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==(((((((((( == Z*NET INTERNATIONAL ATARI ONLINE MAGAZINE =========(( === ----------------------------------------- =======(( ===== April 12, 1991 Issue #91-15 =====(( ======= ----------------------------------------- ==(((((((((( == (c)1989-1991, Rovac Industries, Inc. EDITORIAL STAFF Ron Kovacs...........................Publisher/Editor John Nagy...............................Senior Editor Terry Schreiber...................Z*Net Canada Editor Jon Clarke.........Z*Net New Zealand/Australia Editor Michael Schuetz..................Z*Net Germany Editor Ron Berinstein....................Contributing Editor Dr. Paul Keith..............Special Assignment Editor Keith Macnutt...............................Columnist Mike Mezaros.........................Assistant Editor Mike Brown..........................ZNS Correspondent CONTENTS EDITORS DESK.....................................Ron Kovacs Z*NET CANADA................................Terry Schreiber EYEWITNESS CEPS REPORT - PART ONE................Mike Brown Z*NET NEWSWIRE............................................. CEPS PRESS RELEASE - PART TWO.................Press Release Z*NET PUBLIC ACCESS REPORT................................. CALAMUS TUTORIAL - PART VIII..................Geoff LaCasse Z*NET NEW ZEALAND................................Jon Clarke Z*NET SOFTWARE SHELF.........................Ron Berinstein KEYSKINS......................................Press Release PUBLIC DOMAIN UPDATE..........................Keith Macnutt ======================================================================= EDITORS DESK ------------ by Ron Kovacs, Publisher ======================================================================= Thanks for downloading another GREAT issue of Z*Net Online. We are pleased to include an eyewitness report from the CEPS show courtesy of Mike Brown, a longtime friend and supporter. Thanks Mike!!!! New Jersey readers and BBS callers take note that our area code has changed and takes full effect on June 1, 1991. Central New Jersey will change from 201 to 908. The way it works now, 201 will be specific to Northern New Jersey, 908 to Central New Jersey and 609 to all Southern points of the state. Call your local phone company if you are not sure of the area changed. We were given a map by NJBell detailing the changes, hmmmm, perhaps a VIDI pic is in order?? You can still use the 201 area code until June 1. AtariUser Magazine is NOW shipping to over 30,000 readers today! Some of you will be seeing it this weekend and during the week ahead. Stay tuned for the latest information on this new Atari SPECIFIC publication right here in Z*NET!! You may have noticed this is issue #91-15?? Any release from Z*NET will now be in sequence order. Last week we released INDX9114.TXT which is an index of issues available on GEnie in Library #25. GEnie is the only online service containing ALL of the "Z" releases. Thanks are also being sent to the staff of this publication for the continued support and great articles. I appreciate the assistance and look forward to continued success! ======================================================================= Z*NET CANADA ------------ by Terry Schreiber, Assistant Editor ======================================================================= Atari Canada announced the Mega 1 STE a cut-down version of the Mega 4 STE. The Mega 1 was said to be the exact same as its big brother minus the harddrive, host adapter, math chip and 3 megs of ram. It was presented as this by most dealers and advertised as such but something new has developed. The Mega 1 STE has a new harddrive cover that is louvered as to inhibit the install of a harddrive. The cover was completely re-designed in comparison with the Mega 4 STE with no mounting holes and louvers that will have to be cut or dremeled out to allow a harddrive to even fit. This does not take into account a way of mounting it as the mounting holes that were on the Mega 4 STE are missing on the Mega 1 STE. Reasoning behind this manoeuvre totally escapes me as Atari stated that the ICD Mega host adapter could be purchased and a harddrive added in. This cover couldn't have been designed for re-enforcement could it? If it was surely the better idea people at Atari could have included 2 plastic cross-members that would have accomplished the same in the original design, after all the monitor doesn't sit on the harddrive cover. Could an optional cover be offered for people at a later date? Upon further contact with Atari there will be an upgrade offered from them with either a 40 or 80 megabyte drive, host adapter, mounting rails and of course the new (old) cover. No cost comparisions were available at press time but Z-Net will post the prices as soon as they are announced. ======================================================================= Z*NET SPECIAL REPORT -------------------- EYEWITNESS CEPS '91 REPORT by Mike Brown, Z*Net Correspondent ======================================================================= Atari's Professional Systems Group show their stuff. This past week (April 8-11th) Chicago's massive McCormick Place exhibition center played host to the best and brightest that Computer- based publishing has to offer in the annual Corporate Electronic Publishing Systems (CEPS) trade show. Atari chose this exhibition to introduce "Direct To Press", a complete and comprehensive array of pre-press publishing solutions. Direct To Press is more than a hastily assembled "bundle" of an Atari computer system with a popular page layout program, it includes tools for every phase of pre-press work from document processing and design, to photo retouching and imagesetter film output. Although my time at CEPS was limited (I have bills to pay too), I will try to cover the items showcased at CEPS that make the Direct To Press system such an attractive package for demanding vertical market segments. To be sure, the "engine" that drives this sophisticated system is the Atari TT030/8 consisting of 8mb of RAM, an 80mb HD, and a TTM194 19" 1280 by 960 monochrome monitor. This powerful computing platform performs at the high level shown at CEPS in concert with an array of very innovative software and hardware developed by Atari's international and domestic business partners. The Direct to Press solutions offered by Professional Systems Group generally follow one of three complementary approaches: Soft-Logik's PostScript based PageStream 2, Calamus SL with tms Cranach Studio family of high-end publishing applications (including proprietary SoftRIPs for specific models of typesetters and imagesetters) and the Retouche/Didiot family of digital lithography, line art, and page layout tools (using proprietary software technology to create raster images of pages within the host software, eliminating the need for a raster image processor, and uses specialized hardware to greatly enhance output speed and quality). In addition to showing the current versions of Calamus, and Calamus Outline Art, ISD Marketing were showing Calamus SL (albeit, with German menus and help text). I was impressed by the color handling capability of SL, especially when shown on the PTC1426 14" color monitor. Users can specify colors either by simple RGB mixing or an external module such as pantone. Calamus SL will create the necessary four films per page for color separations. Calamus SL's programmers seem to have paid attention to the critics that have said that the Calamus learning curve is too steep. I found SL more intuitive, and generally easier to use, although old Calamus hands will slip it on like a comfortable shoe. One of Calamus' strong suits has been the manipulation of text around irregular objects, and SL continues this tradition by allowing text and graphics to be rotated through a full 360 degrees. Although the Linotronic equipment had not arrived the day I visited CEPS, Klaus Garms assured me that a special version of Calamus SL incorporates "SoftRIPs" to allow connection directly from the TT030 to a Linotronic or AGFA Compugraphic 9000 series imagesetter. The AGFA booth was nearby, and I'm here to tell you that the ProSet 9800 by AGFA is capable of generating some very eye-popping 200-line screen color images (at very high speeds). The downside of this is that imagesetters are very definitely professional level machines, and have proportionally professional prices. Stealing CEPS attendees from the Xerox (Ventura Publisher) folks in the adjoining booth were Soft-Logik, with a preliminary version of PageStream 2. I was assured that PageStream 2 will be out "real soon now" for all of you devoted fans that are chomping at the bit. PageStream 2 includes new support for Adobe Type I, AFGA Compugraphic Intellifont industry standards, as well as the PageStream fonts that you are familiar with. PageStream 2 now includes 18 free outline fonts (10 of which are Compugraphic hinted fonts) as well as the ability to use any Adobe PostScript font. Additional flexibility has been added to PageStream 2 with the support for additional graphics formats such as IBM, Mac and EPSF EPS. The internal drawing tools have been improved dramatically as well, but are still no substitute for a good drawing program. Those of you who have complained in the past about available page sizes can take comfort in PageStream 2's new 1200 foot by 1200 foot page size "limitation". Although it was hard to get at the booth- a very enthusiastic group of young Europeans representing 3K-ComputerBild drew crowds all day to see Retouche Professional; a full featured photo retouching program. The interesting thing about Retouche, is that the "tools" used are purposely designed to be familiar to those in the lithography trade: Pen, brush, charcoal, stamp, copy pen, randomizer, sharpener, finger, water, eraser, scraper and an undo function called the "restorator". Retouche uses screen resolutions of up to 394 lines versus the 133 line limitation in PostScript. An impressive feature of Retouche is the ability to distort, project, or transform halftone pictures on 3-dimensional Bezier surfaces. A sophisticated "mask" tool used to select areas of the image combines with professional level overlay techniques, such as addition, subtraction, mean value, and evaluation, to produce virtually any type of picture combination. Virtual memory management enables Retouche Professional to simultaneously handle up to ten pictures of up to 4096 by 4096 pixels (16mb RAM required). Retouche CD adds the dimension of color. It enables all of the features and functions to allow processing of full color as well as halftone images. Retouche CD can work with 256 colors from a palette of 16.7 million colors and includes facilities for color selection, correction, and color separation for output to an imagesetter. 3K also showed a prototype of their "Image Speeder" which will be a re- packaging of the TT030 specifically designed to connect to an imagesetter. It uses the TT VMEbus to synchronize to the video port of the imagesetter. It also contains some special hardware to assist the software RIP in the Didiot, Retouche Professional, and Calamus line of products. The Image Speeder is packaged in a tower case to accommodate a larger power supply and other peripherals such as a large capacity hard disk, as well as the laser printer controller. Special raster image processor hardware includes an Intel 82786 graphics coprocessor capable of throughput of 50mb/second. The 82786 is equipped with 4mb of RAM and has subunits for for a display processor for 1 to 8 bit pixels which display up to 256 colors from a palette of 16.7 million. Monochrome operations can run as fast as 30 million pixels per second; halftones or 256 colors can run at 4 million pixels per second. The graphics processor provides hardware pan and zoom support. Sherlook Professional is a high speed and highly accurate program for optical character recognition that can process up to 12,00 characters per minute. The program automatically recognizes different languages, recognizes multiple fonts and point sizes on a single page, can be "taught" to recognize special characters, and has a built-in spelling checker. Local CRAG usergroup member Randy Noak spent quite a bit of time showing me SciGraph by SciLab. It is a high performance integrated graphing and full featured vector drawing program that can display and manipulate up to 256 on screen colors or greyscale levels and create a wide variety of chart and graph types that can easily be converted into desktop publishing documents. I found SciGraph's 3-D graphics manipulation functions to be particularly innovative. You have full control over the casting of shadows, and their intensity, the perspective of the graph in relation to the viewer, and other bits that can be played with almost infinitely. Randy and I spent the better part of an hour making hundreds of variations on just one set of 3-D data points. Goldleaf Publishing was proudly showing Wordflair II; the integrated document processor. I had my doubts about a program that claims to combine word processing, calculations, graphics, page layout and a simple database on a representation of a printed page. After a little "cockpit time" I can safely say that if you need to produce short documents in a limited amount of time, Wordflair II deserves more than a casual look. Wordflair's on-screen help was particularly impressive, as I snuck on the package while Lauren Flanegan-Sellers and her crew were away from their station! The on-screen help made operating the program a breeze, even for a hardcore goof-up such as myself. One of the more fascinating offerings was presented by TradeiT of Germany. There was a little miscommunication sometimes with Thomas Klatt and Michael Wagner manning the TradeiT area (mostly because I'm not a graphic artist), but their fine Repro Studio Pro and Avant Vektor products spoke for themselves. Repro Studio allows the hand scanner owner functions that were previously reserved for those well-heeled folks owning flatbed scanners. Attendees were initially attracted to their "subject matter" (a stunning Blonde), but the oohs and ahs were definitely for the functionality of the product. If you don't already have a hand-scanner, TradeiT offers several models based on Logitech engines compatible with the ST/TT. Overall, it was a pleasure to see Atari making a firm commitment to their Professional Systems Group. The caption on the cover of the handouts was: "Complete Publishing Solutions. No compromises", it is my opinion that Atari put everyone else attending CEPS on notice that they intend to be a player in the DTP market, and that they intend to do it through innovation, not "me-too-ism". The Atari personnel were most kind to take time out to answer my questions and allow us to produce the VIDI pictures of CEPS that will be available on GEnie shortly. I hate singling out people, but special thanks to Greg Pratt, Bob Brodie, Mel Stevens and Bill and Joan Rehbock for their attention, and patience with an insufferable pest (right Bob?) such as myself. If you have the slightest amount of interest in DTP and allied computer imaging technologies, you owe it to yourself to make plans to attend CEPS 1992. It is truly a showcase event that is meaty with ideas and information, and lean on "fluff". ======================================================================= Z*NET NEWSWIRE -------------- Compiled by the Z*Net News Service ======================================================================= BRODIE TO ATTEND MEETING (Press Release) On Saturday, April 27, 1991, Bob Brodie, Manager of User Group Services for ATARI will be visiting Southern California. Bob is a very dynamic speaker. Before Bob came to ATARI, he was a User Group President. He knows what it is like in the trenches. This visit is being sponsored by the User Group, H.A.C.K.S., but attendance is open to all ATARI Clubs and ATARI owners. H.A.C.K.S. has rented a 325 seat theatre for the occasion. This meeting will be held at the Glendale Public Library's Main Branch Theatre, upstairs. The meeting will start promptly at 10:30 AM and is expected to last three hours. The Library's address is 222 East Harvard Street, Glendale, CA. Take I-5 to the Colorado exit, go East a mile to Louise Street, turn North, go one block. An alternative route is to take the 134 FWY to the Central exit, go South a mile to Harvard street, turn East, go two blocks. For more specific directions refer to the L.A. County Thomas Bros. Guide, Page 25-E5. Best of all, admission is FREE, but it is on a first come, first serve basis only. As an added bonus The Computer Network, a local ATARI Computer Store, will be having an Open House in honor of Bob Brodie's visit. The store plans to have many developers, including, but not limited to, CodeHead Software, Gadget's by Small and WuzTEK, displaying their products. Store manager, Mark Krynsky, says to, "...expect special prices and deals galore." The Computer Network is located at 1605 West Glenoaks Boulevard, Glendale, CA. The Open House will be from 2:00 PM to 7:00 PM, after Bob Brodie's lecture is over. If you have specific questions about the Open House you may call Mark at 818-500- 3900. Remember, Bob Brodie's meeting will start promptly at 10:30 AM, at the Library and the Open House will start at 2:00 PM, at the computer store. Directions from the Library to the Store will be available at the Library. GRAPHTEC UNVEILS FIRST THERMAL PLOTTER Graphtec Precision Image extended its line of thermal plotters by introducing the TM1010 at the National Design Engineering Show earlier this week. The TM1010 is an E-size thermal plotter with a 400 dpi resolution and produces direct thermal and clear film output with black and grey line imaging. For more information, contact Ronda Turner, (415) 366-8900. ASHTON-TATE SHIPS DBASE IV Ashton-Tate announced this week that it has begau shipping dBASE IV RunTime PLUS, a product that runs most dBASE IV version 1.1 applications without modification on Apple Macintosh personal computers. Priced at $195, dBASE IV RunTime PLUS gives Macintosh users access to thousands of dBASE applications that were created in dBASE IV for DOS, UNIX or VMS. More than simply a means of running an application, RunTime PLUS gives developers the additional capability to create, modify or debug dBASE code on the Macintosh. Registered users of Ashton-Tate's original dBASE Mac product can buy dBASE IV RunTime PLUS for $75 plus shipping by calling Ashton-Tate customer service at 800-2ASHTON. POQET COMPUTER OFFERS LOTUS 1-2-3 Poqet Computer announced this week that purchasers of The Poqet PC will receive a free copy of Lotus 1-2-3 (release 2.2) for The Poqet PC. The software bundle applies to all merchandise purchased through Poqet dealers from April 15 to June 30. The Poqet PC is a one-pound, portable personal computer powered by two AA-size alkaline batteries and has a suggested retail price of $1,450. For more information, contact Poget at (800) 624-8999, ext. 1590. For dealer information, call (800) 624- 8999, ext. 1591. UNIX OFFERS SYSTEM V RELEASE 4 UNIX System announced this week the availability of the UNIX System V Release 4 Applications Binary Interface (ABI) for the MIPS RISC computer architecture. AT&T Computer Systems, NEC Corp., Olivetti Systems & Networks, Prime Computer, Pyramid Technology Corporation, Siemens Nixdorf Information Systems, Sony Microsystems Company, and Tandem Computers Incorporated, all have committed to offering MIPS-based computer systems compliant with the UNIX System V Release 4 (SVR4) MIPS ABI. NINTENDO AGREES IN PRICE-FIXING CASE Nintendo has agreed to give up to $25 million in coupons to customers and pay $5 million to settle charges that it fixed its prices. Nintendo did not admit to the charges, but agreed to partially refund people who bought its 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System video game consoles for $99.95 from June 1988 to December 1990. Nintendo has agreed to issue redemption certificates worth $25 million and guaranteed the redemption of at least $5 million in certificates. Every purchaser of an NES console during the 30-month period is entitled to a $5 coupon, good on the purchase of a Nintendo game cartridge. Under the proposed consent agreement, Nintendo has agreed to refrain from: Fixing the price at which any dealer advertises or sells Nintendo products to consumers, Reducing the supply of Nintendo products to dealers because of failure to adhere to minimum suggested prices, Asking dealers to report other dealers who offer Nintendo products below resale prices suggested by Nintendo. AT&T TO OFFERS FREE CALLS AT&T will be offering the military three-minute long-distance telephone calls at no charge to anywhere in the world on April 12-14. Military personnel wanting to call a friend in Japan or Germany, for example, or just check in with relatives back home can visit the AT&T exhibit at Whidbey Island Exchange. At the exhibit, AT&T will allow military families to make three-minute long-distance calls at no charge to any location in the United States and to more than 270 countries and areas worldwide. IBM REPORTS FIRST LOSS IBM, suffering from sagging business, unfavorable exchange rates and a new accounting charge, announced this week a first-quarter net loss of $1.73 billion, the first-ever quarterly shortfall for the world's largest computer maker. The loss was due to a $2.26 billion accounting charge against earnings to cover a new accounting standard that requires employers to cover non-pension, post-retirement benefits - such as health insurance - for current employees. Without the charge, net income was $532 million, or 93 cents a share. In the first quarter of 1990, IBM earned $1.037 billion, or $1.81 a share. IBM last month announced plans to cut its work force of about 373,000 by 14,000 this year. IBM was founded in 1911 as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Co. The company changed its name to IBM in 1924. ======================================================================= CEPS PRESS RELEASE - PART TWO ----------------------------- Press Release ======================================================================= This week we conclude reprinting of the Atari press release related to CEPS. Last week we published Part One. CEPS BACKGROUNDER CONTINUED Retouche/Didot The following group of Publishing tools has been developed by 3K- ComputerBild and is published in North America by Goldleaf Publishing, Inc. The products share a focus on providing tools to meet the requirements of the most demanding lithography or typography professional, and most of the products use a proprietary technique of rasterizing the image within the application software, thereby removing the need for a separate raster image processor (RIP). Retouche Professional Retouche Professional (TM) is a professional lithographer's dream come true. A full featured grayscale photo retouching program, Retouche Professional is a modular system of digital lithography tools for creating, retouching and reproducing halftone pictures. This sophisticated software features extremely high quality output that results primarily from a unique method of screening that uses a library of hand made (rather than mathematically generated) screens, can manipulate Pixel shapes and patterns and uses screen resolutions of up to 394 lines, as compared to the l33 line limitation in PostScript. Retouche Professional's hand-generated screens resemble the screens used with camera reproduction and are optimized for specific output devices. Retouche Professional also features very fast throughput, again resulting from the program's proprietary system of preparing and transferring pictures for the imagesetter without requiring a raster image processor. Retouche Professional uses instruments that will be familiar to a lithographer: pen, brush, charcoal, stamp, copy pen, randomizer, sharpener, finger, wateraser, scraper, and a "restorator" that supplies a local "undo" function with weighted overlay. Retouche Professional provides ten different types of grayscale gradations to enable the user to randomize away "steps" or "stripes." An especially impressive feature is the ability to distort, project, or transform halftone pictures on 3-dimensional Bezier surfaces. A sophisticated "matool used to select areas of the image combines with professional level overlay techniques, such as addition, subtraction, mean value, and evaluation, to produce virtually any type of picture combination. Using vector paths as a graphics "macro" is a new conceptual approach to picture processing. AlI of Retouche Professional's manual tools can repeatedly fw vector Paths or different tools can be used along exactly the same path. Vector paths can be easily constructed from straight lines and Bezier curves or imported from a line art program such as Didot Line Art. Alternatively, the font accessory enables outline fonts to be used as vector paths. Retouche Professional can convert color pictures that were scanned in with a flatbed or camera scanner to good-looking black and white pictures. It can alodify halftone pictures to improve their appearance in print, including automatic gradations changes to compensate for the inevitable loss of quality in the printing process. Virtual memory management enables Retouche Professional to simultaneously handle up to ten pictures of up to 4096 by 4096 pixels (16 MB). Job-oriented management of scanned images, masks, type, and art keeps files and work organized. Suggested retail price: $999.95. Retouche CD Retouche CD (TM) adds the dimension of color. It is a superset of Retouche Professional and enables all of the features and functions of that picture to work on full color as well as on halftone images. Retouche CD can work with 256 colors from a palette of 16.7 million colors and includes facilities for color selection, correction, and color separation for output to an imagesetter. The Retouche Professional method sends an entire rasterized page or image to the imagesetter in a smooth flow, unlike the constant start and stop created by a PostScript RIP. In stop and go mode, the mechanical stress on the imagesetter film transport results in fine cuts in the screening. Those cuts can create moire pattern problems. The smooth flow means that Retouche Professional can produce results on an affordable flatbed imagesetter that rival the much more expensive drum imagesetters. Drum imagesetters use vacuum pressure for precision film handling as the drum starts and stops. This quality advantage is especially apparent in color work. Suggested retail price: To be announced Didot Line Art Didot Line Art is a comprehensive vector graphics editor that can create logos, headlines, and other art work. It can generate PostScript files for any typesetter or complete page files for the Image Speeder, or CVG files that can be imported into Calamus SL. Didot Line Art can produce halftone pictures with 256 grayscale values in TIFF or the proprietary ISH format. Thus, users can combine natural looking material such as scanned photos with vector graphics, or texturize vector objects with natural surfaces such as wood. Didot Line Art can produce vector paths that can be exported and used with Retouche Professional. Part of Didot Line Art is an outline font editor with which users can not only design their own fonts, but also change Calamus fonts and load and use PostScript Type 1 fonts. (Type 1 fonts can even be converted for use with Calamus.) The vector graphics concept of Didot Line Art is closely related to the PostScript methodology. All vector graphics are constructed of paths, which consist of lines and Bezier curves. Line widths, fine styles, and "colors" (one of 256 gray values) can be defined for each path. Paths can describe surfaces as well as lines; a path can be filled with any of 256 gray values. With these paths, users construct outline fonts (in the font creator) and graphic primitives that can be grouped together to form complex objects. Primitives and complex objects can be resized and reshaped, or turned and distorted. Text functions can also create complex objects: line text, path text, and circular text. The program's help lines and grids are more sophisticated than most. Magnetic snapping functions enable the user to snap on a grid, a specific help line, a circle, or a Bezier point. Horizontal and vertical snapping are available, as is the ability to define a snap angle or a snapping radius. Suggested price: To be announced Didot Professional A superset of Didot Line Art, Didot Professional (TM) is a complete page layout and publishing package. It builds complete pages including piped text across many columns and pages, as well as halftone or color pictures of any size and bit-mapped images and vector graphics. Color support covers the same 16.7 million colors and uses the same method, including color separation, as Retouche CD. Didot Professional is a page-oriented and object-oriented publishing program. The program is focussed on giving the user extremely precise control over page layout and works with objects, such as strips of text, photos, or drawings. This differs from the typical method of working with frames that represent the objects, and then importing the objects into the frames. All style and format information is specified and stored using macros. Thus, if the user has tagged all subtitles, a change to the "subtitle" definition of font and size will affect all of the tagged subtitles. Suggested retail price: To be announced 3K Image Speeder The 3K Image Speeder (TM) is a customized re-packaging of the Atari TT030 that is specifically designed to connect to an imagesetter. It contains a high speed scanner interface as well as an interface that synchronizes the computer's VME bus with the video port of the imagesetter. It also contains some special hardware to assist the software RIP in the Didot, Retouche Professional, and Calamus line of products. The Image Speeder is packaged in a tower case to accommodate a lager power supply and other peripherals such as a large capacity hard disk, or a Syquest removable storage media drive, as well as the laser printer controller. The special RIP support hardware includes an Intel 82786 graphics coprocessor that is capable of a throughput of 50 MB/second. The 82786 is equipped with 4MB of RAM and has subunits for a display processor for 1 to 8 bit pixels which display up to 256 colors from a palette of 16.7 million, and for a true graphics processor for fast drawing and blitting operations. Monochrome operations can run as fast as 30 million pixels per second; halftones or 256 colors can run at 4 million pixels per second. The graphics processor provides hardware pan and zoom support. An essential part of the image Speeder is the special screening processor developed by 3K-ComputerBild. Its function is to enable the screening of halftone images with no delay at output. Several different kinds of screening methods are supported. The screening processor can apply an external gradation in real time. Suggested retail price: To be announced. Sherlook Professional Sherlook Professional (TM) is a high-speed and highly accurate program for optical character recognition that can process up to 12,000 characters per minute. The program automatically recognizes different languages, recognizes multiple fonts and point sizes on a single page, can be taught to recognize special characters, and has a built-in spelling checker. Suggested retail price: $899.95 SciGraph Developed by Sci-Lab, SciGraph (TM) is a high performance integrated graphing and full-featured vector drawing program that can display and manipulate up to 256 onscreen colors or grayscale levels and create a wide variety of chart and graph types that can easily be imported into desktop publishing documents. For high quality presentation graphics, SciGraph can import data from DIF and ASCII (CSV and TXT), and export table data to TXT, CSV, and LaTex format. Vector graphics can be exported to GEM, EPS, PS, and CVG. Once imported, the data can be converted to bar, line, area, and pie chars of all types including 3-dimensional graphs. Suggested retail price: To be announced Wordflair II Developed by Goldleaf Publishing, Wordflair II (TM) is an integrated document processor, a single program that creates short, presentation- quality, compound documents by combining word processing, calculations, graphics, page layout, and a simple database on a screen representation of a printed page. Wordflair II's integration enables the user to easily manipulate text, data, and graphics without cutting and pasting from separate applications. It features fast text handling, a full built-in spelling checker and thesaurus, layouts using up to 9 columns, and advanced on-screen help. Table creation is easy in Wordflair II as is its sophisticated mail merge function. Page layout features include a graphics conversion utility that imports many file formats, a snap-to-grid function, and an editable reduced view. Suggest retail price: $149.95 For more information about Retouche Professional, Retouche CD, Didot Line Art, Didot Professional, Sherlook Professional, SciGraph, Wordflair II, or the 3K Image Speeder, contact: John Fox Goldleaf Publishing, Inc. 700 Larkspur Landing Circle, Suite 199 Larkspur, CA 94939 415-461-4552 ======================================================================= Z*NET PUBLIC ACCESS REPORT -------------------------- Copyright(c)1990, US Government Printing Office ======================================================================= (EDITORS NOTE: The information is presented as a special feature which will appear from time to time. These announcements are pooled from the online areas of CompuServe and GEnie and in the weeks ahead, we will focus attention to these areas and the topics and files available.) Prevention and Treatment of Alcohol Problems Alcohol use is involved in nearly 100, 000 deaths annually and plays a major role in numerous medical and social problems. The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) asked the Institute of Medicine (IOM) to assess the state of knowledge about alcohol-related problems and to identify the most important and promising avenues for research into their prevention and treatment. Alcohol use is associated with physical and social problems ranging from disease, violence, homelessness, and unemployment, to marital problems. Alcohol is involved in many injuries and deaths in the United States, whether resulting from motor vehicle crashes, falls, drownings, or fires. Yet it is difficult to prove that alcohol is a cause of traumatic envents or to determine the magnitude of the relationship. Although there is widespread belief that child abuse and neglect are associated with alcohol abuse, this association is unproven and should be investigated further. Studies also are needed on the influence of alcohol on sexually transmitted diseases and sexual activity, including early sexual activity and adolescent pregnancy. There are many possible approaches to prevention research from the vantage point of the individual alone. A fruitful area for further research is that of the individual in the context of the environment -- both specific drinking milieu and the environment in which a person grows, develops, and matures. The single best predictor of alcohol depedence today is family history, although not all children of alcoholics are at equal risk. The basis of the differential risk is not yet understood. Research should continue to locate the specific genes that predispose an individual to alcohol dependence and to search for physiological indicators of susceptibility. At this time, however, research has not progressed far enough to allow health care providers to base their prevention efforts on this genetic investigation. Researchers should investigate the relation between alcohol availability, retail price, and hours of sale and consumption. In addition, studies are needed to assess the effect of changes in speed limits on the number of alcohol-related crashes; the impact of server liability statutes; and the relation between the workplace environment and alcohol consumption. Focusing on the environment influences that shape drinking behavior leads naturally to the possibility of community-wide programs to reduce alcohol problems. The growing evidence of the success of programs involving mass media campaigns and education to alter community-wide risk factors for cardiovascular disease, cancer, smoking, and adolescent pregnancies indicates that such programs could be successful in altering community risk factors for alcohol abuse. Programs need to be planned carefully to involve formative evaluation, pilot testing, behavioral analysis, and the critical review of research Recent research on couples and family therapy suggests tht interventions to improve the functioning of couples and families may enhance the success of alcoholism treatment. However, only therapy involving couples has been evaluated systematically; the effectiveness of therapy with the whole family is unknown. Since 1980, the focus on identifying and treating individuals early in their development of alcohol problems has intensified. Effective, inexpensive, early interventions still are in the early stages of development. Whereas promising results have been reported from a few programs, little rigorous evaluation and few studies have been conducted on the behavioral processes that may underlie the effectiveness of such strategies. Alcohol abuse has diverse deleterious effects on health, including those resulting from intoxication, the withdrawal syndrome, and many types of organ damage. Multisite studies of treatments for alcohol-related health consequences are essential because the low frequency of illness results in insufficient numbers of study subjects. Alcoholic hallucinosis, pancreatitis, and cardiomyopathy are examples of disorders whose understanding might require multisite research efforts. Controlled treatment trials of detoxification or research on ways of limiting or reversing cognitive impairment could be carried out at either single or multiple sites. For a comprehensive discussion of this topic and other subjects, we refer readers to the full report, available for $30, prepaid, from the National Academy Press, National Academy of Sciences, 2101 Constitution Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20418. ======================================================================= CALAMUS TUTORIAL - PART VIII ---------------------------- Copyright(c)1991, by Geoff LaCasse ======================================================================= GXR Systems, Vancouver, B.C. This Calamus tutorial series concludes with a three-part multi-page, multi-column document. Topics include header/footer frames, page numbering, flow-around graphics, and double-sided page layout. The double-sided format, in particular, is poorly explained in the manual, and needs to have a number of points clarified if you are to exploit its potential for newsletters and other styles. Discard your document from the last session. Your new document (go to PAGE LAYOUT under the PAGE menu) should be letter size, portrait, and DOUBLE-PAGES. Double-pages creates left and right master pages which govern the layout for following pages. Each can then have its own format which need not be the same. Books, for example, may have mirror image pages with the page numbers in the bottom left and right corners and a larger text margin (or gutter) to allow for the binding where the pages touch. We will create something similar. Set the margins for the left and right pages. Select LEFT PAGES, and change default 0.00 values in Inner, Outer, Top, and Bottom to 1.25, 0.75, 2.00, and 1.25 (inches of course). Click on RIGHT PAGES (default will again be 0.00 for the four margins), and then on MIRROR MARGINS. Right Page values will change to those for the Left Page. Go to the PAGE menu, and ADD three pages to the document. Use the default values in this menu. You can move through a document several ways. At the top-middle of the screen--to the left of the X/Y COORDINATE box--are a number of icons including left and right arrow keys, a number, and two small page symbols. The number indicates the page presently on screen. This is Calamus's numbering system (in essence, the first page of a document is page one). Your numbering system may (and can) differ substantially. Highlight the number, type in the number of the page you would like to move to (up to four), and press RETURN. Alternately, click on the left and right arrow keys to move backwards or forwards one page at a time. If you have a Double-sided document, the page icons will change from L to R and back to L as you move from page to page. When you move through the four page document the page layout format (the guide lines set above) changes position depending whether you bring up a left or right page. Move to page four and back again to page one. Create three columns for the document. Click on HELP LINES, then AUXILIARY LINES FOR COLUMNS and set up one row and three columns. Margins will be 2.00 top and 1.25 bottom, 0.25 between columns, 1.25 left margin, and 0.75 right margin. These match our values for Left and Right pages--which need not be set when Auxiliary Lines for Columns is used. Here, Left and Right Pages is useful to compliment the layout (as we will see). When you now move through the document, the columns do not match its Double-sided layout. Instead, the columns are properly aligned on pages 1 and 3, but not on pages 2 and 4. I will look at some solutions next session. For the moment, go back to page one. Click on GENERAL FRAME FUNCTIONS. Calamus handles complex documents poorly (time, effort, and understanding is needed). In our example here, if our Left and Right pages had an identical column layout, document page format would be a simple process. With dissimilar layout, however, we need to employ a certain amount of ingenuity. Next session we will deal with this point. Header/footer frames are useful when creating common page elements, page numbering, and the like. Click off SNAP TO AUXILIARY LINES. From the LINES icon pad, create a 100% Raster, 10.0 point line across the page approximately 0.25 inches above the top of our columns. The line should reach between the two vertical guide lines. Above this, create a Text frame (make it Centered, Swiss 50, 36 point) which should also stretch between the guides. This frame will hold a common text element on each page (call it Geoff's Newsletter or some such title). Make sure the text frame is at least 0.5 inches from the top of the page (there should be lots of room). Most printers (particularly Lasers and Ink-Jets) can't print right to the edges of a sheet. Change the text value to 6 point, and text colour to white. Text colour is found at the bottom of the FONT MENU icon pad. Click on 0 (white), rather than 1 (black). The selected colour is boxed. Create another Text frame the length of the line and place it on top of the line frame. The text frame should say: Calamus for Everybody. The white text will show up against the black background. Create another line--2.0 points with a 50% Raster--below the bottom of the column guides. Add a text frame (Right Justified, Swiss 50, 9 points, colour back to 1) just below this line, adjacent to the far right column guide. This frame should be large enough to hold our page numbering. Go to the PAGE menu, and select PAGE NUMBERING. Notice the numbering options. Leave numbering at default, but change Start Number to 3. Select the text frame, place a cursor inside, and click on INSERT ACTUAL PAGE NUMBER--the upper left icon in GENERAL FRAME FUNCTIONS. The number 3 will appear in the frame. Note that only the word [PAGE] (and Style/Text ruler) if you open up the Text Editor. Calamus automatically numbers the first page according to your scheme and start number. To number pages 2 through 4, we need to create the header/footer frame. A Header/footer frame may consist of as few as one frame, or as many as memory allows. Go back to the FRAMES icon pad and bring up select cursor (the hand shape). Holding down the SHIFT key, select each frame --in turn--on the document page. The handles on each should be visible. Click on HEADER/FOOTER FRAME (third row from top, middle icon). This process is similar to Grouping, discussed previously. Once a header/ footer is created, no component frame can be modified until the Header/ footer is UN-GROUPED (again like Grouped frames). If we move through our document, only odd-numbered pages (as Calamus counts) have the header/footer frame. With Double-sided documents, we need to create a separate frame for even-numbered pages. Next session. ======================================================================= Z*NET NEW ZEALAND ----------------- by Jon Clarke, Contributing Editor ======================================================================= Password Security. My Password and I would like to say: -------------------------------------------------------- Ever since the dawn of modern man a password has been a means of securing information. Weither on the battle front, for entry to a room, in a faternity or just plain fun as children we have at some stage in our life used one form or another of passwords. Now that more and more people have access to on-line services (bbs's, System networks, Major Online Services like GEnie etc) the password word as a means of protection has become more important. Your password in most cases stops other users from accessing your files or information you use on a paticular service. Passwords do not care what machine (read computer) you use or who is using them. Password protection transends all machines and is only looking for the _correct_ match. So to those of you who are reading this issue of Z*Net International no matter what computer you use an Atari, I.B.M , Clone, Unix Box, AS400 , or if you are reading this on your local BBS, on a major on-line service or even in your User Group News-letter this applies to YOU! Have you stopped laterly and thought how many passwords you may use in an average day? One, two, five or maybe more? Where do you use these passwords? On a BBS, On-line service, at work, on your Hole in the Wall Card, on the telephone? The list is endless and an average person can have at leaste five passwords without even trying. Have you thought laterly how many times you have either changed your password or how many of them are all identical? Well read on .... Below is a capture of several messages from STaTus BBS where the subject arouse over the last few weeks. This is a sample of some of the Questions and Answers given. */ REPRINTED with the Authors and STaTus BBS permission /* */ NB: Spelling and grammer have not been corrected /* */ Permission to reprint Murray Moffatts article are /* */ provided MURRAY_MOFFATT@PR1MEA.Prime.COM is intact /* Message : 9359 [Open] 3-31-91 9:40am From : Murray Moffatt To : Jon Clarke (x) Subject : #9344 hi Sig(s) : 1 (General) Speaking of passwords, I think it's probably a good idea that someone should advise our new (and not so new) users on the art of picking passwords. Anybody volunteer? Speak now or forever hold your peace? No? Ok, I'll take it on myself to do this. Your password is the only thing that stands between you and some nasty haker-type person. Your username is common knowledge to everybody that uses the system, so you must keep your password secret. This means not telling people, or lending it to people, or writing it down and sticking it to your screen, or anything like that. It also means that you must choose your password carefully. Recent experiements have shown that 25% of people choose passwords that can easily be hacked. The method that is most often used to hack a password is called the 'dictionary hack'. The hacker gets a dictionary and goes through it trying each word as the password. Of course he doesn't do this by hand, he writes a little prog to do it, and the dictionary is a file of words. So, if you use a word that is found in the dictionary, you'll be found out. Just stop for a second and think if any of your passwords are words that are found in the dictionary? So, how do you combat this? Simple, don't choose words from the dictionary! But at the same time it's not a good idea to use dates, number plates, phone numbers, etc. The best ways are to make us words. Simply string two or more words together to form a new word. For example, BLADE and RUNNER may be in the dictionary, but I'll bet that BLADERUNNER or BLADE-RUNNER or BLADE.RUNNER isn't! You can also use the initial letters from words of a phrase. For example, Three Blind Mice Ran Up The Clock would translate to a password of TBMRUTC. Looks like a nonsense word, doesn't it? But it means something to you, you just have to remember the phrase. Also, remember not to use the same password on different systems. I know that this is a hard thing not to do, but try to have different passwords on each board you use. And change the passwords regularly. Where I work all the passwords expire after 30 days, and you're forced to enter a new one. Some systems, like IBM systems, remember the last 5 or so passwords that you've used, and won't let you re-use them. They also force you to have at least one digit in the password and other things as well. Oh, and one last thing. There are a whole lot of commonly used passwords. These passwords are used so often by people, that the hacker will always try these first. Heres a list that I grabbed of Usenet that someone posted of the most commonly used passwords: alt/security/ 369 From: jsax@cdp.UUCP Subject: Re: OVERUSED PASSWORDS Date: 9 Jan 91 05:08:00 GMT Nf-ID: #R:cdp:1159900002:cdp:1159900003:000:6649 Nf-From: cdp.UUCP!jsax Jan 8 21:08:00 1991 Cc: hfrederick Subject: OVERUSED PASSWORDS Taken from 'A Novice's Guide to Hacking- 1989 Edition' by The Mentor LOD/H Password List ============= aaa daniel jester rascal academia danny johnny really ada dave joseph rebecca adrian deb joshua remote aerobics debbie judith rick airplane deborah juggle reagan albany december julia robot albatross desperate kathleen robotics albert develop kermit rolex alex diet kernel ronald alexander digital knight rosebud algebra discovery lambda rosemary alias disney larry roses alpha dog lazarus ruben alphabet drought lee rules ama duncan leroy ruth amy easy lewis sal analog eatme light saxon anchor edges lisa scheme andy edwin louis scott andrea egghead lynne scotty animal eileen mac secret answer einstein macintosh sensor anything elephant mack serenity arrow elizabeth maggot sex arthur ellen magic shark asshole emerald malcolm sharon athena engine mark shit atmosphere engineer markus shiva bacchus enterprise marty shuttle badass enzyme marvin simon bailey euclid master simple banana evelyn maurice singer bandit extension merlin single banks fairway mets smile bass felicia michael smiles batman fender michelle smooch beauty fermat mike smother beaver finite minimum snatch beethoven flower minsky snoopy beloved foolproof mogul soap benz football moose socrates beowulf format mozart spit berkeley forsythe nancy spring berlin fourier napoleon subway beta fred network success beverly friend newton summer bob frighten next super brenda fun olivia support brian gabriel oracle surfer bridget garfield orca suzanne broadway gauss orwell tangerine bumbling george osiris tape cardinal gertrude outlaw target carmen gibson oxford taylor carolina ginger pacific telephone caroline gnu painless temptation castle golf pam tiger cat golfer paper toggle celtics gorgeous password tomato change graham pat toyota charles gryphon patricia trivial charming guest penguin unhappy charon guitar pete unicorn chester hacker peter unknown cigar harmony philip urchin classic harold phoenix utility coffee harvey pierre vicky coke heinlein pizza virginia collins hello plover warren comrade help polynomial water computer herbert praise weenie condo honey prelude whatnot condom horse prince whitney cookie imperial protect will cooper include pumpkin william create ingres puppet willie creation innocuous rabbit winston creator irishman rachmaninoff wizard cretin isis rainbow wombat daemon japan raindrop yosemite dancer jessica random zap ----snip-----snip----------- The Internet Worm used a lot of the above passwords in it's first password pass. After that it just used the dictionary, etc. It'd really be worth it to check this list when people change passwords. That plus 1-2 month password expire is good security. It's amazing how many people use SECRET or MODEM for their password. Not to mention using their first name.. Jon "God hates me." vector0!jon@sactoh0.SAC.CA.US "Hate 'im back, works for me." ...ames!pacbell!sactoh0!vector0!jon alt/security/ 372 From: shipley@remarque.berkeley.edu (Pete Shipley) Subject: Re: OVERUSED PASSWORDS Date: 10 Jan 91 01:58:06 GMT Organization: Processed People for a Processed America In article <1159900002@cdp> jsax@cdp.UUCP writes: > >I received this from a respondent to my article on alt.security >recently. Is your password on the list? (Tell me! Tell me!) > > These are passwords that were used by the Internet worm, and >are included in COPS. > > >aaa I person would be crazy to admit there password is on that list, because you will be able to crack that persons account in less then two minutes using telnet. Note that list is used my everyone, it is effective on non-educated users but since every password checker written in the last five years has this list (or the list the internet worm was built from) it is not as useful as it once was for password cracking. I suggest aquiring a list of female names, I have had the most sucess with those lists. My 8mm tape collection used a list of common last names, female names, male names, the worm list, /usr/dict/words (from SunOS 4.1) and the word list from Webster's 7th Collegiate Dictionary, plus a list I put together (contains default password some OS's come with). -Pete Pete Shipley: -- Quip V1.3 (C) Murray Moffatt 1990/91 :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: : ___ ____ : Murray Moffatt : : / \ / \ : Senior Programmer : : | O / | O O | : Eagle Technology Group Ltd : : | \ | == | : Auckland, NEW ZEALAND : : \___/ |/\/\/\| : MURRAY_MOFFATT@PR1MEA.Prime.COM : :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Message : 9438 [Open] 4-04-91 5:20am From : Deigh Davies To : Murray Moffat Subject : Hackers Sig(s) : 1 (General) Thanks for all that info Murray, now will you explain to a greenhorn why it is so important that no-one knows my code? If I were paying for phone calls etc I could understand the secrecy but the only thing that comes to mind is graffiti where someone could get me a bad name. There must be more important reasons than that! Message : 9439 [Open] 4-04-91 7:46am From : Murray Moffatt To : Deigh Davies (x) Subject : #9438 Hackers Sig(s) : 1 (General) If we were using a real system instead of this little BBS, then anyone having your password would be able to log in as you and delete all your files! And if you're reasonably powerful and have access to lots of files (especially system files) then they could destroy your entire machine (imagine someone deleting all your disks!) As for BBS's, well, about the worst they can do is send lots of rude messages under your name, and use up all your time. Then you'll come along and say 'It wasn't me!' and most people won't believe you cos all those nasty messages had YOUR name on them, so you will get a really bad rep and people will call you a snivling little good for nothing toad. How'd you like that? Somebody resently hacked Graffitti Wall (guessing the sysop's password) and deleted a lot of his files (including message bases!). Obviously Craig didn't have tight enough security! Message : 9443 [Open] 4-04-91 10:24am From : Jon Clarke To : Deigh Davies (x) Subject : #9438 Hackers Sig(s) : 1 (General) I guess it goes alot deeper than that Diegh. While a hacker may find your password and access an online service and remove your good name he may also do the following. Where do we have password? PIN number on your master card, visa, ATM (Hole in the wall card) card. If you use the same one and the person knows your codes you may be less a few dollars if they get your cards. Or if you are in a job where you need passwords (we have about 30 odd to remember (and they are all different)) a person who does not change his passwords tends to be a VICTIM awaiting an accident. Remember in certain areas your password is the same as your signature (Well in my game it is in the Bank), so Password protection is a prime thought Deigh. --- [SIG : Practise safe computing. Change your passwords today ] --- ======================================================================= Z*NET SOFTWARE SHELF -------------------- by Ron Berinstein, Contributing Editor ======================================================================= Ok, I checked with the Federal Government and the nice people at the 240 E. Washington Street address confirmed that there is in fact an extra exemption that Atari Software users can take. Taking same could save you a lot of money depending on how much you use your Atari, maybe even a thousand dollars. Of course they noted that there are some exemption criteria that you must meet in order to take advantage of the newly written tax code. First, you must have an island address. Second, your primary computer must be a Univac. Third, you must be fully qualified as an elephant trainer. No doubt many Atari users will want to inquire about this new way to save money on your tax forms this season! Well, maybe we as Atari users can't save money on our tax forms JUST because we are Atari users, but, if you use your Atari for business purposes many expenses may well be tax deductible. And, with regard to the software in this column you'll save money right up front because of the either freely offered files, or the very low cost shareware ones. Not to mention how much money you might save because Atari Computer programmers have written plenty of fine programs that help us all daily with our regular routines, keeping us organized and on time, and allowing us to do for ourselves many functions that otherwise we might have had to depend on costly others to perform. LZH11318.LZH has been been uploaded this past week and replaces last month's LZH11316.LZH, an optimized LHARC. For those of you who have not heard about this file do yourselves a favor and download it. It may well be the fastest "compressor" today. Very fast at extracting as well.. HYPERCD.ULT "Hyper Screen" a 219K file that is a hyper test implementation for the ST. You must use ULTRA.LZH to unpack it. ULTRA.LZH A vintage 1989 packer/unpacker formatter etc. has been uploaded again should it be needed. Under the Heading: "What is the name of a file that combines three totally unrelated functions?" FAT_RATQ.LZH combines the ability to reverse your current screen colors with the abitity to configure a mouse accelerator, and a way to boot up your computer from DRIVE B! So, there you have it! Under the Heading: "What Shell We Do Now?" SHELL34.LZH (Shareware) replaces earlier versions of XYZSHELL. This is version 3.4 of the shell that was designed to work well with Alex Hamilton's XYZ 2.0. HACMN115.ARC contains the new popular game HACMAN2! This version, 1.15 corrects 1.14's bugs, namely this version will work with single sided drives. Other bugs, including some that caused crashes were also eliminated. CAPFUN.ARC (shareware $20) CAPITAL FUN! a program featured by Enque Software was designed to teach second to sixth graders fundamental capitalization. Designed according to Bloom's "Taxonomy of Higher Order Thinking Skills" and Madeline Hunter's, "Steps of the Teaching Process." Classroom tested. Unlike the previous version this one will run with all TOS versions. GEO_DEMO.ARC (Prg. cost $39.95) GEOGRAPHY TUTOR the only electronic atlas for the ST! This is a demo of of the newest version. Same will allow you to zoom in on any map, show the earth sphere in motion, print to a file or a printer, and more. Personally speaking, I still prefer the geography tutor that I had when I was in High School.. wow, did I zoom in on her in motion! Of course, she may be retired now... SUNNY.PRG a new demo for the STE was posted this past week. Uses hardware scrolling for multiple layers. You might need a 60hz to 50 hz video shifter program though.. CPANEL2.ARC will do for same. GPRINTDMO.ARC a 75k file with the latest demo of GPRINT version 1.03. GPRINT is one of my friend NORMW's favorite programs! Finally he can print out Word Writer, First Word, First Word Plus, ST Writer, or just plain ASCII files in fancy GDOS fonts. Plus it provides lots of formatting options (Landscape print for spreadsheets, multiple columns, true right justification, title pages, multiple proportionally spaced fonts and more). Must have GDOS or G+PLUS, a printer driver, and fonts to use this though.. This program so excited Norm that he was contemplating leaving his computer desk for a moment or two so that he could jog around the block! If you don't have GDOS or G+PLUS and don't care to print your results, download GPRNT_OX.ARC.. neither is required for this version of GPRINT which will let you try the program's features and see a snapshot of your work. Under the Heading: "IT's HERE, IT's HERE!" MAXI30DEM.LZH The Demo version of MAXIFILE 3.0, "THE SUPERTOOL!" It takes the concept of file management several steps beyond ANY previous ST program! MaxiFile sports an "awesome" text viewer, a graphic/numeric display of disk space, an unparalleled file/folder search function, DUAL DIRECTORY display, and much more! MAX30_2.TXT describing further enhancements and MF_OFFER.TXT are both associated files with the MaxiFile Demo. This past week was filled to the brim with uploads that will interest programmers and Serious ST fans. MINT07B.LZH is a PD Multi-tasking program for use with TOS programs, and it can work interactively with GEM as well. A new feature in this version is that you can access/launch TOS programs while executing a GEM program. For those of you who are downloading MINT for the first time, you will need MINTUTIL.LZH as well. Same includes various utility programs for MINT. KSH_V04A.LZH is KornShell a shell modified expressly for MINT. KSH_UTIL.LZH provides some utility programs for KornShell. Anyone using the Laser C version 2.1 compiler should download the following program. And all Laser C users may well be interested in the additional three files that follow the first. LCFIX.LZH. Same fixes a bug in the compiler that mistreats the |= and &= operators when the destination operand is a register variable. Source code has been included. STRRCHR.C supplies the strrchr( ) in C source code form that is missing from some compilers like LASER C. Also.. same is easily modified to the function strchr( ) by reversing the direction of the search. STFLEX.ARC is a lexical analyser with LASER C source code. Ported from MS-DOS by James Patchel, and has the complete development log and documentation on the porting code from an MS-DOS machine to an Atari ST as well! STGRAMMR.ARC provides the grammar for use with ST BISON (YACC Clone) and ST FLEX (Lex Clone). Note: Last week's software shelf reported that BISON.ARC had been posted.. it had, but, shortly after press time the uploader requested that it's name be changed to: STBISON.ARC. I hope that same hasn't caused calamity. The June/July issue of START featured PD UNIX-style text editors for the ST. The five posted this week and include: MGEMACS.LZH, ELVISED.LZH, MICRO EMACS, STEVIE, and GNOME.LZH. Everything you wanted to know about YMODEM and ZMODEM is contained in the following two posts: YMODEM.LZH and ZMODEMC.LZH (which also has information on getting hardware independent C code) 3D22DX.PRG features a GFA 3.0 version of a 3D2 to DXF converter. Same converts CYBER shapes to AUTOCAD DXF version 9 or 10. CYBRUT.LZH will load PI1 pictures into CYBER CAD-3D backgrounds while in record mode. This Week's "FAVORITE PROGRAM of the WEEK" is one that might well save countless hours of typing for folks that use database programming. DELIMITR.ARC (shareware $5) will convert data in a listed ASCII format (such as a BBS's file listings) into a delimited data file that can be read into many database programs (INFORMER II etc.). So, if your database program like many others can read delimited format files (those separated with commas), but can't read SDF files, this program will convert the SDF (Standard Data Format - i.e. just a text listing) files into delimited ones avoiding the terror of retyping, and providing easily a lot of information in database form, that just otherwise might not be available. The above files were compiled by Ron Berinstein co-sysop CodeHead Quarters BBS (213) 461-2095 from files that were either directly uploaded to CodeHead Quarters BBS, or downloaded from GEnie, Compuserve, and Delphi online services. ======================================================================= KEYSKINS FOR ALL ATARI COMPUTERS -------------------------------- Press Release ======================================================================= PROTECTION FROM KEYBOARD DAMAGE 24 HOURS A DAY KeySkins are CUSTOM made clear keyboard protective covers that stay attached to the keyboard while you type. Made of SOFT ultra-clear plastic, these type on protectors will keep dust, hair and even LIQUID SPILLS from DAMAGING your keyboard. You attach the KeySkin by removing the strategically placed double stick clear tape sections and then attach it to the keyboard. What you get is a CUSTOM fitting clear type on protective cover you type on. KeySkins WILL NOT reduce or interfear with your typing speed. Atari Computers such as the 520/1040 ST/STe, Mega ST2/4,and Portfolio can now be protected... so just let us know what Brand/Type/Model you have and we'll get your protection needs covered! We fully GUARANTEE a perfect fit! The retail price is $25.95 but we have been selling KeySkins to Atari owners for $19.95 plus $2.00 S/H through ST publications. FOR READERS OF THIS MESSAGE: If you send us a note telling us you read about KeySkins here we'll send you a KeySkin for ONLY $19.95 (WE'LL PAY THE SHIPPING/HANDLING !) SEND $19.95 ($ US) Check or Money Order to: Computer Supply House BBS Ad 1112 Second Street Kenai AK 99611-7210 Phone: 907-283-5837 Quantity discounts for Atari User Groups are available! Please write for price list. ======================================================================= PUBLIC DOMAIN UPDATE -------------------- by Keith MacNutt ======================================================================= LHarc 1.1318 - by Haruyasu Yoshizaki LHarc is one of the most efficient file compression methods available to the home user today. Up until 1988 the ST used mostly ARC and some PAK format compression programs for the reduction of files for the purpose of storage and transmission on phone lines. As time has passed there have been improvements to one method or another to try and get not only speed in compression but in how small a file they could produce. In the late 1980's a new program arrived called LZH, and though it produced a smaller file, it was definitely slower than the previous methods. Today LZH still produces a smaller file, but it now is comparable to the best methods available. One of the biggest advantages to this new version of LZH is the ability to do all the extraction and compression in memory. Not only does this save wear and tear on hard drives but adds speed by not reading and writing to the source and destination drives. What follows is a test I conducted on two LHZ programs using a very,very large text file. Over time I've found that text files take the most time to compress and result in some of the smaller reductions. File size = 1,279,998 bytes COMPRESSION LHA121 441,156 21 minutes 15 seconds EXTRACTION 3 minutes 3 seconds LHarc11318 COMPRESSION 438,239 15 minutes 20 seconds EXTRACTION 2 minutes 39 seconds As you can see, not all programs are created equal. Now, not everyone will be dealing with files this large, but I used this as an example to try and illustrate just how big the difference was between these two fine programs. When the program first came out, I tried to use it with CODEHEADS ARCSHELL, but found that not all the features would work properly with the present version. Well, CODEHEAD Software came to the rescue, and included a feature in their latest release (version 2.4) that will work with the new version and all the previous LZH type programs. It will be interesting to see what all the other authors of LZH type programs will do now that this new version has shown that the race is not over yet, and that there still may be ways to fine tune the method further for even faster and smaller output files. AUTHORS LHarc v1.1318 Haruyasu Yoshizaki LHA v1.21 Roger Burrows ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Z*NET International Atari Online Magazine is a weekly publication covering the Atari and related computer community. Material contained in this edition may be reprinted without permission except where noted, unedited and containing the issue number, name and author included at the top of each article reprinted. Opinions presented are those of the individual author and does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the staff of Z*Net Online. This publication is not affiliated with Atari Corporation. Z*Net, Z*Net International Atari Online, Z*Net Newswire, and Z*Net News Service are copyright (c)1989, 1990, 1991, Rovac Industries Incorporated, Post Office Box 59, Middlesex, New Jersey 08846-0059. Voice (908) 968-2024, BBS (908) 968-8148 at 1200/2400 Baud 24 hours a day. We can be reached on Compuserve at PPN 71777,2140 and on GEnie at address: Z-Net. FNET NODE 593. Z*Net Online Conference, Conference Code: 20448, Lead Node: 593 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Z*Net International Atari Online Magazine (c)1989,1990,1991, Rovac Industries, Inc. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~