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Silicon Times Report Issue 0406
*---== CPU NEWSWIRE ONLINE MAGAZINE ==---*
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"The Original 16/32bit Online Magazine"
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February 09, 1990 No.4.06
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> 02/09/90: CPU Newswire¿ #406 The Original 16/32 bit Online Magazine!
----------------------------
- The Editor's Podium - CPU REPORT
- WORD FLAIR CONF. - PC-DITTO 2 ARGH!
- MICRO - RTX - WAACE/'90
- DynaCADD 1.7 p.III - CPU CONFIDENTIAL
---====**** ATARI CONSIDERS JOHN NAGY! ****====---
--==** SUPERCHARGER HAS ARRIVED!! **==--
--==* MULTI-TASKING IS REAL! *==--
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> The Editor's Podium¿
Every so often we are faced with situations that, at the moment seem
insurmountable, but then, as time goes by, it seems to become easy to
overcome these problem situations. This has been a wierd week in the
online circles and in the Atari arena in general. Developers upset with
one another, good people getting into shouting matches over this doggone
PC-Ditto II hassle. Avant Garde needs to increase its online presence and
needs to do it now. This is bad news to see them keeping such a distance
from the users and allowing the general userbase's morale to drop to all
time lows over this flap called PC Ditto 2. The users who have supported
AG all these months now require AG to show some support in the form of a
very apparent online presence. How about it Bill??
As fate would have it, PC-Ditto II and PC Speed slug it out, and along
comes a new kid on the block, Supercharger... In the next week we will
know quite a bit about Supercharger as we will be doing an in-depth review
of this new device. This week we are carrying some preliminary info
only. Also next week we will be reporting on the latest product from
Michtron, FAST-FAX! This hardware device enables the ST to successfully
transmit and receive high quality FAX transmissions effortlessly.
Atari has released Laserbrain to the userbase its only been in the
states for almosty a year waiting to be released. Sometimes a tradeoff is
more than just that from every direction. Laserbrain is a needed product
for the SLM 804, but of course, being from Germany, is monochrome only.
The Atari spokesperson, John Townsend has promised online support for this
program. The users are (I am sure) grateful.
Thanks for your support,
Ralph....
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> CPU REPORT¿
==========
Issue # 53
----------
by Michael Arthur
Remember When....
In 1981, Ashton-Tate introduced dBASE II, which became a best
selling Database management program, and in 1984, introduced dBASE III,
which became an industry standard, or when in 1989 (after five years of
industry rumors, including two years of vaporware status) dBASE IV was
introduced, only to be challenged fiercely by the many powerful database
programs which had emerged in that 5 year hiatus?
CPU Systems Roundup XXII
========================
Dream Computer Systems V: The Empires Strike Back
--------------------------------------------------
Part II
In Part I of this Series, I showed a list of the most powerful Dream
Systems that could be configured from both the microcomputer industry, and
the growing crop of low-end workstations. While there were probably newer
computers and peripherals that could have been included, the list was
generally accurate. Now I will compare the Dream Systems, their various
features being stacked against each other to determine which ones you
could safely consider the "best".
However, the cost of these Dream Systems, which is admittedly out of
the reach of the majority of computer users, may cause some to believe
that configuring such a list is useless. But analyzing how far current
computers can truly go with current peripherals not only helps in
realizing the capabilities of our machines, but can be useful in both
setting priorities for the level of price/performance in our systems, and
in defining more clearly what we should demand from our computers....
Here is a Graph of the features of each Dream System:
Dream Systems List:
(Comparison of each Systems' Optimal Features)
_________________________________________________________________________
Dream |Main Chips,|MHZ Rate|Mass |Expansion|Graphics Displays |
System |Megs of RAM| & MIPS |Storage | Slots |Best Resolution(s) |
-----------|-----------|--------|----------|---------|-------------------|
IBM 486 |Intel 80486| 25 MHZ |1 Gigabyte| Four (7)|800*600 w/16 Colors|
System |Eight Megs |17 MIPS |Tape Drive|PC AT Bus|1024*768*256 Colors|
-----------|-----------+--------+----------+---------+-------------------|
Mac IIci |68030/68882| 25 MHZ |650 Meg | Zero (3)|640*400*256 Colors |
System |Eight Megs |6 MIPS |Tape Drive|NuBus |1024*768*16 Million|
-----------|-----------+--------+----------+---------+-------------------|
SG Personal|R3000/R3010| 20 MHZ |170 Meg | One (1) |1024*768*16 Million|
Iris System|Eight Megs |16 MIPS |Hard Drive|VME Bus | |
-----------|-----------+--------+----------+---------+-------------------|
Amiga 2000 |68030/68882| 33 MHZ |300 Meg HD| One (7) |640*256 w/64 Colors|
System | Nine Megs |8 MIPS |10Meg Tape|Zorro II |1280*200 w/4 Colors|
-----------|-----------+--------+----------+---------+-------------------|
SPARCStat. |SPARC/W3170| 20 MHZ |650 Meg | One (3) |1152*900*256 Colors|
System | 16 Megs |12 MIPS |Hard Drive|S-Bus | |
-----------|-----------|--------|----------|---------|-------------------|
ATW | 10 T-800s | 20 MHZ |300 Meg | Zero (4)|512*480*16 Million |
System | 13 Megs |60 MIPS |Hard Drive|Abaq |1280*960*16 Colors |
-----------'-------------------------------------------------------------'
In the Mass Storage column, Tape stands for removable storage, and
HD stands for fixed, or hard disk storage. Secondly, while there are many
measurements to determine the number of MIPS (Million Instructions Per
Second) that a system can do, in this Essay, one MIPS is equal to the
ability to compute approximately 1500 Dhrystones per second.
Also, the Expansion Slot Column now measures the number of available
expansion slots in each Dream System AFTER installing the various add-in
boards in each System Configuration. The number in parentheses is the
total number of expansion slots in the system.
Based on both this graph, and the System Descriptions, I have determined
these Standings:
IBM 386 Dream System: Tied for First Place
- One of the Two Best Systems Currently Available -
The IBM Dream System is truly a superb example of a Dream System,
providing powerful capabilities, and being very well rounded in features
which are superb in themselves. The IBM Dream System's capabilities have
increased steadily, and now, with the 80486's blazing speed, there are
virtually NO weaknesses apparent in this system. Resulting in that the
IBM Dream System dominated many of the Dream System Comparisons. But its
marginal win over the Personal Iris weakened its ranking, and its decisive
loss against the ATW ended its secure First Place ranking. However, the
ATW's own weaknesses and losses against other systems meant that the IBM
System was just as qualified for First Place as the ATW System....
Mac IIci Comparison: The IBM is superior to the Mac IIci in the
number of Expansion Slots, amount of mass storage, and processing speed,
is equal in the amount of RAM, and is inferior only in graphics
capabilities. Therefore, the IBM scores higher than the Mac IIci....
Iris Comparison: The IBM is superior to the Personal Iris in its
amount of Mass Storage, and expansion slots, is roughly equal in its
processing speed and amount of RAM, and is only inferior in graphics
capabilities. Therefore, the choice is between the IBM System's greater
expandability and amount of mass storage, and the Personal Iris' graphics
capabilities. Therefore, if you can live with 256 colors at a 1024*768
resolution, the IBM scores higher than the Personal Iris. But only by a
small margin....
Amiga 2000 Comparison: The IBM is superior to the Amiga System in
processing speed, graphics capabilites, # of Expansion slots, and amount
of mass storage, and is roughly equal in the amount of RAM. Since it is
not inferior to it in any degree, the IBM scores much higher than the
Amiga System.
SPARCStation Comparison: The IBM is superior in the amount of Mass
Storage, # of expansion Slots, and processing speed, is equal in graphics
capabilities, and is inferior only in the amount of RAM. And since more
RAM can be obtained in the future, the IBM scores much higher than the
SPARCStation.
ATW Comparison: The IBM is superior in the amount of Mass Storage, is
roughly equal in the # of expansion slots, and is inferior in the amount
of RAM, processing speed, and graphics capabilities. Therefore, the ATW
scores higher than the IBM System, with the lack of an ST/ATW Compatible
Magneto-Optical being the ATW's inadequacy in this comparison.
Macintosh IIci Dream System: Fourth Place
With the Macintosh IIci, the Mac Dream System has not only been able
to keep most of its processing capabilities, as well as all of its other
features, but is now drastically reduced in price. It is well balanced in
features, and has managed to gain a substantial speed increase without
needing an expensive Accelerator board. However, it seems that while the
Mac IIci System isn't inadequate in itself, that the other Dream Systems
have advanced a lot more than it has. Resulting in the Mac IIci Dream
System becoming the "middle of the road" contender in this list. But with
Apple's upcoming high-end Mac, the Macintosh Dream System could reach for
the top of the heap....
Iris Comparison: The Mac is superior in the amount of Mass Storage,
and is roughly equal in its amount of RAM, expansion slots, and graphics
capabilities. Since it is inferior in system speed, the question becomes
whether Mass Storage is more important than processing ability. Since
Mass storage can be readily obtained, then the Personal Iris scores higher
than the Mac IIci.
Amiga 2000 Comparison: The Mac is superior in graphics capabilities,
and the amount of mass storage, and is slightly inferior in the amount of
RAM and expansion slots, as well as being plainly outmatched in processing
speed. So while the Mac System is better in graphics and mass storage,
the Amiga System is better in processing speed, and (since it has 7 total
system slots) has greater expandability. But since neither system's
advantages outweigh the other's, the Mac and Amiga systems are tied in
this essay.
SPARCStation Comparison: The Mac is superior in its graphics
capabilities, and amount of Mass Storage, is roughly equal in the # of
expansion slots, and is inferior in processing speed and its amount of
RAM. Since the Macintosh also has more third-party hardware products
available for it, the Mac IIci's potential expandability is greater. So
if one considers graphics and mass storage to be more important than
system speed, then the Mac scores higher than the SPARCStation. However,
this is also a difficult decision....
ATW Comparison: The Mac IIci is superior in Mass Storage and graphics
capabilities, and is inferior in system speed, its total # of expansion
slots, and its standard amount of RAM. Since both lists of advantages
have the same number of items, one must consider which list of advantages
is more important. However, the ATW and Mac IIci Systems each have zero
available slots, so in that area the ATW is neutralized. Therefore, since
more RAM can be bought in the future, the Mac IIci Dream System scores
slightly higher than the ATW Dream System.
SGI Personal Iris Dream System: Third Place
The Personal Iris made a strong showing in the Dream Systems list,
with processing speed and graphics capabilities rivalling or surpassing
the best of the rest. However, while it is superb in many areas, its
worst weakness, its relatively mediocre amount of Mass Storage, combined
with the ATW's overwhelming speed advantage and its loss to the IBM system
(by a small margin) kept it from getting First Place....
Amiga 2000 Comparison: The Iris is superior in processing speed, and
graphics capabilities, is equal in the amount of RAM, and is inferior in
the amount of Mass Storage. So if you can wait for better mass storage,
then the Personal Iris scores higher than the Amiga System.
SPARCStation Comparison: The Iris is superior in processing speed and
graphics capabilities, and is inferior in the amount of Mass Storage and
RAM. However, while both lists are tied, the Personal Iris' advantages
are more important. As such, the Personal Iris scores higher than the
SPARCStation.
ATW Comparison: The Personal Iris is superior in graphics
capabilities, is roughly equal in the # of expansion slots, and is
inferior in processing speed, amount of RAM, and Mass Storage. Since the
ATW has more advantages, it scores higher than the Personal Iris....
Amiga 2000 Dream System: Fifth Place
The Amiga 2000 System is extremely well balanced in features, and
has an excellent set of options. In processing speed and graphics ability
it is equal to the mainstream of regular workstations, and it does compare
well to the other Dream Systems. However, its mediocre amount of Mass
storage, as well as the other Systems' processing speed, caused it to be
ranked a lot lower than expected. And while its features were equal to
the Mac Dream System's, its above weaknesses caused it to be ranked lower.
However, it has done well for its debut, and it has much potential....
SPARCStation Comparison: The Amiga 2000 is superior in the amount of
Mass Storage, is equal in the # of expansion slots, and is inferior in
system speed, amount of RAM, and graphics capabilities. Therefore, the
SPARCStation's advantages cause it to score higher than the Amiga.
ATW Comparison: The Amiga is slightly superior in Mass Storage, and
is inferior in everything else, including graphics, # of expansion slots,
amount of RAM, and system speed. So if one can live without a larger
amount of Mass Storage, then the ATW scores MUCH higher than the Amiga....
SPARCStation Dream System: Last Place
The SPARCStation 1 is a superb Dream System, being well balanced in
features that are VERY powerful in themselves, and with capabilities that
are very good. But not good enough. Unfortunately, many of its features
have been met, or exceeded, by the competition It hasn't stood up
against other Dream systems using RISC technology, like the Personal Iris
and ATW, and the Mac and IBM Systems have surpassed it. And while it
unquestionably defeated the Amiga Dream System, its other losses ensure
its low ranking. The SPARCStation Dream System is quickly being
outperformed....
ATW Comparison: The SPARCStation is superior to the ATW in its
amount of Mass Storage and standard RAM, is roughly equal in high
resolution graphics, and # of expansion slots, and is inferior in system
speed and low/middle resolution graphics. Since both are tied in items,
one must consider which items are more important. Since CPU Report
considers system speed and virtual superiority in graphics to be more
important than the amount of RAM and expansion slots, then if you can wait
for a larger Hard Drive for it, then the ATW scores higher than the
SPARCStation.
ATW Dream System: Tied for First Place
- One of the Two Best Systems Currently Available -
With its parallel processing and graphics capabilities, the ATW has
managed to maintain a level of performance above the rest of the Dream
Systems. While some of its advantages have declined in superiority, by
virtue of the RISC systems' improved speed, or the increased graphics
abilities of some systems, the ATW has kept a considerable edge. Also,
while it is well-rounded in many ways, several of its weaknesses, such as
the amount of Mass Storage, stopped it from getting First Place. In fact,
only its decisive win against the IBM System ensured its First Place
ranking. The competition has gotten much rougher for the ATW, and while
its advantages are many, it is not invincible.
The ATW has great potential in the workstation market, as it could
set a new level of price/performance for many profitable aspects of the
industry. And its superb showing against this Crop of workstation-class
systems shows its strength in the workstation arena. However, with such
supercomputer-like speed, the ATW Dream System's ideal market could be the
emerging market for minisupercomputers, or systems that achieve speed
slightly below that of true supercomputers, but with a fraction of their
cost. Given that minisupercomputers with capabilities equal to the ATW
Dream System now cost from $250,000 to a million or more dollars, the ATW
could end up becoming a leader in the low-end part of that market....
But ONLY if Software Development for the ATW is supported strongly,
and if Atari's efforts to make the ATW accepted as a worldwide standard
are MUCH better than its previous efforts to make the Atari ST popular in
the US.
So as to account for future developments, I have included a list of
Upcoming Dream Systems, so accurate comparisons can be made between
present and future computers meeting the "Dream System" status. In the
past, some Systems on this list have merely been improvements on old
systems, but these Dream Systems do not fall under that category, and all
show excellent potential....
Upcoming Systems' Features:
_________________________________________________________________________
Dream |Main Chips,|MainChip|Mass |Expansion|Graphics Displays/ |
System |Megs of RAM|Speed |Storage |Slots |Best Resolution(s) |
----------|-----------|--------|----------|---------|--------------------|
Atari |68030/68882| 16 MHZ | 80 Meg | Five |640*400*16 Colors |
TT030/6 |Six Megs | |Hard Drive|VME Bus |1280*960 w/Monochr. |
----------|-----------+--------+----------+---------+--------------------|
Sun 3/80 |68030/68882| 20 MHZ | 650 Meg | One |1152*900*16 Million |
System | 16 Megs | |Tape Drive| P4 Bus | |
----------|-----------+--------+----------+---------+--------------------|
Mega 4 ST |68030/68882| 16 MHZ | 650 Meg | One |640*200 w/4 Colors |
System |Four Megs | |Hard Drive|Mega Bus |1024*768 w/16 Colors|
-------------------------------------------------------------------------'
(Note: Keep in mind that some of these specs are not final, and that the
actual systems will probably differ in some way from the systems that are
shown.)
System #7, the Atari TT030/6, has a 16 MHZ 68030 chip with a 16 MHZ 68882
Math Chip, Six Megs of RAM and an 80 Megabyte Hard Drive as standard, as
well as a VME Expansion Bus with five slots. Also, I would include an NEC
Multisync 4D Color Monitor ,and an Omniswitch, made by Talon Technologies,
which interfaces Multisync monitors with Atari STs. Total System Cost:
$6100 dollars.
Resolutions: 320*200 with 256 Colors out of 4096
640*400 with 16 Colors out of 4096
1280*960 with Monochrome Resolution
Comparisons with Other Systems: Many of the features of the
TT030/6, such as speed and amount of RAM, have already been surpassed by
current systems. However, while its graphics capabilities are
comparatively mediocre, they are suitable for its price range. Given
this, it seems that the 68030 TT will make its niche in the price
performance area of the market, in which it stands a superb chance of
success. But ONLY if one is able to easily replace its 16 MHZ 68030 with
20 and 25 MHZ processors, and if VME Board Manufacturers start supporting
it.
System #8, the Sun 3/80 System, is a Sun 3/80 with 8 Megs of RAM, a 20 MHZ
68030 chip, a 20 MHZ 68882 Math Chip, and 1 expansion slot. Added to this
are Pinnacle Micro's 650 Meg Magneto-Optical Drive, and two Sun Memory
Expansion Kits, with 4 Megs of RAM Each. Cost: $25,500 dollars.
Sun 3/80 Resolution: 1152*900 with 16 Million Colors at the same time.
Comparisons with other Systems: The Sun 3/80 System provides an
advanced set of Dream System capabilities, including 24bit color graphics,
a Magneto-Optical Drive, and large amounts of RAM. While its speed isn't
at the caliber of the current Dream Systems, the Sun 3/80 promises to be a
VERY good contender in the low-end workstation area. In fact, given that
it seems to be more powerful overall than Sun's other offering, the
SPARCstation....
System #9, the Mega 4 ST System, is a Mega 4 ST with 4 Megs of RAM and 1
Expansion Slot. Added to this are FAST Technologies' upcoming 68030 board
for the ST, which will use a 16 MHZ 68030, and a NEC Multisync 4D Color
Monitor for Image Systems' Video Card for the Mega ST, with a 1024*768
resolution, and a 16 MHZ 68882 math chip to go in the Video Card's math
chip socket, as well as a 650 Meg Hard Drive recently introduced by
Microvision Inc. Also, I would include an Omniswitch, made by Talon
Technologies, which interfaces Multisync monitors with all Atari ST
computers. Total System Cost: $8700.00 dollars.
Mega ST Resolution:
320*200 with 16 Colors out of 512
640*200 with 4 Colors out of 512
640*400 with Monochrome Resolution
Image Systems' Board Resolution: 1024*768 with 16 Colors out of 4096
Comparisons with other Systems: With these extensions, the Mega 4
System gains capabilities worthy of many workstation-class systems, with a
state of price/performance rivalling the Amiga 3000 and Atari TT030/6.
Given that this type of power is available now for the Mega, it seems that
the ST Userbase will have little to worry about in the area of good Mega
ST Expansion Options in the future.
However, the state of the "Personal Workstation" Market, as
exemplified in the array of Dream Systems, has grown considerably in power
over the past several months. With competition for First Place more
fierce than ever before, it seems that performance alone may not win the
battle for the Low-End Workstation market. With many new systems having
leadership capability in the vital area of processing ability, around
which the whole concept of RISC chips is based, low-end Workstations will
have to find other advantages (such as graphics capabilities) in order to
become more popular in this industry....
These Dream Systems also indicate certain future trends which will
occur with microcomputers. Megapixel displays (screens with 1024*1024 or
better resolution), will become the main targets in the graphics arena,
while 8 - 24 bit color displays (showing 256 to 16 Million colors) will
quickly be a necessity. Also, with the advent of 4 Meg SIMM RAMs, 4 Megs
of RAM will soon become standard fare. However, this Dream Systems essay
seems to indicate that with the 68040 and 80486 matching the speed of
RISC-based microprocessors, the "RISC Wars" (the competition in the
computer industry to establish the dominant RISC chip standard) is about
to get VERY interesting indeed.
But ponder, if you will, these questions:
1) Will there be a number of 68030 products arriving for Atari computers
in the near future, and if so, how will this affect the Atari ST's
popularity?
2) Given that an inexpensive 68040 system would not only be more popular
than a 25 MHZ 68030 system, but could revolutionize the industry,
should Atari concentrate on developing a 68040-based Atari TT, or an
Atari TT040, after they introduce the 68030 TT?
---===**===---
CPU STATUS REPORT¿
==================
Mountain View, CA Sun Microsystems and Eastman Kodak recently announced
----------------- an agreement in which Kodak's CESD (Customer Equipment
Service Division) will help boost Sun's customer
support for their Unix machines in some areas of the
US. While Sun's Customer Support network will remain
intact, Kodak's CESD will double the number of "in the
field" technicians handling "on-site" maintenance and
repair for Sun workstations. The Kodak CESD Group has
won the Datapro Award for Customer Service for nine
years, and is also experienced in the Unix field....
Designed to boost the efficiency of customer support,
this type of "on-site" service maintenance has become
an important selling point for ANY computer company
wishing to sell its systems to big businesses, let
alone trying to break into the Unix market. Given
that both of the above markets would bring MUCH
prosperity to Atari if properly handled....
Santa Cruz, CA The Open Software Foundation has hired Marie Bruch,
-------------- former marketing director for UI (Unix International,
a consortium of computer companies who back AT&T's
version of Unix instead of the OSF's plans). It seems
seems that a major reason for her leaving UI was a
shaky fiscal situation for Unix development at AT&T.
Also, the Santa Cruz Operation is now shipping Open
Desktop, a Graphical User Interface for SCO Xenix/386
which is based on an X/Windows implementation of the
OSF Motif GUI. Out for 80386/80486-based systems,
Open Desktop comes with SCO Unix Release V.3, a
bestselling version of AT&T Unix, which was licensed
to Microsoft before as Xenix. Cost: $1000.00....
Several major software programs, including spreadsheet
(Wingz), workstation desktop publishing (Framemaker),
and CAD/CAM software will soon be available for Open
Desktop. Also, given that 1100 software developers
have committed to making Unix software which supports
Open Desktop, SCO's acceptance of OSF Motif may give
the OSF's efforts an invaluable boost....
Tokyo, Japan Cray Research has now extended its lead in the
------------ supercomputer industry in Japan, through a series of
sales to the Japanese automobile industry. Several
Japanese car makers, including Toyota, Nissan, Honda,
and Mitsubishi, have bought Cray supercomputers, and
recently, Daihatsu bought a Cray Y-MP capable of
running at 500 million floating point operations per
second (MFLOPS). Interestingly enough, other American
technology firms, such as Motorola, are also achieving
success in cracking the Japanese market....
Holmdel, NJ AT&T's Bell Labs has recently shown an experimental
----------- prototype known as an "optical computer". In ordinary
computers, computing is performed by transistors, which
manipulate the flow of electricity along certain "logic
gates", which perform mathematical operations.
In this method, bursts of low-intensity lasers are
directed towards crystals which act as switches. One
burst of light would cause a physical change in the
crystal, so it either reflects or absorbs light. A
series of these "on/off" switches can then be
coordinated into logic gates, performing mathematical
operations. AT&T has said that it could take hundreds
of millions of dollars to fully develop this new
technology so it is usable by microcomputers....
The applications for this new technology are enormous
in the computing field. Using optical computing will
allow much faster computer circuitry which can be made
much smaller than electronic circuitry. Also, since an
optical computer would need far less power to function
than a normal machine (and generate a lot less heat),
optical circuitry can be fitted more closely together,
in order to implement more sophisticated and compact
circuitry. There WILL be more on this next week....
_____________________________________________________________
> WORD FLAIR CO CPU/STR OnLine¿ Good stuff!
============================
=========================================================================
(C) 1989 by Atari Corporation, GEnie, and the Atari Roundtables. May be
reprinted only with this notice intact. The Atari Roundtables on GEnie
are *official* information services of Atari Corporation.
=========================================================================
February 9, 1990
<[Sysop] JEFF.W>
On behalf of the Atari ST Roundtable, I welcome all of you to the
Wordflair RealTime Conference on GEnie. Before getting started,
some business about how an RTC works.
While the RTC room is in Listen-Only mode, you can only address
our guests when I let you talk. To get my attention, just /RAIse
your hand. Just enter this from your keyboard: /rai
I'll acknowledge your raised hand as soon as I can, but please
be patient. I -WILL- let you know when your turn is coming up.
Some other RTC commands are:
? - Lists all RTC commands.
/sta - Status (list) of everyone in the RTC room.
/exi - Exit the RTC, but you remain logged onto GEnie.
/bye - Log off of GEnie directly from the RTC.
/rai - Raise your hand. Lets me know you wish to address
our guest.
And now, let's commence with the Wordflair RTC.
On the ST platform, there are word processors, databases,
spreadsheets, and graphing programs. But there has been no single
product that integrates many of the functions from these
applications into a single package. But our guests for this
evening have done something about that. Recently, Wordflair was
released for the Atari ST platform and our guests are here to
tell us about it and answer your questions!
With us tonight is the Chairman of Blue Chip International,
Lauren Flanegan-Sellers. With her are John Fox and Robert Roll of
Blue C hip International's publishing arm, Goldleaf.
Welcome, Lauren, John, and Robert. Thank you for taking the time
to be with us this evening! Do you have any opening remarks you'd
like to make before we open the floor to questions?
<[Lauren] WORDFLAIR>
Howdy! Thank you GEnie, Jeff et al for inviting us to participate
in this conference. This is the first time we have been part of an
on-line conference so we're looking forward to the new experience.
We're very pleased about the enthusiastic response Wordflair has
received, and committed to making it the best document processor
on any platform. So ask away, give suggestions, dream,
whatever...We'll do our best to make the time worthwhile for all.
<[Sysop] JEFF.W>
Thank you Lauren.
Wordflair is quite a unique application. I'm not aware of
anything quite like it on any other computer platform. Please tell
us how you came to develop Wordflair for the Atari ST.
<[Lauren] WORDFLAIR>
We believe in the Atari computer family and think that there is
still an opportunity to capture market share in the small and
home business market.
We will of course support other platforms.
<[Charles] C.F.JOHNSON>
Hi Lauren, John, and Robert. First off, Wordflair is one terrific
program, and I'm really enjoying working with it! One slight
downside I'm experiencing right now is that there seems to be no
way to use UltraScript with WF. Is that in the plans, or is there
a way right now that I haven't found?
<[Lauren] WORDFLAIR>
Hi, Charles. Thanks for the great lead-in. Yes we plan on
supporting Ultrascript, but do not have a firm ship date
yet...coding has begun but not yet stable enough to predict.
<[Charles] C.F.JOHNSON>
Do you plan to support the UltraScript display module?
<[Lauren] WORDFLAIR>
If you mean will it be accessible from within WF, yes.
<[Charles] C.F.JOHNSON>
Actually, I'm talking about a module that I believe US is offering
to developers that allows Postscript fonts to be displayed on
screen, scaled from the original data.
<[Lauren] WORDFLAIR>
I'll have to get back to you on that one. Sounds like a good idea
though.
<[Charles] C.F.JOHNSON>
OK, thanks, and best of luck with Wordflair!
<[Lauren] WORDFLAIR>
Thanks Charles. We're pleased to be able to offer G+Flair with
WF.
<[Sysop] JEFF.W>
Lauren, perhaps it would be a good idea if you describe
Wordflair, just in case a few of our guests haven't gotten the
word yet.
<[Lauren] WORDFLAIR>
Wordflair is a document processor combining word processing,
graphics such as GEM Metafiles and .IMG files, a simple flat file
database, a fully imbedded financial calculator that can be
dynamically linked to the database and the included graphing
program, and page layout tools, all in one easy to use program.
The design is unified rather than integrated which means that all
of these tools are available at any time from within the word
processor at the click of a mouse or keyboard command.
The idea for WF originated when I had a prototype of the Macintosh
and was using MacWrite, MacDraw and my calculator next to my Mac
for proposals. I wanted to integrate these multiple functions in
one program so that I could create forms, proposals, and general
business "boilerplate docs." And so the great software design
game began...again... WF is actually about the 10th program I
have designed/written.
<[Sysop] JEFF.W>
Thanks.
<[Garcon] G.BABIN>
First, thanks for the update to Wordflair. It's encouraging to
see that level of support! My questions concern fonts and the
graphing feature.
Why is there a limit to the number of fonts that can be loaded
and can you remove this limit?
Regarding the graph feature, being restricted to eight data
entries makes this otherwise excellent feature practically
useless! Twelve entries would be a vast improvement. I also would
like to see overlayed bar graphs with double data sets to really
make WF a major league application (pretty please, with sugar on
top!).
<[Lauren] WORDFLAIR>
We plan on adding a number of features to the graphing utility
and adding fonts. In the next version of WF, there will be no
limit to fonts. You will be able to access them through a
dialogue and see the resultant output. I remember giving you a
demo at COMDEX in Vegas, I believe. Is that right?
<[Garcon] G.BABIN>
Yes, great memory!
<[Lauren] WORDFLAIR>
Thank you for supporting WF. Please count on us to keep adding to
the product software development is an evolution of ideas. It is
never done. You have to hold down new ideas at some point or you
never get the thing out. But just at the moment you are ready to
release it, you think of the 10 essential things that you left
out. Please keep up the suggestions and ideas. We learn best from
our users. You never can imagine how some people might use the
product. Nothing intended toward you, of course, Garcon!
<[Rick] GERDSENDER>
Hi, this is Rick Flashman. I haven't used WordFlair yet (hint,
hint), but I was wondering where the whole thesaurus & dictionary
issue is headed? Will we see one soon?
<[Lauren] WORDFLAIR>
Geez Rick, I thought we sent you out a review copy. The good news
for us at least is that we sold out our initial manufacturing run
and really don't have anymore product until Feb. 15th. So some of
the freebies have had.. to wait. I'll check on what might have
happened to yours. <Sheepish grin>
<[Rick] GERDSENDER>
(Haven't gotten it yet...)
<[Lauren] WORDFLAIR>
Regarding the Spellchecker,thesaurus, hyphenation dictionary,
etc., we are working on it. We are evaluating several sources.
Currently leaning toward the Proximity offering. When we
complete our evaluation and get a prototype with the code
integrated, we'll announce a ship date. Seriously, no vaporware
here folks. In the meantime, you can use Thunder.
<[Rick] GERDSENDER>
Sounds good! Write it first, announce it later. <grin>
<D.A.BRUMLEVE>
I recently began a small business and do not yet have a database
program. I'm sorry that I haven't had a chance to see the demo,
but it sounds like it might meet my needs.
<[Lauren] WORDFLAIR>
The demo can be downloaded from GEnie. The database is quite
limited. It's main benefit is that it is very easy to use. We're
working now on a utility to import any comma delimited format, so
for example you could have imported the database info that Atari
sent developers.
<D.A.BRUMLEVE>
Can I search on 8 fields? Or is search more limited?
<[Lauren] WORDFLAIR>
There is no limit except RAM as to how many fields (we call them
regions) that can be searched. You just perform consecutive sorts.
<D.A.BRUMLEVE>
Could you explain the "unified" thing versus "integrated" a bit?
<[Lauren] WORDFLAIR>
I'd love to wax philosophic and explain the whole unified vs
integrated thing, but are people really interested?
<D.A.BRUMLEVE>
Well, _I_ am. And it's my turn.
<[Lauren] WORDFLAIR>
OK... great..!
The whole idea behind "unified software" which is a phrase, I
admit that I coined, is that you have one set of menus, and one
interface to learn thus enhancing the learnablity and ease of
use. In my great fantasy, you will be able to click on any region
within WF, and import, manipulate or otherwise access a virtual
cornucopia of data types, i.e. voice, data, text, all graphic
types, all at the highest display, and all without ever leaving
the word processing...
[Sysop Note: A line problem broke the connection with Lauren at
this point. A few minutes later, Lauren rejoined the conference
and the conversation continues...]
<WORDFLAIR>
The word processing metaphor or text metaphor, is what most of us
are used to communicating with. So if you can access all the
other forms of visual and audio communication that you might want
to invoke within the text metaphor, now that's what unified
software design is all about. Wordflair, in its current
incarnation is just a first draft of my fantasy.
Dorothy, the kids you are aiming for might be interested in trying
WF. It is a little sophisticated perhaps but might be of
interest. I'd like to see your KidPublisher Pro. Wanna swap?
<D.A.BRUMLEVE>
Sure. Even trade, I'm sure.
<WORDFLAIR>
Ok, deal.
<[Vince-Cubed] V.AVERELLO>
How does WF's handling of graphics compare to that of WordUp
(which seems to be your main competitor) ?
<WORDFLAIR>
The graphics import capability of Wordflair and WordUp are fairly
similar, I believe. We are preparing a competitive analysis for
WF and all the leading WP's/document processors and will post it
on Genie so soon. Dan Fruchey of STart has just completed his
survey, and we came out on top, I believe. Look for his analysis
in the STart review of WP's.
<[Sysop] JEFF.W> Do you know what issue Dan's article
will be in?
<WORDFLAIR>
I think it is in the May issue.
<[Vince-Cubed] V.AVERELLO>
Does the image look the same in WF as it did in the editor that
created it ?
<WORDFLAIR>
The image can be imported to any dimension.
<[Vince-Cubed] V.AVERELLO>
But can it be imported with its original dimensions intact?
<WORDFLAIR>
WF can import an image to any scale. If you want to keep the
original's dimensions intact, then set the grid and scale the
graphic region to the original graphics dimensions. In the next
version, we will offer an option of keeping the original
dimensions intact. But you see, you may want the flexibility of
changing the dimensions before importing. So you will have a
choice.
<[dplotkin] ANTIC>
Hi, Lauren. The ability of Wordflair to generate camera ready
copy is a real plus. Any word on supporting generation of table
of contents or index?
<WORDFLAIR>
Hi Dave! Glad you're here. Glad all of you are here.
We are working on a version of WF that is currently called WF
Professional. We plan on making it the most powerful document
processor available on any platform. Nuff said for now.
<[dplotkin] ANTIC>
Sounds like a heck of a reason to send in your registration card.
Thanks.
<WORDFLAIR>
That's right. We'll be offering very attractive upgrade prices to
registered users. We want to support those of you who have
supportted us from the beginning.
<[dplotkin] ANTIC>
Lauren, I'm curious. Have you gotten a good reception? Sold a
few copies?
<WORDFLAIR>
We have had a very good reception. We plan on helping dealers
sell more through an active dealer support campaign. We have just
sent out 500 demos to all the dealers we have on file, and are
planning a number of promotional campaigns. We believe that WF is
ideally suited to go out with each new 1 meg system or better
sold.
<[Sysop] JEFF.W>
I'd must say that you did an extremely classy thing with
Wordflair. Not only did you license Atari's GDOS, but you also
licensed a special version of G+PLUS from CodeHead Software. Thank
you very much! It may be obvious to many of us, but why exactly
did you do this?
<WORDFLAIR>
We think that G+Plus is a fine product and offers some
significant speed improvements. However, once the new GDOS with
scalable fonts is out, those of you who have trashed GDOS may want
to reconsider. It will offer a very fast alternative. I'm sure
that CodeHead will find a way to enhance its performance even
more. <grin>
<[Sysop] JEFF.W>
Knowing the CodeHeads, I'm sure they will!
<[Informal] DAVESMALL>
On a philosophical note, I've noticed that it's easier for me to
write on monitors that show more of the page when I write on a
TRS-100, w/8 line display, the writing gets fragmented into little
paragraph chunks, and the thought train is lost. 80 x 25, I've
used and a Moniterm full page is far better...something about
looking up the preceding paragraphs and keeping a train of thought
together. I'm curious if you've seen this, and if there's much
call for larger monitors...if it's something like, "the larger the
man/machine interface, the better". I figger a word processor
person would be good to ask. :-) (or woman/machine -- I use it
generically).
<WORDFLAIR>
Great question. First of all, Wordflair works with the Moniterm
and is not device dependent so it should work with all larger
monitors. And absolutely, I am a big picture gal myself. The
wider the view the better the solution.
<[Informal] DAVESMALL>
Have you run into this yourself when writing?
<WORDFLAIR>
Yes. I like to have the maximum display possible. Instead of
writing lots of linked nuggets, I can get more of a "stream of
consciousness" style, which in the long run is really more
powerful because it is more intuitive--you know, right brain and
all that California stuff....<grin>
<[Informal] DAVESMALL>
"Linked nuggets" describes the situation perfectly on an 8-line
monitor. Okay, how's about this, just for fun:
We take an Atari hi-res monitor, turn it on its side, and produce
a screen that's far more writer oriented. We get the CodeHead
people to write a driver (grin) to let the words lie on their side
and a smaller font. Much space is wasted on right half of screen;
it could be used to give, say, 40-60 lines of text. 640 x 400
ratio. Be an interesting hack, wouldn't it? (I might have to
volunteer)
Ah, the peanut gallery tells me this has been done in Germany. Can
I get it?
<[Sysop] JEFF.W>
2nd Word is the name of the product, I believe.
<WORDFLAIR>
Right on brother. Look out Radius!
<[Informal] DAVESMALL>
Lauren, are you going to CeBIT for Europe in March?
<WORDFLAIR>
I didn't know this was going to be such an intense rush of an
experience.
<[Sysop] JEFF.W>
Ha ha
<WORDFLAIR>
I will be in Europe in early March seeking international
distributors so will drop in but am not exhibiting. Are you
going?
<[Informal] DAVESMALL>
Am considering it; don't know enough yet to tell if we still can
get reservations, etc, exhibit in the booth.
<WORDFLAIR>
See if Francis at Clavius can help.
<[Informal] DAVESMALL>
Welp, that wraps me up; other people waiting. Thanks, Lauren, and
good luck with your product!
<WORDFLAIR>
Thank you DAVE. ALWAYS a pleasure to talk to you.
<[Sysop] JEFF.W>
A friend of mine, Bob Carpenter, bought Wordflair and he *loves*
it. However, he laments the lack of keyboard equivalents for
functions like bold, underlining, and italics. Are these planned
for an upcoming revision of Wordflair? And can you tell us about
any other enhancements in the works?
<WORDFLAIR>
Yes, keyboard equivalents for EVERYTHING are in the works. Also,
improved speed of .IMG file imports, the spellchecker, etc that
I have discussed earlier.
<[Charles] C.F.JOHNSON>
By the way, Lauren, I also wanted to say "Thanks" for the very
quick fix for the "open workstation" problem we reported. The new
version works perfectly in that respect now. It's nice to see the
publisher of a large application like Wordflair respond to a
problem report in real time. <grin>
<WORDFLAIR>
Thanks for the report, Charles. WE did our best to insure that WF
shipped free of bugs. You know the saying about the best laid
plans of mice and men. But you can count on us to fix bugs in a
timely manner. Thank God or the Goddess as you prefer that is the
only bug reported so far.
<[Charles] C.F.JOHNSON>
I've been using a Moniterm lately (LOVE IT), and I noticed that on
the Moniterm, Wordflair doesn't let you change the page
magnification. You always get the full page view and I couldn't
see a way to zoom in on things. Am I missing it?
<WORDFLAIR>
No Charles. In my somewhat limited imagination, I did not think of
big monitors initially, so we need to incorporate a zoom function
at a variety of aspects. We're working on it.
<[Charles] C.F.JOHNSON>
Ah! OK, it's no biggie...the full page display is very useable as
is. But a zoom function would be nice for closeup work, like
aligning rules, etc.
<WORDFLAIR>
Thank you, everyone. And thank you for your support of Wordflair!
<[Sysop] JEFF.W>
That about wraps up the Wordflair Realtime Conference. Before we
switch to "frenzy mode", do you have any closing comments, Lauren?
<WORDFLAIR>
Yes, Jeff. Let me just say that we are very pleased to be a part
of this Atari community and are dedicated to helping to sell
Atari's and to working in harmony with other developers to meet
the needs of our users.
<[Sysop] JEFF.W>
I might remind folks that Lauren provides online support for
Wordflair in the Atari ST Roundtable's Bulletin Board. You can
find her in Category 13 ("Word Processing"), Topic 11
("Wordflair").
Hmmm...Wordflair actually defies the classifications of our
current Category structure in the BB. But it's gotta go somewhere!
<smile>
Also, for those of you who haven't checked it out yet, you
can find a demo version of Wordflair in the ST RT's Software
Library. It is WF.ARC, file #13769. It's a full implementation
with the exception of the print and save operations. Many thanks
to our guests: Lauren Flanegan-Sellers, John Fox, and Robert
Roll. And many thanks to all the ST RT members who attended this
evening. Good night.
Future Conferences Scheduled......
February ? - I'm talking with Eric Rosenquist of Strata Software
about doing an RTC -sometime- in February. I've
opened the calendar to him and I'm awaiting a date
confirmation from him. I'll let you know when
this gets locked down.
March 7 - What started out as an ISD conference with Nathan
Potechin (to discuss new Calamus products Outline
and the CVG Converter) has turned into a hybrid
of DTP and Atari-down-under. Nathan will be
beaming into the RTC from Australia along with
a gang of personnel from Atari Australia.
March 21 - Dorothy Brumleve, of D.A. Brumleve Software, will
be our guest to discuss her line of children's
programs on the ST, highlighting her latest
release.
Please note also that these schedules are subject to change without
notice, although I will keep you informed of changes as they occur. And
the schedule is not all-inclusive. Additional RTC's may very likely be
scheduled with little advance warning, so one should keep their eyes and
ears open and follow Category 1, Topic 11 for the latest developments in
the RTC schedule.
_____________________________________________________________
> USERGROUP NEWS CPU/STR InfoFile¿ Brodie on the Road.....
===============================
ON THE ROAD AGAIN
=================
Bob Brodie Atari Usergroup Co-Ordinator, will appear at the following
locations ....time and date specified....
February 10, 1990
Redding Atari Computer Enthusiasts 7PM, Sat. night. Please contact Mike
Farrar, President of R.A.C.E. at 916-243-5189.
February 15, 1990
ST ACE of Sonoma County, 7PM Thursday evening Please contact John
Marakarian, President of ST ACE at 707-573-0508 or GEnie mail
J.Marakarian.
February 17, 1990
MacTechnics, a Mac users group on the campus of the University of Michigan
in Ann Arbor. Meeting starts at 9:00AM, my presentation will start around
11:00AM. Contact Pattie Rayl for directions, 313-973-8825 or
GEnie Mail Unicornpub.
February 18, 1990
Washtenaw Users Group. Meeting is to be held from 1-3PM, in the Anderson
Room of the Student Union at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
Contact Pattie Rayl, or check current issue of Atari Interface Magazine
Editorial Ramblings for directions.
February 19, 1990
ST Interest Group of West Michigan (STING) in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Contact Ron Shultheiss at Software Carousel, phone 616-361-1381
Febraury 20, 1990
Michigan Atari Computer Enthusiasts (MACE). Contact Ed Hanson at
313-675-0044 or GEnie Mail E.Hanson.
February 26, 1990
A "Private Online Conference" with Syracuse Atari Computer Enthusiasts and
a Meeting to be held at the Liverpool Public Library, send GEnie Mail to
LEN-F, or call Fred Dunaway at 315-675-0044.
That pretty well settles February. Now that I have diligently typed
all this in, I recognize that I need to be a little more definitive about
where these groups are located. More accurately, Redding is in the far
northern end of California, about 4 hours north of San Francisco. Santa
Rosa is about two hours north of San Francisco. I am tempted to say that
Ann Arbor is about three hours east of here, but that would be cheating,
so check with the Michigan crew on the location of the meeting(s) there.
Syracuse is in Western New York. AS March gets firmed up, I'll let you in
on the where and whens! Bob...
___________________________________________________
> PCD 2 ARGH! CPU/STR OnLine¿ Atari to blame??
===========================
Below, we once again present the various experiences of folks who have
received their long awaited PCD2 pcbs. Their respective experiences are
here for all to see....
How depressing to find that Atari is being blamed both directly and
indirectly by AG for this dilemma they find themselves in. We say, they
should have had better beta testing and been more realistic in their
research and development, the board size is far too big to be practical.
Atari was first blamed for not sending schematics and now we see where the
speed of the ram chips is being blamed, it seems the old expression of
"Any old port in a storm" fits rather well here. Atari is not to blame in
this case, the culprit is really lack of hardware development experience
and the reluctance to listen to the advice of those with the experience.
Oh well, live and learn....
S.CIPRIS, posts;
I decided not to be a part of the crowd that appears to idolize Bill
Teal, and swears that he can do no wrong. I asked for a refund of my
money sent in for this product. You see Bill did a great deal of wrong
things.
Firstly, he advertised a product that would install into all machines
with no problem and no soldering, YEAH Right!
Secondly, he began to send out units that were not working, and is
still sending out units that are not working.
Lastly, he is sending out units that are missing masnuals, disks,
etc. Of, course let us not forget the fact that these units are too large
to even fit into the computers without a major hack job.
These are not at all like the units that were advertised oh so long
ago. You cannot pass the buck. The fault is not in the suppliers, board
manufacturers , packers or anyone else for that matter. The fault is with
Mr. Teal. He is ultimately responsible. I hate to appear to be so harsh,
but I never have seen such bad marketing practices as this. The fact that
you cannot get through to Avant-Garde is a terrible truth.
We are lucky to be part of the telecommunications set, but what about
all of the purchasers without modems. They are sitting in the dark with a
non-working, non-fitting piece of junk. They have no support or reasonable
explanations from Mr. Teal. I am sure that eventually this will all be
straightened out, and I wish the Teals all the luck in the world with
their future endeavors. At this time I left E-Mail to AG on 1/29/90 and I
also sent them a registered letter on 1/31/90 asking for my refund. So
far no word but I am waiting and will keep you posted. By the way, does
anyone besides myself remember the Edsel? Good luck to all! Apologies if
I appeared too harsh!
------------
J.ALLEN27, posts;
Hi folks,
I talked to Bill today. He has found the bug. It will require a PAL
chip update so he will have to send each of us a PAL and have us swap it
for the one on the board.
The bug, if it weren't so painful for us, is actually pretty funny.
When the "IBM PROCESSOR"...to avoid confusion...talks to the I/O chips on
the motherboard it uses some of the same 68000 control signals that run to
the motherboard. The one in question is DTACK, in a 68000 system this is
the input that tells the processor that the data...from what ever.. is
ready and the cycle should be completed. So when CPU #2 is talking to it's
own chips it issues DTACKs on the DTACK line. Ordinarily this shouldn't
be a problem BUT:
On PCDII, since the IBM chip can only address 1 Meg of memory all the
addresses seen by the motherboard are...until EMS...are in the 1st Meg.
The motherboard perceives this as being mapped into RAM. Well Bill does
mask off AS and other control lines but DTACK is supposed to be this
signal that all devices can daisy chain to and so he didn't. Accessing the
I/O devices...which to the motherboard LOOK like ram accesses...he issues
DTACK which then feeds the generic RDY response mechinism to the IBM
processor. RDY is the DTACK equivalent for IBM stuff. Since the MMU sees
that a RAM address is being addressed...although no AS or other lines are
true...and it sees the DTACK go true it responds in some way that we can't
really know because what happens occurs INSIDE the MMU. IF...and it's a
BIG IF...the MMU is doing RAM refresh at the same time that this DTACK
happens the whole refresh cycle goes bonkers. It ends up trashing a word
on each 512 byte boundry through the entire ram array. It literally writes
over or currupts the data in memory. This is not ACTUALLY a ram access
because AS and UDS/LDS are not active and so nobody is actually on the
bus. And yet the MMU chip THINKS something is happening and looses it's
mind in refresh. Ordinarily in a RAM access the MMU is the source of DTACK
and it is put out only when the MMU chip has actually read or written the
rams and the data is on the 68000 bus. Somehow having the DTACK driven
while the address bus points to ram and refresh is going on has a very
nasty affect on the MMU. The data that gets trashed is of course the
actual PCDII program and anything else in ram. So BANG!!!! The next time
either processor runs the program. This is whats happening. One of the I/O
chips is the interupt controller, that is why blocking interupts stopped
the problem and why we thought it might just be how interupts were being
handled. Nop it was just a related item the real culpit was hitting the
MMU the wrong way.
The neat thing about this is that it is all a little timing window of
hitting the MMU at just the right time with an I/O access happening in
parrallel with refresh. Some MMUs and systems are affected, some aren't
and that's why some work. When the new PAL is put in it will block DTACK
going to the motherboard and that clears up the problem. If I had not
buffered DTACK...and I didn't really have to, I thought...T16 would have
hit EXACTLY the same bug because cache accesses can be percieved the same
way and occur in parrallel with MMU refresh too....VERY SCARY!!!!! The
only two devices ever put inside an ST that could possibly run into this
situation are PCDII and T16, that's why nobody ever found it before. As
usual a 3rd party product has pushed the envelope right over the edge.
I hope my explaination is understandable, I know it is technical but I
don't know how to put it simpler. I have no idea when the fix will be sent
out, he'll have to go get pals made asap and send them out, at least they
can be put in foam and into envelopes to go 1st class mail to everyone.
Hope that helps, I am AMAZED.
------------
Category 19, Topic 2
Message 472 Tue Feb 06, 1990
LEPULLEY at 23:29 MST
Jim,
I'm one of those people that are lucky to turn on their computers without
electrocuting myself, so you'll have to excuse me if my question sounds
stupid (after your extensive explaination), but with the new PAL will PC
Ditto II now work with the Blitter (i.e Megas)? Also, what is Bill going
to do about all of the boards that are too large to fit inside the
computer (without extensive cutting)?
------------
M.GENT, posts;
Jim, thats great - BUT - I am on of the few that when the PC-DITTO2
board is installed correctly, the ST locks up upon POWER UP. Will this
mod going to help me? Maybe I can send my system down to Bill for an
exchange of on of his? He certainly would get a good cross-references of
STs. My board is C070523-001 REV D. manuf. in 03 of 87. The CPU is by
the disk drive, memory under the keboard, ROM under the power supply , and
a DITTO board in the closet;-). My dealer and I have replaced most of
the custum chips, but no go. Can't understand it because, there are no
hardware upgrades inside. And with my Supra 30 or not it still locks up.
Oh, this pup is a fm. But I take the wait and see method. <agony and
torment on the tension :->
------------
DOUG.W, posts;
M.Gent, it is quite possible you have a truly defective board. Even after
the PAL upgrade, there are bound to be a few defects (damaged in the mail,
damaged during installation, static zapped during packaging, etc.).
--Doug
------------
E.BURGESS, posts;
Any idea how long we'll have to wait for this chip now? and I notice 1 guy
said he got it to run with dos 3.3 on a rev D mother board , now another
guy with rev D says it locks up and that 2.1 works. Sigh I only have 3.2
and that wont work,now I'm pestering every one I know to find me another
dos to try. I hope to have one in a few days.
------------
DAVESMALL, posts;
Whew! I'm glad he found it!
That is one cast-iron bi*** of a bug. No wonder it took so long. Accounts
for the symptoms, too!
You know, I think the reason you're not seeing other developers jumping
on Bill is that Bill is presently going through what we fear every time we
ship a product. Particularly in the Atari world, where every run of
machines seems different (blitter, 373, RAMs, GLUE, MMU, etc), it seems
like *someone* has a machine that'll fail.
So you prepare your baby as best you can, make it wear its best clothes,
and send it off to school. For Bill, the Principal called to let him know
his baby was not working out.
It could have happened to me or Jim; to some extent it did (the 373
thing, the Blitter thing with Jim, the GTS-100 drives for me, and so on).
We got lucky in the bigger distribution, Bill didn't.
You're sure not going to find me criticizing. I've put out a product with
the size staff you can afford in the Atari world if you want to survive
(the past is littered with people who didn't think so). It means 18 hour
days and nonstop stress until *you* find the bug. Every time we send out a
release, I sweat it -- what if I reformat people's hard disks
accidentally? What if data is corrupted? And so on. We *all* do that.
Yes, you're "beta" testers, although that's not the word you're looking
for. Simply put, there is NO way to test a product en masse before
shipment. Every software/hardware developer has been burned on its first
shipment, which this is for PCDII, from viruses to bugs to... to where
"indsutry wisdom" is even don't buy the 1.0 version, wait for 1.5 or 2.0
(this is from the *IBM* world).
In short, when I read notes about Bill being the devil because he used a
PAL with "666" on it (well, almost that bad), I think, sheesh. He just got
a little unluckier than most.
And funny how these same people forgot instantly how much good he did
with PC-DITTO I, and how well it worked. Short memories.
We have five Beta testers at Gadgets who have saved my cookies and
reputation innumerable time, who test software. Yes, they get the new ones
free. That probably amounts to $1/hr pay in the long run. Gadgets' rep
for reliability would be in poor shape without them.
Anyway, if I know Bill and Ginny, they'll get this PAL fix out there
fast, apologize, and I'll bet (I don't know) they'll scale the board down
for 520 fit -- SIMM maybe? I don't know. But you don't succeed in this
business by not filling a demand.
And thanks, Jim, for the update!
-- Dave / Gadgets
------------
BOOJIBOY, posts;
One thing that really hasn't been confirmed, particularly for me and my
Mega ST2. May we assume that if you get to the screen that says place dos
disk in drive A, that the board has been installed correctly, even if it
crashes at that point? And to Dave Small, I am one of those poor schleps
whose Mega ST2 can't write to a Mac Disk using GCR (I am sure Mark Booth
has mentioned me more than once.) But I still like your product. If only
I could find someone local who sells 74AS373's, that would probably solve
my problem.
------------
J.ALLEN27, posts;
From what we know now the only way to be sure to add memory to your system
AND have it fit with PCDII is to have the chips soldered to the board
rather than buying a ram upgrade board. Several dealers do this kind of
thing and the ones I've seen are works of art...especially a 4Meg upgrade
to a 1040 :-)
The PALs are socketed and anyone can plug it in so it shouldn't cost much
more than the time to do it.
If the SW asks for the DOS disk then the board did pass diagnostics...the
ones that "were" going to be included on the disk. They are built into the
program instead...I guess the docs fell behind the facts.
You said a mouthful Dave.
------------
M.FINTAK, posts;
ADVANTGARDE
ALL INTERESTED
I 've received PC DITTO II, and attempted installation several if not
many, many, times. I 've bent to pins on the chip clip, tweeked the
contacts and still get the PC DITTO II not installed properly message.
I've the version c chip clip and board. On the chip clip board I NOTICED
THAT THE FEED THRU HOLES ARE NOT FILLED WITH SOLDER. Is this the "norm"??
Or maybe I' ve a bad set of ribbon cables. At this point, I 'ld be happy
just to "crash" at loading DOS. HELP!
MICHAEL FINTAK
------------
J.ALLEN27, posts;
I'm at your service as always John!!!
No solution to the clock situation yet except to use the SW available in
the library to control the "fast" mode with SW during bootup. Use the OFF
program just before the clock.prg and then the ON program afterwards. To
use the SW you must connect the SWITCH input of the T16 to PIN 14 of the
yamaha sound chip. You can have both HW and SW by runningthe switch wire
from the T16 to the switch...SPST...and then from the switch to the sound
chip PIN 14. The OS automatically turns the T16 on, the SW then gives you
control in the auto folder and from the desktop. In situations where you
use autobooting games either use the HW switch or Dan Wilga has uploaded a
program that will put a T16 OFF rpogram into the boot sector of the Game
floppy to kill the T16 before running the game.
I've been asked to re-outline what is required to install PCDII with the
T16. The T16 is a 16Mhz 68000 and some of it's signals are not usable by
the PCDII or other CPU addon and so the addon must be connected directly
to the motherboard signals. This can be done fairly easily.
You must solder the PCDII clip onto the T16-68000 chip. All pins are to be
soldered to the 68000 chip EXCEPT...6,7,8,9,10,11,and 15. These pins are
actually 16Mhz signals and will not make PCDII happy. Bend the
corresponding PCDII clip pins out away from the 68000 chip so they don't
touch. Then run 30ga solid core wirewrap wire to the equivalent pins ON
THE MOTHERBOARD. A short cut is to CAREFULLY pull the 68000 chip out of
it's socket and solder the wires direct to the T16. You will notice that
on the T16 those pins are pulled off to the side of the socket, they are
plugged into an auxilary socket along side the actual 68000 socket on the
T16 board. This leaves the holes in the original socket empty for these
pins. You can solder the wires into these holes, plug the 68000 back into
the T16, solder the PCDII clip to all the 68000 pins except the exceptions
and then solder the wires to the corresponding PCDII pin that was pulled
out to the side. That way the PCDII is actually connected to the
MOTHERBOARD signals rather than the T16.
The same proceedure must be followed for the future T16 compatible version
of PCSpeed if/when it is imported to the US. You would do the same
installation with the PCS socket provided with PCS, pulling the
appropriate pins to the side and running wires as explained.
Thankyou-Jim
------------
Category 19, Topic 2
Message 509 Fri Feb 09, 1990
AVANTGARDE at 13:46 EST
This is an update of our investigation of a problem with pc-ditto II not
booting DOS on some STs.
We have found the problem is due to timing changes in the ST hardware. An
early review of failed units shows that the 1040 ST has memory chips with
speeds faster than 150 nanoseconds (most notably 120ns -- shown as dash
twelve (-12) or lower on the chip). Most 1040s with 150ns and 170ns chips
appear to work fine. Later on, for the curious, we'll detail the reason
faster memory causes the glitch. Other machines suffer the same malady,
but we have had too few reports to permit any reliable conclusion at this
time.
For now, we have located the problem and are currently testing several
alternative solutions. Because of the nature of the problem, we are
verifying the fixes to be sure new pc-ditto II timing tolerances cures all
STs. The solution will be in the form of a software update (and will be
available in a library) or the replacement of a socketed chip on the
pc-ditto II board. The fix will be free, and we will post an
announcement very soon.
Thank you for your patience.
Avant-Garde Systems
------------
Editor Note.....
While it is very easy for to sympathize with Bill Teal's situation, It
cannot, in all fairness, be said that "it is an easy fix". Also, that all
those who have a problem should stand idily by while a solution is found.
The manuever to garner deposits and lock down hundreds (if not
thousands) of people through the discount plan was an excellent move on
AG's part and, no doubt, had the darn boards been righteous from the getgo
it would have been hailed as a stroke of marketing genius. As things are
now, there are unhappy users all over the northern hemisphere, as a result
AG now has the unenviable distinction of having more users grumbling than
Atari has ever managed to have.
As a friend of the userbase, the best advise to give is do what you
think is best for you... There is no clear cut solution, or way to go.
Sure, AG will eventually find the solution, but then, there is still one
nagging problem that will be more difficult than all others to overcome.
THE BOARDS ARE TOO BIG! ... Caveat Emptor.
_________________________________________________________
> SUPERCHARGER! CPU/STR Spotlight¿ You've seen the rest, now comes...
===============================
SUPERCHARGER!
============
A preliminary overview
by R.F. Mariano
Talon Technology has announced Supercharger, the first external PC
processor board for Atari ST Computers. Condor Computer Ltd. has been
shipping the Supercharger in the UK since 10/89 with unrivaled acceptance
and success. Talon is presently awaiting FCC approval for sale to the USA
marketplace.
Out of the box, and onto the desk, in a matter moments the device was
connected to the DMA port and ........UP and RUNNING!!
NO MONUMENTAL, TECHNICAL or EXPEN$IVE INSTALLATION AT ALL.....
Since the device arrived via UPS today, this afternoon, at about
4:30pm EST, we were left with little or no time to put this beaut through
its paces. But... that leaves us all week to do so and come back to you
in our next issue with a detailed report on Supercharger.
The unit's appearance is akin to a miniature tower type cabinet that
is remarkably good looking. The unit measures 7.5"d x 2.25"w x 6"h, a
very comfy footprint on our already squeezed desktops.
The notable difference between Talon's Supercharger and all other
working and non-working emulators is readily apparent; anybody can install
this device in a matter of moments. Also, unlike the others.. it is a
full processor and does not have to be installed inside the ST case.
Instead, the emulator is housed in a sharp looking case which has chassis
connectors for the DMA port on the ST and of course, feed through for the
hard drive or whatever.
Incidently, to aid complex software, such as spreadsheets, desktop
publishing and graphics manipulations packages, the Supercharger is
socketed for the 8087 math co-processor. Plug in the 8087. and your
calculations intensive applications will zip right along....
Consider that the foremost feature of the ST and the Apple Macintosh,
and probably their strongest selling point, is that both machines use
mice, windows pointers and menus to provide a super user-friendly
operating environment. Once IBM and friends realized this, they decided
to go the same route....Supercharger fully takes advantage of this as it
converts the mouse so that it behave just like its Microsoft cousin.
When using the Microsoft mouse versus the ST mouse, you will find no
degradation in performance and additionally all software works well. In
many cases there appears to be an improvement in resolution.
Next week, the full story, technically speaking, and from the ordinary
user's point of view... don't miss it.
----------
Below, we present a few comments by Mark Booth, of SDACE, SAN DIEGO ATARI
COMPUTER ENTHUSIASTS...that recently appeared online in the GEnie ST RT.
STACE [Mark], posts;
A representative from Talon Technology was again a guest at our Feb
1st SDACE meeting. They brought aloneg TWO SuperCharger units, on to run
and the other one to pass around the room. They popped the top off of the
case of the second unit and let us individually examine it to our heart's
content.
First, this is a VERY nicely constructed piece of equipment! I really
like the very attractive "mini-tower" case design. The latest surface
mount technology was used of the internal components. The board layout
was VERY clean. There a socket to add a math co-processor. The standard
SuperCharger comes equiped with 512K via four 256Kx4 RAM chips. There are
sockets for an additional four RAM chips. Upgrading a SuperCharger from
512K to 1 meg should be as easy as popping the top and plugging in the
RAM chips (again...four 256x4 chips).
Hook-up is a breeze. Just connect either of the SuperCharger's two
DMA ports to your ST's DMA port. Connect any HD, etc. to the other
SuperCharger DMA port. Plug the supplied 5v power supply to the back of
the SuperCharger and your done. Running the supplied software brings you
up in PC mode in no time. Our club President hooked it up and had it
running on his 1 meg 520 in less than 2 minutes!
Norton rating was 4.2. We had limitied PC software to try it with but
EVERYTHING we tried ran. Even the IBM PC version of Zaxxon worked great!
Talon reports the following: It is no longer necessary to hold in the
little button on the front of SuperCharger when you reboot your ST (as was
reported in some magazine reviews). We tried this, rebooting the 520
several times, SuperCharger worked prefectly and did not effect normal ST
operation.
Talon also reports that there is a patch available to fix some
reported problems with certain Supra host adapters/hd boot software.
For comparison, one of our club members brought along his (yet to be
installed) PC Ditto II board. After much discussion it was generally
agreed that SuperCharger seems to be THE way to go for IBM PC
compatibility.
I know one thing. I don't have the slightest interest in using PC
software. However, SuperCharger is SOOOOOOO nice I found myself wanting
one just the same!
Talon reports that they have a "Warehouse FULL" of SuperChargers that
are waiting for FCC approval to ship! They said that FCC approval is
expected within 30-45 days (as of Thursday, Feb 1st.).
This is just my personal feeling but, I would be willing to pay TWICE
as much for SuperCharger because of its ease of use and installation! The
best part is that SuperCharger does NOT cost twice as much as the others!
Mark
______________________________________________________________
> MICRO RTX CPU/STR Tech Notes¿ Beckemeyer, a little background..
============================
by David Beckemeyer
MICRO RTX: YESTERDAY, TODAY, AND TOMORROW
My name is David Beckemeyer. I developed MICRO RTX, a
multitasking operating system kernel for the Atari ST.
Since releasing MICRO RTX as shareware, I have been
bombarded with requests for more information.
I would like to take this opportunity to tell you a little
about myself, my small development company, how MICRO RTX
came about, and where it may be going in the future.
A LITTLE BACKGROUND
Prior to developing any Atari ST software, I had been
working on large image storage and retrieval systems. These
systems used Motorola 68000 CPUs and the VME bus. At that
time a 512K 8Mhz CPU card with two or three serial ports
cost about $1,800. That's just for the CPU card, not
including any disk interfaces or the VME card cage. So when
the first 520ST came out in 1985 with that exact same 8Mhz
CPU and 512K of RAM for $799.00, you can bet that I scooped
one up fast.
The first thing I missed on my new Atari ST was that
familiar UNIX development environment. Using GEM to
compile with the original DRI compiler that Atari shipped
with the Developers Package just didn't make it. Mind you,
I'm not complaining about the $300. I had developed
software for those VME boxes using UNIX on a VAX, running
cross-compilers that cost thousands of dollars and I had
already forked over several hundred dollars to Microsoft for
a PC "C" compiler and even more to DRI for the PC GEM
developers kit. So the $300 price tag was a bargain.
I had to do something about the development environment
though, so I wrote Micro C-Shell. I ran a small
advertisement in Analog Magazine (remember them) and Arthur
Leyenburger wrote a review of the program. Calls started
coming in -- real live orders for Micro C-Shell! This was
the beginning of the saga of Beckemeyer Development Tools
Atari ST development.
MULTITASKING TOS EMULATOR
We used a real-time multitasking operating system on those
VME systems and I missed this capability on the Atari ST.
I decided to write a kernel for the ST. This started off
as a quick little real-time kernel with only a few system
calls for basic stand-alone multitasking applications. This
basic kernel didn't take very long to implement, but because
it was entirely self-contained and had no TOS compatibility,
it had limited usefulness on the ST.
So I started working on adding multitasking to TOS. This
turned out to be a little bit more difficult than I had
first envisioned. After several months of attempting to
hack a layer on top of the standard TOS, I realized I wasn't
getting anywhere and I needed to try a different approach.
I basically scraped the whole "wedge" idea in favor of a
completely new system -- a TOS Emulator. This is what MICRO
RTX really is. It emulates TOS, at least the GEMDOS and
BIOS levels, and adds a new set of TOS functions based on
the original Atari GEMDOS and BIOS architecture.
In fact, MICRO RTX is really two systems in one. There is
the stand-alone real-time kernel and the TOS compatible I/O
sub-system. Using the TOS GEMDOS and BIOS as the foundation
for the design has advantages and disadvantages. The
biggest advantage is that any program written for the Atari
ST TOS has a good chance of running under the MICRO RTX TOS
emulation. This means there is a large existing application
software base for MICRO RTX. Another big advantage is that
software developers do not need to learn an entirely new
operating system; they only need to learn the new MICRO RTX
extensions. The main disadvantage of starting with the
GEMDOS/BIOS design is that it has certain limitations.
GEMDOS was originally written by DRI and is patterned after
MS-DOS from the IBM-PC world, which in turn was sort of an
evolution of CP/M, which was mostly derived from RT-11, and
so on. Suffice to say that TOS is not the cleanest and most
advanced operating system in the world. In the end, I
decided the advantages of emulating TOS out weighed the
disadvantages and so that's what I did.
THE EVOLUTION OF MICRO RTX
The first versions of RTX TOS emulation were a little buggy.
What's more, I found out that a lot of ST programmers tended
to "do it their way" in lieu of using system calls.
Although it wasn't entirely their fault, since in those
early days the documentation was, well to be kind, not very
good. These "renegade" programs resulted in what I call the
second generation of MICRO RTX -- the major update and test
cycle in an attempt to get as many programs as we could find
to operate correctly with MICRO RTX. At the same time, I
added some additional enhancements to TOS and speeded the
whole thing up too.
Now MICRO RTX has proven that it can be a stable platform
for efficient multitasking and multiuser operations on the
Atari ST. It has been used for many different types of
applications from real-time control systems, to general
multiuser/multitasking systems like MT C-Shell, to multiuser
business systems such as TurboPOS.
WHY SHAREWARE?
To date, there are probably only a few hundred people who
have taken the time to learn MICRO RTX and really know how
to take advantage of it. Only these few people know the
true power of MICRO RTX. Had the Atari ST market grown to
anywhere near the size of the IBM-PC market, MICRO RTX would
have been much more widely used. As it is, few developers
could afford to invest the extra time and money involved in
using and licensing MICRO RTX.
Now since it is available to anyone as Shareware, I'm hoping
some of the many talented ST programmers out there will
exploit the full potential of MICRO RTX. It took a lot of
effort to get MICRO RTX to work right. I think it's
basically a good system with some nice features. I think
you'll find the same thing if you get a chance to try it
yourself.
THE NEXT GENERATION
I'm looking forward to comments from users regarding new
features that you would like to see in MICRO RTX. Since we
now have a TOS that can be changed any way we want, think
about all those things you'd like TOS to have that would
never happen if we waited for PromisTOS revision 20951.6!
_______________________________________________________
> WAACE/'90 CPU/STR SHOW NEWS¿ The Premier East Coast Show...
============================
The WAACE organization has conducted its first meeting of 1990 and
elected new officers.
Chairman........... Russell Brown
Vice Chairman...... Charles Smeton
Treasurer.......... Tom Stoddard
Vendor Coordinator. John Barnes
Physical layout.... Bill Brown
Program Ads........ Steve Rudolf
Hospitality........ Cheryl Evry
Publicity.......... Bruce Evry and Bob Johnson.
Charles Smeton will also be responsible for arranging the Seminars and
Usergroup Demos...
The Fest will be located totally in the Sheraton Hotel in Reston. We
have All of their conference facilities. The Sheraton has over 300 guest
rooms and are available from the hotel at (703), 620-9000... We have
21,000 feet of total meeting of meeting space for Vendors User groups and
Seminars...
The Sheraton also supports a FAX line at (703) supports a FAX line at
(703)-860-1594. Complimentary shuttle service exists from Dulles Airport..
Parking exists for 900... More details on Fest planning will be made
available soon.
If you have any questions please direct them to me, I am R.brown3 on
Genie or call me at home (703) 680-2698, I am at home from 4:30 pm daily,
please no calls after 9:30 pm EST....
Thanks for your continued support,
Russell Brown WAACE Chairman
_________________________________________________________
> Stock Market ~ CPU NewsWire¿
===========================
THE TICKERTAPE
==============
by Michael Arthur
Concept by Glenn Gorman
Atari Stock went down 1/8 of a point on Monday, and dropped 3/8 of a
point on Tuesday. On Wednesday it was down 1/8 of a point, but on
Thursday, it climbed up 3/8 of a point. On Friday, Atari Stock was up 1/8
of a point. Finishing up the week at 7 1/4 points, Atari Stock is down
1/8 of a point from the last report.
Apple Stock is up 1 1/2 points from Friday, January 25, 1990.
Commodore Stock is down 5/8 of a point from 1/25/90.
IBM Stock is up 1 1/2 points from 1/25/90.
Stock Report for Week of 1/28/90 to 2/02/90
_________________________________________________________________________
STock| Monday | Tuesday | Wednesday | Thursday | Friday |
Reprt|Last Chg. |Last Chg.|Last Chg.|Last Chg.|Last Chg. |
-----|-------------|------------|-------------|------------|-------------|
Atari|7 1/4 - 1/8|6 7/8 - 3/8|6 3/4 - 1/8|7 1/8 + 3/8|7 1/4 + 1/8|
| | | | | 94,100 Sls |
-----|-------------+------------+-------------+------------+-------------|
CBM |8 7/8 -- |8 7/8 -- |8 3/8 - 1/2|8 1/4 - 1/8|8 1/4 -- |
| | | | | 88,300 Sls |
-----|-------------+------------+-------------+------------+-------------|
Apple|33 1/4 + 1/2| 34 + 3/4| 34 ---- |33 5/8 -3/8|34 1/4 + 5/8|
| | | | |1,057,800 Sls|
-----|-------------+------------+-------------+------------+-------------|
IBM |97 1/4 + 3/8|97 1/4 -- |98 5/8 +1 3/8|97 3/4 -7/8|98 3/8 + 5/8|
| | | | |1,516,100 Sls|
-----'-------------------------------------------------------------------'
'Sls' refers to the # of stock shares that were traded that day.
'CBM' refers to Commodore Corporation.
______________________________________________________________
> DynaCADD 1.7 CPU/STR Review¿ The best is for Atari....
===========================
DynaCadd VS AutoCad 10
======================
by Myles Goddard
In our last article, I discussed the system requirements for both
AutoCad 10 and Dynacadd 1.7. As you can well imagine, DynaCadd is
especially designed for the Atari 1040 and MEGA ST computers. Therefore
it takes advantage of the ST's razor sharp displays, speed and graphic
interface. I am running DynaCadd on my 1040ST with SM124 monochrome monitor
and am very pleased with the results.
DynaCadd 1.7 requires a security cartridge inserted into the
cartridge port in order to run. If the cartridge is not present you
need to turn off the machine and insert it into the cartridge port. For
gosh sake, NEVER remove or insert the cartridge while the machine is
turned on or you might cause serious damage to the port, cartridge or
computer itself.
DynaCadd can be used from a floppy system but a hard drive is
recommended. Also, a math co-processor is recommended but not
necessary. DynaCadd has cleverly designed the use overlays for functions
that would ordinarily be accessable from the ram of the computer. This
feature was built-in to allow us lowly 1 meg users to use DynaCadd..
<grin>.
Now with that out of the way, let's get down into the meat of
the matter!
The DynaCadd manual is 474 pages long and very detailed in it's
explanation of each instruction and command. The first part of the book
has 2D and 3D Tutorials. But before we get into the tutorials we'll
start at some of the keyboard and mouse conventions.
The key instructions are bracketed so there will be no confusion
with the rest of the text. It should be noted that the RETURN key and
the ENTER key have separate functions so they are not interchangeable.
A semicolon (;) is used frequently and is used when the command is
complete. It acts the same way as the right mouse button. A comma (,)
is used to separate data in your keyboard entry. Alternate (ALT) is
used in conjunction with other keys to activate your menu commands. The
CONTROL (Ctrl) key allows the creation of custom macros. The Function
keys (F1 - F10) have permanent commands assigned to them and therefore
cannot be changed. The Mouse conventions are referred to the same way
they are in GEM so if you are familiar with GEM you will not have any
problems whatsoever.
The TEXT EDITOR is one of the utilities that you will use a great
deal to enter text anywhere on the drawing. The TEXT window is large
enough for 800 characters and is typical of many ascii editors and use
the same keys to move around the text window. As you type your text in
the editor, you will notice that the return key ends the line and
proceeds down one line. Undo will cancel the session and close the
window. The enter key will accept what you have typed and close the
window as well.
DynaCadd has a utility that reads and writes files that are
compatible with AutoCad and other Cadd programs. They are the DXF
format, which is the industry standard on AutoCad, ASC, which is used in
one of the European Cad packages, and DEF, which is DynaCadd's own ascii
file format. I tried the FILE TRANSFER program with one of my Autocad
drawings and it worked like a champ, except for the colored layers I had
in my AutoCad drawing. Of course, since the SM124 is only two colors,
black and white, all the lines were the same colors. No problem, the
display was razor sharp. The fonts were different but they looked good.
DynaCadd offers a superb vector font editor with the package and also
comes with several Compugraphic fonts.
There are a few definitions that you should be aware of before
working with DynaCadd. The first one that will present itself to you is
the SYSTEM level. Here you are presented with the opportunity to set up
your drawing's scale, units of measure and your printer or plotter page
size. From here you pick your part and drawing file to update or start
a new one. The next level is the actual CADD level. This is THE level
that you draw all your lines, points, arcs, polygons, etc. It also
allows the output to your printer and/or plotter.
Another couple of items you need to be aware of are the PARTS and
the DRAWINGS. The PART is a 3 dimensional database that defines the
basic drawing elements. Remember, a part is like a real object and can
be reformed, disected and arranged or rearranged. As long as the
computer is on, your part is intact. If you quit without saving, then
it goes bye bye with the rest of your memory. The DRAWING is the actual
drawing sheet. It's size is determined by you in the system level.
Okay, now we are ready to start our first drawing. After the
program is loaded we are presented with a large dialog box. Here is
what we have to do first-----
1. Activate a part.
2. Activate a drawing.
3. Set the drawing size.
4. Set the drawing units.
5. Set the drawing scale.
6. Enter the CADD level.
Please note that numbers 3 through 5 are optional. After you have
saved a previous drawing, DynaCadd automatically saves it for you so the
next time you boot up, it will default to exactly where you left off.
After you have selected your part and drawing, you can set your units to
either metric or English.
Setting the drawing size is a snap. The first method of choosing
your paper size is to select from fifteen predefined boxes, labeled from
A to E and A4 to AO. The other method is also a breeze. Just fill in
the blanks displayed with your own dimensions and it will take of it
from there.
In our next installment, we will discuss the basic theory of
Computer Aided Drafting and Design. Although it sounds kind of
frightening to see all the strange names and labels of objects used
in Drafting it only takes a little while before you will be sailing
right along.
______________________________________________
> Assembly CornerCPU/STR Tech Notes¿ Programming in assembly.
=================================
Assembly Language Tutorial
by Charles Medley
ctsy: STATUS DISK MAGAZINE
Graphics, Part One: Higher Level/GEM usage
An aspiration of mine is creating a video game. Whether
or not people perceive the Atari ST/Mega line as game
machines to me is irrelevant, because to me, entertainment is
one of the top uses of any computer I buy.
Now keeping this in mind, remember, I'm probably as much
a beginner in assembly programming as anyone who is reading
this. So what makes me able to teach anyone?
Well, nothing actually, except that I'm learning it WITH
you! The code in this article may not be the most efficient,
and if you have any helpful hints or tips, forward them to
me. The reason I think this will all be more fun and
interesting is because I will take the time to help the
beginners while trying to push the vanguard with some of the
more dedicated hackers.
Okay, enough prattling, let's get down to business.
The first thing I am going to say is this: Until I can
find some good documentation on the use of VRT_CPYFM ( the
transparent raster copy ), I cannot say that multi-color
sprite-like graphics is impossible, but it sure is NOT easy!
Many options can be tried: You can try using the Line-A
sprites and "layering" them, you can try the Line-A BitBlk
routine, or, if it is indeed possible, layer rasters using
the vrt_cpyfm function (VDI opcode is 121) but the obvious
problem is defining a single color source, which is something
I decided to forego. Judging from the demands players today
place on the computer game, it is most likely that in the
ST world, programmers have been using their own customized
routines which handle the graphics in a sprite-like manner.
But what about getting our feet wet and mucking around
with some of the higher level raster functions first? Let's
do it!
I chose to use vro_cpyfm for this program ( which is
contained in RUN_MAN.ARC ), since I wanted to keep it simple
and allow for learning the necessary criteria for making a
"blit". The reason it is so simple for what we're doing is
that we're literally booting up a DEGAS picture into an area
of memory, and getting the images we want from a series of
drawings in it, and vro_cpyfm will handle all four bit-planes
with a single call.
The first thing I always do within a program like this
is use the GEM m_alloc call to set aside memory for my
graphic screens. In this case we need at least 96000 bytes,
since we have two screens which are going to be "flipped" so
as not to have flickering animation, and a third screen which
contains the raster data we're using.
The next thing is to set the resolution. When you use
GEM and set the resolution to a new value within the program,
dialog boxes, alert boxes, drop downs, etc... all still work
in the original resolution. But for this program, with none
of that in use, it really doesn't matter!
Booting up a DEGAS picture is quite easy. The format of
a DEGAS pic is:
2 bytes - resolution
32 bytes - palette (the RGB values of the 16 colors)
32000 bytes - screen data
32 bytes - animation information, used by DEGAS
Elite only.
The total length of the file is 32034 bytes in original
DEGAS format, and 32066 bytes in DEGAS Elite, Uncompressed
format. Looking at the source code, you can see how I go
about booting the picture in and setting the palette
properly. I have written macros that open the file (f_open),
move the file pointer ( f_seek ), read from the file
( f_read ), and close the file ( f_close ). All of these
correspond to the proper GEMDOS calls. If you wish to delve
into files and how to handle them, examine the macros as they
are well commented.
Now here is the good part. According to every book on
how to do a raster copy, you have to set up MFDBs. Some
people look at the abbreviation and immediately enter
catatonic shock and one friend of mine actually stopped using
his ST and began chanting meaningless things about how his
C128 was never like this....
MFDBs are simply Memory Form Definition Blocks. The
name is still complicated enough that most people think they
will need a bullwhip and a fedora to deal with the
programming aspect of it in assembly.
This is where the C user starts to giggle and whips out
his TYPE DEF STRUCT command...
Well, here's all you need to do to define an MFDB, and
its there in my code:
MFDB: name of the MFDB for our purpose
address ds.l 1 address of the screen data for
to associate with this MFDB
widthnpix ds.w 1 width of the raster image in
pixels. ALWAYS 320 in low rez,
or 640 in medium and high rez.
heightnpix ds.w 1 height of the raster in pixels,
which is 200 in low or medium
rez, and 400 in high rez.
widthnwords ds.w 1 the widthnpix divided by 16.
formflag ds.w 1 the form flag, usually 1,
according to the DevPac ST
manual.
numofplanes ds.w 1 number of bit planes in raster.
4 = low rez
2 = medium rez
1 = monochrome
reserved ds.w 3 three reserved words, set to 0.
Essentially, its ideal to set up all your MFDBs to be
identical except for the address of the screen. All of these
parameters are easily either calculated or returned from GEM
inquiry functions if your program must be adaptable.
However, none of that really will matter with trying to
move a little guy across your SC1224...
Now, whenever messing with the MFDB, you'll set the
values to whatever is appropriate. In my code, you'll see I
set that up before I begin messing with the actual raster
copying. Also, in case you're wondering, all the MFDB really
holds are parameters for the screens you're copying either
from or to. Easily enough done.
But wait...don't you want to tell it WHERE to get and
send all this graphic data? That's where the PTSIN arrays
come in. This is actually quite easy, and the format is as
follows:
PTSIN - x coordinate of upper left corner, source
PTSIN+2 - y coordinate of " " " " " " "
PTSIN+4 - x coordinate of lower right corner,
source
PTSIN+6 - y coordinate of lower right corner,
source
PTSIN+8 to PTSIN+14 are the same parameters, but apply
to the destination raster. Essentially, to copy from a
raster whose coordinates are (200,100,231,131) to another
location, such as (26,92,57,123), you'd set it up like:
move.w #200,ptsin
move.w #100,ptsin+2
move.w #231,ptsin+4
move.w #131,ptsin+6
move.w #26,ptsin+8
move.w #92,ptsin+10
move.w #57,ptsin+12
move.w #123,ptsin+14
There is another parameter to worry about also. That
is, the raster mode. To make it short and sweet, none of
this really helps you if you're trying to make them handle
like sprites. Mode #6 is good for a single raster that you
want to erase by ANDing it with itself, but on a screen full
of objects, some of which will overlap, you may want to
confine yourself to mode #3 for displaying it, and mode #0
for erasing it. Or, you can even perform a v_clrwk as long
as you know that what you want to erase is on the logical
screen.
Now for the juicy part...
If you look at the DEGAS picture, you'll see the man is
in different parts of the screen. We want to cycle back
and forth between the rasters used, and the way to do that is
to associate each step in the "cycle" with one of the
possible rasters and its coordinates. That could get
complicated, so I split it into two sections. One loop goes
through all the rasters from left to right, and the second
one goes back ( right to left ) through all but the raster
farthest left and the raster farthest right in the image.
The reason is simple: The first loop shows those two images
already, so if we did it twice, those images would appear
TWICE, not once, like all the others.
As all of this is happening, we have adding to the x
coordinates of where to put the image on screen. If we
don't, he'll appear to be running in place. As we add to
that, each loop either will add or subtract the x coordinates
of where to look for the proper raster to display as well!
This effectively cycles the necessary rasters while moving
the destination across the screen, from left to right.
Now, how do we make all of this flicker-free? We all
know that the supposed graphic wunderkind, the Amiga,
flickers! And the last thing you need is to have your ST
flicker like an Amiga! So.... looking in my loops, you'll
note that after I set up the proper x coordinates into the
ptsin arrays for the source and destination rasters, I copy
the raster to the LOGICAL screen, which is NOT being shown.
Once it is shown, I can erase the previous screen, which is
now the logical screen with a v_clrwk. To make sure none of
this occurs before the screen I want is displayed, I do a
XBCALL #37,2, which, to my macros, is just saying to perform
XBIOS 37 and fix the stack by 2 bytes. XBIOS 37 is the
V_sync call and its purpose is to stall things until the VBL
( vertical blank ). This assures you that you'll have
flicker-free animation.
Some obvious improvements can be made in this code. I
could, for example, do comparisons and determine the proper
source raster from that, so as not to use two separate,
distinct loops within a larger loop ( which essentially
keeps the whole thing going coherently! ). If you want to,
you can make him run faster or slower by usign more XBCALL
#37,2 's in that section. Right now, he runs pretty fast...
**** START ****
include d:gemmacro.s
* the program proper
start move.l 4(a7),a3 base page
move.l #mystack,a7
move.l $c(a3),d0 text len
add.l $14(a3),d0 data len
add.l $1c(a3),d0 BSS len
add.l #$100,d0 basepage
move.l d0,-(a7)
move.l a3,-(a7)
clr.w -(a7)
move.w #$4a,-(a7)
trap #1 shrink memory
lea 12(a7),a7
appl_init
move.w d0,ap_id store the application id
graf_handle
move.w d0,current_handle Desktop's VDI handle
* start by opening a virtual workstation
lea intin,a0
moveq #10-1,d0 -1 for DBF
.fill move.w #1,(a0)+ most params are 1
dbf d0,.fill
move.w #2,(a0)+ use RC system
v_opnvwk open it
v_hide_c
****
include d:macros.s
**** MAIN ****
* what is the current resolution? Store it in mode1!
xbcall #4,2
move.w d0,mode1
* where are the physbase and logbase? Store them in orig1 and orig2!
xbcall #2,2
move.l d0,orig1
xbcall #3,2
move.l d0,orig2
* allocates 96k, enough for 3 screens!
m_alloc #96256,m_start1
* finds a good starting address for the first screen...
scr_a_c m_start1,screen1
* makes screen3 = screen1, then adds 32000 to screen1
move.l screen1,screen3
add.l #32000,screen1
* makes screen2 = screen1, then adds 32000 to screen1
move.l screen1,screen2
add.l #32000,screen1
* now we clear all the screens...
set_scr #-1,screen3
v_clrwk
set_scr #-1,screen2
v_clrwk
set_scr #-1,screen1
v_clrwk
* opens the PI1 file with my screen data...
f_open 0,f_name1,f_hand1
* gets resolution and sets it...
f_read #mode2,#2,f_hand1
rez mode2
* gets palette and sets it...
f_read #palette,#32,f_hand1
set_palette palette
* reads in screen data and displays it...only 9600 bytes/60 scan lines
f_read screen1,#9600,f_hand1
* closes file...
f_close f_hand1
* Sets up MFDB1
move.l screen1,address1
move.w #320,widthnpix1
move.w #200,heightnpix1
move.w #20,widthnwords1
move.w #1,formflag1
move.w #4,numofplanes1
move.l #0,reserveda1
move.l #0,reservedb1
* Sets up MFDB2
move.l screen2,address2
move.w #320,widthnpix2
move.w #200,heightnpix2
move.w #20,widthnwords2
move.w #1,formflag2
move.w #4,numofplanes2
move.l #0,reserveda2
move.l #0,reservedb2
* Sets up MFDB3
move.l screen3,address3
move.w #320,widthnpix3
move.w #200,heightnpix3
move.w #20,widthnwords3
move.w #1,formflag3
move.w #4,numofplanes3
move.l #0,reserveda3
move.l #0,reservedb3
* set up variables for the rasters....
x1 ds.w 1 upper left corner of source
y1 dc.w 1 y1.w = 1 forever and ever....
x2 ds.w 1 lower right corner of source
y2 dc.w 60 y2.w = 60 forever and ever...
x3 ds.w 1 upper left x of dest...
y3 ds.w 1 upper left y of dest...
x4 ds.w 1 lower right x of dest...
y4 ds.w 1 lower right y of dest...
* sets up our source values...
move.w #10,d4
move.w #4,d5
move.w #1,x1
move.w #49,x2
* sets our destinations to values...
move.w #0,x3 x3 = 0
move.w #70,y3 y3 = 70
move.w #47,x4 x4 = 47
move.w #130,y4 y4 = 130
loop1
part1
* moves visible raster...
move.w x1,ptsin
move.w y1,ptsin+2
move.w x2,ptsin+4
move.w y2,ptsin+6
move.w x3,ptsin+8
move.w y3,ptsin+10
move.w x4,ptsin+12
move.w y4,ptsin+14
vro_cpyfm #3,#mfdb1,#mfdb2
set_scr screen2,screen3
xbcall #37,2
xbcall #37,2
xbcall #37,2
v_clrwk
* swaps screen values...
move.l screen3,dummyL
move.l screen2,screen3
move.l dummyL,screen2
* adjusts a values in MFDB2 and MFDB3 for the screen...
move.l screen2,address2
move.l screen3,address3
* waits for keypress...
* inkey
* moves the window in the source raster...
add.w #49,x1
add.w #49,x2
* adds to destination...
add.w #4,x3
add.w #4,x4
cmp.w #319,x4
bge termn8
* loops until d5 is content with life...
dbra d5,loop1
* resets the screen variables...
sub.w #98,x1
sub.w #98,x2
move.w #2,d5
loop2
* creates a new raster!
move.w x1,ptsin
move.w y1,ptsin+2
move.w x2,ptsin+4
move.w y2,ptsin+6
move.w x3,ptsin+8
move.w y3,ptsin+10
move.w x4,ptsin+12
move.w y4,ptsin+14
vro_cpyfm #3,#mfdb1,#mfdb2
set_scr screen2,screen3
xbcall #37,2
xbcall #37,2
xbcall #37,2
v_clrwk
* swaps screen values...
move.l screen3,dummyL
move.l screen2,screen3
move.l dummyL,screen2
* adjusts a values in MFDB2 and MFDB3 for the screen...
move.l screen2,address2
move.l screen3,address3
* waits for keypress...
* inkey
* moves the window in the source raster...
sub.w #49,x1
sub.w #49,x2
* adds to destination...
add.w #4,x3
add.w #4,x4
cmp.w #319,x4
bge termn8
* loops until d5 is content with life...
dbra d5,loop2
* resets source info...
move.w #1,x1
move.w #48,x2
move.w #4,d5
dbra d4,loop1
termn8
m_free m_start1
set_palette palinfo
set_scr orig1,orig2
rez #1
bra terminate
****
include d:errors.s
include d:terminat.s
****
SECTION DATA
* The six files I will be messing with......
f_name1 dc.b '\run_man.pi1',0
* Stuff for my kinda online monitoring....by seeing output as I go!
crlf dc.b 13,10,0 values for a cr/lf
* Variable containing some generic palette data for the editor...
palinfo dc.w $777,$700,$070,$000,$000,$000,$000,$000
dc.w $000,$000,$000,$000,$000,$000,$000,$000
* global constants
SECTION BSS
****
* Used in the application's "startup" sequence....vroom!
ap_id ds.w 1
ds.l 100 stack space
mystack ds.w 1 (stacks go backwards)
****
* Used for m_alloc and m_free calls. I define as many of these as I think
* I will need.....3 is about the maximum for what I plan to do!
ram_free ds.l 1 amount of RAM in bytes
m_start1 ds.l 1 address of first m_alloc call
m_start2 ds.l 1 address of 2nd " " "
m_start3 ds.l 1 address of 3rd " " "
m_error ds.w 1 space for error
****
* Now, some variables for file handling.......
* I don't think I'll personally use more than 6 files at once...
f_hand1 ds.w 1 word for file #1's handle
f_hand2 ds.w 1 " " " " #2's " "
f_hand3 ds.w 1 " " " " #3's " "
f_hand4 ds.w 1 " " " " #4's " "
f_hand5 ds.w 1 " " " " #5's " "
f_hand6 ds.w 1 " " " " #6's " "
fname1 ds.b 13 12 bytes terminated with a 0
even
file_size ds.l 1
****
* Now.....to go thru the arduous process of creating the offsets for the
* Line-A calls. Sure, I can call stuff thru GEM, but what if I don't want
* to? Riiiiiiight!
orig1 ds.l 1 ptr to original screen1
orig2 ds.l 1 ptr to original screen2
screen1 ds.l 1 address of screen1
screen2 ds.l 1 address of screen2
screen3 ds.l 1 address of screen3
palette ds.w 16 pointer to palette
mode1 ds.w 1 space for mode
mode2 ds.w 1
dummyL ds.l 1 dummy variable
mfdb1
address1 ds.l 1
widthnpix1 ds.w 1
heightnpix1 ds.w 1
widthnwords1 ds.w 1
formflag1 ds.w 1 usually 1
numofplanes1 ds.w 1 number of bit planes
reserveda1 ds.w 2 set to 0...reserved
reservedb1 ds.w 2 " " " " " "
reservedc1 ds.w 1 " " " " " "
mfdb2
address2 ds.l 1
widthnpix2 ds.w 1
heightnpix2 ds.w 1
widthnwords2 ds.w 1
formflag2 ds.w 1 usually 1
numofplanes2 ds.w 1 number of bit planes
reserveda2 ds.w 2 set to 0...reserved
reservedb2 ds.w 2 " " " " " "
reservedc2 ds.w 1 " " " " " "
mfdb3
address3 ds.l 1
widthnpix3 ds.w 1
heightnpix3 ds.w 1
widthnwords3 ds.w 1
formflag3 ds.w 1 usually 1
numofplanes3 ds.w 1 number of bit planes
reserveda3 ds.w 2 set to 0...reserved
reservedb3 ds.w 2 " " " " " "
reservedc3 ds.w 1 " " " " " "
* if not linking then include the run-times
include d:aeslib.s
include d:vdilib.s
____________________________________________________________
> Super KidGrid CPU/STR InfoFile¿ Graphics goodies for youngsters..
==============================
ANNOUNCING:
S U P E R K I D G R I D
For Creative Graphics Design
Program by:
D.A. Brumleve
Educational Consultant:
M.L. Marks
Super Kidgrid, offering unique experiences in patterning, shapes, and
color, has the ability to provide both entertainment and challenge to your
child. Super Kidgrid offers an introduction to the world of computer
graphics design while developing and supporting creative thinking skills.
Super Kidgrid features:
<> installation program allows parent or teacher to choose
options to match the developmental level of the child
<> program grows with the child
<> SAVE/LOAD 1, 5, or 1O pictures; saved pictures and
program load automatically
<> print color-by-number versions of the onscreen pictures
for embellishment with crayons or markers
<> fourteen colors to choose from in making designs
<> twelve built-in samples may be altered or copied
<> easily scroll both forward and backward through samples
and pictures
<> familiar, consistent kidfriendly program environment
makes learning a snap and promotes independence
Package includes:
<> specially-labelled green original disk
<> extra iconographic labels for the child's
copies--
instantly recognized by non-readers as representing
Super Kidgrid
<> simplified children's manual
<> full instructions for parents and teachers
Recommended for Ages 3-11
Minimum Requirements: Color Atari 520ST Computer
with Single-Sided Drive
Printer Must Accept an ST Screen Dump if Printing is Desired
Program Not Copy-Protected
(In fact, owners are encouraged to make multiple copies for all
children in their same household or school building!)
Now shipping for US $25 from:
D.A. BRUMLEVE
Super Kidgrid
P.O Box 4195 / Urbana, IL 61801-8820 / USA
For MasterCard or Visa orders,
call (217) 337-1937 business hours, or
send the order form printed below.
---====***====---
ORDER FORM
----------
SHIP TO:___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
___________________________________________________
AREA CODE & PHONE:_________________________________________
(Please give us your number in case we need to contact you
concerning your order.)
ITEM: Super Kidgrid
QUANTITY:___
PAYMENT METHOD:
Personal Check / Money Order / MasterCard / Visa
If MC/Visa:
CARD NUMBER:_______________________________________________
EXPIRATION DATE:___ ___
BANK NUMBER:___________
SIGNATURE:_________________________________________________
Send completed form to:
D.A. BRUMLEVE
Super Kidgrid
P.O. Box 4195 / Urbana, IL 618O1-882O / USA
Thank you!
___________________________________________________________
> CPU NEWSWIRE CONFIDENTIAL¿
=========================
- San Diego, CA. ****** MULTI-TASKING FOR THE ST IS REAL ******
Recently, disclosed at the NAMM (NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF MUSIC MERCHANTS)
show, Atari was showing a beta test version of a multitasking program
which was developed with Intelligent Music. So do take heart. Progress
is afoot and soon to be released for all to enjoy. In fact, there are a
number of new developments in this field, which goes to prove that the ST
is gaining a stronger foothold every day.... Below, we present a few
points of information we gathered about Softlink.
Question:
What is Soft Link?
Softlink is a program that comes packaged with Notator (a MIDI music
application), it will however, be released in a slightly different
configuration as a stand-alone program in the near future. (developers
aren't exactly accurate with their release time estimates)
Question:
How much of a slow down is there?
It will not run on under 2 meg ram and it will not run on TOS versions
earlier than 1.2. The program seems pretty hardy and the only time it
anything seems to slow down is when a lot of data is being process
through the ports and you're trying to do some other processor
intensive thing. But it is all within the limits of tolerance.
Question:
How stable is it?
It seems to be quite stable with well-behaved applications, although
there hasn't been any reports of problems with it, C-Lab (it's
creators) is well aware of certain compatibility problems and readily
admits these are inevitable until some standard is reached among
software developers (which they are trying to work with). C-Lab, (a
West German Company) distributes Notator through:
Digidesign Inc
1360 Willow Road, Suite 101
Menlo Park, California, 94025
Phone 415-327-8811.
If you get in touch with Digidesign, be sure to ask them about
Softlink LEVEL 3, the soon to be released stand-alone multitasker.
- Sunnyvale, CA. **** ATARI MAY HIRE NAGY! ****
--------------
Coming from two ultra confidential and usually very reliable sources,
it is reported that A. Salerno's division is contemplating bringing John
Nagy onboard. Nagy, a central figure in many controversial developments
in the Atari arena and formally of Computer Shopper and Znet recently
moved to California from Michigan.
- Solana Beach, CA. ****** SUPERCHARGER WAITS ON FCC! *******
----------------
Supercharger, a remarkable emulator of MS Dos devices, has been
submitted to the FCC for type acceptance. From all indications thus far,
Supercharger should fly through its tests and be available very shortly to
the US market.
__________________________________________________________
> Hard Drive Info STReport InfoFile¿ Affordable Mass Storage
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Listed above are a sampling of the systems available.
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We would offer floppy drives.. but Computer Shopper has 'em at the right
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- Custom Walnut WOODEN Cabinets - TOWER - AT - XT Cabinets -
Keyboard Custom Cables Call for Info
ALL POWER SUPPLIES UL APPROVED
-* 12 month FULL Guarantee *-
(A FULL YEAR of COVERAGE)
Quantity & Usergroup Discounts Available!
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DEALERS and DISTRIBUTORS WANTED!
please call for details
Personal and Company Checks are accepted.
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904-783-3319 9am - 8pm EDT
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> A "Quotable Quote"¿
=================
CPU NewsWire,
"REAL DALEKS DON'T CLIMB STAIRS ..THEY LEVEL BUILDINGS!!"
... A moment of truth?
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CPU/STR¿ "Your Independent News Source" February 02, 1990
16/32bit Magazine copyright ½ 1989 No.4.05
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Views, Opinions and Articles Presented herein are not necessarily those of
the editors, staff, CPU NEWSWIRE¿ CPU/STR¿ or CPU Report¿. Reprint
permission is hereby granted, unless otherwise noted. All reprints must
include CPU NEWSWIRE, CPU/STR or CPU Report and the author's name. All
information presented herein is believed correct, the editors and staff
are not responsible for any use or misuse of information contained herein.
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