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     ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN MICROPENDIUM.
     P.O. BOX 1343  ROUNBD ROCK TX 78680
     [e-mail]

     MICRO REVIEWS for Micropendium January 1994
     by Charles Good

     JAPANESE WRITING SYSTEM and TI ARTIST FONTS by Don Shorock.

     Don Shorock, known in the TI community for his spoken Japanese and
     other language teaching software, is releasing some new fairware
     products at Fest West '94 for use in conjunction with TI Artist.
     Hopefully those attending Fest West will see this review in advance of
     the show and know what to expect.  The most amazing of these products
     is his Japanese Writing System.  As you may know, Japanese is not
     written in "left to right, top to bottom of page" and is not written
     using standard keyboard letters.  Don has created a way of creating
     "what you see is what you get" Japanese text for on screen display and
     printing.  Jim Peterson (Mister Tigercub) agreed to Microreview Don's
     Japanese Writing System for me.  Jim is fluent in Japanese.  His cover
     letter to me that accompanied his review says, "This is really quite
     an achievement.  I just can't imagine going to the work of creating
     881 "kanji" instances, but Don Doesn't think it will be such a job.
     He seems to have become a master of TI-Artist and Page Pro." Below is
     Jim Peterson's review:

 "Many centuries ago, the Chinese developed a system of writing using a
different stylized picture, or ideograph, for each word in their language.
Since China was the center of Asian culture, this impractical system was later
adopted in the ancient kingdoms of Annam (now Vietnam), Korea and Japan. In
modern times the Vietnamese and Koreans have abandoned this system and use
their own phonetic alphabets, and even the Chinese have simplified many of the
more complex ideographs. The Japanese, however, stubbornly cling to their
version of this impractical system.
 "Since Japanese, unlike Chinese, is a conjugated language, it was necessary to
develop a supplemental phonetic alphabet for verb and adjective endings. For
some reason, the Japanese developed not one but two such alphabets. Japanese
newspapers are printed with thousands of different "kanji" ideographs combined
with characters of the "hiragana" alphabet for conjugation, characters of the
"katakana" alphabet to spell foreign words which have come into use in
Japanese, and sometimes the Roman alphabet for foreign names.
 "Japanese typewriters are therefore very complex and extremely slow, and
typesetting is very difficult. I have no idea how they have managed to adapt
their writing system to the computer age, but it has certainly not seemed
possible to do it with the TI-99/4A. Even their phonetic alphabets cannot be
properly downloaded as printer fonts because they have optional diacritical
marks which will not fit within the standard dot matrix.
 "Don Shorock had previously included Japanese in his series of foreign
language tutorial disks, and had managed to display the Japanese phonetic
characters on screen. He even used the Speech Synthesizer to actually speak the
language with a fairly high degree of accuracy. He has now developed a
remarkable method of using TI-Artist to create text which can be output to a
printer.
 "Requirements are the TI-99/4A console with Extended Basic, 32k memory
expansion, at least one SS/SD disk drive, RS232 card and 9-pin dot matrix
printer, and TI-Artist (TIA-Plus preferred). To fully use the system, Page Pro
is also required.
 "Don's Extended Basic program enables you to lay out text in blocks of up to
12 x 14 or 14 x 12 characters, although a maximum of 12 x 12 is recommended.
After these blocks have been converted to Japanese by TI-Artist and saved as
pictures or instances, Page Pro can be used to combine eight or more blocks
into a full page of text.
 "It is not even necessary to memorize the Japanese alphabets in order to use
this program, because text is entered in normal keyboard letters. Japanese is a
language built on syllables rather than individual sounds, and each syllable is
represented by a phonetic character. For instance, to print the name of that
famous mountain you would enter "fu" and "ji" and "ya" and "ma". As these
syllables are entered, they appear within a hollow cursor which automatically
advances to the next space; it can also be moved with the arrow keys. Text will
normally be entered for conversion to the "hiragana" alphabet but can
optionally be wholly or partly in "katakana". A screen prompt as well as the
size of the letters informs you which mode you are in. Standard Japanese
punctuation and special characters can also be entered, and blank spaces can be
left for "kanji" ideographs to be added later.
 "When this text has been completed, the "print" command will output to the
printer the codes which must next be typed manually into TI-Artist. The
printout gives two code layouts, one for the usual vertical left to right
Japanese printing and one for standard horizontal printing. Two layouts are
also given for any "katakana" text, and instructions are provided.
 "TI-Artist is then loaded, the "hiragana" font file is loaded into it, and the
coding is carefully typed in. The "what you see is what you get" Japanese text
can then be viewed on screen.
 "If the text was entirely in "hiragana", it is now ready to be saved and/or
printed. However, if "katakana" characters were also used, the "katakana" font
file must be loaded in, and the "katakana" part of the code must be typed in.
This will overlay the previously created text, making a complete block.
 "The test disk that Don sent me contained 50 of the "kanji" ideographs, saved
as instances. He plans to create all 881 of the "essential" ideographs. These
can be loaded and moved into the blank spaces left in the text.
 "All this is really far easier than it may sound. Although I am totally
unfamiliar with TI-Artist, I was able to create a block of mixed "hiragana" and
"katakana", convert and overlay them, and print out the result with little
trouble. Students of Japanese will probably prefer to do most of their printing
in "hiragana" alone, and this will be even easier."

     Don is also releasing some really cute TI Artist fonts.  These are
     regular fonts all with normal upper case keyboard letters and
     characters and some with lower case letters as well.  My favorite are
     the fonts called HEARTS_F, LINESHOW_F, and JUSTDOTS_F.   These three
     consists of very large block letters (upper case only) each of which
     has a shadow offset a bit to the right and down from the actual
     letter.  HEARTS_F letters have little hearts within the letters and
     would be suiable for creating valentines or writing notes to spouses
     and other loved ones.  LINESHOW_F and JUSTDOTS_F have dot patterns in
     the letters and are perhaps more generally useful.  There is also a
     font (IMAGINE_F) that produces normal sized shadowed letters, both
     upper and lower case.

     Some of the other fonts in Don's package include olde English
     calligraphy (OLDENGL_F), hand written "cursive" calligraphy that
     allows letters to appear to touch each other (WRITEMED_F and
     WRITETHN_F), a reduced size version of the RODEO_F font that comes
     with TI Aritst, and others.  They all seem quite creative.

     All of these products require TI Artist and can be run from SSSD
     disks.  Don is asking a fairware donation of $10-$20 for the Japanese
     Writing System and an unspecified fairware donation for the fonts.
     For more information phone after 6PM central time most evenings or
     write: Don Shorock, P.O. Box 501, Great Bend KS 67530. 316-792-3097.
     ------------------------------
     GENEALOGY PLUS! by Mickey Cendrowski

     Till now, if you wanted to keep genealogy records using the TI you
     either had to use dedicated software such as the public domain
     "Genealogy Workship" by Les and Cindy Cattin, or you had to use a
     generalized commercial or fairware data base program such as "PR Base"
     or "TI Base".  The problem with dedicated software is that it is often
     inflexible.  If you don't like the kind of data it accepts and the
     format of its printed reports you are usually out of luck.  The
     problem with generalized data base software is that although it is
     very flexible, it is difficult for some to use.  You have to create
     your own data base outline, deciding what data to store and in what
     form and deciding how exactly to format printed reports.  Ordinary
     mere mortal 99/4A users often feel uncomfortable trying to do this.
     GENEALOGY PLUS! deals effectively with both these problems.  It is
     both flexible and easy to use.

     The software package includes a TI BASE template, a PERSONAL RECORD
     KEEPING module template, and a bunch of TI Writer templates.  The TIB
     and PRK templates allow you to enter data for each individual under
     the categories of first and last name, date and location of birth,
     chart #, lineage #, forms, and documents.  These data can then be
     sorted, displayed on screen, and printed according to the capabilities
     of TIB and PRK.  For both types of data bases, but particularly for
     TIB, excellent documentation shows you step by step how to load the
     data base, then how to load the GENEALOGY PLUS! template into the data
     base, and then how to enter and display data.

     I find the blank TI Writer templates particularly handy and well
     designed.  Each is the size of a single 8.5x11 inch page.  You load
     a template into any TI-Writer type of text editor, turn off word wrap,
     and type your data onto the appropriate sections of the page,  using
     the text editor to easily modify the data or sheet format as needed.
     You can then save these pages back to disk and print them.  Use a hole
     punch on the printed pages and insert them into a 3 ring binder.  I
     think genealogical data is best displayed and appreciated by yourself
     and others as hard copy, such as some of the pages in the large 200
     year old family bible I have in my living room.

     The following TI Writer templates are available.  Many are of the "one
     for each individual" type.  -Personal Biography Sheet.  -Research
     Calendar (used for library research; date, call number, source, period
     of time covered by source, results, doc that refers to source).
     -Correspondence Record (dates mailed and recieved, address, purpose,
     results).  Research Extract (notes taken from library documents, date
     extract taken, call number, source, description and condition of
     source, indexed by, purpose of search, period of time searched,
     document number). -Family Group Sheet.  -Lineage Chart (a family
     tree).  -Additional Marriage Sheet (for multiple marriages). -Source
     Checklist (very useful and comprehensive).  -Sibling Lineage Chart.
     -Extended Family Sheet (for adopted children).

     Although the software documentation is not a tutorial on genealogy
     record keeping, a complete set of sample data is included on a
     separate disk.  These data are entered onto the TW Writer templates to
     show how these templates are supposed to be used.

     I know of no better Genealogy software for the 99/4A.  You need a
     SSSD disk system and TI Writer or one of its clones for text editing.
     A printer and either TI BASE or the PERSONAL RECORD KEEPING cartridge
     are recommended but not required.  GENEALOGY PLUS! costs $19.95 +
     $1.00 postage from MS Express Software, P.O. Box 498, Richmond OH
     43944.
     --------------------------------------
     ADVENTURE DATA BASE by Mickey Cendrowski

     Probably nobody knows more about adventure games for the 99/4A than
     Mickey.  In fact she wrote the book on the subject, "The Adventure
     Reference Guide", published by Asgard a few years ago.  Her current
     offering is a TI BASE data base that includes all the information from
     her book plus additional information gleaned in recent years.  First
     you load TI BASE, and then you load in Mickey's Adventure Data Base
     from a SSSD disk.  Almost 250 adventures are covered.  These include
     public domain and fairware adventures, those published from commercial
     sources such as TI Infocom and MS Express, and type in adventure
     programs published in magazines and books.  With the data base you
     can, for example, produce lists of all the Adventure Module
     adventures, all the Infocom adventures, or all the adventures that run
     out of the XB module.  Most users of this data base will begin, as I
     did, by printing out the entire data base.  This yields 8 printed
     pages of condensed print.  Since this is a TI BASE template, you have
     all the features of a good data base available to you.  You can, for
     example, add your own comments to the "comment" field that is part of
     each adventure's listing.  You can also delete entries or expand the
     data base by adding information about additional adventures.

     For each adventure title the data base provides the following
     information: Official TI software (Y/N); copyrighted (Y/N); fairware
     or public domain (Y/N); single or multiple file program; total disk
     sectors; source or publisher; module needed to run game; is software a
     role playing game an all text game or an adventure utility; is
     speech used; graphics (Y/N); runs from cassette or disk or either;
     level of difficulty (3 levels).  Also included is Mickey's over all
     quality rating of 1-5.  A difficult game is not necessarily a high
     quality game.  If you disagree with Mickey's quality rating you can
     substitute your own complete with your own personal comments.

     Adventure Data Base is available for $19.95 plus $1 shipping from MS
     Express, P.O. Box 498, Richmond Ohio 43944.  TI BASE is available for
     about $25 from most TI dealers including TM Direct Marketing,
     800-336-9966.