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Text File | 1992-11-22 | 112.9 KB | 2,436 lines

####################################################################### ####################################################################### ####################################################################### ####################################################################### ####################################################################### ####################################################################### ##########(((((((((( ##########((( ##(( ##((((((( ##(((((((( ########## #################(( ####(( ####(((( #(( ##(( ##########(( ############# ##############(( #####(((((( ##(( (( (( ##((((( #######(( ############# ###########(( ##########(( ####(( #(((( ##(( ##########(( ############# ##########(((((((((( ##########(( ##((( ##((((((( #####(( ############# ####################################################################### ####################################################################### ####################################################################### ####################################################################### ####################################################################### ####################################################################### Z*NET: ATARI ONLINE MAGAZINE ---------------------------- "Special Comdex Issue" TOS Birthday - 11/20/85 November 20, 1992 Issue #19 Volume 7, Number 19 Copyright (c)1992, Syndicate Publishing Company ~ Publisher/Editor..........................Ron Kovacs ~ Senior Editor..............................John Nagy ~ Contributing Editor........................Ed Krimen ~ Writer............................Michael R. Burkley ~ Writer.....................................Bob Smith ~ Z*Net News Service........................Jon Clarke $ GEnie Address..................................Z-NET $ CompuServe Address........................75300,1642 $ Delphi Address..................................ZNET $ Internet/Usenet Address................status.gen.nz $ America Online Address......................ZNET1991 $ AtariNet Address...........................51:1/13.0 * Z*Net: News Service FNET 593 AtariNet 51:1/13 (908) 968-8148 * Z*Net: Golden Gate FNET 706 AtariNet 51:1/9 (510) 373-6792 *--CONTENTS--* ### The Z*Net Newswire...................................... ### Fall Comdex '92: Atari Struggles...............John Nagy ### Atari At Comdex...............................Ron Kovacs ### Sam Tramiel In Conference.....................Ron Kovacs ### AtariNet......................................Bill Scull ### Comdex Overview..............................Z*Net Staff ### Perusing GEnie.................................Ed Krimen ### The Unabashed Atariophile.............Michael R. Burkley ### DTP Sources and Reference Lists...........Mario Georgiou ### Z*Net Computer Calender.......................Ron Kovacs ### Perusing The Internet..........................Ed Krimen ### PowerDos.................................Kevin J. Conway ###### Z*NET NEWSWIRE ###### Latest Atari and Industry News ###### --------------------------------------------------------------- POWERNET MOVES ON Dragonware Software has announced that it has been unable to renew its license to manufacture PowerNet. Anyone who has a copy of PowerNet with a DragonWare label on it can still receive support from DragonWare. Both PowerDOS and PowerNet have been sold by the programmer to ViewTouch Corporation. All programming questions for PowerNet and its associated applications should be directed to Gene Mosier at 503-344-7990 or Chris Latham at PowerPoint Software, 503-479-6635. DragonWare has also announced a new telephone support number. The new number is 406-265- 7300 and its hours are between 10am Pacific (1pm Eastern) to 4pm Pacific (7pm Eastern) Monday through Friday. On Saturdays, the support line is available from 11am to 4pm Pacific (2pm to 7pm Eastern). THE FEW, THE PROUD, "THE SIGHKADELICKZ" Dave Conroy of Aldergrove, British Columbia has announced that he is looking for programmers, artists, and musicians to join a demo crew called "The Sighkadelickz." Their first priority is that they need a good assembly programmer and a musician. If you are interested, send mail to Dave Conroy, 27006 34 A Avenue, Aldergrove, British Columbia, Canada V0X-1A0. You can also reach him on the Internet via dconroy@outb.wimsey.ba.ca. IAAD UPDATE - Press Release The Independent Association of Atari Developers (IAAD) is pleased to announce the election of a new, expanded Board of Directors. Newly- elected Board members include: Nathan Potechin of ISD/DMC, Nevin Shalit of Step Ahead Software, Jim Allen of FAST Technology, Chet Walters of Wizworks!, and Dorothy Brumleve of D.A. Brumleve. Brumleve, who will serve as President of the organization, said of the election: "Our new Board members' varied experience in the marketplace should serve us well in assisting our members and Atari Corp. We plan to maintain close contact with Atari in order to better address the needs of our members and the Atari community at large." Speaking on behalf of Atari Corp., Director of Communications Robert G. Brodie said, "It has been a great pleasure to work with the leaders of the IAAD over the past few years. I have no doubts that the IAAD and Atari will be a formidable team as the Atari Falcon030 begins to capture market share. We look forward to continued excellent relations with the IAAD and its Board of Directors." The IAAD is an organization of third-party commercial hardware and software developers supporting the Atari ST family of computers. The current membership includes most active developers in North America as well as some from abroad. Unique in the industry, the organization works to provide its membership with help in marketing, packaging, technical matters, and other issues of interest to third-party developers. Working in concert with Atari, the IAAD strives to raise Atari product awareness and to ease the introduction of new products in the marketplace. Such support takes place through member-to-member exchanges and group projects. Past projects include the "IAAD Brochure", a brochure containing descriptions of participating members' products which was produced by the IAAD, published by Atari, and distributed with Atari Explorer magazine. Commercial developers are encouraged to join by sending GEMail to the PERMIT$ address on GEnie. Developers who are not currently GEnie members may call D.A. Brumleve at 217 337 1937 for more information. ATARI 3RD QUARTER RESULTS Atari Corp 3rd Quarter '92 3rd Quarter '91 ---------------------------------------- $34,529,000 $49,240,000 $1,882,000 (.03) $1,634,000 (.03) COMDEX COVERAGE There was much happening at Comdex/Fall 1992. For SOME of the news read the COMDEX column in this edition of Z*Net. WORDPERFECT PRESENTATIONS WordPerfect announced that it began shipping the WordPerfect Presentations 2.0 for DOS. Presentations moves the company into the multimedia market with its new sound capabilities and introduces features and capabilities new to the DOS presentation graphics market. The product's graphical interface lets DOS users take full advantage of the mouse to access drawing and editing tools on 3-D push-button icons. Presentations also supports familiar WordPerfect keystrokes. Dialog boxes with radio buttons and combo boxes guide users through the product's many features. In addition, the product features scroll bars, rulers, zoom icon and color palettes. Users can edit nine drawings or presentations simultaneously. With this upgrade, they renamed the product WordPerfect Presentations to more specifically reflect its positioning as a business presentation graphics package. Presentations ships with 10 Speedo and 30 Type 1 fonts and gives users the ability to contour text to a path. WordPerfect Presentations retails for $495.00. For more information call WordPerfect at (800) 451-5151. IBM UPGRADES DOS 5.0 PACKAGE IBM announced a special IBM DOS 5.0 retail package for users of Intel- based personal computers. IBM DOS 5.0 now includes two of the best- selling DOS utilities -- Stacker 2.0 from Stac Electronics and 386MAX Version 6 from Qualitas. -- packaged together with a suggested retail price of only $74 for anyone who wants to upgrade an existing DOS system from any vendor or $135 for first-time DOS buyers. The IBM DOS 5.0 retail upgrade package is available through retail software distributors, IBM remarketers, Prodigy or by calling IBM toll free at (800) 426-2968. NEW AMIGA Commodore has unveiled the Amiga 1200 which incorporates Commodore's 32-bit Advanced Graphics Architecture (AGA) and comes with a 3.5-inch floppy drive, 2MB of RAM and an internal IDE interface. A base Amiga 1200 has a suggested retail price of $699. EPSON NEW COLOR SCANNERS Epson announced the addition of two 24-bit color flatbed scanners -- ES-600C and ES-800C -- to its product line for users with imaging and intensive document handling requirements. The products come bundled with software necessary to provide a complete scanner solution for Windows and Macintosh users. In addition to cables, drivers and a choice of interface boards, Epson's scanner packages include full versions of Micrografx Picture Publisher 3.1 for PC users or Adobe's Photoshop for Macintosh users. Epson will also sell these new models without software. These scanners will be available through authorized resellers nationwide in December. Including software bundles, the manufacturer's suggested retail price begins at $1,424 for the ES-600C and $1,898 for the ES-800C. Users can call (800) BUY-EPSON for product information or the location of the nearest reseller. ###### FALL COMDEX '92: ATARI STRUGGLES FOR RESPECT ###### By John Nagy for the Z*Net News Service ###### --------------------------------------------------------------- It was the largest booth in one of the largest of the sprawling convention halls, in the biggest computer show the year. It was the only alternative computer company in the entire building. It was one of only two alternative computers in the entire show, attended by over 130,000 people in over 20 million square feet of shows. It was Atari at COMDEX in November, 1992, and it was uphill all the way. And to me, it was Atari's most confusingly upbeat but self-distracted COMDEX showings to date. There's some good reasons for that, including a dearth of personnel at Atari now, some management snafus that helped prompt a mid-show shakeup, and an appearance of an executive attitude that COMDEX in USA's Las Vegas isn't really as important as Germany's CeBIT in Hannover, so... COMDEX didn't get a budget it could shine with. Showing dozens of Falcon030 computers in a new and spacious booth arrangement, Atari Corp again used the USA's largest trade show to try to show what third-party developers have for the platform. They did it to a fault, almost to the point of downplaying the remarkable power of the new Atari hardware itself. But the presence of KODAK and a pair of developers for the NeXT computer platform gave many a reason to raise an eyebrow, scratch their head, and wonder if Atari might be onto something really good. What kind of Falci, you ask, expectantly? Sorry, no tower configuration units, and not a peep from anyone admitting that such a unit was in planning. Nor were any glimpses of 68040 units to be had, and I was there a day before opening just to be sure. Oh well. We found the "general" read: non-Atari) public to be quite accepting of the one- piece 1040 style Falcon. I guess Atari is lucky that most people aren't as picky as their own established users. Also known as a picky bunch, the FCC were fended off by big stickers under each Falcon: FOR DISPLAY PURPOSES ONLY--AWAITING FCC APPROVAL. Last year, the FCC slapped dozens of manufacturers at COMDEX for showing and offering to sell machines that weren't licensed. Atari escaped then; they didn't chance it this time. Developers were the focus at about 10 workstations surrounding a central core of four conference rooms, all in stately grays and lively pastel blues. A pair of immense wheel-like signs hovered above the booth in the Sands Convention Center, looking like they should be lighted or spinning or something instead of hanging silent and stationary. While the Atari booth looked good, the tables were not of the higher quality that the previous well-used setup evoked with its marble-looking tops. The placement of the conference core in the center of the booth made the Atari area look small from all sides; without going around to look, the visual impression was that the booth was what you could see, ending at the conference rooms. It was easy to assume that Atari had 1/3rd or less of the space it really had. And like the story of the blind men around an elephant, impressions made on the fleeting passersby were likely to be unfairly singular and disjoint. Overheard while someone passed on the side of the booth where games were showing: "Huh. Atari. Just games. Oh well." Wrong. But he'll never know differently. Large quantities of empty floor space within the booth didn't help Atari make points, either. Other displays DID make points for Atari. Kodak signed a contract with Atari for development of the Falcon030 as a system for display and editing of CD ROM images. The system is being ported and developed by Color Concept of Germany, with their Michael Bernards (one of the Calamus authors) showing it off. The pictures were nothing short of dazzling. Images jumped off the standard ST color monitors, driven by the Falcon computers. The picture quality was subjectively as good as the SVGA demos shown a few booths away on monitors designed to sell for more than the Falcon alone, not to mention the video cards required to drive them at adequate speed. The Photo CD will become a COMPELLING application for the Falcon, which will become the lowest price option in the world for display and manipulation of the new medium. [For those who missed the revolution, Kodak will transfer your slides or photos to a CD disk, 135 pictures to a disk. Each is stored in several resolutions for fast access, an the best image far exceeds any currently available display device, assuring future non-obsolecense. The quality is almost frightening, better than any TV image, better than anything you'll imagine, until you see it in action.] I wish the Kodak area had been more visible from the periphery of the Atari booth. It, alone, was enough to motivate a Falcon purchase. If things play out right, Kodak will even be helping sell Atari units via their own advertising, possibly showing the Falcon as the affordable instrument of use. The software will be available in January for something near $200. All you'll need is the Falcon and a Kodak-compatible multisession CD player. It will also run on a TT with a graphics card. Drawing crowds next to the Kodak area was a bizarre device that looked like a sewing machine on steroids. From Data Stitch, Roy Garland showed a TT030 running an embroidery machine, making Atari Logo hats and such. The setup costs a mere $32,000, and at that price, is the most competitive unit in the custom embroidery industry. Data Stitch now owns a significant and fast-growing part of the market, due to the power, speed, and ease of use of the Atari system. It can take a tracing of any image and calculate the stitches required to create a hat, patch, or even an entire multicolor jacket. The point here was that Atari products can fit well into vertical markets, providing more options than the PC platform at prices far below the Mac or NeXT platforms. That message got through to many, while others simply wanted to see the machine make a hat. Digital-Optical-Analog is a new company based in Houston, Texas. President Steve Nasypany and DOA's "BlackMail" device was invented as a DSP based voicemail system for the NeXT. When they saw Atari with a far lower cost and almost identical DSP system, they became Atari developers. The minimum Falcon system to be able to use the BlackMail unit will be 4 meg and only 30 meg of drive room, while NeXT computers will require nearly four times the drive space, and Macintosh systems will require an expensive adaptor card with the DSP. The Falcon wins on price by a quantum level. BlackMail should be ready in the first quarter of 1993. The down side of that was a display that featured almost no display at all--no software to show, and a cigarette-pack size dummy demo box. The second NeXT developer on had was Steve Klein of Singular Solutions in Pasadena, California. In cooperation with England's D2D Systems, they have brought a professional level digital audio recording and editing system to the Falcon. The system is stereo and designed to replace $20,000 devices with a $2,900 one (and that INCLUDES the Falcon and drives!). The developers are excited; they say that they designed it for the NeXT, and that they conservatively expect the Falcon package to sell 20 times the number of units as they intended to market to NeXT owners. Unfortunately, a system like Singular Solutions' is hard to grab audiences with from distance. As a result, this groundbreaking developer was placed inboard, hidden from the public, who instead saw a pair of musicians using the Falcon with comparatively ordinary MIDI products by Barefoot Software and others. Placement gaffes were plentiful, despite what appeared to be room to burn. Along the same high-profile border that featured BlackMail, a Falcon sat idling at the desktop, with nothing planned for it. The Portfolio display had some really interesting developments like BSE's external Flashdrive and an integrated unit that gives serial AND parallel interfaces to the tiny Port, plus 512K RAM extension for a full 640K machine, PLUS a virtual drive B with 128K of storage, all for about $300. And Optrol's Flash Memory offered Portfolio compatible cards with 524K at under $150. But the entire Port area was hidden as the backside of the "entertainment" display: four Falcons running games, mostly unattended. They were interesting games, at least, including Raiden, A Jeff Minter Camels game, and a bloody item called Cyber Assault that shows your character in full animation. Run, jump, pick up stuff, but fall in the water and a shark attacks you, eats your leg off, and you hop out to the land on one leg plus a red stump. Yikes. All done in 3- D vectors with variable camera views, instant replays, and more. Also on the games area: Landmines and Breakout are vivid examples of how thousands of colors don't make a better game. But we got a first look at a 12-key joystick unit that uses the side analog jacks on the STe and Falcon. More things to make you go "hmmmmm...": a 37" color monitor at one corner belted out the "Simply the Best" Tina Turner video in full animation and stop-action blitting with CD quality sound. But the Falcon that was running this jewel of production was hidden below the set, and not a trace of what or why or how this marvel of programming was being done was visible until a sign was made near the end on the first day. And to be honest, I had to prod that sign into existence, and even write the text of it myself. But after watching people look at the nameless display and then walk away wondering why they were being shown this videotape, I spent some time standing by the set and telling folks what they were seeing: nearly a minute of full color animated live video playing from RAM and stereo 16 bit music playing direct from a hard drive, via a Falcon030 with no add-on cards or adapters. And the unit base price is under $800. The response was ALWAYS dropped jaws and nearly as often a diversion into the Atari booth for more information. The sign did help, later. On hand from Atari were the usuals plus a few: Bob Brodie, who was intimately involved in the planning of the COMDEX showing; Ron Smith, Bob's contracted boss and marketing guru, who is said to have been "let go" on the second day of COMDEX after a review of the last months performance; James Grunke, pushing the music end of Atari; Mel Stevens, a long-term honcho who rules the show setup with an iron hand and a gravelly voice; Shirley Taylor, long the friendly face at the information counter; Bill Rehbock, Mike Fulton, Jay Patton, Art Prysinski, Darren Meers (Atari Explorer) and his wife, and many more. They worked hard, probably too hard, looking tired before the end of day one of COMDEX. There are FIVE hard days, running 8 AM til 6 PM plus requisite appearances for clients in the evening, leaving little time or energy for slots or blackjack in the Vegas money mill. A fat press package was supplemented by a brand new "Atari International TOS Software Catalog," reminiscent of the huge book that was distributed in 1987. This $12 book is as thick as four Reader's Digests, and is a fascinating collection of one-page overviews (with graphics) of the available software for Atari computers. I recommend it to everyone who ever might need to answer the question, "What's available for those computers, anyway?" Drop-ins were numerous. Jerry Pournelle of Byte came by a while on Sunday before opening. On Monday, a pair of familiar faces beamed in on the booth: Sig Hartman and Alwin Stumpf. Sig was a founding father of the new Atari, and he looked 10 years younger than he did when he retired three years ago. He was his usual jovial self, and said he was healthier since leaving because he didn't just sit and work and eat anymore, the way you have to at Atari. Alwin recently left as the head of Atari Germany, and was accompanying Sig as "editors" of a computer magazine that appeared to be mostly a means of getting VIP passes to dinners and shows. Now on to the more standard displays. The Calamus display was dramatic, with the effervescent Mario Georgiou and hyperkinetic Nathan Potechin merrily manipulating eye-boggling graphics in dynamite color using Calamus SL and new modules that included MASK and PHOTO CD IMPORT. Bob Luneski's recently expanded Oregon Research brought the extensive lineup of the Diamond products plus Highsoft's development tools, including TruePaint, the first full art package for the Falcon in true color. Goldleaf Publishing offered their usual impressive and ever-changing layout of graphics products. Prime among them was GT LOOK II, a pricey ($499) but complete scanning software pack for the Epson GT color scanner, and DA'S VEKTOR from Digital Arts in Germany (not yet available). COMPO showed That's Write II and was expected to demo their 386SX card for the Falcon. I never saw it, but it may have surfaced near the end of the show. They didn't say much about it, so there must have been some problem. A nifty music/direct recording title with CD quality stereo sampling and recording will sell for under $100, to be available in early '93. Micro Creations was showing GIMETERM and GIMEBBS, integrated telecom software that sends graphics with text. A prelude to videophones? Atari also showed SUTRA, now to be renamed CONCIERGE, sort of a WORKS clone. What I saw was the document processor module, and it looked adequate. It may include FAX software too, as Atari showed Joppa's STraight FAX and was calling it Atari's property. Running unattended and all but unnoticed was a Falcon attached to JRI's prototype GENLOCK box. It was doing flawless overlay of animated text on a live image, mixed and managed by the Falcon. It bore a "suggested list price" of $499, considered by many to be at least double what the production units could/should sell for. Time and production volume will determine that. AtariUser was the only Atari magazine represented, and stacks of the September, October, and new November magazines from AU welcomed visitors at several corners of the booth. The November issues barely made it to the show; the publisher [me, John Nagy] totalled his car on the way to the printer to pick up extra issues just before the show. No injuries except to the economic well-being of the company. So what's the bottom line on this COMDEX? I'm left a bit flat, and not just because I lost my car (a cute and snappy RX7) in the process. Atari didn't spend enough, in time or money, to make their COMDEX showing really zing. Early announced concepts under which the developers would pay to be in the Atari booth were dropped due to terrible reactions, but it's said that many developers that were approached later were unwilling to appear, even for free, The stay in Vegas can be expensive enough, and in reality, there are few business opportunities at COMDEX for third party Atari developers--they're here only to help the platform in a general way. COMDEX is the largest computer trade show in the USA every year, although this one seemed to be down in attendance from last year. But there remains some doubt as to whether COMDEX matters much anymore to Atari. The European market must be salvaged or the company is going to be in trouble. The US market will either follow or won't matter. That feeling pervaded more than a few conversations that were overheard or requested. Atari is saying that 2,000 Falcons will be in stores in January, following samples to "most" retailers as soon as Thanksgiving weekend. Thereafter, plans are to build and ship 4,000 units a month for distribution worldwide. The US might see about 20% of those, certainly under 1,000 units a month. Still, that's dozens a month to Atari dealers, and should not create a shortage. Who will sell them? Dealers and distributors were, in fact, quite interested in the Atari line. Margins are the real factor; PC clones sell, but the market is saturated, and profits on a $2,000 machine may not be $200 due to the competition. Atari computers can offer three to four times the margin, with smaller purchases yielding satisfying performance. That means that pushing Atari could be very profitable. And that means that the dealers are now a motivated audience for Atari products. As I've ended every COMDEX review for the last 5 years, I'll end this one. The pieces are all here. If Atari can produce the machines that they showed here, they'll sell just fine. But everyone is wary of Atari's reputation for announcing and failing to produce. I'm ready. Dealers and distributors are ready. You're ready. It's up to Atari. ###### ATARI AT COMDEX ###### Compiled by Ron Kovacs from GEnie ###### --------------------------------------------------------------- Category 11, Topic 10 Sun Nov 15, 1992 Z-NET at 20:17 EST Sub: COMDEX!!! 1992 In VEGAS Atari is at COMDEX again, with a big booth in the Sands Convention Center! Here'e the Latest News Live from the Floor! Message 1 Sun Nov 15, 1992 Z-NET at 20:22 EST John Nagy here live from the largest booth in the Sands Convention Hall at COMDEX '92. It's the Atari Booth, with 18 Falcons on half a dozen workstations, plus a few TT's, Portfolios, and even 2 Atari 386's (to demo interfacing the Port and such....) Busy is the word today, as we set up the area. It's a new booth this year, with a wider look. Lots of devs I never saw before are here, including reps from KODAK and other places I can't tell you about til tommorrow when the show opens. Lets just say that I'm impressed and encouraged. And you will be too. Atari has a pair of phone lines for modeming, so I'll have some reports throughout myu stay here in Lost Wages, NV. I'll try to get Nathan and Bob to comment whenever possible too. ------------ Category 11, Topic 10 Message 7 Tue Nov 17, 1992 JOHN.KING.T [JOHN KING T] at 23:38 EST A few more tidbits about COMDEX. Jerry Pournelle was at the ATARI booth on Sunday, the day BEFORE the show opened. He and ATARI people had a nice chat. Just to let you know how large ATARI's booth was in comparison to other exhibitors, ATARI had the LARGEST booth of any single exhibitor at the Sands Expo Hall, about 4,000 sq. ft. ------------ Category 11, Topic 10 Message 9 Wed Nov 18, 1992 BOB-BRODIE [Atari Corp.] at 18:29 EST The first day of the show was the traditional slow day at the Sands Expo center, throughout the exhibition hall. The first day crowds prefer to battle onto death itself in the more visible Las Vegas Convention Center displays. Those that survive will be treated to the Atari exhibit in comfort and in depth. :-) As in past years the Atari booth is the most prominent one in the Sands Expo Center. This year the booth has a different look than the past. This years theme is Personal Integrated Media and Atari has chosen bright signage and striking blue and gray displays. Opening the booth is the Kodak Photo CD running on both a TT030 and an Atari Falcon030, staffed by Michael Bernards of Color Concepts. Michael is one of the original Calamus programmers from Germany. Kodak is very excited about the relationship with Atari as when they first developed Photo CD, they intended it for use by consumers. However, Microsoft and Apple promptly moved it into the office. With the Atari Falcon030, Atari has brought the Photo CD back into the family room. Michael Bernards spent last week at the Kodak facility porting the Photo CD Toolkit and the Photo CD slide show utility to the Atari platform. He was warmly received and had a great time! ;-) Mario Georgiou of DMC Publishing is demonstrat king Calamus SL with his usual aplomb (wild abandon). :-) Hooked to a 21" Mitsubishi hi-res monitor, the 42 megabyte TT is driving the Mitsubishi 300 dpi dye- sublimation printer as well as the Atari SLM605 and a Toshiba CD Rom drive. The Mitsubishi monitor is being driven by a Cyrel Sunrise card by Cybercube. The monitor is set at 800x600 with 16.7 million colors! You should have seen Nathan yesterday, proudly showing off the results of the brand new Kodak Photo CD import driver for Calamus SL. It is quite impressive to behold quality images from a Kodak Photo CD portrayed perfectly in Calamus SL, laid out and ready for output. Expect great things to come from this particular combination. The Dataformer Module was also being shown, which will allow a Calamus file to be exported in approximately 18 different formats. Mario exported a PostScript file via the Dataformer Module, which was then loaded into CompoScript, and printed perfectly! Digital Optical Analog is dem onstrating Blackmail, their Falcon-based digital phone mail system that allows users to call in and use their touch-tone phones to navigate through various selections and options to leave messages etc. This is a new developer to the Atari platform, previously making their product for the NeXT. Using the Atari Falcon030 to operate a voice mail system will save thousands of dollars. MicroCreations is here showing off GIME Term, and GIME BBS. These are full featured term programs that incorporate unique graphic and sound capabilities. They also have a new terminal program called Rapier. I'll get more on their offerings later in the show after I've had a chance to get a demonstration of everything they have to offer. STraight FAX is being demonstrated, and is in fact proving to be the FAX unit of choice for the Atari Booth. Coupled with a SupraFAXmodem, the STraight Fax software has been shuttling faxes back and forth to Sunnyvale throughout the show. Of course, from time to time I MUST run a term program to get up on GEnie, though! :-) Love the high speed of the Supra V.32 modem! CD ROM drives are in use throughout the booth, working with the HiSoft TruePaint program, Calamus SL and Photo CD. The MultiTOS/MiNT.XFS (Extendable File System) Driver supports Standard CD-ROM, as well as CD-ROM/XA and will ship with every Falcon. Compo is showing a series of applications for the Atari Falcon030. Among them is the exciting new product MUSiCOM. MUSiCOM is direct to disk recording system, including sound manipulation and effects capabilities. Included with the program are "Karaoke" and harmonization effects that are easy to use on your own recordings. MUSiCOM will retail at less than $100, and will be available by January, 1993. Also shown by Compo is the well known word processor That's Write 2. This is an upgrade from their earlier version of That's Write which adds programming, outline font capabilities, enhanced mail merge, improved mulitiple document handling (now up to 10 documents at a time!), as well as interaction with That's Address 2...another new product from COMPO. That's Address 2 is an easy to use database program for mailing lists, and address management. That's Address 2 will be available first quarter of '93 for $99 US. A future version of That's Write that uses Speedo fonts, and outputs PostScript files is also being shown. This version will be available in 1993, and price has not been set at this time. That's Write 2 is available NOW, and retails for $259.95 US. On Tuesday, Hans Jorg Sack arrived at COMDEX from Germany, hand carrying COMPO's new Atari Falcon030 PC board. The tentative name for the product is Falcon Speed. The first version of the product will be a 286, rather than a 386. This version will be very inexpensive. It will support VGA, Super VGA, and Windows 3.1! Soon, there will be another version with a faster processor, most discussion is about a 486. Last, but not least, CompoScript is being shown. This is the complete PostScript clone from COMPO. CompoScript uses Adobe Type I fonts, with output to virtually all printers. It can also convert EPS files, and PS files to GEM IMG and TIFF formats. CompoScript is available NOW, and retails for $349.95, or an upgrade from UltraScript is $200. SpeedoGDOS is being shown along with Concierge (formerly ST Sutra) by a representative from Bitstream. Concierge incorporates full word processor, database, and spreadsheet capabilities in a "Works" like environment. Each can cut and paste between the other, so you could highlight a series of cells out of a spreadsheet, and then drop them into your word processor. SpeedoGDOS replaces FSMGDOS as Atari's font scaling module and will work with BitStream fonts, which are readily available. D2D Systems from the UK is showing D2D Edit as well as Falcon D2D, the simple to use, yet sophisticated audio sampling and editing applications. Barefoot Software is showing SMPTE-Track and Edit-Track, directly across from the AdLib booth who are striving to look good against Atari's own multimedia applications. :-) To the left of the Atari booth is Ingram Micro with Creative Labs and Soundblaster to the right. Roy Garland from Data Stitch was showing his sophisticated embroidery application running on the TT. He is currently embroidering hats with the Atari logo and handing them out. They are in great demand. :-) Without a doubt, this is the most unique application being shown at the show. Many people are startled to see such a high end sewing machine activeyly churning along at the show, totally controlled by the computer. There are other things being shown in the booth, including some new games that Atari commissioned to have done, and a number of Portfolio products as well. I'll get back to you on those applications and games later, particularly the impressive HiSoft lineup. regards, Bob Brodie Director of Communications Atari Corporation ------------ Category 11, Topic 10 Message 13 Wed Nov 18, 1992 POTECHIN [Nathan @ DMC] at 19:28 EST First of all, in the RTC Monday night, I had the pleasure of joining Bob and Sam in Bob's room on the occassion of the GEnie conference. Bob has his trusty STacy, along with a megafile 44, running to perfection in his room. Hmmm, maybe I'll trade him. :-) Anyway, I am here to say that Sam himself was on keyboard, and quite proficcient. In fact, Bob and I spent much of the time watching the Monday night football game. :-) Seriously, Sam was at home on GEnie and he was certainly serious about getting online here on a regular basis. Moving along ;-), I LOVE the Kodak Photo CD and I especially love the Kodak Photo CD import driver already working perfectly in Calamus SL! Particularly impressive is importing one of the well known files off the sample CD Kodak has made recognizable and zooming in to unbelievable degrees without pixelating! Atari has an Atari Falcon030 in both Motorola's DSP and 68000 booths as well as Bitstreams booth. This product is getting recognition. I listened in on a conversation with Gary Tramiel, head of Atari N.A., and one of his best Dealer, PD Patel from Mid Cities. In fact, I joined in on the meeting. Gary showed us the intended advertising and marketing of both the Lynx and the Atari Falcon030. Most of you are aware that I have been around Atari in some manner since 1985 so when I say that the marketing plan already in implementation is the most impressive I've seen from Atari in 7 years, believe it. In fact, I believe that Atari is going to start getting ... MARKET SHARE!! :-) Jack Tramiel has been sitting in on meetings throughout the week at the booth. When not in meetings he has been kibitzing with the Developers and customers. This man is good! ;-) Gary has also been in attendance throughout. Sam left to head back to Sunnyvale yesterday. Did I mention that Gary is quite well respected both from the customers and staff. He is going to do well for us Atari types. Tom, the show is not as busy as I would have liked. I blame that on the location in the Sands more than any other factor! However, the response from those that do attend has been great. Naturally I tend to hang around the Calamus display to meet and greet the Calamus owners that have made it down and they, along with myself, have been really thrilled with the Kodak CD images displayed and manioulated on the screen. :-) I'm sure that by the weekend you will start receiving a great many posts from people that simply do not have modem access at this time. You wouldn't believe what I just went through to get online here and now. Nathan @ DMC Ass't. Atari Sysop ------------ Category 11, Topic 10 Message 22 Thu Nov 19, 1992 BOB-BRODIE [Atari Corp.] at 13:16 EST Eric, To provide a complete run down on all the various inner workings of each application being shown here would be very time consuming. I have a show to run, too! :) I will post again later with basic information on other products that haven't been mentioned yet. As always, the developer of those products is the best source of comprehensive information on their products. HiSoft is showing a 16 bit TruePaint program...that much I know. As for the rest of the details...you know as much as I do at this point!! :) Hopefully, we'll both be more knowledgable Real Soon Now! We have had some interesting visitors here...a reporter from Chile who swears to me that he still uses AtariWriter on an Atari 800XL rather than the MacIIci that his paper would prefer he use. Lots of international types, asking all sorts of amazing questions, like where are the STs? :) Welcome to North America.... regards, Bob Brodie ------------ Category 11, Topic 10 Message 23 Thu Nov 19, 1992 POTECHIN [Nathan @ DMC] at 13:27 EST Live from the Atari booth at Comdex once again... I just left an informative meeting with James Grunke, the very knowledgeable savant of all things music related on the Atari. I was listening to Atari's plans for NAMM. I've always wanted to go to this show but have never quite made it. This year Atari is certain to make a big splash. After a short but educational stay at Atari for Mr. Ron Smith, let me be the first to share the news that he is no longer with Atari. Many of you will wonder who this is exactly. Not to worry, that was part of the problem. :-) Got to run. Nathan Messages Copyright (c)1992, GEnie ST RT and Atari Corporation ###### SAM TRAMIEL IN CONFERENCE ###### Excerpts compiled by Ron Kovacs ###### --------------------------------------------------------------- On Monday, November 16, 1992 Sam Tramiel attended the regular Monday evening Realtime Conference on GEnie live from Comdex/Fall '92. The following is an overview from the CO. Sam opened the conference by stating " The important thing is to market the machine properly and we are now planning the advertising for Q1 of 1993." - DEALER PRICES FOR FALCON Dealer prices are now available, call Sunnyvale. - FALCON TOWER VERSION There is no tower version at the show and I can't comment further. - FALCON AVAILABILITY IN CANADA The availability is the same as for the US. - WHEN FIRST FALCONS AT DEALERS Some dealers will get machines very, very soon and we will contine to roll out shipments from now on, but real volumes starting in Dec/Jan. - FSM/SPEEDO COMPATIBILITY FSM and Speedo are not compatible. - MULTITOS FOR TT MultiTos is just being released for the TT, i.e. very soon. - TT MONITORS CANCELLED No - TT IN TOWER AND UNIX We are planning on a 040 machine and we have no plans on expanding our unix involvement. - FUTURE OF THE MEGASTE The Mega/Ste is still being sold today and the production will depend on the demand which I think will slack off when the Atari Falcon 030 starts shipping in volume. - WHAT'S SHOWING AT COMDEX There are around 40 titles being shown, a lot of sound stuff, i.e. D2D, a beta version of "Concierge" the new name for Sutra, a wild game from Jeff Minter of Llamasoft, and a interesting sewing machine that stitches on hats and teeshirts, and the new Kodak Photo CD which now runs on The Atari Falcon 030 and the TT030. The deal with Kodak was just signed on Friday last week. Calamus showed SL which can use Kodak Photo CD and HiSoft has True Color software. - JAGUAR We just finished the first two developer conferences, one in Sunnyvale, the other in London on the Jaguar system. It's going to be an awesome entertainment machine and delivery will be 2nd half of 93. - ATARI STOCK VALUE Atari has an open plan to purchase stock back from the market and has done so in the last quarter. I of course cannot predict the stock market but we have "rightsized" and hopefully will be going forward in a profitable manner with the Atari Falcon 030. We still have close to $50 million CASH in the bank and are now running at a break even or small profit. We are not working for Wall Street but to make money for our shareholders and only think long term. - SAM ON GENIE I am going to be accessing GEnie at home and will be more active on a regular basis. (Nathan is getting that in writing!) ;-) - GAMES FOR THE FALCON We, Atari, have contracted about a dozen games and they will be released over the next few months and there are a number of developers busy working away on some great games. I have seen demos in the US and in Europe, titles such as; Raiden, Road Riot H4WD, Cyber Assualt, Steel Talons and Eclipse has a great spaceship game. The special new joystick which works on the STe, Atari Falcon 030 and Jaguar will be shipping in February. It has three fire buttons and a 12 key numeric keypad. - MULTITOS NOT READY MultiTos is not quite shipping but as I said ealier, Eric Smith is now in-house and is polishing off the product and will be shipping with the Atari Falcon 030. - NEW INTERNATIONAL SOFTWARE CATALOG Atari is giving away new Atari Falcon 030 literature and many software companies have attractive new literature such as Hi-Soft and DMC's Calamus. The new International Software Catalog is available at, I think, $12.95 retail and I'd be happy to fill your order with your VISA card #. Please call Sunnyvale and speak to Don Thomas next week, in customer service. It is, in fact, $12.00. We just checked. Atari Corp., 1196 Borregas Avenue, Sunnyvale, CA, 94089-1302 Att: Customer Service, Don Thomas. - NO PLANS FOR WORD-UP There are no plans for Word Up at this time. ###### ATARINET ###### Network Overview Compiled by Bill Scull ###### --------------------------------------------------------------- So, you've heard about AtariNet. This is a network for any BBS that supports the Atari platform of home computer. There are already several bulletin board systems worldwide participating and more are joining. A listing of the current BBS's that are participating and the echos that are available follow: Zone 51 AtariNet Headquarters Region 100 Host 1 - Twilight Zone, Longwood FL, Bill Scull 1-407-831-1613 4 - Steal Your Face, Brick NJ, Ed Lynch 1-908-920-7981 6 - MySTery BBS, Goose Creek, SC, David Blanchard 1-803-556-9730 8 - Alien BBS, Burlington NC, Mark Cline 1-919-229-4334 9 - Z*Net Golden Gate, Sunnyvale CA, Bob Brodie 1-510-373-6792 10 - Atari Base, Sunnyvale CA, Robert Brodie 1-408-745-2196 11 - Sunfox's Realm, Orlando Fl, Erik Williams 1-407-384-8138 13 - Z*Net News Service, Middlesex NJ, Ron Kovacs 1-908-968-8148 Host 4 - Hologram Inc, Old Bridge NJ, Dean Lodzinski 1-908-727-1914 3 - Assasins Grove, Oshawa Canada, Jeff Mitchell 1-416-571-6965 4 - Aces High BBS, Matawan NJ, Richard Guadagno 1-908-290-1133 5 - StormShadow, Pasadena MD, Robert Lovelace 1-410-437-0243 Region 200 - AtariNet Headquarters II Host 2 - AtariNet Nevada, Las Vegas NV, Terry May 1-702-435-0786 4 - Sports Line BBS, Henderson NV, Nick Hard 1-702-565-5271 5 - Left Over Hippies, Toronto Canada, Lesley Dylan 1-416-466-8931 10 - STarship, Lake Charles LA, Rich Tietjens 1-318-474-9432 11 - The Choice BBS, Las Vegas NV, Mark Woolworth 1-702-253-6527 12 - Thunder Hold, American Fork UT, Todd Harrington 1-801-756-2901 13 - Conqueror Connection, Fort Hood TX, John Curtis 1-817-539-1469 Host 201 - The DarkSTar BBS, Salt Lake City UT, Randy Rodrock 1-801-269-8780 5 - Acme BBS, Salt Lake City UT, Eric Nikolaisen 1-801-272-4243 Host 202 - The Wylie Connection, Wylie TX, Wes Newell 1-214-442-6612 7 - Aaron's Beard, Dallas TX, Troy Wade 1-214-557-2642 13 - The Wylie Connection, Wylie TX, Wes Newell 1-214-442-6612 20 - Outland Station, Ft Worth TX, John Stiborek 1-817-329-1125 21 - Psychlo Empire, Irving TX, Mark Corona 1-214-251-1175 Host 203 - AtariNet Midwest, Indianapolis IN, Bill Jones 1-317-356-5519 1 - The Zoo BBS, Indianapolis IN, Bill Jones 1-317-356-5519 2 - The Music Station, Webb City MO, Chris Richards 1-417-673-4926 3 - The Maligned ST, Urbandale IA, Mike O'Malley 1-515-253-9530 4 - The Crawly Crypt, Joplin MO, Jim Collins 1-417-624-1887 Region 300 - AtariNet Headquarters_III Host 3 - The Space Station, Canyon Country CA, Tony Castorino 1-805-252-0450 3 - Atari ST Connection, Fresno CA, Brian Watters 1-209-436-8156 4 - Autoboss Atari Elite, Bunola PA, John Graham 1-412-384-5608 5 - The Yakima Atari ST BBS, Yakima WA, Pat Moffitt 1-509-965-2345 6 - FIDOdoor Support BBS, Vandenberg AFB, Bryan Hall 1-805-734-4742 7 - cyberSecT BBS, Cheney WA, Chuck Aude 1-509-235-4875 9 - The Mosh Bit, Vancouver WA, Mark Wallaert 1-206-574-1531 10 - Target Range, Paramount CA, Alan Dietrich 1-310-634-8993 11 - Sanctuary From The Law, Inyokern CA, Sean Price 1-619-377-3611 12 - MASATEK, Torrance CA, Valeriano Meneses 1-310-518-9524 13 - The Mind Keep, Citrus Heights CA, Jeff Fehlman 1-916-723-1657 14 - Callahan's Place, Ashford WA, Brian Lane 1-206-569-2911 15 - ST-Keep, Citrus Heights CA, Andrew Studer 1-916-729-2968 16 - H.B. SMOG, Huntington Beach CA, Jim Thingwold 1-714-969-5486 17 - Acey BBS, Yakima WA, Dick Grable 1-509-966-8555 Region 400 - AtariNet Headquarters IV Host 5 - The Brewery, Ajax ON Canada, Don Liscombe 1-416-683-3089 3 - Rather Digital, Sudbury ON Canada, Steve Barnes 1-705-560-3115 Region 500 - AtariNet UK Host 6 - AtariNet NW England, Stockport Cheshire UK, Daron Brewood 44-61-429-9803 2 - STun NeST Central, Stockport Cheshire UK 44-61-429-9803 3 - DigiBBS, Nykobing F Denmark, Flemming Nielsen 45-54-858385 Region 600 - AtariNet Headquarters VI Host 501 - AtariNet Germany, Koeln Germany, Frank Brodmuehler 49-221-248285 8 - Apolonia, Essen, Peter Kaszanics 49-201-237509 Hub 100 - Hub AC, Aachen, Benedikt Heinen 49-241-408593 101 - Firemark BBS, Aachen, Benedikt Heinen 49-241-408593 102 - Dao-Lin-H'ay, Luegde, Joerg Spilker 49-5281-79372 103 - AtariNET, Milano Italy, Magic.Alex Badalic 39-382-488-515 ||| AtariNet EchoList -- 31-Oct-92 ||| / | \ Compiled by Terry May @ 51:2/0 / | \ -> The following echo is _required_ for ALL AtariNet sysops. -> ONLY AtariNet sysops may have access to this echo. Echo Name Description Moderator ----------------------------------------------------------------------- A_SYSOP AtariNet SysOps 51:1/0 - Bill Scull -> The following echoes are _required_ for AtariNet moderators -> and hosts, but may be picked up by ANY AtariNet sysop. -> ONLY AtariNet sysops may have access to this echo. Echo Name Description Moderator ----------------------------------------------------------------------- A_ECHO AtariNet echoes discussion 51:2/0 - Terry May A_TEST AtariNet test echo 51:1/0 - Bill Scull -> The following echoes are available to all interested AtariNet sysops. -> These echoes can and should be accessible to all users and points. Echo Name Description Moderator ----------------------------------------------------------------------- A_4SALE Atari products for sale/wanted 51:1/11 - E Williams A_ATARI Atari general discussion 51:2/4 - Nick Hard A_BBS_ADS Atari supported BBSes 51:2/0 - Terry May A_BBS_DOORS Atari BBS doors (externals) 51:1/6 - D Blanchard A_COMMERCIAL_ADS Atari Commercial Ads 51:1/11 - E Williams A_DTP Atari DeskTop Publishing 51:1/11 - E Williams A_EXPLORER Atari Explorer Magazine 51:1/13 - Ron Kovacs A_FIDODOOR FIDOdoor Support 51:3/6 - Bryan Hall A_GENERAL General discussion 51:2/4 - Nick Hard A_GRAPHICS Atari graphics 51:2/0 - Terry May A_PROGRAMMING Atari programming 51:5/0 - D Liscombe A_SOUND Atari sound/music 51:2/0 - Terry May A_TECH Atari hardware tech talk 51:202/0 - Wes Newell A_BINKLEY BinkleyTerm ST support [ Gated from Zone 1 ] A_FIDO_ST FidoNet ST discussion [ Gated from Zone 90 ] A_IOS_HELP IOSmail Support [ Gated from Zone 1 ] ###### COMDEX OVERVIEW (Special Z*Net Newswire Edition) ###### Reports from Z*Net Staff at Comdex ###### Edited by Ron Kovacs ###### --------------------------------------------------------------- The following column contains news (other than Atari) from the recent Comdex show in Las Vegas Nevada. There were hundreds of press releases and flyers collected, along with actual reports we gathered from the event. The best way to cover the variety of products introduced during the show, I have condensed the material down considerably. * Ventura Software was giving away free software from its new Publisher's PowerTools collection. The Publisher's PowerTools is a portfolio of Windows-based DTP software that includes Ventura Publisher 4.1 for Windows, Ventura DataBase Publisher 4.0 for Windows, Ventura ColorPro 1.1 for Windows, Ventura AdPro 1.1 for Windows and Ventura PicturePro 1.1 for Windows. Every attendee who visited Ventura's exhibit and filled out an entry card was entered into a drawing. After each presentation, one entry card was drawn. At the end of each show day, one card was drawn for the grand prize - Ventura's complete Publisher's PowerTools portfolio. This grand prize comprised all five new Ventura products - a total retail value of over $2,700. * DTK Computer introduced the VBUS-0031 - DTK's new VL-BUS Mainboard design incorporates VESA local bus architecture. It utilizes Intel's 486DX processor for upgradeability. Also introduced at the show was STATION 10E and STATION 2GX - new Sun compatible workstations, DNB-3340 - DTK's new color notebook with Intel's 486DX-33MHz CPU, DTP-1000/ DTP-1001 - two new palm-top computers, PEER-2533M - 386SX-25MHz based multimedia system, FEAT-0031Y-25804 - 486SX-25MHz system. * IBM's OS/2 2.0 received top honors from three PC industry publications, including two awards presented at Comdex. PC/Computing named OS/2 2.0 co-winner of the operating system/environment award as part of its annual "Most Valuable Products" awards ceremony. PC Magazine named OS/2 2.0 the best operating system and presented their Technical Excellence Award to the OS/2 2.0 development team. PC World named OS/2 2.0 the "most promising newcomer" in its annual issue recognizing PC industry achievements. IBM's energy-saving desktop unit, which offers a radical new design and capability, won the "Best System" award presented by BYTE Magazine and The Interface Group. * WordPerfect announced its first-ever television advertising campaign, premiering three 60-second commercials in support of the company's "Beyond Words" marketing campaign introduced at Comdex. The new commercials humorously highlight ineffective, inept, and backward ways of doing business, and then illustrate the difference WordPerfect technology can make. Contrasting scenes are labeled either "Imperfect" or "WordPerfect." * Gateway 2000 won six of the eight Computer Shopper Best Buy Awards for Systems announced at Comdex. The 7th annual awards covered 31 categories and are determined from a survey of Computer Shopper's readers. Other Systems winners are Standard Computer for their Windows Workstations and Dell Computer for Complete Network Systems. Fast Micro was named Best Overall Software Vendor and Midwest Micro named Best Overall Hardware Vendor. Other multiple award winners this year are USA Flex and Microsoft. * Advanced Gravis announced a low-cost 16-bit recording daughter board for UltraSound and the Analog Pro joystick for IBM pc's. The $150 retail board attaches easily to an existing UltraSound card and includes USS16 a powerful program for recording and playing 16-bit sound. The product will be available in January 1993. AG also showed its new MouseStick II and the Gravis GamePad for the Apple Macintosh. * Maxoptix displayed its line of Tahiti IIm erasable magneto-optical storage subsystems and popular write-once read-many (WORM) drives. This product is the industry's only erasable optical storage product that meets all of the five most important criteria requested by customers. Also shown was the RXT-HD WORM drive, this drive stores up to 15.6 GB of data, and is the first WORM drive to take advantage of data compression technologies. * Motorola demonstrated new multimedia designs from Atari and Commodore. The Atari Falcon030 is a full-scale desktop computer based on Motorola's 68030 microprocessor and is specifically designed for personal integrated media functions. The Atari Falcon030 allows even novice users to combine and manipulate video, audio, animation, telecommunications, text and graphics. The Atari Falcon030 also incorporates Motorola's 56001 digital signal processor (DSP) to process and manipulate compact-disc quality digital audio and voice signals. This combined with the processing power of the 68030 and Atari's integrated software, makes the Atari Falcon030 a complete multimedia platform. Also announced in September, the Commodore Amiga 4000 incorporates the processing power of the Motorola 68040 in conjunction with Commodore's Advanced Graphics Architecture custom coprocessor chipset. These processors enable users to display and animate graphics in multiple resolutions in up to 256,000 colors from a palette of 16.8 million in a fully functioning high-performance multimedia system. This extensive array of colors and features brings life-like images and photoquality colors to any document or presentation with ease. Other 68000-based designs shown at the Motorola Semiconductor booth included Apple's Macintosh Quadra 700 and PowerBook 170, Apple's high-end desktop and notebook systems, and the Verifone Emerald Supersystem, based on the 68302. The Verifone system, designed for the healthcare industry, allows doctors to file insurance claims electronically. * Borland, IBM, Novell and WordPerfect announced at a Comdex briefing that they are working together to deliver new database connectivity solutions. These solutions will enable developers to create database applications more productively and will allow end users to easily access data stored in multiple formats on a wide variety of hardware and operating system platforms and network environments. The four are calling this new technology IDAPI (Integrated Database Application Programming Interface), a platform-independent solution that will support both set-oriented access methods typically used by SQL databases on larger systems and networks, and navigational, record-oriented capabilities found in other popular database products, such as Btrieve, dBASE, Paradox and DataPerfect. * VisionWare became one of the first vendors to offer a product compliant with Microsoft's Open Database Connectivity Standard. SQL- Retriever 3.0, an application in the company's information connectivity product line, will offer a data bridge from PCs using Microsoft Windows or NT to most of the industry's popular databases. At Comdex they demonstrated ODBC compliancy at the Microsoft booth. * Verbatim introduced new 5.25-inch double-sided rewritable optical disks that store 1.1 to 1.3 gigabytes of data. The disks are compatible with existing optical disk drives with increased data transfer rate of 750 to 1,600K/sec. * Penthouse magazine launched Penthouse OnLine and Gennifer Flowers made electronic appearances during the event. Penthouse says its electronic service will offer "high-speed capabilities and real-time graphics that permit nearly instantaneous viewing of photos." The system also has electronic-mail service "to which pictures can be attached." Sign-on kits run $27.95 and monthly fees are $5.95 plus 20 cents a minute access charges in most areas. For more information call (8000 289-7368. * Microsoft announced four new products or major product revisions. Video for Windows software integrates video and audio on the PC, Access - Microsoft's new database manager -- designed to compete with Paradox, FoxPro for Windows, is a new version of the database manager that Microsoft recently acquired, Windows for Workgroups has capabilities designed for networking, including information and communications capabilities. * Kurta and Sharp displayed a new digitizing solution with the new LM000148 digitizing display. The LM000148 is a plastic bezel LCD that allows for an electromagnetic digitizer to be incorporated with the LCD. This design insures the mechanical stability, minimal thickness and overall reliability of the integrated unit. * Grolier Electronic Publishing announced and displayed a new version of its best-selling CD-ROM encyclopedia, the New Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia at the Microsoft Booth. Video for Windows technology makes it possible to view motion video clips of historical events, famous people in history, NASA missions, major sporting events and more. The addition of Video for Windows technology further enhances an encyclopedia that comprises the 10-million-word text and many of the pictures from Grolier's 21-volume Academic American Encyclopedia. * Claris demonstrated ClarisWorks for Windows. The product features a breakthrough in interface design that offers users a more natural way of computing. ClarisWorks for Windows integrates word processing, graphics, spreadsheet, charting, and database environments. A ClarisWorks user can create a one-page document containing multi-column text, color graphics and a spreadsheet table and chart. To create this, the user never leaves the page: the word-processing tools are traded for spreadsheet tools simply by clicking on the always-available tool palette. As the user selects different objects on the page, the menu bar changes appropriately. Borrowing from FileMaker Pro, ClarisWorks offers a comprehensive set of database management capabilities that enable users to instantly start creating and modifying databases and generating professional reports. ClarisWorks for Windows will ship in the United States during the first half of 1993. The suggested retail price will be announced at a later date. ###### PERUSING GENIE ###### Compiled by Ed Krimen ###### --------------------------------------------------------------- Some messages may have been edited for correct spelling, grammar, and irrelevant material. Turbo030 + CrazyDots 8bit = ZOOM! --------------------------------- -=> In the "Gribnif Software" category (17) -=> from the "Crazy Dots Graphics Card" topic (12) Message 155 Mon Nov 16, 1992 J.ALLEN27 [FAST TECH] at 00:00 EST I just spent 10 glorious days fiddling with a CrazyDots. Now that I have it all setup, I'm really impressed. Using Calamus SL with it is just UNREAL!!! With a Turbo030 and a CrazyDot8 running in 1024x768x256color, SL is faster than it is on my Moniterm. ;-) I never thought I'd see 8bit faster than 1bit. ;-) Makes Macs and my 486-33 localbus S3 based system look pathetic. ---------- Message 156 Mon Nov 16, 1992 FIFTHCRUSADE at 20:28 EST Makes your 486-33 localbus S3 based system look pathetic? This _must_ be an exaggeration. I happen to have a 486-33 localbus S3 based system (which I happen to run at 1024x768x256colors most of the time). Is your Turbo030/CrazyDots8 setup faster than instantaneous? If so, how much faster? If it goes the same speed as the S3 system that should be fast enough for anyone anyway. But an 486-33/S3 "pathetic" by comparison? I think not. Ben White 5th Crusade Software ---------- Message 157 Mon Nov 16, 1992 J.ALLEN27 [FAST TECH] at 20:48 EST Come to the next Atari show and see for yourself Ben! Some of the "speed" I'm sure comes from Calamus SL, but yes, scrolling around a 256- color image, expanded to fill the entire screen, is instantaneous. Definitely faster than doing the same, on the same image on the PC screen. I think part of the problem is that the Localbus stuff still has some aspects that are tied to the 16bit PC bus, commands to the S3 chip, etc. And the fact that the 486 only gets access to a "window" on the video buffer, and must "page" around to do operations. The acceleration portion also doesn't have full access to the full linear address space of the video buffer...1 Meg in my case. There is a "new" buzzword floating around, "linear addressing," which will bag this last bottleneck. I believe the CrazyDots driver still must use the paging, but the driver is written to eliminate much of the hassle because the ST "thinks" in linear addressing to begin with. ======================================= FALCON PDS DETAILED ------------------- -=> In the "Atari Corporation Online" category (14) -=> from the "Atari Falcon 030 Computer" topic 20 Message 154 Sun Nov 08, 1992 SAM-RAPP [<<Sam>>] at 20:03 EST I ordered Falcon Docs from Atari. I got them. Here is the pinout, as listed in the Falcon docs dated 10/1/92, for the PDS. J20. 30 pin, dual row, upright male header. Pin# Signal Pin# Signal ======================= ===================== 1 D14 2 D13 3 D12 4 D11 5 D10 6 D9 7 D8 8 D7 9 D6 10 D5 11 D4 12 D3 13 D2 14 D1 15 D0 16 D15 17 GND 18 GND 19 GND 20 CPUBGO 21 EINT1 22 CPUBGI 23 500KHZ 24 N/C 25 MFP_IEI 26 MFP_INT 27 EINT3 28 VCC 29 VCC 30 VCC J19. 50 pin, dual row, upright male header. Pin # Signal Pin # Signal =================== =================== 1 GND 2 GND 3 BGK 4 AS 5 LDS 6 UDS 7 RXW 8 DTACK 9 FC2 10 FC1 11 FC0 12 BMODE 13 N/C 14 IACK 15 BG 16 BR 17 RESET 18 HALT 19 BERR 20 IPL0 21 IPL1 22 IPL2 23 CPUCLK 24 VCC 25 VCC 26 A23 27 A22 28 A21 29 A20 30 A19 31 A18 32 A17 33 A16 34 A15 35 A14 36 A13 37 A12 38 A11 39 A10 40 A9 41 A8 42 A7 43 A6 44 A5 45 A4 46 A3 47 A2 48 A1 49 EXPAND 50 N/C Posting this will not violate any non-disclosure agreements, as I do not have one with Atari. I hope this clears up the "PDS QUESTION". It IS 16 BIT. However, let me also state that it's subject to change without notice. Thanks-------------------> Sam ======================================= -=> In the "Flaming - Debating - Discussions - Rumors" category (18) -=> from the "The Soapbox: Editorials about Atari" topic (2) Message 113 Thu Nov 12, 1992 S.DANUSER [Soul Manager] at 04:54 EST Lee - The tone of your reply makes me feel very positive. To hear a developer of Atari software speak with such enthusiasm about the future gives me great promise. To see the commitment you voiced in your determination to create products that compete with the best systems fills me with expectation. I want to see you guys come out with a low-cost Toaster roaster that makes Newtek sweat bullets. If you guys are on a track even close to something like this, I hope Atari is giving you Lexicor guys backrubs and foot massages every night (well, you get the idea). Such a creation could really pull Atari out of its slump. Really. No lie. While you're at it, could you write me a really cool version of PacMan? <chortle> Soul Manager ---------- Message 114 Thu Nov 12, 1992 DENNYA [Denny Atkin] at 09:43 EST A Toaster competitor wouldn't automatically be a hot seller, though, even if it's superbly done. The Toaster is already known and established, and there's a network of third-party software and even magazines to support it. Technological innovation isn't necessarily what makes a product sell. Otherwise nobody would be using PCs. ---------- Message 115 Fri Nov 13, 1992 LEXICOR [Lee] at 02:17 EST You are right as rain, and no one in their right mind would dispute your comments. In fact, even the best Toaster-Roaster will have a very difficult time competing as you so rightly point out. The truth is however that without a Toaster-Roaster, Atari has no chance at all. This is why we have put so much effort into development of software and in conjuction with JRI hardware. With tools and the high-end compatibility we have added to Atari (such as links to Silicon Graphics workstations), now it will be possible for the Atari owner to actually pass work done on the ATARI using the "Toaster-Roaster" to "most" SGI- compatible graphics outputs in 24-bit RGB. Keep in mind that the system itself need not be a 24-bit display to produce 24-bit files. It really now depends on ATARI and what they decide to do. I understand that ATARI has finally started doing the 24-bit VDI using a Leonardo card provided by us. This means that it is possible that next spring there will be 24-bit in both Falcon040 and Dover graphics cards. And you never really know about the computer market. It may just be that the JRI "Toaster-Roaster" may do for the ATARI what the Toaster has done for the Amiga. At this point, it is hard to really see. We now have the final piece of the software puzzle, in that we now have a MIDI guy online to do all the sound stuff. We are currently working on a full suite of "Multi-Media" applications which will easly do for your "Video-Solution" what the Toaster and its software does for the Amiga. Now only time will tell how all this time and dedication will pay off? I should also mention that our developers have put in many long hours of work and effort to make all this happen. ATARI, through Bill Rehbock, has done what they could, given the limited availability of hardware. How soon we can actually release our applications depends a lot on Bill and his team, Jay and his team, and JRI and his team. But make no mistake about our commitment to "ALL" our ATARI family of users. We will be releasing a new package of ST/TT graphics applications which produce some stunning results. This release should be around Dec 15th give or take a week. The package consists of PHOENIX -CyberSculpt-PrismPaint. With this package you will be able to do stunning photo-real rendering from 16 colors to true-color. We have included Spectrum and CyberControl, which means it is possible to do 512 -color Spectrum animations, and much much more. J.Cole18 will be uploading files and samples in the coming weeks along with demo programs. Somethin' wonderful is about to happen. Lee ======================================= ****** THE UNABASHED ATARIOPHILE ****** By Michael R. Burkley ****** --------------------------------------------------------------- I'm back! First I want to thank all of you who have mentioned your enjoyment of this column to me. It's nice to be a nationally known writer! I hope to keep hearing from you. I would especially appreciate your suggestions as to what software to review, as well as any special "finds" which you have made or created. Don't let anyone tell you that the ST doesn't have much quality software. Just this past week I have downloaded nearly 7 megabytes of programs and files. The only problem with such richness is finding a place to begin telling you my discoveries (such a problem!). As you all know the ST is _the_ superb MIDI machine on the market today. With all of the excellent quality commercial/shareware and PD software that takes advantage of the ST's built-in MIDI ports you can easily find a program or programs that meets your musical needs, if you are musically inclined. But even if you're like me, you can still use the MIDI port of your ST for lots of other fun activities. There are a number of programs that use the MIDI port to link up with one other (or more) ST in challenging games. I really like the two games I downloaded this week which do just that. OXYD (OX-IDE) by Dongleware Software is an intellectually stimulating ------------- and challenging game. You can find this game in both color and monochrome versions. It's a rather small game, only being about 710K uncompressed (!), and it takes it's time loading in from a floppy disk, but the wait is worth it. If you have a hard drive--load it from the hard drive (it even exits cleanly)! What may initially look like a modern version of the classic Memory game turns out to be a gripping challenge in creativity combined with hand and mind co-ordination. Using the mouse, a black marble is guided through elaborate mazes. Every landscape introduces new game elements which may be explored and studied in a playful way. One very nice feature is that this game can be played with two players co-operating with each other. The players are linked through either a MIDI link or through the modem. This game will probably provide you with many bleary-eyed late nights in front of your ST/STe/TT. The game is complete, but you can only access the first 10 of 200 levels without the passbook (which you get by registering). The sound and graphics are OutSTanding! On-line docs. I really recommend this one! This game runs in either English, German or French. At least one meg of RAM and a double sided or hard drive required. MidiBattle by Tony Barker of Australia is a one or two player game ---------- written expressly with the STe in mind. Hook up the MIDI cables between two STe's (or even two ST's) and experience the challenge of competing against another player. This game uses a full 8-way smooth scolling which allows you to effectively use the display area--which is the _entire_ screen! It runs fast and smooth with the display being updated at 50 frames per second. The game is basically a tank maze game against either a human opponent or two computer controlled opponents. Fire your gun, drop anti-tank mines, jump into hovercraft mode and blast your opponent(s) away. The trick is to hide in the maze (you see a limited portion of it from an overhead view with the option of briefly viewing the whole maze in less detail), avoid your opponent and then, when you choose, spring the ambush. The computer opponents are so-so smart (they only blast me about three quarters of the time!), but hook up those MIDI cables for a real challenge against another human. Color only. Joystick and keyboard controlled. SHAREWARE. RAYOID by Raymond Hill (dated Nov.20, 1992) is a SHAREWARE program ------ offering three different games in one. As soon as you double- click on this program you find yourself in outer space, piloting a singleship through a crowded asteroid belt. This program is a remake (and more) of the program "Asteroids." Your job (in RAYOID I) is to avoid the asteroids while blasting them into smaller pieces. Not to make things complicated but you also need to defend yourself against the marauding aliens in their flying saucers. One part I especially like about this version is that your singleship has a brake. You can stop on a dime (wonderful!). RAYOID II pits you against another human opponent in a fight where victory belongs to the most skillful of the two players linked together either by modem or MIDI (you can even pass messages back and forth). The goal is simple, destroy your opponent before he destroys you! Blast him down! Watch out for those flying asteroids! RAYOID III is a strategy and action game for two players linked together by modem or MIDI. The object of the game is to conquer and take control of a space zone before your opponent. To do that, you must explore, colonize, attack enemy bases and defend yourself against your opponent's attacks. Keyboard controlled. RAYOID will run on any ST/STe/TT with a color monitor (RAYOID I will run with 512 K of RAM, the others need at least 1 meg of RAM). On the STe and TT it will make use of DMA sound. It can be played via modem (12k or 24k baud) or using MIDI cables. All the sound samples are at 6300 KHz and the animation is refreshed at 60 images per second. This program is in both English and French. I am amazed that the author was able to fit all of this into one program. Excellent and recommended. Midi Maze II has been around for awhile now, but that doesn't in any ------------ way detract from its value. Written by D-Soft of Germany, this game, now SHAREWARE, in an earlier version was a commercial product. It is a marvelous game for up to 16 players who connect their computers with one another through the MIDI port. MidiMaze tournaments are perennial favorites at many Atari Fests. More than one computer is definitely necessary to take advantage of all the features of the program (though there is a one-player practice mode)! Each player directs a spherical "Smiley" through a maze; whoever sees a friend, helps him (or her) and if he sees an enemy, he shoots him down (or the other way around). Midi_Maze II is all that the former commercial game was and more. Digitized sound, color or monochrome monitor support, joystick or mouse control all go into making this an excellent value. To use the multi-player option of this game requires a MIDI cable (only a couple of dollars). ST/STe/TT compatible. The docs that come with the program are in German, but there is are English docs available on the online services and elsewhere. SHAREWARE. Jitterbugs by Aaron Forthergill of Shadow Software is another multi- ---------- player game that has been around for awhile. This game will support up to 32 (Yes, thirty two!) players in real time. Each player must have his own ST as a terminal and they all must be linked together by MIDI cables. One player can play alone as well. In this game the S.S Jitterbug, a xenological research ship, has been hit by a large meteor. It is rapidly falling into the Earth's atmosphere and burning up. On board the Jitterbug are various incredibly rare alien lifeforms, which you have to rescue. Of course their are problems, but you can handle them! Color only. Docs included. Of course, there are lots of other uses to which you can put your ST's MIDI port. Most of them are musical. Maybe I'll take a look at some of them another time. So what if I'm not that musical? I can learn. Especially on my STe! After all, I'm the Unabashed Atariophile! All of these files can be found on one or more of the following online services: GEnie, Delphi, The CodeHead BBS (213-461-2095), Toad Hall (617-567-8642), and The Boston Computer Society's Atari BBS (617-396- 9730). It's time to fire up my modem and send this off! Until next week! Michael lives in Niagara Falls, NY. He is a former Polyurethane Research Chemist and is presently the pastor of the Niagara Presbyterian Church. ###### DTP SOURCES AND REFERENCE LISTS ###### Compiled By Mario Georgiou DMC Publishing 1992 ###### Text downloaded from the GEnie ST RT ###### --------------------------------------------------------------- Books: ======================================================== A Manual of Comparitive Typography - the PANOSE System Benjamin Baurmeister Van Nostrand Reinhold Company 115 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10003 Basic Design and Layout Alan Swann Phaedon books Color for the Electronic Age Jan V. White Colorworks 1: The Red Book Colorworks 2: The Blue Books Colorworks 3: The Yellow Book Colorworks 4: The Pastels Book Colorworks 5: The Black and White Book Creative Typography Marion March Phaedon books Color for the Electronic Age Jan V. White Designers Guide to Print Production Step-By-Step Publishing 6000 N, Forrest Park Drive Peoria, IL 61614 Design and Marketing Alan Swann Phaedon Books Desktop Publishing Success Felix Kramer and Maggie Lovaas Digital Color Prepress Volumes I and II Agfa Corporation Prepress Education Resources P.O.Box 7917 Mt. Prospect, IL 60056-7917 Electronic Color Separation R.K.Molla Graphic Design Cookbook Leonard Koren & R. Wippo Meckler Graphic Designer's Handbook Great Type and Lettering Designs David Grier How to check and correct color proofs David Bann & John Gargan How to Design Trademarks & Logos Murphy & Rowe How to Design Grids and use them effectively * Alan Swann Phaedon Books Hybrid Imagery April Greiman Pocket Pal: A Graphic Arts Production Handbook International Paper Company 220 East 42nd Street New York, NY 10017 Preparing Your Design for Print Lynn John Phaedon Books Type and Colour Michael Beaumont Phaedon Books Type & Color Firefly Books Ltd The Chicago Guide to Preparing Electronic Manuscripts The Chicago Manual of Style University of Chicago Press The Verbum Book of Digital Typography Michael Gosney, Linnea Dayton and Jennifer Ball The Gray Book Michael Gosney - John Odam and Jim Schmal The Makeover Book Roger C. Parker Type From The Desktop Clifford Burke Typewise Kit Hinrichs with Delphine Hirasuna Northlight Books Cincinnati The Encyclopaedia of Typefaces Berry, Johnson & Jaspert Typographic Design Kit Hinrichs Typography Now - the next wave Rick Poyner, Edward Booth-Clibborn and Why not Associates The Spy Guide to Design and Print Magazines ========================================================== Applied Arts Quarterly Applied Arts Inc. 885 Don Mills Road, Suite 324 Don Mills, Ontario Canada M3C 1V9 Tel: 416 510 0909 Before and After (How to design cool stuff) PageLab 331 J Street Sacramento, CA 96814 Color Publishing/TypeWorld Circulation Dept P.O.Box 2709 Tulsa, OK 74101 800 331 4463(U.S.) 918 831 9423 Computer Publishing Magazine Pacific Magazine Group, Inc. 513 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 344 Santa Monica, CA 90401 Desktop Communications Mac Publishing & Presentations PC Publishing & Presentations 530 Fifth Avenue New York, NY 10036 EC&I Youngblood Communications Corp. 505 Consumers Road #102 Willowdale, Ontario M2J 4V8 Tel: 416 492 5777 HOW Magazine Subscription Information 1507 Dana Avenue Cincinnati, OH 45207 800 333 1115 513-531-2222 Mondo2000 P.O.Box 10171 Berkeley, CA 94709 New Media P.O.Box 1771 Riverton, NJ 08077-9771 Print Magazine 3200 Tower Oaks Blvd Rockville, MD 20852 Tel: 800 222 2654 Publish P.O. Box 55400 Boulder CO 80322 Step-By-Step Graphics Step-By-Step Publishing 6000 N, Forrest Park Drive Peoria, IL 61614 Studio Magazine Roger Murray and Associates Incorporated 124 Galaxy Boulevard Rexdale, Ontario Canada M9W 4Y6 Tel: 416 675 1999 Verbum: The Journal of Personal Computer Aesthetics P.O.Box 12564 San Diego, CA 92112 Tel: 619 233 9977 U&lc Subscription dept 2 Hammarskjold Plaza New York, NY 10017 x-height Q.E.D. Publishing Westport, CT 06880 203 846 6988 Associations =========================================================== I.D.E.A. - international Design by Electronics Association c/o Frankfurt Gips Balkind 244 East 58th Street New York, NY 10022 Tel: 212 421 5888 Marketing Aides of use to DTP and Design Infomaniacs ========================================================== Colorwise: The International Color Magazine -------------------------------------------------- Pantone, Inc. Letraset Canada 55 Knickerbocker Road 170 Duffield Drive Moonachie, NJ 07074-9988 Markham, Ontario Canada L6G 1B5 Aldus Magazine Pub: Aldus Corporation 411 First Avenue South Seattle, WA 98104-2871 (206) 622-5500 Other Sources ========================================================== Graphic Artists Book Club P.O.Box 12526 Cincinnati, Ohio 45212-0526 U&lc BookShop 866 Second Avenue, 3rd floor New York, NY 10017 800-634-9325 212 371-0699 Font Catalogs/Reference Guides ========================================================== Adobe Font&Function: The Adobe Catalog 1585 Charleston Road P.O.Box 7900 Mountain View, CA 94039-7900 DMC Publishing 2800 John Street, Unit 10 Markham, Ontario Canada Font Shop Canada Ltd. 401 Wellington Street West Toronto, Ontario Canada M5V 1E8 Photo-Lettering Inc 216 East 45th Street New York, NY 10017 U&lc 866 Second Avenue, 3rd floor New York, NY 10017 800-634-9325 212 371-0699 ###### THE Z*NET COMPUTER CALENDAR 1992-1993 ###### Schedule of Shows, Events and Online Conferences ###### ---------------------------------------------------------------- ### November 25, 1992 GEnie ST RT Online Conference. Special guest will be Phil Comeau of Wintertree. Comeau is known for GramSlam, Grammar Expert and Spelling Sentry. Be there at 10:00pm EDT! ### December 4-6, 1992 The Computer Graphics Show 1992 at the Jacob Javitz Convention Center in New York City. This is a CMC event. For more information call; (203) 852-0500, extension 234. ### December 12, 1992 Lake County Atari Computer Enthusiasts (LCACE) will hold the 1992 LCACE Christmas Party and Swap meet. It will be held in the Auditorium of the Waukegan Public Library on County Street in Waukegan. The LCACE MIDI sig is planning a "jam session", there will be a door prize raffle, and games and other activities for everyone. In addition to the party, there will be a hardware and software Swap meet. No admission and No table charge! Doors open at 1:00pm. For more information information, call Pegasus BBS at 708-623-9570. ### December 20, 1992 Eugene, Oregon. Atari SWAP MEET planned at the GATEWAY MALL MEETING PLACE. The hours have not been finalized yet but tentively they will be 10am - 5pm. There may be a small admission fee this year (no more than $1.00) and there may be a table fee. ### January 6-9, 1993 MacWorld Expo in San Fransisco California, Sponsored by MacWorld Magazine. Titled San Fransisco '93 at the Moscone Center. ### January 12-14, 1993 Networld '93 in Boston, Massachusettes ### January 13-16, 1993 The Winter Consumer Electronics Show comes to Las Vegas, Nevada. CES is an electronic playground, with everything in the way of high tech toys for kids and adults. Game consoles and hand-held entertainment items like the Atari Lynx are big here, and Atari will attend with a hotel suite showroom. Contact Atari Corp for more information on seeing their display at 408-745-2000. ### January 15-18, 1993 NAMM is the largest conclave of musicians each year. Held in Los Angeles at the Anaheim Convention Center, the variety of sights at the National Association of Music Merchandisers is wilder than at Disneyland, just next door. Atari was the first computer manufacturer to ever display at NAMM in 1987, and has become a standard at the shows. A trade show for music stores, distributors, and professionals of every strata, entertainers are seen everywhere at NAMM. Contact James Grunke at Atari Corp for more information at 408-745-2000. ### February 2-4, 1993 ComNet '93 in Washington, DC. ### March 1993 CeBIT, the world's largest computer show with 5,000 exhibitors in 20 halls, is held annually in Hannover, Germany. Atari traditionally struts its newest wares there, usually before it's seen in the USA or anywhere else. In '93, the Atari 040 machines should be premiering, and this is the likely venue. Third party developers also use this show to introduce new hardware and software, so expect a wave of news from CeBIT every year. Atari Corp and the IAAD coordinate cross-oceanic contacts to promote worldwide marketing of Atari products, and this show is an annual touchstone of that effort. Contact Bill Rehbock at Atari Corp for information at 408-745-2000. ### March 13-14, 1993 The Sacramento Atari Computer Exposition is to be sponsored by the Sacramento Atari ST Users Group (SST) at the Towe Ford Museum in Sacramento, California. This show replaces the earlier scheduled, then cancelled Northern California Atari Fest for the Bay Area, to have been held in December 1992. A major two day effort, the SAC show is being held in the special events area of the Towe Ford Museum, home of the worlds most complete antique Ford automobile collection. As an added bonus, admission to the museum is free when you attend the Expo. The museum is located at the intersection of Interstates 5 and 80, just 15 minutes from the Sacramento Metropolitan Airport. Contact Nick Langdon (Vendor Coordinator) C/O SST, P.O. Box 214892, Sacramento, CA 95821- 0892, phone 916-723-6425, GEnie: M.WARNER8, ST-Keep BBS (SST) 916-729- 2968. ### March 21-24, 1993 Interop Spring '93 in Washington DC. ### August 3-6, 1993 MacWorld Expo at the Boston World Trade Center, Bayside Exposition Center and sponsored by MacWorld Magazine. This event is titled Boston '93. ### September 18-19, 1993 The Glendale Show returns with the Southern California Atari Computer Faire, V.7.0, in suburban Los Angeles, California. This has been the year's largest domestic Atari event, year after year. Contact John King Tarpinian at the user group HACKS at 818-246-7286 for information. ### September 20-22, 1993 The third MacWorld Expo, titled Canada '93 at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre, sponsored by MacWorld Magazine. ### September 21-23, 1993 Unix Expo '93 in New York City, New York. If you have an event you would like to include on the Z*Net Calender, please send email vai GEnie to Z-NET, CompuServe 75300,1642, or via FNET to node 593 or AtariNet node 51:1/13.0 ###### PERUSING THE INTERNET ###### Compiled by Ed Krimen ###### --------------------------------------------------------------- ETHERNET FOR THE ATARI ST ------------------------- -=> In comp.sys.atari.st -=> From: aeg03@rrz.uni-koeln.de (Jan T. Kim) -=> Date: 10 Nov 92 18:19:00 GMT There are at least three ethernet adapters for the Atari ST/STe/TT computers, namely: PamsNet: This Ethernet-based Atari network allows you to network up to 127 Atari computers. There are three versions of the adapters: one for ACSI, one for the Megabus, and one for the VME slot. PamsNet uses a special network protocol, but TCP/IP and a gateway to Novell are available. A unique feature of PamsNet is the availability of a server for a VAX under VMS, which allows transparent access to the VMS filesystem over the network. BioData: Another Ethernet-based Atari network. I don't know if there are other adapters than those for ACSI for BioData. TCP/IP is available, and since BioData is also available for DOS PCs, they can be integrated without any problem. Riebl Card plus: I mostly know about this one from the net. It seems that the network software associated with the Riebl card is slow and flaky, but it seems to be the only Ethernet card for Ataris for which technical documentation is publicly accessible. A group at the TU Wien has developed a TCP/IP package for the Riebl card. It seems that a main difference between Ethernet boards for Atari and boards for PCs is that the Atari boards tend to be available only as a package with hardware and software, and the technical information is not available to everyone. At least PamsNet requires you to sign a non- disclosure agreement before they give you programming manuals and such, as far as I understand things. I hope you can use this info. We have PamsNet here; feel free to mail or to post if you're interested in additional information. Of course, I'd love to get into contact with other PamsNet users. Greetinx, Jan +- Jan Kim -- X.400: S=kim;OU=vax;O=mpiz-koeln;P=mpg;A=dbp;C=de -+ | Internet: kim@vax.mpiz-koeln.mpg.dbp.de | | | *----=< hierarchical systems are for files, not for humans >=-----* ==================================== MORE FALCON RUMORS ------------------ -=> In comp.sys.atari.st -=> From: naffara@crc.ac.uk (Dr. N.A. Affara) -=> Date: 17 Nov 92 12:35:43 GMT Having just read this month's ST Format and ST Review (the best one), I thought I would post some interesting info. They say that the Falcon030 will be *widely* available next spring. (Most of us knew this already) But in a new case. Also a Falcon040 with 32Mhz 32-bit processor + DSP etc will be *released* next November and be available spring '94. Also being released at the same time will be a CD Falcon which will have either a cut-down keyboard, i.e. no keypad or function keys, and have a built in CD ROM which will probably be CD-I compatible. There was also some talk about the software being produced for the Falcon. (The graphics look incredible, especially the pics from Legends of Valour!) Desperately wanting to get hold of a Falcon in a new case, Phil (E-mail naffara@uk.ac.crc) ==================================== ###### POWERDOS - PART ONE ###### Copyright 1992, Kevin J. Conway ###### --------------------------------------------------------------- I want to talk about PowerDos, one of the best freeware utilities ever released for the ST. In doing so I am going to talk a lot about hard drive maintenance. PowerDos is a complete replacement for all GEMDOS functions for Atari ST/STe/TT systems. Falcon systems will be supported. At the moment, there are some issues that need to be resolved with regards to the way in which PowerDos will work with MultiTos. PowerDos gives substantially improved i/o speed as well the promise of multi-tasking TOS programs. DragonWare has released PowerDos as freeware in the hope of encouraging developers to release multitasking applications compliant with PowerDos/Net. In addition, they hint they will be releasing several multi-task-ing applications of their own. Since PowerDos is part of PowerNet, DragonWare also hopes that the users of PowerDos will be able to find all of the bugs and problems so the PowerDos/Net product can be improved. After a few releases of the freeware version of PowerDos, they hope to release a commercial version of PowerDos, possibly to be called PowerDos Professional. This version may well have even faster i/o than the freeware version! PowerDos was released from DragonWare as freeware in September with very little publicity and certainly no real documentation. My initial testing of PowerDos indicated that its caching provided no real increase when used in conjunction with the ICD controller and driver. The Ness Benchmark [freeware!] program rates performance in comparison to a stock 520STfm with TOS 1.2. With PowerDos active, it benchmarked my hard drive at 120%. Without PowerDos I also got about 120%. Effectively, PowerDos made no real difference. I shelved it as a curiosity. Fortunately, I have a membership on CRS, and read the NaNet (North American Net) Atari conference every day. Even more fortunately, some other people had experimented with PowerDos and managed to correctly configure it for use with the ICD controller and driver. On the basis of their success, I unarchived PowerDos again to give it a proper testing. The trick to configuring PowerDos was to turn off all caching and buffering in the ICD driver. (This would hold true for any other hard drive software drivers. Also, if you have any other cache programs, programs to 'add' folders or use Pinhead these programs should be deleted from the auto folder. Also get rid of FatSpeed.) Having changed my auto folder and reconfigured my ICD driver, performance as tested by NBM leapt to an average of 175%. This was by no means, however, the limit to the improvements in disk i/o I managed to get by using PowerDos. NBM does not measure your systems ability to read and execute existing files. Rather, it measures your systems ability to create and manipulate a 250,000 byte file. This generally indicates the _overall_ performance of the disk partition being tested. [Note that hard drive disk performance will be different for each disk partition.] Several things can affect this NBM's testing; however, the two that concern me at this time are disk fragmentation and disk caching. I am going to try to avoid a long, boring and confusing discussion of hard drive geometry and mechanisms by drawing an analogy to a jar of marbles. Imagine a jar of marbles in which there are 20 distinct levels of marbles placed on top of the other. Each level is comprised of five concentric rings of marbles. There are five different colors of marbles in the jar: red, blue, green, yellow and purple. Each color of marble represents a different file on a hard drive. In addition, each color of marbles is consecutively numbered. These represent the consecutive sectors of the file. Each level of marble represents a disk platter, and the concentric rings within these levels represent disk tracks. Our purpose is to 'find' the files in the jar by finding the all of the marbles of the same color. As an added challenge, each marble must be found in consecutive order. Please note that this analogy is a thought experiment. In this experiment we will not be emptying the jar. You must imagine that you have 'x-ray vision'; that is, the ability to see all of the marbles and their color in the jar without emptying it. If the marbles in the jar are randomly organized, it will require some effort to find them. It may even require jumping from level to level as we seek the marbles in consecutive order. When this happens on a hard disk, it is known as 'disk fragmentation'. Disk fragmentation occurs when the sectors of a disk file are scattered throughout the drive. The hard drive must do extra work to find the file as it read/write head seeks back and forth over the hard drive platters. Quite a number of spins of the platter can occur before the read/write head is in position to read the next sector. It follows then that the more the file is scattered across the disk, the more work the hard drive must do to retrieve the sectors of the file, and therefore the longer it takes to retrieve the complete file. Now imagine that each color of marbles has been sorted so that the marbles are consecutively arranged. Imagine that this arrangement follows the rings and levels, so that the marble numbered '1' is on the outside ring of the first level and that when the ring reaches around to this marble again, it moves in one ring. When a level is filled, it drops down to the next level in order. When 'finding' marbles, all we will have to do is follow the rings to the middle and drop down to the next level. We can find all them in consecutive order quite quickly. Consecutive ordering of the marbles makes the job of finding in consecutive order much easier. We follow neatly from the outside to the inside and down each level as necessary. When files are added to a blank disk or hard drive partition, this is what the system will do. It will lay out the sectors one after another on the platter until the platter is full. When the platter has been filled, the next platter down will be filled up. When the file is retrieved, the read/write head does not move very much as each consecutive sector is in essentially the same area of the disk. When it does move, it makes a small movement to the next track on the disk. There is virtually no time taken for the read/write head to move across the platter. Disk fragmentation is a problem that occurs over time. Initially, as the first set of files are added to a blank disk partition all sectors should be consecutive. Over time, files are deleted, leaving holes in the consecutive chain of sectors that represents the file system. New files added into these holes may be smaller or bigger than the holes. Essentially what happens is that files start to spread across a number of these holes, forcing the read/write heads to make a number of jumps when retrieving the file. The more files that are added and deleted, especially big files, the worse the fragmentation gets. As a result, the worse the retrieval times become and the harder the wear and tear on the hard drive mechanism. We can see how disk fragmentation is detrimental; fortunately, disk caching is very beneficial. Imagine that when 'finding' consecutive marbles, you memorize the number on the 99 following marbles. If the next consecutive number is contained within this set of 100 memorized marbles, you may continue without delay, otherwise you must memorize some more marbles' numbers on finding the next consecutive marble. This is essentially what happens when 100 disk sectors are cached. 100 sectors are initially read into the buffer memory. As more reads of the disk are performed, the sectors most often used are kept permanently in memory and while others sectors are buffered to fill the cache. The effect of a cache is to keep commonly accessed sectors such as the FAT's (File Allocation Tables) in memory for extremely fast access. Other sectors of the disk are buffered on an as needed basis. The theory is that as a disk sector is required, it has already been brought into the cache and therefore is instantly accessible. The effectiveness of a cache in making changes to system performance relies on several different criteria: 1. The number of disk sectors cached. 2. The fragmentation of the drive. 3. The speed of the cache memory. (This is generally not a concern for most ST users as in stock ST's the access time of memory is universal. On the TT and some of the new speedup boards, added or non-ST memory may be faster.) 4. The efficiency of the caching algorithm. The user generally has more control over the first two criteria than the last two. Suffice it to say that caching efficiency and therefore any improvement in disk i/o as measured by NBM or other benchmarking utility _will_ vary over time, and from system to system. Given these considerations it is still possible to see significant improvements in disk i/o by use of a cache. On most drives, even with fragmentation, it is usually possible to cache large segments of the file being read. Memory access is much, much faster than reading the file sector by sector from the drive thereby resulting in much faster disk access. It also again reduces some of the wear and tear on the read/write heads. Caching can be particularly effective when the hard drive itself uses a buffer or a cache. My Fujitsu scsi drive has a 32K data buffer. It reads and attempts to transfer 32K of data on every disk read or write. With a cache of 32K or greater in my MSTe, I experience phenomenally fast disk access. Which allows me to come to my point. After removing the cache from my ICD driver and using only PowerDos's cache, NBM reported an average performance at about 170%. I knew that my drive was fragmented, so I decided to do a full system restore to write all the files back consecutively on the drive. Immediately after this operation NBM reported performance in excess of 240%. A few checks over the next few days sadly saw the disk performance drop back to about 170%. A NBM rating of 170% is very good, and does make a significant difference in the speed of execution of quite a number of programs, especially those which open a number of files on starting up; however, a rating of 240% is an even better improvement. Ever curious, I wanted to see if I could maintain this level of performance. Again, I don't want to get into a really detailed discussion of hard drives, but let's bring our attention back to the jar of marbles. In this jar of marbles, it makes no difference whether I start at the bottom of the jar or the top, as long as I know where to start. In the same way, it doesn't matter whether my data is at the beginning of the hard drive partition or at the end when I want to access it. The FAT (File Allocation Table) will tell the system the correct places from which to retrieve data. If I wanted to add another levels of marbles to my jar, however, I would not want to remove the marbles that I had already put in the jar. I would want to be able to add them to the top. In somewhat the same way, I can avoid some of the problems of disk fragmentation by forcing my permanent files to the end of the disk partition. When a file is written to the disk, the system finds the first available sectors on the drive partition. It writes to sectors consecutively as it finds them. A file with seven sectors could then be spread out something like this: 22, 23, 25, 30, 40, 41, 42, if these were the first seven free sectors available on the drive. The type of files I deal with can be broken down into three types: 1. Programs and data files which are more or less permanent. Effectively my productivity tools, games and other things I have decided to keep on the hard drive for easy access. 2. Permanent data files being created on a regular basis. That is, word processing and desktop publishing files. 3. Programs and data files that are temporary. Either temporary data files used by various programs, or various programs I am trying out. I can initially force this first type of file to the end of the partition. Files of the second and third type will gradually fill up and fragment the first part of the drive. By regularly forcing permanent files to the end of the drive, files of the second type will also be forced to the end of the drive partition. This will leave the first part of the partition free for temporary files, reducing disk fragmentation, and thereby maintaining a NESS benchmark in excess of 200%. I have performed this operation, and am currently maintaining an average benchmark of about 210% to 219% on all of my hard drive partitions. I am maintaining the efficiency of the cache not only for the permanent files at the end of the drive partition, but also for the temporary files I keep at the beginning. The overall effect is amazing. PageStream now loads in seconds, where it used to take up to 20 or 30. The WordPerfect spell checker absolutely flies within a document. MaxiMiser, Shawn Smith's excellent off-line mail reader, zips through my read of 200 or more daily messages. In effect, I have given myself a much faster hard drive with _no_ capital outlay. There are a number of disk de-fragmentation programs on the market. These also help to cleanup disk errors and bad sectors. These generally move all of the data to the beginning of the drive in consecutive order. It is possible to de-fragment the drive without use of one of these programs, however. Remember that when the system writes out files on an empty disk partition, it will attempt to write them in consecutive order. Effectively, if I empty the drive and then restore the data to it I can force it to write all of the data in consecutive order. There are two ways to do this, depending on the amount of free space you have left on your hard drive. (Editors Note: Next week Part Two and the completion of this article.) **--DELPHI SIGN-UP--** **--GENIE SIGN-UP--** ============================|============================ To sign up for DELPHI call | To sign up for GENIE call (with modem) 800-695-4002. | (with modem) 800-638-8369. Upon connection hit return | Upon connection type HHH once or twice. At Password: | and hit return. 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