Text content (OCR)
_A2-Central’
.
A journal and exchange of Apple II discoveries
formerly
- Open-Apple
if;
July 1989
ISSN 0885-4017
newstand price: $2.50
photocopy charge per page: $0.15
AppleWorks 3.0 a blockbuster
Imagine what would happen if Claris asked Beagle Bros to make all
the enhancements to AppleWorks that users had ever dreamed of.
Now stop imagining. It's reality.
Claris announced AppleWorks 3.0 at the National Educational Com-
puting Conference in Boston on June 20. Alan Bird, originator of Bea-
gle Bros’ TimeOut utilities and author of TimeOut QuickSpel!, Randy
Brandt, author of TimeOut UltraMacros, and Rob Renstrom, author of
TimeOut Graph, have been at work on the AppleWorks 3.0 project
since last summer.
Imagine a 16,000-ine word processor with a new, more-advanced
version of QuickSpel! built-in; with real tabs and multiple tab rulers;
with multiline headers and footers; with more controi-key commands
(such as control for center}; with the ability to print a specified
range of pages; with the ability to print date and time codes (in a
selection of formats); with right-justification; and with six new printer
codes you can use to take advantage of whatever special features
your printer supports.
Imagine a 16,000-record data base with horizontal scrolling in mul-
tiple-record layout; with multiple category sorts; with single category
finds; with one-key entry of the current date and time; with 20 report
formats per file that include new abilities such as multiple labels
across a page and the ability to create multiple-record screen formats
from report formats and vice-versa,
Imagine a 9,999 row by 127 column spreadsheet that is smart
enough to determine whether a cell being referenced is a label or a
value and act accordingly. Put (A2) in a cell and it will display ‘1° if
that's what's in cell A2 or it will display ‘Wow!" if that's what's in cell
A2. Imagine being able to turn numeric scores into letter grades and
numeric crosschecks into verbal error messages. Imagine five new
arithmetic functions like @LOG and @MOD, nine new trigonometric
functions like @SIN and @ACOS, six new financial functions like @PV
and @IRR, and six new logical functions like @TRUE and @ISERROR.
Imagine @IF(@ISBLANK(A2),"You must fill in cell A2"."), to say nothing
of the ability to copy anc move blocks of cells to and from the clip-
board.
Imagine a clipboard with no size limit other than the amount of
memory you have. Imagine a clipboard with the ability to automatical-
ly format the data it contains for any AppleWorks module. Yes, you
can move data from any module to any other module-from the
spreadsheet to the word processor, for example-without first printing
it to the clipboard or a file on disk.
Imagine being able to select subdirectories, as well as files, using
point-and-shoot rather than try-and-remember-even when accessing
ASCII text files. Imagine being able to switch drives and to dive into
and back out of subdirectories by pressing keys while the current file
listing is on the screen.
Imagine up to three custom printers, not just one, and built-in sup-
port for Brother, Epson, Juki, Okidata, and Panasonic printers, to say
nothing of the ImageWriter II and the ImageWriter LQ.
Imagine automatic support of aux-slot type memory cards (in addi-
tion to current support for standard-slot and ligs-memory-slot cards).
Imagine no retail price increase. Imagine an upgrade price of $79 and
a special Claris program whereby A2-Central subscribers who don't
have an older copy of AppleWorks to upgrade from can get Apple-
Works 3.0 directly from Claris for $99 (see this month's catalog).
AppleWorks 3.0 still works on 128K machines, however, as
before, it works better on machines with additional memory. Desktop
size on 128K machines is now about 40K instead of 56K.
AppleWorks 3.0 comes on two double-sided 5,25 disks or one 3.5
disk. Side 1 of the 5.25 startup disk includes PRODOS, APL-
WORKS.SYSTEM, four files for various kinds of memory expansion
cards, a configuration file, a printer information file, and the SANE
mathematics file. Side 2 of the 5.25 disk set includes the word pro-
cessor and data base segments. Side 3 has the spreadsheet. Side 4
has the main and custom dictionaries for the spelling checker. Sides
1, 2, and 3 also all have a file called SEG.AW, which holds the desktop
and main menu segments.
Here's a complete list of the AppleWorks 3.0 program files:
filename size description
(blocks)
PRODOS 32 disk operating system
APLRORKS.SYSTEM 26 ain progran file
$86.00 9 mamory segment for 128K machines
SEG.AM 3 : "for aux-slot memory
SEG.1M 9° "for std-slot memory
SE6.RK 5 for IIgs memory
SEG.EL 12 SANE elementary math functions
SEG.ER 6 Configuration file
SEG.PR 9 Printer inforsation
SEG.AN 97 Desktop Interface and Main Menu
SEG.WE 87 word processor
SEG.DB 86 data base
$26.85 16 epreadsheet
WAIN.DICTIONARY 402
CUST.DICTIONARY = 1+
(5.25 version is 254 blocks)
(expands as you add words)
————
“CAREFUL SUNDANCE, THIS ONES BEEN FORCED TO USE A MACHINE WwmnlouT
A RAM DISK ALL WEEK AND HE'S ITCHING FOR A FIGHT.”
5.42 A2-Central
Its possible to create minimum-configuration disks that don't
include all of these files. You need only the one memory segment file
(SEG.00, SEG.AM, SEG.XM, or SEG.RM) that will be used by your
machine. If you don't use the spreadsheet, you don't need SEG.SS;
the data. base, SEG.DB; the word processor, SEG.WP nor the dictionar-
jes, And after you've configured your printers you no longer need
SEG.PR. (Under AppleWorks 3.0, SEG.PR contains the list of supported
printers, as displayed when you add a printer, and all the printer con-
trol codes and sequences for those printers. Unlike earlier versions, it
doesn't contain any variable configuration information about printers-
that's been moved to the new SEG.EB, along with other-configuration
information. Third parties can now construct special SEG.PR “files
holding information for additional printers.)
Desktop enhancements
AppleWorks 3.0 now has a single standard interface for dealing
with files on disks, which has the following features. Whenever a list
of disk files is displayed on the screen (except when selecting custom
dictionaries, which must be at the same directory path as the Apple-
Works program files), the following keys can be used to navigate
through directories (‘OA' means hold down the open-apple key):
mB Appleforks reads and displays the root dizectory
. of the next drive.
a-, (note: unshifted O8->) adds highlighted subdirectory to pathnane
and displays the subdirectory's contents (sane as Return)
Oa-, (note: unshifted OA~<) deletes last subdirectory from pathname
~ and displays prior subdirectory. Beeps in root directory.
OA-RETURH Selects current pathname and returns to previous menu.
‘ESCAPE Returns to previous menu without changing pathname.
RETURN With files selected: loads selected files.
With no files selected:
File highlighted: loads the file
Subdirectory highlighted: same as OA-.
Right/Left Select and deselect files as before; beep if on subdirectory.
Up/Down Move cursor up anid down through directory listing, as before.
CA-Up/Down Page up, page dow.
OA-1/OK-9 Top of List, bottom of list (GA-2 through Ok-@ do nothing) .
There are. seven ways to display lists of files
lon disk from within AppleWorks 3,0, No mat-
oe iter what order the files are actually in on the
a disk, in the AppleWorks file listing they are
j. |grouped in the following order: word proces-
you to navi- ferrites, data base files, spreadsheet les,
gate through ftext files (well, text files are listed first when
subdirec- you ‘Make a new file’ from a text file or a DIF
i b file), other files, and subdirectories, Within
‘ores groups the files are listed alphabetically.
. y All six types of files are displayed when you
pressing ‘List ll files on the current disk drive’ or
keys. ‘Delete files from disk’ (Other Activities
menu), when you "Make a new file from a DIF
file" (data base and spreadsheet), and when
you "Make a new file from a text (ASCII) file’ (word processor and data
base-as with earlier versions of AppleWorks, you can actually use this
command to load any type of file into AppleWorks, not just text files,
but you can only load one file at a time).
When you ‘Get files from the current disk’, only AppleWorks files
and subdirectories are displayed. When you select a custom dictio-
nary, only text files are displayed (the dictionaries have to be at the
same pathname as the rest of the AppleWorks program). When you
‘Change Current Disk’ using ‘ProDOS directory’, only subdirectories
are displayed (if you insist, you can also type in pathnames the old
way by selecting 'ProDOS. directory“ with OA-Keturn). AppleWorks 3.0
no longer supports ‘Make a new file from_a Quick File file’ (data base)
or ‘Make a new file from a VisiCalc file" (spreadsheet),
With the new commands, there's almost no reason to ever use
choice 2 from the ‘Add files’ menu (‘Get files from a different disk’).
Always select "The current disk’ and if it's not the one you really want,
use Tab to quickly display the one you do,
Enhanced text file importing/exporting. Now that the word proces-
Vol. 5, No. 6
sor supports true tabs, more options are available for importing and
exporting files. When you import a text file to the word processor, any
embedded tabs (Controls) will be converted to AppleWorks tabs.
When you import a text file to the data base, AppleWorks 3.0 asks:
Does the text (ASCII) file have:
1, Tabs between: categories, Returns between records
2, Return after each category
Ifyou select 2, AppleWorks will ask how many categories there:are
per record, just as it does now. If you select 1, however, AppleWorks
will be able to determine that itself and will skip the question.
When printing to a text file from the word processor, the following
menu appears:
Should the text (ASCII) file have:
1, Standard text format with Tabs
2. Spaces substituted for tab stops
3. Returns after each line
Option 3 is the equivalent of the way current versions of Apple-
Works print text files. Option 3 gives you a Return at the end of each
line and embedded spaces rather than tabs. It's ideal for creating text
files you intend to upload to an online service.
Options | and 2, on the other hand, dont add Returns to the file.
Returns appear only where they are in the original file, which is usual-
ly only at the end of paragraphs (this is how early versions of Apple-
Works printed text files). Option 1 puts controls in the file; option 2
puts the correct number of spaces. Which is better depends on
whether the software you're sending the text file to recognizes control-
Is or not.
When printing to a text file from the data base, the following menu
appears:
Should the text (ASCII) file have:
1, Tabs between categories, Returns between records
2. Return after each category
And when printing to a text file from the spreadsheet, you'll see:
Should the text (ASCII) file have:
1. Tabs between colums, Returns between rows
2, Return after each cell
(The AppleWorks 3.0 specifications also say that new subdirecto-
ries and exported text and DIF files will be created in the current data
disk location unless the user enters a complete pathname. In previ-
ous versions, the user was forced to enter a complete pathname-a
partial pathname wouldn't do. Based on the pre-release version of 3.0
Claris gave me to look at, this new feature wasn't implemented.)
Smart save command, When an AppleWorks file (but not a text or
DIF file) is loaded from disk, AppleWorks will remember the pathname
the file was in. OA-S still saves a file to the current disk location, as
before, however, OA-Control-S now sets the current disk location to
the file's original pathname and then saves the file.
When you use the main menu's Save Files option, AppleWorks 3.0
gives you a third option in addition to ‘Save the file on the current
disk’ and ‘First change to a different disk or directory’. That option is
“Save the file to its original directory.” If the original directory can't be
found because the user has switched disks, the "Getting errors trying
to write at..." filecard will appear. It allows the user to insert the cor-
rect disk and then ‘Try again’ or to ‘Try a different location.”
Clipboard enhancements. Three enhancements were made to the
AppleWorks 3.0 clipboard. First, the only fimit on the size of the clip-
board is the amount of available memory. Second, you can now copy
and move spreadsheet columns and blocks to and from the clipboard
(formerly you could only deal with entire rows). When copying or mov-
ing spreadsheet data back into a spreadsheet, the data on the clip-
board overwrites pre-existing data.
The third clipboard enhancement allows you to use the clipboard
to transfer data directly between the word processor, data base, and
spreadsheet, When transferring data between the spreadsheet and the
data base, spreadsheet rows are equivalent to data base records and
columns are equivalent to categories.
When copying or moving data base or word processor data from
the clipboard to the spreadsheet, new rows are inserted for each
July 1989
record or line. The data will start in column A. If there are no Tabs in
word processor text, each whole line will be placed in a single cell in
column A. if there are Tabs, additional cells will be used for each Tab.
Numbers in data base categories or between word processor Tabs will
be converted to numeric values.
When copying or moving spreadsheet or word processor data from
the clipboard to the data base, new records are inserted for each row
or line. The data starts in the first category. If there are more
columns/Tabs than categories, the excess will be ignored; if less, the
remaining categories will be blank.
When copying or moving spreadsheet or data base data from the
clipboard to the word processor, Tabs are automatically inserted into
the text to separate columns/categories. Returns at the end of each
line separate rows/records.
Other desktop changes. Some other changes in AppleWorks 3.0
include the following: the program no longer asks the user to press
the space bar after display of the title/copyright screen during startup.
If the system has a clock, AppleWorks 3.0 will read the system date
during startup and not ask the user to enter the date.
OA-Delete now deletes the character the cursor is on (or gobbles
characters to the right of the cursor} in all parts of the program.
Delete alone works as before. OAtight-arrow and OA-left-arrow move
the cursor to the first character of the next word, right or left, in all
parts of the program. When Control-Reset is pressed, AppleWorks 3.0
tries to return to the main menu rather than dropping into the Moni-
tor.
“Thermometers similar to the one displayed while GS/OS is boot-
ing are used in AppleWorks 3.0 to indicate how quickly time-intensive
tasks such as preloading files, sorting, printing, and searching dictio-
naries are moving along. A warning message appears whenever a
duplicate filename is added to the desktop (the message appears in
current versions only when adding a new file from disk; under 3.0 it
will also appear when making a new file from scratch or when renam-
ing a file.) Users can now print up to 255 copies of a file. And the OA-
Hardcopy) command now issues a form feed to advance the paper
after printing what's on the screen.
Word Processor Enhancements
Spelling checker. The new built-in spelling checker is accessed by
pressing OA-V(erify spelling). This brings up the following one-line
menu at the bottom of the screen:
Verify spelling? All Word Block Dictionary Options
‘All’ checks the spelling of the entire document. "Word" checks the
Spelling of the word the cursor is on, or the word to the left of the cur-
sor If its between words. ‘Block" allows the user to select a block of
text and then checks the spelling of all the words in that block.
“Dictionary’ brings up a second menu that looks like this:
Custom Dictionary? Get existing Create new
Each time you start up AppleWorks 3.0, the configuration file is
used to determine the name of the default custom dictionary. The
first option allows you to switch from the
Hej default custom dictiot to another one, The
The built in second option allows ou to create a new,
spelling empty, custom dictionary and start using it.
checker is Dictionaries selected using the ‘Dictionary’
option remain in use through the current ses-
even better sion. The next time the user runs AppleWorks,
y however, the custom dictionary listed in the
than Quick- configuration file, which we'll look at later, is
spell. reselected.
In addition, each time you start up Apple-
Works 3.0, the configuration file is used to
determine whether you want to check spelling ‘in context’ or ‘from a
list’, to determine whether you want a summary of the spelling
changes you've made, and to determine whether you want your sum-
mary displayed on the screen or placed on the clipboard. (You can
also choose to get the summary only without stopping to correct any-
thing; this option was added so that teachers could quickly check
homework-on-iisk.)
The ‘Options’ selection in the ‘Verify spelling? menu allows you to
select the alternate checking method or alternate summary options
A2-Central 5.43
for the current spellcheck. (Your method/summary selections are
good one-time only and only if you select ‘Al or ‘Block’ immediately
after making the selection. Escape back to your document and you'll
lose the selection. ‘Word’ verifications are always in context and never
include a summary.)
When you verify spelling in context, AppleWorks proceeds through
the document stopping at each unknown word in the order in which
they occur. The document will be displayed on the screen with the
unknown word highlighted in approximately the center of the screen.
At the bottom of the screen you'll see the following menu:
Unknown word? Replace Add to dictionary Ignore Skip Get suggestions
‘Replace* allows you to type in a correction. First you'll have to
specify whether the correction applies only to that instance or to all
occurrences of the unknown word. ‘Add to dictionary’ adds the
unknown word to the current custom dictionary. ‘Ignore’ skips all
occurrences of the unknown word, "Skip" skips just that one instance
of the unknown word. ‘Get suggestions’ brings up a list of possible
correct spellings for the unknown word. You can scroll through this
list and replace the unknown word with the highlighted word by press-
ing Return.
When you verify spelling from a list instead of in context, you are
presented an alphabetical list of all the unknown words in the docu-
ment. You can use the four arrow keys to scroll through and select
some or all of the words in this list. Selected words can be added to
the dictionary (OA-A), ignored (OA-1), or replaced by typing in a correc-
tion (OAR). You can also choose to correct selected words in context
(OA-C), which is how you get the program to give you suggested
spellings for the unknown words in the list.
No matter which method you use, alter you've dealt with all the
unknown words, you'll be presented with an in-context display of all
double double word pairs and you'll be given an opportunity to
remove one of the duplicates, When verifying from a list, you can
delete double words anytime by pressing OA-D.
Looking only at spell-checking methods, AppleWorks 5.0's builtin
spelling checker is almost a twin of TimeOut Quickspell. The spelling
summary, on the other hand, is a new feature that TimeOut Quick-
Speil doesn't have.
The spelling summary is displayed on the screen or placed on the
clipboard after you've finished checking a document. Here's a summa-
ry for the file ‘Tax Estimtr.Doc," which is a sample file from the Nation-
al AppleWorks User Group that's included on the AppleWorks 3.0 disk:
Total words: 648
Unknown words: = §
Corrections made: 1
Unknown word
da
b
docunent ion
estimator'B9
vineenti <ADDED 10 DICT>
‘Total words’ is a count of all the words in the document. Words
that appear more than once are counted each time they appear.
“Unknown words" shows how many unique, unknown words are in the
document (this time words that appear more than once are counted
just once); a list of these words and what action was taken with each
follows. ‘Corrections made" shows how many of the unknown words
were corrected. The list that follows shows each unknown word;
whether it was corrected, added to the dictionary, or ignored/skipped;
and a count of how many times it occurred in the document.
As mentioned earlier, you can configure AppleWorks to skip the
summary compietely, to have it appear on the screen, or to have it
placed on the clipboard. And you can also configure it to immediately
display the summary on the screen without stopping to allow you to
make corrections. As shipped, AppleWorks 3.0 is configured for no
summary, in context checking, and a supplied custom dictionary
called CUST.DICTIONARY.
OA-Options menu; control-key commands. While the addition of
a spelling checker is significant in itself,a number of other enhance-
ments were also made to the word processor. An extra line was added
documentation
vevnn lf
5.44 A2-Central
to the already crowded OA-O(ptions) menu, which allowed the addi-
tion of four new options. The added options are RJ (right justifica-
tion), PD (print date), PT (print time), and SC (special code),
The addition of right justification finally
iti gives AppleWorks a complete set of justifica-
The addition ition cofions, The others are WJ (unjustified or
of right-justl- Jiett justitication), Ju (full justification), and CN
fication (centered). In addition, all four of these
. options can be inserted in a document with
gives Apple- |controtkey.commands: contro-N (normal or
Works a full left justification), control (full justification),
eee, _|controFR {right justification), and control-C
set of justifi- |(center).
cation Two additional controlkey commands have
been added to AppleWorks 3.0 (beyond con-
options. troLB for boldface on/off and control-L for
underline on/off, which are in current ver-
sions). They are control-P (page break), which
has the same effect as the NP (new page) printer option and control-A
{add-on), which inserts a formatting token that can be used by add-on
software such as the TimeOut series. The following chart shows the
complete list of AppleWorks 3.0 word processor control-key com-
mands:
control-B
control-L
control-N
control-F
control-R
control-C
control-P page break
control-A add-on token
The print date and print time options insert the current date or time
into a document as it is being printed. They work in much the same
way as the PP (print page number) printer option. Like PP, they are dis-
played as carets on the screen. The- format of dates and times is
configurable within AppleWorks 3.0, as we'll see in detail later; these
options print the user-selected format.
The SC (special code) option allows you to insert one of six user-
defined printer codes into a-document. These are also displayed as
carets on the screen. As in current versions of AppleWorks, a descrip-
tion of what a caret represents appears in the center of the bottom
fine of the screen when the cursor is on a caret. Even this description
is user-definable for the six special codes. The codes can be used to
turn on features some printers may have that AppleWorks doesn't oth-
erwise support, such as alternate character sets {italics or foreign lan-
guages). Or they can be used for accents (for example, define a spe-
clal code as ‘control-H ‘‘-control-H is the backspace command for
most printers~and use it to put a caret over the preceding letter.)
Real Tabs. The addition of real tabs to the word processor has
allowed a number of enhancements to AppleWorks 3.0, as seen earli-
er in the discussion of text file Import and export options. Moreover,
“real tabs" mean that pressing the Tab key no longer inserts spaces
into'a document; it now inserts a ‘tab token’. When you adjust tab set-
tings, the position of tabbed text in your document changes to match
the new tab seltings. This allows you to move whole columns of text
right or left simply and easily. It also means the Tab key can now
reposition text rather than just reposition the cursor. (OATab in the
word processor works like Tab alone did in prevous versions. There is
now no way to back-tab in the word processor.)
Different parts of a document are allowed to have different tab set-
tings through the use of tab ‘rulers*. When you press OA-T(abs), you
get a new prompt that looks like this:
Tab ruler? Modify current Create new
The “Modify current’ choice allows you to change tab stops on the
current ruler as in current versions of AppleWorks. The “Create New‘
choice gives you a new ruler, which initially has the same stops as the
current ruler, and then allows you to modify the stops as you like. A
tuler is in effect from the paragraph following the ruler until either a
new ruler is defined or the end of the document. The tab display at
the top of the screen always shows the settings of the current ruler-as
you move the cursor through a document the display will change
boldface on/off
underline on/off
nommal (left) justification
full justification
ight justification
center
Vol. 5, No. 6
when you pass rulers, which, if you use OA-Z(oom), look like this:
Like any other printer option token, tab ruler tokens can be copied,
moved, or deleted. However, the first tab ruler in a document doesn't
have a token. To copy the first ruler you have to make a duplicate of
it by pressing OA-1 to go to the top of the document, OA-T(abs), ‘Cre-
a New’, and Escape. This creates a copyable token of the first tab
ruler,
Four kinds of tab stops are available: left, center, right, and deci-
mal. A normal, left-justified tab appears in the tab display at the top
of the screen as a “<’, Think of the point of the less-than sign as repre-
senting the tab stop and the armis as representing where the charac-
ters will go. A centered tab appears as “*’. A right-justified tab appears
as ">'. A decimal tab appears as *."; decimal tabs line up a column of
numbers on the decimal point, as shown in the following table:
symbol kind effect
< left <-stop is here
2 ceater text centers
> right stop is bere-->
decimal $99.95
When a new word processor file is created from scratch or a file
from an older version of AppleWorks is added to the desktop, initial
tab stops appear every five spaces. All are left justified,
Multi-Line Headers and Footers, The OA-Oiption) HE (page head-
er) and FO (page footer) commands now insert two printer codes each
into your document, a begin code and an end code. Any printer
options or text entered between the codes will be used as the header
or footer. Headers and footers can have any reasonable number of
lines (more than half a page isn't reasonable). When copying, moving,
or deleting headers they must be treated as a block, however, users
can copy/move/delete parts of text and formatting that is between
begin and end markers.
Other enhancements. The print menu now looks like this;
Print from? Beginning This page Cursor Page to page
If you select the new ‘Page to page" option, you'll next be asked to
select a printer. After that you'll be asked for beginning and ending
page numbers. You'll know what page numbers you want to print, of
course, because you'll be smart enough to OA-K(alculate page num-
bers) and see before you try to print.
OA-Z(oom) has been changed slightly so that all printer options,
including headers, footers, and most carets, are hidden in zoom-out
mode. Zoom-in shows everything, as before.
Placing a Boldface Begin or Underline Begin at the beginning of a
document and not matching it with a Boldface End or Underline End
will boldface or underline the entire document.
When using the Copy and Move commands, line numbers are no
longer removed from the bottom of the screen.
On machines with more than 256K of memory, the maximum num-
ber of lines in a word processor document is more than 16,000.
As mentioned earlier, OA-Delete removes the character the cursor
is on. OAright/left arrow moves the cursor to-the first character of the
next word to the right or left. In addition, the unshifted forms of OA-<
and OA-> (actually OA-, and OA-.) move the cursor to the beginning
and end of the current line.
Data Base Enhancements
The multiple-record layout in the AppleWorks data base has
been greatly enhanced by adding horizontal scrolling, left-side titles,
and selectable user-defined layouts.
The multiple-record layout now scrolls horizontally much like the
spreadsheet. The unshifted forms of OA-< and OA-> move the cursor
to the left and right edge of the document. OAtight/left-arrow move
the cursor to the left and right edge of the screen. (The functioning of
these key combinations in the spreadsheet and word processor is
identical, with the exception that in the word processor OA-right/left-
arrow moves the cursor one word at a time rather than one screen at
a time.) As in the spreadsheet, you can force the left-most cate-
gories to stay on the screen during horizontal scrolling by setting
July 1989
tittes. The command for this is OA-T(itles). When you press OA-T, the
cursor must be to the right of (rather than on top of) the categories
you want stuck on the screen.
When you press OA-L{ayout) from a multiple-record layout, you get
anew menu that looks like this:
1. Change the existing record layout
2. Get a layout from a report format
{If no report formats have been defined, this menu doesn't appear.)
If you choose to get a layout from a report format, you're next pre-
sented a list of available formats. Select one, tell AppleWorks whether
you want the cursor to go down or across when you press Return, and
your multiple-record display changes to. match that of the report for-
mat. This gives you an easy way to flip between different multiple-
record ‘views’ of your data.
Likewise, when you tell AppleWorks you want to create a new
‘tables’ report format for printing, you'll see a new menu that asks:
Create a new "tables" format:
1. Fram scratch
2. From the current record layout
If you select 2, all the !ayout work you've done in multiple-record
format will be transferred to your new report format. Further modifica-
tions are possible if you desire.
You can now have up to 20 report formats per file, instead of just 8
as before. If you are working with a labels-style format, the OA-
O(ptions) command in the data base now includes an item called
‘columns’ at the bottom of the ‘left and right margins’ section. This
allows you to print several labels across a page. You can specify any
number between 1 and 24, although anything over 5 makes for a very
narrow label.
‘The OA-F(ind) command now displays the following menu:
Find text? Anywhere In a specific category
“Anywhere' produces a search just like the one current versions of
AppleWorks do. If you select "In a specific category’, you'll be present-
ed a list of categories in the file and allowed to select just one. This
allows you to find your clients named ‘Smith’ without finding your
Clients who live on ‘Blacksmith Road’, or who live in ‘Smithsville’, or
who work for the ‘Smithsonian’.
The OA-A(rrange) command now displays the following menu:
Arrange (sort) on? Category (nnnnnnnn) Several categories
In the position where | put 'nnnnnnnn' in this example you'll actual-
ly see the name of the category the cursor was on when you pressed
OACA. Selecting that produces a sort you'll recognize from current ver-
sions of AppleWorks. If you select ‘Several categories’ instead, you
can select up to three and an arrangement order for each. The screen
resembles the OA-R(ecord select) screen while you do this. As you
would expect, the sorts are done in reverse order from the way you
select them, so that the last sort is done on the first category you
select. For example, if you select the ‘city’ category and then the ‘last
name’ category from a mailing list data base, the final arrangement
will be by city, with records sorted by name within the city groups.
Other enhancements. After pressing OA-L{ayout) in single-record
format, you can now press OA-T(ies) to make category names appear
in inverse.
If you enter a "@" in a date field or a time field and press Return,
AppleWorks will replace it with the current date or time.
On machines with more than 256K of memory, the maximum num-
ber of records in a data base document is now more than 16,000.
Spreadsheet enhancements
The two primary enhancements to the spreadsheet in AppleWorks
3.0 are the addition of a large number of new functions and the abilt-
ty to reference text in formulas.
There are 26 new spreadsheet functions. Here's a complete list:
‘Avithmetic fonctions
MOD (woMEER, prvrsoR)
Returns the remainder of: wummer divided by prvisor.
@I
Returns 3,1415927
A2-Central 5.45
(EXP (womner)
Returns ¢ raised to the power of NOMBER
GLN (woMBER)
Returns the natural logarithm of woMBER
L0G (women)
Returns the base 10 logarithm of wommer,
called @10G10 by come other spreadsheets.
Teigononetric functions
$DEG (emmer}
Converts wom, which is an angle in radians, to degrees.
GRAD (womBER)
Converts womper, which is an angle in degrees, to radians.
COS (wmnzr)
Returns the cosine of wumser, which is an angle in radians.
4ACOS (wowaeR)
Returns the angle in radians whose cosine is NOMBER.
@SIN(woMnER)
Returns the sine of numer, which is an angle in radians.
ASIN (owner)
Returna the angle in radians whose sine ig wommER.
TAN (woMBER)
Returns the tangent of wommer, which is an angle in radians,
GATAN (wonBER)
Returns the angle in radians whose tangent is woMser.
QATAN? (x-NOMBER, ¥-NOMBER)
Returns the angle in radians whose x and y coordinates are
X-WOMBER and Y~NOMBER,
logical functions
TRIE
Returns the value reve (1)
TALSE
Returns the value raise (0)
NOT (women)
Returns FALSE if womeeR is TRUE and vice-versa
GISBLANE (REF)
Returns rrog if cell (rer) is empty, else raLse
ATSERROR (REF)
Returns ram if cell (rer) is "ERROR", else raisz
ISM (REF)
Returns reve if cell (ner) is "NA", else raLse
Financial functions
QIRA (RANGE, GUESS)
Returns the internal rate of return of the cash flow in RANGE.
GIRR uses iteration. It repeats the calculation until the
values converge, If they don't converge after 20 iterations
the function returns an error. In this case, try a different
value for the curs paraneter.
QPV(rare, rere, pur [, pv, TPz])
Returns the Future Value of a series of equal payments when the interest
rate per period, number of periods, and payment are known. The
optional ev parameter in brackets allovs you to give a beginning
value to the cash flow (defaults to zero if not specified). The
optional ype parameter specifies whether payments occur at the
beginning (1) or end (0) of the period (defaults to zero).
GEV (rare, rea, Per [, Fv, trez] )
ATERM (nave, Pur, ev[, Fv, TxPE])
@PHE (RATE, TERM, Pv[, FV, TYPE] }
‘These functions return Present Value, Term, and Payment of a series of
equal payments. You mist know the interest rate per period and two
of the values to calculate the third. The optional rv parameter
allows you to give an ending value to the cash flow. See @FV for an
explanation of the rex paraneter.
(RATE (TRH, PV, FV)
Calculates the interest rate of a lump sum transaction when the Term,
Present Value, and Future Value are known. The Term, Present Value,
and Puture Value of lump sun transactions can be calculated using
the other financial functions with Payment set to zero. The
interest rate of a transaction involving a series of paynents can't
be determined by formula--don't try to use this function to do it.
5.46 A2-Central
If you're interested in more information on how the financial func-
tions work, a little book called Your Best Interest, by yours truly, is a
great place to learn. ($9.95: [B-00 1}.
‘Other enhancements. As mentioned in
the section on the clipboard, blocks of
AppleWork: $3.0 spreadsheet data can. be copied and
has 32 built-in moved to and from the clipboard with
1 AppleWorks 3.0. Print All now prints as
printers, three
many columns as it canon the first page,
then prints the next group of columns,
then the next group of columns, until alt
columns are printed. In earlier versions,
custom print-
ers, and six
new user- printing stopped after the first group of
. columns. When copying ‘Within work
defined Special sheet’, the user can press OA-Return to
Codes. select either "No change’ or ‘Relative’ and
AppleWorks will copy all subsequent cell
references in that manner without asking
again, OA-N or OA-R also work for. this. The maximum number of rows
in the spreadsheet is 9,999 on machines with 256K of memory or
more,
New configuration menu
In earlier versions of AppleWorks, items 6 and 7 on the Other Activ-
ities menu were ‘Select standard location of data disk’ and ‘Specify
information about your printer(s)’. In AppleWorks 3.0 these have been
replaced by an item that reads, ‘Select standard settings for Apple-
Works‘,
The ‘Standard Settings’ file card includes the following items:
1, Change preloading
2. Select standard Spelling Checker settings
3. Change date format
4
5.
6.
. Change time fornat
. Select standard location of data disk
Specify information about your printer(s)
Item 1 allows the user to select which modules (word processor,
data base, spreadsheet, none, any two, or all) will be loaded into
memory when AppleWorks starts up, The more modules you preload,
the Jonger it takes and the more desktop memory you use up. On the
other hand, you can switch from one preloaded module to another
very quickly. The default preload for 5.25 disks is ‘none’ and for 3.5
disks it's ‘all."
Item 2 allows you to configure the spelling checker, There are three
configuration options-name of the custom dictionary, standard
spelling method (‘In context’ or ‘From a list’), and standard summary
setting (No summary’, ‘Put summary on clipboard", ‘Put summary on
screen’, and "Screen summary only; don't correct spelling’). Defaults
are CUST. DICTIONARY, "in context’, and "No summary’
Item 3 allows you to select a date format that will be used through-
out AppleWorks. Here's the date selection menu:
1. Moa D0, HWYY {april 11, 1998)
2. MM/DD/YE (4/11/88)
3. DD Mon FYFE (11 April, 1988)
4. DD/MM/YY (11/4/88)
With the options that speil out the month name (1 and 3) the year
won't be displayed if it hasnt been specified. Slashed dates must
have a year-the current year will be used if none is specified. In data
base date fields, month names are abbreviated to three characters no
matter which format you choose here. However, items | and 2 put the
month first in data base date fields, items 3 and 4 put the day first.
The default setting is number 1.
Item 4 allows you to select a time format. The default is AM/PM for-
mat. Here's the time selection menu:
1, AM/PH twelve hour format
2, ‘Twenty-four hour format
Item 5, “Select standard location of data disk’, is unchanged from
current versions of AppleWorks.
Item 6, ’Specify information about your printer(s)', works much like
before but includes several new options. As mentioned earlier, the
SEG.PR file that comes with AppleWorks 3.0. contains information for
Vol. 5, No. 6
more printers. Here's a complete list:
Apple
Daisy Wheel, Dot Matrix, InageRriter, InageWriter II, Inageliriter LQ,
Scribe, Sileatype
Brother
RIO, HR20, HR25, RIS
n
MX, WX/Graftraxt, FX, RX
Suki
5500 series, 6100, 6200, 6300, 6500
Okidata
192, 193, 824, 83a, 84, 92, 93
Panasonic
1080, 1091, 1092
Sprint 5, Sprint 11
If this list isn't long enough, AppleWorks 3.0 allows you to have
three custom printers, not one as in earlier versions. But even better
than that, 3.0 allows you to customize the codes of built-in printers,
as well, This means you could add an ImageWriter II to your list of
printers and then change just the codes for boldface begin and end.
You wouldn't need to enter a long list of new codes for your custom
printers other options as you do with current versions.
But beyond even that, you now get six Special Printer Codes. These
codes are selected in the word processor using the new OA-O(ptions)
SC (special code) feature mentioned earlier. Six distinct special codes
can be saved for each printer, however, only one set of names for the
codes can be saved. The names appear at the bottom of the word
Processor screen when you put the cursor on a Special Codes caret.
Using the Special Codes, you no longer have to give up boldface to
get italics, and so on.
AppleWorks 3.0's underlining powers have been strengthened. It
can send the correct underlining codes to any printer that has under-
lining abilities.
When entering printer codes, the ‘end of code" key is now OA-
Return instead of the caret. This means all 128 ASCII characters can
now be entered and used as printer codes.
New file formats
AppleWorks 3.0 can read and write files created on earlier versions
of AppleWorks. However, because of the new features in AppleWorks
5.0, older versions of AppleWorks will not be able to read files creat-
ed by AppleWorks 3.0 if new features are used. If new features are
not used, however, AppleWorks 3.0 saves files in the old standard for-
mat.
Files will be saved in the new format when the following features
are used:
Word Processor
One or more tab characters
Any type of tab other than left justified
Multiple tab rulers
Beaders or Footers
Any of the new OA-0(ptions)
Right Justify
Print Date
Print Time
Special Codes
More than 7,250 lines
Data Base
Using more than @ report formats
More than 6,350 records
Spreadsheet
Iny new function
Any formla that returns a label
The use of literal strings ("for example") in functions
Data below row 999
The new file formats will be made available to developers.
Claris reports that more than 750,000 copies of AppleWorks have
been sold and that AppleWorks and AppleWorks GS own 40 per cent
of the market share for integrated microcomputer software.
July 1989
Miscellanea
The next question everyone has is whether they will need to
upgrade their TimeOut programs to work with AppleWorks 3.0. The
answer is yes. Upgrades will be available from your Beagle Buddy, if
you have one, or directly from Beagle Bros at a price of $10 per pack-
age.
Beagle Bros has also acquired the rights to ali StyleWare prod-
ucts (except AppleWorks GS, of course) from Claris. They will be
released in new Beagle Bros packaging, for the most part at Style-
Ware's prices, on July 1.
Roger Wagner left some HyperStudio tips on GEnie some of
you might be interested in.
1.) Here's how to make a disk that boots into your own stack. Start
with a copy of the /HYPERSTUDIO disk. To give yourself some space,
delete all of the non-folder files in the main directory except PRODOS,
(but don't delete anything that's inside a folder). Copy the files HYPER-
STUDIO and HS.TD (Tape Deck, required for stacks with sounds) from
/HS.DEMO to the main directory of your new disk. Also put the stack
you want to use into the main directory of this disk and call it
HOME.STACK.
Finally, go into the new disk's System folder and change the name
of the file called START to FINDER and change START.HS to START.
Now, when you boot this disk, the START program will start HYPER-
STUDIO and it will load and display the HOME.STACK.
2.) Although HyperStudio doesn't offer a built-in palette editor, you
can ‘fool’ it into letting you use your own palette on any given card.
To do this, first go to PaintWorks Gold, or 8/16 Paint (640 version),
and create any graphic, large or small, with a custom palette. Then
save this graphic to disk. Now go to HyperStudio, and use the Add
Clip-Art function to add just a small portion of the custom palette
graphic to a card. This will change the palette for that card to your
custom palette. Once added, you can even go back and delete the
graphic added to the card and HyperStudio will retain the custom
palette for that card. The custom colors will be shown in the Colors
menu, and you can use them in the paint tools. If you change your
A2-Central 5.47
mind later, you can restore the standard palette by choosing Standard
Palette in the Options menu.
3.) HyperStudio for the moment requires an Apple llgs with 1.25Mb
of memory, and at least one 3.5 disk drive. HyperStudio was
designed, however, to work ih 768K minimum, and will with the next
update.
4,) Demo stacks on the HS.DEMO disk run from about 50K to 100K
in size. A ‘real’ stack might average about 200K. For 768K systems,
you'll have to keep individual stacks fairly small, but stacks can be
chained together in such a way as to be transparent to’ the user. A
1.25Mb machine is not likely to have any particular memory problems
unless you're trying to embed a lot of sounds in one stack.
Stack size varies depending on a number of factors; number of dif-
ferent backgrounds on various cards; how visually complex the back-
grounds are; number of graphic objects used over and above the
backgrounds; and number of embedded sounds and/or the largest
single sound used in a stack. Briefly:
Backgrounds: For any particular background used on a card, look
at the number of blocks used on the disk when the graphic is saved
in a compressed format. This will be just slightly Jess than the amount
of memory used by that background in HyperStudio. Solid color back-
grounds compress very well and take very little memory. If a back-
ground is repeated on several cards in a stack, each new card keeps
only a pointer to the original background, so no additional memory is
required.
Graphic objects: When adding a graphic object, keep in mind that
at the worst case, a 1/4 screen graphic would take 8K (1/4 of 32K).
However, when compressed, this is likely to be much smaller, and
graphics less than 1/4 screen use still less memory. it's not unusual
to have each graphic object only use 2-6K of memory per image.
Sounds: Sounds take about 10K of memory per second. However,
if the sounds or graphic objects are left as disk files (extended data),
then only the items on the current card are loaded into memory, This
means you could have megabytes of graphics and sound ail used by a
stack that was only a few hundred K itself, and only need as much
memory as was required to load the longest sound on any particular
card,
Ask
(or tell)
Uncle
Fundamental computing
What's the best book around for beginning
computer users to read to understand the fun-
damentals?
Robert Weiser
Hershey, Pa.
Why do so many programs start with PRINT
CHR$(4)? 1 know this prints a contro-D, but
why?
Bradley Albing
Macedonia, Chio
A very general and gentle overview of deal-
ing with the elementary, fundamental, real-
world issues of personal computing is present-
ed in John Bear's Computer Wimp, published
by Ten Speed Press. We cany it in stock
($9.95: TS-001),
Computer Wimp wont tell you the secret of
CHR$(4), however, because it doesn't discuss
Apple lis specifically, just personal computers
in general, and CHR$(4) is an Applesoft con-
vention. Applesoft was written before the
Apple Il had a disk operating system. When the
disk operating system was added, Applesoft
itself couldn't be changed, so instead the oper-
ating system was designed to intercept lines
PRINTed by Appiesoft that began with control-D
and interpret them as disk commands, Thus,
the PRINT statements you are seeing are com-
mands for the disk operating system. A com-
plete description of how this system works is
in Chapter 12 of The DOStalk Scrapbook, b y
Tom Weishaar and Bert Kersey ($14.95: TB
007}.
Initial colons
Ive been reading a book about Applesoft and
1 keep running into program lines that begin
with a colon. [ don't understand what this is for
and | can find no explanation anywhere for the
use of a colon in this location. At first | thought
it was a typo, but I've seen it enough I've begun
to think it must have some significance.
Bill Coleman
St. Petersburg, Fla.
Many Applesoft programmers use colons to
indent lines that are within loops to make the
Joop structure more evident. if you try to use
spaces for this, Applesoft will automatically
delete them. Applesoft wont delete colons,
however, and colons don't cause syntax errors
or change the way the program executes.
Here's a slightly modified version of one of Bert
Kersey's masterpieces that demonstrates the
technique:
100 BOMB : LIS? ; BU2z=49200
110 Ags"! /-" + CHRS (92)
120 FOR Al 10 48
130 : B-PERR(BO22)
10 : FOR C=l 10 A: NRxT
150; XS-H2D$ (AS, A-TNT(A/4)*441,1)
160 : VIRB 3 : BTAR 12
170: PRIN? XS;X8;X$
180 NEXT
190 coro 120
200 REM Brass Control-C to quit
When you LIST this program on the screen,
youl notice some subtle differences from what
we've printed here. For example, there won't be
a space after the colon in lines 130 and 150.
We aim for maximum readability when we print
listings here, rather than a mirror image of
Applesofts nonsensical LIST formatting.
Current time w/o prompt
I've seen several methods of extracting the
current date and time from the Ilgs clock for
use in an Applesoft program, but these meth-
ods only yield a snapshot. Is there any way of
displaying the running date and time on the
screen walle an Applesoft program is execut-
ing? Ive created several utility programs in
Applesoft and | would like to include the run-
ning clock on the screen along with my menus.
Is it possible to eliminate the ‘)’ prompt from
briefly appearing on the screen when Basic.sys-
tem is run?
Dan Seibold
San Jose, Calif.
5.48 A2-Central
There are two different ways fo accomplish
this and similar tasks. They go by the names
‘polling’ and ‘interrupting’.
With polling, your program repeatedly takes
snapshots of the clock and updates the screen
whenever it isn't doing anything else. Typically,
you'd create a loop that would take snapshots
of the clock inside the same subroutine that
collects keypresses, This subroutine would
check to see if a key had been pressed and, if
not, would get the time and update the screen.
For this to work, you'd have to remove al! of
your INPUT statements and change them into
keyboard PEEKs,
Here's some routines you might find useful.
Replace alf your INPUT X$ statements with
GOSUB 30000 : X$=A$ and all your GET X$
statements with GOSUB 30050 ; X$=A$. Make
sure you aren't using A$ for anything else in
your program:
30000 REM INPOT AS
30010 A1g=""
30020 GOSUB 30050 : PRINT A;
30030 IP A§=CHRS(13) THEN AS=A1$ : RETURN
30040 ALG=A1S+A$ ; GOTO 30020
30050 REM GET AS
30060 REX first get tine and update screen
30061: VP=PEBR(37) : HP=PRER(1147)
30062: VIAB 1 : BTR 75
30063: PRINT CERS(4) ; “FLUSH
30064: PRINT PEEK (49043) ;":"; PERK (49042)
30065: VIAB VP+l : PORE 1403,
30070 IF PEEK (49152) <126 THEN 30060 : REM key down?
30080 AB=CHRS (PEEK (49152)-128) : PORE 49168,0 ; REM
atoll
© Copyright 1989 by
A2-Central
Moet rights reserved. All programs publshed AZ-Central are pubic
‘oman and may be copied and distibued witout charge. Ande user groups
and significant ches may cbtah permission to reat aces om fe ore
by spect writen request.
riven, edted, and pubiched by:
Tom Weishaar
with he'p trom:
Dennis Doms Sally Dwyer
‘Tor Vanderpool Steve Kelly
Dean Esmay Jean Weishaar
Dianne Piumberg
Joyce Hammond
‘A2-Central,—ed ‘trough Janvary, 1983—fas been pub-
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30090 RETURS
The line 30000 INPUT A$ routine simply
calls the line 30050 GET A$ routine repeatedly
until it sees you've pressed Return, CHR$f13),
and then passes what's been input back to
you. It uses Al as a temporary place to store
the line, character by character, as you type it
in.
The line 30050 GET A$ routine begins by
getting the time and displaying it in lines
50061-65. In line 50070 it looks to see if a key
has been pressed. If not, it loops back and
updates the screen time again. If so, it figures
out what the character was in line 530080 and
returns to its caller.
Line 30061 saves the current cursor posi-
tion. Line 30062 places the cursor in the upper
right comer of the screen, where the time will
be displayed. Lines 50063-64 use Myron Ker-
ney's ‘Flushing out the time” trick (April 1988,
page 4.23) to take a snapshot of the clock and
display it on the screen. Line 30065 returns
the cursor to its previous position.
Try the routine and see how you like it. It's
belter than Applesoft's own INPUT routine in
some ways-it accepts commas, Its worse in
others-no cursor. Adding a cursor is beyond
the scope of your question, so we'll slyly back
down the hall here and leave that as an exer
cise for the reader, as they say.
Interrupts are usually even more complicat-
ed. You need a piece of hardware (probably
the clock Itself, in this case) to generate an
electronic signal that tells the microprocessor
to stop what it's doing and go do something
else instead, That something else would be a
Small assembly language program that would
get the time and update the screen for you. It's
too complicated to explain all the details of
how to do this here, but if you're interested, its
covered in Chapter 25 of ProDOS Inside and
Out, by Dennis Doms and Tom Weishaar
($16.95: TB-006), One advantage of interrupts
Js that you wont have to change your program
at all.
Interrupts are usually used when the task to
be accomplished just can't wait-for example,
when an incoming character has arrived from 2
modem and a program has to save it before it
gets overwritten by the next incoming charac-
ter. Polling doesn't work as well for this,
Polling does work well for updating the time
‘on the screen, however, because it only hap-
pens when your program isn't doing anything
else. Turning on interrupts has a tendency to
degrade performance because of the time
spent servicing interrupt calls.
Applesoft sends the ‘!’ prompt to the screen
when it's started up. The prompt is captured by
both DOS 3,3 and ProDOS to regain control of
the computer after getting Applesoft going.
You'd have to patch the operating system to
prevent it, which is something we don't like to
do for cosmetic purposes.
Drive alignment
| have an Apple tlc with a new 5.25 Applied
Engineering external drive. Anything that | save
Vol. 5, No. 6
on disks in this drive cannot be retrieved (I can't
even read the directory) on another I[c-Plus with
an external drive. The drive speed verifies ok.
Joseph Oakes
Glover, Vi.
The drive head on one drive or the other is
probably out of alignment. To figure out which
drive is the one causing the problem, initialize
a few disks with each one, labeling them to
show which machine the disk was created on.
Then try reading these with the opposite drive
as well as with a few other drives. If the align-
ment of one of the drives is a problem, you'll
have trouble reading disks created on that
drive on all other drives,
Realigning a drive requires special equip-
ment and the technical services of a dealer or
manufacturer. if it's the new drive that is caus-
ing the problem, fet Applied Engineering know
and they'll fix it for you under their warranty
program.
Fingerprint vs TransWarp
My Fingerprint interface card won't work
when J] add Applied Engineering's TransWarp
accelerator board. Why?
David Langlois
Oswego, N.Y.
When you press the button attached to the
Fingerprint card, the card tries to ‘grab control"
of the computer. When you're using a Trans-
Warp, it has already used the same technique
to grab control, however, and isnt willing to
give it back. The user is the big loser in this
battle; you can't have both cards active at the
same time.
Georgia's EduNET
1 want to brag on a project one of your sub-
scribers has initiated this year to provide oppor-
tunities to isolated classroom teachers. The pro-
ject is a component of the Regional Teacher
Education Center here at Georgia College and is
called EduNET, It allows teachers to easily and
inexpensively acquire the information and the
communication opportunities they need to con-
tinue to grow professionally.
What we're doing is this: first, we're placing
2400 baud modems (Epic) and the software to
mun on them (Point-to-Point) in all of the 200-
plus schools in our service area that will agree
to accept them. Second, we're providing multi-
ple, state-wide, toll-free telephone lines so that
the education community in our service area
need not be daunted by the specter of outra-
geous telephone bills, ‘Third, we're providing a
multi-caller information service that provides for
up to 64 simultaneous callers, remote informa
tion providers and editors, and that has public
conferences, private email, file sharing, and
searchable data bases.
Currently, the system uses software from
Russ Systems (DBS or Data Broadcasting Sys-
tem) running on a network of Apple ils served
by a Corvus drive. Similar software for the
AppleShare environment is expected to evolve
from Russ System's Lets Share Apple Il net-
working interface. Lets Share is a vast improve-
ment over Apple's Aristotle,
We're very excited about the tremendous
potential to do good things for teachers and
those who support them using this approach.
Educators outside of Georgia can take a peek at
our system by calling in on their own nickel, if
they like-the number is 912-453-1897.
Dr. Frank Lowney