Copy Link
Add to Bookmark
Report
Z*NET Online Magazine Issue 543
=========(((((((((( ==========((( ==(( ==((((((( ==(((((((( ===========
================(( ====(( ====(((( =(( ==(( ==========(( ==============
=============(( =====(((((( ==(( (( (( ==((((( =======(( ==============
==========(( ==========(( ====(( =(((( ==(( ==========(( ==============
=========(((((((((( ==========(( ==((( ==((((((( =====(( ==============
Z*NET ATARI ONLINE MAGAZINE
October 26, 1990
Issue #543
Publisher/Editor : Ron Kovacs
Assistant Editor : John Nagy
Z*Net New Zealand: Jon Clarke Z*Net Canada: Terry Schreiber
CONTENTS
EDITORS DESK.................................Ron Kovacs/Terry Schreiber
Z*NET NEWSWIRE.........................................................
EDUCATIONAL TECH EXPO 1990 REPORT............................Mike Brown
THE IDYLLIC LIFE OF A REVIEWER............................David Plotkin
GUIDELINES FOR REVIEWS................................Jim Pierson-Perry
PHANTOM OF THE LASER......................................Press Release
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES..............................Press Release
Z*NET NEW ZEALAND............................................Jon Clarke
EDITORS DESK
============
by Ron Kovacs
Guest Commentary by Terry Schreiber
-----------------------------------
We have received many enquiries into the effect that the low cost
MacIntosh will have on the Atari market. How it will effect Atari
sales?
My personal attitude to the Mac and the new IBM model is still Atari
wins hands down for ease of use. If, and indeed I believe these other
models were slated for the home computer market, they lack one important
thing - a user friendly interface. Recently Radio Shack has made great
strides into the home market with their built in user friendly operating
system for MS-DOS compatibles. "Yes, Mr. Developer Mom and Pop from the
pre-baby boom era would like to use the system as well." A good clean
user interface is a must for the home computer market.
Atari in my opinion wins hands down with the built-in GEM operating
system. The point and click is very simple to operate and to teach even
the computer illiterate. Most people learn to grasp the Atari Desktop
in less than an hour - a far cry from the DOS environment.
For the advanced users there are many desktop alternatives as well as
menu programs, accessory loaders, macro editors and enhanced files
selectors that make operations even easier once installed.
Getting back on topic I believe that if Atari felt threatened by these
late arrivals the response would be immediate by Atari Corporate. After
all the "POWER WITHOUT THE PRICE" and "TECHNOLOGY SO ADVANCED IT'S
AFFORDABLE" is what Atari built it's reputation on.
ERRATA
Last week we referenced an update to Publisher ST as version 2.01 and
it should have read 1.01. We referenced Word writer.
FALL BACK
This weekend turn your clocks back one hour.
Z*NET NEWSWIRE
==============
ATARI NEWS FIRST
Compiled by Ron Kovacs and Terry Schreiber
TT SHIPPED IN CANADA
The long awaited Atari TT machine will be shipped to Canadian Authorized
dealers following the unveiling at the Toronto Computer Show. Due to a
limited supply dealers will be shipped one sample unit per store for
demonstration and evaluation purposes. Units for sale will become
available about the end of November for a suggested retail of $3995.00.
Atari will handle two monitors for the TT, a Dual-Sync color (PTC1426)
at $895.00 and a Phillips monochrome (TT194) 1280x960 at $1495.00. The
Phillips is indeed the large screen full page monitor we had previously
heard rumours about similar to the Moniterms.
PORTFOLIO BLITZ
Atari Canada announced a major advertising campaign starting next week
on the Portfolio computer. Advertising is slated for most major
newspapers and magazines across the country as well as a new pricing
structure designed to make the palm-top affordable to almost all users.
SECOND "SIMPSONS" GAME
Acclaim announced this week that it will release its "Bartman: Avenger
of Evil" hand-held in November. Under an exclusive licensing agreement
with 20th Century Fox Licensing & Merchandising Corporation, Acclaim is
publishing Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy video games as
well as SuperPlay hand-helds based on the "Simpsons". "Bartman: Avenger
of Evil" is expected to retail for approximately $19.95.
NORTH CENTRAL REGION EDUCATIONAL
LABORATORY'S TECH EXPO 1990 REPORT
===================================
by Mike Brown
One of the things that we, as Atari owners, are told should be done to
assure the survival of Atari computers in the US, is to get Atari
computers into the schools. Recently, I was invited to attend and
participate in a very large educational "Tech Expo" sponsored by the
North Central Regional Educational Laboratory, The Urban Education
Network, The Office of Educational Research and Improvement (US
Department of Education), Chicago Public Schools, and Illinois Institute
of Technology.
This show and conference was attended by representatives of the 13
largest urban school districts in the Midwest along with the State
Departments of Education for the states of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa,
Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio and Wisconsin. Doesn't this sound like a
crowd that should be exposed to "Power without the price"?
My ticket into this exclusive gathering of educators and school system
policy makers was my volunteer work with a Chicago Public Schools funded
project to develop a "...conference conduit for users of all ages and
background with any type of computer to share ideas. (the system) will
erase the boundaries between schools and the greater community and
provide support for classroom teachers...". If you guessed that this
sounds like a multi-line BBS system, you win the star prize! Our BBS
system currently has eight concurrent lines (with multi-channel CHAT
capability) on a UNIX minicomputer provided by Unisys. The system
(which has just celebrated it's first birthday) is called the EIES
(Electronic Information Exchange System) of the Chicago Public Schools.
Give us a try at (312) 890-8512 1200/2400 and (312) 890-7828 9600.
Visitors welcome!
NCREL asked me if I'd be available the opening day of the show to staff
a booth with other technical volunteers, I offered (sneakily) to work
Saturday if I could use equipment and software that I was already
familiar with. The organizers said "no problem, you can bring in what
you want to demo the system on". A neighbor, good friend, and LCACE
guiding light, Dwight (J.J.) Johnson volunteered his new STacy for use
at the show, this would be the hot show setup in a world of dull MS-DOS
and Apple systems.
The gleaming new STacy was the star of the EIES booth- I drew a large
number of comments from attendees about the STacy, and made some
contacts with educators who use 8-bit Atari systems (most notably with
LOGO) in classroom situations. A group of students (helping in the huge
5000 sq ft Apple "School of the Future" exhibit) stopped by to play with
the STacy and had very favorable comments. Near the end of the day, the
EIES sysop regretted the fact that I had chosen to set up so near the
aisle, as the STacy could have drawn people "into" the booth (yes, but
it was more visible at the end!).
At the show, I was surprised by the large outlay that IBM and Apple
Computer made in equipment, staff, hospitality and outside exhibitors.
Their presentations were easily as elaborate as what you might see at a
COMDEX show. Zenith, Tandy and Pioneer America had more modest (but
interesting) booths. While developers such as Advanced Voice
Technologies, Inc., Computer Curriculum Corporation, The ERIC
Clearinghouse on Urban Education, Ed Tech, Encyclopedia Britannica, and
TI-IN Network each had "one table" booths swarming with interested
educators. Over 60 different sessions were presented during the 3-day
conference. These sessions were held by exhibitors, software vendors,
as well as educators themselves. There were ongoing sessions in the
Faculty Club room sponsored by Apple, and IBM had constructed a
"Decision Support Center" to privately hawk their multimedia products.
It was a very revealing experience shmoozing with educators and
administrators, soft pedaling the Atari Advantage. One of the more
frightening revelations of the conference, was the stranglehold that
Apple Computer has on the US educational market, and the mind set of the
educators. I constantly heard educators referring to computer labs as
"Apple Labs". This seemed to make as much sense as calling Driver's Ed,
"Chevrolet Training" or Home Economics, "Kraft Class". Before I was
even in the show proper, an educator asked me "Is this the place where
the Apple Expo is?"; my reply is not suited for a publication read by
young persons, so it will remain unreported.
Anyway, thank you to Carole S. Fine, Dennis Tokoph, NCREL, and all of
the others that made it possible for STacy and Myself to play a small
part in the shaping of solutions to educational problems in urban
schools.
For more information on future Tech Expos, or general information on
High-Tech, High-Touch and High-Teach resources for your local schools,
please contact NCREL at 295 Emroy Avenue, Elmhurst, IL 60126 (708) 941-
7677.
THE IDYLLIC LIFE OF A REVIEWER
==============================
by David Plotkin
This feature is a reprint from the OCTOBER/NOVEMBER ST-JOURNAL MAGAZINE,
presented here by permission. THIS ARTICLE MAY NOT BE REPRINTED IN ANY
OTHER PUBLICATION OR NEWSLETTER WITHOUT EXPRESS PERMISSION FROM ST-
JOURNAL, 113 West College Street, Covina, CA 91723, 818-332-0372.
I've been involved with Atari computers for a long time - longer than
most. I got into them strictly by accident when I attended the SF
Computer Faire in 1980 and was fascinated by the many Apple II's. What
really caught my eye were the games - I'd never seen anything like them
except in the arcades, but I couldn't afford the humongous number of
quarters that arcade machines were designed to gobble. Also, I couldn't
afford to pay over $2,000 for an Apple II and a disk drive. A local
computer dealer sold Ataris (yes, they really did in those days), and
so, in May 1980, I plunked down $800 for an Atari 400 with 32K of memory
and a tape drive. The dealer later admitted that he really made me a
better deal than he should have!
I also bought Star Raiders which, to this day, remains one of the
premier computer games of all times. About a month later, when I came
up for air, I started looking around for something else to play. There
was very little. I had violated the prime rule for computer purchase -
buy the machine that will run the software you want to use. I decided
to attack this problem in two ways. The first was to learn to program.
The results of that effort were not very satisfactory because I was
using the Atari Basic graphics, etc. The results ran but were so slow
as to be useless.
Magazine connection
The second line of attack was to start buying magazines. In those days,
there were two magazines that covered the Atari: Compute! and Softside.
These were similar - each had a section devoted to the multiple machines
they covered. Type-in listings were featured, along with tutorials, and
I read these avidly, painfully, learning the tricks of programming, as I
went along, and playing the games that I had laboriously typed in.
There were also advertisements for quite an assortment of software on
tape-cassettes. I was in heaven - I quickly ordered a large selection
of the more interesting looking stuff and soon discovered two things.
The first was that most of this software was abysmal - slow, not much
fun, and, after only a very short time, boring. It needed to be
reviewed so that people didn't buy "blind" based on frequently
misleading ads. The second thing I learned was that software (whether
good, bad, or indifferent) is expensive. I couldn't possibly afford
everything I wanted. So how was I to get all I wanted without having to
pay for it?
Writers wanted
Being a relatively honest sort, stealing it didn't appeal to me. What I
did was set myself up in the reviewing business. I phoned the editors
of the magazines and explained that I could review software. All they
had to do was send it to me - or I would be willing to phone the
software company and ask for it to be sent to me directly on the
strength of the assignment. Believe it or not, the editors were
delighted. Finding someone who was at all familiar with computers and
also who could write was a rarity. (I'm told that it still is to some
extent.)
In all the years I've been writing, I'm proud to say that I've never
missed a deadline - and there have been some pretty tough ones. Editors
love that. Running a magazine is tough, and knowing that they have
people they can count on is priceless. I have had calls asking for some
major piece of software to be reviewed - with a deadline only a week
away - and have pulled it off. This policy of being dependable has
served me well down through the years with Analog, ST Log, Antic, START,
Video Games, and now ST Journal.
A lot of people have seen me getting all this wondrous software free and
have become convinced that I have it made. Well, it is pretty nice -
especially since I get paid for the reviews, as well. But it's also a
lot of work and carries a fair burden of responsibility. You see, along
with all the good stuff like WordUp and Touch-Up, LDW Power and Dungeon
Master, there is some really awful stuff - the kind you wouldn't waste
your time with; you'd either reject it, after a short trial in the
store, return it to get your money back, or just reformat the disk and
kiss your investment goodbye. I can't do that. I've been assigned to
review it and that's my job, as unpleasant as it sometimes can be. A
good example is my currently working review of STEVE, the ST Event
Editor. This is integrated software; word processor, database, desktop
publishing, and a few other things all put together into one huge
package with a 600 page manual. The software isn't bad, just huge and
not particularly interesting. But I can't just put it aside for some
other time - I've got to get a review out on deadline. If I don't, my
credibility suffers.
Responsibility enters the picture because I am relatively well known.
It has been a long time since I have called a software or hardware
manufacturer to request a review copy and they haven't known who I am.
When I write a review, people listen and make buying decisions based on
what they read. Since ST Log folded, my review may be the only one they
see. What this means is that a lot of care must be put into evaluating
the product. If, at first glance, it appears really awful, I must keep
digging and evaluating to make sure I don't say it's awful without
giving the software every chance to prove itself. One product (an
alternate desktop) completely defeated me. I couldn't even get it
installed. The files that I was supposed to work with weren't on the
disk, and others that were not mentioned in the manual were present.
After struggling with it interminable, I finally gave up. But I really
tried far harder than if the software had been for my own use. Had I
purchased it for myself, I would have simply mailed it back and gotten a
refund. (Always buy software with your credit card because you can get
your money back if it turns out to be unsuitable.)
But I must remember that people are going to read what I say and factor
this into their decisions. It's sort of daunting to realize that my
single article may influence a substantial part of the income of a
software or hardware vendor. So I have to be fair and impartial and do
a thorough job with each review, and, on top of that, write well and
provide interesting material for my readers.
So much for the idyllic life of a reviewer! As you can see, it's hard
work and carries a lot of responsibility. See you next month. - DP
GUIDELINES FOR REVIEWS
======================
by Jim Pierson-Perry
The accompanying text file contains a summary of guidelines I prepared
for STart magazine to (hopefully) give some direction to writers for
accurate, comprehensive and ethical product reviews. By their nature,
product reviews are factually base and should be written/judged
accordingly, as opposed to opinion or editorial articles which would
require some different criteria.
I personally believe the quality of published product reviews is a valid
guide to the maturity and quality of the parent computer platform.
Hobbyist computers tend to spawn hobbyist/amateur writing styles and
foibles. Products for pro computers usually get much more in depth and
polished efforts (more writers competing for limited magazine space and
readership). The above is a gross generality but if you look at
comparative reviews of word processors, printers, hard drives, CAD
packages, etc in mainstream Mac or PC mags I think you'll get my point.
Anyway, I offer my guidelines as a starting attempt to put some thought
behind what should go into a review, the mechanics of it, and some
ethical issues that ought to be considered. I welcome all constructive
criticism and hope we can upgrade the guidelines to reflect the best
thinking from our BBS (and others) community on what is important to
readers in the product reviews they write.
Thanks for your interest. If you'd rather just drop me a private note
instead of joining the public discussion, my GEnie address is REMO.
Here are some of my thoughts on general guidelines for preparing product
reviews. I've included some concrete examples from published reviews
(left anonymous) to illustrate some points. It is very important that
we try to do a good and thorough job with our reviews. There are
precious few avenues where US Atari users can turn for "second
opinions", unlike the Mac and PC users with their plethora of magazines.
My comments begin on review writing in general, then go into specific
phases of evaluation/writing. Take them for what they are worth -
guidelines only, not strictures.
General Points
1. Reviews should not be authored by beta-testers or others similarly
related to the product (manual authors, distributors, ...). Even
with the best of intentions, it is hard to keep objectivity and
there will be a conflict of interest (real or perceived) in the
readers' minds.
2. Reviews must be fact checked by the author with the developer prior
to final submission. This is a reviewer responsibility - you cannot
complete a piece unless you know that what you have written is
accurate. Developers should not use this opportunity to sway
reviewer opinion, just make sure the piece is factually correct.
3. In line with point 2 above, be sure to report promptly any bugs you
find during product evaluation to the developer. They might not be
bugs at all but errors on your part or corrupted files on the review
disk (both have happened to me more than once). Clear these up at
once - don't wait for the final fact check and to find out you've
got a major rewrite on your hands.
4. Make heavy use of user groups and on-line bulletin boards to
research the product. You are not likely to be the first user and
can often pick up on good/bad points that others have encountered.
This also lets you evaluate the developer's customer support and
response time.
Overall Writing Style
1. Be direct and positive in your comments, avoid negative praise.
Example: "I am pleased with program XXX..." rather than "I do not
hesitate to assert how good program XXX is...".
2. Do not write "table of contents" reviews - stepping through each
program feature and how to use it. Focus instead on reasons why
particular design choices were made and their consequences, what
features are lacking, ease of use, etc. Would you buy this product
in view of similar offerings? Why?
3. If the product is a bit esoteric, consider using sidebars to supply
background information. This will bring novices up to speed without
slowing down the main review for more the experienced ones.
4. Avoid pretentious grammar, vocabulary, and thesaurus abuse. It
reads poorly, makes you sound like a pompous ninny, and is a general
pain for editors to correct. Another example: "In writing this
evaluation, therefore, I have compared program XXX with both earlier
versions of itself and other popular YYY applications for the Atari
ST."
5. Break up the review into sections corresponding to major product
functionalities. This lets readers jump about to sections of
primary interest to them instead of tracking through text swamps.
6. Humor has its place in writing but don't overdo it! Anecdotal
speech may be fine with user groups or friends but translates poorly
into cold print. Humor is only good when natural, not forced. If
you are deliberately trying to be funny in your text, it won't be.
Same goes for stream of consciousness writing, as practiced (poorly)
by some columnists.
7. Use constructive, not destructive criticism. Destructive: "The
search and replace function in XXX is a poorly designed afterthought
that is hard to use and slower than any other such program I have
ever used." Reworked into a constructive sense might give: "The
search and replace function in XXX is about twice as slow as in
similar word processors. Part of the problem is its needless
scrolling of the entire text file on screen, even when doing a
global replace operation."
8. Comparative reviews with head-to-head feature tables are very
popular and useful. Be careful to explain all terms and symbols in
your summary tables. A recent comparison of replacement desktop
programs had the cryptic entries "toggle fast bit", "time ledger",
and "enhanced windows" that were never explained and probably not
understood by most readers.
9. Stress major design, interface environment, real world performance
issues, hardware requirements, etc. Cover the main points
adequately and don't waste time/space trying to cram in coverage of
every last persnickety detail.
10. How well does the product integrate into the existing Atari
environment? Example: word processors that build on GDOS and
Ultrascript, rather than requiring users to invest in new font
collections.
11. Write in the active voice! Example: "The program quickly redraws
screens" rather than "Screen redraws are handled quickly by the
program."
12. Supply several illustrative screen shots (DEGAS capture utilities
are useful here) and captions with your review text. Don't leave
the captions up to editorial discretion or imagination.
13. Watch your grammar and always spell check your review before
submitting it. Editors question factual accuracy if the writing
mechanics are sloppy.
14. Clearly describe the hardware configuration you used for the review.
Where appropriate (and possible) use several types of peripherals to
fully challenge the product. Example: if you are reviewing a word
processor, check performance with a 9 pin dot matrix as well as a
laser printer.
15. Make sure to mention the program version you reviewed (dumb mistake,
but I've seen it missing in the past).
16. Budget enough time for the review. Compromising the accuracy of the
review, or your writing ability, in order to meet a deadline does no
one any good. The developer will (rightly) take you to task and you
will lose credibility with readers (and editors). The review you
finished after 16 hours straight typing may read as Pulitzer
material at 2 am, but be cat box liner on second reading after a
good night's sleep. After you finish a review leave it for a day or
so, then come back for the final edit.
Evaluating The Product Manual
1. Are there a table of contents and an index (reasonable and complete
entries)? What about sufficient screen shots throughout the text to
illustrate operations/features?
2. How up to date is the manual? Is it several versions out of synch
with the current program and patched by a series of "README" files
on the disk?
3. How does the manual look visually? Look for consistent formatting,
overall typography (no tiny text), spelling or other errors, and
writing style (easy to read or too dense).
4. Do the installation instructions match actual product usage? Are
all hardware and software requirements fully spelled out?
5. Are tutorials provided, with corresponding example files (as
appropriate)?
6. Are keyboard command equivalents summarized in an easily accessed
appendix? What about other appropriate summaries - must you hunt
through the text for them?
Setting Up
1. What are the hardware and software requirements? Does the program
come on double-sided disks but still claim compatibility with a
standard 520 ST?
2. How compatible is the product with standard desk accessories,
autoload programs, alternate desktops and TOS versions? BBS reports
are helpful for these problems. What about support for big screen
displays (Moniterm)?
3. Is product installation required and, if so, is it manual or
automatic? If GDOS-based, is the installation routine smart enough
not to trample an existing ASSIGN.SYS file? Can the program be put
in a directory of your choice or must it go in the root directory,
etc.?
4. How easy and intelligent is the automatic installation process (if
used) - number of disk swaps, recognize both A: and B: drives, check
available hard disk space before starting, etc?
Program Operation Evaluation
1. Exercise all program features - the one you miss will be the one
that readers call up to complain or question about.
2. Create and use your own examples, do not blindly rely on canned
tutorial or example files provided with the product. This really
becomes painfully obvious when all reviews of a product have the
same screen shots - just how thoroughly did the reviewers test the
program?
3. Include objective performance criteria such as speed of search and
replace, memory consumed, printing time, scrolling speed, etc.
4. Especially with printer related programs, check the extremes (dot
matrix, laser printer). Don't base your entire review on a single
platform - quality and speed can vary dramatically (and not
necessarily in the same fashion) between printer types.
5. Does the program include on-line help (hopefully triggered through
the HELP key)?
6. Are keyboard command equivalents provided for mouse/menu commands?
Are any program functions available only through the keyboard or
mouse exclusively?
7. How is the overall response time? Where are the bottlenecks - any
obvious ways to circumvent them? Any suggestions for improvement to
offer the developer?
8. How intuitive is the user interface? Does it follow "standard"
Atari programming conventions? Are common operations implemented in
a straightforward fashion with a minimum of steps? Is the program
easy to learn? By the way, despite how some writers have
bastardized the concept of a learning curve, a "flattened learning
curve" means hard as hell to learn while a "steep" one is a snap.
9. What safeguards protect the user from errors - his own or the
program's? Things to look for: format disks from within the
program, show remaining memory, autobackup of files, sense when the
printer is not on-line, warn before overwriting an existing file,
etc.
10. What user customization/convenience features are provided? Example
are: assignable directories, save global parameters (page size, font
list, printer driver,...), file utilities (delete, rename, query
free disk space, ...), no copy-protection, etc.
Extras
1. Try to get a feel for customer support, both through phone calls and
BBS.
2. Are any freeware/shareware programs included on the product disk?
What about templates for DTP or spreadsheet programs and similar
aids?
3. Are there any useful auxiliary programs that can add to the
product's utility which readers ought to be told about? Example:
Word Up only imports IMG, GEM and DEGAS pictures but the shareware
program CONV2IMG converts many other graphic file formats into IMG
files which can be then used.
4. Is there a demo version of the program - how to get to it? What
about foreign language versions (not all of your readers will be
from the US)?
5. Does the developer provide additional support products that would
enhance the value of the product under review? Examples: MIDI
hardware interface for MIDI software, alternative printer drivers
for word processors, file format conversion programs, training
manuals, etc.
6. Is there any third-party support for the product? Examples are
fonts, clip art, NeoDesk icons, Printmaster graphic collections,
etc.
Summary Statements
1. How does the product compare with similar ST offerings - why should
readers by this particular one over the competition?
2. Any features present or lacking versus similar applications on other
computer platforms (Mac, PC)?
3. Is the developer willing to share plans for upcoming revisions or
new features? Vaporware is taboo but feel free to briefly comment
on near-term goals (the focus is on what is for sale today, we're
not selling futures here).
4. What is your feeling on the product's overall value for the money,
time, and effort required to buy and use it?
PHANTOM OF THE LASER
==================== Press Release
ATARI SLM804¿ OWNERS!
ANNOUNCING: "PHANTOM OF THE LASER¿"
* Frustrated by the requirement that the laser printer MUST be on to use
your computer?!
* Tired of the fan noise, heat, & power consumption?
* Worried about the internal heat buildup when you use the "backdoor"
shutoff "FIX"?!
THE PHANTOM OF THE LASER¿ SOLVES ALL THESE PROBLEMS!!
The SLM804 remains off till you really need it to print!
The "PHANTOM" is installed inside the SLMC804¿ interface box
permanently. A 12 volt power cube supplies the "Phantom's"
requirements. Built with computer grade components.
"BULLETPROOF" Design!
Total system compatibility!
No more unplugging the interface cable just to play games!
$40.00 US Installed at our facility.
WIDGETS BY DECKER*
2399 SW Palisades Crest Drive
Lake Oswego, OR. 97034 USA
Telephone 503-638-3940
*(Innovation through frustration!)
Please note that the quoted phone number in the November issue of
Current Notes is WRONG! The correct number is listed here!
TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES - THE GAME
======================================= Press Release
Coming Soon...
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - The Game
Those heroes in a half shell are coming out of the sewers and into your
ST! This game has all of your favourite characters: Leonardo - Leader
of the Turtles, Raphael - Master of the Sai, Michaelangelo - His
Nunchakus are deadly, and last Donatello - The mechanic himself. And of
course the enemies: The Foot Clan, Rocksteady, Bebop, Krang, and
Shredder. This is an all new adventure through the streets and sewers
of New York City. Watch for the 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - The
Game'. Coming this Christmas.
** NOTICE **
This game has not been cleared with Mirage Studios or Archie Comics.
This game is subject to be cancelled without notice of any kind. Dark
Angel Systems acknowledges that 'TMNT', 'Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles',
'Leonardo', 'Michaelangelo', 'Raphael', 'Donatello', 'Foot Clan', and
'Shredder' are registered to Mirage Studios.
TMNT (c)1990 Mirage Studios - All Rights Reserved
TMNT - The Game 1990 Dark Angel Systems - All Rights Reserved
(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)(*)
_ _
o( ) Z*Net New Zealand ( )o
/ /\ By Jon Clarke /\ \
News from around the Nets
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
From Usenet postings this week in comp.sys.atari.st
(*)(*)(*) New British Magazine (*)(*)(*)
Path: grahamt!syma!icdoc!ukc!mcsun!uunet!lll-winken!ames!uhccux!virtue!
comp.vuw.ac.nz!am.dsir.govt.nz!dsiramd!marcamd!mercury!kcbbs
From: grahamt@syma.sussex.ac.uk (Graham Thomas)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: New applications-oriented ST mag to appear in UK
Message-ID: <3593@syma.sussex.ac.uk>
Date: 9 Oct 90 10:59:19 GMT
Organization: SPRU, Univ. of Sussex, Brighton, UK
Someone recently asked about ST journals & mags with an applications and
programming bias. There was some discussion on the demise of the UK mag
ST World. (Sorry, demise is not correct - the mag has gone quarterly
and now consists mainly of comparative reviews and 'buyers guides'.)
Well, the gap may be about to be filled by a new publication: ST
Applications. It's being launched by Paul Glover, who runs the 'ST
Club' (newsletter, disk mag and PD software library) and who has
recently become the UK correspondent for Z*Net mag.
The ST Club newsletter is due to turn into ST Applications in November.
The exact format is not yet fixed, and potential contributors are
currently being solicited for their views & ideas, but the intention is
to have a mix of reviews and articles on all sorts of application areas,
as well as coverage of the ST scene worldwide. While the aim is to
produce a more professional magazine, Paul & co (David Smith, design;
Niki Wilson, admin) don't want to lose the 'user-driven' feel of the ST
Club newsletter. They're after ideas for submissions. Authors will be
paid, though not extravagantly.
The first print run will be around 12,000 copies, and the magazine will
have at least 45 pages of editorial material. Further information can
be obtained from Paul Glover, ST Club, 49 Stoney Street, Nottingham,
NG1 1LX, UK. Tel: +44 602 410241.
Graham Thomas (just an ST Club member)
(*)(*)(*) New Atari ST Emulator for the Amiga (*)(*)(*)
Path: icsu8053!ming!dali.cs.montana.edu!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!samsung!
munnari.oz.au!comp.vuw.ac.nz!am.dsir.govt.nz!dsiramd!marcamd
!mercury!kcbbs
From: icsu8053@ming.cs.montana.edu (Craig Pratt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: We've been EMULATED.
Message-ID: <2669@dali>
Date: 14 Oct 90 09:23:23 GMT
Organization: Montana State University, Dept. of Computer Science, Bozeman
In article <90285.225011CXS128@psuvm.psu.edu> CXS128@psuvm.psu.edu writes:
>
> I don't know how many of you follow comp.sys.amiga but one of the
> topics over there is an ST emulator that works! It seems that this
> program contains a copy of TOS and GEM in it. I don't think this
> is completely legal. For anyone interested in knowing the site with
> this program it is abcfd20.larc.nasa gov directory incoming/amiga
> program name atari1.
>
> John T.
I was invited/challenged to come over to a friends the other day to try
out some of my software on Atari1 on his Amiga 500. Here are the
results:
Degas (original): -Can't flip between screens
-Have to reboot to exit
UniTerm 2.0e: -You can't flip back to term screen
-Doesn't talk to the modem
-Eventually bombs
Opus 2.23: -Works just fine! (REAL slow scrolling
-Actually printed out a graph!
Cool Tetris: -BOOM!!
Battle Zone: -BIG boom! (Had to turn off the Amiga)
Drachen: -Loads title screen, then wierd garbage
-Had to reset
Joust: -Atomic blast (Had to power cycle)
Star Raiders: -Ditto
Unix Windows: -Woudn't talk to the modem
I was truly amazed that it ran Opus at all considering that it uses
GDOS. It didn't load desk accessories at all. Everything was very
slow, especially the disk accesses. It took about two minutes to load
the GDOS fonts. The color resolutions were VERY flakey. Mono was
better but the whole screen was stretched vertically and was about 1.5"
too low. It was very difficult to read any fine, horizontal lines due
to interlacing.
I can't possibly believe that this thing is legal. It would be quite a
trick to reverse-engineer all of TOS GEM and the ADI and have it work.
It simply looked like a hacked version of TOS 1.2 (1040 TOS). Many of
the dialog boxes for the desktop were just loaded with different text.
It would seem that the serial port and sound are not supported in any
fashion. The printer seems to work, though. Also, Atari1 takes over the
whole machine. You have to reboot to get out.
All in all, I don't think I'd call Atari1 an emulator - not even close
to the level of the Mac emulators. It's just an interesting/illegal
hack job. More novelty than utility. Oh well, at least Amiga users can
run Opus now, at half speed. (No, I didn't give him a copy) BTW, George
Harrison, are we going to see a new version of Opus soon?
Craig Pratt / icsu8053@caesar.cs.montana.edu
Montana State University, Bozeman MT / Craig.Pratt@msu3.oscs.montana.edu
Nothing beats the taste sensation when maple syrup collides with ham "
Special Agent Cooper, _TWIN PEAKS_
(*)(*)(*) Replies to new Atari ST Emulator (*)(*)(*)
Path: apratt!atari!portal!apple!sun-barr!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!munnari.oz
au!uhccux!waikato!comp.vuw.ac.nz!am.dsir.govt.nz!dsiramd!marcamd
!mercury!kcbbs
From: apratt@atari.UUCP (Allan Pratt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Atari ST emulator for the Amiga: Atari's position
Message-ID: <2709@atari.UUCP>
Date: 16 Oct 90 21:34:04 GMT
Organization: Atari Corp., Sunnyvale CA
Some people have expressed confusion over the legality of the "Atari
emulator" now floating around the net for the Amiga. I understand that
Atari's position is that it is a grave and flagrant violation of Atari's
copyright, and we are asking everybody, especially archive sites and
BBSes, to stop distributing it and remove all copies they have. I don't
know why people think this *could* be legal: it's a derivative work from
Atari's copyrighted material, and Atari intends to protect its
copyrights.
Some people have expressed dismay that their favorite archive or BBS
might get in trouble. In my *personal* opinion, the operators of these
sites bring doom upon themselves by making uploads immediately available
for downloading, with no checks on the content of the uploads. I
believe that only a Common Carrier, such as the phone company or an
airline, can legally be blind to the content of the information or goods
they transport and distribute. Everybody else is responsible for
exercising due diligence to ensure that no illegal activity is going on
using their equipment or service. Since this program is prima facie a
copyright violation, a duly diligent sysop would not have made it
available for downloads.
Finally, some people have expressed the opinion that Atari should be a
"good guy" and take no action concerning this. That's nonsense. If you
don't vigorously protect your copyrights, you lose them. Ignoring this
could mean relinquishing all rights to protect TOS from copying and
modification.
This message represents my opinions and things I believe to be true, but
it is not to be considered a legal opinion from Atari's legal department
or anybody else but me.
-- Allan Pratt
Systems Software Engineer
Atari Computer Corp.
...ames!atari!apratt
-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-
Visiting and age old tradition.
===============================
by Jon Clarke
Over the last week I have been wandering around the country on a short
vacation. What mixed with thunder storms and earthquakes I thought I
had picked the wrong week to journey to lower reaches of the North
Island.
Last Saturday we were up at 4:30am and ready for the first leg of our
trip to Palmerston North some 300 miles south of us here in Auckland and
to visit with the users of the Manawatu Atari Users Group. We jumped in
the trustly little Toyota and ended up in Ohakea the southern most Air
Force Base in the North Island at 10:00am an met with Tony Lewis the
Editor of the WAUG user Group.
Dropping all our gear at the his place we make haste to Palmerston North
some 25 miles away. Our timing was great as everyone had just started
to arrive. So we unpacked all the computers out of the car and set them
up in the hall. This is where I discovered this was not going to be the
normal User Group meeting that I had seen.
You see everyone was bringing their Atari's to the meeting. There were
old 520ST's with the boot disk, STe's and the most amazing ST I have
ever seen. This ST was a wooden cased 520ST. Now forget the old jokes
as I used them too, "Wooden case and Wooden go!" I was really taken
back when I saw what Chris had done to his ST's keyboard. Imagine if
you will an old revision 'c' 520ST with a detached keyboard similar to
Mega keyboard, however encased in the most beautifully dark stained and
french polished wooded case.
"This has to be a first for the ST" I thought. I have seen many
variations to the ST and have even done the same myself but have never
seen anything like this at all. Looking at this ST it conjured up
thoughts of stately ballrooms and the likes. By noon there were no less
than thirteen ST's and STe's set up all doing different things from
games play, programming, demonstrating new software they had written and
modifications to their ST's.
So I spent the next four hours looking, playing, and being pleasantly
surprised by the quality of the locally produced software. Several chaps
in MAUG have started to produce a monthly disk for ST users in the User
Group and for users around the country. It is called STUNZ and stands
for ST Users in New Zealand. The man behind this disk based magazine is
Chris Hocking. Chris is stationed at the Army base and has been one of
the few people lucky enough to have spent a lot of time with the top
German ST programers while he was stationed in Germany, and is the
author of "STicker" and "STicker III". I must confess after seeing disk
based magazines from all around the world the 'STUNZ' disk ranks up in
the top 5 in my opinion. Here in an overview of the STUNZ diskette..
[1] Will run in colour or Mono.
[2] Is designed to run on a 520ST or a 1040 ST as well as the STe.
[3] Uses Gdos or Amgdos (The PD GDos)
[4] Several PD programs.
[5] Hints, tips and secretes of GFA basics programing.
[6] Just click and select an icon to run an option.
Not only did I see some brilliant local programing I lucky enough to see
some of the latest European demos by the "Lost Boys" called the "Lost
Boys Demo". By now I guess most of you have seen the TCB "Care Bears
demo" and this is been held the beST demonstration of what a ST can do.
Well the "Lost Boys demo" goes beyond the bounds of description. I
spent 3 hours on Sunday looking at the 20 demos it includes and then I
did not see it all. These guys writing demos in Europe are sure using
all the tricks possible to get the ST to do these demos.
After the meeting some of us went out for tea and then met up with
several of MAUG members at their home and was taken on an extensive
tour of the local BBS's. It was funny both during the meeting and
after, the comments passed about the PC I am writing this article on.
You see when I travel I have my little "T1200" with me and a null modem
cable. So when I hook this up to a ST via the cable or take a disk out
of my "T1200" and put it in a ST, many of the younger users look in
amazement and the point finally comes home that the ST is more
compatible to the IBM than they first thought.
From Palmerston North I travelled to Wellington the capital of NZ and to
see what was going on in the WACE user group. I missed the meeting by
one week however I did have the opportunity to visit with the Sysop of
their BBS called Harbour Board BBS. Chris Thorpe the Sysop has just
completed a major face lift to the BBS and it is now humming along at a
great rate. It is funny when sysops get together there is always
similar stories and items of interest that seem to happen no matter
where your BBS is located. We sat down to few amber ales and I was
taken on a flying tour of the FoReM based BBS. Hmm then came all the
stats and the old rivalry of FoReM and MBBS boards. Needless to say
WACE are doing a good job with their BBS and are lucky to have a "IBM
AS400" operator being their Sysop of Harbour Board. As an aside here,
it is funny how sysops seem to parallel each other in some cases as in
this case Chris and I work of different Banks, run different software on
our BBS's and live in the two largest cities in NZ.
So much for the travels, as a brighter note I did manage to buy an old
IBM XT for $NZ200 so the PC Speed may not be used as much [grin].
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Z*NET Atari Online Magazine is a weekly publication covering the Atari
and related computer community. Material contained in this edition may
be reprinted without permission except where noted, unedited and
containing the issue number, name and author included at the top of each
article reprinted. Opinions presented are those of the individual
author and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the staff of
Z*Net Online. This publication is not affiliated with Atari
Corporation. Z*Net, Z*Net Atari Online and Z*Net News Service are
copyright (c)1990, Rovac Industries Incorporated, Post Office Box 59,
Middlesex, New Jersey 08846-0059. Voice (908) 968-2024, BBS (908) 968-
8148 at 1200/2400 Baud 24 hours a day. We can be reached on Compuserve
at PPN 71777,2140 and on GEnie at address: Z-Net
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Z*NET Atari Online Magazine
Copyright (c)1990, Rovac Industries, Inc..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
