theharvest3.2

VOL, 3-NO. 2 THE HARVEST OCTOBER 1981 DN THIS ISSUE Club Officers, Members Aide, Treasurer’s Report- - - = ~ = =~=---=-- 2 NIAUG Library Notes, G Makas- - - - - - = -- = - =~ ~~~-=------ 3 rag Goze DaveeA pet teers emer nee SIG Coming Events - - - - - - -----------------------4 SIG NEWS- = = == = = = = = a =4 Expediter II, Hans Lageschulte- - - - - - - ----~=-----------5 Visi-Caids 2.0, Harry Maram- - =~ - = — = - = —- === -==-=- ea Agenda, Unclassified Ads, My Corner of RAM Hans Lageschulte~ ~ - = ~ ~ ~ ey Secretary’s Report, Joel Kurasch- - - - ~ - =o oe 5 ---------- ll Context Comnector, Harry Maran- = - - - -=---------------=- 10 PRitecPrintess Bilis PE been ete 6x mec 11 Data Base Management, Alfred R. Dixon Jr, Michigan Apple Gram — ~ = ~ ~ = 12 TBM Personal Computer, Mike Szyszska~ ~ = = =~ = = = = == == = = = = = = 14 Editorial; Terry Tufte — == = a lO Calendar- - - - --------- --------------------- 18 PAGE 2 OCTOBER, 1981 _ THE HARVEST : = mailing to foreign CLUB OFFICERS 2 Guy Lyle-———————._ 312-438-7941 "Sim Wilson—————— 312-358-2196 Jim PEeiffer———— 312-289-7311 : Eric Stral——————_ 312-885-1941 Rob Stewart—————_ 312-537-0544 _ Paul Stadfeld————_ 312-359-2378 Club Adresses: = e time of The members listed below have volunteered to answer questions from club members who need a “HOT LINE” type answer that can be answered over the telephone. Please try to be brief when you call as a courtesy to them. Their names and phone numbers are listed below. The numbers after their names represent their ere talents. PLEASE-NO CALLS at dinner time or after 10 pm. Paul Stadfeld———312-359-2378 4-9 Earl Allen—————312-837-9259 1-9 ‘Ted Mike Robins————3. Mach. Lang=1 Int. BASIC=2 Applesoft =3 Hardware =4 Arrays =5 DOS =6 All of above=9 PASCAL=0 ,280 CARD=8(are not included in the 9 designation) When numbers appear before a 9, the person is especially qualified in that area as well as in all other areas. = September 12,1981 Ju bal. $2658.17 ae = 28 new members 283.00 Disk project (246 sold $600 Hout October, 1981 NIAUG LIBRARY NOTES by George Makas You may or may not have noticed that my column has not appeared in the last two HARVESTS. Besides having been away for three weeks, I have been busy writing music programs for the Apple. This month’s column will review Vol. 5 of the NIAUG library. I spent about five hours going through the programs to see how they functioned. I compared the programs with the descriptions written in the listings and found that Jim Pfeiffer has described the programs sufficiently to assist one in selecting a program for his needs. The disk has no games. My version of Vol. 5 is an early one so I do not have the programs contributed by Mark Pump. Furthermore, my disk had a number of problems. BERT THE BARKEEP by Ken Rose evidently has line numbers 6000 to 10000 deleted from my program because I had error statements regarding out of data for the string A$. There seemed to be some sub-routine missing that loaded the A$ array for carrying out the various parts of the program. The program BUDGET had insufficient directions to set up the file HOUSEHOLD. Another program, APARTMENT FINANCE(EA) called for a file called DOSPRINT that was not on the disk. In addition there were no directions for creating such a file. Personal finance seemed to be the major contribution of this diskette. The ever prolific Guy Lyle contributed AMORTIZATION. The program can supply you with a printable table of payments for any type of loan: automobile, home, or whatever, provided that interest rate is always calculated on a fixed declining balance. Robert Shen, in MORTGAGE PAYMENT, has a quick program for establishing the exact monthly payment needed for mortgage payments. APARTMENT FINANCE is also handy for the real estate investor who wishes to assess the worth of his current or proposed program; however, this program has very little THE HARVEST PAGE 3 information for the uninformed prospective investor. A couple of finance related programs were of the commercial type. NETFLOW.COST and PAY.ROM/V4 might assist someone in developing a program for his own use, since both of these programs have very specific applications. Another category of programs included on this diskette is personal management. ADDRESS.BOOK can be a handy tool for birthday and holiday greeting mailings. Using the computer to sort your list, remind you of special occasions during the year is far better than having to review your lists, in a time-consuming way, every time you thought you should check for impending events. APPLEFILE permits you to set up a file for recipes, bibliographies, inventories, or whatever. LISTS may be better in that it provides you with more options in handling your data. If you are still one of the few people who does not have a disk drive, you can have an adequate but limited address program in MAILING LIST. MINI TEXT-EDITOr has nothing to offer anyone who has one of the commercial word processors such as Applesoft. If you are having trouble making up your mind when faced with alternatives, then Ken Rose’s program on PASS THE BUCK may be for you. In trying out the program, it correctly advised me to drive to Dominick’s rather than to fly since it proved to be quicker and cheaper. Another Rose program is TRAVEL PLANNER that helps you budget and plan your trips to some 30 to 40 different cities. TOTAL in our day of hand calculators is unnecessary and FAST FOURIER TRANSFORM is for the person interested in harmonics and partials in acoustics and other similar studies. One has to go in and modify some lines. There are no input statements for entering your own data. I substituted some values and noted the effects on the output. I hope that some of you have tried to manipulate some of the library programs. Trying to run just a portion of a program or any subroutine can teach one more about programing than just tutorials alone. Try it. You may like it. PAGE 4 PREZ SEZ! Random Thoughts Last week I typed in a long machine language program from one of the computer magazines. Since I ama horrible typist, I wanted to check the listing against a print out of what I had typed. I started to compare the lines from left to right across each horizontal line. When I got down a few lines, I lost my place. Folding the paper I was able to keep the top line of my list right under the line of the magazine I was comparing it too. This meant folding the page once for every line. Some task when the listing was more than 100 lines long. Then I got the brain storm. I folded the paper vertically and compared the listing for column one straight down the paper. Then I did column two, etc. In no time I was done. And I only had to fold the paper 8 times, not 100. What I had typed in agreed with the listing in the magazine. Next I went to run the program.... and it did run just fine. rambling on..... If you missed the Midwest Computer Show, you were lucky. Not only did you save $5.00 admission and $3.50 for parking, but you also missed the worst computer show T have ever attended. The advertisments claimed 200 exhibitors. There were barely 50. Also, the advertisments the promoters of the show distributed had picture taken at the NCC. These gave the impression of a really big show. I understand there is some legal action over the use of those pictures. There was also a listing published that said that Apple and some of the bigger vendors would be there. When I got to the show, I looked at the program for Apples location. It directed me to the Computerland booth. So instead of getting Apple, you got an Apple at some one elses booth. There were plenty of Apples elsewhere though. Probably the most interesting booth was the lady selling a stick of chemical that kept my glasses from fogging up. That was great for me!? The next day I picked up my first ever THE HARVEST Education: OCTOBER, 1981 contact lenses. and.seee Nominations for next years officers are now under consideration. Joel Kurasch and John Hoffman are co-chairmen of the Nominating committee. If you are interested or know someone who might be interested, get in touch with them. Their phone numbers are listed elsewhere in the Harvest. finally.... The membership renewal drive for 1982 is on. Soon you will be receiving a letter and renewal application. Dues will remain $12.00 next year; quite an accomplishment in these days. Please don“t wait to send in your renewal. Unpaid members will be removed from the mailing list January lst and, of course, will not receive further issues of The Harvest. Membership cards will be issued to all renewals. These will be needed to take advantage of membership benefits. Let’s better last years 85% renewal. Dave Alpert, pres. Pe SIG INFORMATION CONTACT LIST: Business: Eric Stral 312-885-1941 Helen Tufts 312-392-7735 Stock, Options, Coumodities--—--Harry Maram ~ 312-764-1847, Bob Werner 312-433-0478. Pascal: Ken Nestle 312-620-7745 SIG COMING EVENTS Education SIG- meeting date and location undecided. Call Helen Tufts for exact info .312-392-7735 Stock, Options, Commodities SIG will hold their next meeting Oct 15, 7:30 pm at MGCC building, 8944 N. Austin, Morton Grove. For more information call Bob Werner 312-433-0478. Business SIG will hold their next meeting Oct 17. Mount Prospect Library 9:30 am. OCTOBER, 1981 EXPEDITER IT ‘rom On-Line Systems Reviewed by Hans Lageschulte Some high-level languages, like Applesoft, require the code to be interpreted during execution. But, this will slow a program down. To make a program run with greater speed, one would have to convert the Basic into machine language. But, this takes time, lots of time (you also have to know machine language, too). Some other high-level languages, like Pascal, require you to compile the program. Compiling is the process of taking a high-level program and converting it into a low-level (machine language) program. This can be a pain because if there is a error you must go back to the program, change it, and then recompile it. But Applesoft does not have to be compiled to be able to run. This allows for easy editing and quick analysis of errors. But with this plus also comes a minus. Applesoft programs run 2-10 times slower than if they were compiled into 6502 machine language. What we need is an Applesoft compiler! On-Line Systems comes to the rescue with a new product called THE EXPEDITER II. This gem of a program costs $99.95 and can be obtained from your local computer store. Expediter II requires only one disk drive and Applesoft in ROM. To start, the program to be compiled is loaded into memory, then the Expediter program is "BRUN"ed. After about 30 seconds (the manual says 10 seconds) the query “DEFAULT PARAMETERS (YES)" is displayed under the copyright and title. The Expediter has some very nice features to it. Along with speeding up the program, the user can specify area of RAM to skip so the compiled code does not interfere with hi-res screens and shape tables. Another feature is the ability to change the parameters Expediter uses to compile your program from within your program itself. These parameters can be altered by REM statements of the format REM <?> where ? represents G, L, or S. &, 10 REM <G> 15 I=I: JeJ: TT 20 DIM A$(25) 30 REM <L> 40 DIM C$(25) 50 REM <S> 10 60 REM REST OF PROGRAM THE HARVEST PAGE 5 In the preceding program, the matrix A$, and variables G, L, S are regarded as global and the matrix C$ is local. The manual defines local and global variables. Local variables are variables which are used only within a program and do not need to be shared with any other program in memory. Global variables are variables that can be referenced and/or updated by all programs sharing them as if they belonged to that program alone. What I take that to mean is: local variables are cleared when the program is done whereas the global variables are kept intact when the program is done. The S command will change the length that is allocated in memory for each string. When the Expediter is run, it asks how much memory is to be set aside for each string. This command changes that parameter. The Expediter II will compile your code and then create an Applesoft program with a single line in it which calls the machine language. You can save the compiled program by just using the SAVE command. The compiled code runs piggyback to the Basic line because the Applesoft pointers have been altered to include the machine language as part of the Applesoft program. When I first purchased the Expediter II, I compiled the Color Demosoft and ran the Kaleidoscope. Uncompiled, the Kaleidoscope toook 25 seconds to fill the screen. Compiled, the Kaleidoscope took 7 seconds to fill the screen. Quite an improvement! The only disadvantage that I found was the fact that Expediter will increase the size of your program substantially. The Color Demosoft, which was 9 sectors long before compilation, was now 29 sectors. Another disadvantage I found, which is minor, is the fact that you can’t define a DIM statement with a variable. For example: 100 INPUT "NUMBER OF ROOMS "5A 200 DIM B(A) The Expediter is great for use with programs which use graphics. I have some arcade games which use the erase-and-draw method on one hi-res screen, which is pretty slow. Compiling some the games gave me some professional looking packages (By the way, compiling Little Brick Out gave me a pretty mean game. I think my hi-score is 3). The Expediter surprised me when I compiled some programs without graphics. Look at some of these programs and their times: PAGE 6 100 FOR I=1 TO 10000 200 NEXT I Basic - 13 seconds Expediter II - 11 seconds 100 FOR I=1 TO 1000 110 J=I*2 120 PRINT J 130 NEXT I Basic - 1:18 minutes Expediter II - 1:14 minutes 110 FOR Isl TO 100000 120 NEXT I Basic — 2:13 minutes Expediter II - 1:54 minutes Not much of a difference. Another note about the Expediter II is the speed. It takes too long to compile code. This might be due to the fact that there is disk access for every line of code. That is, every time it compiles a line of code, the disk drive mst start up again. For the Color Demosoft, it took about 7-10 minutes to compile. Perhaps future releases of Expediter will have a faster compiling time with less disk access. The Expediter II comes with 2 disks (for either DOS 3.2 or 3.3) and a 16 page documentation manual. The documentation is well written and comprehensive. Included in the documentation are several easy to understand examples. . To finish up, the Expediter II is a must. In my opinion, the EXPEDITER II is the well worth the hundred dollars. RATINGS; Speed - 50 Documentation - 90 Ease of use - 90 Purpose/usefulnes - 95 Average - 80 REKKKREKKKR EERE THE HARVEST VISI-CAIDS 2.0 Distributed by Manchester, Mo. 63011 (314) 965-5044 Reviewed by HARRY MARAM (312) 764-1847 Introduction The VisiCaid disk is a utility that includes four separate programs for use with VisiCalc created text files using /PF or /PD. The requirements are an Apple II/II+, one disk drive and VisiCalc, with some text files to operate with. Documentation A seven page explanation of the programs is easy to understand and read and includes a few jokes and conveniently fits into the VisiCalc manual. Program Descriptions LABEL SPLITIER.....divides entire colums into two or more shorter columns of equal width larger than 2. It can also be used to segregate labels from numbers or formulas in the same colum. FORMULA READER.....prints out or displays labels and numbers as they appear on top of the VisiCale screen along with their coordinates. (Similar to VC COORD, by Joe Sobel on NIAUG club disk 19). PD READER.....prints out or displays a VisiCalc text file created by using /PF or /PF (or any text file). (The best for last.) VARIABLE WIDTH READER.....reads VisiCalc files created by /PD or /PF and gives you the choice of adjusting the printing width of each colum, truncating the excess either left or right and printing to disk or printer. Limitations You can“t save formats of the Variable Width Reader and it is a little confusing setting up many colums if they are not predefined and written. Conclusions and Remarks The Formula and PD Reader programs are OK but nothing special. The Label Splitter is great if you use many labels that are bigger than the columns and want to print them totally in OCTOBER, 1981 a report and not change the VisiCalc template. One of the limitations of Visicale for printing reports is the fixed column with using an 80 colum printer at 10 CPI with a 9 digit cell x99999.99 (80/9=8) you can print 8 columns or 16.5 CPI (16.5 x 8 = 132/9 = 14) 14 columns. The x is the space VisiCalc requires. You can’t butt columns against each other. So, if you have a VisiCalc template of 30 columns (30x9) or 270 digits per line, the VisiCalc manual says to print it out in sections and paste it together. With an 80 column printer at 10 CPI this would be 4 passes and with 16.5 CPI it would be 2 passes, even if you have 14" printer with 16.5 CPI it would take 2 passes. NOW "What If" 15 of the columns were dollar colums with only one requiring the full 9 digits and the other 14 requiring only 5 digits (xl.59) and the next 15 columns require 2 digits (x1) something you can*t do on VisiCalc unless you /F$ and combine figures into one colum. So,- to add the digits 1*9+14*5+15*2=108 digits per line. This is 1 pass on a 80 column printer with 16.5 CPI which will be printed more uniformally than direct printing using VisiCalc. This is just one case.The thing to remember is that you have complete control of the number of digits in each column plus you can have right or left justification of the colums and whether the colum will or not be printed. I think the program is great and use it all the time. For $35, it is probably one of the best VisiCalc enhancements around. I have a 14" printer and use the maximum 216 digits most of the time. The biggest VisiCalc template printed was 54 columns, 4 digits wide. (54x 4 = 216). RRR BRB RRR RHR AGENDA Oct 3, 1981 10:00-10:30am Opening remarks (Dave Alpert) 10:30-11:00am Modem Coumunications (Dave Alpert) 11:00-11:15am Statement of the Month (G. Lyle) 11;15-11:30am To Be Announced 11:30-11:45am Break 11:45-12:15pm Terminal Software (Rob Stewart) 12:15-12:30pm Random Walk 12:30-12:55pm Ask Mr. Apple 12:55-1:00pm Closing Remarks THE HARVEST $130. PAGE 7 UNCLASSTETED ADS SALE APPLE II+, 48k, language card, one disk drive, DC Hayes Modem, NEC Green Monitor, game paddles, 32 diskettes full of programs with binder. Asking $2500.00 or best offer. Call Mike Szyszka from 10am to 4:30 pm only. 7 days a week! 545-8563. FOR SALE 16K RAM Card-$175, (with Pascal-$230) Phone Larry Gonzales, 858-7287. PROGRAMMER WANTED To convert Apple Source code to TRS-80 or Atari. Call Ron Unrath: Phoenix Software, 312-438-4850. FOR Disk drive with 3.3 controller, 4 mo. old, $425. New Microsoft 280 card, $250. Call Bob Rzadzki 980-5546. FOR SALE New surplus 80 columm monitors without cases, Call Terry Tufts 392-7735. PRRRR RHR BBR _MY CORNER OF RAM by Hans Lageschulte You are moving files from one disk to another when you come to a binary file that you need to move. In frustration you start cursing, "Where are the BSAVE addresses?!!!" The purpose of this article is to give you a program that will provide you with that valuable information, and to teach you a little machine language programming. Now Basic is easy, right? And machine language is hard, right? Well, with an assembler, machine language can be just as easy as Basic, and for this program I used an assembler call LISA (by Lazar systems). All an assembler does is assemble code into a format the computer can understand. What is my program going to do? The first is a carriage return to make sure the cursor is at the start of a new line, and then print “A$”. After that, read and print what is in the locations that store the starting address , print 3 spaces and “L$”. Then, read and print the length, and finally perform a carriage return. Now for all of you who do not know what a HEX number is, HEX is base 16. Instead of using just numbers, HEX PAGE 8 uses the numbers 0 through 9 and the letters A through F. The number 15 in HEX is $F, and 16 is $10. The dollar sign just tells you and the computer that the number is a HEX number. Now lets go through the LISA listing (listing 1) piece by piece: Lines 1 through 16 are comments ( anything with a semi-colon by it tells you that what follows to the right is a comment) like REM statements are in BASIC. Lines 19 through 24 are the equivalent to Basic’s LET statement. Line 19 states that START equals the HEX number $AA72. Now, each one of the HEX numbers that follow EQU are locations in Apples memory. When DOS loads a file into memory, it loads the starting address and length into 4 locations. Just imagine Apple’s memory as a postoffice, and in box $4A72,$AA73, $AA60, and $AA61, the length and starting addresses are stored like letters. CROUT, COUT, PRNTAX, and PRBLNK are all machine language subroutines, like a BASIC subroutine. CROUI, starting at $FD8E in the Apple postoffice, performs carriage return. COUT, or $FDED, outputs a character as assigned by the Accumulator (More about that later). PRNTAX, or $F941, is a subroutine that prints the value of the Accumulator and the X register. PRBLNK, $F948, is a routine that prints 3 spaces. Lines 27 and 28 contain information that tells the assembler where it is to put the machine code that it is assembling. You do not need to worry about this if you are not working with an assembler. JSR is the equivalent of a GOSUB in BASIC, and in line 32 we are gosubing to the subroutine CROUT to perform a carriage return. Now when that is done, we have to print a “A’. To do that, load the Accumulator with the ASCII HEX number for the normal A (Look at table 1). The Apple has registers which act as flags. The X and Accumulator are the only ones we need to know about now. Now, for COUT to work, it needs to know what to print, so it prints the ASCII screen character that has been loaded in the accumlator (line 33). In line 33, the accumulator is loaded with the value $Cl. If you look on the table, the value $Cl is the ASCII for the letter “A”. In line 34 we Gosub to COUT and print our “A’, or THE HARVEST OCTOBER, 1981 any other character that corresponds to the HEX number in the accumulator. Now the same is done for the "$"; loading the accumlator with its ASCII HEX for the character "$" (line 35) and printing it through COUT. Now the address and length is stored split in half. START ($AA72) contains the last 2 HEX numbers of the starting address (if the starting address is $91A0, then START would contain $a0, And START+1 would contain $91. In that address, $91 would be the high-order byte, and $A0 would be the low order byte). When the Apple stores memory location addresses it stores the low order byte first, and then the high-order byte in the next "postoffice box". In line 37, the computer reads the low order byte, storing that value in register X. Then in line 38, the Apple reads the high-order byte, storing it in the accumulator. Then we gosub to the subroutine PRNTAX. PRNTAX will print the value of the accumulator, and then print the value of the X register. Then, we print our 3 spaces. The folks at APPLE were nice about things like this and made a subroutine that prints our spaces. We just Gosub that routine, called PRBLNK, and out Pops 3 spaces. Now we do the same thing for the length that we did for the starting address. Load the accumulator with the ASCII we want, which is a normal “L’(line 41), and then print it using, you guessed it, COUT (line 42). Then again load the accumulator with the normal ASCII for a “$° (line 43), and print it using COUT (line 44). Then load the low order byte in the X register, the high order byte in the accumulator, gosub to the PRNTAX routine, and perform a return. To end this program, we use a RTS which is like the BASIC return. If we jumped to this routine from the monitor (300g) or BASIC (CALL 768), then you would be returned to BASIC or the monitor (which ever you were in when you called this subroutine). Now look at the second listing. Notice that lines 1 through 31 do not appear. Also notice that the words in the middle colum are the same in both listings. The words do not appear after the middle column (COUT,CROUT). Instead, the addresses that we assigned in the beginning of the other listing made by LISA (lines 19-24) appear where the words were. This second listing is the listing made after the assembling of the program. This is what the computer uses. If you look, the LISA listing (listing 1) was easier to understand, and just about as easy as BASIC, OCTOBER, 1981 THE HARVEST PAGE 9 Table 1 NORMAL NORM(ALT) CHAR — CHAR(ALT) 0 $00 64 $40 192 $CO 128 $80 @ @ Listing 1 1$01 65541 193SC1 12981 A A 2 $02 66$42 194$C2 130 $82 B B 3$03 97843 195 $C3. 131 $83. C c 4904 68 $44 196 $C4 132 $84 D D - 1ASM 5$05 69845 197SC5 133 $85 E E 6 $06 70 $46 «198 $C6 134 $86 F 7807 71 $47 199§C7 135 $87 G SG *KEND OF PASS 1 8308 72 $48 «2008C8 136 $88 SH H **END OF PASS 2 9$09 73849 «2018C9 137 $89 1 we ISA HSA 22SCA M8 SHA : pea te * 11$0B 75$4B 203SCB 139 8B iK : * 0800 3 3* PROGRAM =: BSTAT eT HD agseD ins Mw MB DAEs IM 2 tee 14$0E 78 $4E 206 SCE 142 $8EsWN N 0800 é * 15 $0F 79S4F 207SCF 143$8F O ° 0800 7 CALL 768 * 16 $10 80 $50 208 $D0 144 $90 P P. 0800 a: * 17$11 81 $51 209 $D1 145 $91 Q Q 0800 9 ;* DESCRIPTION: * 18 $12 82 $52 210 $D2 146 $92 R R 0800 10 3* THIS PROGRAM WILL GIVE * 19$13 83 $53 -211$D3 147 $93 S s 0800 11 ;* THE STARTING ADDRESS AND * 20 $14 84 $54 212SD4 148 $4 T 0800 12° ;* LENGTH OF THE MOST RECENTLY 21$15 85 $55 213 $D5 149 $95: U 0800 13. ;* BLOADED PROGRAM ‘ 22$16 86 $56 214$D6 = 150% v 0800 14 23 $17 87$57 2188D7 151997 SW w 0800 13 5 24 $18 8B $58 216 $08 152 $98 X x bed ae 25 $1989 = 217 ey 183 $99 Y 0800 18; ™ 26 S1A 218 $DA 154 $9A.Z z sAAT2 27$1B 91 $5B 219 SDB 155 $B { tene 20 iain i fase 2 SIC 92 $5C 2208DC 156 $9C \ | 0800 21° CROUT EQU $FD8E 29$1D 93$5D 221$DD 157 $9D ) I 0800 22 COUT £EQU SFDED BO$IE 94 $5E 222$DE 158 $9E a ~ 0800 23° PRNTAX EQU $F941 31$1F 95 S5F 223$DF 159S9F — © (rub out) 0800 24 © PRBLNK EQU $7948 32 $20 96 $60 160 $A0 224 SEO. (SPC) (SPC) 0800 25 5 33 $21 97 $61 161$A1 225 SEL} a 0800 26 5 34 $22 98 $62 162 $A2_ 226 SEZ * b 0800 27 OBJ $300 35 $2399 $63 163 $A3 27 SEB c 300 EA ORC $300 36 $24 100 $64. «164 SAG = 228 SE4 $ d i 37 $25 101 $65 165 AS 9SES gy e gon = 3 mri 38 $26 102 $66 166 $A5 230SES & f 0300 208EFD 32 JSR CROUT 39 $27 103 $67. 167 $7231 SET 3 Beas 33 LpA #$C1 40 $28 104 $68 168 $AB_ 232 SEB ( h 0305 20EDFD 34 JSR COUT 41 $29 105 $69 169 $A9 233. SEO) i 0308 AdAd 35 LDA #546 42 $2A 106 S6A 170$AA 234 SEA * ij 030A 20EDFD 36 JSR COUT 43 $2B 107 $6B 171 $AB 235 $EB + k 030D AE72AA 37 LDX START 44$2C 108 $6C 172$AC 236 SEC 1 0310 AD73AA (38 LDA START+1 45 $2D 109 $6D 173 $AD 237 SED m 0313 2041F9 39 JSR PRNTAX 46 $2E 110$6E 174 SAE 238 SEE; n 0316 204879 40 JSR PRBLNK 47$2F 1 S6F 175$AF 96-239 SEF ° 0319 agcc a uA aoe 48 $30 112$70 176 $80 240SFO. og P aun Ss LDA #546 49 $31 113 $71. 177 $B1_— 241 SF 1 @ O31E aga Pr ten Cae 50 $32 114 $72 178 $B2_ 242 SF2 2 E 0323 Fert 45 LDX LENGTR 51 $33 115 $73 179 $B3. 243 SF3 s Osee ancl 46 LDA LENCTHEL S2$34 116 $74 180 $B4 244 SFA g ‘ 0329 204179 47 JSR PRNTAK 53 $35 117 $75 181 $B5 4S SFS 5g u 032¢ 208EFD 48 JSR CROUT $4 $36 118 $76 182 $B6 246 SFG ig v 032F 60 49 RTS $5 $37 119 $77 183 $B7, 247 SFT, 7 w 50 END 56 $38 120 $78 164 $B8. 48 SFB ag x $7 $39 121 $79 185 $89 249 $F9 og y 58 $3A 122 $7A 186 SBA 250SFA z 59 $3B 123 $78 187 $BB_ 251 SFB 3 ( SIC 124 $7C iss gBC —S2SFC CC I 61$3D 125 7D 169$BD 253$FD == } 62$3E 126 $7E 190 $BE 4 SFE ~ 63 $3F 127 $7F 191 $BF_ 255 SFF_ 2 (rub out) PAGE 10 Listing 2 0300- 20 8E FD JSR $FD8E 0303- A Cl LDA #$Cl 0305- 20 ED FD JSR $FDED 0308- a9 A& LDA #$A4 030A- 20 ED FD JSR $FDED 030D- AE 72 AA LDX $AA72 0310- AD 73 AA LDA $AA73 0313- 2041 F9 JSR $F941 0316- 2048 F9 JSR $F948 0319- a9 cc LDA #$cc 031B- 20 ED FD JSR $EDED 031E- A9 A4 Loa #SA4 0320- 20 ED FD JSR SFDED 0323- AE 60 AA LDX SAA60 0326- AD61 AA LDA SAA61 0329- 2041 F9 JSR $F941 032c- 208E FD JSR $FD8E _032F- 60 RTS HR RH CONTEXT CONNECTOR _ Distributed by CONTEXT MANAGEMENT SYSTENS, INC. 632 Via Del Monte Palos Verdes Estates, CA 90274 (213) 375-3350 Review by HARRY MARAM Program courtesy of Data Domain Introduction The Context Connector is a combination terminal program and file converter and line oriented text editor. The program allows you to communicate with another computer and save the results on disk. It also allows you to convert any text file to the VisiCale format and prints or displays any text file to disk, screen, or printer. The Connector requires an Apple II/II+ with 48K, Applesoft and at least one disk drive, VisiCalc, some sort of comaunication interface/modem setup (Hayes, Comm Card or SSM/AIO) and some place to access data. Documentation The operating manual is 64 pages, easy to read, mostly easy to understand, soft cover, with a Table of Contents and Index. The manual has examples and some illustrations to the various features in a step by step manner. THE HARVEST OCTOBER, 1981 Program Descriptions The terminal programs and its supporting programs are menu driven and are similar to the BITS, DATA CAPTURE 4.0, and ASCII EXPRESS , which have been reviewed before. The program has an autodial program for use with a micromodem and a dialer list editor program. What happens is that a number is taken from the dialer program and autodialed out to the remote system and confirms a connection. You can either send files to the remote system or receive data from it. You are switched to a menu which gives a choice to: clear the copy buffer or turn the buffer on, and after capturing the copy, (buffer is approx. 30K) saving it to disk. The file printing routine is a program that allows a text file to be displayed on a screen or sent to a printer. The unique portions of this program are the Convert to VisiCalc section and the line editor. The line editor allows you to take free formed line data and select the limits of the VisiCalc windows on a line by line basis. If each line is the same, then this is done automatically. The program then asks where, on VisiCalc, you want to start (column and row) and proceeds to take the text file data and code it for VisiCalc on a line basis. (>A1:1000.00) The Format can be saved for specific conversions. Conclusions and Remarks The manual goes into great detail explaining how to go about consolidating separate VisiCale models which seens a hard way if you use VisiCalc 3.3 (using DIF files) but OK for the 3.2 version of VisiCalc. The conversion seems slow and I have not run into any free form files that were different on every line. This program would handle it well. The editor is great to change a few lines but if you wanted to change something in every line of a 100 line text file, I guess you would format around the change, load it into VisiCalc and do a /R with the change. There is another review of the Context Connector in the September issue of Softalk that states one of the authors is Craig Vaughan, who did BITS and the Text Editor programs, both of which I have used. The BITS program sells for $45 and the Text Editor sells for $65. The Connector sells for $150, so if you don’t have a terminal or text editor then the VisiCalc conversion part of the program (which costs approximately $40 when purchasing the whole program) seems reasonable, if you need this kind of capability. I used the program, found it a little slow, but it did everything it is supposed to do. . OCTOBER, 1981 >— PRUTZ PRINTS —< 618 N. Prospect Manor Mt. Prospect ,IL 60056 (312) 259-3649 Well, now you have done it! After receiving ‘all your letter, I couldn’t take it any more! So, I moved. If you ever flood me with a letter again, I just might answer it. Then beware! Dear Pfutz, I have noticed that having my program perform a CATALOG immediately after using a GET statement results in the word CATALOG being printed instead of the disk directory. Replacing the GET statement with an INPUT statement or printing the get variable eliminates the problem. What’s going on? Signed, GET Going Dear GET Going, The GET statement in Applesoft is a strange command. But your problem is just that the GET statement will act like it did a “PRINT CHR$(0);" statement (prints a null character that will not move the cursor and ends in a semicolon). D.0.S. then will then ignore your command because the CHRS(4) was not preceded by a return. Your corrections just insure that the control-D will be preceded by a return. The INPUT statement always prints a return after you hit the return key. And PRINTing your variable ends in a return. A more simple method of getting a return would be just using the PRINT statement without any variables or strings. Pfutz Dear Prints, What is so great about D.0.S. 3.3? Is it better than 3.2? Signed, Harty Skeptic Dear Harty Skeptic, D.O.S. 3.3 is better! It has faster disk access times, 23 per cent more disk space, the bug in the APPEND statement has been fixed, and a lot of the new programs are being written in 3.3! Still, conversion to and from 3.3 and 3.2 can be done by any MUFFIN or NIFFUM program. So, 3.2 is not dead yet. Although 3.2 is showing a few gray hairs. Prints THE HARVEST PAGE 11 SECRETARY'S REPORT Meeting of Sept 12, 1981 Attendance: 150 The meeting was called to order at 10 o’clock by President Dave Alpert Eric Straal modeled the latest in sheik fashions, the Neanderthal T-shirt and explained how to place orders for it. Librarian, Jim Pfeifer talked about the disk and paper libraries and announced 3 new volumes in the club collection. Eric then gave a pitch for the various club SIG’s. Treasurer, Jim Wilson reported on the club‘s finances (see separate report). Secretary, Joel Kurasch reported that the membership is rapidly approaching the 500 mark. (496 after today’s meeting). He then announced that the nominating committee was looking for people who are willing to commit the time and effort to run the club for next year. The newsletter Editor, Terry Tufts made an appeal for material for the Harvest. Two of our members have received checks for articles that were in the Harvest and then published in the Apple Orchard. (International Apple Core Magazine). He is willing to assist anyone who wishes to submit an article to the IAC. Paul Stadfeld then gave a demonstration of how to use Hi-Res characters within a program. He graphically displayed this by helping Maxwell take to the sky. Guy Lyle explained the use of the "ON....GOTO" statement in BASIC programming. He next demonstrated the powerful potential of the Apple Pilot programming language. Our own Ask Mr. Apple closed the program. Respectfully submitted Joel Kurasch Secretary PAGE 12 DATA BASE MANAGEMENT by Alfred R. Dixon Jr. Reprinted from The Michigan Apple-Gram, Vol.3 No.5 May 1981 It has been stated many times at meetings that the Michigan Apple Club is a volunteer organization. On that behalf, our president has volunteered this writer as the club designate expert on data base management systems. My credit with this regard is simply that I have a real use for data base management in business with two Apple computers in different offices. One computer handles data from a manufacturers representative sales agency and the other data for a manufacturing company. Until very recently, the data base managers available simply would not support data with enough flexibility and speed to rationalize the purchase of an Apple II computer purely as a data base management tool. As an Apple owner, you have undoubtedly entered a discussion expressing the superiorty of the Apple II computer. Unfortunately, within the realm of comparable memory, 8 bit computer, the real determining factor is the availability of software to perform your requirement. In this and future articles, I will share my experience and knowledge obtained in my frantic search for a data base manager. For you see I, like many others, purchased the computer with the intention that if the software were not available, I would create it myself. Please let me assure any new or pending Apple owners that you are not going to write your own data base software, no matter what the book in the computer stores of the literature on the basic classes offered by the stores or the universities advises you! A modestly complex system would take 6 months of full effort by an experienced programmer. A program like DB Master has an excess of 3 person years in preparation. A well written system should require no knowledge of the basic programming language to the user. The fact that all good commercial systems are locked further reduces the user’s need to program the computer. For those who feel a reprieve from the basic language, as with most good news there is bad THE HARVEST OCTOBER, 1981 news. The bad news is that you will be left with a very sizeable challenge of datagrauming your commercial package. Datagramming includes as configuring or setting up the commercial package, fully defining the data you wish to store, mmipulate, sort, and then, define the report formats for both visual "crt" or hard copy output. Every system handles this differently. The easier it is to accomplish, the less versatile and in general, valuable the system will be as a management tool. There are a number of microcomputer systems available on the commercial market which package hardware and software together for specific applications. The price for this system is 2 to 3 times the commercial cost of the computer and a good software package. The reason is not that the hardware is superior but simply that the datagramming has already been completed for a number of specific, though common enough applications, to create a market. If first you are willing to take the time to learn the computer and second read and fully understand the 100 page plus manual, common to a commercial data base management program, you will, not only save a sizeable amount of money, but end up with a much more valuable tool. You will learn about your objective - Data Base Management - not computer programming. In my search for a workable program, I become knowledgeable with the following systems: PIMS FILE CABINET MICRO INFORMATION SYSTEM CCA-DMS DATE FACTORY THE MODIFIABLE DATA BASE DB MASTER It is obvious that everyone interested does not need a commercially acceptable system to maintain their data and/or wants to express themselves with BASIC. Three of the systems listed above are available. File Cabinet is a public domain program and can be obtained from our club library. There are many, many versions of this program, some of them as good or better than some commercial systems. Most non-business requirements could be easily handled with the File Cabinet. If you have a documented version i.e. with REM statements, it can be modified for your requirements. I have received more calls relative to File Cabinet than any other system. For example, OCTOBER, 1981 the callers, generally state, "my version will not do this." It is impossible to comment, Particularly because there are so many versions. The Modifiable Data Base is a very nice system and is, generally, highly recommended. It is memory dependent and, once formated, (datagrammed) is not changeable. In many single use applications, these characteristics are not a problem. A complete and documented listing with recommendations for enhancements is available at extra cost after you purchase the program. In operation, it is a one disk system i.e. a slave disk different from the actual program disk is created with a complete Data Base Management Program formated as you have defined how to operate, in its preparation. It is fixed on the new disk. Therefore, your data fields and report formats are not variable once defined. Many different types of reports, including printing of forms and accounting functions ’ are supported. However, they can not share the same Data Base. This means that if you want certain information included in more than one hard copy format, the information will have to be entered into two individual Data Bases on two different disks. This program definitely has business potential where your requirements are compatible with these limitations. The sort and find functions are very fast and the convenience of having your * controlling program and Data Base on a single disk make the program superior, particularly, in speed and convenience. CCA-DMS has been the largest selling Data Base for sometime. The primary reason for this has been the lack of competition in its category. It is the writer’s opinion that CCA is a beautiful example of Applesoft programming that needs to be completed to be efficient and user friendly. In addition, a machine language sort routine is required when files of any size need sorting in other than ISAM sort key which is user defined. The inherent efficiencies which cause the unnecessary t ime delays and excess keying can be modified with just a reasonable knowledge of the BASIC language. A number of enhancements are available commercially from the users group discussed in the documentation. CCA was the first system that allowed me to begin using the Apple as a business tool. Because it is unlocked and very structured, THE HARVEST * debugged. PAGE 13 making modifications was relatively easy. The report generator is good for columnar output but would not allow the fields to be listed down the page (vs. across). Because the text files are completely defined in the manual, it was not too hard to write a custom report writer which allowed a listing of all of the field titles on the left hand side of the page and five records going across the page. This was the most efficient method of getting a printout of all of the information in the file because the current report generator writer does not allow multi-line records within the report and the required data exceeded the 132 characters available on my printer. As a general statement, CCA is an economically sound purchase for fairly large data bases that do not require much in the way of sorting. In a future article, I will compare the two of the newest entries, Data Factory (4.0) and DB Master. For now, know that the Data Factory 4.0 comes complete with a full set of file handling utilities. With DB Master, an additional utilities disk, costing $100, would be required to give the two systems equal utilities. This makes DB Master significantly more expensive. The extra cost of DB Master is well justified with much increased file sizes, record sizes, disk storage capacity, report formating, and most importantly, speed of access and sorting. DB Master can confidently be recommended for most business applications. If you have DB Master, or, are going to purchase it, please be aware that you definitely have version 2.4. If not, send your disk back to Stoneware and it will be promptly returned with the 2.4 version. Note that the 2.4 version is not yet fully Here are the currently known problems: it May have a problem identifying the date on a California Clock Card, but works fine with Mountain Hardware and the Thunder Clock. When you are in the search mode be sure to press CIRL F to request the search before the Return Key. Do not move the cursor to the next field. If you are using a single drive, you may have some problems printing a report. Certain drives will have a problem reading the program disk. If this occurs and you have additional drives, exchange them and chances are the other drive will work. Version 3.0 will correct these bugs. It is due to be released in may, 1981. PAGE 14 DB Master would be very cumbersome to operate in a single drive. It will work fine in two drives with a modest amount of disk swapping, but, works very nicely in a three drive system. This is not a criticism of the program, but is simply a statement that the power of the program requires the hardware support to function most efficiently. I have experienced the normal start up problems of a new system. Here are some notes that may help others: when setting up a report and using a printer whch has an automatic line feed, be certain to enter a report width one character less than what you have set as your printer width maximm. Also, set your page length one line less than your stated number of printed lines if your printer uses form feeds. If you do not, you will find a number of extra spaces within your report sometimes happening in a very confusing fashion. I also found that the Centronics 737 required a page length of 67 lines per page rather than 66 to properly simulate form feeds within the DB Master format. I have run reports on a 440 Tiger and the Centronics 737. If you find the system rejecting a disk which you feel is correctly in the drive, the drive is most likely receiving an I/O error. Unfortunately, the error trapping routines do not distinguish between mis-matched volume numbers, files not found, and 1/0 errors. Therefore, one defective spot on your disk can cause you to lose all of the data within the disk. If you have not been judicious and have a reasonably current backup, Stoneware will be able to extract the data on the disk if it repesents a considerable time effort. Stoneware has requested that I express a plea to return the warranty cards. I am sure that a number of people have hesitated to return the cards due to the unusual legal verbage threatening the death penalty upon duplicate use on other than your own computer use within your own home, etc. First of all, the legality of all of their claims is highly questionable. Secondly, they have modified a number of the statements which limit the theoretical legal usage of the program. Therefore, there is no reason not to send in your registration card unless you plan to try and break the protection scheme. It will be greatly to your benefit to receive notices of updates and enhancements which will be added to future versions. As I stated earlier, if you have anything prior to version 2.4, you are likely to have unacceptable problems with the system. THE HARVEST OCTOBER, 1981 I would appreciate hearing from anyone (in writing to the club address if possible) about their experiences, frustrations, and successes relative to Data Base Management. With the added emphasis on those people who have systems not included in the list above, again, with additional emphasis on the $300 to $1,000 systems we see advertised but do not have the courage to purchase. Also, I would appreciate a visit with anyone who has an expanded memory hardware addition, such as the Corvus hard disk. Your support in helping the writer inform the club membership will be greatly appreciated... REXKKKKEK EEE IBM PERSONAL COMPUTER by Mike Szyszka The IBM personal computer offers the following features: POWERFUL SYSTEM UNIT The system unit contains a small,powerful processor that uses advanced computer technology. This compact unit comes with 40K ROM and from 16K to 256K of user memory. EASY TO USE KEYBOARD The IBM personal computer is controlled from this detached, 83-key typewriter-like keyboard. The slim keyboard comes with a 6 foot coiled cable that allows you to place it practically anywhere. And you can also adjust the typing angle to suit your working position. For added ease of operation, the keyboard includes a 10 digit numeric calculator pad and special "function keys" for activating commonly repeated tasks. INFORMATION STORAGE A home audio cassette player(which IBM does not supply) plugs into the system unit for recording information and running programs stored on audio cassette tapes. Or, one or two diskette drives can be added for rapid access to programs and data recorded on 5 1/4 inch diskettes. OCTOBER, 1981 DISPLAY OPTIONS For viewing information, the hi-res IBM monochrome display, a standard TV monitor, or your own TV set with an RF modulator can be used. The 11 1/2 inch IBM monochrome display allows you to view up to 25 lines of 80 characters each. COLOR/GRAPHICS Up to 16 colors can be displayed for text applications, 8 colors for graphics(2 sets of 4 colors each). PRINTING A bidirectional IBM matrix printer can be attached to the personal computer for producing letters, reports and other documents. This compact unit can print in 12 character styles, at speeds of up to 80 cps. POWER-ON TESTS For added reliability, the IBM personal computer runs a series of self tests and parity checks each time it is turned on. LANGUAGES The personal computer comes with the BASIC programming language. A language called PASCAL is also available for more advanced programming. SYSTEM EXPANSION SLOTS There are 5 expansion slots in the system unit, making it easy to expand the capabilities of the computer, via plug-in adapters. With these adapters, you can increase memory, add color and graphics, connect joysticks or paddles for video games, attach multiple printers, or communicate with other computer devices. BRR HHH RRR THE HARVEST EDITORIAL - This is a short month so this is being done just as briefly. Once again the contributors have come through with some very interesting articles. This is the first issue that I have produced which has several articles written by one of our teen-age members. Not only are they interesting but they required almost no editing. Congratulations to Hans on the fine work. Well the world of personal computers is getting to be very interesting. Hewlett-Packard, IBM and Xerox have all announced their new products. They are all CPM compatible but each is quite different from the other. IBM’s is the most powerful and will use a monitor made in the Orient and an Epson printer. It undoubtedly will have strong appeal to the corporations where IBM is firmly entrenched. Hewlett Packard’s machine has disk drives with considerable storage capacity on their minifloppy drives. (more than double the capacity of the Apple). Like the IBM it will be premium priced and will also have a strong appeal to those who are HP devotees. The Xerox computer is considered the most mundane of the three but is expected to tie into the Xerox Ethernet concept of the electronic office so may have a great future from this point of view. The fact that all these biggies have jumped into the market is a strong indication of the market potential for personal computers and will do a great deal to enhance the image of personal computers in the eyes of the general public. No matter how well they do, it is certain to make the competition very hot for Apple Computer. HRRR RHR HRB HH SATURDAY, OCT. 10 Presented by: Cincinnati-Apple Siders Club MINI EXPOSITON 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Featuring: Make Checks payable to: Apple-Siders of Cincinnati Dick Switzer 5707 Chesapeake Way Tom Scogin Fairfield, Ohio 45014 Phil Roybal Gene Hite Tickets are: $5.00 Pre Register Steve Wozniak $8.00 At the door Lenore Wolgelenter OCTOBER, 1981 THE HARVEST PACE 17 PAGE 18 THE HARVEST OCTOBER, 1981 SUR i ra @ 1 YF 2 he 3 mw FQ 6 LQ 20 NM 27 GENERAL MEETING 4 6nm|7 |8 (9 ~ |10 MEETING ‘Yom Kippur 11 12 13 14:umne 15 16 17 FOR ARTICLES | STOCK OPTIONS , Columbus Day IN HARVEST COMMODITIES ,SIG BUSINESS SIG . 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 Halloween i ee ee ee ee rs MEMBERSHIP TIME MEMBERSHIP TIME MEMBERSHIP TIME MEMBERSHIP TIME Well, it’s that time again! Its time for annual membership dues. Membership renewal dues for 1982 are $12.00. Please send your money to: NORTHERN ILLINOIS APPLE USERS GROUP POST OFFICE BOX 787 PALATINE, IL 60067 ADDRESS ule tent.) we Y list ‘OCTOBER, a printer See order, are: Tg print qualit consider the é The Missing Link oe oe ty ranks right , then board, by an Apple printer. isa ya we not found in one low-cost package. ly, all of these goodies can‘t be quality, and graphice capa = = as Se : ty. can’t be after 1 printer inter This is not to be confused OPERATION sub eiaes did not some trep: See ri emcee into einer by atoll eet The Missing : 1 fingers. It is entirely Thereafter any cane Fortunately the service technician damaged a PC board. ane installed the interface the matter when he Link is turned on by use of the » where "s" is the slot number. cter printed is translate PAGE 19 MICHAEL L. ROBINS 1300 S. ELMHURST RD. 7 ( MOUNT PROSPECT, IL 60054