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The WeST of Scotland Issue 03
WEST OF SCOTLAND ATARI USER GROUP
(Affiliated to The Association of Atari User groups)
Issue number THREE, April 1996
EDITORIAL
Hi everyone and welcome to issue #3. My editorial contribution is
going to be quite short this month (stop that cheering at the back
Thomson).
I have just spent a fortnight in North Yorkshire (during which time my
car got stolen) so I haven't had as much time as I'd like to prepare
this issue. That said, there is a fair bit in it, including some
disturbing news about Atari World and Compo UK. More on that later.
My thanks to sandy for starting off the preparation of this issue.
I'll let him tell everyone about the 2nd meeting as I wasn't there.
Over to you Sandy.............. AG
MARCH MEETING REPORT
Due to my being on holiday and having all day to prepare for the
meeting, we were a bit late in getting started. By the time the
machines were set up and running, it was quite obvious that no-one was
bothering about the TW demo, so we'll possibly keep that one for later
in the year. Ditto the Substation Demo.
Main interest of the evening was Brian's demo with the Hand Scanner (
which I didn't get to see because people kept paying their
Subscriptions) He said later that he offered, but no-one wanted to try
it "hands-on". Another one for later in the year?? I seem to remember
someone at the first meeting having a flat-bed scanner ????
Ken Johnstone answered the call in the last newsletter and brought
his (as yet un-populated) Desktopper, also the Blowup FX board, which
he plans to fit in and around his Falcon shortly. Once complete he has
promised to bring it to a club-night to let us see it in action.
Once again, attendance was 20+ which AUGers well for the future
(sorry, I couldn't help myself there)
Also at the club night Eddie McGlone mentioned a CAD prog. called
"Techno-Box" being sold by Silica at Debenhams, for the princely sum
of 6 odds incl. postage. Your Secretary is in the process of testing
said prog. and I've no doubt a report will follow in due course.
It would appear that Silica are in the process of winding down their
stocks of Atari software; they've promised that, once their warehouse
move is finished, we will get a price list of the marked down prices
for your inspection.
Their Hardware prices are still high, though........
ATARI NEWS
The rumour that Atari World Issue 12 been suspended as the publisher
has gone into receivership must come as a bitter blow to the staff and
, if correct, be a great disappointment to subscribers and readers
alike. It is a pity that a good quality publication such as AW cannot
attain the level of support it needs to survive, and with STF becoming
more and more anorexic with every issue, I would suggest that maybe
this newsletter should start clothing itself in a glossy jacket and
selling advertising space ( eh, Ed ????) At the moment this is just an
UNCONFIRMED RUMOUR, (see report on the last page of this newsletter
for up to date position AG) If we get any more news, we'll let you
know. The latest we have is that Karl Brandt, owner of System
Solutions, is trying to form a consortium of Atari users, especially
those on Cix, to buy over the AW mag as a going concern. He is
attempting to raise 30,000 in 1 shares to give the Mag Working
Capital. You will read it here as it develops, folks (in best Barnum
and Bailley accent)
ST Format have stated on Cix that they have no plans to close, and
that the subscription change is "under review", if I'm reading my mail
correctly.
FINANCIAL NEWS
As of Tuesday's meeting we have received subscriptions from 16 adult
members, but have paid out over 50 on stationery, stamps etc.Not too
bad for the first month, but stamps are going to be the main expense.
Your Committee has decided to post the newsletter to the full
membership list for the last time this month; the May issue will go
only to those who have paid their Subscriptions, as that is what pays
the costs of the newsletter, so please keep those Subs coming.
1996 MEETINGS
All meetings will take place within the upstairs lounge of The Railway
Inn, Main Street, Howwood. The doors will be open from 7pm . The
formal opening of each meeting will take place at 7:30pm. The proposed
dates for the meetings to be held in 1996 are as follows.
1996 MEETINGS
16 APRIL
14 MAY
11 JUNE
9 JULY
6 AUGUST
3 SEPTEMBER - AGM
1 OCTOBER
29 OCTOBER
26 NOVEMBER
24 DECEMBER -NO MEETING
All dates are provisional at the moment and will depend on both the
response to the groups as a whole, and the suitability of the Railway
Inn. AG
SOFTWARE PIRACY
The WeST of Scotland Atari User Group does not condone software piracy
and will not allow the group meetings be used to copy commercial
software.
FORUM
Help: I am wondering if anybody could help me , I have a monitor , it
is high resolution but there is one problem it has a plug like the
mouse and joystick ports on the ST an I was wondering if anybody maybe
had an adaptor for this type of plug. Can anybody help me , send
information to Andrew Irvine, ,94 Caplaw Place , Wishaw, Scotland ,
ML2 0LQ .
Tip: I have a tip for all of those who haven't got a hard drive or
haven't got time to waste on copying files from one disk to another.
This is complicated so bear with me.
On GEM (Desktop) when a window is activated that drive becomes the
default drive and if you use the right mouse button on a deactivated
window you can launch programmes and things using that. When you put
these two things together you can dearchive files to one disk without
actually copying the files. Example
If I activate drive A window by clicking on it once and then by
holding the right mouse button launch an archived file from drive B it
will then dearchive the files onto the disk with the active window ,
A. So there you have it , read this text over another couple of times
and if you end up with a drive like a tape streamer don't blame me ,
it was the cat , or dog!
This trick I presume will work with Falcons and Hard Drives.
Andrew Irvine
ATARI NEWS
Floppyshop PD & Shareware
Library
Floppyshop is a small family business run by Steve Delaney and Irene
Lamb (Steve's Mum). It started up as a user group in 1987 and soon
became a full time concern. The user group itself ran for four years
but regrettably, lack of support for the newsletter from members
resulted in its closure in June 1991.(This is a warning to us at the
WSAUG) Despite this, we continued to run the library and built on our
reputation for providing a fast and efficient turnaround on orders. In
addition, our catalogue (now on two disks) has evolved into one of the
most descriptive available, with detailed descriptions (almost reviews
at times) on every program. We also have a reputation for being very
choosy about what we will accept for inclusion in the library and have
direct contact with many of the authors. Where possible our disks are
always full, and the lack of "shovel-ware" means good value all round.
Floppyshop were one of the first to support the Atari Falcon and
undoubtedly have the largest and most up to date collection of Falcon
software worldwide. At this time we have over 600 HD disks of Falcon
software alone, and that's not to mention 3000+ disks for the ST/e!
We also handle a small selection of commercial software including
Family Roots II, Easy Stitch, Easy Text Pro/Pro Vector and Positive
Image. All these and more are described in detail on our catalogue
disks (see below). In fact the catalogue is so easy to use that it's
just a case of a few simple mouse clicks to locate the software you
require, calculate the price and print out your order
form!
Despite the obvious decline in the size of the Atari market,
Floppyshop are not leaving the scene. Indeed we don't even own a PC
and have no intentions of buying one either! Our STs and Falcons
perform all the tasks that we require of them and we have no need for
anything with "more power". Having said this, we can only continue to
provide a service if the Atari owning community continue to support
us. This is where you come in. If you are already a customer, thank
you for your custom and keep coming back to us, so that we can
continue to support Atari computers for many years to come. If you
have not dealt with us before, just send two blank disks (one if you
own a Falcon) to the address below and request the ST (or Falcon)
catalogue. You have nothing to lose as the catalogue is free if you
supply the disks.
Thank you for taking the time to read the above. I look forward to
hearing from you.
Regards
Steve Delaney (Floppyshop) Floppyshop, PO Box 273, Aberdeen, AB15 8GJ
sdelaney@steil.wintermute.co.uk
Falcon FacTT File News FFFlash
Once again the Falcon FacTT File, in its ever increasing wish to
improve its services, has undergone a metamorphosis. Our latest change
may seem small, but we view it as a major improvement.
Since the distribution of our reviews was separated from the
membership listing it has become popular with non Falcon owners as
another source of information. With this in mind we have decided to
aim the review section of the FFF at all Atari owners. To be
distributed bimonthly [February, April, June, August, October and
December] as AtariPhile the publication will be in HTML format.
AtariPhile will be available to non-members. As in the past there will
be no charges made, however we would require a formatted Double
Density disk, a Self Addressed Envelope and TWO first class stamps
[one for return postage and one towards our costs] per issue. You may
send up to six months worth of disks in advance; i.e. 3 disks with 3
envelopes and 6 first class stamps.
Make sure you put enough stamps on the package to cover delivery - we
refuse underpaid packages. Non-UK residents should send International
Postage Coupons. If you supply a faulty disk it will be returned,
blank, at your cost. AtariPhile will also be available from 42BBS and
Goodman PD library.
Falcon FacTT File members should continue to supply a High Density
disk to receive the full FFF package when they update there listing
entry. They can of course also take just the AtariPhile for which they
only need to send a DD disk with ONE stamp and envelope per issue.
Again, we will accept up to six months of disks in advance.
We welcome reviews/articles written by YOU [please request a copy of
our style sheet ]. As we don't charge for the publication we cannot
pay you, but if your article is included you will receive that issue
with our compliments. You'll also have the pleasure of knowing that
you have helped towards the continued support of our beloved computer.
Advertisements, questions, letters, hints and tips will become regular
sections as long as you supply items for inclusion. Submissions are
accepted for publication only if supplied on disk in ASCII format [or
Email/NetMail].
Each issue of AtariPhile will be supplied ready to run from floppy,
but you will find CAB [the HTML Browser] is faster if run from a hard
drive.
The reviews/articles will no longer be individually uploaded to our
NeST echo, but will be distributed as a single archive via FanFiles
and each issue will be placed on the Walusoft www site.
"AtariPhile" by the Falcon FacTT File... Issue One due in April
Colin Fisher McCallum
11 Pound Meadow, Whitchurch,
Hants. RG28 7LG, UK.
fff@fffnet.demon.co.uk
http://www.walusoft.co.uk/
42BBS 01256-895106
SHAREWARE & PUBLIC
DOMAIN
During my recent visit down south, I went and visited Danny Bhabuta at
his home.
Danny and Joe Connor between them write/wrote most of the PD stuff in
Atari World. Both also run supported shareware schemes. In next months
issue I'll do a piece on all the shareware supported by Danny
(CyberSTrider) and Joe (Interactive).
Both are continually searching for quality new shareware, often from
Germany and getting them translated into English, and thereafter
providing active support.
It is people like Danny and Joe, along with the likes of Steve Delaney
at Floppyshop (see separate piece in this issue) that will help to
keep the platform alive and well for some time to come.
SUPPORT THEM !!! AG
FOR SALE & WANTED
2nd-USER HARDWARE
As mentioned at our first meeting, there is a great deal of
second-user hardware on offer in the Cix conference. If anyone is
looking for ANY piece of equipment, let us know, with an idea of price
limit, and we'll either post up a 2wanted ad" or simply keep our eyes
open on your behalf. Should anything become available, it's quite easy
to forward your telephone no. to the vendor.
Still for sale:
Most of stuff advertised by Sandy and Al in issues #1 and #2 is still
for sale if anyone is interested. I decided not to repeat the ads to
save space.
Wanted: Does anyone have a 100 meg or more hard drive for sale I will
pay 50 and 60 if you include formatting software and a connector
that will fit directly into the back of my ST.
post info to :
Andrew Irvine
94 Caplaw Place
Wishaw
Scotland
ML2 0LQ
For sale
MEGA2ST..TOS 1.02 120
ST BASIC BOOK 5
STOS BOOK 5
1meg STFM with Atari monitor
180
Universal Military simulator 10
2...5each
1st Division manager, mousetrap,
kickoff 2, populous, rick
dangerous, running man,
sidewinder, sidewinder 2, tusker,
strider, gary lineker superskills,
e motion, the president is missing,
archipelagos, falcon-f16 sim,
supremacy, nightbreed-interactive,
impossamole, black tiger, r type,
silkworm, robocop ,star ray,
gauntlet 2, world class
leaderboard.
Jim Webster
(If any one is interested in any of the above hardware or software
either give me (Alasdair) a call, or see Jim Webster at the April
Group night.)
HARDWARE UPGRADES
If you have, or know of someone with a 520 STE we have a supply of
simms chips to upgrade these to 1 megabyte machines. We will have
these at the meetings so if you bring the machine with you we will
supply and fit them there and then for you. For this service we will
charge 5 per upgrade. The half meg upgrades are chips that have come
from machines that have been upgraded already and have therefore been
obtained free of charge. The funds raised for the club would be used
toward stationary costs etc.
IMPORTANT Please remember that if any machine is opened to be upgraded
it is done at the owners own risk, and that it would invalidate any
warranty still existing.
ED's JUKEBOX
Digital Audio and The Death of the Tape Recorder.
As I discussed last month, the use of computers in music is now well
established from the top professionals down to the enthusiastic
amateurs. But the 1980's brought about another revolution in the way
we enjoy our music - the Compact Disk.
Now, I don't want to open up the huge can of worms relating to whether
music is reproduced better on old analogue equipment or new technology
( although I do have very definite views on that ) so all I will say
is that for most people, the CD player gave them access to audio of a
quality which they had hitherto only dreamed of. Gone were the snap,
crackles and pops of vinyl records and the tape hiss and limited
frequency response of cassette tape - replaced by a clean, dynamic and
to all intents and purposes, noise free rendition of the music.
So How Do They Do That?!!
Sound is vibrations carried through the air surrounding us and we
"hear" it as the air pushes against our ear drums. Sound can be made
up of many different frequencies. The frequency of a soundwave is a
measure of the time between two similar peaks in it's waveform.
Frequency is measured in cycles per second or Hertz ( named after the
scientist who invented the measurement ). A low, rumbling sound like
an earthquake or an explosion will be made up of predominantly low
frequencies - between 5 and 100 Hz, say. A high pitched noise like the
whine of a jet engine will be made up of predominantly high
frequencies - say 4000 to 10,000 Hz or 4-10KHz. Most people have heard
50 Hz - this is the frequency of our mains electricity in Scotland so
if you have ever heard a piece of electrical equipment buzzing then
you've heard 50Hz.
In virtually all methods of recording and replaying sound from the wax
cylinder phonograph to the conventional tape recorder, a direct
relationship was maintained between the original sound (vibrations)
and the recorded sound. So if we look at a simplified model of the
recording process from live music to a vinyl record, it would go
something like this.
The vibrations in the air were picked up by a microphone which
translated them into electrical vibrations. These electrical
vibrations were then amplified until they were large enough to be used
to physically cut patterns onto a lacquered disk. Many copies of this
disk were then pressed in vinyl. When a needle which matched the shape
of the cutting tool was dragged along the pattern cut into the surface
of the record, the patterns made it vibrate in the same way, the
vibrations were changed into electrical vibrations which were
amplified until they were strong enough to drive a loudspeaker. The
loudspeaker pushes and pulls the air causing soundwaves and we are
back at the start of our process again.
This system while well and good, is very susceptible to degradation.
At any stage noise can creep in spoiling our nice recordings. This can
be due to anything from dirt or scratches on a record's surface to the
(relatively) poor quality of domestic audio equipment. The inherent
noise in a tape recording (hiss) is another major culprit.
This is bad enough in the home environment but in the professional
world where a tape may have 24 or 48 separate tracks all playing back
at once, or being copied from one to the other, the reduction, to an
acceptable limit, of tape hiss has become an extremely expensive
obsession.
What was needed was a completely new way of doing things and the
buzzword is "Digital".
Digital audio as the name may suggest, is based around the storage of
sound as simple numbers. What happens is this. The microphone is
connected to a device which "looks" at the sound many times every
second and measures the loudness of the sound each time. This loudness
or level is then assigned to a number and stored. A loud sound level
might be 12 or 15. A quiet sound might be 3 or 4. The theory goes that
if this string of numbers is changed back into sound levels and played
through a loudspeaker then the result will sound very similar to that
which was recorded. If the various levels go from 0 up to 15, then we
would say that the resolution of this sound measurement was 16bit.
This is the accepted standard for CD reproduction although some
professional recording equipment now goes up to 20 bit and beyond.
Now, as I said, the sound is measured many times a second. If this was
done say 50 times per second and then played back at the same speed,
then many bits of the original sound would be missing and the
reproduced sound would not bear any resemblance to what we were
expecting to hear. What we need to do is increase the number of times
we "sample" the sound to a rate at which our brain no longer notices
the gaps. This "sample rate" is measured in kilohertz and for CD
quality reproduction the figure is 44.1KHz. So, roughly 44,000 time
every second, sound levels are measured, translated into numbers and
stored.
The crucial thing about digital audio is that what you hear reproduced
at the end of the day is NOT the original sound but a computer's
re-creation of that sound from a detailed set of instructions. It is
this which makes digital audio so interesting. If you copy digital
audio, you copy the numbers. So, the copy is identical to the original
- no degradation whatsoever.
Say you want to mix two sounds together - just get the machine to look
at both sets of numbers and work out what the resultant numbers would
be - once again no degradation.
To get back to the "Death of the Tape Recorder", most early digital
audio was recorded onto tape. The benefits as stated above were
obvious to all concerned but tape is still by nature a "linear" format
for storage. This means that all the information is stored in a line -
to go from the start of the tape to the end, you have to wind through
the full length of the tape. Now what if instead of storing the
numbers onto tape, we stored them onto a device like a computer's hard
disk? They could still be read from the start to the end like a tape
but, because the disk has random access to the data, it could read
first a bit from the start, jump to the end, back to a bit in the
middle....etc. Playback of the sound has become "non-linear".
So a computer software package like Cubase Audio can combine all of
the features of a midi sequencer and a digital, non-linear audio
recorder. Audio recordings can be copied, mixed together, processed,
cut and pasted - all without any further degradation. What's more, a
lot of this can be done in real time as the recording is being played
back - without affecting the original recording. This allows for so
called "non destructive editing" where, if you don't like the changes
you have made, you can undo them at any time - the original files are
unchanged. The audio files can be edited and changed in a graphical
manner on screen and the computer basically becomes the heart of a
sophisticated recording studio.
One downside to all of this flexibility is the amount of storage space
required for digital audio. Cd quality audio (16bit, 44.1Khz) requires
roughly 5 megabytes of storage for each minute of sound. The Falcon
can process up to 8 tracks of this simultaneously so if a song lasted
for 5 minutes and used all 8 tracks all of the time, the amount of
storage required would be around 240 meg. Fortunately, due to the fact
that most musical parts do not last for the entire length of the song,
this storage requirement can be cut down. It can also be reduced by
using the non-linear nature of digital audio to good advantage - a
repeating part need only be stored on the disk once. It can then be
re-played at any part in the song irrespective of what else is
happening. In practise, then the largest song which resides on my hard
disk at the moment lasts for around 5 minutes and uses up 153meg of
disk space in 18 separate audio files.
Only machines like the Falcon, AV PowerMacs, Silicon Graphics, Next
and Sun have the necessary hardware built into the box to cope with
this level of audio manipulation but external units are available to
extend the capability to other computers like PC's and ST's. Also
stand alone hard disk recorders are starting to appear in large
numbers on the market so, even if the tape recorder is not quite dead
yet, I would predict that obituaries will be getting written in the
foreseeable future.
I am hoping to give you a run-through of many of the capabilities of
Cubase Audio at the next meeting so see you then!
P.S. Out of interest, here is a list (from the top of my head) of
the different digital audio formats widely available for domestic use.
DAT - Digital Audio Tape, the
professional standard for stereo
master recordings. From about
500.
DCC - Digital Compact Cassette -
Phillips "new" format. Uses file
compression and so the
reproduction is not quite up to the
standard of DAT - but most
people will not be able to tell the
difference. From about 160.
CD - Read only, so you can't
record (at the moment). Most
people have one of these already.
Minidisk- "New" format from
Sony. Kind of like a small CD.
You can record on these ( up to 70
minutes or so). File compression
like DCC above. Around 400.
Nicam Stereo - Oh yes - your
video recorder with Nicam records
it's stereo audio tracks digitally.
Sound is 16 bit but I'm not sure
about the sampling rate - early
ones were around 24Khz but still
gave excellent sound quality.
From about 300.
Incidentally, the very first widely available digital audio recording
system was an add on box to the Sony F1 video recorder. This was an
exorbitantly priced and highly desirable bit of early 80's technology
which I am sure will one day become a design classic (if it hasn't
already!).
Ed McGlone
ed@mistered.demon.co.uk
LATE NEWS
The Demise of Atari World and Compo UK
What follows is the latest information available at the time of
printing of this newsletter. The situation seems to be very fluid
however and there may have been changes by the time you get this.
On 21 March Andrew Wright (the mags editor) told everyone on CiX
unofficially that Specialist Publishers, who publish AW, and Compo UK
had called the receivers in. The reason appears to have been old debts
that they had accumulated. Also many of the writers had not been paid
for some time, and are owed collectively appx.15,000.
Issue 12 is layed out and ready for printing, but there is no money to
pay for the print run.
It would appear that all subscriptions are null and void, so if you
pay by direct debit, cancel it NOW.
There is serious talk of a rescue package being put together because
the magazine itself appears to be basically profitable. Karl Brandt at
System Solutions is floating the suggestion of having some sort of
share issue to raise the cash to buy the mag as a going concern.
Details are sketchy but it would appears he is looking for people to
give cash for shares to subsidise the buyout. Sys Sol are admitting
that this is a high risk strategy. Hopefully there may be more
details by the next meeting.
If something is organised issue #12 will probably be printed and sent
out to subscribers with details of the new scheme.
CREDITS
This Newsletter was prepared using Papyrus Gold with N.V.D.I. and
printed at 300 dpi on a Hewlett Packard Deskjet 500C. The headings are
in Swiss 721 12pt text and the body text is in Times New Roman 10 pt.
(½ WSAUG, 1996)
