Fujiology Archive

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Fujiology Archive / fujiology_archive_v1_0.iso / !MAGS / STREPORT / STR714.ZIP / STR714.TXT < prev

Wrap

Text File | 1991-04-05 | 112.6 KB | 2,487 lines

*---== ST REPORT INTERNATIONAL ONLINE MAGAZINE ==---* """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" "The Original 16/32bit Online Magazine" from STR Publishing Inc. """""""""""""""""" April 05, 1991 No.7.14 ========================================================================== STReport International Online Magazine™ Post Office Box 6672 Jacksonville, Florida 32205 ~ 6672 R.F. Mariano Publisher - Editor ----------------------------------------- Voice: 904-783-3319 10 AM - 4 PM EST BBS: 904-786-4176 USR/HST DUAL STANDARD FAX: 904-783-3319 12 AM - 6 AM EST ----------------------------------------- ** Fnet 350 * Fido Node 1:112/35 * NeST Node 90:3000/350.0 ** privately owned & operated STReport support BBS ALL issues of STReport International Online Magazine are available along with A worldwide list of private bbs systems carrying STReport __________________________________________________________________ > 04/05/91: STReport #7.14 The Original 16/32 bit Online Magazine! ------------------------- - The Editor's Desk - CPU REPORT - MAC REPORT - UNIX is BIGTIME! - "HACKER" ARRESTED - EVIL EMPIRE VIRUS! - ICD Applauded - CeBIT Overview - BLACKJACK! - MAC'S A/UX - PORTFOLIO NEWS - CODEHEAD NEWS!! * CAL-ASSISTANT REVIEWED! * * CENSORSHIP -> AT WHAT PRICE? * * ISRAEL & ATARI! * ========================================================================== ST REPORT INTERNATIONAL ONLINE MAGAZINE™ The _Number One_ Online Magazine -* FEATURING *- "UP-TO-DATE News and Information" Current Events, Original Articles, Hot Tips, and Information Hardware - Software - Corporate - R & D - Imports ========================================================================== STReport's support BBS, NODE # 350 invites systems using Forem ST and Turbo Board BBS to participate in the Fido/F-Net Mail Network. Or, call Node 350 direct at 904-786-4176, and enjoy the excitement of exchanging information relative to the Atari ST computer arena through an excellent International ST Mail Network. All registered F-NET - Crossnet SysOps are welcome to join the STReport Crossnet Conference. The Crossnet Conference Code is #34813, and the "Lead Node" is # 350. All systems are most welcome to actively participate. Support Atari Computers; Join Today! ========================================================================== AVAILABLE EXCLUSIVELY ON: GENIE ~ CIS ~ DELPHI ~ BIX ~ FIDO ~ F-NET ========================================================================== > The Editor's Podium™ A few weeks ago, STReport carried an item relative to Borland and Turbo C/ST. In that article we pointed out that while Turbo C for the Atari ST was readily available in Germany, the US operation would not hear of instituting US distribution. We received a letter from a Borland support person whom we openly addressed in the article. STReport felt it only right and proper to share that letter with you. From this point forward, STReport places its full support with Mr. Jimenez and his efforts to induce Borland to distribute Turbo C/ST in the USA. Category 26, Topic 2 (STReport's Category) Message 61 Tue Mar 26, 1991 J.JIMENEZ [Juan] at 17:35 EST I'd like to communicate that Mr. Mariano called me today, and we mutually agreed that attacking each other in the media will not achieve any posi- tive purpose, and that we should both work together to achieve the goal of seeing Turbo C for the ST released and supported in the USA by Borland International, Inc. I have stated that I am more than willing to assist in this goal in any way I can. Juan Jimenez, President Micro Consulting Associates San Juan, Puerto Rico I received a note from a reader that made mention of the "Borland Incident". Incident was far too harsh a description for the article's appearance. In fact, the article has brought a modicum of attention to the fact that Atarians across the USA wish to see Turbo C/ST available in the USA. And... it united myself and Mr. Jimenez in pursuing a common goal. To me, that's a far cry from an "incident". -==**==- On another topic entirely, the atmosphere in the electronic communica- tions world today seems to be highly volatile and constantly near explo- sive conditions. One of the more apparent causes seems to be that most folks still have yet to grasp the fact that what is said in this very moment in time is across the borders of every state in the union at almost the very same moment. Also, there are those who seem to "prejudge" most anything they feel is some type of silly "threat". Good sense and experience will cure these ills. But until then, it is encumbent upon all of us to exercise restr- aint and try our very best to understand the next person's actions without immediately going ballistic. The other, less obvious, cause is the subtle formation of "cliques". Most of you know what they are and how destructive they can be. The best comparison of what they resemble is the old fashion attitude of "them and us" or, "insiders and outsiders". The saddest observation recently made was "electronic lynch mobs". Friends, we (all of us) do not need this happening, watch the online scene, if an individual disagrees with someone who's on the "in". Almost immediately there appears the very same people, vigilantly attacking or defending, time after time, carrying on a mile a minute. If only they could see themselves as others do. Cliques have destroyed usergroups and all types of social and politi- cal clubs. Most folks who have experienced the delitrious effects of cliques are quick to spot them and point them out in hopes of avoiding headaches. Although the Cliques are not prevalent on all the online services, they are there and must be nipped in the bud. Thankfully, there has been some mention made relative to personal attacks and the curtail- ment thereof. I hope we can put an end to their obvious growth in the online scene...... Thanks again for your strong support, Ralph.......... pssst; the moaning and groaning behind the "green door" is already common knowledge.... TODAY'S NEWS ..TODAY! """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" > STReport's Staff The regulars and this week's contributors! ================ Publisher - Editor ------------------ Ralph F. Mariano Staff Editors: -------------- Michael Arthur Lloyd E. Pulley, Sr. Dana P. Jacobson Lucien Oppler Brad Martin Walter Daniel Oscar Steele Robert Allbritton John Szczepanik Contributing Correspondants: ---------------------------- Michael Lee Richard Covert Roger Stevens Brian Converse Oliver Steinmeier Ed Krimen IMPORTANT NOTICE ================ Please, submit letters to the editor, articles, reviews, etc... via E-Mail to: Compuserve.................... 70007,4454 GEnie......................... ST.REPORT Delphi........................ RMARIANO BIX........................... RMARIANO FIDONET....................... 112/35 FNET.......................... NODE 350 NEST.......................... 90:19/350.0 *********************************************************************** NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE COMPUSERVE WILL PRESENT $15.00 WORTH OF COMPLIMENTARY ONLINE TIME to the Readers of; ST REPORT INTERNATIONAL ONLINE MAGAZINE™ """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" "The Original 16/32bit Online Magazine" NEW USERS; SIGN UP TODAY! CALL: 1-800-848-8199 .. Ask for operator 198 You will receive your complimentary time and be online in no time at all! WHAT'S NEW IN THE ATARI FORUMS (April 5) ARCSHELL 2.4 Charles F. Johnson and Little Green Footballs Software bring you ArcShell 2.4, the latest version of this fine program. This version provides a link to MaxiFile by allowing you to call up MaxiFile from ArcShell's main screen. See ARCS24.ARC in Library 1 of the Atari Productivity Forum (GO ATARIPRO). ERGO-DUO-BIOPTIC DISPLAY MODE IS NOW A REALITY! If you don't know what that is (and I didn't either) then read the file MF30-2.TXT in Library 16, CodeHead SoftWare, of the Atari Vendors Forum (GO ATARIVEN) and find out about this latest feature added to MaxiFile 3.0. A great program just got better! NEW FROM DOUBLECLICK DC LEFTY ARROW is another PROGRAM OF THE WEEK from Double Click Software. DC LEFTY ARROW is a supplement to their DC LEFTY program, it will give you a "left handed" mouse arrow. Download DCLARW.ARC from LIBRARY 13 of the Atari Vendors Forum (GO ATARIVEN). Also download DCSHWR.TXT from LIBRARY 13 -- a Double Click Software press release announcing their new DC SHOWER program. GOLDEN OLDIE FOR ATARI ST DOTS AND DASHES - This classy connect-the-dots strategy game runs in both color and monochrome. Match wits with the computer or up to three humans. Play on one computer or compete by way of modem and a phone hookup. Start with dots only or with some dashes in place. To introduce an element of luck, make beginning dashes invisible. Fun for all ages and IQs. Built- in, printable instructions. Available in LIBRARY 2 of the Atari Arts Forum (GO ATARIARTS) as DOTDAS.PRG. The Modem Games Forum will be sponsoring a FREE PLAYING NIGHT in the MTM Gaming Lobby (GO MTMLOBBY) on Tuesday, April 9th, between 7:00 PM and 12:00 AM Eastern Time. The MTM Gaming Lobby allows you to play modem capable games interactively against other CompuServe members. The games that are supported include: KNIGHTS OF THE SKY; COMMAND HQ; FLIGHT SIMULATOR; 3-D HELICOPTER; BATTLE CHESS; FACES; POPULOUS; STUNT DRIVER; TANK; TRACON II; and VETTE! If you don't currently own one of the above mentioned commercial modem capable games, many are available for you to download from the Libraries of the Modem Games Forum (GO MODEMGAMES). Some of our Forum members' favorites include: PC OTHELLO File: OTHELO.ARC in LIBRARY 9 ("Board/Card Games") BATTLESHIP File: BATTLE.ARC in LIBRARY 11 ("Other Modem Games") (The above games are IBM Compatible.) DOTS-DASHES File: DOTDAS.PRG in LIBRARY 11 ("Other Modem Games") for Atari ST users. If you've never played through the MTM Lobby, this is a great opportunity to give it a try. Instructions are available for download FREE OF CONNECT CHARGES from the CompuServe MTM Games menu (GO MTMGAMES). The MTM Gaming Lobby is available for use twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Forum staff members are there to help you out interactively on weeknights from 7:00 PM - 12:00 AM and weekends from 6:00 PM - 1:00 AM (Eastern Time). We hope to see you on Tuesday! Remember, CompuServe connect charges will be TURNED OFF while you are in game play mode! NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE *********************************************************************** > CPU REPORT™ ========== Issue #105 ---------- by Michael Arthur CPU INSIGHTS™ ============ AT&T, THE OSF, AND THE COURSE OF UNIX ===================================== In May 1988,seven of the most influential Unix Developers, including IBM, Hewlett Packard, DEC, and German computer maker Siemens Inc., an- nounced the formation of the Open Software Foundation, or OSF. The stated goal of the OSF is to openly develop an alternate systems/software stan- dard for Unix. The catch: AT&T, the owner and licensee of Unix, has refused to join the OSF, and in fact, is developing a new version of Unix with Sun Microsystems. To understand why these large computer companies (any one of which owns a significant segment of the Unix market) are rebelling against the originator and principal owner of Unix, AT&T, it is necessary to go back to the beginning. Unix was originally made to be a multiprocessor standard, with its licensees having equal access to a growing operating system which would be managed and improved by AT&T to take advantage of the latest innovations in computer technology. But as time went on, AT&T did not compile such a good record of keeping Unix up to date. This resulted in Unix derivatives like Xenix and Berkeley Unix arising to meet these needs. These Unix dialects weren't that compatible, and Unix users were forced to fragment. Things remained stable for a while, but as innovations in user interfaces, graphics, and Unix itself emerged, the need arose for a new version of Unix which would both take advantage of these innovations and merge these "Unixes" into a cohesive, well defined standard. Seeing this need, AT&T announced that it was making such a system, in Unix Version 5.4, which would merge Berkeley Unix 4.2/4.3, AT&T Unix Version 5.3, and Microsoft Xenix, therefore establishing a solid Unix standard, and would also use a new graphic user interface for Unix, called Open Look. One small detail: Open Look was developed by Sun Microsystems, and they alone are helping AT&T make its new Unix. Meaning that Sun would become the most important Unix licensee (and the most profitable). Another thing is that Sun was also developing the SPARC, a new RISC (Reduced Instruction Set Chip) processor, and AT&T had mentioned that Unix Version 5.4 might take advantage of its special features. So faced with the problems of Sun being allowed to set the course of Unix in an exclusive partnership with AT&T (thereby becoming the leading Unix company), as a powerful, yet proprietary Unix lured users away, these leading Unix vendors took the only reasonable option. Instead of sitting passively by while AT&T and Sun lived happily ever after, they decided to make their OWN Unix.... Hence the Open Software Foundation, an independent corporation funded by its supporters that would devise a comprehensive Unix standard covering the areas of graphical user interfaces, enhancements to Unix, and other aspects of Unix. After development of their platform, the OSF would back it up with the things that they felt were lacking from AT&T. These things included: 1) Reasonable, stable licensing terms 2) A vendor-neutral decision process 3) Equal vendor influence in (and access to) specifications 4) A hardware-independent Unix standard that would evolve in a quicker, more rational fashion than AT&T Unix had. Also, when the OSF's alternate Unix standard has been developed, all of the OSF's member companies will migrate their entire Unix product line to it, in order to further support it. And as each member of the OSF has a greater share of the Unix hardware market than AT&T (and the OSF is quickly gaining new members), the united force of these Unix vendors could be great enough to wrest control of Unix away from AT&T. AT&T has not reacted favorably to this, ridiculing the OSF's plans, and joining other industry analysts in taking a very dim view as to the OSF could accomplish. But surprisingly, Sun Microsystems itself has considered joining the OSF. In order to end all speculation about their chances of success, the OSF immediately began development on its Unix. First on their agenda was a standard Graphical User Interface. The OSF's requirements in this issue were that the interface be based on X/Windows, a standard Unix windowing system, and that the interface be completely hardware-independent. The OSF listed 26 organizations whose products it would consider as candidates. Among the ones considered were Hewlett Packard (New Wave), Digital Research (X/GEM), Microsoft (Presenta- tion Manager), Carnegie-Mellon University, and Sun Microsystems' Open Look interface. It finally chose to create its own interface, called OSF Motif, by combining the Presentation Manager's "look and feel" with feat- ures from other GUIs made by DEC and Hewlett Packard. The OSF then considered what standard of Unix it should base its operating system on. After considering A/IX (IBM's version of Unix) and Berkeley Unix, it finally decided to make its OS a combination of other systems. While it uses Mach, a dialect of Berkeley Unix that supports multiprocessing, for its main kernel, A/IX is used for most system func- tions. The OSF has recently been focusing on advanced distributed proces- sing (which allows you to run one copy of the same program on two or more computers at the same time), and has been considering several system standards. The OSF estimates that it will have its alternate Unix standard ready for commercial distribution before 1992, and has already sent beta copies of its operating system to its member companies. However, as AT&T is now shipping Unix Version 5.4, many computer vendors are choosing to support it instead of the OSF's Unix. Now that AT&T has spun off its Unix Software Division as a separate, autonomous company, AT&T Unix is also beginning to gain new momentum in the computer industry. However, AT&T has not been able to rally much support for Open Look; even the companies who use AT&T Unix are beginning to back OSF Motif as the standard GUI (Graphical User Interface) for Unix programs. With both camps gaining support, the question becomes whether AT&T Unix will be able to hold off the OSF and dominate the course of Unix, or if a group of Unix vendors will be able to muster enough support to dethrone AT&T. With the advent of OS/2, the computer industry finally began to take a look at multitasking operating systems, and noticed Unix, with its powerful capabilities. As such, Unix has become very important, having the potential of eventually guiding the microcomputer industry into the 21st Century. Now the issue is if Unix not only can overcome the MS-DOS, Macintosh, and OS/2 alternatives, but can withstand the dissention within its internal ranks to establish a standard worthy of such a feat.... > CPU STATUS REPORT™ LATE BREAKING INDUSTRY-WIDE NEWS ================= Issue #15 Compiled by: Lloyd E. Pulley, Sr. - Sunnyvale, California NEW ATARI PLANT IN ISRAEL? --------------------- According to an announcement made by the Israeli Trade and Industry Ministry, Atari will set up a new 150 million dollar computer factory in Israel. Zvi Cohen, general director of the ministry, said that Atari and the government would share the costs and the factory will create 600 jobs at first and could go to 1,000 jobs within five years. Atari has not issued any comments on the report. - Dallas, Texas WHO INVENTED FIRST MICROCHIP - TEXAS ------------- INSTRUMENTS WANTS TO FIND OUT. Texas Instruments has fired the first salvo in challenging the patent on the microprocessor which awarded to Gilbert Hyatt of Cerritos, Califor- nia last summer and has asked the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to determine who first invented the microprocessor chip. The Patent's Office proceeding is called an "interference" and could take several years to decide. Until Hyatt's patent was issued, the computer industry had been oper- ating pretty much free of basic patent restraints. There are a large number of engineers who could have a claim in inventing an early version of the microprocessoR. Hyatt's patent took over 20 years to issue and was based on an original filing claim in 1970, which had to be re-filed in 1977. TI's position is that its employee, Gary W. Boone, invented the first microprocessor, the 4-bit TMS100 calculator chip. Boone was awarded a patent on it in 1978 after filing in 1971. - Los Angeles, California HAS 1984 ARRIVED IN CALIFORNIA? ----------------------- Californians not only have to have their photos taken for their drivers licenses, they now have to have their fingerprints scanned also. They are then stored electronically by the California Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). The scanner, which is supplied by Fingermax, the only company which produces electronic fingerprint scanners, scans, digitizes and then stores the print in a database. One of the future products to be produced by Fingermax is a fingerprint scanner for patrol cars. According to a spokesman for Fingermax, "If the police pull you over because they suspect you of some crime, they could positively identify you there, instead of hauling you to a station. Patrol cars are already equipped with a computer monitor and access to the National Crime Information Center, it's just a matter of extending that system. This could work as a protection of your cons- titutional rights," - Sunnyvale, California 9600 BAUD MODEM FOR UNDER $200 --------------------- By ignoring the current industry standards and establishing their own, a new company called CompuCom has come out with a 9600 baud modem that will retail for less than $200. The "Champ" uses a proprietary protocol called the CompuCom Speed Protocol (CSP-3) to achieve rates of 38,400 bits per second, when attached to another modem using the same protocol. This is the same speed claimed by the V.32 modems using the V.42 data- compression standard. - Scottsdale, Arizona 'EVIL EMPIRE' IS THE NEW MS-DOS VIRUS ------------------- A new MS-DOS virus, dubbed the "Evil Empire" virus because of the mes- sage it displays, has been reported by RG Software Systems, a maker of virus protection software. The virus was found at an unnamed Canadian university and displays a message condemning Western intervention in the Persian Gulf. Appearing at random, the message reads: "I'm becoming a little confused as to where the 'evil empire' is these days. If we paid attention, if we cared, we would realize just how unethical this impending war with Iraq is, and how impure the American motives are for wanting to force it. It is ironic that when Iran held American hostages, for a few lives the Americans were willing to drag negotiation on for months; yet when oil is held hostage, they are willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of lives, and refuse to negotiate." RG Software said the next release of their Vi-Spy, scheduled to appear in a few weeks, will be able to identify the new virus. - San Francisco, California FEDS HAVE 96% CONVICTION RATE ------------------------- According to the Secret Service's Fraud Division, they have a conviction rate of 96% for persons arrested by the Secret Service for telecommuni- cations and computer crimes. This figure is based on approximately 10,000 arrests since 1985 concerning fraudulent use of access devices including credit cards, automatic teller machine (ATM) cards, passwords for computer systems and frequent flyer codes. - Phoenix, Arizona ANOTHER "HACKER" ARRESTED ---------------- Law enforcement officials have arrested a 19-year old who they say is the first to be targeted in a nationwide crackdown on illegal computer "hackers". Baron Majette, aka "Doc Savage" and "Samuel Savage" was ar- rested last week for alleged crimes uncovered in the joint federal/state "SunDevil" investigation. The complaint alleges that Majette last year broke into computer files and made unauthorized credit card charges from Citibank and its mer- chants exceeding $60,000. Also, that Majette used a computer to divert the costs of two long-distance conference calls to a Toys "R" Us retail store in March 1990. The group which included 15 individuals from Cali- fornia, Texas, Nevada, Connecticut, Missouri, Georgia, New York and North Carolina spent $8,100 on telephone calls according to the complaint. This is the first arrest resulting from the raids last May, when the Sun Devil Task Force served 28 search warrants nationwide, seized 42 com- puter systems and nearly 50,000 computer disks. - San Jose, California VIDEOPHONES IN OUR FUTURE? -------------------- AT&T and Compression Labs Inc. (CLI) will join forces to develop video telephone products. CLI will contribute its expertise in compressed digital video and very-large-scale integration of chips and AT&T will contribute its telecommunications know-how. - Redmond, Washington NUMBER TWO AND CLIMBING ------------------- According to figures released from the Software Publishers Association (SPA), sales of Windows-based applications rose 157% during 1990 in North America and is second only to the sale of DOS applications. A market research firm in Framingham, Massachusetts predicts another 150% growth during 1991 (from 1.5 to 3.8 million units), with a further doubling in 1992. - Los Angeles, California PRODIGY SUED IN LOS ANGELES ----------------------- A class action lawsuit, on behalf of a Texas user doing business in Los Angeles and asking for damages and injunctive relief, has been filed against Prodigy Services over the alleged deceptive advertising and fraudulent conduct in developing, announcing and implementing charges for electronic mail. The lawsuit comes just weeks after the launch of an investigation by the Consumer Protection Division of the Los Angeles District Attorney's office prompted by similar concerns. An investigation into Prodigy's advertising by the Texas Attorney General resulted in a settlement last December that included refund offers for some Texas users who said they were misled by Prodigy's promotional campaign. ____________________________________________________________ > ICD & GRASP! STR FOCUS™ "Would I buy another product from ICD, you bet!" ====================== ICD & DOIN' THE RIGHT THING! ============================ by M. Angell GRASP BBS is run on a 1040ST with 4meg of memory and Seagate ST4144R hard drive(117.8 megs formatted) using an ICD Host Adaptor and an OMTI 3527A controller. I started having problems with my drive. All of a sudden, I could not access anything on the hard drive. I rebooted and the system could not find a hard drive. I rebooted again from diskette using ICD's Host Adap- tor utilities. The computer system could not find a controller or Host Adaptor. Since, I have an ICD Tape Backup unit, I decided I would try to see if I could format my drive. The software went to format and came back about 4 minutes later saying error "check cable connections". I called ICD and talked to Howard. He advised me to check my cables. He tried to help me on the phone. He told me I could send my setup to ICD and they would check it out. I thanked him and said I would if I could not get it working. I tried reseating all my cables to no avail. I then decided I would try swapping boards from my other hard drive which is the same setup as the BBS. I was timid about doing this. I did not want to have two systems down. I talked to a friend, Dan Grenoble about my sit- uation. After checking my system out, we decided to swap boards. I first swapped my ICD Host Adaptor board and rebooted. Same problems. I then swapped OMTI controller boards and the system came up. I then reinstalled the original ICD Host Adaptor board and the system came up. Now, I knew my problem was the OMTI controller card. I called ICD and talked to Howard again. I asked Howard to send me a list of the SENSE codes that the OMTI puts out. He fax'ed the sheet to my work place. I told him my controller was bad. He connected me to sales. The salesman was very courteous and gave me an Return Merchandise Authoriza- tion number and instructions to send it back and he would send me a new replacement. I am very pleased with the service and help I received from ICD and especially, Howard Peters. Everything I have purchased from them has worked reliably and as advertised. Would I buy another product from ICD, you bet! Mickey Angell, president of GRASP. SysOp GRASP BBS 804-744-8022 *********************************************************************** :HOW TO GET YOUR OWN GENIE ACCOUNT: _________________________________ To sign up for GEnie service: Call: (with modem) 800-638-8369. Upon connection type HHH (RETURN after that). Wait for the U#= prompt. Type: XTX99587,CPUREPT then, hit RETURN. **** SIGN UP FEE WAIVED **** The system will now prompt you for your information. -> NOW! GENIE STAR SERVICE IS IN EFFECT!! <- *********************************************************************** > MAC REPORT™ ========== Issue #005 ---------- by Robert Allbritton *** APPLE SHIPS //E EMULATOR CARD FOR MAC LC Over the past three years the greatest loss for Apple has been in the educational market. IBM PC clones have been eating market share for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. One reason Apple has had this problem is because it has been stressing its Macintosh line and de- emphasizing its Apple II line, yet a vast majority of Apple educational software is for the Apple II. Apple is now trying to change that by shipping the Apple //e emulator card for the Macintosh LC. The card has a built in 6502 micro processor and its own 128K of RAM as well as joystick and floppy disk ports. Up to one meg of the LC's memory and its video display are used in conjunction with the card which will run 98% of all Apple //e software. The card was originally announced in October along with the Mac Classic, LC, and IIsi; however it was not expected to be shipped before the 2nd quarter and is on time. *** ALDUS SHIPS UPDATES: PAGEMAKER 4.01 AND FREEHAND 3.0 Many people were surprised when Aldus shipped their Freehand 3.0 release a month early! The update includes many new features and is available to registered Freehand users for $50 directly from Aldus. Freehand 3.0 has a retail price of %595. Pagemaker 4.01 is a relatively minor update, mainly speeding up some functions. *** APPLE PRESIDENT UNCERTAIN OF FUTURE ... OR IS HE? Late last week, Apple president Michael Spindler said he was "terrified about where ... Fiscal 1992 revenues will come from," but later claimed he was taken out of context. "My point was that in a dynamic industry and economy, that there are no road maps or histories that allow managers to make fail-safe decisions," in reference to data base managers, not his corporate outlook for Apple, which remains bright with growing market share. *** APPLE STOCK BREAKS 70 - FORTUNE 100 This week, Apple computer stock hit a high of 72, from a low of 25 in mid October (just before the Classic announcement.) Of other finan- cial interest, Apple was ranked #95, up from #96, in the Fortune 100 at $5.558 Billion. Other Fortune neighbors were Colgate-Palmolive (#94), Northrop (#96) and BASF (#99). > Unix MACREVIEW Friend or Foe? ============== UNIX: FRIEND OR FOE? ==================== UNIX is like a cult, everyone wants it, but not that many know why, and even fewer really know what it is. Apple has it. IBM has it. Even Atari has it on the TT. Large computer customers like the Department of Defense and large industrial and scientific corporations demand it. But what is it? UNIX is more of an environment than anything else. It is one of the few big mainframe type operating systems that is available on the micro computer level. UNIX consists of several concepts that reads like a wish list for all other micro computer operating systems including MS-- DOS, Mac OS and TOS: virtual memory, networking, standardized graphical interface, huge software libraries, and primitive multitasking. All of this may seem great, but it does have its drawbacks. UNIX was originally dreamed up at Bell Labs as an operating system to orchestrate all of AT&T's nation wide communications equipment. Switc- hing all of those phone lines around required a highly complex multitas- king environment. UNIX was born. Along with UNIX came C, as it was used to do almost all UNIX programming. This is still true today. The problem with this is that UNIX was developed as a programmer's operating system. It has a very complicated set of mnemonics (programmers just *love* obscure codes) and can be a real pain to set up (ever tried to set up an Amiga with a lot of custom hardware? similar experience.) There are also several versions of UNIX. The TT will conform to AT&T UNIX System V release 4 while A/UX, Apple's UNIX, conforms up to release 2.2, with parts of release 3 (streams.) A/UX on the Mac is an interesting creature. First of all, UNIX is a very disk based operating system. Its virtual memory system allows almost any amount of memory to be declared, regardless of how much memory is actually in the computer. The virtual memory is then swapped off and on the hard disk as required. This means that UNIX (and A/UX) really should have a large, fast hard drive to work well. Another problem is that the Mac's file system is completely incompatible with A/UX, thus a hard drive must be set up with A/UX partitions that are separate from the Mac OS (this is very similar to the partitioning system used by Spectre 128/GCR.) A/UX does have one neat feature: you can start the Mac OS Finder as a separate application under A/UX. This means that UNIX code, and normal Mac programs can operate at once in the same machine. However, A/UX requires a fast Mac. There is a lot of overhead. Nothing slower than a Mac IIsi should be used (20Mhz 68030.) The normal Apple OS has a memory ceiling of 8 Megs of RAM (similar to the 4 Meg limit on the ST) but under A/UX that is lifted. One side effect of this is that all Mac programs that you want to run under A/UX must be "32-bit clean." Most new applications are 32-bit clean, but some older programs that have not been updated in the past 3 years will have problems. In the environment UNIX, Mac and X Windows programs can all be running at once. X Windows is that standard UNIX graphical interface that was developed at MIT, however it is not central to the UNIX operating system and applications must be written specifically to take advantage of the X Windows environment. This is similar in the way that not all ST programs use the GEM graphical interface. To get the most out of A/UX, X Windows is a must; as is Ethernet. A/UX got a bad wrap with version 1.0, however, the new 2.01 release seems to be a winner. Its compatibility is much improved as are features. Who needs A/UX or UNIX? Well, certainly not the average user. UNIX is a big can of worms that will not give you any advantages over the normal ST or Mac environment. However; if you currently work with UNIX in your job or through some other capacity, the ability to have UNIX on your desktop will have obvious advantages: UNIX is set up to work in conjunc- tion with other UNIX systems. A/UX is not perfect. It lacks a wide range of tape backup solu- tions (only Apple's slow DC2000 tape drive is supported) and the package itself is very expensive. Additionally, none of the Macs currently made have enough horsepower to drive some of the most serious scientific progr- ams, but that is not necessarily a flaw (the TT will be no better) some of these programs were written with high speed RISC workstations in mind, so you really can't expect miracles from a 25 Mhz 68030. However, the in- tegration of the UNIX environment and the Macintosh operating system is excellent. A/UX comes in several formats and is *expensive* An 80 meg hard drive with A/UX pre-installed will set you back $2,395. On floppy disks or a DC2000 tape cartridge, A/UX retails for $995. CD-ROM is $795. Man- uals are $800 for a complete set and the X Windows system is $350 with manuals. This is *not* for the home user. However, Apple has recently announced an A/UX bundle of a Mac IIsi, 5 Megs of RAM, an 80 Meg hard drive, NuBus adaptor with math co-processor and A/UX 2.0.1 for $5,169 retail could be a real bargain and a good way to break into both the Mac and UNIX at once. If you are a programmer / hacker, UNIX is a dream come true. If you are a user - stay away, unless you like headaches. __________________________________________________________________ > CEBIT 1991 STR Feature™ ====================== DAVE SMALL AT CEBIT =================== Courtesy GEnie Atari ST RoundTable Category 4, Topic 44 compiled by Michael Lee ...CeBIT is past mindblowing. I mean, you could lose COMDEX inside it quite easily. Apple built a CASTLE out of cinder blocks and mortar for their booth (can you imagine the time that takes to build/tear down?). It is such a huge show I can't imagine getting through it, even in the allotted 8 days. Sandy and I met a lot of people. Seems the GCR is pretty well known in Europe. What blew me away was when a guy dumped a magazine on me, and told me that he just wanted to let me know that the whole thing was produced on the GCR, using PageMaker. It was a major magazine indeed. I was blown away -- it is so amazing seeing what people make GCR's do. Much interest in the SST accelerator. I don't know how many people took pictures of it in its 8 meg configuration -- *lots*. I imagine it'll show up in a few mags. We had endless technical talks with some really on-the-ball engineers about timing, configurations (a 32 megabyte SST really, really lit their eyes up -- they *glowed*), and so forth. The interest level was really overwhelming; I'd go back to our place at night and be asleep by 8 or so. I did manage to "zap" myself with the Mega power supply heat sink; there's some blasted capacitor in there holding that hot even when machine is off. Dropped an SST full of RAM and almost dropped myself -- that one hurt. Which only goes to show software types should avoid hardware. Sandy managed to drop a very heavy multi-purpose tool as a knife into the top of her foot, where it "stuck". It was as bad as the image in your mind. We made the acquaintance of the very good German health system. She's got a cast (!!) on her foot and all is healed up fine now. Everyone treated us great in the hospital, but it sorta tripped up our travel plans. Our Stacy regrettably was stolen the last day of the show -- was gone when we showed up in the morning. Old serial # 14 -- if anyone sees it, drop me a line, ok? Nothing really exciting on it (I mean, MacPlayMate on the Mac partitions) -- and they didn't swipe the 030 board right next to it. Methinks it was someone who thought it was an IBM portable, who is in for a big shock. Time to find out if safeware insurance is international. Atari Germany could not have been more helpful. They bent over backwards helping us, particularly Matthias Born and his underlings -- found us a fine place to stay, got us a 110VAC converter for our Mega with the SST, fed us lunch (I mean, people, the Atari booth had a full inner area with free Pepsi, all you wanted, for anyone who came in, a full counter to pull up chairs too, and stuff -- it was mindblowing) and excellent lunches. The cook in particular made my day, feeding one tired Dave Small -- you can bet he went home with some "I want my Mac ST" T-shirts. There was so much at the Atari booth, so many developers, I didn't get around to them all. (I need to get someone to wear my badge and work the booth so I can wear dark glasses and get around; I get stopped for questions otherwise). Matrix makes fine, fine monitors. There are all sorts of 24 bit color monitors there, beautiful pictures indeed. TT's abounded; shortage of fastRAM boards but that's changing. Very nice booth layout, large area, and just flat crammed with people. What impressed me the most were the people from eastern European countries who came -- people from Czechoslavakia and so forth -- that knew the GCR. There are hot, hot, hot programmers in Poland, Hungary...now that the borders are open maybe we will see more of their stuff. There's a rewritten and optimized TOS callled KAOS-TOS out in Germany that's a bit controversial (as it is a patched 1.4, and Atari didn't condone it), but wow is it fast. Redraws are done correctly, all sorts of new options, and the speed gives Quick Index fits. Amazing stuff. The programmers of it were great to talk to and really, really knew their stuff. I mean, how many people can you ask, "What bits enable the data and instruction and write-allocate on the 030?" and have them tell you from memory? I'm impressed!! There's a lot more, but I'm still a bit fuzzy and don't recall. The Overscan -- autoswitch overscan -- is great. That's one Spectre needs to work with -- gives you LOTS more dots on your ST monitor. Checked out their UNIX Sys 5 Rel. 4. It seemed to work well. I "did some things" to it to check it out. It has a very similar X windows to a machine I've used a long time, so I was right at home with it. One omission: no "man", online manual, pages. But that's no big deal to install at all and I'm sure it'll be on the release version -- heck, I installed my own man pages on my unix box, and as Dave Beckemeyer can testify, I am the true devil to UNIX. The performance was okay; not great, not bad. I would guess there's still some internal tuning and tweaking to do in the device drivers and stuff. Scuttlebutt is that Sys 5 will ship on a 200 mbyte hard disk. There'll be a version if you have a TT 030/8 (you need the fastram!!), another that includes the TT (which costs more, big surprise). The machine I played with was running X with the standard clock, X logo, X maze (I never got source to that one, but it was working), some file handling utilities, and whatnot. I played in a command-line window and the speed was very acceptable to me; I'm used to a 20 Mhz 030 UNIX box, and the TT version was definitely faster. Did things like LS -FRal > /tmp/tempfile & to load the system and it held it well. The network was ethernet, going VME, but there are also Mega cards that Ethernet so you can plug in remote terminals. I just assume that you can plug in remotes through the serial ports as well -- if not, I bet I know someone who could add it to the necessary /etc lists. UUCP was in there, with all the utilities, but was not configured on that system (System file was default, for instance). No big deal there, that's easy enough to change. uucico and stuff were all there. It all looked very nice on the big monitor (the Viking-like one) and ran well. I loaded it fairly well and it didn't bog badly. I suppose it'll have to be benchmarked by some pros to get true performance values but it worked fine for me. The ST Book was impressive. And gee, a connector on the side. I wonder if they want a Mac Book? *grin*. Welp, My body is telling me it's time to go to sleep, and Eric wants to go see the sequal to the Mutant Turtles. Time to sign off. Hope I managed to get some of the "feel" of CEbit across to you. [Continued the next day in another post] Yeah, jetlag is insidious; it takes a long time to really get over, versus feeling 50% or 80% "with it". Add to it a cranky 2 year old making sure that I don't get a night's sleep without interruptions and it's enough to make me reveal the invasion plans -- perfect torture. Oh, well. I mean, imagine Atari's booth. Outside of the actual enclosed 2-story booth area are a pile of software developers, as has been done many times at Comdex, etc. All are mobbed. Inside Atari's booth is a nice schmoozing area with Pepsi and so forth taps (for free), and people talking all the time. Upstairs is a lovely view of CeBIT and another bar place with snacks. The cook at the Atari booth was most tickled with Jennifer and took special care to get me lunches, which I really appreciated. (Jenny went to him after he'd handed out cookies and asked if she could get more "for her baby brother". Riiiiight... but it was funny.) The exhibitor booths varied. Mine was a cross-shape; each developer got one "corner" of the cross, with a divider on the cross lines. One my left was an outfit selling a 12 mb upgrade for your ST. On my right was autoswitch overscan, a really cool overscan generator (I bought one). Diagonal from me was Tom Harker, with women mooning over him constantly; now I have something to threaten him with. (Just kidding Tom!) There was none of this "pick up a book and read it between customers stuff". I worked the Gadgets booth alone and was 5 deep most of the time. All sorts of questions, from unbelievably good to unbelievably bad. Got interviewed by mags I had never heard of, asked out to dinner by about 58 distributors that want the SST board Real Bad (I declined; Sandy needs a little adult companionship after a day of watching the kids; she and I switched off running the booth and watching the kids. Equally tiring). You just plain need more than 1 person at the booth 2 or 3 is fine. We gave away boxes and boxes of literature -- we'd fill the literature trays, boom, they would be empty. Had many interesting talks with German developers, people from Prague, Hungary, Poland. The sheer *energy* being displayed there was a buzz -- it was sort of like the ultimate world of Atari show. Walking around, there were 24- bit color boards that looked superb, Matrix's many monitor driver cards, and much, much more. I never got time to see the whole booth at all -- I would try to wander around, get asked "one question", and pow, my time was up. I need a Groucho Marx nose and glasses next time. The *energy* is what stays in my mind. Driving from Zurich into Hannover, which is pretty much straight north through Germany, I saw awesome levels of construction -- cranes everywhere, buildings going up. Looks like Silicon Valley on a busy year. Definitely NOT like Denver! Man, their economy is going places. Of course, they just got East Germany dumped on them, which looks like it's in the 1800's (we drove through several villages; it is sad what was done to that country), but give the German people a few years to fix up East Germany, then wait and hang on. Berlin -- totally crowded. No unused cubic inch. The Wall was GONE, totally razed; all that is left are the lights, and a bike path. All de- land mined and stuff. I have a video tape of my kids playing where they would have been machine-gunned two years ago. The border is the only place I have ever felt that is like Mordor from Tolkien, totally evil. Drove through Austria and back to Zurich (flew SwissAir to avoid a Hussein present) in IFR conditions; 20 feet visibility. What Alps? Anyway. The Eastern European countries have little hard cash and little to generate any; they buy Ataris because they are inexpensive. Atari is busy at this moment setting up distribution there. Soviet Union is very slow due to bureaucracy (big surprise there). But as the lessons of capitalism sink in, I think the countries will take off; Germany did after being totally levelled in 1945. The TT is very big there; already there are many VME products for it and others being developed. The Sys V was running VME Ethernet from a server of sorts. It worked, although I could make it groan a bit if I tried (but so?). I think the TT will go okay in Europe, maybe not be a killer, but do ok. In the US, I have no "feel" at all, especially after the price drops. Learned a lot about the distribution system there. Typically a holding company owns both a magazine and a software firm, and you can imagine what happens to reviews of the software and any competition. There are several biggies, and they love the word "exclusive". I don't sign anything with the word "exclusive" in it, so that wasn't love at first sight, but we reached an understanding. Accelerator boards are just settling in in Germany, and the added 8 Megs of memory was quite a popular thing; you could tell by the twinkle in their eyes. Pointing out the timing charts showing that D-Ram outperformed cache systems in set cases really made my day; there's too much popular belief that caches speed things up, when that is not necessarily true. The HyperCache/030 is one example. Welp, I'm rambling -- still not unlagged yet, grin! -- so I'll sign off. Night all. _____________________________________________________________ > BLACKJACK! STR InfoFile™ "REALISTIC CASINO PLAY" ======================= ** ** ** ** ** ** ** PRESS RELEASE ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ================================================================= "BLACKJACK PLUS 3" by MUSICODE SOFTWARE ================================================================= A UNIQUE NEW PRODUCT FOR ATARI ST USERS! Realistic casino play, plus 3 additional play modes using program- mable strategies. More than just another game, BLACKJACK PLUS 3 can show you why you have lost in the past and teach you how to WIN in the future! Both new and experienced players will find this program equally valuable. Play with one to seven players. Play with one to nine decks; you may specify the deck dealing depth (when to shuffle). Adjustable playing speed. Card totals for each hand may be displayed. Set casino rules. Play and enjoy, alone or with friends, using the mouse, keyboard or joys- ticks! All aspects of the game of blackjack are supported. You always have the option to: Double Down, Split, Double after Split, take Insurance (when the dealer has an ace up) or Surrender your hand. You will lower or eliminate the casino's odds by practicing the game. See why you have lost, and how to win next time! Set up and try any playing, betting or counting strategy. All strategies and program settings may be saved to disk. Each player may be individually set to one of four playing modes: MANUAL - you play the game, just like in the casino AUTO - play is automatic, according to chosen strategy FEEDBACK - play manually, you are informed of mistakes in play BACKGROUND - test strategies quickly (100 hands in 8 seconds) Practice different strategies to see how to improve your game. A log may be kept which shows all play action for every hand! Statistics are tallied for each session and may be displayed on the screen. The log and statistics may be printed for evaluation. BLACKJACK IS ALWAYS FUN TO PLAY, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOU WIN! Check out the self-executing demo in Library #10 (DEMOS): # 18758 BJP3DEMO Ask your dealer to order it for you, or contact: MUSICODE SOFTWARE 5575 Baltimore Drive Suite 105-127 La Mesa, CA 91942 (619) 469-7194 RETAIL PRICE: $89.95 ****************************************************************** > The Flip Side STR Feature™ "....a different viewpoint" ========================= A LITTLE OF THIS, A LITTLE OF THAT ================================== by Michael Lee Recently there has been some controversy on Genie concerning whether posts in the ST Roundtable are copyrighted, whether they can be re- printed without the posters and Genie's permission and whether they have to be printed in full or can be edited. I have always felt the purpose of this column was to spread needed information to the whole ST community and not get involved in any controversies but in this case, I feel I and my column have become involved, if only indirectly. As I've stated before, when necessary, I do edit posts for clarity and brevity and do not always print them in their entirety. Since I am on all three major networks and capture hundreds of posts, (of which, only about one in ten are used), working many times until the last minute, it is impractical for me to get in contact with each network asking permission to use each post, let alone each individual who posted a message. I feel until this issue has been clarified, I will not be able to include any posts from the ST Roundtable on Genie in my column unless I have time to get permission from the person who posted it. I hope this situation can be resolved and will allow me to continue as before, as I feel there is good information from all three networks for our readers. RE-PRINTING OF GENIE MATERIAL (Revised September, 1990) RE-PRINTING REQUIRES PERMISSION: Individuals wishing to reprint articles, bulletin board topic dis- cussions, or other information on the GEnie service may make a request to the GE Mail address: GENIE. We will review the request and forward it to the appropriate information provider for action. No material found on GEnie is to be re-printed without the express written permission of GE management. Re-printing is intended to be a community service to civic & non-profit organizations for infrequent and special situations. We reserve the right to cancel such re-prints at any time. Such requests should specify the specific material to be re-printed, the intended purpose of the re-printed material, and the media, circulation and duration of the re-print. PRESS ARTICLES OR EXCERPTS ARE ALLOWED: Press articles may include excerpts to highlight examples of the GEnie service. However, Press articles including such excerpts should be cleared through GEIS' Press Relations Manager (using the GE Mail address: STEVEPR) before the article is published. EDITOR'S NOTE: In the interests of fairness, the matter of the rules and guidelines for GEnie has been resolved, the list of rules appears elsewhere in this issue. STReport feels the new rules and guidelines are fair and unencum- bering. ----------------- Question from Bob Britton on CIS... Can anyone tell me if it's possible and how I can transfer data files from an Atari St floppy disk to an MS/DOS machine? Answer from Pat Augustine on CIS... It's EASY, if the DOS machine has a 3 1/2 inch drive. The ST and MS- DOS use the same 3.5" drive format (720K). ST's prior to TOS 1.4 don't write an MS-DOS compatible boot sector, but that's no problem. Either format on the IBM (which the ST will have no trouble reading), or use a utility (like DC Format) that writes a DOS boot sector. Then treat it like a normal ST disk. Copy files to it like normal. The DOS machine should have no trouble with reading them back. ---------------- A similar question from Cavit Alev on CIS... I'm an IBM'er with no Atari experience, so please excuse my ignorance: I need to obtain text for a newsletter from a writer who does the writing on an Atari 520ST, in Wordwriter. I would rather not re-type all the text from printed output; modem connection is out because the writer is a beginner, so I need to get her to put the text on a disk that I can read on a PC...Could anyone here please spell out the steps required for me so I can forward it to her. All I need is text, no formatting. Remember, I'm an IBM'er and she is a real beginner. So don't skip any steps 'cause we sure won't figure them out. Answer from Hal Dougherty on CIS... The quickest way to move ST files to an IBM disk is to format the disk on your IBM. If you have a 1.44 meg drive just use the command. format a: /t:80 /n:9 It works even if you only have a normal density 720K drive. The format switches select 80 tracks and 9 sectors per track. The ST will read and write to this disk just fine. Just have your friend save the file as ascii text and you can import the text into almost all the IBM word processors. Good luck transferring the files. I use my ST to transfer files to the pc at work all the time. There are other solutions... ---------------- Some posts (compiled) from Delphi concerning experiences with hard drives, backing them up and the DVT hard drive VHS tape backup system From BLACKICE (Matt) ...I had a hard drive mishap a while back...and after my backup utility (Flashbak) failed to restore [my backup disks] I ordered a new backup system and went into morning for my loss. With DLII I was able to recover all my files, but now I have to go back and try to figure out what they are, since DLII only gives the files numbers and not names. But at least I didn't completely lose two years of animation and pictures thanks to that program. ...the reason for this post is that I ordered DVT, the hard drive VHS tape backup utility and I would now like to sing its praises. At a cost of only $109 delivered it was fairly reasonable. I backed up and restored my drive three times with the DVT and it worked flawlessly every time, no matter whether I was backing up the entire hard drive or just single programs. I even copied the VHS tape to another tape with the VCR and used the copy to restore with no problems...I'd have to say that to date (2 weeks) the restores have been very reliable...The one and only big disadvantage of this program is time. It took me about two hours to back up a 40 meg (full) drive. Of course the advantage is no floppy frisbee and you can back it up unattended. ...All in all I think this is a really nice backup system for the money and would recommend it to everyone. Speaking from experience, do not wait to get a backup utility (any brand), it's like playing Russian roulette by yourself with no prizes. Comment from COSTERD3... I hate to say it, but I am under the impression that restores are a bit, umm, "Dicey", or unreliable. Don't hold me to this, but I think I heard something along these lines. Comment from Norm Weirness.. I think it depends how you do the backup. Matt likes the DVT, but I've heard that they are unreliable. I have a tape cartridge backup system made from "common clay", i.e, a standard SCSI tape cartridge mechanism hung on my ICD host adapter with the hard drives. The only tricky part is the software...I understand that Berkeley Systems, the ones that make host adapters, sells such software, separately. ---------------- Comments (compiled) about the new AIM color covers done by Lee Seilor and the programming team at Lexicor Software by Ron Luks (Sysop) on CIS... I just got the new issue [of AIM] in the mail today, and congrats are in order. The magazine just gets better and better each month and the cover artwork is superb...The cover artwork on the magazine has been way above average for a while, but lately it's been superb. I think this one by Lee Seilor is one of the best I've seen...[By the way], I don't mean to withhold any credit from Lee's programming team, but Lee still has to accept the credit for a wonderful artistic touch! Comments from Pat Augustine on CIS... Are you SURE that cover was done on a computer? That's amazing, no jaggies, no computer artifacts at all. Very nice work, Lee. Reply from Lee Seilor (Lexicor Software) on Cis... Thanks for the compliment, but all the credit goes to Dave Ramsden, Robert Birmingham and Paul Dana. Without their many hours of work and dedication to detail, I would never had the tools to do the artwork ...the cover was done using one of our new highres, 24-bit boards and programs. Coming to an ATARI screen near you soon. Reply from Pattie Rayl (Atari Interface Magazine) on CIS... Thanks Ron! That's high compliments coming from you! Lee did a really nice job on the artwork, all we did was give it to a graphics place to have it color separated, then give those seps to our printer! So Lee deserves the credit on this cover! PS-- The April issue will also feature Artwork from Lee...more along the lines of a cartoon graphic this time! ---------------- Question from Ted Cain on CIS... I would like to know if there is an emulator for the Atari ST that will run Prodigy and if so, what sort of hardware is required. Answer from Hal Dougherty on CIS... Prodigy will run with the Spectre Mac emulator [GCR from Gadgets by Small]. I use it [Prodigy] at work with an IBM 386. I thought the Mac version was a lot slower than the IBM version, but it's only because the screens are graphic and not text. The IBM version runs about the same speed in high res VGE color. Low res has some advantages. ---------------- Question from Willie Pelzer on CIS... Can anyone give me ANY info, good or bad, on the Maxtor LXT100 SCSI hard drive? Answer from Jay Craswell on CIS... An opinion. Maxtor made some really fine high density drives. We had some at CPT corp and they were the biggest/best gadgets. Expensive as I recall. Answer from Jeff Lamb on CIS... I'm using a Maxtor LXT50S, and am very pleased with it!! At work, we just bought a Maxtor LXT200S. That is the best 200 MB drive I've ever seen! It is extremely fast, quiet (you can't even hear it), and seems to be very reliable. I wouldn't hesitate getting another Maxtor. I chose the Maxtor LXT50S because it costs less than half of the LXT100S. Also, it is a little bit faster on the access time. The transfer rate I'm getting out of the 50 is about 300 MB/S. We're getting more than a Meg/Sec out of the LXT200S. That might be because it's running on a 386-25 with a high performance Adaptec host adapter. ---------------- Question from Brian Campbell on CIS... Has anyone out there used Notator/Creator 2.2 with TOS 1.4? After the upgrade, I noticed a few quirks in the system, like I can no longer double-click on a track to name it, and I can't put a name on an unrecorded track using the [esc] key. Answer from John (ST Informer) on CIS... ...I'm using Notator 2.2 with TOS 1.4, and don't have the problems you mentioned. Notator does seem pretty sensitive to AUTO folder programs - do you have anything in your AUTO folder that might be causing conflicts? I know weird stuff happens when I run TurboST at the same time - the screen doesn't always get redrawn when it should. I'm running on 4 meg - if you're only running on one meg, you might try booting Notator out of Creator, and see if memory might be the problem. ---------------- Until next week..... ______________________________________________________________ > CENSORSHIP STR FOCUS™ IS THE PRACTICE WORTH THE PRICE? ==================== CENSORSHIP, A TOOL OF TYRANNY ============================= by R.F. Mariano Webster's defines censorship as: the institution or practice of cen- soring. The actual definition of censor is: As a Noun; a person empowered to suppress publications or excise any matter in them thought to be immoral, seditious or otherwise undesirable. Military definition; An official who examines letters, papers etc.. to make sure they contain nothing that could interest the enemy. Sub applications; any of various officials in British Universities. Any person who supervises the morals and conduct of others. Freudian; the psychological mechanism which prevents distasteful unconscious ideas and memories from coming into the consciousness. Roman History; one of two magistrates charged with taking the census of citizens, regulating taxation and controlling public behavior. The act of v.t.; to examine (letters, literature etc..) in the capa- city of a censor || to delete (judged offensive material) from these or ban (a work). Critical faultfinding. There is no doubt, that when the power of censorship is in the wrong hands it soon becomes a tool of absolute and complete tyranny. It is the very same thing as forcible silencing of an individual. The ultimate outcome realized in every case of proven censorship has been the utter and devastating downfall of those not only practicing censorship but also those advocating and/or justifying its use. When censorship is employed, a red flag of warning immediately is raised. This flag warns of the hiding of information, the deliberate removal of information from the public eye and the ultimate suppression of all views except those of the censors and their supporters. In the fast moving electronic information age, the word censor and its implementation is perceived (in most circles) as an invitation to disas- ter. Last week, many folks, myself included felt censorship was in full bloom when STReport issue 7.13 was held back from release to the users. It was more a case of "extreme" caution being excercised because a sysop felt something 'questionable' was possibly contained in that particular issue. Unfortunately, the sysop who makes the decisions was truly 'out of pocket' for a few days... thus unable to assess the matter in a timely fashion. Ultimately, the problem was detailed as being two messages that were partially displayed (excerpts used) and comments presented concerning the displayed messages. The outcome was that as soon as the sysop was able to completely review the matter, the file was made available. Below, we present the article in question; REPRINTED from STReport 7.13 verbatim: CONDEMNED? STR Spotlight "We've been somewhat premature!" ======================== ALL THINGS MUST BE CONSIDERED! ============================== by R. F. Mariano Recently, a situation has developed that deserves our sincere and unbiased attention. The reason this matter deserves the attention of the users is because it depicts a very typical problem in our small, but highly communicative computing community. It appears that a young man, Anthony Hall age 27, a new and upcoming developer, decided to announce an exciting new desktop accessory. Below, we present for all to see the exact announcement of this new program. ============== CalAssistant ============== THE ONLINE HELP ACCESSORY FOR CALAMUS DTP SOFTWARE o Help is just a mouse click away! o The first online help companion for Calamus DTP software. CalAssis- tant is an accessory program that runs on top of Calamus. o Using efficient code management and overlay swapping, memory re- quirement is kept at 90K maximum. o This program uses text, icons and pictures to illustrate, explain and give tips for commands and functions step by step. Since the Calamus interface is very icon oriented, the "Help Messages" func- tion under the "Extras" menu is used to navigate the user online. o Complete page referencing to the Calamus manual is included. o CalAssistant user interface is taken from the tear off menu design used on the Amiga, TT and MAC computers. o CalAssistant can be called from the accessory menu at any time while using Calamus, but we recommend 2 megs of RAM to do this. o A hard drive is needed in order for the software to function at full speed; otherwise, it is not required. o The software supports monochrome mode only. o CalAssistant is to Calamus, as MicroSoft Word 5.0 online help scr- eens are to MS Word 5.0, but ours is better, much like HyperText in concept. o Oh, you also get a beautiful printed manual created entirely with Calamus. The package will be shipped with CalAssistant online help accessory, in addition to tutorial CDK files, utilities and fonts. CalAssistant is now available at a suggested retail price of $34.95. Mail Check or Money Order Only To: Contact: Spar Systems 381 Autumn Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11208 (718) 235-3169 As a result of this announcement, both STReport and Z*Net were men- tioned in a "less than positive" manner. "Now I could stop here but I have another comment about this entire issue in that thanks to ST Report and Z-NET, the entire communications network is aware of this product to some extent and who do you think will be asked about whether it is a good product or not?" excerpt from message 112, Cat 16, topic 2 posted on 03/25/91 @ 17:03 EST by ISD [Nathan] "Sounds like the guys at Z-Net and ST-Report may have jumped the gun a little in publicising a product that may very well be of a question- able nature." excerpt from message 127, Cat 16, topic 2 posted on 03/26/91 @ 07:47 EST by S.WINICK STReport & Z*Net are, indirectly, being urged to gain some type of approval from some "higher authority" or in fact, are actually being encouraged to allow some ridiculous type of censorship of their publicati- ons. This, I assure you, simply will not ever happen. Knowing Nathan of ISD as I do, I am certain this is not what he in- tended or even remotely alluded to. I do feel however, that the entire situation was in its extreme premature stages and the questions of validity and/or legality should've never been brought up or made public until such time as all the facts were known and verified. To further shed light on this matter, STReport contacted Mr. Hall and asked about obtaining the program and docs, he in turn consented to sen- ding STReport a copy of the program for review. STReport is sending a copy of the program and our findings to Z*Net for further evaluation and opinion. At the same time, STR inquired about the serial number of the version of Calamus that was being used by himself and his assistant in facilitating the interface of CalAssistant and of course, Calamus. The number he gave is: 300524. Presumably, the outcome will be another fine software offering for the ST community to enjoy. And as an added benefit, a greater number of Calamus programs will be sold as a result of this helper program. Now to the real "meat" of the subject. Far too long we have stood idlely by while observing obvious "overreactions" to different happenings and comments made in passing on the electronic services and in the ST community in general. To condemn Hall's program to obscurity or Hall himself is an outrage. When this occurs, every precept of the Constitu- tion of this country is cast aside. Anthony Hall should not and must not be accused, tried, convicted and punished of anything without irrefutable proof of wrong doing. Although all the "accusations were implied, they were still accusations that were unproven and actually only assumptions at best. Yet, we find there are now those who are ever so quick to jump up to "condemn and punish." Nathan: "Well...... from what you said about Spar Systems, it's not likely that their software will be gracing the shelves at Computer STudio anytime soon alongside Calamus, Outline Art, Font Editor, etc.! Of course, there's always the remote possibility that this guy just didn't bother to send in his registration card and is paranoid by nature. But that doesn't sound like the kind of developer whose software I would want to purchase either. And I definitely couldn't recommend such a product to my customers under these circumstances." excerpt from message 127, Cat 16, topic 2 posted on 03/26/91 @ 07:47 EST by S.WINICK Mr. Winick has stated his impressions and it seems like denying access to the program for his customers and thus is punishing both Anthony Hall and his (Winick's) clientele is the order of the day. Certainly, this is not the right thing to do. The bottom line is simple, if the program meets the necessary criteria, then the decision should be up to the users regarding its acceptance in the ST community. Never, ever should a retail outlet practice selective marketing unless, of course, the product is a poor seller. _________________________________________________________ Now, for further clarification. We present the entire messages the ex- cerpts were obtained from. Category 16, Topic 2 Message 112 Mon Mar 25, 1991 ISD [Nathan] at 17:03 EST I'll give you some information Ringo and I am glad you asked.... Spar Systems and the product they sell, was news to me as of last Friday when their advertisement appeared in ST Report and Z Net. I did some checking, being naturally curious about anything having to do with Cal- amus and discovered that none of my people had ever heard of this company or product. Hmmm, this is strange. Then I learned the name of the contact person at this company, Anthony Hall, and checked the registration cards.- ..nope, not a registered owner of Calamus. Hmmm, stranger still. After all, usually anyone does anything for Calamus they actively seek out my assistance and help, or even just a good word about their product. I had never encountered a circumstance before where someone had done something Calamus related and didn't even bother to let me know about it. So I called the number indicated in the ST Report advertisement and ZNet press release. And I'm still trying to figure out what happened from there. Basically, the end result is that Anthony flatly refused to send me a package. He spent almost the entire conversation telling me in no uncer- tain terms that he was not in violation of anything or infringing on any copyrights. He was telling me this as soon as I said my name. I told him I had no idea if he was doing anything wrong or illegal. I was just natural- ly curious about any new Calamus product and would like to see it. And listened to another long paragraph or two on how he wasn't doing anything illegal. Like I said, bottom line is that he refused to send me his produ- ct. I'm still scratching my head in puzzlement wondering where this person is coming from. At this point, what conclusion would you draw? Somehow the conclusion that I arrive at, is when I finally happen to come across this package someplace, I'm going to get real upset with the con- tents. What do you think? Now I could stop here but I have another comment about this entire issue in that thanks to ST Report and Z-NET, the entire communications network is aware of this product to some extent and who do you think will be asked about whether it is a good product or not? As I said, ST Report just ran an advertisement. Z-Net's was more like a press release. And what am I supposed to do now? I read the ad after it was brought to my attention and was mostly curious about a new product relating to Calamus that might have been of some use, that I had never heard of. After the telephone call, I suspect my thoughts have taken a different direction. (sigh) Like I have nothing more important to worry about. I think I'll get back to work now, and concentrate on selling and promo- ting the Calamus Desktop Publishing solution to the best of my ability, as usual. ------------ Category 16, Topic 2 Message 127 Tue Mar 26, 1991 S.WINICK at 07:47 EST Nathan: Well...... from what you said about Spar Systems, it's not likely that their software will be gracing the shelves at Computer STudio anytime soon alongside Calamus, Outline Art, Font Editor, etc.! Of course, there's always the remote possibility that this guy just didn't bother to send in his registration card and is paranoid by nature. But that doesn't sound like the kind of developer whose software I would want to purchase either. And I definitely couldn't recommend such a product to my customers under these circumstances. Keep us informed as this develops further. Sounds like the guys at Z-Net and ST-Report may have jumped the gun a little in publicising a product that may very well be of a questionable nature. Given the attitute that many Atarians have that they MUST have the newest and greatest things immediately, its unfortunate that this guy received any coverage at all before anyone actually even saw his product and all the facts were known. Regards, Sheldon (Computer STudio) ------------ To all our readers, at STReport, we try diligently to ensure that if portions of a message are presented, they must be presented with none of the original 'flavor' or 'intent' of the original message not apparent. In this particular case we feel we did the posters of the messages a positive service. For example, the first message (#112) carries a number of statements that could very possibly be vague accusations of any number of acts of wrongdoing. While I have the utmost respect for the poster of this message, it must be made painfully obvious that the object (Spar Systems) of these posts was wrongfully taken to task and done so primarily through assumption and supposition. In the United States of America an individual is innocent until PROVEN guilty. The first paragraph, points to the possibility that Spar used an "un- registered" copy of Calamus. Why should this have been mentioned at all? To make a point? What point? That Spar systems didn't register a copy of Calamus, didn't have a stamp? Or was this an effort to discredit Spar Systems? Also, its mentioned that, Spar Systems didn't seek out either the help or assistance of the author of the message. We say.... So what! What's the big deal? Its still a free country if Mr. Hall and Spar ele- cted to develop the program independently then more power to them for having the gumption to do so without seeking out a crutch. The second paragraph gets even better! A private telephone conversa- tion was publicized in such a way as to induce the reader of the public message into drawing a derogatory conclusion concerning the content of the phone conversation. In fact, such a conclusion is made by the author in the third paragraph. Then to add icing to the cake, in the fourth paragraph the two online magazines are taken to task for having made mention of this new product and its author. We already addressed the heat thrown at the online magaz- ines in last week's article presented above. Elsewhere in this issue is our first impressions of this product and its usability. Then comes Mr. Winick's (milk of humanity) message...... it speaks for itself. ______________________ As a result of this matter coming to a head, the head sysop of the ST RT & GEnie have brought forth a set of guidelines by which all magazines either hard copy and/or electronic, wishing to reprint public messages, are expected to abide by. For the record, STReport feels that the resolution of this matter has brought about a positive conclusion to a previously clouded issue. 1. Prior permission to reprint partial messages must be obtained from the author of said message, and with the knowledge of the RT Staff. 2. All requests and approvals must be done in GE-mail. 3. The RT staff will copy or forward requests and approvals/rejections to each of the message authors involved. 4. At all times the GEnie signup information must be included in the magazine or newsletter as well as the source of the material whenever anything is duplicated. 5. At all times it must be noted where the information came from as in the name of our service and the category, topic and message number. 6. Anyone posting in the Roundtable may request in GEmail or a designated topic in Category one that NONE of their messages will ever be repri nted in whole or in part. 7. Messages may be taken in their entirety without express permission of the author, GEnie or the Roundtable Staff unless stated by the author that NONE of his messages may be duplicated ever. To do such, you must post your request in Category 1, Topic 12 and in GEmail. This topic will remain closed. If you wish to discuss any or part of this, feel free to create a topic in Category 18. Just type SET 18 then type STA <-- You can then follow the prompts. =END= _______________________________________________________ > STR Portfolio News & Information™ Keeping up to date... ================================ THE ATARI PORTFOLIO FORUM ========================= On CompuServe by Walter Daniel 75066,164 Did you know that over 250,000 Portfolios have been sold worldwide as of January 1991? With numbers like that, more developers should be get- ting interested in the machine. BJ Gleason, Portfolio programmer extraordinaire, is looking for your wish list of Portfolio software. Send your ideas to him at 73337,2011 and you might find your dream program in the New Uploads library one day. My personal wish is for a mathematics program so my Portfolio can replace my scientific calculator. Palmtops, including the Portfolio, are popular with Macintosh users (including me, for example). There has been so much PALMTOP activity in the Macintosh System Forum that the sysops there have opened message section 16 and library 16 as "PALMTOPS & MACS." Remember that message area 10 and library 10 in the ATARI PORTFOLIO FORUM are dedicated to the "Mac-to-PORTFOLIO" topic. Here's a bit more information on John Feagans' software for the Portf- olio to use a Tandy Portable Disk Drive 2 (PDD2). The drive communicates at 19.2 kbaud, so it should back up a 128 k RAM card in just over one minute. Over in the Model 100 Forum (M100SIG), there are programs to connect a PDD2 to both Atari ST and MS-DOS computers (how about Macs?). Keep in mind that the PDD2 uses a special format that is NOT MS-DOS com- patible. Still, 200 k of storage on each floppy is much cheaper than buying another 128 k RAM card. John's utilities will read, write, and rename files and read a directory of files on a floppy. Send orders and questions to John Feagans, 2681 N. Rodeo Gulch Rd., Soquel, CA 95073. California residents must add the dreaded 7% sales tax. Most of the files uploaded this week were utilities. CHKCRD.COM is a small program for use in batch files that will check if a memory card is in drive A. TRS.ZIP is a time recording system for tracking hours on different work items. GSTOUT.ARC contains both PBASIC and EXE versions of a program to calculate the very confusing new GST taxes in Canada. (While I play ice hockey, enjoy Molson, and say "eh" a lot, I'm glad I don't have to deal with GST!) ___________________________________________________________ > CalAssistant! STR Review™ "The Online HELP Accessory" ======================== CALASSISTANT ============ By: Derrick Anthony Hall from: Spar Systems by Ralph F. Mariano Before I get into the overview itself, I'd like to point out that on the second page of the very nicely done manual are the "Product Copyright and Trademark Notices giving full acknowledgment and credits to all men- tioned. By all indications, every requirement has been met in the lega- lese found in every manual accompanying software. Very Professional indeed. You may ask why did I go into that? Well, since the author of CalAs- sistant is relatively new to that Atari arena and was without a doubt, given a rather "unfriendly" welcome (to say the least), I am am going to try to be overly meticulous. In all fairness to him and Spar Systems, we are covering as much of the nits that were picked in the last ten days concerning this matter. Calamus is a very powerful and complex DTP program. Its many features and powerful abilities will unfold only to those who spend the required time to learn. Beyond a shadow of a doubt, a user who is ready to learn, is equipped with CalAssistant installed, Calamus and the Calamus manual will become veritable mavins in no time at all. The manner in which this new program guides, teaches and induces the use of the Calamus manual as a learning tool is marvelous. There is no doubt that a great deal of plan- ning and effort went into the creation of CalAssistant. The Design of CalAssistant provides an extremely friendly user inter- face where the user is able to fully employ its fine features almost immediately. CalAssistant uses the the "Help Messages" menu function from the "Extras" menu to navigate the user while online. When one passes the mouse pointer over an icon, the actual function or command will be visible at the top right of the screen (menu bar right). The user then employs this message to move about in the main and sub-menus of CalAssistant. CalAssistant is very efficient with memory because of its built-in overlay code. It occupies 90k of ram when loaded. At this time only the monochrome mode is supported. This is expected to change with the new releases planned that will work in all the TT resolutions and with Calamus SL. Installation is simple, I placed the pertinent files in a new folder created in the same partition and folder as Calamus. I then placed the .ACC program and its files in the area I use for all my desktop acces- sories. After that I ran a program called path.prg. When you boot up path.prg, you'll be greeted with a dialog box, within this dialog box are various buttons which are used to configure CalAssis- tant's path names. All very easy....... A few examples of the excellent help screens presented to the user: Extras Menu Save Settings Used to save all settings made within the "Set Path", "Miscellaneous Settings" and "Scan" dialog boxes under the "Extras" menu. To use: Select menu function to save path information to the Calamus "CALAMUS.SET" filename. Refer to page XVI-6 in the Calamus manual. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Font menu Menu Box Skip backwards Go to selected font Skip forward Font Text color 1 Text color 2 Used to select installed fonts. All fonts loaded with the "Load Fonts" command from the "Extras" menu will be shown here. Only one font name can be selected at a time within this menu box. You can scroll installed fonts using the three arrow icons above. Font color is set by selecting the color(black or white) icons at bottom. Fonts changes in text frame will only update if the "Restyle text" icon is selected while text frame or block is highlighted. See the "Font Size & Style" menu box in the "Text" module. To use: Click on the font name. Refer to pages IX-22, IX-23 in the Calamus manual. In closing, I reiterate, there is no way this program could be con- strued to be anything but a compliment to both Calamus and the Atari users. It is well written and is an absolute bonus to every Calamus owner. The experienced Calamus owner will now have the tools to 'exper- tly' teach the finer points of Calamus to "newfies" with ease. The NEW Calamus owner will find this program an indispensible aid in learning to use Calamus to the umpteenth degree. Its almost like having a teacher standing there waiting to help you over the rough spots. My reccommendation is to make every effort to obtain this program ASAP as it will make your Calamus DTP activites so much better. For more great news, Spar Systems is also preparing to release a help system for Pagestream too. Its a pleasure to welcome and support a new developer in the Atari arena. The package is shipped with CalAssistant online help accessory, in addition to tutorial CDK files, utilities and fonts. CalAssistant is now available at a suggested retail price of $34.95. Mail Check or Money Order To: Contact: Spar Systems 381 Autumn Avenue Brooklyn, NY 11208 (718) 235-3169 ____________________________________________________ > CODEHEAD NEWS!!! STR InfoFile™ "Great Deals from the "Good Guys" ============================= ***************************************************************** * * * Once Again... * * * * CodeHead Software Announces MaxiFile 3.0 - The SuperTool! * * --------------------------------------------------------- * * * * EVEN MORE POWER - EVEN LESS WAITING - EVEN SHIPPING!! * * * ***************************************************************** Dateline: Friday, March 29, 1991 --------------------------------- EXTRA, EXTRA, READ ALL ABOUT IT... CODEHEAD PROGRAMMER GOES BERSERK, CAN'T BE STOPPED! After weeks of resisting attempts to put an end to further enhancements to MaxiFile, Charles F. Johnson has finally been brought under control. It looks like the worst part of the siege is over. His source code has been seized and is being held in abeyance in order to complete the release of this long-awaited product. Mr. Johnson himself is currently in quarantine where he is being examined for possible damage to his overworked neural center and digital extremities. Further reports on his condition will follow as they become available. CodeHeadQuarters ---------------- A short time ago we announced the release of MaxiFile 3.0. Due to circumstances beyond our control, MaxiFile's release has been postponed by run-away feature-itis. Since our last report, MaxiFile has undergone even more major changes: *------------------------------------------------* | | | Announcing the feature most often requested... | | | | ERGO-DUO-BIOPTIC DISPLAY MODE!!! | | | | or, Simultaneous display of | | source and destination directories! | | | *------------------------------------------------* The new dual display mode now features two side-by-side listings showing filename, size, and date. Unique scroll bars appear between the listings allowing you to easily scroll either listing by using standard window gadgets and sliders. Special arrow buttons provide simultaneous scrolling of both lists at the same time. Keyboard equivalents give you complete control of scrolling, paging, selecting, and "starting" of files without even using the mouse. This allows you to do such things as run programs or start documents even from the destination directory. The Ergo-Duo-Bioptic Display Mode is such a major addition to MaxiFile that it's impossible for us to describe all of its usefulness in this document. You'll have to see it and use it to believe it! The following features were also added since our last notice: o New GRAPHIC DISPLAY of disk space including "thermometer bar" of space used, total bytes available, bytes used, bytes free, percentage used, and percentage free for each available drive as well as totals for all drives selected. Includes keyboard equivalents for all operations. This feature is GREAT, and FAST, too! o Directory listings can be output to printer or a file on disk. o Any printing operation may now be sent to the serial port. Here's a brief synopsis of some of the new features of MaxiFile 3.0 that were mentioned in our previous press release: o New ICONS for all main screen functions. o HUNDREDS of NEW KEYBOARD COMMANDS provide full operation with either mouse or keyboard, including selecting and opening files and folders and full keyboard control of ALL dialog boxes! o Greatly enhanced FILE VIEWING provides very FAST SCROLLING forward AND backward through a file complete with forward/backward searching, configurable tab settings, help screen, and optional half-height text (in hi-res modes). o Speedy "Safe Deposit" RECOVERABLE DELETE function insures against accidental erasure of files -- and Maxifile does it LEGALLY, without messing around with direct disk access. Keep your files AND your file structure safe! o An AWESOME SEARCH FUNCTION has been added -- version 3.0 lets you use MaxiFile's unique 'FILTERS' in a search, allowing you to find FILES AND/OR FOLDERS with multiple masks and extensions, or even search according to archive bit and time/date stamp! MaxiFile maintains a list of the last 20 "matches" and lets you instantly jump to a directory, selecting EITHER all files that match the filter settings, or just the one file you select! o WILD CARD RENAME function lets you rename all files with a given extension to another extension, in ONE action. o New HELP SCREEN shows keyboard equivalents for the main screen and 'More' box. Other keyboard commands are displayed in their respective dialog boxes. o Full COMPATIBILITY with all Atari computers in all resolutions, including the Atari TT. o TRUE MS-DOS DISK FORMATTING creates disks compatible with any PC system, including those that are particularly floppy-fussy. o Disk formatting starts at end of disk to help RECOVER FROM ACCIDENTAL FORMATTING of the wrong disk. o File/Folder Info Boxes have 'Previous' and 'Next' buttons (and key commands), allowing you to easily browse the details of all files and folders. See our previous press releases for a general listing of all the features MaxiFile has always had. HOW TO ORDER OR UPDATE YOUR OWN COPY OF MAXIFILE ------------------------------------------------ MaxiFile can purchased and used separately, or you can enjoy its increased power when linked up with HotWire by purchasing HotWire and MaxiFile packaged together as HotWire Plus, AND save yourself $15 at the same time. As a current owner of MaxiFile, you can obtain an update by sending your original MaxiFile master disk and $10 to the address listed below. Suggested retail price for MaxiFile 3.0 is $39.95, or you can get HotWire Plus - - HotWire packaged together with MaxiFile -- for $69.95, a savings of $15. CodeHead Products are available from your local Atari dealer, through mail-order houses, or directly from CodeHead Software: CodeHeadQuarters Friday, April 5, 1991 --------------------- WE BLEW IT !!! AND YOU SAVE !!! ...BUT YOU MUST ACT FAST !!! The CodeHeads have no one to blame but themselves. They couldn't just release a normal update to MaxiFile worth $10. Noooo...they had to keep adding this and that nifty gadget and inventing new features that just couldn't be left out until MaxiFile was transformed into a JEWEL worth far more than they're charging. As it turns out, the printed addendum to MaxiFile is almost equal in size and content to the original MaxiFile manual. Unfortunately, the CodeHeads can't afford to continue offering upgrades to MaxiFile including the addendum for the advertised price of $10. On May 1st, the price for the MaxiFile 3.0 upgrade will be increased to $15 including the addendum manual. At that time, the purchase price for MaxiFile will also be increased to $44.95. HOWEVER ... our loss is your gain! Those who have already ordered their MaxiFile update and those whose orders are placed (or postmarked) before May 1st will still pay only $10 for the upgrade, or $39.95 for the full package! So hurry -- send back your MaxiFile disk today for upgrading (see below) and you'll receive the complete MaxiFile upgrade package, including the printed manual addendum, and save yourself $5.00 at the same time! See our previous press releases for an impressive listing of all of MaxiFile's features. HOW TO ORDER OR UPDATE YOUR OWN COPY OF MAXIFILE ------------------------------------------------ MaxiFile can purchased and used separately, or you can enjoy its increased power when linked up with HotWire by purchasing HotWire and MaxiFile packaged together as HotWire Plus, AND save yourself $15-20 at the same time. As a current owner of MaxiFile, you can obtain an update by sending your original MaxiFile master disk and the update fee to the address listed below. Product Before May 1st After May 1st ================================================ MaxiFile Update $10.00 $15.00 MaxiFile 3.0 $39.95 $44.95 HotWire $44.95 $44.95 HotWire Plus $69.95 $69.95 CodeHead Products are available from your local Atari dealer, through mail-order houses, or directly from CodeHead Software: CodeHead Software P.O. Box 74090 Los Angeles, CA 90004 Phone: (213) 386-5735 FAX: (213) 386-5789 BBS: (213) 461-2095 CodeHead Software accepts Mastercard, Visa, and American Express, as well as checks, money orders, and cash. Shipping charges are $3 US, $4 Canada, and $6 elsewhere. The is no shipping charge for updates. Current office hours are Monday-Friday 9A-1P Pacific time. Prices and hours are subject to change without notice. Thank you for your support! _________________________________________________________ > Hard Disks STR InfoFile™ TAX TIME SPECIAL OFFERINGS!.... ======================= NEW LOW PRICES! & MORE MODELS!! =============================== >> INCOME TAX REFUND SPECIALS << ** EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY! ** ABCO COMPUTER ELECTRONICS INC. P.O. Box 6672 Jacksonville, Florida 32236-6672 Est. 1985 _________________________________________ Voice: 904-783-3319 10 AM - 4 PM EDT BBS: 904-786-4176 12-24-96 HST FAX: 904-783-3319 12 PM - 6 AM EDT _________________________________________ HARD DISK SYSTEMS TO FIT EVERY BUDGET _____________________________________ All systems are complete and ready to use, included at NO EXTRA COST are clock/calendar and cooling blower(s). *-ALL ABCO HARD DISK SYSTEMS ARE FULLY EXPANDABLE-* (you are NOT limited to two drives ONLY!) (all cables and connectors installed) * ICD HOST ADAPTERS USED EXCLUSIVELY * OMTI HIGH SPEED CONTROLLERS * * ICD ADSCSI+ HOST ADAPTERS * FULL SCSI COMMAND SET SUPPORTED * * SCSI EMBEDDED CONTROLLER MECHANISMS * WE PAY SHIPPING!!! >BLUE LABEL UPS!< Conventional Shoe Box ADD 35.00 for 4 BAY TURBO Cabinet w/250w PS Model Description Autopark Price ================================================== SGN3038 31Mb 28ms 3.5" Y 419.00 SGN4951 51Mb 28ms 3.5" Y 479.00 SGN6277 62Mb 24ms 5.25" Y 519.00 SGN6177 62Mb 24ms 3.5" Y 549.00 SGN1096 85Mb 24ms 3.5" Y 649.00 SGN1098 100mb 25ms 3.5" Y 719.00 SGN6277 120Mb 24ms 3.5" Y 889.00 SGN1296 168Mb 24ms 3.5" Y 1069.00 SGN4077 230Mb 24ms 3.5" Y 1669.00 ================================================== ****** SPECIAL - SPECIAL ****** ---- FOR USE IN MEGA, MEGA STe & TT030 SYSTEMS ---- >>>> 100mb SCSI HARD DRIVE Mech 25-28ms 3.5" ...ONLY $349.00!! <<<< ****** SPECIAL - SPECIAL ****** >>> ALL ABCO DRIVES ARE HIGH SPEED UNITS <<< (500 - 600k per sec @ 16 - 33ms) CALL FOR SUPER SAVINGS ON ALL OUR OTHER CUSTOM UNITS FROM 30mb 28MS @ $419.00! --==*==-- * SYQUEST 44MB (#555)>> ABCO "44" << REMOVABLE MEDIA DRIVE * - SYQUEST 44 MB DRIVE - ICD ST ADVANTAGE PLUS H/A - ICD Utility Software - 3' DMA Cable - Fan & Clock - Multi-Unit Power Supply (1) 44 MB Syquest Cart. WE PAY SHIPPING!!! >BLUE LABEL UPS!< COMPLETELY ASSEMBLED AND READY TO RUN! --->> SPECIAL NOW ONLY __$ 685.00__ <<--- EXTRA CARTS: $ 74.95 DRIVE MECH ONLY: $ 349.95 * TWIN SYQUEST 44MB REMOVABLE MEDIA DRIVES ... PROGRAMMER'S DELIGHT * SPECIALLY PRICED ** $1329.00 ** * SYQUEST 44MB REMOVABLE MEDIA DRIVE AND HARD DRIVE COMBINATIONS * - Syquest 44 Model [555] and the following hard drives - 50mb SQG51 $ 939.00 30mb SQG38 $ 819.00 65mb SQG09 $ 969.00 85mb SQG96 $1059.00 LOWBOY - STANDARD - DUAL BLOWER CABINETS CUSTOM CONFIGURATIONS AVAILABLE WE PAY SHIPPING!!! >BLUE LABEL UPS!< Listed above are a sampling of the systems available. Prices also reflect various cabinet/power supply configurations (over sixty configurations are available, flexibility is unlimited) *** ALL Units: Average Access Time: 24ms - 34ms *** ALL UNITS COMPATIBLE WITH --> SUPERCHARGER - AT/PC SPEED - GCR LARGER units are available - (special order only) *>> NO REPACKS OR REFURBS USED! <<* - Custom Walnut WOODEN Cabinets - TOWER - AT - XT Cabinets - * SLM 804 Replacement Toner Cartridge Kits $42.95 * Replacement Drums; CALL Keyboard Custom Cables Call for Info ALL POWER SUPPLIES UL APPROVED -* 12 month FULL Guarantee *- (A FULL YEAR of COVERAGE) WE PAY SHIPPING!!! >BLUE LABEL UPS!< QUANTITY & USERGROUP DISCOUNTS AVAILABLE! _________________________________________ DEALERS and DISTRIBUTORS WANTED! please, call for details Personal and Company Checks are accepted. ORDER YOUR NEW UNIT TODAY! CALL: 1-800-562-4037 -=**=- CALL: 1-904-783-3319 Customer Orders ONLY Customer Service 9am - 8pm EDT Tues thru Sat ABCO is EXPANDING!! CALL FOR INFORMATION! ____________________________________________________________ > A "Quotable Quote"™ ================= Laughter the BEST MEDICINE...... "Two bears are walking through a path in the woods. The second bear stick his nose into the first bear's behind. The first bear stops for a second but decides to ignore it. Two minutes later the second bear sticks his nose in the first bear's behind again. The first bear turns around and clubs the second bear in the head. The second bear looks at the first and says, "Sorry. But I just ate a lawyer this morning and I'll do anything to get the taste out of my mouth." Question: What do you call 1700 lawyers at the bottom of the ocean? Answer: A good start. Alternate Answer: Pollution. Question: Why won't sharks eat lawyers? Answer: Professional Courtesy! """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" STReport International Online Magazine™ Available through more than 10,000 Private BBS systems WorldWide! """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" STReport™ "YOUR INDEPENDENT NEWS SOURCE" April 05, 1991 16/32bit Magazine copyright © 1987-91 No.7.14 """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Views, Opinions and Articles Presented herein are not necessarily those of the editors, staff, STReport™ CPU/MAC/STR™ or ST Report™. Permission to reprint articles is hereby granted, unless otherwise noted. Each reprint must include the name of the publication, date, issue # and the author's name. The entire publication and/or portions therein may not be edited in any way without prior written permission. The contents, at the time of publication, are believed to be reasonably accurate. The editors, contributors and/or staff are not responsible for either the use/misuse of information contained herein or the results obtained therefrom. """"""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""