is displaying the Basic ] prompt or Monitor * prompt. Beware when using the self-test as it erases all data from the FLIPPER, The table below shows what you enter depending upon which slot the FLIPPER resides in :- SLOT BASIC MONITOR 1 CALL 49418 C10AG 2 CALL 49674 C20AG 3 CALL 49930 C30AG 4 CALL 50186 C40AG 5 CALL 50442 CS50AG 6 CALL 50698 C60AG 7 CALL 50954 C70AG Of course you must press 'RETURN' after entry ! The self- test will take about 1 minute and will continue until you press akey. The FLIPPER is a 1 Megabyte Ramcard designed to be a fast mass storage pseudo disk. It also has a Program Page 7 Manager which partitions the card into 1-4 protected ‘Work- areas’ which are really smaller pseudo disks. FLIPPER automatically supports Prodos, Pascal 1.3 and Cirtech’s CPM Plus. D.O.S 3.3 is supported by a simple one- time command issued from a program or directly from the keyboard, Pascal 1.1, Pascal 1.2, CPM 2.20B and CPM 2.23 are supported when file(s) are transferred from the Program Manager disk to the Pascal or CPM boot disk . The FLIPPER is formatted to Ram disk(s) of varying sizes, The Program Manager disk is a multilingual disk that is not copy-protected. When booted The Program Manager is almost instantaneously run. This program allows you to Partition the FLIPPER into 1-4 work-areas. It simply requests you to enter 1-4, after which the Main Menu is displayed: MAIN MENU. 1> Select a work-area 2> Backup a work-area to disk 3> Restore a work-area from disk 4> Clear awork-area Selecting <1> may ask for the workspace number you require. If the ‘Ram disk’ work-area you have chosen is BOOTABLE! it will be booted otherwise you will be requested to enter a disk in drive 1 which will be booted. A WORK-AREA IS THEREFORE A RAM DISK THAT IS BOOTABLE OK? Just booting a disk into a work-area does not make it automatically bootable. You have to format it and make it bootable but we'll discuss that a little later. So how does one FLIP between workareas ? Well its like this : on a //e press ‘open-apple control-reset’ followed quickly by ‘control-reset’ which leaves you in BASIC then type PR#2 (FLIPPER in slot 2) and you will be in the main menu of the Program Manager. On a J[ Plus getting out of a program can be ‘hit and miss’ since some programs lock-you-in however try ‘control- reset’. A copy card such as Snapshot or Wildcard almost ensures a perfect exit but may leave you in the Monitor . If so type E000G which puts you back into BASIC and then type PR#5 (FLIPPER in slot 5). If you choose not to work under the Program Manager you will have a 'Ram disk’ up to 1023.5K. Under control of the Program Manager the ‘Ram disk work-areas’ will vary in size depending upon the number of 'work-areas' you choose: No. of workareas Size in Kilobytes 4 1016 2 508 508 3 340 340 336 4 256 256 252 252 Hardcore February 1986 We will now look at the way the FLIPPER works with the afore mentioned operating systems: PRODOS Booting a Prodos disk automatically provides a formatted ‘Ram disk’ once you invoke a Prodos command such as LOAD or CAT etc. Its name depends upon the slot in which you placed the FLIPPER for example: FLIPPER in slot 2 produces /RAM2 FLIPPER in slot 5 produces /RAMS Simple eh ! You can make your 'Ram disk’ bootable by firstly formatting it using the FILER program from the Prodos Users Kit and then copying across the file PRODOS and any others that are necessary. To boot the 'Ram disk’ type PR#4 (FLIPPER in slot 4) just like you would if you had a Disk ][ in that slot. Of course, if you are working under the Program Manager you will end up in the Main Menu from which you can select the appropriate 'work-area’ to boot from. Incidentally if you boot another Prodos disk (except by switching off the machine) you will find that the programs are still there! Appleworks can be greatly speeded up by copying the files from the Appleworks program disk to your ‘Ram disk’ and then renaming it /APPLEWORKS. EG RENAME /RAM2/,/APPLEWORKS/. Yes you can rename volumes just like files under Prodos. When you bootup the the Appleworks boot-disk it will automatically use your ' Ram disk’ for its overlays and screen menus thus making Appleworks considerably faster. The manual does not give an example of loading a ‘Ram disk’ even for Appleworks. However, there is another article in this issue which tells you how to setup Appleworks. DOS 3.3 After booting a D.O.S.3.3 disk you can activate two ‘Ram disks’ by issueing the command IN#4 (FLIPPER in slot 4) either from inside a program or directly from the keyboard. The two 'Ram disks' can be accessed by appending ',S4,D1" or ',S4,D2" to the end of Dos commands. The size of each ‘Ram disk’ is just less than 400K because Dos 3.3 cannot support anymore. When you activate the 'Ram disks' by typing IN#2 (FLIPPER in slot 2) only a very slight patch is applied to RWTS routine in D.O.S. so that it will also work with most of the fast commercial D.O.S. 3.3 variants and also D.O.S. 3.2. The approximate times to load and save 50 sector BASIC files are listed in the next column: Page 8 Dostype = Load(disk) Save Load(ram) Save Dos33 14 17 4 5 Diversi-Dos 4.5 5 0.4 05 FastDos 4.5 5 0.4 05 ProntoDos 4.5 5 0.4 05 SpeedDos 45 5 0.4 05 Dos3.2 10 10 4 4 Disk Operating Systems that move themselves into the Language card to provide more user memory cannot be booted directly because the patch will be applied in the wrong place. However, simply boot the 48K version and install the 'Ram disks' and then move Dos ! | tested 64K D.O.S. 3.3 and 64K Diversi-DOS and both appeared to work normally. The fact that Dos 3.3 and Dos 3.2 only vary very slightly is shown as follows: Boot up a Dos 3.2 Master disk (remember how) and install the 'Ram disk' then save a few BASIC files to it. Boot up a Dos 3.3 Master disk (except by powering off and on) and install the 'Ram disks’. You will find that not only are the files preserved but you can load them !! You can make the 'Ram disks’ bootable by Brunning the file FLIP on the Program Manager disk and then moving the appropriate files onto the 'Ram disk’. PASCAL Pascal 1.3 is fully supported and will produce a 'Ram disk’ the first time you access it. You can presumably produce a bootable ‘Ram disk’ by formatting it then transferring over the appropriate files. Pascal 1.1 and Pascal 1.2 require you to copy over three files from the Program Manager disk onto the Pascal boot disk. The files for Pascal 1.1 differ from those for Pascal 1.2 ; the manual clearly explains the procedure. Pascal 1.1 when booted will automatically format a ‘Ram disk’ volume #10 whilst Pascal 1.2 will format volume #20. You can't unfortunately make a ‘Ram disk' bootable under Pascal 1.1 and Pascal 1.2 because they must be booted from slot 6. Did Apple really market slot dependant software?! Don't write in because there are ways of doing it but one is rather bizzare and the others are most time consuming. CPM CIRTECH claim that there CPM Plus system automatically produces a 1016 K ‘Ram disk’ on booting. However , CPM 2.20B and CPM 2.23 require you to copy a file from the Program Manager disk to your CPM boot disk. After this file FLIP.COM is executed or autorun on bootup the ‘Ram disk’ will be installed, The 'Ram disk’ is accessed as Drive D: on CPM 2.20B (56K) or Drive F: on CPM 2.23 (60K). Hardcore February 1986 TECHNICAL INFORMATION Cirtech provide some information in the FLIPPER manual to aid assembly language programmers to move memory in and out of the 1 megabyte card. They however, suggest that programmers don't use the I/O switches since it is possible that the method of memory access may change in the future. Examples are shown to enable programmers to move up to 64K blocks of memory to and from the FLIPPER card. FLIPPER does not use the usual bank-switching method but instead provides a simple serial access through a single byte port. This produces a somewhat faster method of actually moving memory which is of course necessary for a ‘Ram disk’ to work. The fact that FLIPPER requires no apparant patching to make it recognisable as a 'Ram disk’ in so many different operating environments is in part due to its program in ROM. The other is the clever way in which it makes sophisticated operating systems such as Prodos think that it is a Disk interface card ! On attempting to access the 'Ram disk’ for the first time the program in the ROM processes the necessary patches to actually install the 'Ram disk’. On reading the advertising for the FLIPPER | felt that one could actually flip between running programs, although this is definitely not stated. After much testing | have come to the conclusion that this is not at present possible. The FLIPPER is an excellent large memory card which is designed basically as a very fast 'Ram disk’ it is easily installed inside the Apple and very little work is necessary to get the ‘Ram disk’ up and running. The Program Manager allows you to divide the FLIPPER into 1-4 smaller ‘Ram disks’ but intially this takes some time to setup. However, the work-areas so produced can be saved to diskettes for a quick setup next time they are used. Flipping to another ‘workspace’ is like booting another application from scratch. This is not so useful as interrupting arunning program to use another and then return to the first to carry on as if no interruption had occurred. However, on ‘booting’ one of the work-areas one is rewarded with the application up and running in a few seconds. It would be hoped that in the future the FLIPPER could be used by programs such as Appleworks both as a 'Ram disk’ and as increased desktop space. This would greatly increase its appeal for all users. The Manual is succinct, clear and generally very helpful. However, | would have liked to see some step-by-step examples of how to setup the FLIPPER with a few applications such as Appleworks , Wordstar and a D.O.S 3.3 application. After all Cirtech , the manufacturers claim that the FLIPPER speeds up loading and use of multi-program packages which may be flipped through at will. Page 9 Equipment: FLIPPER 1 Megabyte Ram board Manufacturer: Cirtech Currie Road Industrial Estate | Galashiels Selkirkshire TD12BP. | Scotland | Price: £350 END COURSE NEWS | BASUG COURSES R.1.P. For most of the short history of BASUG, we have run occasional courses on various topics, and had a mixed response from YOU the members. Last year, amongst all the other problems faced by the committee, we were faced with a poor response to those courses we had offered you. We arranged for a professional lecturer to arrange our courses for us. He agreed to do them, provided that he would have a minimum attendance, and that BASUG handled the advertising. The costs we felt were reasonable, as for £25 a fully professional course with printed notes was to be provided. We fixed the events, we fixed the place, we told you all about them, and then we waited for your response. Four replies later, we have reluctantly had to say to the organiser, we dont think YOU want them. It needs a minimum attendance to simply cover all the costs involved. Where did we go wrong? Did we have them on the wrong dates? Did we have the wrong subjects? Did we charge too little, remember that normally a course of this quality would probably cost you over £100. PLEASE let us know what you want. In the meantime, we have laid them to rest, but we have not forgotten, we await YOUR response. Hardcore February 1986 Membership and Subscription Changes Changes ahead - the reasons why ! At the Annual General Meeting, in July 1985, your Committee were requested to look at the whole question of subscriptions, including the levels of subscription rates, the possibilty of having a common renewal date for all members, and when that renewal date shauld be. In order to answer these questions, we set up a Finance Sub- committee, which included myself, our Administrator, our Membership Secretary, and two other Committee Members. We feel that the levels of subscription are correct, and do not anticipate that it will be necessary to increase the rates in the near future. Although the financial results of BASUG have not been promising in the past, the Committee has implemented a number of changes which are expected to improve the situation, and this is reflected in the accounts for the year ended 30th June 1985. The next consideration was the introduction of a common renewal date. We felt that this would produce a saving in the Administrative workload, particularly in the despatching of Hardcore. Admittedly, it will mean a substantial workload at renewal time, but the overall effect will be advantageous. The next question, then, was “When should our members renew?". Again, the answer was fairly obvious. As you can see from the chart, the majority of members already renew in January, so this was the obvious choice from the Membership Secretary's point-of-view. The choice of January also makes sense from my point-of-view, as this means that | know the current membership numbers at the financial year-end. Our final duty was to recommend the partial subscriptions to be paid by members renewing during 1986, and these are shown in the formal notice in this edition. We have related these partial subscription rates to the number of Hardcore magazines each member will receive, e.g. members renewing in either March or April will receive five magazines during the remainder of 1986, and should therefore pay the same subscription rate. We will all be on an even footing by the end of 1986, and future renewals will fall due on the 1st January each year. The general feeling at last year's A.G.M. encourages us to believe that these decisions will be met with approval by our membership, and we look forward to the continuing improvement in Basug’s prospects. END} Page 10 BRITISH APPLE SYSTEMS USER GROUP. ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION - NEW ARRANGEMENTS The Committee has decided to have a common renewal date for subscriptions. This will enable us to keep administration costs as low as possible. In future all subscriptions will be payable on JANUARY 1st and membership will last till DECEMBER 31st. You will not need to do anything until your next renewal is due. This may be now if your renewal date is in March or April. Take a look at your renewal form and all should be clear. To bring everyone into line we have agreed on the following subscription rates for renewals in 1985.( see table at bottom of column). Some examples may clarify the table:- Your name is Joe Bloggs and you live in Maine, USA. In the February Hardcore you get a renewal reminder that your subscription is due in April. You pay £20.80 Your name is Josie Bloggs and you live in London. In the April Hardcore you get a renewal reminder that your subscription is due in May. You pay £10.00 —— —- U.K. Individual : Mar/Apr £12.50 May/Jun £10.00 Jul/Aug £7.50 Sep/Oct £5.00 Nov/Dec £2.50 Company & Overseas Individual ; Mar/Apr £20.80 May/Jun 16.60 Jul/Aug £12.50 Sep/Oct £8.30 Nov/Dec £4.20 Overseas Company : Mar/Apr £29.20 May/Jun £23.30 Jul/Aug £17.50 Sep/Oct £11.70 Nov/Dec £5.80 Subscription Rates for 1986 | Small Advert Swap games ‘Bandits and Decathlon’ for any other good games. Send SAE to lan Munday, (Fiisit Aire, Suiits (Lesa, Ftzveitfdzrvvd! Sie Nbzvny, (lkvnawsietty, (AFRO FRY Hardcore February 1986 DISC ZAPS AND ALL THAT (Part 1) a beginners guide to ‘Disk Manager’ by Ewen Wannop One of the latest additions to the ever growing software library is ‘Disc Manager’. This is a general ‘disc zap’ and disc utility program, and is available on Software Library disc No. XX at the usual price of £5 inclusive. The disc allows a comprehensive set of disc utilities. Twelve assorted options are available from the boot menu. | shall describe each of these in turn, and also explain some of the uses that they may be put to. First, let me say this disc is a DOS 3.3 utility, and although it will look at PRODOS, PASCAL or CPM discs, it is primarily intended for use with DOS 3.3. Arguments still rage over DOS versus PRODOS. APPLE themselves officially support only PRODOS now, but the vast host of DOS programs out there still need to be supporting, and in fact virtually all the discs in our software library have been written under DOS 3.3. Properly handled, DOS is just as fast as PRODOS, and it has the advantage of using less memory under some circumstances. However PRODOS does have its own advantages ... but that can be left for another discussion some other time. Upon booting the disc you should be presented with the ‘Disc Manager title page and the following menu: **DISK MANAGER** R0000 SLOT 6 DRIVE 1 TRACK SECTOR MENU: : CATALOG WITH T/S POINTER : FILE T/S LIST : FIND T/S SECTORS : UNDELETE FILE : DISC PATCH : DISC MAP : CATALOG SECTOR : INIT A TRACK : COPY A TRACK 10: CHANGE SLOT/DRIVE 11: DISC CLEAN 12: BAD SECTOR SCAN 13: EXIT OBYAHSRON= WHICH ? Page 11 The top line of the display shows the current status of the program. The four digit display at the top right shows the current track sector being read or written to, and the letter preceding this number shows whether we are reading (R) or writing (W) to that sector. The line below this is used for setting up the working Slot, Drive and Track, Sector combination as required. Perhaps, before | go any further, | should explain how a disc is constructed. There are, on an APPLE disc, 35 separate concentric tracks. Each of these tracks has 16 individual sectors each with 256 bytes of data within it. On a DOS disc, tracks 0,1 and 2, are reserved for the use of the DOS itself, but there are useful things there for us that we can look at and change. Track $11, that is hexadecimal $11 or decimal 17, is the Catalog track, and is the key to getting at any of the files on the disc. It is usual when talking about discs to use the hexadecimal notation, and in fact ‘Disc Manager’ expects hexadecimal entry for its working parameters. Hexadecimal is easy to use. In decimal counting when you get to 9 you start again at 0 and carry one, in hexadecimal you keep on counting with A,B,C etc. until you reach F, when you then go to 0 and carry one. In this way we count in lots of 16 instead of the usual 10. Nearly everything in a computer is based on numbers that are multiples of 2, and are usually then given in hexadecimal notation for convenience. A disc sector contains 256 bytes of data, a track has 16 sectors etc. We can now get down to the Menu options, first we have ... 1: CATALOG WITH T/S POINTER This produces what at first looks like a normal Catalog, but without the usual display showing the number of sectors taken up by the file. However, at the right is given a pair of numbers, first the TR or track number, and second the SC or sector number of that files Track/Sector list. More about these under the next option, but make a note of the pair for any file in which you may be interested . To the left of the file name, will be given a “" if the file is locked. If the "" is displayed in inverse, then it means the file has been deleted and will not appear on a normal Catalog. It may be possible to revive this file, but again more of that later. If the Catalog is a long one, then pressing the space bar will cycle through the entries, finally returning you to the Menu. 2: FILE T/SLIST On entering this option, we must first put in the TRVSC number pair that we gleaned from the Catalog. These will display on the top display line as they are entered. Press return to Hardcore February 1986 go on to the next value. If you have entered a valid pair, you will be rewarded with a display of the TRACK SECTORS taken up by that file. DOS keeps a list for each file, of all the sectors used. The list takes at least one sector itself, so the minimum file length is therefore two sectors, one for the list, and the minimum obviously of one for the file itself. The left hand digit is the track being referred to, and the digits ranging to the right are the sectors within that track used by that file. They are placed in sequence, so the first one shown is the first sector of the file and so on. Entering a return only, when asked for a track sector pair, will exit back to the menu, 3: FIND T/S SECTORS This is where the fun can start .... We all occasionally get a corrupt disc, often because we have opened the drive door or hit reset while the disc was being written to. All of these could cause corruption of the Catalog track, with the files all apparently lost. Help is at hand however, as if that track is damaged, we can repair or reconstruct it. The DOS 3.3 manual has a great deal of information buried within its pages, and with care, it is possible to reconstruct a complete Catalog track. First we must find the track sector lists of all the files by using the FIND option, then we look them up with option 2 to see if they really were proper track sector lists. We then repair the Catalog using these sectors as the T/S list for a known or dummy file. If there are rather a lot of these displayed, you will need to press the space bar to see the rest. 4: UNDELETE A FILE As | mentioned before, it may be possible to revive a deleted file. If any are present, this option will present them one by ‘one, and ask you for a Y/N response as to whether you would like to see them again or not. However, it is important to know that this will only revive the Catalog entry, it does not update the disc map, or ensure the validity of a deleted file. Having un-deleted a file, you must then load it in to memory, check it is OK, then delete the file from disc and finally resave back to disc. This will ensure all the correct disc maps etc. are kept up to date. | have been saved many a time by this useful feature .... 5: DISC PATCH This is potentially a very powerful utility, and deserves a whole article to itself, | will only explain here how to use it. The many possible uses that it can be put to will have to wait till some other time. A timely WARNING here, it is possible to damage irretrievably the information on a disc with this feature, and so it is recommended that you first copy the disc in question, and work on the copy only, till you know what you are doing and are sure your changes have worked. Page 12 On first selection, you will be shown a further menu of options. At any time while using this Patch facility, you may return to this menu by using the '?' key. To Escape back to the main Menu press <Escape> from wherever you are. C: CHANGE TR/SC BUT DO NOT READ This will change the working track sector pair in the display but will not do a read or write. Use this to specify a new destination for a sector you have been working on before writing it back to disc. You must enter in the top line display, using return as before, to go to the next entry. N: SPECIFY NEW TR/SC AND READ The track sector specified will be read into the internal buffer and the top 128 bytes of the buffer displayed. The display takes the form of 16 rows each of 8 bytes wide. An ASCII representation of the bytes Is given to the right. To display the bottom 128 bytes press 'B’. S : CHANGE SLOT/DRIVE Changes the working slot/drive, enter in the top display line and use return to go to the next setting. R: RE-READ CURRENT SECTOR This will re-read into the buffer the current working sector. Useful if you have made a mess of things and want to start again. W : WRITE CURRENT SECTOR Writes back to disc the altered buffer. This could be dangerous, make sure you have not done anything disastrous before you issue this command. You should be working with a copy of the relevant disc so you can re-read the sector if you make a mistake. P: PATCH SECTOR The main use of the Patch facility is to allow you to change bytes on the dise at will. You should know precisely what you are doing before you start with this. Always work with a copy of the disc in question, if a mistake is made you can then return to the stating point. This option allows you to change one or more bytes at will, allowing you to change the type of file for instance, or to change illegal characters to legal ones in file names in the Catalog, and many other useful changes as well. To use PATCH, you must first enter the start offset address of the byte that you wish to work from. This is the offset within the current buffer displayed on the screen. Press return to go to the actual patching, and on entering each Hardcore February 1986 byte, press return to go to the next. When you have entered all you wish to change, press return by itself to enter the changed bytes into the buffer. You must then 'W' write this back to disc to make the change a permanent addition to the sector you have been working on. T: DISPLAY FIRST $80 BYTES You can only display $80 (128) bytes of the sector at any one time. As a sector is $100 (256) bytes long, you must toggle the display between the first $80 bytes 'T or the bottom $80 bytes 'B' of the current working sector. B: DISPLAY LAST $80 BYTES Displays the bottom or last $80 bytes of the current working sector. +: READ NEXT TR/SC This will take you to the next sector in ascending numeric order. If you reach sector $F it will go on to the next track and display sector 0 of this track. If you reach sector $F of track $22 then you will cycle round to track $0 sector $0. The display at the top right shows the current sector you have read. -:READLAST TR/SC Descends one sector from the current position. Wraps round to $22/$F trom track $0 sector $0. ESC : LEAVE DISC PATCH Returns to the Main Menu when you are done. ?: DISPLAY MENU When you get lost, this option will display a Menu of possible commands. 6: DISC MAP As well as the Catalog and the track/sector lists, DOS keeps a map of all the used and free sectors on the disc. This can show in a graphic form all the sectors that are currently in use. The display shows the tracks ranging from 0 to the left, through to $22 (35) at the right. The sectors are shown vertically from O to $F (15). If you draw a disc map of a disc that has only been initialised and thus has no files on it, you will see that tracks 0-2 and track $11 are shown as in use. These are the DOS tracks and the Catalog track, as mentioned earlier. You will be shown also at the foot of the screen the number of free sectors left on the disc as well as the number off sectors actually used. Page 13 7: CATALOG SORTER If like me, you end up with lots of odd files all over your discs, all in a haphazard order, then this is for you. On selecting this option, you will be given a second menu, with 5 further options. There are two forms of the sort, alphabetical or manual, and each may be specified with the program called ‘HELLO’, (if present) as the first file. If you select manual sort, then each file will be presented to you in turn, simply answer 'Y' or 'N’ as required until you have been through them all. They will keep cycling until all have been done. Leave any deleted files to the end, All must eventually have been placed in order before it will write back to disc and take you back to the Menu. 8: INITA TRACK Damaged tracks may be repaired by re-initialising them. This simply means writing them out from scratch to an all-zero condition. It is a pretty drastic remedy, and so you should try and save as much of the track by copying the good sectors to another disc. It is important for DOS that the volume number of the track is consistent with the rest of the disc, so on entry it goes and tries to find it first. It will then ask for the track you wish to renew. You are asked to verify your selection, just in case you have made a mistake . 9: COPY A TRACK The main use of this option will probably be to copy your favourite DOS from a master disc to your slave discs. A warning is given if you are writing to these tracks . You can copy a track from one drive to another, but the drives must both be in the same slot. If you feel like it, you can copy from one track to another completely different one, though | can't quite think at the moment where this could be of much use. 10 : CHANGE SLOT/DRIVE This will change the working Slot and Drive. Enter the appropriate one, and press carriage return to get to the next setting. You cannot enter illegal slots or drives. The program may eventually hang if you enter a slot number that has no drive in it! 11: DISC CLEAN You will need a suitable cleaning disc for this option. The head will ‘scrub’ back and forth from track 0 to $22 for about ‘one minute. Hardcore February 1986 12:BAD SECTOR SCAN This scans the disc from one end to the other for any ‘Read* errors. It is assumed that if the disc reads correctly, then it can be written to correctly as well. If any errors are found on a normal disc, you will have to Initialise that track again. But first copy any sectors that are good to another disc, so that you can copy them back and repair afterwards as much of the track as can be saved. 13: EXIT The way out from the program. If you have tried so far to get out by pressing Reset, you will simply have found yourself back at the Menu. This will finally let you go off and play that adventure game again. You didn't try to find the answer on the disc with the PATCH option did you? This is the first in a series of articles by Ewen END Tips & Techniques for your Apple //e AppleWorks: Problems with output wider than 80 columns Customers are having difficulty printing Appleworks files when lines in the file are greater than 80 columns long. This happens because the interface card adds a CR-LF after 80 columns. To eliminate this problem: 1>. Select the change printer specifications section of Appleworks. 2>. Select the desired printer and choose "6. Codes”. Printer 3>. Choose Characters per Inch. 4>. Select the spacing you want to set. a. If the command to set your printer to 15 CPI is <ESC>Q, type <CTRL>I120N<ESC>Q. (Keep in mind that <CTRL>1 means to hold the Control key down and press the I key, and <ESC> means press the key marked ESC). b, The same setup will work for 17 CPI if 120 is replaced with 136 (cCTRL>I136N<ESC>Q). END Page 14 I hope the Apple is water proof ! APPLE HARDWARE & SOFTWARE SALE PRICES HARDWARE (P&P £2.00 per item) APPLE Ile 80 COL TEXT CARD. serait et i APPLE II STAND etree £8.00 EPSON/APPLE 8132 INTERFACE & CABLE £16.00 ZAPPLER I/II INTERFACE CARDS £10.00 BUSINESS SOFTWARE (P&P £2 00 per item) MICROSOFT MULTIPLAN £25.00 APPLE tle APPLEWRITER sevens £20.00 APPLE lle APPLEWRITER INTRO. £6.00 APPLE Ile QUICKFILE ao 1 sverecnanetnsen £20.00 APPLE lle QUICKFILE INTAO. us £6.00 LEISURE SOFTWARE (P&P £1.00 per item) INSTANT ZOO £6.00 FACEMAKER £8.00 ERNIES QUIZ scsreacecs C00: MIX& MATCH 5 £6.00 SPOTLIGHT £6.00 CHOPLIFTER £6.00 SARGON IL £6.00 MURDER BY DOZEN £8.00 ZAXXON aa £8.00 SNOOPER TROOPS estou ice £8.00 FROGGER 2 7 £8.00 ALL SOFTWARE IS UISK ASED QUEN DATA DAISYWHEEL PRINTER 18CPS, Standard Qume Ribbon and Printwheel Parallel interface. £249 + £7.95 Carr and V.A.T. PLEASE ADD P&P AS SHOWN, PLUS VAT AT 15% Contact Mike or Chris on 021-550 9924 Microstat Ltd Maybrook House, Queensway, Halesowen, \ West Midlands B63 4AH Hardcore February 1986 A LOOK AT FIVE APPLEWORKS BOOKS by Nick Hunter Within a month after acquiring my Apple //c, | became convinced that AppleWorks had sufficient substance and sophistication to take on most of the load by which the //c should earn its keep. Although we don't see much publicity about it, AppleWorks must surely be one of the most widely- used integrated packages worldwide. To get the best out of APPLEWORKS | bought five books to supplement the excellent APPLEWORKS Manual provided by Apple. Each successive book was purchased as | realised it covered ground not in previous ones. The five works were:- “Using AppleWorks" by Aron & Aron, 400 pp Publ. by Que Corp.(£15.95) "Mastering AppleWorks" by Elna Tymes, 201 pp Publ. by Sybex.(£14.50) "AppleWorks Made Easy" by Carole Boggs Matthews, 302 pp. Publ. by Osborne-McGrAppleWorks Hill.(£21.95) "AppleWorks: Boosting your Business with Integrated Software” by Charles Rubin, 296 pp Publ. by Microsoft.(£17.95) "Practical AppleWorks Uses” by David Simerly, 313 pp Publ. by Sybex.(£17.95) APPLEWORKS is a sophisticated and complex piece of software, so any manual for it must perform the basic task of simplifying this complexity. The explanations must be simple to consult and easy to understand. This places a burden on authors and their graphic designers - but is an accepted part of the craft of communicating today. Because Apple's excellent manual came first, authors have all had to come up with something new. the five Rubin has explored the possibilities of integrating and communicating between the three different sections of APPLEWORKS. Tymes has expanded on spreadsheet applications, and includes twenty business templates - which | shall enjoy trying out. Simerly takes us through standard applications for the package. His word processor section has standard forms for memos and letters and shows how to boilerplate selected paragraphs for documents such as personalised contracts. | recommend this work. I liked Aron & Aron immediately | opened it because the sub- headings were superbly clear and all instructions were Page 15 indented and numbered clearly. Apart from a simplistic introduction, most superfluous text had been purged,so the Style is crisp and the coverage is comprehensive. Matthews seems to have tried to produce a substitute for the Apple manual - but only with limited success. The work is not so easy to understand, and the introduction to spreadsheets is rambling and painful. She plods through numerous pages of dense text outlining all sorts of options, but the text sub-headings were so similar in size to the main chapter headings that | quickly got lost in succeeding sections and never found the keystroke sequence which would allow me to open up even a simple spreadsheet. Here's how the five works each treat the main subject sections: PAGECOUNTS COMPARED Aron Tymes Matthews Rubin Simerly Total Pages 400 201 302 296 313 Max Words/page 570 480 530 480 430 Database 93 21 69 4 57 Word Processor 73 12 61 33°0~=COSS Spreadsheet 83 26 81 42 43 Printer Optns 18 13 12 20 26 Integrating to) 36 28 10 26 One cannot help judging these manuals against Apple's Manual, which is comprehensive and very well laid out. Each new chapter begins with a blue-flagged page which helps when flicking through the text - but it is still not helpful enough. The main sections on Word Processing , Database and Spread Sheets were not easy to distinguish apart from usual chapters, because there was no separate colour or card spacer to assist rapid access. | wound up flagging each of the main sections with masking tape tabs to assist finding my way quickly. On pp.251-252, Apple tells you how to Cut and Paste on less than a page. But still | found the explanations too complex and | had to write my own summary of the essential keystrokes sequence. Manuals should not mix up keystrokes with descriptions of the procedures being carried out, because mixtures introduce unnecessary complexities - although the determined reader will get through the procedure eventually, Simple people (like myself) need to follow down a column of uncluttered keystrokes in order to execute an important standard procedure such as Cut or Paste. Although my criticism concerning minor details of design and layout may seem overly severe, | consider such details of form to be of crucial importance for effective communication. There is a difference between a manual that tells what the machine can do and one which tells what you can do. The first will list the functions of individual keys or combinations, but | prefer those which tell you what sequences of keystrokes are necessary to produce custom letters or labels or layouts. In whatever form they occur, these are essentially templates, but so far | have seen few templates set up intentionally for the Word Processing or Database. Simerly's book comes closest to this ideal. Few of the authors emulated the modern graphic design and layout techniques used by Apple in their manual. These include:- + Use of colour blocks for pagination and indexing (half-tone greys could be used in single colour works). + Horizontal interrupt lines to separate main sections and sub-sections, + Half-tone grey blocks to highlight general warnings and other advice (These could also be used for screen displays). + Superb use of typography for maximum effect - bold, extra bold and different type styles All too often it seemed that the authors expect their readers to slave through a lengthy study session before attempting even the simpliest of commands. This is not good enough as few of us work in this way. As | worked through these five books | have come to a few conclusions about what should, and should not be included in the ideal manual. On the form side, it should be laid out with the following elements: Begin each new item on a separate page with procedure name heading in bold clear type. Separately list key strokes required to achieve procedure - preferably enclosed within key symbols. +Use right hand side of each page to show screen messages which confirm commands have been successfully entered. Hewlett-Packard's HP-41 Manuals are exemplary. They successfully attain their supremely clear objectives because: + You know exactly what you are going to do. * The way to do it is shown simply and clearly. * The desired output is shown at all stages. * This allows verification of correct keystrokes. What could writers do to improve their products? + Use more screen-tone areas within text. + Separate instructions from explanations. + Use more headings and sub-heads in different type sizes. + Start each instruction or keystroke sequence on a new page. + If the instruction does not fill the whole page, leave the rest blank. + Break the text up into small clearly-labelled blocks Hardcore February 1986 with a distinct.start and end so that the reader is left with no doubt as to the content and intention of each block. + Utilise separate areas of a page for instruction, screen display and keystrokes All of the books | looked at could benefit from the inclusion of flowcharts showing domains within the main sections, and options which exist within such domains. Apple's manual has some of these, but they do not go near far enough. One simple flowchart can show much more than scores of menus, and it can explain at a glance a complex series of options, commands and sequences needed to achieve an objective. In conclusion, | would recommend all AppleWorks users to look at both Simerly and Aron & Aron for individual needs. But don't forget Rubin's masterful guide to data transfer either. Whichever you choose, your command of APPLEWORKS is bound to improve! Nick Hunter operates Hunter Mining Consultants Limited which is specialised in alluvial gold mines. END % SERIAL SWITCHING DEVICES ba AND ACCESSORIES PRINTERSHARER/CHANGER 1 PRINTER WITH UIP TO 3 MICROS OR | MICRO WITH UP TO 3 PRINTERS RS 232-25 PIN D SOCKET £65. RS423 (BBC) 5 PIN DOMINO SOCKETS £40 5 PIN DIN SOCKETS — APPLE /IC £50 9PIN DSOCKETS MACINTOSH £59 & PIN DIN SOCKETS - COMMODORE SERIAL £40 PRINTERCROSSOVER 2 SYSTEMS MAY USE EACH OTHERS PRINTER RS 232 — 25 PIN D SOCKET £70 RS 423 (BBC) 5 PIN DOMINO SOCKET £45 5 PIN DIN SOCKETS ~ APPLE J/C £60 9 PIN D SOCKETS ~ MACINTOSH £62 RS232 — SERIAL TO PARALLEL CONVERTER SELF-CONTAINED UNIT COMPLETE WITH BUILT-IN POWER IPPLY. PLUGS INTO THE 36 PIN CENTRONICS SOCKET AT FRE REAR OF THe PRINTER, LEAVING THE 25 WAY D TYPE SOCKET AT THE REAR OF THE CONVERTER AS THE SERIAL INPUT DATAFRAMING (STOP BITS/PARITY ETC) AND BAUD RATES 150 TO 19200 SELECTABLE BY DIP SWITCHES. £65 PARALLEL TO SERIAL CONVERTER AS ABOVE — REVERSED £70. RS 232 SURGE PROTECTOR POWER SPIKES CAN OCCUR ANYWHERE! EVEN IN RS 232 LINES! PLUG THE SURGE PROTECTOR INTO RS 232 PORTS TO PREVENT COSTLY EQUIPMENT DAMAGE AND DATA LOSS FROM VOLTAGE SURGES CAUSED BY LIGHTNING, ELECTRICAL INTERFERENCE, STATIC DISCHARGES, £20, RS 232 GENDER CHANGER (SHIELDED) A QUICK AND INEXPENSIVE WAY TO AVOID MODIFYING OR REPLACING INCOMPATIBLE RS 232 CABLES OR EXTENDING RS 732 CABLES. ALL 25 PINES ARE LIVE, M/M& F/F, £10. CABLES & CONNECTORS RS 232 - 25D PLUG EACH END - 6F1 £12.00 RS 232 - 9 PIN D PLUG EACH END FOR MACINTOSH - 6FI. £12.00. RS 232 - 9 PIN TO 25D - PRINTER CABLE, 6FT FOR MACINTOSH £12.50 RS 423 - 5 PIN DOMINO DIN PLUG EACH END. 6FT. £4,00 RS 232 - 5 PIN DIN TO 25D PLUG FOR APPLE IIC. £9.00 KEYZONE LTO. U14, REGENERATION HOUSE, SCHOOL ROAD, PARK ROYAL, LONDON NW10 6TD TELEPHONE: 01-965 1684/1804. TELEX: 8613271 Page 16 Hardcore February 1986 Te COLOSSUS lets you move the ‘cursor’ all over the board but when you press ‘return’ it will print the algebraic description after ‘Your move? ‘. When you have entered both the FROM COLOSSUS CHESS 4.0 | A review by Dave Ward. | + Martin P Bryant | Author Publisher CDS Software Doncaster | | Media Disk (copy protected) | | Price COLOSSUS 4.0 is the latest chess playing program for the APPLE // family of computers. The Publisher proudly acclaims the program to be the best chessplaying software available for any home micro computer. The program has an optional 3D board and the Publisher claims that it has more features than any other chess playing program. In this review | will describe the program and check out some of the publishers claims. The COLOSSUS CHESS 4.0 package supplied arrived in a plastic book’ which when opened revealed a manual and a single diskette. Just boot the disk and COLOSSUS is ready to play chess ! Moves may be entered by moving the ‘cursor’ to the desired FROM square and pressing ‘return’ if you make a mistake simply press ‘escape’ and start over. Next move the ‘cursor’ to the TO square and press ‘return’ COLOSSUS will then make your move. The ‘cursor’ is an inverse horizontal line through the centre of the square and may be moved in two ways : 1) Simply enter the square's algebraic description F8 or A4 etc. 2) Use the four ‘arrow keys’. Of course if you own a ][ PLUS this has no ‘up/down arrow keys' so COLLOSUS allows you to use the ‘;' for ‘up’ and '/ for ‘down’ on all machines. Page 17 and TO squares COLOSSUS makes the move on the board providing its legal. If the move is not legal COLOSSUS will politely inform you so !! COLOSSUS displays the legend ‘Let me think...‘ whilst choosing its move. COLOSSUS informs you of its move and other messages on the right side of the screen. During the first few moves COLOSSUS will access its disk searching a text file of 'book moves’ once these are exhausted COLOSSUS will not access its disk again during the game, except if you have <B>ackspaced etc. Now for some of those features :- COLOSSUS has a secondary screen which can be toggled with the main graphics screen by pressing the space-bar at any time other than during disk access. This secondary screen is divided into two parts by a horizontal white line. The slightly larger top part shows the last 6 moves headed by the colour,name & clock (HH:MM:SS). The lower section shows technical information ie depth searched,current line being searched and best line found so far. After its move the Opponent's predicted move is shown. All other features are invoked by typing control characters when ‘Your move? is displayed :control-A = <A> etc. <G>o requests COLOSSUS to play. <T>ype of playing mode (1-6) 1 = Tournament mode - allowing you to setup time controls. 2 = Average mode - allows you to enter the time per move 0 secs. to 59:59 which effectively provides hundreds of levels of play. This is the default setup (when the disk is booted) at 10 secs. per move. 3 = All moves to be made in spocified time. 4 = Equality mode - the program tries to match your time. 5 =Intinite mode - program searches all moves to 12 ply depth 6 = Problem solving mode - can be used to solve mate in 1-7 moves , 'Helpmates’ & 'Selfmates’. <A>iter position allows you to enter or change positions. In this mode you can only move the ‘cursor’ with the ‘arrow keys’. W=Wipe board! S = Switch colour. C=Clearsquare G =Getinitial position E = Exit PNBRAK to enter piece type. <D>isk command allows you to - Catalog, Save, Load and Delete files from a disk. Specially formatted disks need to be prepared by first booting the reverse side of the COLOSSUS disk. You would be advised to prepare one ready! Hardcore February 1986 <Q>uantify parameters : Opening Book (on/off) Prediction (on/off) Line depth display (1-15 ply) Dimensions of board (2/3) 64K only. Draw score parms 64K only. You can set up the board for a <N>ew game oops! you've accidentally lost your position - well press <R>eplay immediately and the program will replay the whole game automatically with a pause of 0-20 seconds between moves which you specify when issuing the command - and it is restored. a a fel > Beas Bd 2 A eth abcecdef@gih - NW dk Ue N Ow Did you make a bad move? Well press Escape to stop COLOSSUS thinking then <B>ackspace and hopefully make a better move. You can freely <B>ackspace or <F>orward space within the moves made so far. <Worite to printer lets you print the board in text or log the moves as they are played. <S>upervisor lets two players play a game ensuring that all the rules are obeyed. <Pz>lay-self makes COLOSSUS play itself until stopped. <O>rientation reverses the board. <Z>ap toggles the sound on/off. <V>isible allows play with black,white, both or none visible. <l>egal shows all the legal moves for the piece on the square where the cursor resides. <C>hoose another move - if you don't like the programs move <C>hoose will take it back & pick the next best! <E>lapsed time lets you set the clocks. Page 18 Since the APPLE has no real-time clock COLOSSUS estimates this for you. These times can be very inaccurate for a few moves but tend to be within a few minutes over a full game. VERDICT | How good is COLOSSUS ? The publishers claim that COLOSSUS whitewashes Sargon ll & Chess 7 ; it also beats Sargon Ill by 12:4 (win=1 ; draw=.5 ; loss=0). | checked COLOSSUS 4.0 versus Sargon Ill over 20 games at various but approximately equal levels. COLOSSUS scored 12 wins 4 draws and 4 losses. From these small number of results COLOSSUS 4.0 certainly appears better than Sargon Ill. COLOSSUS is claimed to be one of the fastest problem solving computer programs in the world . Well | set up about 50 different two-movers (white to play and mate in two moves) and COLOSSUS averaged just less than 4 seconds to find the Keymove. Sargon Ill rarely took less than 1 minute. About 40 Three-movers were also set up and COLOSSUS took an average of 1 minute to find each Keymove. Small quibbles: 1) During <A>tter position it is easy to press 'W' Wipeboard accidentally thus losing all the changes you have just made. Perhaps the author might consider changing the command to control-W (<W>ipeboard). 2) COLOSSUS uses a slightly modified Dos 3.3 & on 64k machines takes about 55 seconds to boot - surely this time could be reduced. 3) To save your games or problems requires you to prepare a special disk. With little changes COLOSSUS could have been designed to read/write to normal disks and the protected master. COLOSSUS CHESS 4.0 is an excellent chess playing program and chess problem solver - the BEST | have seen for the APPLE family. The 3D board has been well done but appears a little cluttered due to limitations of the resolution. The main screen be it 2D or 3D is excellent even though the board has to be a little smaller to accommodate the extra information. The ‘cursor’ is a nice touch which facilitates move entry ; | found move entry very quick & simple. A casual player need never know that all those features are available. At £29.95 COLOSSUS has a very good price/performance ratio. CEND | ORDER YOUR DISKS TODAY BETTER VALUE FROM YOUR CLUB Hardcore February 1986 LOCAL CLUB CONTACTS "Herts and Beds Group ] Contact:- Norah Amold, ‘isis itbiit Meets at 8 p.m, on the first Tuesday of each month Venue:- The Old School, 1 Branch Rd, Park Street Village, St Albans, Herts. Croydon Apple Users Group ae e] Contact :-Graham Attwood, i iii New Venue Lot | ‘sought. Normally meets 3rd Monday of month. [ s London Macintosh Group al Contact:- Maureen de Saxe, (fii fiififiiiil) Meets at 6 p.m. on the second Tuesday of each month. Venue:- Room 685, London University Institute of Education, Bedford Way, London, WC1, i Furness Group ee Contacts:- Alan Curtiss 2st ty) 48) Tom Iddon, 8:8 tit L Essex Group ] Contact:- Pat Bermingham, (iii iis Meets on the third Friday of each month. Venue:- The Y.M.C.A., ia Road, Chelmsford. Rosati Mi l Hants and Berks Group Contact:-Mike Holly ficld, ssi). iidig%) Meets at 7 p.m. on the second Monday of each month. Venue:- Bracknell ITEC, Fitzwilliam House (3rd floor), Skimped Hill Lane, Bracknell. { Birmingham Group (MidAppie) Contact:-William Watson, (fii) Meets at 7 p.m. on the second Friday of each month. Venue:- |.T.E.C. Tildasley St, West Bromwich. ee Harrogate Group al Contact ;-Potor Sutton, 0423-887923 { Kent Group e] Contact :-Dougal Hendry, SisifiitH{ iff Glasgow Group | a Contact:-Donald Davidson, #H)\) #88) ee London Apple li Group Contact :-Abe Savant, 01-520 5793 | Bristol Group (B.A.U.D.) | Contact :-Mike Farmer, ist tintititi Meets on the first Friday of each month at 7.30 p.m. Venue:- Bristol Matemity Hospital. If these details are incorrect please notify Norah Arnold at the P.O.Box. APPLE - BEST IN THE NORTH WEST MACINTOSH Macintosh 512K with free MacWrite/Paint 1450.00 Macintosh HD20 Hard Disk (New Product) 1495.00 Macintosh Numeric Koypad 55.00 Macintosh Carrying Caso 55.00 Apple Macintosh Disks 30.00 MacTerminal 55.00 Macputer 512 (New Accounts Package) 445.00 Mac Draft (New Drawing Package) 199.00 Lotus JAZZ 325.00 Omnis 3 350.00 ‘Systematics II Ledgers and Payroll, each 195,00 Imagewriter 10° 295.00 Imagewriter 15" 415.00 Imagewriter 11 (New Product) 475,00 Laserwriter Phone for new reduced price APPLE // Apple //e 64K Computer 475,00 Apple Unidisk 3.5 (New Product) 350,00 Disk Drive with Controller 230.00 Disk Drive 185,00 Duodisk Drive 375.00 Monitor // 115.00 Macputer Accounting Package (Recommended) 175.00 ‘Systematics II Ledgers and Payroll, each 195.00 Numeric Keypad 80.00 Appleworks 130.00 Apple //c 128K Computer (Free Carrying Case) 475.00 Extemal Disk Drive (New Reduced Price) 119.00 Monitor //c (With Free Stand) 79.00 Mouse //c (Inc Mousepaint) 49.00 Carrying Case //c 15.00 Access, Visa and Applecards Accepted. Please Add VAT @ 15% EDUCATION ORDERS A SPECIALITY ASK FOR COMPETITIVE QUOTE holdens COMPUTER SERVICES 191-195 Marsh Lane, Preston PR1 1LD Telephone 0772561321 Page 19 Hardcore February 1986 Apple Users Group Conference 1985. The following is a brief resumé of a meeting between 14 American User Groups and Apple Management at Apple (Inc) Cupertino. The talks took place at all levels and included the participation of John Sculley, President and Chief Executive Officer and Jean Louis Gassee, Vice President for Product Development (ex Apple (Europe)). The report received via Washington Apple PI indicates a complete turn around in Apples previous luke warm attitude to USERS. Apple now acknowledge that User Groups can actually serve some purpose. They have studied the prospective purchaser and found that 90% of Apple owners would buy another Apple and that the number one factor influencing prospective buyers towards a make was by word- of-mouth. Therefore User Groups could figure in the marketing of new products. Apple stated that they were encouraging third party software development on both the ][ & Mac range and gave some tips for those wishing to participate. 1. Mac Developers should ‘target’ for the 512k Mac. 2. Developers should support the “Apple” interface formally called the “Mac” interface. (Could this mean the “Mac” environment being brought to the ][ !!) 3. The need is for high - end word processors and ‘vertical market’ software on the Mac and for educational and mouse based software on the ]J[. Other little titbits included the confirmation that no plans to release MacBASIC are likely - the reason appears to have something to do with Microsoft and also that the development has gone “over-budget”. All those groups present had a nice large package of almost every Apple software product for the Mac and lots of other goodies to take away GRATIS. Hardware news is that Apple are spending as much on the development of ][ products as on the Mac range. Also the MOUSE may be bundled with all future Apple J['s . Another statement was that Apple will take more notice of consumers ‘wants’ in determining what features the next generation of Apple Computers have. Jean Louis Gassee stated that he was a strong supporter of USER GROUPS, he did set up 'Le Club Apple’ in France. He would appear to be the User Groups best ally within Apple itself. The outcome of this historic meeting is unclear but | gather from the report that a User Group Advisory Council may be set up. Page 20 Apple in the U.S.A. must have some problem with so many User Groups, however Apple (U.K.) & (Europe) do not have such a problem because the number of User Groups could be counted on one hand. !!!! | hope that they will follow the lead of the parent company and hold some sort of dialogue with the User Groups - it can only benefit the whole Apple scene. END | | Apple /// News. Loe The Apple /// has been a poor relation in the good old U.K. but on the other side of the Atlantic they have sold very well and therefore the amount of information over there is greater. | have been trying to find out about what information is available and have gleaned the following helpful hints from our American friends. If you wish to get hold of the only publication specific to the I you should enquire about the /// Magazine - Frank Moore, 3201 Murchison Way, Carmichael, CA 95608. U.S.A. This costs $35.00 in the States so you should write first for information, cost etc. A couple of /// specialist dealers exist, however you should write first before parting with any money. AIM, 3010 N.Sterling Ave, Peoria, IL 61604 apparently accept memberships at $25.00 for a catalogue and some cheap hard/software. CMC Computer Systems, 1514 East Edinger #H, Santa Ana, CA 92705. The owner Charles McConathy apparently is having a boom due to his prices and knowledge. Washington Apple PI has a group of Apple /// members, it could be worth the money to join WAP and write to the APPLE /// SIG. The address is : Washington Apple Pl, 8227 Woodmont Avenue, Suite 201, Bethesda, MD 20814. WAP are very big with over 5000 members, they produce a large (80 page) monthly magazine which normally has some /// stuff. Recently they have had about ten pages each issue on/// related subjects. | am awaiting further up to date news on Apple /// specific groups in the States. There are some and | hope to have this information in the next issue. We could do with some sort of SIG if the demand is there. If you feel that you are one of the forgotten few drop me a line, articles on Apple /// are welcome and would make a change from all the ][ & Mac stuff. Hardcore February 1986 PEANUT COMPUTERS DO IBM TOO! It may be a strange idea to advertise an IBM capability in an Apple User magazine, but we know how many Apple users move on to IBM or are obliged to use an IBM as well, may be at work. We have just set up the means to transfer Apple files to IBM or MS-DOS format on floppy or hard disk. We can offer this hardware/software pack to customers or will undertake the work of transfer ourselves where we are selling IBM equipment to the customer in question. Please feel free to phone us to discuss the possibilities. Of course, we now supply a full range of IBM equipment, from peripheral cards through to complete systems with hard disks and networking. Our prices, as always, are extremely competetive, and we offer our friends in the trade substantial discounts. Again, please phone us for ALL your requirements. In addition, and finally, we continue to supply our full range of Apple compatable peripherals and software - see our Ads in previous HARDCORE and APPLE USER magazines. PEANUT COMPUTERS, LOW MILL, DEWSBURY, WF13 3LX Phone (0924) 499366 Living Together, Part Two. We are not alone. By Norah Arnold. it would seem that the tiny minority of resentful Apple // owners are not confined to the UK. In the December 1985 issue of Call-A.P.P.L.E., Don Elman, the managing editor, writes that a small number of Apple Il owners have resented the presence of Macintosh articles in the magazine. Starting trom January 1986, Call-A.P.P.L.E. will be phasing out its Macintosh section and offering their Macintosh members a MacSig newsletter on a subscription basis. This MacSig newsletter will be developed in size and quality as much as financially feasible. Don Elman also makes it quite clear that the A.P.P.L.E. organisation Is firmly committed to strong support for both Apple Il and the Mac. Their constitution, like that of BASUG, makes their primary mission the provision of information Page 21 about all major products from Apple Computer, Inc. and related software and peripherals. Let's hope their MacSig newsletter gets off the ground better than the ill-fated MacChat. It should do so because, ironically, the A.P.P.L.E. MacSig is, according to Elman, by far the largest and most enthusiastic Special Interest Group in their whole organization. At the time of writing, there have been to the best of my knowledge, no letters whatsoever from Apple Il or Mac owners in response to my article in the December issue of Hardcore. If the majority of members had felt strongly on the ‘subject the letters would surely have poured in? Remember to support our advertisers who are in effect subsidising your journal and who are helping to increase the size and quality by their support. Hardcore February 1986 Letters to the Editor Dear Sirs, In the December edition of Hardcore Richard Knox enquires about the Kermit file transfer protocol and also about a BBC<>Apple link. Taking these in the opposite order, | described my implementation of a BBC<>Apple link in the February 1985 edition of Hardcore. This requires either an Apple standard serial card (uses 6850) or an Apple Super Serial card (uses 6551). | am willing to send copies of the relevant programs with documentation if he sends me suitable formatted floppy discs (one Apple DOS format, and one Acorn DFS format). Perhaps you would pass this letter onto him. The Kermit file transfer program is fully described in the June and July 1984 editions of ‘Byte’ (the small systems journal) under the title ‘Kermit, a file transfer protocol for universities’. The protocol was described in two parts: Part 1: Design considerations and specifications, pages 255-278, June. Part 2: States and transitions, heuristic rules, and specifications, pages 143-145, and 400-403, July. Tha authors list various machines for which programs have been written, and the given list includes the Apple ][, running under Apple DOS. Additionally they give an address to write to for more information which Is: Kermit Distribution Columbia University Center for Computing Activities 7th Watson Laboratory, 612 West 115th Street New York . NY 10025 | hope that this is of some use; perhaps you might like to publish the Kermit details in the next edition of Hardcore as this protocol is becoming much more popular at present. Yours faithfully, A.L. Jackson .Cambridgeshire ED: Thank you for this reply to Richard's letter and for the offer of the software to any that are interested. The Kermit saga will obviously continue. But see the seperate article on the new addition to the software library of a KERMIT disc for the Apple. Page 22 Dear Sir, Before Christmas | received the copy of the SYMDIS symbolic disassembler that | had ordered from BASUG. | was surprised to find on trying to make a back-up copy that this software is in fact copy protected (although the note in the back of the manual is a little misleading in this respect). | am fundamentally opposed to copy-protected software and | am shocked that a user group such as BASUG distributes software in this form. The arguments against copy protection have been eloquently stated by Jerry Pournelle of BYTE magazine so | shall not repeat them here. My first reaction was to return the software, however the protection (although clever) is not impregnable and | have been able to make an un-locked copy (for my own use ONLY) with a couple of hours work. For my future reference please could you advise me which BASUG supplied software is and which is not copy protected. As a member | would also suggest this status should be shown on advertisements for this software to avoid others being misled. P.J. Vinson. (Reply) .... The argument over whether or not to protect a disc, will continue on both sides for some time. The Apple was probably the first machine to extensively have its software protected, and this trend has now spread to the MAC. With regard to the BASUG software libraries, first may | say that there are only five discs that BASUG supply that are copy-protected. They are all in the special release section, four are from lan Trackman and the fifth is SPEEDLOADER from Cornelius Bongers and Wilhelm Schouten. The four from lan are SUPER EDITOR, SUPER TRACE, SYMDIS and PACKING SUITE. It is not BASUG's decision that these are protected, we are allowed to market them only on the understanding that they are issued without modification, and we receive the discs in this form. The protection of discs has regrettably been thought necessary by some software authors. They feel that they must protect the considerable investment that they have made in the development of the program in question. | would be interested to hear the viows of other members on copy-protection. My own view, is that if a program must be protected, then a backup copy must be supplied with the package. In order to do this with the special release software, we would have to increase the cost of the relevant discs by £1. Would the members stand for this? Ewen Wannop Hardcore February 1986 Phil King, P. Tombling, __ March, RAF Brize Norton, Cambridgeshire. Oxford. Dear Ed. Dear Sir or Madam, Firstly may | congratulate all concerned on the ‘NEW’ magazine, it is a great improvement over the ‘OLD’ magazine, even my wife read it with interest. As a possible income for BASUG, would it be possible for members (and non-members) to subscribe to other magazines via BASUG? Is there no way BASUG can gain some revenue by acting as distributors for such magazines? | would also like to order two tickets for the ‘APPLE SHOW ...What about children, will they be allowed in free?... With reference to the ‘BRITISH APPLEFEST to be held on 26th January 1985, | know that computers can do almost anything, but time travel ? Could you let me know the correct date please? Please also find two manuscripts and a diskette for inclusion in the 'HARDCORE' magazine.......... [Reply].....- 1am glad you liked the NEW STYLE, that was stage one of the proposed enhancements that we are commited to make for the membership...... Watch YOUR HARDCORE for even more improvements in the near future. The idea of importing magazines sounds good, we have in the past looked in that direction and it was not feasable , however we are always looking for income to help keep the club floating and we will explore that avenue again. APPLE SHOW 86 - Children who require food will be subject to a £2 charge... no food... no charge. BUGS - We all know of computer bugs - however BRAIN BUGS are more common. | must say that the 26th January 86 is (or was) a Sunday and the article was written when we were planning for the BEWDLEY SHOW . The date became unavailable and | didn't change the date in the article. Sorry for any confussion. Thanks for the articles they will be used in future issues, | have also passed the disk to Graham Attwood for his attention. dim Panks. DO YOU NEED ANY CONSUMABLES THAT WE DO NOT SUPPLY ALREADY . IF SO GIVE ADMIN A RING. WE WILL BE GLAD TO ARRANGE A SUPPLY. Page 23 | am currently experiencing some difficulty with Sublogics excellent Flight Simulator Il. Being somewhat less than an adept pilot my landings end in total disaster. What | wish to do is to save the flight parameters on an approach, in order to be able to practice landings. Unfortunately, no matter how hard | try, following the instructions in the handbook, | have been unable to achieve this. Have any other members come across this problem and if so have they found a solution. | would be interested in any comments from other simulator pilots. [Reply]. Interesting problem - | therefore ask any BIGGLES out there to let us all know how this problem can be solved. COME ON - help one of your fellow members LAND... before he runs out of fuel. Walter Anderton, Hampton, Middlesex. Dear BASUG, The clue to Mr Eaton's "call for help” in the October Hardcore lies in his statement that "reading $C000 directly works until I press the right arrow which disables the Cirtech card...”. Well it would, wouldn't it Reading the value at $C000 ensures that he is given the correct code - CHR$(21) - in response to the right arrow. Otherwise in 80 column mode he would probably get CHR$(32) - ie a space - if he relied on the conventional GET routine. But, CHR$(21), or CTRL U is the program code that disables the 80 column card on the Apple //e. Therefore when it is printed at line 410 (Videx Version) the display jumps to 40 columns. Since Mr Eaton evidently needs to use the right arrow in his rather mysterious editing routine, the answer would seem to lie in amending line 370 (Videx Version) to change the value of A$ to something innocuous, say " ", before it can cause trouble by being printed. The blinking underline cursor routine allegedly to be found on an Applesoft Sampler disk is an irrelevence in this case, but does anybody know what the blinking hing is ? Like Mr Eaton, I have never come across such a disk ... (REPLY)... Thanks for the answer... Does anyone know about the mysterious disk 7 switch from APPLEWORKS to PASCAL to dBASE to DOS faster than you can say Flipper flipperis the new ONE MEGABYTE RAM card from CIRTECH with much more than just a big memory The Flipper PROGRAM MANAGER lets you have all your favourite programs at your fingertips. You can switch from one to another with just a few keystrokes, even if they run under different operating systems. Really easy to use, the Program Manager allows you to organize flipper into fast-access work areas to suit your needs and save your time. And, with fast disk restore and back-up facilities, using your Apple has never been so easy! THE RAMCARD WITH A FUTURE flipper is the first of a new generation of RAMcards designed to the new Apple standard with the future in mind. Fully compatible with current software, the new design also ensures Flippers compatibility with future software. NO NEED FOR CLUMSY ADD-ON’S — flipper contains a FULL ONE MEGABYTE of memory on board, giving you the memory you need AND the speed — no more waiting for programs to load from disk. AUTOMATICALLY RECOGNISED by, and FULLY COMPATIBLE with, ProDOS, PASCAL 1-3, and CIRTECH CP/M PLUS, without the need for ANY patches. 100% compatible with DOS 3:3.flipper also comes complete with FREE support software for MicroSoft Softcard CP/M versions 2- 20B and 2-23, and PASCAL 1-1 and 1-2. Flipper is treated as a super-fast RAMdisk by all these operating systems. flipper has all the facilities of the Apple Il Memory Expansion Card and MUCH MORE! CHOOSE THE SLOT to suit your needs. flipper plugs into any standard slot in your Apple {+ or //e which means you can have up to SIX MEGABYTES in your Apple, simply by installing additional flippers. FANTASTIC VALUE ............- ASRET ES Ow ONLY £350.00 Contact your Dealer or CIRTECH imr CIRTECH (UK) LTD., Currie Road Industrial Es’ Telex: 265871 (MONREF G) ATTN. 84: CPD 001 ~— Mailbox Sy L Apple. Appleworks, DOS 3.3 and ProDOS are the registered trademarks ut Apole Computer Inc. Softcan ... AND THERE'S MORE FROM CIRTECH =~) FOR YOUR APPLE ee BROADEN YOUR HORIZONS .. . The world of CP/M offers a whole new range of software for your Apple and, with these CIRTECH products, you can take advantage of this extensive software base: CP/M Plus System for the Apple /ic This System comprises a hardware module, which fits completely inside your //c, and a unique version of the CP/M Plus operating system, especially configured for the Apple /ic. The module features a super-fast Z80H (MHz) microprocessor and ultra fast screen handling, springing into action when you're using CP/M but not interfering with the normal operation of your lic. The /ic CP/M Plus Operating System, which will run all standard Apple CP/M programs, features a disk-based help system, user friendly disk error reporting and TOOLKEY, a range of functions which can be used at any time, even when running a program: ~ disk formatting and copying functions ~ Mousekey, allowing the //c mouse to be used with any CP/M program ~ invisible buffering of input and output from both serial ports and keyboard (including @ 12,000 character printer buffer) — screen dump control, allowing a ‘snapshot’ of the text display to be printed = optional blinking cursor The CIRTECH /ic CPIM Plus System is also available as a package with the famous POCKET WORDSTAR/MAILMERGE word processing program - ideal for writing to everyone to tell them about the UNBELIEVABLE value of this System. oa F@\ A CPIM PLUS SYSTEM FOR THE APPLE //c — £195.00 ANS" CPIM PLUS SYSTEM FOR THE APPLE |ic Sr WITH POCKET WORDSTAR/MAILMERGE - £280.00 Z80 Cards for the Apple |/e and {+ CIRTECH also produce 280 hardware only cards for the Apple //e and + which are fully compatible with CP/M versions 2.2 and 2.23. Minimum system requirements are an Apple }[+ (48K minimum) or Apple //e and 2 minimum of one disk drive. In addition, you'll also require @ CP/M System Masteriprogram disk and, for most programs (eg. Wordstar), an 80 column card. In addition, CIRTECH produce a 280 Hardware Adaptor for the Apple //c which is fully compatible with CP/M version 2+ 208 (56K) and CP/M 2-23 (GOK) and the Apple UniDisk 3-5 (but not with the CIRTECH CP/M PLUS Operating System). 780 CARD FOR THE APPLE I+ or ile — £ 45.00 280 ADAPTOR FOR THE APPLE ic -£ 86.00 Watch out also for news of the CIRTECH Apple //e CP/M Plus System which will be available shortly. Plug in one of the CIRTECH Champion range of printer interface cards to give you access to all the text and graphics print commands you'll ever need. Using ‘standard’ easy to use control commands, the Champion directly supports most printers with Centronics type parallel interfaces, including Epson, Star, Cannon, etc. Apple OMP and Imagewriter versions of the Champion are available and, used in conjunction with a CIRTECH Serial Adaptor, the Champion can be used with a Serial printer. ‘Two buffered versions of the Champion are also available, the Cachecard16 and Cachecard64 (16K and 64K buffers, respectively) to let you get on while they handle sending data to your printer. All the Champion range come complete with appropriate printer cable. CHAMPION (Epson or DMP version) ~ £49.00 CHAMPION CACHECARDI6 £ 95.00 CHAMPION (Imagewriter version) - £66.00 CHAMPION CACHECARD64 - £120.00 MAKE LIFE EASY FOR YOUR COMPUTER The CIRTECH CACHEBOX is a totally independent printer buffer with an enormous 64.000 character memory. Compatible with most computers and printers, the CACHEBOX is available in THREE versions and with MACINTOSH or /ic connectors if required, just choose the one to suit your needs. CACHEBOX (Parallel only or Serial only) - £150.00 CACHEBOX (Parallel and Serial Version) - £175.00 DOUBLE VISION .. . AND you'll hardly believe your eyes when you see the great value these cards represent! The CIRTECH 80 Column Cards for the Apple //e double your computer's normal text display, making a total of 80 columns available. in addition, the 64K 80 Column Card gives the facility to display ultra high resolution graphics (560 x 192) and increases the Apple RAM memory to a total of 128K. A functional replacement for the Apple extended 80 column card, the CIRTECH 64K 80 Column card is fully compatible with Appleworks and other programs which require extra memory. Ile STANDARD 80 COLUMN CARD - £30.00 4 lle 64K 80 COLUMN CARD ~ £60.00 “# EPROM PROGRAMMER — Speed and Versatility Used in conjunction with the Controller/Interface card, the CIRTECH EPROM Programmer card features advanced fast programming and supports Intel compatible EPROM’s from 2716 up to 27256, giving you the facility to read, program and copy EPROM's. The EPROM Programmer card sits outside your Apple for ease of use and is connected to the plug-in Controller/Interface card by means of a 2 ft. cable. AND there's more, the Controller/intertace card can also be used as a parallel printer interface card. Sy CONTROLLER/INTERFACE CARD - £35.00 EPROM PROGRAMMER CARD ~ £55.00 vediately for orders and information tate, Galashiels, Selkirkshire, Scotland, TD1 2BP Telephone: (0896) 57790 ystem No. 84 — MAILBOX CPDO01 SOURCE Mailbox: AAH555 tis the registered trademark of the MicroSoft Corporation Hardcore February 1986 DIY - Workstation. A project by Richard Boyd. The finished desk in use I have long looked at the glossy ads showing a super looking work station that would suit my family who are always swapping their Apple ][ from one bedroom to the other. Having convinced the wife, tactfully, that it would be ideal for the children | discovered the price was, to my mind, exorbitant, Furthermore on closer examination | realised that it was not particularly suited to the Apple ][ or ][e as the shelves were lacking in depth as well as being insufficently versatile in movement to take all hardware required for the Apple. So there was only one thing to do, design my own, more suited to our requirements and with more versatility. This project is very easy to complete and should present no problems to anybody. | found the ability to ask more competent people to complete the more skilled jobs resulted in little extra cost and means a better finish to the completed work, Page 26 MATERIALS 20' of 11/2 "* 3/4" (40 * 20 m.m.) 1.5 m.m. Semi-bright Steel Tubing. 3'* 4' of Blockboard or Plywood. Four Castors with screw fittings. One 3' TM Wall Shelving Support. One 4' TM Wall Shelving Support. Six 13" TM Shelving Brackets. Twenty 9 m.m. No 10 Self Tapping Screws. Drill for Self Tapping Screws. Super Glue or Epoxy Resin (Araldite). Total Cost under £40.00 STEEL You can obtain the steel without any problem from Steel Stockholders and usually it is in stock. If you smile nicely, as | did, the men in the warehouse can cut it exactly to the required lengths in a matter of minutes with their powersaws. They took pity on me after seeing some 15° of steel protruding from the rear of the car as | attempted to take it home. WELDING Again by asking your local garage personnel or car body repair shop they can weld or preferably braze the steel together. My car repair workshop also spray painted it as well. So you see | learned from my previous experience. wooD The choice of wood for the shelving is up to you, however if you wish to make a good job then veneered blockboard is ideal. Otherwise any prepared timber from your do-it- yourself centre will suffice. Offcuts from a woodwork workshop would also prove a cheap source of quality timber. SHELVING SUPPORTS | found a shelving support system, usually affixed to walls suits the requirements perfectly. It has the advantage of being easily fitted to the unit securely and has 1" adjustments to the shelf height. Additionally it is very strong yet lightweight. CASTORS You can obtain the castors from Kenrick Hardware Ltd., PO Box 9, West Bromwich, B70 6DB Tel 021-5532741. These castors have twin wheels and a threaded bolt to screw into the base of the unit. If you ring them they will send them to you with a bill. Hardcore February 1986 CUTTING RECOMMENDATIONS Two lengths @ 21” Two lengths @ 30” Two lengths @ 36” Two lengths@ 3” Two lengths @ 27" One length @ 24"x 6" Two lengths @ 24” x 18” Two lengths @ 24” x 16” Two lengths @ 24” Two lengths @ 18" CONSTRUCTION The first Item to be made should be the steel framework. The main rule for the cutting of the steel is that all pieces, of which there are 2 of each, should be of identical length or you may find that you are working on a slope. [ The Metalwork completed. | Page 27 | have made the uprights of 36” & 30° pieces with the 3” cross piece brazed together approximately 3” from the top of the shortest piece. These are joined to the 27" base pieces at their centres. Obviously these pieces must be square to the bases or the proverbial slope will result. Finally these two completed side sections are brazed together by the two 21" pieces. Note that whilst the bottom one is vertical in section the top one should be horizontal leaving a 3/4" valley in which to place the top shelf. Once completed 4 holes should be drilled in the underside of the base sections to take the castors. The holes should be some 2" in from each end and tapped with a 5/16 Whitworth thread. M You are now ready to fit the shelving uprights to the outside of the uprights. This is achieved by placing the two 24" pieces on the outside of the longest upright, making sure that the shelf support inserts match up and are level to each other. The shorter 12” pieces affix to the front of the unit and the same rules appl